Holiday Special: Finding the Positives and Having Fun

Welcome to building better developers, the developer podcast, where we work on getting better step by step professionally and personally. Let's get started. Well, hello and welcome back. We are taking a little bit of a break here. This is one of the what has become sort of annual holiday specials. We're just going to spend a little bit of time catching up. We are in the midst of some really good interviews right now. I don't know what your focus may be. So there may be some that are better than others based on what you are hoping to get out of the interviews, but it has been an excellent series so far. I look forward to a lot of episodes coming ahead. This will probably extend beyond our normal, typically hit about 30 to 35 episodes per season. I am guessing this one's going to be an extra long season simply because we have so many people that are lined up for interviews. And I really want to get you to some exposure to some of these. They've got some great ideas and it's really helped me a lot and I'm expecting it will help you quite a bit as well. With that, because of the number of the length of the interviews and the number of interviewees, one of the things that will be coming up, sort of something to look for in the probably in the new year. I don't know. We'll do it until we get into January. I may do it a little sooner and it will essentially be that I'm going to lengthen some of these episodes. Instead of us running about 15 to 20 minutes an episode, I think we're going to push a little bit more into each one. And so it'll be closer to probably 25 minutes an episode for a while. And I may even keep it that way. We'll just sort of see how it goes. I'm hoping that's not too much extra, hoping that doesn't mess up your drive time listening or however you currently listen to this. But it basically came down to either I was going to want to push more episodes a week, maybe go back to Monday, Wednesday, Friday, or this option, which is extend what we have. And we've done that in the past. So I think we're going to try to go back to it. If you have issues with it or if you have comments, definitely let me know. One of my goals is to make sure that this fits your, you being the listeners, some of your listening habits, because I am also one who listens to podcasts and have a bit of routine usually about, at least for the ones that show up weekly or multiple times a week, it's like, hey, this day or this drive or this period of time is perfect for me to catch up on whatever my favorite podcast is that fits that slot. That being said, we've got a little bit of the, you know, hopefully a little bit of the administrative piece out of the way. And I want to talk about it from the holiday special that this is. Every year, if you've been following for a while, you know that we do the Thanksgiving, usually do a couple. And then in Christmas, we do a couple, which is basically around Christmas and then getting into the new years. And I'll probably do the same. And I think because of how things have done this year, they'll actually end up being bonus episodes. Just as this one, instead of the normal Tuesday, Thursday, and this pushing something out, I'm going to go ahead and just send this one out on Wednesday. And we'll probably do the same thing when we get into the Christmas New Year's time, just again, to get something a little different and to utilize a couple of my special effect type songs and intros and things of that nature, as you've already caught for this one. Now, because this is at least in the U.S., this is the Thanksgiving holiday. This is the time where we look back theoretically, you know, we look back on our year or maybe all the way on our life and things to be thankful for. I want to start by thanking you. I know that it is there's an investment of time that you make listening to the podcast. If you check out our tutorials and our mentoring classes and some of the other things that are out there, you're investing time and you're saying, hey, I want to spend some time with you guys and I think it's going to be valuable. And I want to thank you for that. I want to thank you for that investment. I want to thank you for investing in yourself as somebody that is in technology and that is in that world. It is so much more helpful to have people that I can work with that are that are knowledgeable, that care, that are able to get the job done. And all of us are going to have to continue this work. invest in ourselves and get better because we have bigger and bigger challenges that we have to face. And so the time that you've given into this to help yourself become better is something that if I end up working with you at any point is going to benefit me as well because now I have somebody else that is skilled and competent. And we can always complain about our coworkers, but it's much better when we have a point of view where we're saying, hey, this team I'm with, these coworkers, they are awesome. These are great people to work with. I love working with them. I want to work with them more. You've probably seen some of that as we've talked about teams and leadership and high functioning, high performing individuals and teams, especially in all these interviews. That is one of the things that I think all of us would like to see more of. If you look at your own situation, you may say, man, this has been a rough couple of years with the COVID stuff and just the world being what it is. I think it's very easy for us to fall back on the whole almost, it's not quite woe as me, but it's like, wow, there's not a lot to be thankful for. The stock market crashed. I haven't had near the business that I was hoping to have. The raises and bonuses that I was used to getting have disappeared. Maybe you're out of a job or have been out of a job for a while. With the pandemic and stuff like that, or maybe people that you know that are sick or maybe you've lost some loved ones. There's a lot that you can rack up and say, there is nothing to be thankful for. I'm not in a thankful mood. I would challenge you instead to flip that