Detailed Notes
In our latest podcast episode, we dive into the transformative power of pivoting in your career, particularly within the IT industry. Pivoting—making significant changes in your career direction or focus—is crucial for navigating the fast-paced tech world and achieving long-term success.
Read More... https://develpreneur.com/pivoting-how-to-embrace-change-and-fuel-your-professional-growth
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We invite you to join our community and share your coding journey with us. Whether you’re a seasoned developer or just starting, there’s always room to learn and grow together. Contact us at [email protected] with your questions, feedback, or suggestions for future episodes. Together, let’s continue exploring the exciting world of software development.
Additional Resources * Finding Balance: The Importance of Pausing and Pivoting in Tech (https://develpreneur.com/finding-balance-the-importance-of-pausing-and-pivoting-in-tech/)
* Avoid Burnout – Give Time To Yourself (https://develpreneur.com/avoid-burnout-give-time-to-yourself/)
* Switching Jobs – When and How to Change Jobs (https://develpreneur.com/switching-jobs-when-and-how-to-change-jobs/)
* Mastering Skills In Under Ten Thousand Hours (https://develpreneur.com/mastering-skills-in-under-ten-thousand-hours/)
Transcript Text
[Music] to hip cord hey every everybody we are figuring this crap out and I think this one you mentioned last time um exit strategy or pivoting or retiring I think let's I sort of like the pivoting let's go a little bit into that as our topic this time and see where it goes we'll pivot our way into it sound good sure well hello and welcome back we are here we are once again continuing the developer journey I took an overly big breath before I started that's okay you didn't hear it but those that are seeing it live are like what are you having a you heart attack stroke what and when they're saying that they're saying rob that's me Rob Broadhead I happen to be one of the founders of develop or also a founder of RB Consulting where we take your technology sprawl and all of the pain involved with that and through simplification Automation and integration we find a way to like shrink that stuff down get it working tighter faster and sometimes it's just in this Century if you're still working on like dos systems from decades ago or or even you know Windows XP from decades ago at this point we have a good thing bad thing so good thing today that I'm going to say is that I like sometimes you have a work day where it's just like Bam Bam Bam stuff gets done you're just like cranking through things that was my good thing today bad thing is I'm GNA call him out Michael was a little late on getting to this and so now we're like scrambling a little bit going through our podcast so there you go I gave you like boy shots fired but I'm gonna let you go ahead and introduce yourself and give your your good and bad for the week for the episode hey everyone my name is Michael Mage I'm one of the founders of developing erer I'm also the founder of Invision QA you know if you're one of those software companies that are having buggy C problems with releases reach out to us we'll help you write your integration test your unit test help you design better ways to test your software so that you have better uh software releases and happier customers good and bad this week good thing I was making very good progress on a recent project got almost across the board downside I was so heads down I forgot about the time and was late to this call there you go the works out perfect so we've got matching bads I guess basically this episode we're going to talk about pivoting this is one of those things that I think if you're in this world in the IT world sometimes you don't have to be in there very long before you you pivot sometimes you do it early on I think for myself I had I've got multiple pivots through my career which have actually turned out to help me quite a bit early on basically what you would call you know maybe like a staff developer or something like that where I was just like writing code and then it was really in a the first couple of places I worked in projects I worked on we're all sort of the sameish and then I ended up doing a pivot and was actually ended up pivoting into management for a little bit actually pivoted back and went more into backend like database administrator stuff once again pivoted got back in and Consulting but now sort of getting into that side hustle and it's just you know pivot pivot pivot pivot I've had of those along the way somewhere along the way I pivoted into writing a book somewhere I pivoted essentially into creating a podcast and so I think these are things that we need to keep an eye out for and they are not a bad thing it is you know sometimes we get this goes into that the old idea of being a a developer with 10 years of experience or a developer with one year of experience 10 different times sometimes you're going to find whether it's within your company you know whether you're if you're a salaried employee and you work for this company and you work for them several years or whether you're moving to a different job you're in a Consulting gig or doing side hustles you're going to Pivot and you need to Pivot because you've basically plateaued where you're at and now there's a couple different ways you can pivot you can look into a different technology so you may be uh let's say you're a Java developer and you want to Pivot into you open up the net world and you want to go do c.net or or one of the net Technologies you may do uh more of a a tiered type of pivot where you maybe you've been doing a lot of front end and you want to go to Middle tier or you want to do backend and then there is also the rooll type pivots where it's maybe you are just a developer now you want to be a lead or you want to be a mentor or you want to move into management and then there's also I guess in the roles is more the technical roles where it's like you're really writing cop now you want to design or you want to be an architect or or move up those ways and so there's different ways and some of these you can see as logical progressions of your career