03 Jan 2026 #books
There’s no secret behind the great masters of history.
We often think their success comes from a wealthy family, superintelligence, or invisible forces from other planets.
But in Mastery, Robert Greene shows there’s a process behind the success of those great minds. A process we can replicate to become a master too.
Here are my three main lessons from Mastery:
#1. “Mastery is like swimming”
We all have a natural inclination.
Maybe it’s writing, connecting with others, dancing, numbers, or animals. We’re drawn to something when money and a safe path aren’t involved.
Often, our inclination is clear when we’re kids.
For Einstein, that was seeing a compass for the first time. The forces moving the needle captivated his whole life.
To achieve mastery, follow your natural inclination and your strengths.
Like in swimming, you’ll barely move if you’re going against the current. That’s what happens when you try to master something you’re not suited for.
#2. Discover your Life’s Task
“Your Life’s Task is to bring [the seed planted at birth] to flower, to express your uniqueness through your work.”
Some masters know their Life’s Task since childhood. But others only find it after a phase of discovery and exploration.
Yoky Matsuoka is one of those masters.
She wasn’t interested in the traditional careers like law or medicine. She was into tennis. Her parents sent her from Japan to the US to pursue tennis, but an injury ended that path.
Unsure what to study, she chose engineering. Later, her interest in how hands work (from tennis) led her to robotics, and eventually neuroscience to study the brain-hand connection. By combining her passions, she revolutionized the design of robotic hands, modeling them after human hands.
If you don’t fit in any field or have multiple passions, create yours by exploring and combining other fields.
#3. The process behind great masters
All masters go through a similar 3-phase process:
Apprentice, Creative/Active, and Mastery.
First, they immerse in a field, learning as much as they can. For Leonardo, it was countless hours of sketching the landscape of his walks around the forest. Then, it was working under Verrocchio, one of the master painters of his time.
Then, all that immersion clicks and the master ventures into their own creations. That usually means taking distance from mentors and finding their own way.
Finally, their field becomes second nature, guided by intution. Notes flow on a piano, scenes come alive on canvas. The apprentice becomes a master. And that’s not the result of magic, but immersion, practice, and persistence—A path open to anyone willing to walk it.
02 Jan 2026 #mondaylinks
Hey there.
Here are 4 links I thought were worth sharing this week:
#1. One of my worst career mistakes was going on auto-pilot without a plan. I jumped from job to job until I got bored or fired. But if you don’t plan your career, someone else will (4min).
#2. 2026 is the year to start a side project? Just find a focused time block. Maybe that’s coding on the subway (6min).
#3. A summary of the state of AI at the end of 2025 (4min) by the Redis’ creator.
#4. Holiday season is usually for reflection. If you haven’t yet, try these a 10-question (4min) or a 40-question prompts (3min). I followed that last one.
And in case you missed it, I wrote on my blog about feeling AI FOMO (2min) and a 30-action digital decluttering plan (4min).
(Bzzz…Radio voice) This email was brought to you by… my new book, Street-Smart Coding: 30 lessons to help you code like a pro. From Googling to clear communication, it covers the lessons you don’t learn in tutorials. It’s now out on Kindle and paperback on Amazon.
Happy coding in 2026!
See you next time,
Cesar
01 Jan 2026 #misc
I’ll remember 2025 as the year I became a writer—and the year I lost my mom.
The saddest moment
After five years of fighting a chronic disease, she left.
It was the saddest, loneliest moment of my life. It led me to my toughest post ever.
To honor her memory, my sister and I wrote a book: Nuestros Recuerdos (Our Memories in Spanish).
We compiled my journal entries and her poetry. A friend drew some illustrations. And we found some pictures of her when she was young.
That was our therapy and way to keep her alive in our memory.
2025 was a year of achievements and melancholy, winning and losing, endings and beginnings.
Some victory dance moments
#1. My first viral post. One post about testing private methods got syndicated or reshared. BOOM! A traffic spike and some ebook sales.
#2. My first interview. Well, it wasn’t exactly an interview.
The LAX community invited me to a QA session with their coding students. They’re building the next generation of coders and leaders in Africa.
Their community manager found one of my posts and reached out. Another victory for writing.
That interview was the perfect excuse to ask for feedback on my communication skills. A coach taught me this 4-step framework for interviews.
#3. My first book, Street-Smart Coding.
It took about 4 months, from idea to typing the last word. Writing taught me plenty, but promoting taught me more.
I adopted a simple marketing strategy and passed the $1 test.
I translated it to Spanish and published it on Amazon.
And with a book came my first hater. Someone called me “b1tch” for promoting my book and left a sarcastic comment elsewhere.
