0:00

The specifics of the technology that

0:02

you're about to learn are a lot

0:04

less important than a couple of senior things

0:06

. And those senior things are what

0:09

are the fundamental principles involved in the operation

0:11

of a computer and the fundamental

0:14

principles involved in a program and the fundamental

0:16

principles of working as a team ? What are those fundamentals

0:18

? And Above

0:21

all of those is you've

0:23

got to learn to think like an engineer . There

0:26

are different ways of thinking

0:29

based on the activity you're involved in in life , and

0:32

one of your chief goals as you go through this is

0:35

to learn how to think like an engineer . And

0:37

that way , when you walk off into the sunset , when you know

0:39

what this program , as technology

0:42

, changes at a breakneck clip , you

0:45

will be well set , because

0:47

any new development you don't have to think your way through it . You're

0:50

not going to rely on memorization . You're not

0:52

going to rely on the specific technology learned in the bootcamp . You're

0:55

going to be able to think with tech

0:57

, and that's what I tell them . Oh , yeah , yeah

1:00

, and I tell

1:02

them that that nerds rule the world . You should

1:04

be proud to be part of the team .

1:08

Hello and welcome to Devlogger's journey , the

1:11

podcast bringing you the making of stories

1:13

of successful software developers to

1:16

help you on your upcoming journey . I'm a host

1:18

, tim Bognio . On

1:20

this episode , I receive Eric Cross . Eric is an

1:23

engineer , author and a career coach . In

1:27

his three decades of tech

1:29

experience he built and led teams in

1:31

tech , started multiple successful businesses , co

1:35

founded a coding bootcamp , wrote

1:37

numerous technology books and personally

1:39

coach hundreds of tech pros to

1:42

career success . Wow , eric , a warm

1:44

welcome to that journey . Thank you , man . I'm really

1:46

glad to be here . That's

1:50

a thrill to have you on and we've been laughing for 40 minutes . Wow

1:52

, that has to be a record . So yeah

1:54

, yeah .

1:58

I feel like the listeners are like fully missing

2:00

out on the lunacy that

2:03

just went on for a half an hour .

2:04

They are , they are , but it's just between

2:07

us . That's it , yep .

2:10

There's no record ?

2:11

No , absolutely not , or is there ? Oh man

2:13

, I'm so excited .

2:15

I'm so excited to

2:17

be here . Oh man , I confess things to you in confidence

2:20

. Yes , you did .

2:21

Yes , you did . We'll keep that just between

2:23

the two of us and my nas . But

2:28

before we come to your story , I

2:30

want to thank the terrific listeners who

2:32

support the show . Every month , you

2:34

are keeping the Dev Journey lights

2:37

up . If

2:44

you would like to join this fine crew and help me spend more time on

2:46

finding phenomenal guests than editing audio tracks , please go to our website , devjourneyinfo

2:49

and click on the support me

2:51

on Patreon button . Even the smallest

2:54

contributions are giant steps toward

2:57

a sustainable Dev Journey journey

2:59

. Thank you , and now back

3:02

to today's guest , eric

3:04

. As you know , the show exists to help the listeners

3:06

understand what your story looked like and imagine

3:08

how to shape their own future . So , as

3:11

a discuss on the show , let's go back to your beginnings

3:13

. Where would you place the start of

3:15

your Dev Journey ?