but really at each of those points it it is some level of a pivot because you're really changing your focus if you go from you know you're let's say you start out your first couple years you're writing code and you're you know you get requirements and you write code and you turn those around and you're doing good at it and now you want to be a lead there's a pivot there because now you're Focus focus is different you're not focusing on the code anymore that's still part of it which is what you really want to do when you pivot is you really want to grow out of what you are working with because then you're not going from let's say you know some level of Mastery maybe 100% Mastery to 0% Mastery or something like that instead you're going from that you know maybe 100% Mastery or substantial Mastery to something that may be zero but ideally you do it in that same area so your pivot doesn't lose your momentum so that you're offsetting the the 0% part of it with some of your other skills that allows you to at least start feeling like you're not starting from scratch and the we talk about these a lot we way back I don't think we've spent as much time talking about them probably in the last year or so but it was things like there's uh we're referred to them as like complimentary skills or tangential skills if you go to the development or book we talk about that and the idea that there are things that you can pivot into based on where you're at and a lot of times it comes with going to a new project you know maybe it's you're moving into a new project in your your organization and maybe even going into a new version of the project that you've been on because now they're making some substantial changes that allow you to embrace that direction that you want to go sometimes it comes from uh sometimes it comes from like layoffs and things like that sometimes your team goes from very big to now it's smaller and you're still there and now your role can change or your you know the problems that you're tackling can change and it's really this one of the things that goes back to having that career road map and being aware of what is it that where you at what are the the skills and experiences that you've got and then what are some of the things that you want to do and if you're regularly looking at these you're going to be able to look at what can what AM doing now what can I do or am I doing what are a couple of the things that I want to do and see if there is a you know where those complimentary skills are where is it for example if you wanted to go from java to.net is there maybe a migration project somewhere that you can get a hold of or is there something where it's maybe like as a a cool thing that was part of the company I was at early early on is they had these they some places have these lunch Brown Bag lunch sessions where you you learn about a topic well these guys had these like kits and so what you do is you would you know somebody would spend a little time learn a technology build this little kit that's basically like it's almost like a tutorial it really ended up being a tutorial that was like here's a little you know mini project built in this technology here's what it looks like walking through it and this is way before you know record video recordings and stuff like that well I mean people recorded video but like we didn't have it on our computer we didn't do screen grabs and stuff like that as much you could do screenshots but that's what you'd end up building as a nice little document that had some screenshots maybe some sample code not near what you can do today but those kinds of things are great because you can say hey we're in job all the time I want to spend a little time and so I'm going to go learn you know.net or maybe it's like you go go work on a certification to like round you out those are the kinds of things that you want to keep an eye on with the pivot and it don't think of it as a bad thing or as pivoting out of necessarily where you were but instead almost pivoting into a better situation maybe stepping up into a better situation those are my thoughts let's toss that over to you so I I like how you uh ended that particular piece you know stepping into a good situation so I'm going to take it a slightly different direction I'm going to talk about those situations where a pivot is necessary not necessarily just for a career purpose but when is it time to Pivot because you're in a situation that you don't need to be in you you're overworked Under Paid overstressed things are falling down there are other times when it's okay to make a pivot uh and I think Tim FIS was probably one of the best places I read is if you don't like what you're doing or you don't like a particular situation or you don't like the movie you're watching stop wasting time go do something else and the same thing applies to our jobs to our careers to what we're doing if you are currently a front-end developer and you are bored to death or you just don't like what you're doing but yet you like writing database code well go look and see what other things there are in like databases that you could pivot into you know you can make a lateral move yes maybe go not necessarily to that zero but maybe to a 5 10% I know how to do this you may go down a little but very quickly will go right back up because that's something you're you're going to enjoy you're going to be very enthusiastic about and you're going to run with it whereas your front end job you're just oh do I really want to go to work I don't like what I'm doing or you're in a different situation where the application you're working on you like what you're doing but the house is falling in everything's on fire you're in that constant firefighting mode and you just you've been there for a couple years but yet like for the last six months it's just Fallen apart well maybe that's time to look for something else pivot into a new role maybe a management role maybe something more senior or similar but for a company that you want to work for you know maybe you want to work for Apple hey there's a job open go apply at Apple go somewhere else look for other opportunities you know pivoting isn't just about where you're moving up the ladder or