Detailed Notes
What would happen if the skill you rely on most as a developer suddenly disappeared?
In this week’s Challenge Friday, we discuss a powerful developer career challenge inspired by our interview with Andrew Stevens. Instead of focusing only on coding skills, we explore how developers can think about problem solving, career growth, and adapting to changes in technology.
With AI tools becoming more capable and development practices evolving, it’s becoming increasingly important to think about the value you provide beyond a single technical skill.
This week’s challenge asks a simple but powerful question:
If your strongest skill disappeared tomorrow, what would you do next?
We also discuss: * The mindset shift from coding to problem solving * Lessons from fractional CTO roles * How AI is changing the developer workflow * Why developers should think about their secondary skills * How this exercise can help you rethink your career direction
Try the challenge yourself and see what new possibilities you uncover.
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Weekly Challenge
Identify your strongest professional skill.
Now imagine that skill disappears.
Ask yourself: * What would I do instead? * What other strengths do I have? * How could I still provide value?
This exercise can reveal opportunities you may not have considered before.
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Learn More
Building Better Developers Podcast Interviews with developers, founders, and tech leaders focused on growth, learning, and building better software careers.
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Connect With Us * [email protected] * https://develpreneur.com/ * https://www.youtube.com/@develpreneur * https://facebook.com/Develpreneur * https://x.com/develpreneur * https://www.linkedin.com/company/develpreneur/
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Chapters
0:00 Intro 0:40 What This Week’s Challenge Is About 2:05 Why Developers Should Think Beyond Coding 5:20 Lessons from the Fractional CTO Role 9:40 How AI Is Changing Development Work 14:30 The Weekly Developer Career Challenge 17:30 Why This Exercise Matters 20:00 Final Thoughts
#developers #softwaredevelopment #programming #developercareer #buildingbetterdevelopers
Transcript Text
there. We're recording. We'll go with that. Who are we talking about? >> Andrew Stevens. >> Andrew Stevens. All right. Uh, now I got to go dig up Andrew Stevens. Here we go. Um, yes. Now you people know that once we've hit like a hundred or more people that we have interviewed, sometimes you forget like who was that specific person. I got a great one the other day. I actually had something show up on LinkedIn. Um, Greg and now I just lost his name again was one of my favorite interviewees from like years ago. Uh he is the piano guy. Um darn it, I wish I could think his last name off the top of my head, but uh he is like cranking out some really cool stuff. So um we'll put that in the show notes or something like that at some point. I'll refer back to it and I will chase him down because it was a really good uh you guys should support him. Uh so let's see. We talked about entrepreneurship, multiple projects, got into AI. Yeah, he was the fractal CTO. >> Yep. So, yeah. So, this is one that we had a lot of very we had a lot of sympatic over there. Uh >> yeah, we had a lot of early disc like most of the interview was discussions around entrepreneurship getting you know getting started on your business working on your business uh juggling the project. I mean the we touched on AI a little bit towards the end like how to juggle AI uh to help streamline things but uh most of it was about his experience with and our conversations around our experiences around working on your business, growing your business, getting better with your business, things of that nature. >> Yeah. So cool. That'll work. So we will dive right in. Um, let's do We still have Someday we'll actually have like a real I don't know. We need like a little music bed. We need something like that to like really like, you know, turn this into a a more polished start. Uh, we'll get that to you guys at some point. We're just sort of like winging it right now because this is a, you know, a coolish thing. Um, but we will start. Uh, I will introduce myself. You guys know who I am, but I'm just going to do it again because that's who we are. This is in case this is your first challenge Friday. Uh first thing is go watch the previous two episodes uh here or jump out on the podcast if you want to and watch the previous two episodes. Uh this is actually not an episode on the podcast, but you'll find those. Uh this is where we are talking with Andrew Stevens. uh they will have been released um not sure exactly the dates but when this came they were released Tuesday and Thursday we are the developer podcast we're building better developers the whole purpose of this Friday thing that we're doing is just bring back a little bit um accountability and and to have a weekly challenge to summarize and give ourselves a little bit of time to talk about a little further some of the topics we hit during the discussions in the week uh but then also to make sure that there's There's a challenge for you guys to push you to become a better developer. A lot of this is the kind of stuff that we push for ourselves that we assign ourselves or that uh the speakers that we talk to, the guests have brought to mind. So, I think they're, you know, they're valid. They're definitely valuable and valid as a challenge and hopefully something that if you just do this even once a month, you pick one of these up, you will start seeing a very good progress forward uh in the momentum that you need. Uh I'm also the uh while being a founder of developer also a founder of RB consulting where we have a technology realology check we help you figure out before you jump into that project should you jump into that project and if so how should you because a lot of companies are just not ready for it we've talked about that a lot uh and we will continue to do so good thing and bad thing good thing is it's a Friday and it's sunny which I haven't seen a ton of sun in the last couple months so I'm pretty happy I mean it's okay it's partly cloudy it's not like sunny sunny, but it's the right level of sunny for me at this point because seeing any sun is a bonus. Um, bad thing, bad thing, bad thing, bad thing, bad thing. I'll go with like I started my day in the worst possible way. I'm a tea person. I had not gotten my first sip. I got my maybe my first sip done and I managed to accidentally knock over my tea and then thus had to redo it all and uh, you know, clean up the mess. But luckily, good news is I have a wife that was like jumping all over that and taking care of that for me. So, sometimes you just have a have to have a good keeper. I do have a a moderately good co-host. I'm going to let you go ahead introduce yourself, Michael. Hey everyone, my name is Michael Malach. I'm one of the co-founders of Building Better Developers, also known as Developer. I'm also the founder of Envision QA where we help businesses fix broken systems and replace the guest work with testing dependable solutions built around your business. Uh good thing bad thing uh well it is sunny here. Uh we are supposed to get 5 days of rain. So I will take that as a good thing right now that a it's going to be a nice wonderful day outside. Uh unfortunately with that in Tennessee weather the bad side of that is we're going to get rain for quite a few days uh after that. Uh, kind of similar to you though. I started my morning off kind of interesting. Um, not in a great way. Uh, dog woke me up at 3:30 this morning and never quite got back to bed after that. So, I'm feeling you. I'm started with coffee and uh, normally I don't start with coffee. I've been off coffee for a while. I've been drinking tea like Rob. But, no, I'm on coffee this morning cuz the dog got me up about 3 hours early. uh bonus to coffee that got me like switching a little bit more to that occasionally is uh Natalie went to Cancun recently and brought back some Mexican chocolate. A little chunk of that in your coffee really makes it like really good. So let's talk about Andrew. Um I think one of the big things here is the I I really want to spend a little time on the fractional CTO CIO kind of role because I think it is something that all of us should consider uh at some point and it really depends on whether you're more technical or whether you want to grow career-wise more personal. It is definitely a career step and we've talked to now a couple people and obviously I talk about you know I we talk to me from time to time as well people that have made this choice and I think from a developer if this is something that you want to move towards is it actually is a really good one if you don't want to be corporate if you don't want to be an employee because if you're going to be a CTO or CO you you have to run everything if you're a company you know if you're going to be part