3:17

It's about 1981 . Actually

3:20

we're going to go on the way back machine here and for

3:22

the young listeners , I'm sorry , old

3:25

tech alert , it's just required

3:27

For

3:30

background on this . I grew up in the middle of the Redwoods

3:32

in Northern California , like , literally at many

3:34

times , no running water , no electricity

3:36

, lived in a TP , lived in a bus , like

3:38

living in a VW van , the classic

3:40

like , yeah , the hippie experience and everything right

3:43

. I didn't know any different and frankly , in

3:45

you know , with my now 54

3:47

years of life I look back on it . It

3:49

was wonderful . It actually helped shape a lot

3:51

of like whatever good qualities I

3:53

have . A lot of them came out of that right . But

3:56

if you flash forward to like 1981

3:58

, I'm , you know , 11 , 12 years old and we move into

4:00

the big city of 5,000 people and

4:03

my parents are not living in the woods anymore

4:05

. I'm not and I'd always

4:07

been like an inquisitive , nerdy kind of kid

4:09

, loved logic , puzzle . I'd read like two

4:11

or 3,000 books . At that point I was a

4:14

nerd right . Dad walks

4:16

in the door one day and

4:18

he has this box and it says

4:20

Commodore on the outside . He had a Vic-20

4:23

. If you need to Google it

4:25

, go for it Vic-20 . It

4:27

was the first truly successful mass

4:29

market personal computer . They sold millions of them , right

4:32

, and you look at

4:34

its capabilities and obviously it's

4:36

a tiny , underpowered machine . That wasn't the point

4:38

. The point was you had a personal computer in your

4:40

house . My dad my dad

4:43

had programmed IBM mainframes in the

4:45

60s and was

4:47

just thrilled that the

4:49

dream he and his buddies had

4:51

back in the day , decades before , had

4:53

come to fruition and you could have a computer at home . So he bought one

4:55

with money . I have no idea where he got because

4:58

we did not have money grown up and

5:00

you talk about like the beginning of my dev journey . This

5:02

is what happened that day . I mean he first he

5:05

hooked it up to the monitor , which was your TV

5:07

, right , and he showed

5:09

me how to , like you know , connect up the cassette

5:11

drive this is way back in the day and

5:13

load a program in . And here's a text

5:15

editor and here's a game you could play and like obviously

5:18

I'm blown away , this is 1981

5:21

. This is amazing tech from 1981 . But

5:24

at a certain point he said , eric , that's , that's not

5:26

actually the cool part . And he unplugged it and

5:28

turned it over and pulled out a screwdriver , took off

5:30

the back panel and said now , let me . Let me show you some

5:32

things . And

5:35

from CPU through

5:37

to the peripherals , the buses

5:39

that connect to all of those , down

5:42

into the instruction set that's built into that CPU . What

5:45

binary is everything

5:47

about that computer ? My

5:50

dad taught me that afternoon

5:52

. I

5:54

will never forget that afternoon , I

5:57

believe that it it changed

5:59

the entire trajectory of my life and

6:03

I'll tell you one of the biggest things it did is it

6:06

utterly removed any mystery

6:08

about the actual machine in front of me . It

6:11

went from being this cool , like wow , I'm

6:13

playing tic-tac-toe on the screen or I

6:15

can type in stuff in a text editor , and like

6:18

, oh , it's just a machine . It

6:21

was no longer intimidating at all from

6:23

that moment . So that's like the beginning

6:25

of the dev journey . And then I was , fortunate enough

6:27

we weren't that far from Silicon Valley . You grew up in

6:29

Northern California , you know a few hundred miles from San

6:32

Francisco and you know the South Bay , and

6:34

so that culture drifted up the coast

6:37

and our school had a really good computer

6:39

lab and there were like computer user groups and

6:41

I got involved in that . But that was the beginning

6:43

of the journey . Is that afternoon ? I

6:45

have thanked my dad many

6:47

times for that afternoon .

6:51

I believe you fully . I'm

6:54

a bit younger than you , not that

6:56

much , but a little bit and I grew

6:59

up breaking Windows

7:01

3.1 and then

7:03

95 and really breaking

7:06

it over and over again and

7:08

not having any fear

7:11

of breaking it Because I knew each

7:13

time okay , I know how to build that backup

7:16

, I know how it's working , I know the components . I

7:19

broke the PC as

7:21

a machine as well . You

7:23

get together , go running into in

7:25

Paris on the Mongolia Street , which

7:28

is street with just IT

7:30

stores right and left . He used to go

7:32

there and buy everything you needed , and

7:34

so I remember this and I wonder

7:36

how kids nowadays , when they look

7:38

at an iPad and I have no

7:40

idea how this thing is built If

7:42

you break it , if you did

7:45

something out of the sandbox and

7:47

you break it , literally , you

7:49

have no way of setting it back together . I

7:52

wonder what it does on the intimidation , as you

7:54

said ?

7:56

Well , yeah , I can tell you my own

7:58

personal thoughts on that . Is it as

8:01

technology has become so complex

8:04

and pervasive in our society ? I

8:07

really feel like there is a chasm

8:09

there , from the average person

8:12

just to technology , to digital technology

8:14

, and

8:16

it's weird because everybody's got it walking

8:19

around with these smartphones , which are essentially like

8:21

a 50 million times power , more

8:23

powerful than my VIC-20 computer

8:26

in your hand , and

8:28

yet , like the

8:31

very few people understand the fundamentals of what this machine

8:33

is Right , they go out the reservation

8:36

, something doesn't operate the right way and

8:38

the frustration level , the

8:40

mystery is there for them and

8:43

I can't stand that . I'm

8:46

like genuinely not okay with the

8:48

fact that that I mean our industry

8:50

has been around 70 , 80 years and

8:52

the fact that it isn't just completely

8:54

handled in rudimentary childhood education

8:56

to remove that mystery . That's

8:59

just debacle as far as I'm concerned .

9:03

Shall we go this way ? No

9:06

, let's go back to you , sir . Yeah , I agree with

9:08

that Long

9:11

you're totally right .

9:14

Don't worry , my story involves trying to do something

9:16

about it .

9:16

So who , then let's go there . Did

9:18

you know right away that that would be your

9:20

life ?

9:21

No , I wanted to be an architect and then a little

9:23

bit later , I wanted to be a film producer

9:26

. Yeah , yeah

9:30

, lots of things , one of which , okay

9:33

. So this is the first true , true

9:36

confessions time . We were Thanksgiving

9:38

, you know , I'm here in America , so we had Thanksgiving

9:40

, you know , just about a week and a half ago , and

9:43

for some reason we had friends over and the subject

9:45

of my Performance in high

9:47

school you know , gpa , you

9:49

know , grade point average came up . It's

9:52

on a zero to four scale , right

9:54

, 4.0 is really really good . 3.0

9:58

is just about average . 2.0 is oh my

10:00

word , your knuckles drag on the ground

10:02

. My

10:05

graduating GPA

10:07

in high school was 2.43

10:09

. So not that

10:11

great , not that great

10:13

at all . Now I've been married my wife for 16

10:15

, almost 17 years , and that came out in a conversation

10:18

with some friends . We're sitting around the campfire and

10:20

she just turns and looks at me

10:22

. I mean , you've been around , was you've

10:24

been with ? Someone said 16 years . There aren't a lot

10:26

of surprising pieces of data to find out

10:29

and I swear I told her that I

10:32

really did right . But

10:35

um , yeah , that's the first true confession

10:37

. Thing is like I Didn't

10:39

really sell in high school at all . Now

10:41

, computers were a constant all the way through it . You

10:43

know , I was in that . I worked in the computer lab

10:46

all the time . I was like the , the teacher's

10:48

assistant or whatever they're gonna call it in the high school realm

10:50

. I was

10:52

programming from age 11 onward

10:54

. But no , I was gonna go

10:56

like , either into architecture or

10:58

into the creative arts in film was

11:01

what I thought , and we don't have near

11:03

enough time to talk about it . But we

11:05

made a lot of films and they were a lot of fun

11:07

. So but yeah , no

11:09

, I didn't end up going that route and of course you

11:12

graduate with that kind of a great point

11:14

average . You're not going to any kind of a decent

11:16

college . So I'm gonna hold different route

11:18

, especially for being a hippie

11:20

and I went into the nuclear power

11:22

section of the Navy .