what you're doing pivoting could simply be a state of mind I'm not happy where I'm at or I don't like what I'm doing I need a change and you can pivot preferably you want to Pivot up into something that will continuously move you forward but sometimes it's okay to Pivot to the side make that lateral move and then reset and then go back on that Journey get back learn new things get happy again you know it's not necessarily all about the job it's also our mental state you know we want to be mentally capable of doing the job we want to be happy we you know gets to that quality of life thing we talk about all the time so as you think about pivoting or as you're getting into situations look at opportunities look at pivoting as an opport not as negative not as oh you know it's a bad thing I thought about that for years so when it first got out of college I swear I would never go back to school and the first thing I did was I got a teaching job and found out I loved teaching and what was really cool about it was every semester I was teaching something new so I was constantly learning uh you know that knowledge thing I constantly crave but yet I later got into a health care job and it got stagnant I got stuck so for six years I stayed at this company because everyone kept telling me you know you don't want to change jobs all the time because you'll be looked upon as a job jumper that you're you're jumping jobs you're not happy where you're at so you're not going to stick around that's a myth I found that out later in life yes you do want to do the job well and you basically if you leave a company leave a company in a good state where you have a good handshake you're get good reviews so when you do go to the next job and they do call someone for a referral you're again progressing you're not getting in that negative State now if you're at a job three months and another job for three months and another job for three months yes that's going to look bad on your resume so make sure whatever you're doing you give it 110% and that when you leave you leave in a better place than where you started just like your code if you touch it make sure that it is in a better place them where you left it and that it's not on fire what are your thoughts on that actually there's there's a really good point in there that's the idea of sort of sometimes you need to step back to take a couple step forward you know like maybe you like and it's just like think of it from a very physical point of view sometimes you walk into wall it's like I got to step back side over and then I can start moving forward again sometimes particularly and this goes into some of our our recent other episodes and some of the things we've brought up and even some of things you brought up right there is that sometimes we need to actually step back or simplify because sometimes we step into something or we're in a situation whether it's work or project or something like that and it's just wearing us out because it is too much we're trying to get everything done we're trying to spend you know too much time to get this across the finish line or to address all the issues or whatever it is there's so many different ways things can go sideways sometimes it's easier to say you know what it's a it's it goes to the like one day at a time kind of thing you know it's the the biblical or the you know the attic type approach of like one day at a time and say all right I'm going to instead of trying to solve this entire project that's going to take you know months and TR instead of trying to problem solve all those problems today I'm gonna look at what do I need to work on today what can I do today and maybe even it's sometimes it's like what can I do the first half of my day and what can I do in the you know the afternoon the second half of my day to move the ball forward and maybe it's it's technically stepping back because you're not you know running at the same Pace maybe it's something where you are a I see this a lot talk to a lot of people like this kind of situation like maybe you're a a manager or in some situation where you're dealing with a lot of meetings and things like that sometimes it's like all right I'm G to block out you know three hours in my day and I'm going to go focus on a problem that needs to be solved maybe that it could be you stepping back from your role it may be that you're normally your manager you're spending so much time manag your team but you're also you know you have split requirements so you also or split responsibilities and you also have some some sort of coding responsibility or maybe even your team is struggling with something and you think that you've got a solution for it or maybe you do you maybe it's one of those you've got some Junior developers and you're a more senior developer where you're like hey I'm going to take some time I'm going to go take a look at it so instead of helping them help themselves by you know sort of say well try this try this try this you can go solve that problem hand that to him and go here's a solution this is how it works and so now you've taken a step back you've tackled sort of done their work for them in a sense but instead of giving them a fish you're now going to come back to them and you're going to teach them out of you're say this is how you do it now take this and move forward so sometimes you have to step out of that role don't feel like you're too big for your britches as they say or don't worry about your T your your title or your label as an employee as much as what is the way to get the problem solved that you're you're facing and sometimes it is like instead of looking at all of them at once pick one and let's go work on that for a while it does go back to focus is so often the best way to get to the end instead of trying to do 18 things at a time take them knock them down one at a time just knock it down knock it down knock it down but the focus on that one thing so you're not split because we do not multitask to the level that we think we do there's just too much involved there instead get this get this focused like we've talked about in past stuff get that requirement done get it nailed down get it all wrapped up and then moved on to the next requirement