02 Feb 2025 #misc
You don’t know where you will find him next. In a bathtub, a garage, an exotic beach in Mexico, somewhere in Iceland, or his office.
In every Office Hour, Brent shows a small glimpse of his personality and life.
I started to follow him for SQL Server advice. He’s maybe the SQL Server expert. In fact, I took his courses. But I ended up showing up to his Office Hours for career and consulting advice.
After watching Brent’s YouTube live sessions, here are 10 lessons I learned from him:
#1. Stand next to expensive things. Each SQL Server license costs around ~5k per core. Anything Brent charges for his consulting services is way cheaper than the licensing costs of an average server. Stand next to expensive things to charge premium rates.
#2. When planning your next workshop or course, start by writing the takeaway slide first. Then, create the rest of the content around that.
#3. If you ask “when is it time to leave my job?,” then it’s already time. If you wait for a layoff to look for a new job, it’s too late. The best time is when you don’t need a job
#4. If you’re planning to start consulting, start blogging and presenting months and years before to build your reputation. And always finish your presentations by saying “If you need more help, feel free to contact me.”
#5. Work on the smallest change that brings the most impact. This is something I learned from his Mastering courses. Often, we start to turn knobs and push buttons to make our SQL Server faster, without making any noticeable impact. The same applies to work outside the database work.
#6. Take a photo of you in your current work environment. That’s a future reminder of where you were and what brought you to where you are now.
#7. People follow you by who you are. Ok, Brent is opinionated and doesn’t restrict himself from roasting people in his YouTube live sessions. That’s one of the reasons people (and I) follow him. Authenticity.
#8. Impostor syndrome never goes away. The other day, I asked him how to deal with impostor syndrome. And hearing one of the top SQL Server experts saying he still feels like an impostor when working with clients was relieving. We’re all constantly learning and improving.
#9. You don’t have to be THE expert, you just need to know a bit more than the person you’re helping. This goes hand in hand with #8. It takes yeaaars to be the #1 in the world at anything, if you ever reach that point. But you don’t have to wait to be the #1 to start helping others and start making money.
#10. Build a brand so powerful that clients line up. Chances are that if you google anything related to SQL Server, Brent’s website will pop up. You’ll find him in YouTube, Twitch, and maybe TikTok. At this point, he doesn’t need to chase clients. He has a strong online presence. And it takes years to build one.
In my hometown, there’s a saying: build a reputation, then go to bed. Brent did that.
01 Feb 2025 #misc
Money means different things for different people.
For some people, money is:
- A skill to master
- A symbol of status
- A ticket to freedom
- An exchange of value
- A game with levels to conquer
- What we trade in exchange for time
- A story we’ve been telling as a society
- A differentiator between classes
- A multiplier of our values
- A mindset to practice
- A social convention
- The root of all evil
But, these days, watching Devon Eriksen, an engineer turned fiction writer, in an interview on YouTube, I learned a new definition of money.
He said:
“Money is a measure of f*cks given.”
If you want more money you have to make people give a f-ck about you. And if you say you don’t want money, you’re saying you don’t want people to give a f-ck about you.
Devon’s analogy dates back to our time as hunters and gatherers, when there was no concept of money as we know it today.
In those days, if you were a hunter, you cared (or gave a f-ck to follow the analogy) about the guy who polished rocks to make spears. And you two exchanged money in the form of products and value. Spears for meat or anything else. Caring meant exchange and exchange meant money.
Today we don’t trade goods or services, we have pieces of paper and figures on a screen. Create something people care about and let money roll in.
31 Jan 2025 #misc
Is there ever a perfect time to start anything?
Of course, no. “Perfect time” or “waiting to be ready” means never. And we will never be “ready” for anything in life.
Back in high school, we had two classmates who we all knew had a crush on each other.
And, as teenagers figuring out the new world of relationships, we all encouraged our classmate to ask his crush out. He always said: “Next month, I’m asking her out.” And then, the next month, he said: “Next month, I’m asking her out”. Then “next month…” and “next month…” He kept waiting for the perfect time.
“Next month” became never.
And it works the same for any creative project.
There’s no perfect time to start. You will never be ready. “Next month” means never.
So start that blog, start that YouTube channel, start taking those pictures, start that poetry book. You don’t need to be an expert to start. You don’t need to be famous. You don’t need to wait for the perfect time. You just need to start.
So why wait? Start today. Keep showing up and adapt as you go. The best time was five years ago. The next best time to start is right now.
30 Jan 2025 #career
“Focus on learning one thing.”
I heard that from a coworker at my first job. At that time, he was the IT/network guy. Years before that, he was a certified Java engineer or something.
I was new at this coding thing. I was trying to learn about everything at once. It was back in 2010ish. I was reading The Clean Code, learning Python, using C# at work (coming from Java), and watching PHP presentations in my lunch break.
Passion without direction.
I remember that story because today I read this post titled, why juniors are burning out before they bloom, on Medium.
It says that instead of chasing new and shiny objects like tools, libraries, and frameworks, juniors are better off going deep into fewer tools and concepts. Oh there’s a new framework. A new C# version. A new CI/CD tool. Arrggg!
Frameworks and libraries come and go.
Today it’s React with Typescript. Before that, it was Bootstrap with Ember or Knockout.js. And before that, it was WebForms. And before that, I guess it was Perl scripts or something.
And who knows what AI will bring to the table.
But chances are we’ll be working on a C-type language, still using text files, and writing SQL. That hasn’t changed in ~50 years. And it will remain the same. I wouldn’t bet all my money though.
If you’re starting your coding journey, master the topics that have passed the test of time: HTTP, debugging, C, design patterns, data structures, clean code principles (not necessarily the book), Linux, vanilla JS.
And more importantly than spitting out code, master your soft skills: negotiation and persuasion. Coding is more about collaboration than cracking symbols on a file.
29 Jan 2025 #productivity
For the first time after over 10 years of non-stop work, in 2024 I suddenly found myself with lots of free time.
Thanks to the layoff in the tech industry and to fully recover from burnout, I decided to take a mini-retirement.
All of a sudden, I had 8 extra hours free on my day.
No more meetings, 1-on-1s, estimation sessions, or any other meeting that could be an email. I went nuts with that free time. Reading books, writing on my blog, reposting on dev.to and Medium, recording video courses, reviving my LinkedIn account, doing some freelance coding here and there.
I went to bed more tired than a full day of work. It felt so good. I was the master and owner of my calendar for the first time in years. Monday mornings didn’t feel the same.
But I realized I was chasing my ambitions.
The time that was supposed to be for rest and reconnecting with myself was as busy as the days when I had a full-time job.
Reflecting on this, I realized I need a change. I decided to start a new habit: Scheduling my rest time the same way I schedule important appointments on my calendar.
One day a week for one hour, I have a guilt-free time slot. I’m free to spend that hour doing whatever I want. The only rule is: zero work. Most of the time, I take a walk or read or watch a TV show.
We often are trapped in the productivity wheel that we forget rest is as important as active work, if not more important.
Rest time is the trigger for aha moments and bursts of inspiration. Often after taking a walk during my guilt-free hour, I have to rush to my computer to write something that came up while walking.
Remember to schedule your rest time too. You deserve it. And your mind and body need it.