Detailed Notes
Season 27 kicks off with a simple theme: getting unstuck by building daily forward momentum. Instead of treating “stuck” like failure, this episode reframes it as a plateau—an expected phase where your current approach stops producing the results you want. The solution isn’t more hustle or bigger plans. It’s consistent, bite-sized action: 15 minutes a day to move one meaningful goal forward.
You’ll also hear a practical weekly challenge to break inertia: list the tasks you’ve been avoiding, pick one for the week, touch it daily, and review what changed. If you’re a developer, senior engineer, tech lead, or engineering manager, this is a repeatable system you can use personally—or bring to your team—to reduce drift, reclaim time, and make real progress.
5 Takeaways • “Stuck” is often a plateau, not a dead end • Daily forward momentum beats occasional intensity • 15 minutes a day creates compounding progress • Automation can reclaim time and fuel momentum • Narrow focus (1–2 priorities) protects follow-through
Follow-us on • [email protected] • https://develpreneur.com/ • https://www.youtube.com/@develpreneur • https://facebook.com/Develpreneur • https://x.com/develpreneur • https://www.linkedin.com/company/develpreneur/
Transcript Text
Okay, and we're back. We just hit record and we are starting season 27. This is like crazy. >> Gosh. Um, I wish my camera would stop doing this auto adjust. I got to figure out why it is doing that because it is ticking me off. Let's see if I can do uh let's see. I'm going to check my settings real quick and see if I can freeze that thing because it is that's not settings. That's the wrong thing. Let's go over here. Uh fun times. So let's see. So we are going to spotlight wallpaper c. Let's just go camera options. That's not what I need. I wonder if that's a Zoom thing. >> Are you done? >> No. >> Change the recording. >> Yes. Uh, let me go to video settings to see if it's got a like Oh, autoframing. Yeah, I don't want that crap. Don't do that stuff to me. can't spell either one. >> Well, you can like Google it. I'm sorry. I'm also like I'm helping with some other stuff. Uh, so just bonus material so I can say we had a conversation last night. We went to like a meetup. It wasn't like it was a meetup. It was a uh uh friending. Uh what do they uh turbo friend? No. Uh what? >> Speed friending. >> Speed friending. That's what it is. >> It's mix and mingle. >> Okay. Well, they don't need to know what the name of it is because they may show up. We're we're big like that. So, we go and there's like maybe 20 people tops. And we met there were people there from India, Kyrgystan, um couple from India, France, Peru, Portugal, Spain, >> Russian. >> Russia. Well, he'd been to Russia. Oh, there was a Russian. That's right. You met a Russian. And he's not Ivan the crazy Russian even. >> But it was like good times. We gotten a little like we were getting a little multicultural there. Uh, we had the best conversation was time and across the Hispanics like what times what time words mean depending on which Spanish you're speaking. Oh, and in ter yes cuz Terminator so everybody that's in like this one I think is because you know Terminator's big line is aa la vista you know aa vista baby. Well, in Spanish instead they say baby like like why can't you just keep it aasta la vista and just be like >> well no it's actually there is aa la vista is actually one of the things and I'll be back is a whole is another one that he does >> it that when when he says I'll be back they changed it to sayanara >> oh I thought it was he when he says aasta la vista >> oh >> well he actually says quote Pasta La Vista. I think they said it was Sananara. And then the names they had for the other movies were absolutely hilarious because it was like they totally missed the point when they get translated. So, okay, that was fun times. Now, more fun times. We're going to start season 27. Sorry. See, we talk about distractions. I had one. Now, I'm trying to recover. Um, I'll let you guys know because you guys can see this before we jump into the uh the audio portion of this the podcast is we're going to focus on forward momentum, moving forward, getting unstuck basically like getting started on your goals in this season. It's we're going to continue a lot of interviews and this is an area we're going to try to keep each of them. Yes, they do go a little far ranging sometimes, but um we're going to try to get these Oh, now that I've got my Yeah, I can >> distraction >> straightened out. >> Yes, camera is my distraction. Um I want to work on like trying to keep the conversations and get back to that because a lot of the people we've talked to that's where it is at is um how they got past that first obstacle. And I know a lot of people like actually the last conversation we had a u we had some questions on the last episode that we recorded that you guys will see uh deeper in the season was about like how did you guys get here? What did you do? You know, how did you get through some of these things? Uh and there's a lot of those uh some of the blockers and things that all of us have seen, you know, throughout our our careers and especially if we're trying to launch our side hustle. So do uno. Hello and welcome back. We are starting a new season. This is season 27. Bentees. Uh and apologies if you don't understand that because I speak bad languages. I don't I don't even speak English. Well, but this is building better developers. This is a development podcast. This season we're going to talk about really it's about getting unstuck. It's about forward momentum. It's about moving towards your goals and getting yourself closer tomorrow than you were today to where you want to be. But first, I need to introduce myself. My name is Rob Broadhead. I'm one of the founders of developer, also the founder of RB Consulting, where we help you leverage technology so that your business can work more smoothly. That includes AI now because everybody wants to know, how do I use AI? Well, we can help you assess where you're at and where to go with it. Good things and bad things. Good thing