11:25

Okay , yeah , that's quite the opposite .

11:27

Yeah , that's a pivot .

11:29

That's a pivot . Did you ? Did

11:31

you decide on going this route ? I mean the

11:33

army , but going into tech

11:36

in the army .

11:37

Navy . It was a

11:39

very conscious decision . My dad had been

11:41

in the Navy back in Vietnam , my

11:44

grandfather had been in the Navy . I'd never once considered

11:46

it . Like I said , I grew up the son of hippies in the middle

11:48

of the Redwood Forest , like the military was , like

11:50

it was never

11:52

bad mouth , but it was

11:54

not part of that culture . And the recruiters

11:57

came to to the school

11:59

once at the beginning , like some beginning

12:02

of our senior year , and it's

12:04

when I found out about the Nuclear

12:07

power program and specifically the electronics

12:10

technician program within

12:12

it that my eyes sort of lit

12:14

up . Because here's

12:17

Science

12:19

and engineering and nerdiness and problem-solving

12:21

and electronics and all this stuff combined in one

12:23

area and it was very elite . And they were

12:25

telling me that the training you go through is

12:28

Incredibly comprehensive and very

12:30

hard . And I , even

12:32

at that age I knew that I Thrive

12:35

when I'm put into a situation

12:37

where I have to perform . Hmm

12:39

, like I'll respond to that if

12:42

you can , at that age at least . If you leave me to my

12:44

own devices , I'll just go off and play a D&D

12:46

all day , yeah

12:50

.

12:53

But you chose to go a different route and

12:56

and put yourself on the spot and really be

12:58

in in a position to really

13:00

learn and be forced to learn .

13:02

Yeah , I did and it's

13:05

a really , really good thing I did . I mean , I can talk about

13:07

all of the benefits the training has , you

13:09

know , in the Navy gave me , but there's

13:12

like a specific moment that

13:14

Turned into like a hallmark

13:16

of my life Every

13:19

day afterwards what

13:22

you go through , boot camp , which is kind of rough

13:24

, you know people yelling at you for not

13:26

making your bed well enough , which is pretty interesting

13:28

. Then I went through electronics

13:30

School , which was just

13:32

a blast . I mean all the way down to

13:34

the bare silicon of how digital circuits

13:37

work . Every . I mean that . Here's the

13:39

thing . The training in the military has one

13:41

focus , and one fake focus only

13:43

, which is Applying the

13:45

information you learn in the real world . There's

13:48

no fluff in military training , especially

13:51

when they're gonna make people , they're gonna be responsible for operating

13:53

a nuclear reactor . You need to

13:55

understand this stuff at your core

13:58

and especially what to do

14:00

for every given situation . And

14:02

since you can't predict every given situation , you

14:05

have to know how to think with

14:07

the data and the military . The

14:09

Navy schools were very good at that . So I went through

14:11

electronic school . Everything's going fine . I did really

14:13

really well . Right again , it's a regimented

14:16

high pressure situation , but I

14:18

didn't know what pressure was until I got

14:20

done with electronic school and went to the actual

14:22

nuclear power school . Now , if you

14:24

look this thing up online now , it's

14:27

actually called the Naval Nuclear Propulsion School

14:29

. It is still ranked

14:31

as the most rigorous academic institution

14:33

in the American military . It

14:36

is Unbelievably high pressure

14:38

. At the time I went there they had a 14% failure

14:40

rate and a 1% suicide rate . Yeah

14:43

, not to bring the conversation down , but it was very

14:46

high pressure . And here's the thing I

14:48

got . It was a six month program and I was

14:50

about a month and a half in and I

14:52

was Absolutely hitting a wall . And was

14:55

hitting a wall on one subject , which is mathematics

14:57

. I'm a

14:59

bright person . You wouldn't know it

15:01

to look at my GPA in high school . I'm a bright person

15:03

. But all the way through high school math was

15:05

a problem and it

15:07

was really Biting

15:10

me in the behind in this program and

15:12

it was . It got to the point

15:14

where I for the first moment thought

15:17

Am I going to actually make it

15:19

? And it forced

15:21

me to look at what are the consequences . I

15:23

got myself into the situation what

15:26

happens if I quit or I'm kicked

15:28

out ? And here's the thing you

15:30

had to join for not the normal four years when

15:33

you enlisted in the military , but for

15:35

six years , because they're going to invest all this time

15:37

and effort and training into you and

15:39

if you fail out of the school you don't suddenly

15:41

drop down to the four-year level . They've still got you for six

15:44

and you're probably going to go out

15:46

to the fleet and chip

15:48

paint on the side of the ship . That

15:51

kind of a job . I

15:54

can't tell you how much I didn't want to do that . No

15:57

offense against people that are like that role

15:59

and maintenance is super important To

16:01

this day . I love fixing broken things . I totally

16:03

get it , but I didn't want to do that

16:06

. And so I remember a weekend

16:08

where I really just had to like there's

16:11

nobody can get you through

16:13

this , but you and I

16:15

decided that I was going

16:17

to make it and I just pushed

16:19

through . I learned

16:22

math . I learned it really really well . I

16:24

just went back to basics and one of my missing , one of my misunderstanding

16:27

right and I got through it and did really really

16:29

well . I graduated in top 10% of my class and

16:32

then went on to be an instructor in

16:34

nuclear power training

16:36

facilities . But

16:39

that moment it

16:42

served me in good stead whenever you

16:44

least expect it later in life

16:46

. At the end of the day , you

16:49

are responsible for your condition in life and

16:51

I knew that if I quit or

16:53

if I quote unquote got kicked out , both

16:56

of them would have been my responsibility and

16:58

I finally kind of rose to the occasion .

17:02

That's a great learning , and especially to

17:04

get it quite early in your

17:06

career . Really , this , this moment

17:08

of recognition .