instead of trying to tackle all of these at once take it a step at a time and get through it thoughts yeah I think that's a really good example one of the best and kind of worst things about what we do is our ability to quote unquote multitask and we get into situations not necessarily pivoting our careers but pivoting in our daily routines we get into situations where we have so many different tasks we're trying to do at one time we're pivot pivot pivot pivot nothing gets done so you have to understand that multitasking is a lie multitasking is not getting the job done focus on one thing get it done then move on to the next thing get it done yes there can be pivots but if you focus on one thing and get it done then that's one thing off your list now you have the next thing the other thing to be careful of when you're doing that is just make sure that you stay focused and also this helps you batch things so if you find out that you're pivoting and you have all these different tasks that you're doing you can batch them together and that way you're kind of pivot to one section of work get that work done then move on to the next piece and that can be a different topic for another day we can talk about batching again but batching does work with pivoting batch your tasks Focus work on one thing at a time and the multitasking this pivoting that you may have within your daily routines gets simplified and you get happy again you have you know a lot of weight gets taken off your shoulder well hopefully this has taken some weight off of your shoulders and you can pivot back into your day from here and you know all of your tasks and things like that taking them hopefully focused one at a time knock those things out get to the end of the day you're a happy camper if not pivot come back the next day try it again I probably am using too many of those words in too many wrong ways but that's okay because I am towards the end of my day and I'm smelling dinner off in the end off there and my stomach is starting to Pivot me in that direction so as always if you're not too hungry and running off wow that was like sometimes you little squirely um shoot us an email at info@ develop developer.com let us know like what are your thoughts what are some topics what are some recommendations what are some things you would like to hear maybe what are some pivoting strategies you strategies that you have used or other strategies you've used to you put your hair out when your hair is on fire some of those kinds of things that happen that are just they're really part and parcel of our career of being a developer even as you become a better developer those things still show up as always go out there and have yourself a great day a great week and we will talk to you next time bonus mature so one additional thing and you kind of touched on it there in the closing is if you find yourself having problems pivoting uh within your job within other jobs take a pause take a step back and look at if you're worried about pivoting within your roles figure out back to that kind of plan plan out your future plan out your career path if you're having problems within your daily tasks look at the tools you're using and see if maybe you can change them or work with the tools better to keep you more focused to keep you from jumping around pivoting too much and then additionally look at your daily life you know we've talked about tools to simplify things go back to that listen to that and maybe you can apply tools to you know streamline your day so you stay focused on what you need to focus on that's actually this i' this is such a self uh you self-serving kind of thing but that is so often what we walk into when I when I talk to customers where they've got it's that technology sprawl they've got too many things going on they've got you know they've got to jump into this thing they got to jump into that thing and they got to move over here and they got to do that um you know they've got emails and they've got chats and they've got 18 different websites up and they've got all these things going on and sometimes they've got 18 different tools as well they're you know they're dealing with one tool to deal with the vendor and another one to deal with the sales and another one to deal with uh incoming communication and blah blah blah thing sometimes whether it's whether it's you or whether it's your organization sometimes it's a it is time to take a look at those and see if maybe there are some ways to consolidate to simplify to get some of those things down I know this is a little off from a pivot but it really is in some senses it's like it's the pivot of this is what we have and this is you know what we do and how we do our business and how we do our jobs and how we get everything done and maybe you pivot to something that's a smaller thing that says okay there's an overlap here or there's things that we don't really need to do or there's these things that we used to do but now they can be replaced or maybe they're broken now and we need to go fix those so that it'll work you know maybe I know how many times I've been in organization said oh yeah we used to have this automated process that send emails out and it never works and so we haven't dealt with anymore it's like well that sounds like that was very useful why don't you go fix fix it or find somebody to fix it or recreate it it's those kinds of pivots and it may even be with your own personal desktop is look at what you're dealing with do you have 18,000 icons out there I don't know why 18 is suddenly my number today but it is you have all these icons out there and you're clicking all these things and you got to open that and open that and like too many windows open and trying to figure out where you're at and you've got all these virtual screens and you're trying to figure it out simplify sometimes you're trying to do too much it does go back a little bit to the multitasking maybe you are too multitasking instead you should shrink that stuff down focus and it keeps you from all of the the switching headaches that you will run into so thank you for allowing me to do a little ad there I guess so as always we will be back we are continuing we're not done with this season we're going to continue talking about the developer Journey we've got all kinds of stuff somewhere down the road we're going to talk about retirement even or your exit strategy so going to definitely want to be ready for that one even if you just started your career sometimes it's nice to know that yes someday this too shall end that being said we're going to get back to it leave us comments let us know your thoughts or wherever you would like us to go with these in the future and we will be more than happy to work that stuff in as always go out there and have yourself a great day and we will talk to you next time around [Music]