is in the pre-show and the green room, I was able to figure out how to fix my camera that was auto adjusting on me and doing things that I really didn't want it to do. Why people add new features and automatically turn them on is really annoying to me. And that should be a lesson to those of you that are developers. Uh good thing, a bad thing is it really is not. There is not a bad thing. Like my life is going so well right now. I've gotten through a a week of being the digital nomad. I've gotten a lot of stuff done. I'm very happy camper and here I am to kick off another season. I didn't even know this was going to make past 20 episodes when we started this and now we're almost 1,000 episodes. We're 27 seasons including some really long honking seasons along the way. And we've got a lot to look forward to. So, let's get moving on it as Michael introduces himself. >> Hey everyone, my name is Michael Malash. one of the co-founders of developer, building better developers. I'm also the founder of Envision QA, where we create and test custom software that solves real problems. That way, your business can run better and scale smarter. Uh, good thing, bad thing. Uh, good thing, uh, we finally got rain. We've gone a couple weeks without rain and, uh, things were getting a little dry. Granted, we're in winter and that, but we still need rain occasionally to keep things growing. Um, bad thing, uh, not too much bad. uh just more good actually. I'm getting uh resetting and working on the business some more uh getting things growing. >> And that uh that's a really good segue into our season here and what we're going to talk about. We're going to everybody's got a uh I got stuck. It's like uh it was the old uh behind the music where there was always like every rock group was always like it was great and then they had the drug years or alcohol or something and then they came back. Every business is like that where it's like I was going good and then I got stuck and then I got unstuck and then I moved forward. And that's like that's part of it is you we always call it stuck, but a lot of times I I prefer to call it plateauing because that's really what it is is you you grow to a certain point, you you get to a certain point where you're like, "Okay, I've made some progress and now I've I'm not progressing anymore. Now I'm back to uh you where I'm like I feel like I'm not necessarily like in a rut but I'm also not growing. And so you've plateaued and now you say you're stuck and so how do I move on to that next level? So it may be just getting started and getting that forward momentum but it may be where the the forward momentum is not doing what we think it is is that it's like you know I'm not getting the results that I want. So, how do I instead of just insanity of repeating the same thing and hoping for a different solution or a different outcome, how do I do things different so I can change it up and I can get moving forward? Again, everybody has that story and I think we're going to see a lot of good uh ways to think outside of the box. Sometimes it's going to be literally thinking inside the box. for my example. Um I have I have iterated now multiple times over the last probably 20 years uh as I've been building actually I guess almost 30 years as I've been building this company and multiple companies that are around it different times where it's like okay there's this growth period there's a building period there's the marketing period and trying to get all those things going the working in your business versus on your business and is really easy to get stuck working in your business especially when the paychecks are rolling through and all that and you're like this is great. I just want to like milk this thing, but everything comes to an end. So, you got to make sure that you are working on growing your business. Otherwise, you're never going to get where you need to. Um, and that's where we're getting started. So, I think we're going to have some great story. This will be really good story kind of season. That's going to be the kind of thing like what is something that that uh you know a struggle that you had and you went through and I think we'll start with like you know Michael your thoughts on this season and maybe a a struggle or something that maybe that you're working through right now that you're you're getting yourself unstuck with for example that you're like hey starting the new year and uh you know at least starting with some forward momentum. >> Sure. So first of all for motion it's kind of funny given our industry right given that we're developers and most startups uh a lot of developers like that high pace high intensity of starting the business. It's like, oh, we're growing. We're building it. It's building something new. But then when we always seem to hit that wall or we start to get sluggish and we start to lose focus when we get past that point, when we get to, oh, I have to actually work on the business. I have to actually do marketing. I have to actually do the things to make this a business. Not just, hey, I'm building something. All the excitement around that. You you start to lose that momentum because you're you lose that excitement because that stuff's not exciting to you. That is why you hire marketing people and things like that. But when you're starting out, you don't have that capacity. You have to do it all yourself or at least enough of it to keep the business growing. So forward motion to me is trying to keep that excitement to keep that energy of, hey, I'm doing this. I have an idea. I'm going to make this work. And keep that momentum. keep that energy going and not let it die or not let it fizzle out. So getting started, you know, like we said, our uh season is going to be focused on forward motion, getting started on your goals. So we're going to start focusing on goals. So this year I have started resetting my goals to focus more on growing the business than just staying in the business because the last year and a half it's just been not a slo but I've just been stuck doing more working in the business writing code trying to get