17:09

Yeah , that is really great . I

17:12

did the right thing joining the service . I

17:15

did the right thing . I'll tell you that .

17:16

So you stayed six years with yummy , or do you

17:20

pursue your career in the army for a while ?

17:22

I was again . It was a Navy . Sorry yeah , sorry Right

17:25

. The American military members who

17:28

are listening to this will totally understand why

17:30

I'm making that distinction . There's nothing wrong

17:32

with the army . I'm not going to even get into

17:36

that game . But no yeah , I did six

17:38

full years . I went two years of schooling

17:40

and then two years as an instructor at

17:43

a nuclear power prototype out in the middle of

17:45

the desert in Idaho . There's a submarine

17:47

in the desert in Idaho that I operated

17:49

that's a whole different story , right and

17:51

then two years out in the fleet stationed

17:54

out of the west coast of America , went over

17:56

to Australia and Saudi

17:58

Arabia and all kinds of stuff . It

18:00

was very , very cool .

18:02

I can imagine that . And so what

18:04

did you do after that ?

18:07

You know it's interesting to talk about the developer's

18:10

journey . I stayed away

18:12

from technology when I first got out . I

18:15

had spent all that time immersed

18:17

in machines and

18:20

science and staring

18:22

at a reactor plant control panel

18:24

and as

18:26

I was getting close to the end , I just started looking what do

18:28

I want to do when I get out ? And

18:31

I wanted to deal with people more

18:34

than I wanted to deal with machines . And

18:36

so I started in the year before I was

18:38

going to be done , looking at like what

18:41

do I move into ? And I settled on

18:43

insurance , financial services

18:45

, sales , like things where I could work

18:48

with people . And so when I initially

18:50

got out , I moved into that sales

18:52

realm . We could do a whole podcast

18:55

on my seven years selling sunglasses all

19:00

around the world , and if any of my friends

19:02

listen to this podcast , I

19:05

can't tell you how far they're going to roll their eyes into

19:07

the back of their head because they've heard all the sunglass

19:09

stories . But

19:11

here's the thing is in every single role I took

19:13

for the next decade or so , I

19:16

ended up being the technology guy , like

19:18

in that sunglass sales

19:20

company . Early days in

19:22

the internet and the web and e-commerce , they

19:24

said hey , eric , you know about these computers and stuff

19:27

. Can you make us our first website so we can have a catalog

19:29

online ? So I'm like , all right , html

19:31

and CSS . I'm like , okay , how do I do this

19:33

? And upload the catalog and all that kind of stuff . Right . And

19:36

later on , when I was selling of all things flooring

19:39

, carpet , vinyl , tile , hardwood , all that

19:41

kind of stuff we had really complex

19:43

software that was needed to be able to

19:45

manage $60 million

19:47

a year in sales . And when

19:49

they did a huge upgrade to that software package

19:51

, the internal resources for technologists

19:53

were zero . This is a carpet

19:56

sales company . And I had already

19:58

raised my hand and said well , I kind of know this

20:00

stuff . They're like come here , you're on a special project . So

20:03

I just kept working in tech at

20:06

every company , even though I wasn't really working

20:08

in tech . So

20:10

the developer journey took a weird detour

20:13

for a while and did so

20:15

honestly , until about 2011 .

20:18

Wow , before we continue there , were

20:20

you actively working against it or

20:22

just not pursuing it ?

20:24

Well , I'll tell you the truth , and this is I

20:28

know I'm going to feel like an idiot saying this I

20:32

legitimately didn't know how much money people

20:34

made in the industry all

20:36

the way through that period . Like , look I was , I got

20:38

out of the Navy in 94 , right , and

20:40

that was like the beginning of the ramp up of

20:42

software developers and

20:44

engineers being this really solid career

20:47

path . And I got

20:49

out of the Navy and I'd missed all that occurring

20:51

. Then I went off selling sunglasses

20:53

all around the world and missed all of that occurring , and

20:56

I only ended in 2000 when

20:58

the dot com bubble burst and nobody

21:00

wanted to go near tech . So

21:03

I just sort of ignored it . Even

21:05

though I love

21:07

computers to my core and

21:09

I would use them for everything I was doing personally , I

21:11

honestly wasn't aware of

21:14

the software development industry very

21:17

much , and so I wasn't actively going

21:19

away from it , which is all the more embarrassing

21:21

thing because I just

21:23

didn't know it was there . And

21:26

when I found out it was there one I was

21:28

super happy . Two I was kicking myself

21:31

.

21:31

To tell you the truth , I'm

21:34

sure what you learned before that really

21:36

helped you transition

21:39

and have the life you didn't , so

21:41

you shouldn't . Yeah , it

21:43

does , it did Bad mouthed , but ouch

21:46

, yeah , ouch . So

21:48

take us to 2011 . What

21:54

happened ? What took you to finally realizing

21:57

okay , there is this industry

21:59

I've been willingly or

22:01

unwillingly ignoring and that

22:03

has been shouting in my face

22:06

that I should come back to it and

22:08

finally say , okay , screw it , let's

22:10

get in there .

22:14

Am I allowed to swear on this podcast ?

22:16

Absolutely .

