25 Oct 2026 #misc
“An angle grinder cut off my toe,” he told me.
It was at the butchery counter of my local grocery store. I hadn’t seen him in a while. I thought he was working in another rotation. I usually do my groceries in the afternoons.
“I was on sick leave for two months,” he said.
“Oh boy! I didn’t know. What happened?” Then he told me about his toe. For a second, I thought it was a simple cut that a few butterfly stitches could fix. “What actually happened?”
“The angle grinder did cut off my toe.” It wasn’t a simple cut. “I was doing some repairs at home, the angle grinder fell over, and I wasn’t wearing shoes.”
“You’re kidding, right?” I couldn’t believe him.
He simply nodded, with a big smile on his face. I had ordered two chicken breasts as usual. While he cleared the skin off the breasts, he raised his head, “I was on vacation and supposed to return in two days. My wife had told me to hire someone…“
“I guess she said, ‘I told you’,” my sister next to me told him. He kept nodding with a smile so big we could see all his teeth.
“That day I had an appointment, but I chose to stay at home… I guess when bad things happen, they simply happen.”
“Don’t worry! If you’re wearing shoes, nobody will notice it,” the guy next in line said. “If your wife chose you, one missing toe won’t change her mind,” I told him while we were all laughing.
Lesson: Always wear shoes when working with cutting tools… or hire someone who knows how to use them. More importantly, it’s not what happens to you, but how you react to it. Even if that’s losing a toe.
For more life lessons, check out 10 Surprisingly Simple Ideas That Changed My Life.
24 Oct 2026 #career
“Nobody becomes an icon without help.”
That was part of Ruben Blades’ speech when receiving the 2026 Billboard Icon Award.
Sorry, I found out by doomscrolling on Instagram.
In my defense, sometimes it gives me inspiration for ideas—like this one.
After that line, he started to mentioned a list of singers, producers, and orchestras who bet on him.
I’m not an icon, but I’ve received help from lots of people to get to where I’m at in my career.
One day, someone made an introduction for my first job.
Someone gave me a chance when I had zero experience.
Someone made another introduction when I was fired from my first job.
Someone made me sit next to him to mentor me.
Someone referred me to my highest-paying job.
Someone set aside time from his work agenda to give me advice.
Someone gave me another chance when I had a huge gap on my CV.
Those are the ones I remember from the top of my head.
I’ve never had the opportunity to say thanks to most of them.
To their eyes, their help was maybe a small act of kindness without importance.
But for me, they were defining moments in my career.
Take the time to say thank and do something small for someone today.
If this lesson resonates, you’re going to like, Career Lessons From the Trenches, my free 7-day email course where I distill 10+ years of career lessons into 7 short emails–to help you navigate your coding career.
23 Oct 2026 #mondaylinks
Hey there.
Here are 4 links I thought were worth sharing this week:
#1. Eight TLS certificates were compromised (3min) and the whole internet goes on alert.
#2. AI has exploded the amount of code written. Now imagine how fast Claude and other AI companies do it. Here’s how code review looks at scale at Anthropic (14min)
#3. Maybe you’re being “pushed” to use AI for productivity or speed, but it’s still OK to enjoy programming (4min)
#4. Now Apple removed icons next to every menu entry (2min).
And in case you missed it, and since we’re getting close to Halloween, here are the scariest lines of code I’ve written (2min).
(Bzzz…Radio voice) This email was brought to you by… Street-Smart Coding Manifesto. A case against syntax obsession. Because real impact comes from skills outside your IDE.
Keep coding smart.
See you next Friday,
Cesar
22 Oct 2026 #wellness #books
To improve my sleep, I ran an experiment before going to bed.
It was from one of Bryan Johnson’s videos where I learn to reduce my heart rate before sleeping.
That’s why I did for a week.
I measured my heart rate every 30 minutes:
After some breaths to find my baseline.
Then after some relaxing activities, like journaling, meditation, and reading.
Guess which one lowered my heart rate the most?
Reading a book.
I read fiction in my native language, to be precise.
There’s a reason why that I found when reading How reading books regulates your nervous system:
Reading involves different systems of our brain:
- Visual system to identify letters.
- Language system to give meaning to those symbols.
- Attention to keep us decoding what’s in the pages.
- Memory to store what we’re absorbing.
This coordination of systems moves you from “fight or fly” into “rest and digest.”
Which has measurable changes in your body.
Reading regulates your nervous system.
Another good reason to do it.
You can regulate yours by reading one of my books. Find them here.
21 Oct 2026 #books
I found in Newsonat by Mark Rogers his 5 Ws of Reading. So here are mine.
WHO - An author you would love to have a ‘one to one’ with?
That’s definitely James Altucher. I’ve binge-read almost all his books.
I found Choose Yourself when I was on my way out of burnout and it inspired me to adopt a daily healthy practice—that idea alone changed my life. Although I’ve stalking James a lot, that probably I’d have to come up with good questions.
WHAT - What genre do you most gravitate to?
I try to balance between non-fiction and fiction. But these days, I’m more into non-fiction books, especially about physical and mental health, and well-being in general. In the last quarter, I’ve read a fortress about it: Emotional Intelligence, Brain Wash, Sleep.
WHERE - Where do you prefer to read?
As a hack to read more books, I leave books on my kitchen table. So I found myself reading after breakfast as part of my morning routine.
WHEN - What time of day do you prefer to read?
I balance between non-fiction in the morning, when my energy is at its peak, and fiction before going to bed to unplug.
WHY - Why is your favourite book your favourite book?
I don’t have A favorite books. To answer this, I’d have to do it per categories:
- For personal development, I’d go with Choose Yourself, the raw failure stories and the idea of taking care as a first step to choose oneself.
- For finance, I’d go with The Richest Man in Babylon. It’s the format itself: a fables instead of a boring list of facts and recommendations.
A book that took me into a fascinating world
I read mostly non-fiction, not too many fascinating worlds, apart from our own worlds/heads. But I have on my reading list The Lord of the Rings.
A book that made me cry
It’s not a popular one, but I co-wrote with my sister a book to honor our mom’s memory: Nuestros Recuerdos in Spanish. She wrote a good-bye letter to my mom I can’t read. Every time I do it, I can’t help by cry.
A book that was thoughtful and profound
Ecclesiastes from the Bible. OMG! It reads like the memories of an eccentric millionaire. Someone who wasted his entire life amassing wisdom and fortune, just to find out it was pointless. Of course, with lots of drops of wisdom on every page.
A “comfort” book, read and re-read many times
Recently, I re-read Love in Times of Cholera. I read it back in school, but I didn’t enjoy it as much. Probably one of favorites by Gabriel García Márquez. I should have added it to my answer about favorite books.
Bonus - How do you go about selecting what you will read next?
I don’t have a clear strategy. I like to follow my curiosity or goals. These days, I’m interested in sleep, so that’s what I’m reading about in next months… and I like to write in the blank page of a book a list of all books mention inside it… and Ryan Holiday’s YouTube channel.
From time to time, I pack my best ideas into short and actionable books. If you’re curious, you can find them here.