Christmas Episode

Welcome to Building Better Developers, the Developer Nord podcast, where we work on getting better step by step, professionally and personally. Let's get started. Well, hello and welcome back. We are just doing a special, this is a Christmas episode. We've got another special one coming up for the New Year's, like to move these in just to give us a little bit of a break, even though right now I don't know we need a break other than to maybe to contemplate some of the things that we've been getting from our various speakers and conversations, discussions, interviews, however you want to look at it. And if you're getting even half as much as I am, you have got some pretty full notebooks. And better yet, we're not done. We've got plenty more that I'm going to be sharing with you. These have turned out to be excellent discussions as we get into a new year, I think, to motivate you to give you some good plans as you move forward and make 23 a really good year for you. Put 22 behind you, figure out what you need to learn from it, and then move on to 2023. With this being our Christmas special, I want to thank all of you for being here, for listening. We have gone now a few years, I think we've been running five years as this podcast is being posted. We've gone over 600 episodes. We have got tons of content that we've created and blog articles and we've gotten feedback and have enjoyed doing it and gotten some guidance and watched what you guys are looking at, what you're reading, what you're liking. And as we go into the next year, we're going to try to make it more useful to you. We're going to find better ways for you to be able to navigate it. And of course, we're going to start school.developmentorder.com. I've mentioned this a couple of times, but we will actually have some, it'll basically be like official courses. It'll be a lot easier for you to go through the material, to reuse it, to get some sort of like a certificate at the end of it and keep up with all of the different things that are going on. Whether you are just getting started in the world of tech or if you're looking for something, you're a little further in and you're just trying to keep up with all of the latest things. So that is going to be our gift to you. We want to take all of this that we've put together and make it even easier for you to define what you're looking for and use it to advance your career to become a better developer. Now, also, it is the season of giving, as they say. And I think it's a good time to talk a little bit about instead of just being a better developer is not just about writing better code or building better software, although those are important points of it. One of the things that is going to help you be a better developer that I think maybe you have seen in some of the conversations that we've had and some of the conversations that we will have is making sure that you're out there doing something that makes you feel good, something that you enjoy, but also where you know you're giving back. Now maybe there are people out there that feel really good about beating up other people or stealing from them or fooling them or something like that. But I don't think there are too many out there. We almost all feel better when we know we're doing good. Even you can hear interviews with people that are just confused and do very bad things or thieves or stuff like that. But their personal narrative is they think they are a lot of times are making the world a better place in some way, form or fashion. Hopefully most of us are not in that boat, but that we are actually looking for ways that we are happier when we have done work that we enjoy that fulfills us and we know that it is doing good for others. Problem solving is one of those things. We like to solve problems. People like their problems solved. It's a win-win situation. So in this season of giving and things like that, think about that. Think about how much your customers, your employers have actually given you opportunities to solve problems. It's really a 180 degrees different point of view, but that's what we have. If your customers didn't exist, if your employer wasn't out there, if you didn't have work to do, then you would be bored. You may say, oh, it'd be great. I'd lay around on the couch all day or something like that. But for most of us, if not all of us, that gets old pretty quick. It is much more pleasurable to have something to do that allows you to feel like or to know that you are contributing to society, to others, that you are doing more than simply existing. If you were the person, kind of person that wanted to just exist, I don't think you would be, you wouldn't be spending your time here. You wouldn't be investing in yourself, investing in your career and looking for ways to make that something that matters. And of course, the easiest way to matter is to be there and support other people to cover their needs or help with their needs. For us, I think most of us, that need, the ability to fulfill needs is our ability to solve problems, to reduce pain points from others. So maybe in this, this time of just wanting to have that holiday spirit and be happy and joyful and not dwell on a lot of the bad things that are out there, which straight up, we could spend a lot of time talking about the bad things that are out there. There's all kinds, there's always going to be things that are out there that we can say, wow, that's, that's not good. That's sad. That's horrible. That's mean. That's evil or whatever you want to label it. And not saying that any of those labels are necessarily incorrect, but there's also good stuff out there. There's also things that fulfill us and make us happy and make others happy. And that's, I guess my gift to you is to, instead of just dwell on some of the negatives is rewire yourself a little bit during this time, even if it's just for a few hours or for a couple of days or heaven forbid, a couple of weeks, shift your, your perspective and just consider yourself a happy person. Assume