22:22

Very few people know this story and

22:24

I'm going to put it on a podcast . Great

22:30

, you hit 2011 and I was really not doing well

22:32

. I was making very little money , you

22:34

know , for listeners in America . I was making about $38,000

22:37

a year . I had lost

22:39

several jobs , couldn't keep one , I

22:42

had a couple of failed businesses under my belt , I

22:45

was letting people down left and

22:47

right , and

22:52

I had a conversation one day with a friend the

22:54

kind of friend who and

22:56

I hope , every single person

22:59

has a friend like this in

23:01

your life , where they can

23:03

tell you the things that

23:05

you need to hear but

23:07

don't want to hear . He pulled

23:10

me into a room

23:12

, shut the door and

23:14

sat down and said

23:16

Eric , it's bullshit

23:19

that you don't make a lot of money . He

23:24

said you're probably the smartest person

23:26

I know . There's

23:29

areas that you know about that are unbelievably

23:31

valuable . The

23:34

way your mind works is incredible

23:36

. But he wasn't saying

23:38

any of those things as praise . They were

23:40

damning Because

23:45

he was right I was letting people down and

23:49

I'd been here my whole life . The not living up to your

23:51

potential kind of you know

23:53

speech that we've

23:55

probably all heard in certain ways , but

23:58

to hear it when you are 42

24:02

years old . It

24:06

was a very , very difficult

24:08

five or 10 minutes . But

24:10

the point where it really hit and

24:14

this is the part that nobody

24:16

knows is that he

24:20

said to me your wife is an incredibly amazing

24:23

person and very forgiving

24:25

, but

24:27

how long do you think she's going to put up with this ? And

24:36

it was just like someone walked up and punched

24:38

me right in the thorax and when

24:40

you get the breath knocked out of you , it

24:44

hit really , really hard . So

24:47

that was like the moment , man , that

24:50

was like the moment . And

24:52

so for about a week I'm

24:55

in a fog like what

24:58

the hell do I do about this ? Because he's right

25:01

. And

25:03

so I was on a long drive about an hour and a half

25:05

long drive with a good friend and

25:09

I just started to download all this stuff . And

25:12

so he just started brainstorming with me like well , what can you do

25:14

? Like , what do you have ? What

25:17

skills do you have that people pay a lot of money for and

25:19

it's a free form conversation . The whole

25:22

subject of software programming , development came

25:24

up and went oh , I

25:27

was in the military . There's

25:29

this . You know , they pay for your education when

25:31

you get out of the service . I

25:33

could go back to school and become a computer

25:35

programmer . And then it hit

25:38

me those benefits expire 10 years after you get out

25:40

of the service . I don't even have that available to me . And

25:43

then he said something that like ended

25:45

up again changing the

25:47

trajectory of my life . He said you know , I've

25:50

got a good friend who's really activist and engineer

25:52

, a software programmer . I don't know

25:54

a lot about that area , but I know some . She just talked

25:56

to him . So we called him up right there in the phone in the car

25:58

and

26:01

I started talking to the guy about what my

26:03

dilemma was and what my background is

26:05

. And he kept asking questions . And

26:08

I'm just trying to figure out , like I don't care if it takes a year or

26:10

two or three , how do I

26:12

break into this ? Because the more he told me about

26:14

what the industry looked like , my mind is going

26:16

wait , you make how much an hour ? Wait

26:18

, there's like like this is the many jobs

26:20

, right , but

26:22

he got we got about 20 , 30 minutes in his conversation and

26:24

he said Eric , you know , I

26:27

don't know that you need to go back to school . Everything

26:31

you're telling me about , like early age and Navy

26:33

and all the stuff you know , you know the fundamentals

26:36

really , really well

26:38

. I think you just need to know how

26:40

software is being made now , what the principal

26:42

languages are and how to do the job Really

26:46

. And he extended an offer of

26:48

help to me , which was incredible . He said I'll

26:50

tell you what to study , I'll give

26:52

you the blueprint for it . You're going

26:54

to have to burn the midnight oil and

26:57

if you can get to a certain stage I've got some contracts

26:59

with the state I can help get you into one of these things

27:01

working under me and at least get you your first

27:03

job . You're going to have to drive an

27:05

hour to work every day and then back , and

27:07

you have to get up super like . I told him I'm

27:10

willing to do whatever . So

27:12

I went home to my wife and said listen

27:14

, here's this opportunity . It probably means

27:16

a lot of risk . It's

27:18

a complete change . I'm probably

27:21

going to be staying up late for weeks

27:24

, months figuring

27:26

this out , but I want to do

27:28

it , and

27:31

so I bought a hundred dollar computer off of Craigslist . I

27:34

went down to this charity place here in America

27:37

called Goodwill . I bought 37

27:39

technology books for $8 because

27:42

that's how this place is and

27:44

for about 11

27:47

, maybe 12 days it was less than two weeks

27:49

I was up till about three o'clock

27:51

every morning , shari

27:54

would go to sleep and I would just

27:56

stay up for hours . How

27:58

is software made now ? What is this

28:00

object-oriented programming thing that was just

28:02

coming into the forefront as I was moving away

28:04

from things ? How

28:07

do you do version control ? What is

28:09

full stack development ? All these things

28:11

? I know the fundamentals he was

28:13

right but I didn't know nothing about how computers

28:15

and programs were made . Nowadays

28:17

. We get into that and

28:20

we're about at day 11 or 12

28:22

, and I just start poking around on job

28:24

boards and I put together a little

28:26

resume and I sent it out Sorry

28:32

, I haven't told this in a while and

28:35

a week later I get a job $42 an

28:37

hour , it's $84,000 a year

28:39

and

28:43

it's just changed my

28:45

life and

28:48

that's you know . I was talking earlier about like the idea

28:50

that I was kicking myself

28:52

, like that

28:54

was the kicking myself moment . Are you

28:56

telling me ? I've been limping along like an idiot in

28:59

all these other areas , flopping , and I was

29:01

failing at left and right , and

29:03

this has been here the whole time . It

29:07

was , it was a moment , man . It

29:09

was a lot more good than bad , don't get me wrong , so

29:13

that when you talk about like the developer

29:16

journey . That's when , for the first

29:18

time , I'm actually getting paid

29:20

to develop , even though I've been in technology

29:22

since I was 11 , basically .