script and even amidst whatever you're going through and it could be a lot. I would say that in that there's still going to be some things that you can look at as blessings or at least positives. Sometimes it may be a stretch, but it's the what doesn't kill you makes you stronger kind of approach. Think about a business. If you've lost business, if you've struggled, then you've probably through that been forced to adjust maybe how you market, how you advertise, how you work with your customers, how you retain customers. There may be some things, there's some skills that you have developed along the way that hopefully now are starting to flower, to bloom. Wow, this time I spent, I had a rough time, but I learned a couple of things. Now I can see where those things that I learned, those areas that I got better are bringing value to my company, to the organization I work for or the company I built or setting me up for future success. We had a season this year in the podcast where we talked about learning from mistakes, but that's a little different from learning through challenges and obstacles. All of us do. It's hard and it may even seem like a cliche or maybe even just glossing over the challenges, particularly if you've had a really bad year. However, it's not, it's embracing it and saying, that's tough. What you're going through is hard. You've had a rough time, you've been pushed, but with that you have become stronger. You have learned, you have adjusted, you've made it through. So if nothing else, you have survived that very difficult time. And you may say, yeah, well, barely, I'm just barely holding on, but you are holding on. So that's something to be thankful for. This is you've got enough temerity, strength, drive, whatever it is to still be here. You're not done. You're not, you may be down for the count, but it's like, it hasn't completed yet. The count is not done and you can get back up. And sometimes that is the, one of the best moments of our life. You see that in sports stuff all the time, particularly go find a good boxing movie. There's probably a guy that they're counting and they're trying to get to that 10 count and they get to nine. And the guy, the hero gets back up and pummels the bad guy or the opponent or whatever and wins the victory and everybody, there's great rejoicing all around. That may be what you're, what's like just around the corner for you. That may be the next thing you're going to be experiencing even maybe in the weeks ahead, maybe next year. One of these things where you have been down and you have struggled and you have been pushing through so much, but you sort of, you know, you get to the light at the end of the tunnel and suddenly you burst into daylight and all of that darkness and all that tunnel sort of falls behind because now you have this victory behind you and something big to look forward to. During this time, you're able to hang out with, you know, spend some times with friends and family and things like that. And while it's always nice to use some of these times to advance our business purposes and our drive and to catch up a little bit, it's nicer, I think, to spend that time enjoying life. Spend a little bit of time doing something that is not work, that is not simply checking something off a list or going to earn you that extra buck or that extra customer or whatever it is. But instead, I enjoy it. You have spent time because you're listening to this. You've spent time investing in yourself this year. You have probably had a lot of long days. You have put in the effort. You have put in extra time. You have invested. You have driven yourself. And so whether it's during this Thanksgiving time or as you get closer to the end of the year, enjoy it a little bit, embrace a little bit, give yourself permission to have fun and to reap the rewards a little bit of what you have done. You have spent, think about it, if you spent 10% extra 40 hour a week, you spent extra four hours a week for the last year, basically. That's nearing, if you do 50 weeks a year, take a couple of weeks off, that's still four times 50, 200 extra hours that you have worked. You can take a couple of days off here or you can take, you know, don't, and even if it's just that extra four hours a week, take a couple of weeks. And you know, so you have say 10 hours less of extra work that you do in the next two weeks out of 200, that's nothing. That's such a small percentage. Take a little time to enjoy where you're at, to take a deep breath, to relax and maybe even recharge a little bit because as we've seen, things can get bad quickly. Things can be tough quickly. And hopefully you're at a point here where, yeah, you may be struggling, but maybe as things of, I will say like, you know, crescendoed a little bit or, you know, maybe you've hit some sort of a plateau or something of things just getting piled on. I'm hoping that you get, you're able to take a little bit of time and take a breath and adjust and sort of a little bit digest where you're at. And if you're struggling, spend that time looking for the positives. Look for that silver lining around that very black cloud because sometimes that hope, that positive point of view is one of the things that drives us forward that allows us to get through these really difficult times because we know, or at least we assume, however it is that there is something better on the other side. That we're not just doing this and we're going to just be stuck doing this forever because I don't think you will. Don't care where you're at. Life is not, while it's, you know, it's not all roses and rainbows and sunshine and stuff like that. It's not also all perfect storms. But, you know, it's just like, just like balances out a little bit like that. You are not going to have just continuous pandemics and inflationary concerns and wars and all this other crap that's going on. It's I mean, they will, they'll be out there here and there, but not to this level and not with everything hitting us at the same time. It's just, it just doesn't make sense that you're going to keep having all of these things hit at the same