Transcript Segments
[Music]
to hip
cord hey every everybody we are figuring
this crap out and I think this one you
mentioned last
time um exit strategy or pivoting or
retiring I think let's I sort of like
the pivoting let's go a little bit into
that as our topic this time and see
where it goes we'll pivot our way into
it sound good
sure well hello and welcome back we are
here we are once again continuing the
developer journey I took an overly big
breath before I started that's okay you
didn't hear it but those that are seeing
it live are like what are you having a
you heart attack stroke what and when
they're saying that they're saying rob
that's me Rob Broadhead I happen to be
one of the founders of develop or also a
founder of RB Consulting where we take
your technology sprawl and all of the
pain involved with that and through
simplification Automation and
integration we find a way to like shrink
that stuff down get it working tighter
faster and sometimes it's just in this
Century if you're still working on like
dos systems from decades ago or or even
you know Windows XP from decades ago at
this
point we have a good thing bad thing so
good thing today that I'm going to say
is that I like sometimes you have a work
day where it's just like Bam Bam Bam
stuff gets done you're just like
cranking through things that was my good
thing today bad thing is I'm GNA call
him out Michael was a little late on
getting to this and so now we're like
scrambling a little bit going through
our podcast so there you go I gave you
like boy shots fired but I'm gonna let
you go ahead and introduce yourself and
give your your good and bad for the week
for the episode hey everyone my name is
Michael Mage I'm one of the founders of
developing erer I'm also the founder of
Invision QA you know if you're one of
those software companies that are having
buggy C
problems with releases reach out to us
we'll help you write your integration
test your unit test help you design
better ways to test your software so
that you have better uh software
releases and happier customers good and
bad this week good thing I was making
very good progress on a recent project
got almost across the board downside I
was so heads down I forgot about the
time and was late to this
call there you go the works out perfect
so we've got matching bads I guess
basically this episode we're going to
talk about
pivoting this is one of those things
that I think if you're in this world in
the IT world sometimes you don't have to
be in there very long before you you
pivot sometimes you do it early on I
think for myself I had I've got multiple
pivots through my career which have
actually turned out to help me quite a
bit early on basically what you would
call you know maybe like a staff
developer or something like that where I
was just like writing code and then it
was really in a the first couple of
places I worked in projects I worked on
we're all sort of the
sameish and then I ended up doing a
pivot and was actually ended up pivoting
into management for a little bit
actually pivoted back and went more into
backend like database administrator
stuff once again pivoted got back in and
Consulting but now sort of getting into
that side hustle and it's just you know
pivot pivot pivot pivot I've had of
those along the way somewhere along the
way I pivoted into writing a book
somewhere I pivoted essentially into
creating a podcast and so I think these
are things that we need to keep an eye
out for and they are not a bad thing it
is you know sometimes we get this goes
into that the old idea of being a a
developer with 10 years of experience or
a developer with one year of experience
10 different times sometimes you're
going to find whether it's within your
company you know whether you're if
you're a salaried employee and you work
for this company and you work for them
several years or whether you're moving
to a different job you're in a
Consulting gig or doing side hustles
you're going to Pivot and you need to
Pivot because you've basically plateaued
where you're at and now there's a couple
different ways you can pivot you can
look into a different technology so you
may be uh let's say you're a Java
developer and you want to Pivot into you
open up the net world and you want to go
do c.net or or one of the net
Technologies you may do uh more of a a
tiered type of pivot where you maybe
you've been doing a lot of front end and
you want to go to Middle tier or you
want to do backend and then there is
also the rooll type pivots where it's
maybe you
are just a developer now you want to be
a lead or you want to be a mentor or you
want to move into management and then
there's also I guess in the roles is
more the technical roles where it's like
you're really writing cop now you want
to design or you want to be an architect
or or move up those ways and so there's
different ways and some of these you can
see as logical progressions of your
career but really at each of those
points it it is some level of a pivot
because you're really changing your
focus if you go from you know you're
let's say you start out your first
couple years you're writing code and
you're you know you get requirements and
you write code and you turn those around
and you're doing good at it and now you
want to be a lead there's a pivot there
because now you're Focus focus is
different you're not focusing on the
code anymore that's still part of it
which is what you really want to do when
you pivot is you really want to grow out
of what you are working with because
then you're not going from let's say you
know some level of Mastery maybe 100%
