Becoming an Outlier - Reprogramming the Developer Mind.txt

{Module One: Motivation}
    Goal: Tranformation in thinking about career development
        How you spend your time
        How other perceive you
        Skills to change career trajectory
    Expected to:
        Standout
        Make impact
        More options
        Code with purpose
    Software Development is calling.
    Being wealthy is NOT about having money.
    It's about having options.

    3 Common Fallacies
    1. Not enough time to learn - too much to keep up
    2. No respect for the Skills we have - need connection to right people
    3. No control over career trajectory

{Module Two: Command Your Time}
    Objective:
        The amount of success you have in life is roughly equivalent to
        the amount of time you spend doing things people want
        - add value to other people

    The technical treadmill:
        The specific technology mastered today is unlikely to be
        marketable over a 10-year span

    Foster the joy of learning and curiosity to keep up and
    embrace the ever-changing landscape

    Habits Build Experts
    "I'm not a a great programmer; I'm just a good programmer with great habits"

    Habit: 40% of your day

    Exercise habit:
        Replace habit that makes you stagnant with habit that makes you moving

    Eating habit: choose breakfast well

    Consider following options:
    TV                  Book
    Hot Dog             Fish
    Elevator            Staris
    Consumption         Creation
    Eating out          Sack lunch
    Soda                Water
    Buy new             Buy used
    Sleep in            Weak early
    Status quo          Growth
    Pessimism           Optimism
    Minimum             Exceeding Expectation

    HABITS ARE A CHOICE

    Teach Yourself Programming in 10 years
    - with on-going and deliberate practice

    Expert = 10,000 hours

    Deliberate practice:
        Doing things you are NOT good at
        Striving to improve
        Evaluate your performance

    Search for new framework, new patterns, and techniques
    Focus on what you are not good at & push through the pain

    Goal: 2 hours deliberate practice (14 years)

    When focusing one area of life, other focusings will need to be reduced

    Prioritize daily activities into categories
    Rank categories: (top ones) Family, Health, Self Dev., Job
    For other activities: Default to NO

    You are on a mission - You set the pace of your time, not others

    Multithread your life
    Commute:
        1. Eliminate if possible
        2. Public transit
        3. Listen to quality content (podcast, books on CD): http://outlierdeveloper.com/audiobooks/
        4. Notes while driving (digital voice recorder)

    Re-think giving back: donate by Programming

    Code while on trip, long gap

    Exercise while watching moive

    Avoid coding + multi-tasking

    Be Modal: focus on task at hand
        "You do something all day long, don't you?
        The only difference is that you do a great many things and I do one"
        The importance of time alone to focus on task - stay in the zone
        Options:
            Private office
            Work from home
            Alternate schedule
            Batch meeting
            Headphones
            Before leave for interruption, write down what you were doing

        Find a way to automate daily task or setup reminder

    What is your default mode?
        A managed twetter stream as news
        Preference as following:
        News:
            Hacker News
            Reddit Programming
            The Verge
        TV:
            PluralSight
            InfoQ videos
            DNRTV
            TED Talks
        Magazines:
            Coding Horror
            Los Techies
            Hanselman
        Book:
            Code complete
            Seven language in seven weeks
            Patterns of EnterpriseAppArchtecture

    Search for life changing media
    "In order to do the big things, you have to let the small bad things happen."
    - Does it help achieve my goal?

    Focus on the area you can change

    Money is Time
    Buy time with money -
    Success = spending time doing the things you want to do

{Module Three: Hack Your Image}

    Perception is Reality
        The need for personal referral
        The cost of building prefessional relationship from scratch everytime you start

    The developer image triangle (pick two if needed)
        1. Be easy to work with
        2. Do great work
        3. Deliver on time

        1 + 2: Cordial Craftsman -> Ivory Tower Developer for some (might be better then the other two?)
        2 + 3: Reliable Robot -> Tolerate no mistake
        1 + 3: Happy Hacker -> Debt generator
        All three have downside - thus need balance based on context

    Purpose Built:
        The narrower the niche; the more likely to become a standout
        Consider what are you known for:
            Generalist or specialist?
            Front end or back end?
            Is 'it' clear on resume, blog and open source contributio?
            What is the benefit moving to either extreme?

    Bring Solution:
        Negative: Complaint without concrete suggestion for how to resolve issue
        Positive:
            "I have been thinking about the issue we had with XYZ...How about we [alternative]
            ... this will [benefits & fix] ... I have investigated a few options and I recommand [solution] b/c ...
            Can I build a proof of concept"
            - taking initiative, been thoughtful and make managers job easy

    Self-image is Your Greatest Constraint
        I am who I think you think I am:
            If you think people view you as "X" then you are likely to act like "X"

    1. Hack your self image: improve the way you view yourself by ACT like your hero
    2. Leave to leap (when not been taken seriously)
    3. Reach beyond your comfort zone by taking "Scary Interview" and embrace the uncertainty
    "If you are not worrying that something you're making will come out badly,
    or you won't be able to understand something you are studying, then it isn't hard enough.
    There should be suspense ... Look for smart people and hard problems.
    Smart people tend to clump together, and if you find such a clump,
    it's probably worthwhile to join it."