of an employee if you're going to be part of a then you have to actually there's a lot that is involved in that. There's a lot of really for lack of a better term drinking the Kool-Aid is like being a part of that organization. It's it's your organization essentially or you have to think of it that way or you're not going to do it right. In a fractional role it is similar because you're going to feel like these customers if you do it right you're going to feel like these customers are your people. They are your you know you are they're your children or however you want to look at it. They're your family. They're people that you want to succeed and what you're doing is you're saying I am not the best person forever to be a part of this but I do want to help you be successful and it is very much a like it is a constrained timeboxed kind of a role is to come in and say look let's talk about where you're at let's talk about where you want to go and let's figure out how we get you there obviously with a technology bent uh if you're a problem solver if that's part of what you like. If you're a an architect, um if you that's what you like, then it does give you those opportunities. Uh it's really more higherend problem solving than architecture unless you position yourself as somebody that is going to to implement as well. It is very easy to uh get pushed outside of the implementation space, which is sort of what Andrew talked about is that he went to a point um where he really decided that the the technical skills don't really matter. And honestly, I highly recommend a lot of you get to this point sooner rather than later because I think with AI coming that the technical skills are not going to matter as much. I'm sorry for all of us that have spent a lot of time learning how to code in dozens of different languages. Um, but that now and like I am somebody that's got that. I've got dozens, literally dozens of languages on my resume and that is totally useless at this point. Nobody cares because AI will get you there a lot faster. Okay, some people still care, but I think that's going to fade very quickly. So, you need to be switching more into understanding business, understanding the why, understanding problem solving. And this honestly will push, I think, a lot more people to be the equivalent of a fractional CIO or CTO sooner rather than later. And honestly, that's even what AI should do and how you should be looking at it is it is now your development team. So if you're not a a leader or manager, you now are leading and managing and you should be using it in such a way and then you should be able to grow that and then you should be pushing yourself instead of doing the things like writing code, doing the things like solving problems, architecting solutions that now are, you know, going to be the next level up because AI can do some of it, but it really more can help you than actually do it. I'm going to take a breath because that's a lot right there. I'm going to get off my soap box and I'm going to give open it up to you. What are your thoughts on this on Andrew and then obviously feedback on anything I said. So you've already covered really well with the C CTO portion of this uh which is was really an interesting conversation with him cuz you and I have talked about this before and you know I like to be more down in into the code solving problems doing things of that nature and the problem and even I still run into this today running my business is we can run we can stumble trying to figure out how to run the business cuz we we focus on certain areas in our business. And he even talked about it uh Andrew talked about it in our discussion where it's like I would rather be working on this than this. So I'll focus my time on this but then the other parts of your business uh struggle because you're not working on them as well. So he offered some interesting suggestions around um planning, you know, trying to prioritize your week. We have always talked about sprints, you know, we we talk about agile all the time. He touched on that. Um also, he also, it was interesting, he deliberately schedules himself at 60 to 80% of capacity. He doesn't always do 100% capacity, which I thought was an interesting concept because we've always talked about, okay, trying to plan how long a project will take. We've never actually talked about like how much time should we actually give ourselves in a day to a problem. Yeah, we may say, "Okay, this will take all day or we'll work on this problem today because we think we'll solve it today." But chances are you may not solve it today. We have to have that mindset where um well, we think it may take two hours. We still have to tack on the technical debt, so to speak, to that task to figure out how long it'll take. So, if we just think, oh, I have 2 hours. I can jump on and get this done. You're going to get frustrated or things aren't going to quite get done. You're going to run into scheduling conflicts and just kind of fall off the track. So, those were some of the takeaways I had from this. The other thing with the discussion that we got into later on uh in the interview was we started talking about using AI uh where he talked about he uses it to analyze debug his code he uses it to write code but it was interesting that he called out that he doesn't use AI generated code in production that that was a rather um interesting comment he made because a lot of people are vibe coding right now a lot of people are using AI to help them right code and a lot of that code is good code. It is production quality code but you still have to go through and check the code. Now I wouldn't say just take at first glance, you know, have it generated the code and publish to to production. No, but you still need to go through your daily uh agile routines of code reviews. You need to go through and test your software. If it still tests, it still works, it still looks good, it should still be able to go to production. just don't take it at face value. Make sure you do your due diligence and check on your code. What are your thoughts? >> Um, I agree 100% with that is that and I actually was just in a a round table last night and I wish I could think of the name of the company that uh this guy CEO um Ragic is the name of it. Um, and it's Jeff Co. Um, was just talking about this because they do no code tools. they've been doing this for a while and he specifically talked about um using the AI not only to gen to it's to solve the problem but it's also making sure that you're putting like tests in place that you're really spending the time in the design phase so that when you go to implementation which is when you have AI generate stuff you've thought through the problems and I think it does allow us and I use this a lot to test what we've done. So I will constantly say give me unit tests with it and I will tell it like what are cases what are edge cases what are some things where this will break what is a typical user there's there's all this extra stuff that you can put on top of it questions and and constraints to help you make sure that it comes out in a decent way and then you you run it you test it you don't just like kick it off into production you actually run it through its normal processes it goes back to what I said it's like now you should be a manager or a leader and you can use AI like that cuz AI is not going to mess up really any more than your average, you know, junior or mid-level developer, you're still going to have the same things. And honestly, my developers, I have some of the same conversations with them that I have with AI when I get code back when I be like, "Hey, you didn't check this or hey, this doesn't cover this case or hey, this this problem was misunderstood. This is not the right solution to it. We need to shift, you know, shift gears on it." So I think there is a there's definitely a value for uh with it. I think it is going to be better as we get further along. AI is just rapidly rapidly advancing and I think that's going to be one of those things where it's yeah right now maybe people don't do it and a lot of pe I think it's the right thing for to say is like I don't trust AI enough but we need to we need to use it for what it's worth is that it can generate stuff that can help us quite a bit. We just have to make sure that we're building the guard rails around it. >> You know, it's interesting that you mentioned that because oddly enough, last night I was taking a project I was working on and I had um completed a section of code and what I did was I fed it into AI. I said, "Write me some markdown requirements based off of this documentation." So, I fed it my requirements docs and I fed it my tickets and it came back and it built me the uh SRS, the software requirements uh document. It built me the um requirements traceability matrix. It took all my tickets and put them where they needed to be. It actually went through and then um looked at what the requirements were, looked at what I had actually completed, what tests were actually