Mastery to 0% Mastery or something like
that instead you're going from that you
know maybe 100% Mastery or substantial
Mastery to something that may be zero
but ideally you do it in that same area
so your pivot doesn't lose your momentum
so that you're offsetting the the 0%
part of it with some of your other
skills that allows you to at least start
feeling like you're not starting from
scratch and the we talk about these a
lot we way back I don't think we've
spent as much time talking about them
probably in the last year or so but it
was things like there's uh we're
referred to them as like complimentary
skills or tangential skills if you go to
the development or book we talk about
that and the idea that there are things
that you can pivot into based on where
you're at and a lot of times it comes
with going to a new project you know
maybe it's you're moving into a new
project in your your organization and
maybe even going into a new version of
the project that you've been on because
now they're making some substantial
changes that allow you to embrace that
direction that you want to go sometimes
it comes from uh sometimes it comes from
like layoffs and things like that
sometimes your team goes from very big
to now it's smaller and you're still
there and now your role can change or
your you know the problems that you're
tackling can
change and it's really this one of the
things that goes back to having that
career road map and being aware of what
is it that where you at what are the the
skills and experiences that you've got
and then what are some of the things
that you want to do and if you're
regularly looking at these you're going
to be able to look at what can what AM
doing now what can I do or am I doing
what are a couple of the things that I
want to do and see if there is a you
know where those complimentary skills
are where is it for example if you
wanted to go from java
to.net is there maybe a migration
project somewhere that you can get a
hold of or is there something where it's
maybe like as a a cool thing that was
part of the company I was at early early
on is they had these
they some places have these lunch Brown
Bag lunch sessions where you you learn
about a topic well these guys had these
like kits and so what you do is you
would you know somebody would spend a
little time learn a technology build
this little kit that's basically like
it's almost like a
tutorial it really ended up being a
tutorial that was like here's a little
you know mini project built in this
technology here's what it looks like
walking through it and this is way
before you know record video recordings
and stuff like that well I mean people
recorded video but like we didn't have
it on our computer we didn't do screen
grabs and stuff like that as much you
could do screenshots but that's what
you'd end up building as a nice little
document that had some screenshots maybe
some sample code not near what you can
do today but those kinds of things are
great because you can say hey we're in
job all the time I want to spend a
little time and so I'm going to go learn
you know.net or maybe it's like you go
go work on a certification to like round
you out those are the kinds of things
that you want to keep an eye on with the
pivot and it don't think of it as a bad
thing or as pivoting out of necessarily
where you were but instead almost
pivoting into a better situation maybe
stepping up into a better situation
those are my thoughts let's toss that
over to you so I I like how you uh ended
that particular piece you know stepping
into a good situation so I'm going to
take it a slightly different direction
I'm going to talk about those situations
where a pivot is necessary not
necessarily just for a career purpose
but when is it time to Pivot because
you're in a situation that you don't
need to be in you you're overworked
Under Paid overstressed things are
falling down there are other times when
it's okay to make a pivot uh and I think
Tim FIS was probably one of the best
places I read is if you don't like what
you're doing or you don't like a
particular situation or you don't like
the movie you're watching stop wasting
time go do something else and the same
thing applies to our jobs to our careers
to what we're doing if you are currently
a front-end developer and you are bored
to death or you just don't like what
you're doing but yet you like writing
database code well go look and see what
other things there are in like databases
that you could pivot into you know you
can make a lateral move yes maybe go not
necessarily to that zero but maybe to a
5 10% I know how to do this you may go
down a little but very quickly will go
right back up because that's something
you're you're going to enjoy you're
going to be very enthusiastic about and
you're going to run with it whereas your
front end job you're just oh do I really
want to go to work I don't like what I'm
doing or you're in a different situation
where the application you're working on
you like what you're doing but the house
is falling in everything's on fire
you're in that constant firefighting
mode and you just you've been there for
a couple years but yet like for the last
six months it's just Fallen apart well
maybe that's time to look for something
else pivot into a new role maybe a
management role maybe something more
senior or similar but for a company that
you want to work for you know maybe you
want to work for Apple hey there's a job
open go apply at Apple go somewhere else
look for other opportunities you know
pivoting isn't just about where you're
moving up the ladder or what you're
doing pivoting could simply be a state
of mind I'm not happy where I'm at or I
don't like what I'm doing I need a
change and you can pivot preferably you
want to Pivot up into something that
will continuously move you forward but
sometimes it's okay to Pivot to the side
make that lateral move and then reset
and then go back on that Journey get
back learn new things get happy again
you know it's not necessarily all about
the job it's also our mental state you
know we want to be mentally capable of
doing the job we want to be happy we you
know gets to that quality of life thing
we talk about all the time so as you
think about pivoting or as you're
getting into situations look at