29:26

Man , this is great . I mean , it's

29:28

as painful to hear all this , this

29:30

roller coaster part , but

29:33

it is fantastic

29:35

to see it embodied

29:38

. This , this when

29:40

you don't know what you don't know , you

29:43

just stuck , you have no

29:45

idea , and and it's

29:47

really hard to get out of that . And

29:50

thankfully , sometimes you have people around you

29:52

that nudge you in one direction or another and

29:54

at some point there is light

29:56

and there you see , oh wow , there was

29:58

a thing I didn't , didn't see . Yeah was there .

30:01

But if you don't , that's what

30:03

you're spot on and this is one of the hallmarks

30:05

that we like . What I now do a lot of career coaching

30:07

with people , and this is one of the biggest things . You're

30:09

so right , and I know this to be true for myself

30:11

and others you don't know what you don't know , and

30:14

the best technologists I

30:16

work with all you

30:18

need to do is uncover something and let them

30:20

see it , answer any questions

30:23

. They have to fully understand it and

30:25

then they're off in a million miles an hour . It's one of the things

30:27

I love about it and love about our industry . We

30:29

are bright , inquisitive , inquisitive

30:31

problem solvers and the only

30:34

time we hit a wall is when

30:36

we just don't know the path forward and

30:39

that they just show them the path and they're like thank

30:42

you , man , boom , and they are gone

30:44

. It's awesome to see and

30:46

that's how . That's how it was for me . I saw the path to it

30:48

. I'm like , oh , and then I dove

30:51

into it like with a vengeance , what I learned in those first

30:53

two , three years , two or three years about modern

30:57

software development , engineering . I

31:01

would look back every six months or so and go I can't

31:03

believe I know all this stuff now , but

31:06

it was like I was driven

31:09

. You know what I mean ? Oh yeah , I do . And was it rainbows and

31:11

?

31:11

unicorns the last 12 years . Yes

31:14

, yes

31:17

, yeah .

31:19

If HP Lovecraft design a

31:21

rainbow and a unicorn . No , it's

31:23

been ups and downs , you know , okay

31:26

. So here's the highlights and then the

31:28

low lights , like . The highlights are that in that time

31:30

I've gotten experience as just

31:32

a pure contractor the pure contractor play

31:34

, where you're responsible for getting your gigs . You've got

31:37

to manage everything as a one man business

31:39

, right . That ? And that

31:41

of course , comes with as highs and as lows . But being

31:43

exposed to a tremendous number

31:45

of different business scenarios and industries

31:48

and programming , you know difficulties and challenges

31:50

, super valuable . The downside

31:52

man virtually every side

31:54

project ever I ever took on ended up being

31:57

working for peanuts because

31:59

of scope creep , right . So there's

32:01

highs and lows , right . Yeah , a tremendous

32:03

high is and

32:06

we literally could do an entire podcast

32:08

about it the the genesis for the idea

32:10

of the tech Academy , which is the software developer

32:12

bootcamp I co founded , and that

32:14

whole 10 year journey because it's still around and

32:16

doing well . Right , those have highs

32:18

and lows . The highs man we've

32:21

helped over a thousand people break into technology

32:23

as like well rounded , entry

32:25

level software developers . That's amazing . Yeah , right

32:27

, it is the lows . The

32:30

first time we had

32:33

to have a reduction

32:35

in force . Now

32:37

, we were 21 people in the team

32:39

at that point , but these were my friends

32:42

and loved ones . This is a purely bootstrapped

32:44

organization . I knew every single

32:46

one of these people , my co founder , jack , and I they these

32:48

are . This is our core team . And

32:51

to have to have that conversation

32:54

with someone , whoo

32:57

, oh , yeah , yeah . So

33:00

, yeah , it hasn't

33:02

been rainbows and unicorns , but it has been a journey

33:04

of progressively

33:06

greater understanding

33:08

of the technology landscape

33:11

, building my muscles as

33:13

both an engineer , as an entrepreneur , and

33:16

the hallmark , like the thread

33:18

that runs all the way through it . I

33:21

love helping people , like

33:24

I love everyone's in a while I don't know what's

33:26

happened for you , but you bump into someone that

33:28

they just don't enjoy being helpful to others

33:30

in life . And I'm like you

33:33

have any idea what you're missing out on ? Man , man

33:35

, watching that aha moment

33:37

. And , more importantly , when

33:40

you see them walking unaided

33:42

into the future

33:44

, like I

33:46

did that , like there's

33:48

nothing like it , right ? So , whether

33:50

I'm like , whether I'm writing a book or

33:53

designing a curriculum or counseling

33:56

an entrepreneur , like , yeah

33:59

, I'm going to make sure that I , what I do , make

34:01

sense economically and that you know

34:03

it's , you know , financially viable . But

34:06

it only works if my heart is devoted

34:09

to help and

34:11

I don't know . You can't

34:13

fake that kind of thing . You know what I mean . It's

34:15

got to be there at your heart and

34:18

so that's that's . We

34:20

can talk technology and all that kind of nerdy stuff all day

34:22

long and , believe me , I love it and I will . Right

34:24

, but I really believe

34:26

we're our best when we're helping other people .

34:28

Oh , yeah , this is a . This is something

34:30

I've been . I've been seeing again

34:32

, again . I've been nodding my head heavily

34:35

the listeners cannot see this but what

34:37

I've been doing for the past 10 minutes .

34:39

I've just been seeing a Tim Bobblehead doll . That's all Exactly

34:41

.

34:43

But the thing I love the most is

34:45

when people have been leaving

34:48

me or leaving the company I was in , and

34:51

and you , just , you just see them

34:53

walking into the sunset and

34:55

and leaving you in their tracks and you

34:57

know they are off for fantastic stories somewhere

34:59

else . But you understand

35:02

, okay , they , they , they reach the end of the

35:04

story with you and now they need way

35:06

, way more . You're limiting them by

35:08

keeping them here and you see them skyrocketing

35:11

somewhere and this is such a great feeling

35:13

of saying , hey , I was part of that . I

35:16

had maybe a little tiny effect

35:20

on that person that made them who they

35:22

are today , and this is such a great feeling

35:24

.