things uh accomplished getting projects across the finish line and I have not been able to stay focused more on getting new customers, finding that next thing, growing, where am I going with the business? You know, am I in is my business still uh focused in the right uh lane? And and you know, when I started this, when I rebranded Envision QA, I wanted to be more of a test-driven automation company. And like all companies, we is sometimes take the first few customers that we get and they may not be our ideal customers. And I've run into a situation where I've been working on projects that are not my ideal customer. So I'm kind of outside my comfort zone. So my goal for this year is to kind of reset and try to get back into that forward motion of getting back into test automation, building uh automated testable software for companies and help them to grow. >> Yeah, I think that is um technology makes it really hard to to stay focused because there's so many places we can go. There's so many opportunities we have. We're like, well yeah, we can do that for you and we can do that for you. but figuring out where it is and that's something that uh you know definitely have gone through that same growth over the years and and actually RB consulting has evolved many times uh and and particularly when it grew from just being a soloreneur kind of thing to now we've got employees and you know having a team and that kind of stuff changes it because now you've got like you can really put something behind your you know what you're doing you can do bigger projects you can do different projects but you also are uh it changes the stakes because now you have to make sure you've got people got to get paid and stuff like that. So, it's um yeah, I think that is one of the things that is a a great uh a starting point is setting goals is having something and I actually I've found that is really valuable. This is why I talk about this so often is doing that regular momentum is doing like every day go spend 15 minutes or a half an hour on your business and just moving something forward on it so that as you go through the week then maybe you've spent I don't know an hour maybe two hours on it uh and as you go through the month now you've spent like maybe the equivalent of a full day on it and you will find progress and it I think doing that allows you also have bite-sized chunks So you don't feel like you're in a like on a death march or you're in a slog where you're just like, "Okay, I've got an accomplishment. I've made progress. I got this thing done and that thing done." And honestly, it's it has uh it has snowballed and I've done this with like automations with other pieces. And so as some of those things get free and actually get to a point where I'm like, "Okay, that's actually complete. I can actually set that aside for a little bit now. Now I have time freed up to go focus on the other thing and whatever the next thing is. And in some of it is now swinging back around finally. And honestly and some of it is saying yeah I don't have time for it but it doesn't matter. I have to make time for it. I have to decide at some point I've got to decide that I'm going to take this thing and improve it. I'm going to add some processes around it. I'm going to add automation around it. I'm going to turn it into a product. Whatever the heck it is. And I think that for me has been a big um maybe not an epiphany or something like that, but pretty darn close to it where I was like, "Wow, I can take huge sections of this stuff that I do and uh and dramatically increase my productivity because now stuff that was taking me an hour to do, I can get done in 5 minutes." And maybe not quite that much, but sometimes it is. Uh and there have been more than a few things that I've said, gosh, I was I spend some time on it. I'm spending 15 minutes a day. Well, you know, that's over an hour a week, but now when I automate it and it's just ends up in a mailbox or whatever it needs to be, that's an hour a week that I get back and now I can go put that somewhere else. And so, it's finding a way to use that snowball effect to get better and to improve. And that's why it's so important to take that first step is like get started because if you're stuck, if you're sitting there and you're thinking about it too much and you're trying to figure out where do I need to go, you're not making forward momentum. thoughts. >> Yeah. And I almost think let's bring back challenges this season. So I I would like to throw out a challenge since we are starting a new season on forward momentum. Um let's start by identify the tasks that you want to get accomplished that you haven't had time. You've been stuck or you just don't think you can get it done. Write those down on a list and just start every week, pick one. Put it on your to-do list every day. Try to move that forward. Do like 5 minutes, 10 minutes every day. And then at the end of the week, assess how much you got accomplished and see if that helped. If it didn't help, then do you need to pivot or do you need to change? But I think we all need to get in the habit of making sure that we are moving the dial forward and not just spinning our wheels and standing in place. >> Oh, 100%. I I think that is I I actually this is something I did um I guess I started back back about a year and a half ago, maybe a year ago now. Um I had several projects that had been they weren't really mothballled, they were just shelved at the time and really were not wasn't really touching or doing anything with them. And I actually set it up and there was like seven of them. I there's seven things I was working on. So every day of the week I had I would do 15 minutes on something. That was it. I was like and a lot of times it would go to a half hour but my goal was I just need to do 15 minutes a day and I was cycling through these things. It was different technologies, different apps, different projects. That alone was pretty cool cuz every day was something new was or something different. So I was constantly like changing a little bit allowed me to have like a a fresh perspective. Um, I don't