defined, and then it even went through and said, "Here are some possible gaps you might have missed >> uh based on that." And then it said, "Hey, do you want me to um do another run through of your code and check to make sure, you know, apply the test and everything?" And it did. And within about 15 20 minutes, I found I had four gaps. Within another 10 minutes, I had those gaps filled. I had all the tests covering everything. And I had a nice clean document that I could show my customer and say, "Hey, here is a summary of what works been done, what's been tested in a clean business document that anyone should be able to read that's not technical." And it it had just enough technical uh pieces in there though for, you know, the developers and that to be able to go in and go, "Oh, yeah, this is what I missed." Oh, this is what we fixed or what was done with this particular piece of code. So, if you're not using AI yet for this, start doing it today. And we talked prior uh I think maybe it was the last challenge, but I've started using uh running my own chat bots u my GPTs and and what I've been doing is I've been dropping it into different um AI like uh cloud AI GPT um co-pilot and I'm actually having each AI play with the uh chatbot that I put in there, the prompts and each one comes back and and they're tweaking it slightly differently, but I've got it now to a point where most of my prompts I can drop into any AI and I get almost the same style of results that I'm expecting. U but it's based on that language model. So I might get a more you know document detailed version from cloud AI. If I use um what is it? Codeex within uh G G G G G G G G G G G G G G G G G G G G GPT uh I get a more code quality uh check and it just depends on the tool. But it's interesting that the more I play with prompts, the more I play with GPTs, the better AI experience I'm actually getting versus just dealing with the typical uh chatbot interface. >> Oh, definitely. The more you use it, it because it learns uh the more you you work with it, the better it's going to be. We have done this um I have this in multiple areas. Uh a great a great example is we're doing this with travel related stuff and it now like um will recommend things very much based on this long list of stuff that we've said this is what we like this is what we don't like. This is what we're looking for. These are parameters. The more you build that in the better it's going to be. And you can use that and I have used that several times or I've even said like synopsize it like take this conversation and turn it into a list of requirements essentially a prompt that I can use somewhere else and I can just take it and drop it somewhere else. I will have yeah I will use AI engines to compete with each other and I'll say okay this guy generated this and I'll go to the other one and say okay well where are the gaps and how would you improve it and and there is slightly different it is it's like having a board it is like having or having multiple developers that you're working with where they have different mindsets and different strengths and um and using those and I haven't pushed it quite as much as I'm about to in like another phase is kicking it up another gear um but it is something that the more you do, the more you buy in, the more value you're going to get out of it. If you just occasionally throw a couple things at it, it's not going to get much. But if you start using it on a regular basis, then it's going to actually help you out. Uh particularly with things like requirements and stuff like that is in designs where you're it will start, I think, highlighting where you have gaps in your own knowledge and and your skills and things like that because it'll be like, oh yeah, you forgot to do this or it will start, you know, knowing it'll know who you are. And it's like I get that all the time where I'm like okay this is don't give me this you know don't give me in this way give it to me in my style or my corporate style or all these different you know things that I there's keywords I can tell it basically and it says oh I've got to load you know this context up and then boom suddenly things change a lot but it's it's it's formatting and it's stuff like that. So there's a lot of value to it. I think um he did he hit on a lot of key things is that it's it's definitely at a point where we can use it for debugging, we can do it for logging, we can do it for testing, we can do it for the things that are the standards that we talk about all the time that people forget in applications. We can tell it to throw those things like give me a a database that's a you know basic customer database and give me a login and give me a screen and give me all of these things and you can honestly I've even used it with several cases where it's like that generate the requirements and then I start walking through the requirements like okay so where are we at what do we have left what should we do here um I've spent I have had a really interesting time learning how to write grants working with AI and walking through stuff and say Okay, well, how do we do this? What? And it'll say, well, you should do A, B, and C. And I'll be like, okay, so tell me how I do A. How should that look? What should we do? And then it's a it is a great learning tool as well. Uh, that's why I've recommended quite like everybody I recommend build your own chatbot. Use AI to build your own chatbot to connect to that AI to have something that's a separate little, you know, bot of some sort because you're going to learn a lot about it. uh learn about the context and the prompts and how you send conversations back and forth and some of those pieces that are just like they're not that complicated. Um but I think it'll help your career immensely. Way off track on this. Um I got a little bit sidetracked on all this. We digress maybe just a little bit. Um, I did want to say is that it's what we came back around to with Andrew is I think goes back to something we we have hit on many many times is that it really comes to solving problems. If you're not if you're focused on technology, then you're you're not focused in the right place to to really advance your career early on. first couple years of your career as a developer in particular, I think it's um it's still useful to have the the core knowledge to understand like structures and classes and inheritance and vectors and databases and just the things the theory behind this stuff. But then once you've got that, you need to be focused on applying it. How do I use okay, I've got this great knowledge. How do I use that to solve this problem? So when you're talking to a customer, when you want to grow your career, when you're talking in an interview, what problem do you want to solve? Because that's like that question is going to be the key one. It's like once we've got that, okay, this is a problem you want to solve. Well, let's dig deeper into that. Let's start digging into that. Like, is that really a problem? How is that a problem? What are some good solutions? What are some constraints? Why hasn't that problem been solved before? There's all these questions that you can ask >> that will really advance you uh down that process. And honestly, the cheat code is if you don't understand it, then go to AI and work with it is say, "Okay, this is what I did." Um, how can I do it better? I literally took a conversation yesterday, which was was a really fun little test of AI is I connected to somebody, had a conversation, had the whole thing recorded. So, I dropped the entire transcript in and I said, "Okay, this is what we decided I was going to do in this conversation. this is how it went. Assess it. Tell me what I did right. What did I do wrong? How do I progress proceed from here? What is your recommendations? It is literally having a coach or a consultant on your shoulder for any process that you want to do. And it like once you embrace that, then it becomes like where do you want to go? How do you get better? Um if you you can even ask AI, how do I get better? And it will give you options. You just got to make sure that you're This is where you're going to have to learn that you've got to ask the right questions. You really can't just assume that you know the problem unless you do. And so you need to get digger dig deeper into that. And even then ask on a regular basis. What am I not asking? Why? Like that was I think that was one of the best questions I asked AI last year. I said like what's the craziest thing I've asked you? And then I was like what was the smartest thing I asked you? And then I asked it, "What is the thing I should have asked you?" And got a really interesting set of responses back that actually have launched me into some of what I'm doing this year. I'm really sitting way too much time on my soap box right now. So, let's get back to that. So, >> let me just chime in one thing there on that um before we get to the challenge. So, it really does all come back to the why. You know, why are you doing this? But the