The book was a real challenge.
#4. My first appearance on Hacker News. Yes, my blog got syndicated on HN. I didn’t make it to the first page. But hey, it’s progress.
My most read posts
In 2025, I wrote every single day, hitting the 400-post mark.
Among those daily posts, here are the top 10 posts by reads:
- 9 Subjects I’ve Changed My Mind About as a Software Engineer
- Six Proven Principles to Learn Any Skill Faster (Without Spending 10,000 Hours)
- 5 Lessons from My Team’s Architect That Helped Me Become a Senior Developer
- Don’t Write the Next Atomic Habits. Write Mini-Books
- 12 Hard Truths About Coding I Learned the Hard Way After 10 Years
- 7 Surprisingly Simple Ideas That Changed My Life (And Could Change Yours Too)
- 10 Ways to Stand Out at Work—Other than Work Hard
- What Frustrates Me the Most as a C#/.NET Developer
- I’ve Replaced My Second Brain With a Simpler Method
- 20+ Signs You’re a Real Programmer (Using 2 Monitors Isn’t One)
For 2026, apart from working on my health daily (simple idea #2 from the post #7), I’m making simplicity my intention. And I started decluttering my digital life. That intention will impact my content system too.
Thanks for reading, and happy coding in 2025!
Don’t miss my best of 2024, 2023, 2022, and 2021.
31 Dec 2025 #books
YouTube changed how I read books.
One day, the YouTube algorithm showed me one video on reading one book per week.
That video made me read two books at once. Now I keep a book on my dinner table and another on the couch. Those are my reading spots after meals.
And binge-watching Ryan Holiday’s YouTube channel made me change my reading habits.
I went back to reading on paper and writing in margins. That used to feel like a capital sin.
With those two strategies, here are the books I read and one takeaway from each:
Books I finished
#1. Skip the Line by James Altucher: Forget about the 10,000 hours to become an expert. Instead of accumulating hours, run 10,000 experiments: quick actions that teach you something.
#2. Steal Like an Artist by Austen Kleon: Originality is overrated. Find who to copy. Then find what to copy. My favorite line: “Hands first, then computer.”
#3. Mini Book Model by Chris Stanley: In 2025, I redefined what a book is.
These days, the real challenge is to make people finish books. Social media has ruined our attention spans.
The solution? Write shorter books.
James Altucher planted a seed with his “10-paper book” challenge. Building on that idea, Chris’ book gave me frameworks to title, outline, and write “mini books.”
I’m following the mini book principles to write my next coding books.
#4. Writing to Think by William Zinsser. My favorite line: “Writing is learned mainly by imitation.” That felt like permission to explore and develop my own voice.
#5. 21 Lessons for the 21st Century by Yuval Noah Harari. Making predictions is hard, especially about the future. With the uncertainty of what AI could bring, the sole skill to master is the ability to learn and adapt.
#6. Writing for Developers by Piotr Sarna and Cynthia Dunlop. My favorite line? You’re not writing enough. The book shared it for engineering blogging, but the advice applies everywhere. Write more!
Books I didn’t finish but I’m still reading
#7. Mastery by Robert Greene. Some masters knew their Life Task as children. Others discovered it through experimentation and exploration, at the intersection of fields.
#8. Glucose Revolution by Jessie Inchauspé. My sister picked up this one first. I started to apply some concepts to keep my glucose spikes under control. That’s my secret productivity hack to avoid the afternoon crash after lunch.
30 Dec 2025 #writing
“If I had more hours, I’d build more things.”
Anyone else feel that? Or that’s just me?
I’ve wanted to quit my day job more times than I can count.
I stopped thinking about quitting when I discovered the idea of a daily creative block.
Two hours are enough to create evergreen content.
Mark Thompson works for 2 hours.
He’s a veteran marketer who now creates for a living. He replies, posts, and runs a community. All in about 2 hours every day.
About working for just 2 hours, he wrote,
Two hours of focus work today can create a lifetime of income tomorrow.
That was one of the lines that made me think recently.
A professional writer doesn’t write for that long.
Mark isn’t the only one with that routine.
Steven Pressfield, author of War of Art, follows the same practice.
In an interview in Huberman Labs, he shared that he only writes for…guess how long? Two hours. After that, it’s time for interviews, marketing, and promotion.
If pros write only for two hours, we don’t need to quit. We need habit and discipline first.
Austen Kleon said it in Steal Like an Artist, keep your day job. I stole his idea of checking a box every time I work on my projects. That’s my plan for 2026 and the years to come.
You just need two hours. Start today. The time to quit will come later.