necessarily recommend it to everybody because sometimes it was hard to remember where was I on this thing a week ago. You've got to make sure you're very good at like tracking and and writing down where was I at, what's my next thing to do, making sure that before you wrap up, you know where you want to start the next time. Uh, but in doing so, I completed the uh you can see there's some apps out there on the developer site. There was one came out of something that had been in the back of my head for a long time that I finally said, I'm just going to go tackle that. uh the rewrite of of developer site I think has been sitting on my to-do list for three or four years. Uh particularly the uh the categorization of all of the the podcast and and putting all those episodes into seasons. So you got like one place you could go and and see all of those to some extent. Um and we'll add some more stuff as we're going with that. But that was a huge one. the rewrite of the RB consulting site was was part of what has come out of this these like 15 minute a day things. Um, and some of the apps that we've got are are pretty darn, you know, if you can go try out the uh shorty the link shortener app we got was something I was just like actually that came out of frustration cuz everybody was raising their prices. I'm like we're going to write our own and just be fine with it. Um, and then also the um, gosh, all the apps that we got. Oh, the the the goals driven app was actually something that I was used. It was like it was one of those like, you know, scratch your own itch. And I was like, I want something that I can use to just track for myself. And then I was like, hey, why don't we do it as something that's a social experiment of sort, sort of like a kickst starter kind of approach and we'll see where that app goes. Um, but it was fun to get that kind of stuff out. And it's again there's like those balls move forward and the next thing you know it's like okay it's time to deploy something. Uh and that's where you need to get whether you can do it 15 minutes a day, 30 minutes a day, do it in an hour chunk on a weekend, whatever it is, get that ball moving forward and before you know it you are like you know you've gotten across a finish line. >> Now I would say probably don't start with seven if you're not comfortable doing this. But pick I I would do no more than two. Start with one. But if you have a large list, like Rob, do no more than two. >> Keep it to no more than two. That way, and maybe set a goal, like Rob said, 15 minutes a day. If you're sticking to one or two, maybe do 30 minutes a day, 15 minutes in the morning, 15 minutes in the evening, but still break it up. But >> keep it keep your focus narrow. Stay focused. Keep something moving forward. If you do too many, you may not see enough forward momentum and you might quit. So again, keep your focus narrow. >> Yeah, very much so. And that's what we've got. Um, looking forward to the uh the year ahead and the season ahead. Um, and actually, funny enough, let's see. So, this will put us Yeah. So, we'll probably be almost halfway through the year by the time we uh wrap up the season. Um, and so we'll be looking to see what we get into season 28 when we get to that. But uh first things first, let's get our forward momentum and step into this next season. Uh really looking forward to it. There are a lot of people we have lined up that are going to be really cool uh interviews. I am going to throw some stuff out because I I've failed to mention this before, but I also am a podcast guest in a lot of places and I've had some really fun cool interviews, a lot of great questions and some of those others. There will be links out on the uh if you go to the about us page on developer. I'm going to end up throwing that in there so you can see some of the other places that you can see u you know your famous developer host out there uh especially because there are just some really interesting conversations we had a lot of them around uh productivity and AI tools and some things like that that I think would be very valuable to everybody. They've definitely helped me. Uh it's just having those conversations sort of kind of stuff. It's like you just got to learn how to ask the right question uh have the right conversation and suddenly things start to click in your head and next thing you know you're like moving ahead and that forward motion becomes that much easier. That being said, we're going to wrap this one up and before you know it, we will be into the first episode of season 27. God, this is just crazy to me. Go out there and have yourself a great day, a great week, and we will talk to you next time. Bonus I can't even find my mouse. Bonus material. Um, I'm not really like pumped about any bonus material right now because we just like covered some cool stuff and uh we're going to just we'll save this uh we're going to continue there will be um sort of like in the interviews we're going to continue the bonus material being things like hey do you have one thing that you would tell your younger self or something along those lines to give you like just one extra golden nugget of knowledge because you've sat here and watched us on the the YouTube side. So please continue to do that. Uh, subscribe, leave us comments, leave us notes, uh, shoot us suggestions, comments, feedback of any sort because we would love to have it because we're here to do this for you. And, uh, we will be back before you know it. For now, we're going to go do something for us and go get some forward moment momentum on all of our projects and uh, then we'll come back and help you with yours. Uh, remember those challenges. That's a great idea. Uh, I think, you know, pick something and start doing it. Just 15 minutes a day. This is a great time as we're starting a year to pick up one of those kind of habits and turn it into a habit of just working that product, that project, whatever it is every day. Have yourself a great one and we will talk to you next time.
Transcript Segments
Okay, and we're back. We just hit record
and we are starting season 27. This is
like crazy.