other thing is make sure that you're solving the right problem. Make sure that the you know technology is great when it's solving real problems but also when it's solving the right problem not what you think is what you know you don't want to be the baby stroller uh inventor and never had a baby. You you want to make sure that what problem you're solving you understand it. You understand your customer and that you really do understand the problem. And AI is great for that, but it is also bad to give you false solutions or a solution that isn't really for your problem. So, do make sure that you ask a lot of questions, you vet the answers, and then enjoy your journey. >> So, what do you think? What is a what do you what are your thoughts on a challenge? >> So, this one I we've talked AI before. We talked a whole lot about chat bots uh and prompts in this one, but I like I kind of want to go back to your beginning when you talked about the CTO um becoming a a fractal CTO. Maybe not necessarily a fractal CTO, but I think our challenge would be where do you want to go? How do you want to grow? And use AI to kickstart that conversation. Start figuring out some prompts. talk to AI and figure out here's where I'm at, here's where I want to be, or here's where I'm at, where can I go? Cuz maybe you're still too new uh in this particular field and with AI, with everything going on right now, you really don't know what to do. Get some ideas. Use it as a launching board to get you to that next level. >> I really like that. I think I'm going to I'll adjust it a little bit um just to make it less like relying on AI. But I think the the challenge this week is to think of your this be an interesting one because for developers it's one way but if you're an entrepreneur it's going to be a little different but basically think of your primary current skill set. What is your primary current current like thing that you have to offer your customers? um you know your your boss, your employer and stuff like that. If you're a developer, it's going to be your technical skills. Uh if you're an entrepreneur, it is probably going to be something else like maybe your maybe it's your sales skills, it's your vision skills, it's your marketing skills or something like that. What happens like wipe that out. So take away your strength and let's go to whatever your secondary thing is or like what do you do then? What is your secondary? What is your fallback position? Because I think this is a very interesting uh exercise to have. It's like okay so if that goes away how do I make money? How do I survive? How do my how do I how am I employable? How do I keep my customers coming to me if I take away that number one strength? Now it may be that you have a business that you're built entirely on like that's it like you know as Apple's was with um with Steve Jobs it was really it was like simplicity. It was a beauty of simplicity. That's what the whole iPod in that launch came from. But I think it's something that's worth spending a little time on. It's like, okay, if this thing that I bank on goes away, where do I go next? And feel free to use AI, talk to your friends, your family, your, you know, whoever, your co-workers. Have this conversation because I think it's a really informative one to have is if you take because it's basically saying, take the assumptions that you currently have, wipe them clean, ignore them, and let's reset with a whole different set of assumptions and see what happens. I think you will find uh you might find epiphany on the other side of that. I I have done this on a couple of occasions doing these kinds of things, these sorts of exercises and I've always found them to be um very enlightening but also very motivating. And so hopefully it'll be the same way with you where you're like, "Oh my gosh, I've It's like It's like found money. It's like you find all this money, a pile of money that you're sitting there and you're like, "Gosh, I've got all this money now. I've I've got all these cool things I can do with it." It's sort of like that to me is it's like that's where hopefully it's a motivational and a kickstarter. Uh especially now in a season of like getting unstuck and forward momentum and stuff like that is giving you an opportunity. This is a tool I think to to really like kick stuck right in the butt and say, "Okay, I'm going to like all the things I'm doing. I'm going to stop and I'm going to try a paradigm shift and let's see what happens." Or actually, I guess it's a complete paradigm change and let's see where I go with that. If you can do that and have something where you're like, "Oh my gosh, here's a whole second career, um, you're very blessed and I think you've got a lot you do." If you can't, then it's like, let's work towards that because you're let's get some more self insight and things of that nature. Thoughts on that is our like modified challenge. I really like that. And it's similar to things we've heard, you know, getting unstuck, you know, um especially for when you're dealing with seasons where you're blocked or where your anxiety is too high. This I I use this kind of of a challenge uh all the time to help reset, to help get me refocused, to help get things going. And for a lot of people, if you haven't done this, this is one of the best challenges to start doing because you can modify it for other things in your life and it will help get you unstuck. It will help you get back to that forward momentum, that forward thinking. >> I agree. Yeah, this is way beyond this is anywhere in your life. If you are getting stuck, a lot of times it's due to assumptions of based on whatever anxiety, fear, imposttor syndrome, you name it. um get rid of those assumptions and it is amazing how much you free yourself from your your mental prison. I will go back to Loser think from the now, you know, uh past Scott Adams. Um there's a lot of stuff in there. It is not a light book, but there's a lot of stuff there where he talks about mental prisons and being uh basically a slave to your assumptions and things like that. And I think it's something that um all of us can do a better job of of getting away from those. So cool. I think we have a really good challenge. Uh and it's a good like it really is something you can do this week, you can do this weekend is just like spend a little time. Uh get a notebook or something like that, you know, however you take notes. Uh do that is like get something like that and just sort of like sit back and take some notes. If you've got if you want to use AI, grab a you know, set up a folder and have a conversation with your your favorite AI bot. Um I talk to Chip all the time as I call chat GPT. um about this and Chip's varying cousins. Um I think it's just like yeah, this is a really cool one. I would love to hear back from you. Uh [email protected] as you know. Uh or robbs.com. I don't care how you get back to us. Uh shoot an email because I would love to hear where you go from that. Um if you would like a conversation again, [email protected], leave us comments, stuff like that. we would be more than happy to to have a little, you know, Zoom conversation or whatever with about you and and be that sounding board because these these are things that make me uh give me joy. I love having conversations with customers and and those that I work with when it's like, okay, we're freeing you from some of your preconceived notions and now we can actually help you be the best version of you that you can be. >> And if you didn't catch that, all that's in the show notes. This is being that's why he was like that's why he was as they say tap dancing away on his keyboard taking those notes. Um go out there and have yourself a really good one. Enjoy your weekend. Uh we do appreciate you so much. We appreciate you guys hanging out and gals and and all that you bring that just being there. Uh giving us a reason to come back to this every week giving our all of our guests um they've had a great time. So feel free also make sure you're wherever you have like all of our guests have been so nice. Um if you have questions for them shoot them an email they you know they they give us links and way to contact them. Don't be afraid to do that. Um I think you will find that will open doors uh mentally and then also career professionally as well. So take advantage of these things. Parting thoughts from you before we wrap this one up. I guess the last parting thought is it's the end of the week. Set your challenge, go enjoy your weekend, and hit the ground running on Monday. >> That is the best way to do it. So, as always, have a great day, a great week, a great weekend, and we will talk to you. >> Yeah, we will talk to you the next episode, next Tuesday. See, now we sort of know where we're at. So, we will talk to you Tuesday. We'll be back with an interview and we'll see you again next week. Have a good one. Thanks a lot, folks.
Transcript Segments
there. We're recording. We'll go with
that. Who are we talking about?
>> Andrew Stevens.
>> Andrew Stevens. All right.