35:24

It is absolutely egoistical , but

35:26

it's such a great feeling and

35:28

sometimes you don't find out for

35:30

a long time the difference you made . Right , we

35:33

had a . We had a student at the school

35:36

that this way back in 2015

35:38

. We

35:40

had this huge initial win . When he went through the program

35:43

, he wasn't even done with the program yet and he got hired

35:45

at Disney and

35:47

we helped a lot in that right

35:49

. But I just

35:51

remember , because it's been years , hey

35:54

, we helped the guy get hired at Disney , right . Well

35:57

, I was talking to him about five or six months ago

35:59

and he's now like the CTO of

36:01

an incredibly successful artificial intelligence

36:04

startup . He's doing really , really well

36:06

and I

36:08

attributed a lot of it to like the fact that he's just a really

36:11

driven , caring , competent

36:13

person . But

36:16

he in this conversation he told

36:18

me about a , a talk we'd

36:20

had that I'd fully forgotten when he first

36:23

realized that in his network was

36:25

someone who was connected directly to hiring

36:28

personnel at Disney and

36:31

who had reached out to him and said hey , dude

36:33

, I heard you're learning to code . I

36:36

know you from our prior work relationship at another

36:38

company and I really just think you ought to throw your hat

36:40

in the ring . And I remember him

36:42

coming to me and saying like man

36:44

, erica , I'm not even done with this program . Like

36:47

, what do I do with this ? I

36:49

could either like go for this and

36:51

, yeah , pull off some amazing win , like I'm gonna

36:53

work at Disney , or I could just look

36:55

like a complete idiot and

36:58

burn a bridge . What do

37:00

I do ? And the funny thing is

37:02

I don't even remember what I told him in that

37:04

moment . And that's

37:06

why , you know , a few months ago , when we were talking , he

37:09

remembered what I told him and

37:12

I didn't know it at the time , but it helped him tremendously

37:15

. You know , you're just being

37:17

yourself , being interested in the other

37:19

person , caring about them

37:21

and helping in the moment , and

37:23

you don't know what that

37:25

means to them eight , 10 years down the line . You

37:28

never know . So just

37:31

be helpful all the time . It's my

37:33

advice , not that I've always done

37:35

that . I can be

37:37

a jerk and an idiot , don't get me wrong , you know

37:39

. But I think if you have that as your hallmark , as deep interest in

37:41

other people and being

37:43

willing to see their point of view and always trying

37:45

to leave the person better than when they met

37:47

you , you'll probably do all right .

37:50

I love what you just said Leave the person better

37:53

than when they met you Well you know that

37:55

is . Even if you don't know it .

37:58

That's the Boy Scout in me , like my

38:00

way . There's just certain things

38:02

getting grained right . When you go camping

38:04

in the Boy Scouts , the last thing you do before

38:06

you leave is you walk around and you police

38:09

the grounds . And this means looking over

38:11

the entire situation , remembering what

38:13

it looked like when you arrived and making

38:15

sure that , no matter what you do

38:17

, it looks better than when you arrived

38:20

. And we did that over and over

38:22

and over again , to the point where this

38:24

is ingrained . When we enter any space

38:26

, I am and I only realize this

38:28

when I'm doing it I'm subconsciously

38:30

scanning the ground and the

38:32

surroundings and as we leave

38:34

, before I even know

38:37

I'm reaching down , I'm picking the garbage up off

38:39

the ground and walk , you know , and put it in the garbage . I

38:41

it's not even like , ooh , I'm awesome , I don't even

38:43

think about it . It's just kind of ingrained by the

38:45

Boy Scouts , right , but that philosophy

38:47

, no like . Why wouldn't that be

38:49

the hallmark you have of like ? What's

38:52

your rationale for having lived ? How

38:55

do you make that difference ? Well

38:57

, I can think of worse ones

38:59

than hey , everyone I come in contact with

39:01

do they leave a little bit better just

39:03

for having interacted with me . I

39:06

mean , it's a pretty good

39:08

moral barometer or compass

39:10

.

39:13

But here's a curve ball coming . How

39:16

do you evaluate what is better for people

39:18

?

39:20

It goes back to those two things I said before . You have

39:23

to be deeply interested in them , genuinely

39:25

. I trained people in sales for

39:27

a long time and all sales people talk too

39:29

much , they don't listen enough and

39:32

many of them have an inability to adopt

39:35

the viewpoint of the person they're talking to

39:37

. And if you can put

39:39

yourself in their shoes and have it be

39:41

genuine , more than just like

39:43

a platitude , you start to really

39:46

see where they're coming from . It starts

39:48

from that point of view , and you only get that by finding

39:50

something you are genuinely

39:52

interested in them about . You

39:55

cannot fake that right Now . You can build that muscle

39:57

up , but you have to actively , when

40:00

you meet someone , find out for yourself

40:02

what really interests me about this person , what

40:04

do I actually admire about them , right

40:06

? So that's where I would

40:08

start with that , because at that point

40:11

you're not going into the

40:13

situation considering that the win

40:15

of the interaction only

40:17

relates to you . You're

40:20

forcing yourself to consider a two-valued

40:22

proposition . The other person's point of view matters too

40:24

. So

40:27

beyond that , we can have hours-long philosophical

40:29

discussion about it , but at the end of the day , if you're

40:31

gonna try to do the greatest good for the greatest

40:34

number of areas of life and you include

40:36

that other person as being part of your life

40:38

. Well , now it kind of changes

40:40

your mental equation a little bit . So

40:43

that's how I approach like , look

40:45

, because we all of us have to make decisions

40:47

about what we think is right for the other person . Like

40:50

, you do this as a manager

40:52

, right , you do this as an instructor

40:54

, as a coach , you're gonna recommend

40:57

things , or even sometimes , depending upon the organizational

40:59

structure , you're gonna dictate or order things

41:01

, and if you're not doing so with

41:04

a willingness and exercised ability to

41:06

consider them in

41:08

the equation , you're not gonna

41:10

do a really good job .