>> Gosh. Um, I wish my camera would stop
doing this auto adjust. I got to figure
out why it is doing that because it is
ticking me off. Let's see if I can do
uh
let's see. I'm going to check my
settings real quick and see if I can
freeze that thing because it is that's
not settings. That's the wrong thing.
Let's go over here.
Uh
fun times.
So let's see. So we are going to
spotlight wallpaper c. Let's just go
camera
options.
That's not what I need. I wonder if
that's a Zoom thing.
>> Are you done?
>> No.
>> Change the recording.
>> Yes.
Uh, let me go to video settings to see
if it's got a like
Oh, autoframing. Yeah, I don't want that
crap. Don't do that stuff to me.
can't spell either one.
>> Well, you can like Google it. I'm sorry.
I'm also like I'm helping with some
other stuff. Uh, so just bonus material
so I can say we had a conversation last
night. We went to like a meetup. It
wasn't like it was a meetup. It was a uh
uh friending. Uh what do they uh turbo
friend? No. Uh what?
>> Speed friending.
>> Speed friending. That's what it is.
>> It's mix and mingle.
>> Okay. Well, they don't need to know what
the name of it is because they may show
up. We're we're big like that. So, we go
and there's like maybe 20 people tops.
And we met there were people there from
India, Kyrgystan,
um couple from India, France, Peru,
Portugal, Spain,
>> Russian.
>> Russia. Well, he'd been to Russia. Oh,
there was a Russian. That's right. You
met a Russian. And he's not Ivan the
crazy Russian even.
>> But it was like good times. We gotten a
little like we were getting a little
multicultural there. Uh, we had the best
conversation was time and across the
Hispanics like what times what time
words mean depending on which Spanish
you're speaking. Oh, and in ter yes cuz
Terminator so everybody that's in like
this one I think is because you know
Terminator's big line is aa la vista you
know aa vista baby. Well, in Spanish
instead they say baby
like like why can't you just keep it
aasta la vista and just be like
>> well no it's actually there is aa la
vista is actually one of the things and
I'll be back is a whole is another one
that he does
>> it that when when he says I'll be back
they changed it to sayanara
>> oh I thought it was he when he says
aasta la vista
>> oh
>> well he actually says quote Pasta La
Vista. I think they said it was
Sananara. And then the names they had
for the other movies were absolutely
hilarious because it was like they
totally missed the point when they get
translated. So, okay, that was fun
times. Now, more fun times. We're going
to start season 27. Sorry. See, we talk
about distractions. I had one. Now, I'm
trying to recover. Um, I'll let you guys
know because you guys can see this
before we jump into the uh the audio
portion of this the podcast is we're
going to focus on forward momentum,
moving forward, getting unstuck
basically like getting started on your
goals in this season. It's we're going
to continue a lot of interviews and this
is an area we're going to try to keep
each of them. Yes, they do go a little
far ranging sometimes, but um we're
going to try to get these Oh, now that
I've got my
Yeah, I can
>> distraction
>> straightened out.
>> Yes, camera is my distraction. Um I want
to work on like trying to keep the
conversations and get back to that
because a lot of the people we've talked
to that's where it is at is um how they
got past that first obstacle. And I know
a lot of people like actually the last
conversation we had a u we had some
questions on the last episode that we
recorded that you guys will see uh
deeper in the season was about like how
did you guys get here? What did you do?
You know, how did you get through some
of these things? Uh and there's a lot of
those uh some of the blockers and things
that all of us have seen, you know,
throughout our our careers and
especially if we're trying to launch our
side hustle. So
do uno. Hello and welcome back. We are
starting a new season. This is season
27.
Bentees. Uh and apologies if you don't
understand that because I speak bad
languages. I don't I don't even speak
English. Well, but this is building
better developers. This is a development
podcast. This season we're going to talk
about really it's about getting unstuck.
It's about forward momentum. It's about
moving towards your goals and getting
yourself closer tomorrow than you were
today to where you want to be.
But first, I need to introduce myself.
My name is Rob Broadhead. I'm one of the
founders of developer, also the founder
of RB Consulting, where we help you
leverage technology so that your
business can work more smoothly. That
includes AI now because everybody wants
to know, how do I use AI? Well, we can
help you assess where you're at and
where to go with it. Good things and bad
things. Good thing is in the pre-show
and the green room, I was able to figure
out how to fix my camera that was auto
adjusting on me and doing things that I
really didn't want it to do. Why people
add new features and automatically turn
them on is really annoying to me. And
that should be a lesson to those of you
that are developers. Uh good thing, a
bad thing
is it really is not. There is not a bad
thing. Like my life is going so well
right now. I've gotten through a a week
of being the digital nomad. I've gotten
a lot of stuff done. I'm very happy
camper and here I am to kick off another
season. I didn't even know this was
going to make past 20 episodes when we
started this and now we're almost 1,000
episodes. We're 27 seasons including
some really long honking seasons along
the way. And we've got a lot to look
forward to. So, let's get moving on it
as Michael introduces himself.