opportunities look at pivoting as an
opport
not as negative not as oh you know it's
a bad thing I thought about that for
years so when it first got out of
college I swear I would never go back to
school and the first thing I did was I
got a teaching job and found out I loved
teaching and what was really cool about
it was every semester I was teaching
something new so I was constantly
learning uh you know that knowledge
thing I constantly crave but yet I later
got into a health care job and it got
stagnant I got stuck so for six years I
stayed at this company because everyone
kept telling me you know you don't want
to change jobs all the time because
you'll be looked upon as a job jumper
that you're you're jumping jobs you're
not happy where you're at so you're not
going to stick around that's a myth I
found that out later in life yes you do
want to do the job well and you
basically if you leave a company leave a
company in a good state where you have a
good handshake you're
get good reviews so when you do go to
the next job and they do call someone
for a referral you're again progressing
you're not getting in that negative
State now if you're at a job three
months and another job for three months
and another job for three months yes
that's going to look bad on your resume
so make sure whatever you're doing you
give it
110% and that when you leave you leave
in a better place than where you started
just like your code if you touch it make
sure that it is in a better place them
where you left it and that it's not on
fire what are your thoughts on that
actually there's there's a really good
point in there that's the idea of sort
of sometimes you need to step back to
take a couple step forward you know like
maybe you like and it's just like think
of it from a very physical point of view
sometimes you walk into wall it's like I
got to step back side over and then I
can start moving forward again sometimes
particularly and this goes into some of
our our recent other episodes and some
of the things we've brought up and even
some of things you brought up right
there is that sometimes we need to
actually step back or simplify because
sometimes we step into something or
we're in a situation whether it's work
or project or something like that and
it's just wearing us out because it is
too much we're trying to get everything
done we're trying to spend you know too
much time to get this across the finish
line or to address all the issues or
whatever it is there's so many different
ways things can go
sideways sometimes it's easier to say
you know what it's a it's it goes to the
like one day at a time kind of thing you
know it's the the biblical or the you
know the attic type approach of like one
day at a time and say all right I'm
going to instead of trying to solve this
entire project that's going to take you
know months and TR instead of trying to
problem solve all those problems today
I'm gonna look at what do I need to work
on today what can I do today and maybe
even it's sometimes it's like what can I
do the first half of my day and what can
I do in the you know the afternoon the
second half of my day to move the ball
forward and maybe it's it's technically
stepping back because you're not you
know running at the same Pace maybe it's
something where you are a I see this a
lot talk to a lot of people like this
kind of situation like maybe you're a a
manager or in some situation where
you're dealing with a lot of meetings
and things like that sometimes it's like
all right I'm G to block
out you know three hours in my day and
I'm going to go focus on a problem that
needs to be solved
maybe that it could be you stepping back
from your role it may be that you're
normally your manager you're spending so
much time manag your team but you're
also you know you have split
requirements so you also or split
responsibilities and you also have some
some sort of coding responsibility or
maybe even your team is struggling with
something and you think that you've got
a solution for it or maybe you do you
maybe it's one of those you've got some
Junior developers and you're a more
senior developer where you're like hey
I'm going to take some time I'm going to
go take a look at it so instead of
helping them help themselves by you know
sort of say well try this try this try
this you can go solve that problem hand
that to him and go here's a solution
this is how it works and so now you've
taken a step back you've tackled sort of
done their work for them in a sense but
instead of giving them a fish you're now
going to come back to them and you're
going to teach them out of you're say
this is how you do it now take this and
move forward so sometimes you have to
step out of that role don't feel like
you're too big for your britches as they
say or don't worry about your T your
your title or your label as an employee
as much as what is the way to get the
problem solved that you're you're facing
and sometimes it is like instead of
looking at all of them at once pick one
and let's go work on that for a while it
does go back to focus is so often the
best way to get to the end instead of
trying to do 18 things at a time take
them knock them down one at a time just
knock it down knock it down knock it
down but the focus on that one thing so
you're not split because we do not
multitask to the level that we think we
do there's just too much involved there
instead get this get this focused like
we've talked about in past stuff get
that requirement done get it nailed down
get it all wrapped up and then moved on
to the next requirement instead of
trying to tackle all of these at once
take it a step at a time and get through
it thoughts
yeah I think that's a really good
example one of the best and kind of
worst things about what we do is our
ability to quote unquote multitask and
we get into situations not necessarily
pivoting our careers but pivoting in our
daily routines we get into situations
where we have so many different tasks
we're trying to do at one time we're
pivot pivot pivot pivot nothing gets
done so you have to understand that
multitasking is a lie
multitasking
is not getting the job done focus on one
thing get it done then move on to the
next thing get it done yes there can be