Uh, now I got to go dig up
Andrew Stevens. Here we go. Um,
yes. Now you people know that once we've
hit like a hundred or more people that
we have interviewed, sometimes you
forget like who was that specific
person. I got a great one the other day.
I actually had something show up on
LinkedIn. Um, Greg and now I just lost
his name again was one of my favorite
interviewees from like years ago. Uh he
is the piano guy.
Um darn it, I wish I could think his
last name off the top of my head, but uh
he is like cranking out some really cool
stuff. So um we'll put that in the show
notes or something like that at some
point. I'll refer back to it and I will
chase him down because it was a really
good uh you guys should support him. Uh
so let's see. We talked about
entrepreneurship,
multiple projects,
got into AI.
Yeah, he was the fractal CTO.
>> Yep. So, yeah. So, this is one that we
had a lot of very we had a lot of
sympatic over there.
Uh
>> yeah, we had a lot of early disc like
most of the interview was discussions
around entrepreneurship getting you know
getting started on your business working
on your business uh juggling the
project. I mean the we touched on AI a
little bit towards the end like how to
juggle AI uh to help streamline things
but uh most of it was about his
experience with
and our conversations around our
experiences around
working on your business, growing your
business, getting better with your
business, things of that nature.
>> Yeah. So cool.
That'll work. So we will dive right in.
Um,
let's do We still have Someday we'll
actually have like a real I don't know.
We need like a little music bed. We need
something like that to like really like,
you know, turn this into a a more
polished start. Uh, we'll get that to
you guys at some point. We're just sort
of like winging it right now because
this is a, you know, a coolish thing.
Um, but we will start. Uh, I will
introduce myself. You guys know who I
am, but I'm just going to do it again
because that's who we are. This is in
case this is your first challenge
Friday. Uh first thing is go watch the
previous two episodes uh here or jump
out on the podcast if you want to and
watch the previous two episodes. Uh this
is actually not an episode on the
podcast, but you'll find those. Uh this
is where we are talking with Andrew
Stevens. uh they will have been released
um not sure exactly the dates but when
this came they were released Tuesday and
Thursday
we are the developer podcast we're
building better developers the whole
purpose of this Friday thing that we're
doing is just bring back a little bit um
accountability and and to have a weekly
challenge to summarize and give
ourselves a little bit of time to talk
about a little further some of the
topics we hit during the discussions in
the week uh but then also to make sure
that there's There's a challenge for you
guys to push you to become a better
developer. A lot of this is the kind of
stuff that we push for ourselves that we
assign ourselves or that uh the speakers
that we talk to, the guests have brought
to mind. So, I think they're, you know,
they're valid. They're definitely
valuable and valid as a challenge and
hopefully something that if you just do
this even once a month, you pick one of
these up, you will start seeing a very
good progress forward uh in the momentum
that you need. Uh I'm also the uh while
being a founder of developer also a
founder of RB consulting where we have a
technology realology check we help you
figure out before you jump into that
project should you jump into that
project and if so how should you because
a lot of companies are just not ready
for it we've talked about that a lot uh
and we will continue to do so good thing
and bad thing good thing is it's a
Friday and it's sunny which I haven't
seen a ton of sun in the last couple
months so I'm pretty happy I mean it's
okay it's partly cloudy it's not like
sunny sunny, but it's the right level of
sunny for me at this point because
seeing any sun is a bonus. Um,
bad thing, bad thing, bad thing, bad
thing, bad thing. I'll go with like I
started my day in the worst possible
way. I'm a tea person. I had not gotten
my first sip. I got my maybe my first
sip done and I managed to accidentally
knock over my tea and then thus had to
redo it all and uh, you know, clean up
the mess. But luckily, good news is I
have a wife that was like jumping all
over that and taking care of that for
me. So, sometimes you just have a have
to have a good keeper.
I do have a a moderately good co-host.
I'm going to let you go ahead introduce
yourself, Michael.
Hey everyone, my name is Michael Malach.
I'm one of the co-founders of Building
Better Developers, also known as
Developer. I'm also the founder of
Envision QA where we help businesses fix
broken systems and replace the guest
work with testing dependable solutions
built around your business. Uh good
thing bad thing uh well it is sunny
here. Uh we are supposed to get 5 days
of rain. So I will take that as a good
thing right now that a it's going to be
a nice wonderful day outside. Uh
unfortunately with that in Tennessee
weather the bad side of that is we're
going to get rain for quite a few days
uh after that. Uh, kind of similar to
you though. I started my morning off
kind of interesting. Um, not in a great
way. Uh, dog woke me up at 3:30 this
morning and never quite got back to bed
after that. So, I'm feeling you. I'm
started with coffee and uh, normally I
don't start with coffee. I've been off
coffee for a while. I've been drinking
tea like Rob. But, no, I'm on coffee
this morning cuz the dog got me up about
3 hours early.
uh bonus to coffee that got me like
switching a little bit more to that
occasionally is uh Natalie went to
Cancun recently and brought back some
Mexican chocolate. A little chunk of
that in your coffee really makes it like
really good. So let's talk about Andrew.
Um
I think one of the big things here is
the I I really want to spend a little
time on the fractional CTO CIO kind of
role because I think it is something
that all of us should consider uh at
some point and it really depends on
whether you're more technical or whether
you want to grow career-wise more
personal. It is definitely a career step
and we've talked to now a couple people
and obviously I talk about you know I we
talk to me from time to time as well
people that have made this choice and I
think from a developer if this is
something that you want to move towards
is it actually is a really good one if
you don't want to be corporate if you
don't want to be an employee because if
you're going to be a CTO or CO you you
have to run everything if you're a
company you know if you're going to be
part of an employee if you're going to
be part of a then you have to actually
there's a lot that is involved in that.
There's a lot of really for lack of a
better term drinking the Kool-Aid is
like being a part of that organization.
It's it's your organization essentially
or you have to think of it that way or
you're not going to do it right. In a
fractional role it is similar because
you're going to feel like these
customers if you do it right you're
going to feel like these customers are
your people. They are your you know you
are they're your children or however you
want to look at it. They're your family.
They're people that you want to succeed
and what you're doing is you're saying I
am not the best person forever to be a
part of this
but I do want to help you be successful
and it is very much a like it is a
constrained timeboxed kind of a role is
to come in and say look let's talk about
where you're at let's talk about where
you want to go and let's figure out how
we get you there obviously with a
technology bent uh if you're a problem
solver if that's part of what you like.
If you're a an architect, um if you
that's what you like, then it does give
you those opportunities. Uh it's really
more higherend problem solving than
architecture unless you position
yourself as somebody that is going to to
implement as well. It is very easy to uh
get pushed outside of the implementation
space, which is sort of what Andrew
talked about is that he went to a point
um where he really decided that the the
technical skills don't really matter.