>> Hey everyone, my name is Michael Malash.
one of the co-founders of developer,
building better developers. I'm also the
founder of Envision QA, where we create
and test custom software that solves
real problems. That way, your business
can run better and scale smarter. Uh,
good thing, bad thing. Uh, good thing,
uh, we finally got rain. We've gone a
couple weeks without rain and, uh,
things were getting a little dry.
Granted, we're in winter and that, but
we still need rain occasionally to keep
things growing. Um, bad thing, uh, not
too much bad. uh just more good
actually. I'm getting uh resetting and
working on the business some more uh
getting things growing.
>> And that uh that's a really good segue
into our season here and what we're
going to talk about. We're going to
everybody's got a uh I got stuck. It's
like uh it was the old uh behind the
music where there was always like every
rock group was always like it was great
and then they had the drug years or
alcohol or something and then they came
back.
Every business is like that where it's
like I was going good and then I got
stuck and then I got unstuck and then I
moved forward. And that's like that's
part of it is you we always call it
stuck, but a lot of times I I prefer to
call it plateauing because that's really
what it is is you you grow to a certain
point, you you get to a certain point
where you're like, "Okay, I've made some
progress and now I've I'm not
progressing anymore. Now I'm back to
uh you where I'm like I feel like I'm
not necessarily like in a rut but I'm
also not growing. And so you've
plateaued and now you say you're stuck
and so how do I move on to that next
level? So it may be just getting started
and getting that forward momentum but it
may be where the the forward momentum is
not doing what we think it is is that
it's like you know I'm not getting the
results that I want. So, how do I
instead of just insanity of repeating
the same thing and hoping for a
different solution or a different
outcome, how do I do things different so
I can change it up and I can get moving
forward? Again, everybody has that story
and I think we're going to see a lot of
good uh ways to think outside of the
box. Sometimes it's going to be
literally thinking inside the box. for
my example. Um I have I have iterated
now multiple times over the last
probably 20 years uh as I've been
building actually I guess almost 30
years as I've been building this company
and multiple companies that are around
it different times where it's like okay
there's this growth period there's a
building period there's the marketing
period and trying to get all those
things going the working in your
business versus on your business and is
really easy to get stuck working in your
business especially when the paychecks
are rolling through and all that and
you're like this is great. I just want
to like milk this thing, but everything
comes to an end. So, you got to make
sure that you are working on growing
your business. Otherwise, you're never
going to get where you need to. Um, and
that's where we're getting started. So,
I think we're going to have some great
story. This will be really good story
kind of season. That's going to be the
kind of thing like what is something
that that uh you know a struggle that
you had and you went through and I think
we'll start with like you know Michael
your thoughts on this season and maybe a
a struggle or something that maybe that
you're working through right now that
you're you're getting yourself unstuck
with for example that you're like hey
starting the new year and uh you know at
least starting with some forward
momentum.
>> Sure. So first of all for motion it's
kind of funny given our industry right
given that we're developers and most
startups uh a lot of developers like
that high pace high intensity of
starting the business. It's like, oh,
we're growing. We're building it. It's
building something new. But then when we
always seem to hit that wall or we start
to get sluggish and we start to lose
focus when we get past that point, when
we get to, oh, I have to actually work
on the business. I have to actually do
marketing. I have to actually do the
things to make this a business. Not
just, hey, I'm building something. All
the excitement around that. You you
start to lose that momentum because
you're you lose that excitement because
that stuff's not exciting to you. That
is why you hire marketing people and
things like that. But when you're
starting out, you don't have that
capacity. You have to do it all yourself
or at least enough of it to keep the
business growing. So forward motion to
me is trying to
keep that excitement to keep that energy
of, hey, I'm doing this. I have an idea.
I'm going to make this work. And keep
that momentum. keep that energy going
and not let it die or not let it fizzle
out. So getting started, you know, like
we said, our uh season is going to be
focused on forward motion, getting
started on your goals. So we're going to
start focusing on goals. So this year I
have started resetting my goals to focus
more on growing the business than just
staying in the business because the last
year and a half it's just been not a slo
but I've just been stuck doing more
working in the business writing code
trying to get things uh accomplished
getting projects across the finish line
and I have not been able to stay focused
more on getting new customers, finding
that next thing, growing, where am I
going with the business? You know, am I
in is my business still
uh focused in the right uh lane? And and
you know, when I started this, when I
rebranded Envision QA, I wanted to be
more of a test-driven automation
company. And like all companies, we is
sometimes take the first few customers
that we get and they may not be our
ideal customers. And I've run into a
situation where I've been working on
projects that are not my ideal customer.