41:14

And if you are , this is an

41:17

injurgency . I'm not sure that's the right word

41:19

, Basically forcing your

41:21

own will on somebody else or forcing

41:23

your view of the world

41:25

on somebody else .

41:26

Yeah , and it's revolting . Look

41:29

, we all have things when they get done , we have

41:31

goals and purposes . But life

41:33

is a collaborative exercise , man , it

41:36

really is . It is like you

41:38

know the whole no man as an island . Look

41:41

, you can get through life and in certain emergency

41:43

situations with that kind of an attitude , but

41:45

as a long-term operating basis , those

41:48

people don't win long-term .

41:52

I love that . Life is a collaborative

41:54

exercise . Yeah , it never hurts . It

41:56

put it this way , man , it makes so much sense

41:58

. Eric

42:02

, when you picture the green students

42:04

of that bootcamp , is

42:09

there something you always tell them , an advice

42:11

that you put in front of all

42:13

the students when they first come in and

42:15

when they face this program ? I

42:17

don't know how long three months , four months with

42:20

your bootcamp .

42:21

Yeah , yeah . Typical bootcamps are

42:23

about four to six months , depending upon how much time they

42:25

can put into them . I

42:27

love this question . The

42:31

thing that I would sit down and tell them is that the

42:33

specifics of the technology that

42:35

you're about to learn are a lot

42:37

less important than a couple of senior things

42:39

. And those senior things are what

42:42

are the fundamental principles involved in the operation

42:44

of a computer and the fundamental

42:47

principles involved in a program and the fundamental

42:49

principles of working as a team ? What are those fundamentals

42:52

? And above

42:54

all of those is you've

42:56

got to learn to think like an engineer . There

43:00

are different ways of thinking

43:02

based on the activity you're involved in in

43:04

life , and one of your chief goals

43:06

as you go through this is to learn how

43:08

to think like an engineer . And

43:10

that way , when you walk off into the sunset , when you know

43:12

what this program as technology

43:15

changes at a breakneck clip

43:17

, you will be well set , because

43:20

any new development you don't know how to think

43:22

your way through it . You're not going to rely on memorization

43:24

, You're not going to rely on the specific technology

43:27

learned in the bootcamp . You're going to be able to

43:29

think with tech , and

43:32

that's what I tell them .

43:33

Oh , yeah , yeah .

43:35

And I tell them that

43:37

nerds rule the world . You

43:39

should be proud to be part of the team .

43:42

Amen to that . This

43:46

has been a fantastic and

43:48

literal roller coaster with you .

43:50

It has been , and I'm

43:53

sure that afterwards I'm probably just going to have a glass

43:55

of whiskey to get over

43:57

the fact that I shared some of that stuff with you . But no

43:59

, in all honesty , if it ends

44:01

up helping someone out there , then

44:04

I'm happy to have shared it . The truth is that the

44:06

public persona that people kind of put out to the world

44:08

is never the full

44:10

picture . There's lots

44:13

of things I've put out there about successes

44:15

. The truth is I'm just like anybody else

44:17

. I've had the ups and downs , I've made the mistakes , and

44:19

I just want people to know that and

44:22

this is the last thing I'll say is that one

44:26

thing that I have developed over time is the

44:28

certainty that

44:30

I will never stay

44:32

down . I'll get knocked down . Life

44:34

will kick me behind . The one

44:36

thing I have learned to know about myself is I will

44:38

never refuse to get

44:41

back up again , and if you just adopt that

44:43

and just keep practicing

44:45

it , man , your life changes

44:47

. The sky is limit , yeah

44:49

.

44:51

Thank you so much , Absolutely .

44:53

Thank you , man . I love this . This

44:55

is a really really good conversation .

44:57

It was indeed . Where would

45:00

be the best place to continue that discussion with you ?

45:02

OK , so the online the

45:04

best place to go is yourcareerarchitectcom

45:07

. This is where I have a lot of information about

45:09

what I do online Yourcareerarchitectcom

45:12

. But the bestest bestest

45:14

place is to go to yourcareerarchitectcom

45:17

Slash most

45:19

valuable knowledge . One

45:21

of the things I love helping people with is identifying , out

45:24

of all the valuable skills and knowledge they

45:26

have , where's the intersection of

45:28

true passion , deep

45:32

skill and actual

45:34

value in the marketplace . And

45:37

if they go to that location they'll find a

45:40

free book that will help them through that process

45:42

. Yourcareerarchitectcom slash

45:44

most valuable knowledge .

45:46

And we'll put that in the show notes as well . Just scroll

45:48

down and click Awesome , and it'll be there . Awesome

45:51

. Anything else you want to plug in ?

45:55

I really appreciate what you're doing . I

45:57

sincerely appreciate what you're doing for the technology world

45:59

. It's fantastic .

46:00

Thank you , eric

46:02

, it's been a blast .

46:04

Awesome . Thanks , man .

46:05

And this has been another episode of Day of the Post Journey

46:07

. I will see you there next week . Bye-bye

46:10

. Thanks a lot

46:12

for tuning in . I hope you have enjoyed

46:14

this week's episode . If you like

46:16

the show , please share , rate

46:19

and review . It helps more

46:21

listeners discover those stories

46:23

. You can find the links to all

46:25

the platforms the show appears on on

46:28

our website devjourneyinfo

46:31

slash subscribe . Talk

46:34

to you soon .