pivots but if you focus on one thing and
get it done then that's one thing off
your list now you have the next thing
the other thing to be careful of when
you're doing that is just make sure that
you stay focused
and also this helps you batch things so
if you find out that you're pivoting and
you have all these different tasks that
you're doing you can batch them together
and that way you're kind of pivot to one
section of work get that work done then
move on to the next piece and that can
be a different topic for another day we
can talk about batching again but
batching does work with pivoting batch
your tasks Focus work on one thing at a
time and the multitasking this pivoting
that you may have within your daily
routines gets simplified and you get
happy again you have you know a lot of
weight gets taken off your
shoulder well hopefully this has taken
some weight off of your shoulders and
you can pivot back into your day from
here and you know all of your tasks and
things like that taking them hopefully
focused one at a time knock those things
out get to the end of the day you're a
happy camper if not pivot come back the
next day try it again I probably am
using too many of those words in too
many wrong ways but that's okay because
I am towards the end of my day and I'm
smelling dinner off in the end off there
and my stomach is starting to Pivot me
in that direction so as always if you're
not too hungry and running off wow that
was like sometimes you little squirely
um shoot us an email at info@ develop
developer.com let us know like what are
your thoughts what are some topics what
are some recommendations what are some
things you would like to hear maybe what
are some pivoting strategies you
strategies that you have used or other
strategies you've used to you put your
hair out when your hair is on fire some
of those kinds of things that happen
that are just they're really part and
parcel of our career of being a
developer even as you become a better
developer those things still show up as
always go out there and have yourself a
great day a great week and we will talk
to you next time bonus
mature so one additional thing and you
kind of touched on it there in the
closing
is if you find yourself having problems
pivoting uh within your job within other
jobs take a pause take a step back and
look at if you're worried about pivoting
within your roles figure out back to
that kind of plan plan out your future
plan out your career path if you're
having problems within your daily tasks
look at the tools you're using and see
if maybe you can change them or work
with the tools better to keep you more
focused to keep you from jumping around
pivoting too much and then additionally
look at your daily life you know we've
talked about tools to simplify things go
back to that listen to that and maybe
you can apply tools to you know
streamline your day so you stay focused
on what you need to focus on that's
actually this i' this is such a
self uh you self-serving kind of thing
but that is so often what we walk into
when I when I talk to customers where
they've
got it's that technology sprawl they've
got too many things going on they've got
you know they've got to jump into this
thing they got to jump into that thing
and they got to move over here and they
got to do that um you know they've got
emails and they've got chats and they've
got 18 different websites up and they've
got all these things going on and
sometimes they've got 18 different tools
as well they're you know they're dealing
with one tool to deal with the vendor
and another one to deal with the sales
and another one to deal with uh incoming
communication and blah blah blah
thing sometimes whether it's whether
it's you or whether it's your
organization sometimes it's a it is time
to take a look at those and see if maybe
there are some ways to consolidate to
simplify to get some of those things
down I know this is a little off from a
pivot but it really is in some senses
it's like it's the pivot of this is what
we have and this is you know what we do
and how we do our business and how we do
our jobs and how we get everything done
and maybe you pivot to something that's
a smaller thing that says okay there's
an overlap here or there's things that
we don't really need to do or there's
these things that we used to do but now
they can be replaced or maybe they're
broken now and we need to go fix those
so that it'll work you know maybe I know
how many times I've been in organization
said oh yeah we used to have this
automated process that send emails out
and it never works and so we haven't
dealt with anymore it's like well that
sounds like that was very useful why
don't you go fix fix it or find somebody
to fix it or recreate it it's those
kinds of pivots and it may even be with
your own personal desktop is look at
what you're dealing with do you have
18,000 icons out there I don't know why
18 is suddenly my number today but it is
you have all these icons out there and
you're clicking all these things and you
got to open that and open that and like
too many windows open and trying to
figure out where you're at and you've
got all these virtual screens and you're
trying to figure it out simplify
sometimes you're trying to do too much
it does go back a little bit to the
multitasking maybe you are too
multitasking instead you should shrink
that stuff down focus and it keeps you
from all of the the switching headaches
that you will run into so thank you for
allowing me to do a little ad there I
guess
so as always we will be back we are
continuing we're not done with this
season we're going to continue talking
about the developer Journey we've got
all kinds of stuff somewhere down the
road we're going to talk about
retirement even or your exit strategy so
going to definitely want to be ready for
that one even if you just started your
career sometimes it's nice to know that
yes someday this too shall end that
being said we're going to get back to it
leave us comments let us know your
thoughts or wherever you would like us
to go with these in the future and we
will be more than happy to work that
stuff in as always go out there and have
yourself a great day and we will talk to
you next time around
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