time. It will get better. It may change. It may not be, may not feel much better, but it will be different. And that alone is something to be thankful for. It's like, hey, we've made it to this point. And yeah, like that was, that was a once in a hundred years pandemic. So good point would be that hopefully, if it keeps the track, then we won't have to worry about that again for another hundred years, which for most of us means we won't have to worry about it at all. And if you want to worry about it, then maybe you can help prep that generation that hits whatever that next grand pandemic thing is. So don't get too caught up in how bad it's been. Instead, shift your focus and look a little bit at how good things maybe are. Some of the things that have, you've made it through anyways, even in spite of all of the challenges and the obstacles, the things that you succeeded in, the projects that you completed, the customers that were satisfied anyways, even through all that, all the stuff that you had to deal with. There are always going to be some bright lights, some, some shining moments across even a very difficult time. And they may not be that bright, but when it's really dark, even those little ones feel brighter. So instead of, I hate to, but instead of like wallowing or spending a lot of time in the negatives, because let's face it, we get that way too easy. That it's all the news is negative when, you know, every our bosses or whoever's pushing us, it's, it's usually going to be negatives. It's like, hey, we've got to pour more time in because we're behind schedule. They're not going to as often going to say, maybe if ever say, hey, take the next three weeks off because we're way ahead of schedule. That just doesn't happen. There's always something to push us forward. It is not natural for us to be in a situation where everybody is like, hey, take a lot of time, just don't do anything, just chill, don't worry about it. That just isn't the norm in the modern world. So you need to take control of that a little bit. Use this time for a little bit of, of self help and reflection and healing where you can just like hang out and go, you know, allow yourself to go spend a day, eat a lot of food, hang out with friends and family, just have a good time, take a big nap afterwards, whatever it is, and just live a day that is not driven by work. Embrace some of the goodness in life instead of spending more time worrying about some of the obstacles and the challenges and, you know, your workout days that life gives you every day. It's just like somebody that's if they're training for a marathon, you get do it for a year straight. You can take a day off. You know, you don't want to like, you know, you may not want to go nuts, but even then, you know, if you take a day off, if you're, if you're in prime shape, you're going to be able to take that day off and it's good. You can't take 10 days off, but you can take some time. And I think we have earned that here as well. So the moral of this episode, I guess, is let's look at the positive. It's way too easy for us to fill our to do lists and do the things that are what we need to do. Instead, spend a little time like, what do you want to do? What would be something to make you happy that you could go do that day or maybe today, but whenever you have that day or two off and in this take a day or two off, take some time, relax, refresh, recharge, refocus, and I guarantee you it will be worth it. It is its own investment and is one that will definitely pay off. And the other thing is, you know, have fun. If you're doing all this stuff and you're not having fun along the way, that's one of the things I hope you've gotten across in the last, you've gotten from us in the last year is you got to be doing something you want to do. If you're doing something you really don't want to do, then step back and go find something that you do want to do. And use that as your drive to figure out how can I do that thing that I want to do either more or maybe make that my job. So that's what I do every day. That is where true happiness, that's the secret of life, doing what you want to do. And it covers your needs. So you're having fun and you can still, you got a roof over your head and clothes on your back and food and water and all that kind of stuff. A lot of that we have even when we think we're struggling. So we all have something to be thankful for. If you're sitting here listening to this, you probably have some device or stuff that is available to you that has been available to almost nobody in the history of the world. Such a small percentage, even today, and think of the billions of people on the earth and how many people don't have access to something like that. That alone puts you very high up in the well off kind of rankings of people. So something to be thankful for. That being said, hopefully you'll be thankful that I'm going to cut this one short and give you some more time. Go out there and have a great day. Enjoy your holidays. Have a great week and we will talk to you next time. Thank you for listening to Building Better Developers, the Develop-a-Nor podcast. You can subscribe on Apple Podcasts, Stitcher, Amazon, anywhere that you can find podcasts. We are there. And remember, just a little bit of effort every day ends up adding into great momentum and great success. My little insta hit. Now they always have a bit of a love song vibe to them because I think it's funny and it makes it a bit creepy and weird. So just heads up. Here we go. Because I think that you're so damn cool. California born, Memphis raised, but Nashville's aware he likes to spend his days. That hockey rink is where he likes to be, but he's dying to head to Italy with Tim, Ian, Ben, Beck and Tom. Where he can stare at the stars all day long. He can eat that pasta till he passes out. Well I love you Rob, I think there ain't a shadow of doubt. Come on, so I said give it up for Rob, he's my new best friend. And I think I love you and we haven't even met. I want to say thank you for having me on your show. Cause this friendship of ours is one that can only grow.