that things have gone well for you and that you are living a great blessed life. And you will be amazed at if you do that, at how things will start to confirm that this is that whole power of positive thinking. But it's also just about our focus. It's like, if you think you're going to go buy a new car and you've decided on what the type is, you're suddenly going to see that car a lot more often. And it's not because everybody read your mind and went out and bought that car. It's because that's what you're attuned to. And so life is, it's funny like that. If you think life is against you, your experience will confirm that. You will find things every day that point to why, how life is against you, how your life is just miserable. On the other hand, if you think about your life as being a great life that you're happy or content or however you want to phrase that, you will get confirmation of it. You will see things where you'll say, wow, that's just, that's awesome that I can do that. So it's, it's really a perspective thing that can help you as we're getting to the end of this year. Stress is always part of the holidays, but also to maybe rewire a couple of things in your brain so that you have a better year going forward is start thinking positive. Start instead of looking at things like, oh, I've got work to do this. I've got a full week of work. I'm going to get to work every day and be busy until I go home and seeing that as a negative instead say, wow, I get to go to work this week and I will not have to worry about what I'm doing. I know that when I get to work, I've got something that's going to keep me busy all day. I'm going to be contributing to the, you know, the bottom line of the company. I mean, helping out my customers, whatever it is that you do and however your work serves others. Even if it's you on your side hustle, you have that instead of like, oh, I've got all this work I got to do to get my side hustle going. Think of it as, wow, look at this opportunity I have to invest in my side hustle, to invest in myself in the future. Try flipping your perspective a little bit. I know this is very not technical or anything like that. And we have touched on that in some of the conversations and there are plenty of authors out there that have this, you know, if you can envision it, you can make it happen and things like that. But it really all does come down to the simple. What we focus on more is what we will see more of what we are looking for. We will find because we will convince ourselves. And there's all kinds of confirmation bias and stuff like that, that you can, you can see all the fascinating ways the mind works. But confirmation bias in itself is a perfectly simple one where it's like, hey, we tend to see things in a light that will confirm what we believe or what we think. If we believe or think that we're living a really great life, we're going to find things that will confirm that. And honestly, even if you are completely deluded and everybody else looks at you and says, you're living a horrible life, but you think you're living a great life, you're going to be happy. You will be fine. Don't let what other people think about you, about your situation, deter you from having a good time, from enjoying your life. We have talked about all these ways to measure success, but at the end of it, when you get to the bottom line of what is success, it's almost always going to come down to I am successful if I am happy. I'm successful if I am content. I am successful if I have joy in my life. I'm successful if I get up every day and look forward to the day instead of dread it. And our attitude can impact that quite a bit. So while I can't give you anything physical because it's just too complicated to give gifts to the audience, I'm hoping that this is a gift that I can give to you. Because you guys have given to me, you guys have been giving the whole time. You've given us time. You've given us feedback. You've given us so much that we are thankful for and we are happy for. You guys are the gift that keeps on giving. And so I'm hoping that maybe we can return the favor a little bit and give you a gift that keeps on giving. Because if you go into every day and you're happy and you look towards every day as, hey, what am I going to be able to experience today that is going to make me happier even than I was the day before? That I think is a gift that keeps on giving. That means every morning when you get up, you are going to have a gift of a new day that you can look forward to. And there's no real magic to it. It really is so much a part of your attitude and being able to make that your, we'll say your default attitude, your default point of view on a day. It is not always easy. There can be very light throw stuff at us all the time that can derail us from that. But if you can maybe take a little bit of this time and just take a few days where there's maybe not a lot going on and try to, in this easier season, to sort of like bias yourself towards thinking a certain way, give it a shot. And maybe that will start your year better and then you'll start to see things snowball. And the next thing you know, you're like, why was I ever unhappy about anything? Because my life is just awesome. My life is sunshine and roses. You may not get there, but if you can start wiring yourself in that direction, then I think you'll find that it is not as difficult as it seems. That being said, have a great holiday season. Enjoy all of the interviews because these are going to just keep on flowing through. We've got so much. That's why I'm shoehorning in our annual specials this year because we have so much coming through and we've got so many great conversations and I want to get those in front of you and let you experience some of the same things I have and just make that valuable to you as you go into your next year. Taking up enough of your time though, so go out there and have yourself a great day, a great week, and we will talk to you next. 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.