So I'm kind of outside my comfort zone.
So my goal for this year is to kind of
reset and try to get back into that
forward motion of getting back into test
automation, building uh automated
testable software for companies and help
them to grow.
>> Yeah, I think that is um technology
makes it really hard to to stay focused
because there's so many places we can
go. There's so many opportunities we
have. We're like, well yeah, we can do
that for you and we can do that for you.
but figuring out where it is and that's
something that uh you know definitely
have gone through that same growth over
the years and and actually RB consulting
has evolved many times uh and and
particularly when it grew from just
being a soloreneur kind of thing to now
we've got employees and you know having
a team and that kind of stuff changes it
because now you've got like you can
really put something behind your you
know what you're doing you can do bigger
projects you can do different projects
but you also are uh it changes the
stakes because now you have to make sure
you've got people got to get paid and
stuff like that.
So, it's um yeah, I think that is one of
the things that is a a great uh a
starting point is setting goals is
having something and I actually I've
found that is really valuable. This is
why I talk about this so often is doing
that regular momentum is doing like
every day go spend 15 minutes or a half
an hour on your business and just moving
something forward on it so that as you
go through the week then maybe you've
spent I don't know an hour maybe two
hours on it uh and as you go through the
month now you've spent like maybe the
equivalent of a full day on it and you
will find progress and it I think doing
that allows you also
have bite-sized chunks So you don't feel
like you're in a like on a death march
or you're in a slog where you're just
like, "Okay, I've got an accomplishment.
I've made progress. I got this thing
done and that thing done." And honestly,
it's it has uh it has snowballed and
I've done this with like automations
with other pieces. And so as some of
those things get free and actually get
to a point where I'm like, "Okay, that's
actually complete. I can actually set
that aside for a little bit now. Now I
have time freed up to go focus on the
other thing and whatever the next thing
is. And in some of it is now swinging
back around finally. And honestly and
some of it is saying yeah I don't have
time for it but it doesn't matter. I
have to make time for it. I have to
decide at some point I've got to decide
that I'm going to take this thing and
improve it. I'm going to add some
processes around it. I'm going to add
automation around it. I'm going to turn
it into a product. Whatever the heck it
is. And I think that for me has been a
big um maybe not an epiphany or
something like that, but pretty darn
close to it where I was like, "Wow, I
can take huge sections of this stuff
that I do and uh and dramatically
increase my productivity because now
stuff that was taking me an hour to do,
I can get done in 5 minutes." And maybe
not quite that much, but sometimes it
is. Uh and there have been more than a
few things that I've said, gosh, I was I
spend some time on it. I'm spending 15
minutes a day. Well, you know, that's
over an hour a week, but now when I
automate it and it's just ends up in a
mailbox or whatever it needs to be,
that's an hour a week that I get back
and now I can go put that somewhere
else. And so, it's finding a way to use
that snowball effect to get better and
to improve.
And that's why it's so important to take
that first step is like get started
because if you're stuck, if you're
sitting there and you're thinking about
it too much and you're trying to figure
out where do I need to go, you're not
making forward momentum. thoughts.
>> Yeah. And I almost think let's bring
back challenges this season. So I I
would like to throw out a challenge
since we are starting a new season on
forward momentum. Um let's start by
identify the tasks that you want to get
accomplished that you haven't had time.
You've been stuck or you just don't
think you can get it done. Write those
down on a list and just start every
week, pick one.
Put it on your to-do list every day. Try
to move that forward. Do like 5 minutes,
10 minutes every day. And then at the
end of the week, assess how much you got
accomplished and see if that helped. If
it didn't help, then do you need to
pivot or do you need to change? But I
think we all need to get in the habit of
making sure that we are moving the dial
forward and not just spinning our wheels
and standing in place.
>> Oh, 100%. I I think that is I I actually
this is something I did um I guess I
started back back about a year and a
half ago, maybe a year ago now. Um I had
several projects that had been they
weren't really mothballled, they were
just shelved at the time and really were
not wasn't really touching or doing
anything with them. And I actually set
it up and there was like seven of them.
I there's seven things I was working on.
So every day of the week I had I would
do 15 minutes on something. That was it.