And honestly, I highly recommend a lot
of you get to this point sooner rather
than later because I think with AI
coming that the technical skills are not
going to matter as much. I'm sorry for
all of us that have spent a lot of time
learning how to code in dozens of
different languages. Um, but that now
and like I am somebody that's got that.
I've got dozens, literally dozens of
languages on my resume and that is
totally useless at this point. Nobody
cares because AI will get you there a
lot faster. Okay, some people still
care, but I think that's going to fade
very quickly. So, you need to be
switching more into understanding
business, understanding the why,
understanding problem solving.
And this honestly will push, I think, a
lot more people to be the equivalent of
a fractional CIO or CTO sooner rather
than later. And honestly, that's even
what AI should do and how you should be
looking at it is it is now your
development team. So if you're not a a
leader or manager, you now are leading
and managing and you should be using it
in such a way and then you should be
able to grow that and then you should be
pushing yourself instead of doing the
things like writing code, doing the
things like solving problems,
architecting solutions that now are, you
know, going to be the next level up
because AI can do some of it, but it
really more can help you than actually
do it. I'm going to take a breath
because that's a lot right there. I'm
going to get off my soap box and I'm
going to give open it up to you. What
are your thoughts on this on Andrew and
then obviously feedback on anything I
said. So you've already covered really
well with the C CTO portion of this uh
which is was really an interesting
conversation with him cuz you and I have
talked about this before and you know I
like to be more down in into the code
solving problems doing things of that
nature and the problem and even I still
run into this today running my business
is we can run we can stumble
trying to figure out how to run the
business cuz we we focus on certain
areas in our business. And he even
talked about it uh Andrew talked about
it in our discussion where it's like I
would rather be working on this than
this. So I'll focus my time on this but
then the other parts of your business uh
struggle because you're not working on
them as well. So
he offered some interesting suggestions
around um planning, you know, trying to
prioritize your week. We have always
talked about sprints, you know, we we
talk about agile all the time. He
touched on that. Um also, he also, it
was interesting, he deliberately
schedules himself at 60 to 80% of
capacity. He doesn't always do 100%
capacity, which I thought was an
interesting concept because we've always
talked about, okay, trying to plan how
long a project will take. We've never
actually talked about like how much time
should we actually give ourselves in a
day to a problem. Yeah, we may say,
"Okay, this will take all day or we'll
work on this problem today because we
think we'll solve it today." But chances
are you may not solve it today. We have
to have that mindset where um well, we
think it may take two hours. We still
have to tack on the technical debt, so
to speak, to that task to figure out how
long it'll take. So, if we just think,
oh, I have 2 hours. I can jump on and
get this done. You're going to get
frustrated or things aren't going to
quite get done. You're going to run into
scheduling conflicts and just kind of
fall off the track. So, those were some
of the takeaways I had from this. The
other thing with the discussion that we
got into later on uh in the interview
was we started talking about using AI uh
where he talked about he uses it to
analyze debug his code he uses it to
write code but it was interesting that
he called out that he doesn't use AI
generated code in production that that
was a rather um interesting comment he
made because a lot of people are vibe
coding right now a lot of people are
using AI to help them right code and a
lot of that code is good code. It is
production quality code but you still
have to go through and check the code.
Now I wouldn't say just take at first
glance, you know, have it generated the
code and publish to to production. No,
but you still need to go through your
daily uh agile routines of code reviews.
You need to go through and test your
software. If it still tests, it still
works, it still looks good, it should
still be able to go to production. just
don't take it at face value. Make sure
you do your due diligence and check on
your code. What are your thoughts?
>> Um, I agree 100% with that is that and I
actually was just in a a round table
last night and I wish I could think of
the name of the company that uh this guy
CEO um
Ragic is the name of it. Um, and it's
Jeff Co. Um, was just talking about this
because they do no code tools. they've
been doing this for a while and he
specifically talked about um using the
AI not only to gen to it's to solve the
problem but it's also making sure that
you're putting like tests in place that
you're really spending the time in the
design phase so that when you go to
implementation which is when you have AI
generate stuff you've thought through
the problems and I think it does allow
us and I use this a lot to test what
we've done. So I will constantly say
give me unit tests with it and I will
tell it like what are cases what are
edge cases what are some things where
this will break what is a typical user
there's there's all this extra stuff
that you can put on top of it questions
and and constraints to help you make
sure that it comes out in a decent way
and then you you run it you test it you
don't just like kick it off into
production you actually run it through
its normal processes it goes back to
what I said it's like now you should be
a manager or a leader and you can use AI
like that cuz AI is not going to mess up
really any more than your average, you
know, junior or mid-level developer,
you're still going to have the same
things. And honestly, my developers, I
have some of the same conversations with
them that I have with AI when I get code
back when I be like, "Hey, you didn't
check this or hey, this doesn't cover
this case or hey, this this problem was
misunderstood. This is not the right
solution to it. We need to shift, you
know, shift gears on it." So I think
there is a there's definitely a value
for uh with it. I think it is going to
be better as we get further along. AI is
just rapidly rapidly advancing and I
think that's going to be one of those
things where it's yeah right now maybe
people don't do it and a lot of pe I
think it's the right thing for to say is
like I don't trust AI enough but we need
to we need to use it for what it's worth
is that it can generate stuff that can
help us quite a bit. We just have to
make sure that we're building the guard
rails around it.
>> You know, it's interesting that you
mentioned that because
oddly enough, last night I was taking a
project I was working on and I had um
completed a section of code and what I
did was I fed it into AI. I said, "Write
me some markdown requirements based off
of this documentation." So, I fed it my
requirements docs and I fed it my
tickets and it came back and it built me
the uh SRS, the software requirements uh
document. It built me the um
requirements traceability matrix. It
took all my tickets and put them where
they needed to be. It actually went
through and then um looked at what the
requirements were, looked at what I had
actually completed, what tests were
actually defined, and then it even went
through and said, "Here are some
possible gaps you might have missed
>> uh based on that." And then it said,
"Hey, do you want me to um do another
run through of your code and check to
make sure, you know, apply the test and
everything?" And it did. And within
about 15 20 minutes, I found I had four
gaps. Within another 10 minutes, I had
those gaps filled. I had all the tests
covering everything. And I had a nice
clean document that I could show my
customer and say, "Hey, here is a
summary of what works been done, what's
been tested in a clean business
document that
anyone should be able to read that's not
technical." And it it had just enough
technical uh pieces in there though for,
you know, the developers and that to be
able to go in and go, "Oh, yeah, this is
what I missed." Oh, this is what we
fixed or what was done with this
particular piece of code. So, if you're
not using
AI yet for this, start doing it today.