    Avoid Conference effect: we are all learning here

    Can I see your work?
        - to apear to be more engaging
        Twitter account with programming reference
        Blog with a few posts
        Github
        Personal website

    Reuse and Repurpose:
    After you learned something new:
        - Take side project or Use the tech in different projects
        - Write a blog post
        - Tweet abot it
        - Lunch & learn (Brown Bag)
        - Speak at Conference or Meetup
        - Answer questions on forums / Stackoverflow
        - Contribute to Open Source

    How To Stop Sucking And Be Awesome Instead - Jeff Atwood
        1. Embrace the Suck
            The first rule of programming - It's always your fault.
            Failure is the default mode and we can always do better.
            Version 1 sucks but ship it anyway, because:
                3 months of user feedback is always better then
                3 months in development
            Boyd's Law of Iteration:
            Speed of iteration ALWAYS beats quality of iteration
            - where you are today doesn't matter so much,
            comparing to where you are goin tomorrow,
            as long as you can change and adapt fast enough
            The goal is to suck less every day, week, month, year...
        2. Do it in public (where others can see)
            This will make you spend the effort
            The constraints are mostly self-imposed

            [Do these things]                       [in these places]

            Answer questions                        Blog
            Document your learning                  Conference / Meetup
            Share my Failures                       User Groups
            Build something new                     Stackoverflow
            Talk about your development process     GitHub
            Justify your technical decisions        Hacker News
            Share update on what you build          Reddit Programming
                                                    Twitter
                                                    Google+

            Example: when answering a question / solving a problem, make it a public available resource

        3. Pick stuff that matters
            Everytime you share something, Ask: So What?
                People don't care about you, they care about:
                    - their problems
                    - information useful to them
                    - what entertains them
                    - what makes them feel like they rule
                Getting things done is enabling other people getting things done
            People tend to ignore / forget "not awsome",
            but they remember their success - and the things you do to help them achieve that
            Find an audience that needs your help, and
            No one should be more excited about your mission than you
            Ask: What cool thing did I do for someone else today?
            It is better to try and failed than being safe and sorry

{Module Four: Own Your Trajectory}
Take active control over career and don't let circumstances dictate career path
1. Move from passive to active
2. Clear your mind
3. Choose your role

    From Passive to Active
        Stay only if it helps to achieve your goal
        Make decision deliberately, not been forced to

    Why Freedom Matters: here is two keys
        Slack in finance to afford life - frugality
        Skills in demand to make it anywhere, anyhow

    Slack:
      Clear your mind (with persistent focus):
        because scarcity diminishes mental capacity
          -> distraction makes you dumber
        Devs needs uninterrupted thought
        Financial worries make it harder to think about other things
        Worries outside of job affect our abilities on the job

        The biggest enemy is your bill -> the cheaper you live the greater your options.

    Skills:
      One must rigorously review the technical lanscape to see where their current skill set fits in
      and where things are headed

      Does the demand outstripe supply?
        - Use TIOBE index to measure programing language popularity

      How about demand in your city? Dice.com with City

      Niche andleverage exist where demand outstripe supply - even if the opertunities is fewer
      However, at either edge of adoption curve, patience and marketing are key
      Technologies are unlikely to change if it is mature / dying - this can be upside

    Program your Brain
      Reading - Audiovisual - Demo - Discussion - Practice doing - Teach others
      3 Steps for learning:
        1. watch someone (video, books, blog)
        2. Experiment with real world implementation
        3. Teach someone else (also, blog post, stackoverflow)
      Don't appologize for lack of knowledge or experience

    Exploration and Exploitation
      Exploration: Acquire new technology
        Too much:
          Never reach expertise
          High opportunity cost
      Exploitation: Apply acquired technology for work
        Too much:
          Skills become stale
          Become irrelevant

    Assembly Line Coder
      Don't work only for money, work to learn

    Opportunity curve
      With expertise, more opportunities are available at any point in life
      - remain relevant throughout retirement age

    Search for scale:
      You can only sell an hour of your life ONCE - this does not SCALE
      To scale, one needs to get everything out of a given unit of work

      SCALE buys more TIME
      More TIME to enchance SKILLS
      SKILLS to build more things that SCALE

      Aim to get closer to independence and automated income
      Level 1. Work (do what was told)
        Fix bug, Bill by the hour
      Level 2. Lead (talk about work)
        Select architectures & Technologies
        Mentor, hire and lead treadmill
        Define project scope and processes
      Level 3. Own
        Products: SAAS PAAS
        Frameworks
        Author (books, lessons, etc...)

{Module Five: The Outlier Challenge}
1. Command your time
2. Hack your image
3. Own your trajectory

  Act as if
    Starting acting like a thought leader - get your thought and ideas out in the public.
    - speaking, bloging, publishing
    Act like you are rich:
      - work part-time
      - pay others to free up your time
      - start working only part time so you have more time to learn

  Manufacture Urgency
    Make commitment with others to force you to deliver on your goals
      Volunteer to present a topic you want to learn (for lunch and learn)
      Announce your planned launch date
      Take interview for tech you don't yet know well

  Increase Luck Surface area
    Luck Surface Area:
      is directly proportional to the degree to which you do something you're passionate about
      combined with the total number of people to whom this is effectively communicated

    1. Speaking: lunch & learn, user group or conference - about things you want to be known for
    2. Startup weekend / Code for charity: to build network
    3. Connect people: Create a meetup / User Group / Mastermind
    4. Blog / Tweet / Be Social
    5. Contribute to Open Source: Halo effect
    6. Never Eat Alone
    7. Make the Hang: hanging out with leaders in your fields

  Chase fear
    Find what scares you and run AT it
      - take a lead job
      - manage others
      - speaking
      - committing to open source
      - shipping art

  Choose yourself - and choose HARD
  b/c downside is much less than you think



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