I was like and a lot of times it would
go to a half hour but my goal was I just
need to do 15 minutes a day and I was
cycling through these things. It was
different technologies, different apps,
different projects. That alone was
pretty cool cuz every day was something
new was or something different. So I was
constantly like changing a little bit
allowed me to have like a a fresh
perspective. Um, I don't necessarily
recommend it to everybody because
sometimes it was hard to remember where
was I on this thing a week ago. You've
got to make sure you're very good at
like tracking and and writing down where
was I at, what's my next thing to do,
making sure that before you wrap up, you
know where you want to start the next
time. Uh, but in doing so, I completed
the uh you can see there's some apps out
there on the developer site. There was
one came out of something that had been
in the back of my head for a long time
that I finally said, I'm just going to
go tackle that. uh the rewrite of of
developer site I think has been sitting
on my to-do list for three or four
years. Uh particularly the uh the
categorization of all of the the podcast
and and putting all those episodes into
seasons. So you got like one place you
could go and and see all of those to
some extent. Um and we'll add some more
stuff as we're going with that. But that
was a huge one. the rewrite of the RB
consulting site was was part of what has
come out of this these like 15 minute a
day things. Um, and some of the apps
that we've got are are pretty darn, you
know, if you can go try out the uh
shorty the link shortener app we got was
something I was just like actually that
came out of frustration cuz everybody
was raising their prices. I'm like we're
going to write our own and just be fine
with it. Um, and then also the um,
gosh, all the apps that we got. Oh, the
the the goals driven app was actually
something that I was used. It was like
it was one of those like, you know,
scratch your own itch. And I was like, I
want something that I can use to just
track for myself. And then I was like,
hey, why don't we do it as something
that's a social experiment of sort, sort
of like a kickst starter kind of
approach and we'll see where that app
goes. Um, but it was fun to get that
kind of stuff out. And it's again
there's like those balls move forward
and the next thing you know it's like
okay it's time to deploy something. Uh
and that's where you need to get whether
you can do it 15 minutes a day, 30
minutes a day, do it in an hour chunk on
a weekend, whatever it is, get that ball
moving forward and before you know it
you are like you know you've gotten
across a finish line.
>> Now I would say probably don't start
with seven if you're not comfortable
doing this. But pick I I would do no
more than two. Start with one. But if
you have a large list, like Rob, do no
more than two.
>> Keep it to no more than two. That way,
and maybe set a goal, like Rob said, 15
minutes a day. If you're sticking to one
or two, maybe do 30 minutes a day, 15
minutes in the morning, 15 minutes in
the evening, but still break it up. But
>> keep it keep your focus narrow. Stay
focused. Keep something moving forward.
If you do too many, you may not see
enough forward momentum and you might
quit. So again, keep your focus narrow.
>> Yeah, very much so. And that's what
we've got. Um, looking forward to the uh
the year ahead and the season ahead. Um,
and actually, funny enough, let's see.
So, this will put us Yeah. So, we'll
probably be almost halfway through the
year by the time we uh wrap up the
season. Um, and so we'll be looking to
see what we get into season 28 when we
get to that. But uh first things first,
let's get our forward momentum and step
into this next season. Uh really looking
forward to it. There are a lot of people
we have lined up that are going to be
really cool uh interviews. I am going to
throw some stuff out because I I've
failed to mention this before, but I
also am a podcast guest in a lot of
places and I've had some really fun cool
interviews, a lot of great questions and
some of those others. There will be
links out on the uh if you go to the
about us page on developer. I'm going to
end up throwing that in there so you can
see some of the other places that you
can see u you know your famous developer
host out there uh especially because
there are just some really interesting
conversations we had a lot of them
around uh productivity and AI tools and
some things like that that I think would
be very valuable to everybody. They've
definitely helped me. Uh it's just
having those conversations sort of kind
of stuff. It's like you just got to
learn how to ask the right question uh
have the right conversation and suddenly
things start to click in your head and
next thing you know you're like moving
ahead and that forward motion becomes
that much easier. That being said, we're
going to wrap this one up and before you
know it, we will be into the first
episode of season 27. God, this is just
crazy to me. Go out there and have
yourself a great day, a great week, and
we will talk to you next time.
Bonus I can't even find my mouse. Bonus
material. Um,
I'm not really like pumped about any
bonus material right now because we just
like covered some cool stuff and uh
we're going to just we'll save this uh
we're going to continue
there will be um sort of like in the
interviews we're going to continue the
bonus material being things like hey do
you have one thing that you would tell
your younger self or something along
those lines to give you like just one
extra golden nugget of knowledge because
you've sat here and watched us on the
the YouTube side. So please continue to
do that. Uh, subscribe, leave us
comments, leave us notes, uh, shoot us
suggestions, comments, feedback of any
sort because we would love to have it
because we're here to do this for you.
And, uh, we will be back before you know
it. For now, we're going to go do
something for us and go get some forward
moment momentum on all of our projects
and uh, then we'll come back and help
you with yours. Uh, remember those
challenges. That's a great idea. Uh, I
think, you know, pick something and
start doing it. Just 15 minutes a day.
This is a great time as we're starting a
year to pick up one of those kind of
habits and turn it into a habit of just
working that product, that project,
whatever it is every day. Have yourself
a great one and we will talk to you next
time.