And we talked prior uh I think maybe it
was the last challenge, but I've started
using uh running my own chat bots u my
GPTs and and what I've been doing is
I've been dropping it into different um
AI like uh cloud AI GPT um co-pilot and
I'm actually having each AI play with
the uh chatbot that I put in there, the
prompts and each one comes back and and
they're tweaking it slightly
differently, but I've got it now to a
point where most of my prompts I can
drop into any AI and I get almost the
same style of results that I'm
expecting. U but it's based on that
language model. So I might get a more
you know document detailed version from
cloud AI. If I use um what is it? Codeex
within uh G G G G G G G G G G G G G G G
G G G G G GPT uh I get a more code
quality uh check and it just depends on
the tool. But it's interesting that the
more I play with prompts, the more I
play with GPTs, the better AI experience
I'm actually getting versus just dealing
with the typical uh chatbot interface.
>> Oh, definitely. The more you use it, it
because it learns uh the more you you
work with it, the better it's going to
be. We have done this um I have this in
multiple areas. Uh a great a great
example is we're doing this with travel
related stuff and it now like um will
recommend things very much based on this
long list of stuff that we've said this
is what we like this is what we don't
like. This is what we're looking for.
These are parameters. The more you build
that in the better it's going to be. And
you can use that and I have used that
several times or I've even said like
synopsize it like take this conversation
and turn it into a list of requirements
essentially a prompt that I can use
somewhere else and I can just take it
and drop it somewhere else. I will have
yeah I will use AI engines to compete
with each other and I'll say okay this
guy generated this and I'll go to the
other one and say okay well where are
the gaps and how would you improve it
and and there is slightly different it
is it's like having a board it is like
having or having multiple developers
that you're working with where they have
different mindsets and different
strengths and um and using those and I
haven't pushed it quite as much as I'm
about to in like another phase is
kicking it up another gear um but it is
something that the more you do, the more
you buy in, the more value you're going
to get out of it. If you just
occasionally throw a couple things at
it, it's not going to get much. But if
you start using it on a regular basis,
then it's going to actually help you
out. Uh particularly with things like
requirements and stuff like that is in
designs where you're it will start, I
think, highlighting where you have gaps
in your own knowledge and and your
skills and things like that because
it'll be like, oh yeah, you forgot to do
this or it will start, you know, knowing
it'll know who you are. And it's like I
get that all the time where I'm like
okay this is don't give me this you know
don't give me in this way give it to me
in my style or my corporate style or all
these different you know things that I
there's keywords I can tell it basically
and it says oh I've got to load you know
this context up and then boom suddenly
things change a lot but it's it's it's
formatting and it's stuff like that. So
there's a lot of value to it. I think
um he did he hit on a lot of key things
is that it's it's definitely at a point
where we can use it for debugging, we
can do it for logging, we can do it for
testing, we can do it for the things
that are the standards that we talk
about all the time that people forget in
applications. We can tell it to throw
those things like give me a a database
that's a you know basic customer
database and give me a login and give me
a screen and give me all of these things
and you can honestly I've even used it
with several cases where it's like that
generate the requirements and then I
start walking through the requirements
like okay so where are we at what do we
have left what should we do here um I've
spent I have had a really interesting
time learning how to write grants
working with AI and walking through
stuff and say Okay, well, how do we do
this? What? And it'll say, well, you
should do A, B, and C. And I'll be like,
okay, so tell me how I do A. How should
that look? What should we do? And then
it's a it is a great learning tool as
well. Uh, that's why I've recommended
quite like everybody I recommend build
your own chatbot. Use AI to build your
own chatbot to connect to that AI to
have something that's a separate little,
you know, bot of some sort because
you're going to learn a lot about it. uh
learn about the context and the prompts
and how you send conversations back and
forth and some of those pieces that are
just like they're not that complicated.
Um but I think it'll help your career
immensely.
Way off track on this. Um I got a little
bit sidetracked on all this. We digress
maybe just a little bit. Um,
I did want to say is that it's
what we came back around to with Andrew
is I think goes back to something we we
have hit on many many times is that it
really comes to solving problems. If
you're not if you're focused on
technology, then you're you're not
focused in the right place to to really
advance your career early on. first
couple years of your career as a
developer in particular, I think it's um
it's still useful to have the the core
knowledge to understand like structures
and classes and inheritance and vectors
and databases and just the things the
theory behind this stuff. But then once
you've got that,
you need to be focused on applying it.
How do I use okay, I've got this great
knowledge. How do I use that to solve
this problem? So when you're talking to
a customer, when you want to grow your
career, when you're talking in an
interview, what problem do you want to
solve? Because that's like that question
is going to be the key one. It's like
once we've got that, okay, this is a
problem you want to solve. Well, let's
dig deeper into that. Let's start
digging into that. Like, is that really
a problem? How is that a problem? What
are some good solutions? What are some
constraints? Why hasn't that problem
been solved before? There's all these
questions that you can ask
>> that will really advance you uh down
that process. And honestly,
the cheat code is if you don't
understand it, then go to AI and work
with it is say, "Okay, this is what I
did." Um, how can I do it better? I
literally took a conversation yesterday,
which was was a really fun little test
of AI is I
connected to somebody, had a
conversation, had the whole thing
recorded. So, I dropped the entire
transcript in and I said, "Okay, this is
what we decided I was going to do in
this conversation. this is how it went.
Assess it. Tell me what I did right.
What did I do wrong? How do I progress
proceed from here? What is your
recommendations? It is literally having
a coach or a consultant on your shoulder
for any process that you want to do. And
it like once you embrace that, then it
becomes like where do you want to go?
How do you get better? Um if you you can
even ask AI, how do I get better? And it
will give you options. You just got to
make sure that you're This is where
you're going to have to learn that
you've got to ask the right questions.
You really can't just assume that you
know the problem unless you do. And so
you need to get digger dig deeper into
that. And even then ask on a regular
basis. What am I not asking? Why? Like
that was I think that was one of the
best questions I asked AI last year. I
said like what's the craziest thing I've
asked you? And then I was like what was
the smartest thing I asked you? And then
I asked it, "What is the thing I should
have asked you?" And got a really
interesting set of responses back that
actually have launched me into some of
what I'm doing this year. I'm really
sitting way too much time on my soap box
right now. So, let's get back to that.
So,
>> let me just chime in one thing there on
that um before we get to the challenge.
So, it really does all come back to the
why. You know, why are you doing this?
But the other thing is make sure that
you're solving the right problem. Make
sure that the you know technology is
great when it's solving real problems
but also when it's solving the right
problem not what you think is what you
know you don't want to be the baby
stroller uh inventor and never had a
baby. You you want to make sure that
what problem you're solving you
understand it. You understand your
customer and that you really do
understand the problem. And AI is great
for that, but it is also bad to give you
false solutions or a solution that isn't
really for your problem. So, do make
sure that you ask a lot of questions,
you vet the answers, and then enjoy your
journey.
>> So, what do you think? What is a what do
you what are your thoughts on a
challenge?
>> So, this one I we've talked AI before.
We talked a whole lot about chat bots uh
and prompts in this one, but
I like I kind of want to go back to your
beginning when you talked about the CTO
um becoming a a fractal CTO.
Maybe not necessarily a fractal CTO, but
I think our challenge would be where do
you want to go? How do you want to grow?
And use AI to kickstart that
conversation. Start figuring out some
prompts. talk to AI and figure out
here's where I'm at, here's where I want
to be, or here's where I'm at, where can
I go? Cuz maybe you're still too new uh
in this particular field and with AI,
with everything going on right now, you
really don't know what to do. Get some
ideas. Use it as a launching board to
get you to that next level.
>> I really like that. I think I'm going to
I'll adjust it a little bit um just to
make it less like relying on AI. But I
think the the challenge this week is to
think of your
this be an interesting one because for
developers it's one way but if you're an
entrepreneur it's going to be a little
different but basically think of your
primary
current skill set. What is your primary
current current like thing that you have
to offer your customers? um you know
your your boss, your employer and stuff
like that. If you're a developer, it's
going to be your technical skills.
Uh if you're an entrepreneur, it is
probably going to be something else like
maybe your maybe it's your sales skills,
it's your vision skills, it's your
marketing skills or something like that.
What happens like wipe that out. So take
away your strength and let's go to
whatever your secondary thing is or like
what do you do then? What is your
secondary? What is your fallback
position? Because I think this is a very
interesting uh exercise to have. It's
like okay so if that goes away how do I
make money? How do I survive? How do my
how do I how am I employable? How do I
keep my customers coming to me if I take
away that number one strength? Now it
may be that you have a business that
you're built entirely on like that's it
like you know as Apple's was with um
with Steve Jobs it was really it was
like simplicity. It was a beauty of
simplicity. That's what the whole iPod
in that launch came from. But I think
it's something that's worth spending a
little time on. It's like, okay, if this
thing that I bank on goes away, where do
I go next? And feel free to use AI, talk
to your friends, your family, your, you
know, whoever, your co-workers. Have
this conversation because I think it's a
really informative one to have is if you
take because it's basically saying,
take the assumptions that you currently
have,
wipe them clean, ignore them, and let's
reset with a whole different set of
assumptions and see what happens. I
think you will find uh you might find
epiphany on the other side of that. I I
have done this on a couple of occasions
doing these kinds of things, these sorts
of exercises and I've always found them
to be um very enlightening but also very
motivating. And so hopefully it'll be
the same way with you where you're like,
"Oh my gosh, I've It's like It's like
found money. It's like you find all this
money, a pile of money that you're
sitting there and you're like, "Gosh,
I've got all this money now. I've I've
got all these cool things I can do with
it." It's sort of like that to me is
it's like that's where hopefully it's a
motivational and a kickstarter. Uh
especially now in a season of like
getting unstuck and forward momentum and
stuff like that is giving you an
opportunity. This is a tool I think to
to really like kick stuck right in the
butt and say, "Okay, I'm going to like
all the things I'm doing. I'm going to
stop and I'm going to try a paradigm
shift and let's see what happens." Or
actually, I guess it's a complete
paradigm change and let's see where I go
with that. If you can do that and have
something where you're like, "Oh my
gosh, here's a whole second career, um,
you're very blessed and I think you've
got a lot you do." If you can't, then
it's like, let's work towards that
because you're let's get some more self
insight and things of that nature.
Thoughts on that is our like modified
challenge. I really like that. And it's
similar to things we've heard, you know,
getting unstuck, you know, um
especially for when you're dealing with
seasons where you're blocked or where
your anxiety is too high. This I I use
this kind of of a challenge uh all the
time to help reset, to help get me
refocused, to help get things going. And
for a lot of people, if you haven't done
this, this is one of the best challenges
to start doing because you can modify it
for other things in your life and it
will help get you unstuck. It will help
you get back to that forward momentum,
that forward thinking.
>> I agree. Yeah, this is way beyond this
is anywhere in your life. If you are
getting stuck, a lot of times it's due
to assumptions of based on whatever
anxiety, fear,
imposttor syndrome, you name it. um get
rid of those assumptions and it is
amazing how much you free yourself from
your your mental prison. I will go back
to Loser think from the now, you know,
uh past Scott Adams. Um
there's a lot of stuff in there. It is
not a light book, but there's a lot of
stuff there where he talks about mental
prisons and being uh basically a slave
to your assumptions and things like
that. And I think it's something that um
all of us can do a better job of of
getting away from those. So cool. I
think we have a really good challenge.
Uh and it's a good like it really is
something you can do this week, you can
do this weekend is just like spend a
little time. Uh get a notebook or
something like that, you know, however
you take notes. Uh do that is like get
something like that and just sort of
like sit back and take some notes. If
you've got if you want to use AI, grab a
you know, set up a folder and have a
conversation with your your favorite AI
bot. Um I talk to Chip all the time as I
call chat GPT. um about this and Chip's
varying cousins. Um I think it's just
like yeah, this is a really cool one. I
would love to hear back from you. Uh
as you know. Uh or robbs.com.
I don't care how you get back to us. Uh
shoot an email because I would love to
hear where you go from that. Um if you
would like a conversation again,
leave us comments, stuff like that. we
would be more than happy to to have a
little, you know, Zoom conversation or
whatever with about you and and be that
sounding board because these these are
things that make me uh give me joy. I
love having conversations with customers
and and those that I work with when it's
like, okay, we're freeing you from some
of your preconceived notions and now we
can actually help you be the best
version of you that you can be.
>> And if you didn't catch that, all that's
in the show notes.
This is being that's why he was like
that's why he was as they say tap
dancing away on his keyboard taking
those notes. Um
go out there and have yourself a really
good one. Enjoy your weekend. Uh we do
appreciate you so much. We appreciate
you guys hanging out and gals and and
all that you bring that just being
there. Uh giving us a reason to come
back to this every week giving our all
of our guests um they've had a great
time. So feel free also make sure you're
wherever you have like all of our guests
have been so nice. Um if you have
questions for them shoot them an email
they you know they they give us links
and way to contact them. Don't be afraid
to do that. Um I think you will find
that will open doors uh mentally and
then also career professionally as well.
So take advantage of these things.
Parting thoughts from you before we wrap
this one up.
I guess the last parting thought is it's
the end of the week.
Set your challenge, go enjoy your
weekend, and hit the ground running on
Monday.
>> That is the best way to do it. So, as
always, have a great day, a great week,
a great weekend, and we will talk to
you.
>> Yeah, we will talk to you the next
episode, next Tuesday. See, now we sort
of know where we're at. So, we will talk
to you Tuesday. We'll be back with an
interview and we'll see you again next
week. Have a good one. Thanks a lot,
folks.