2010 was quite a year for me. Nothing extraordinary happened. I didn’t fly to the moon or do a backflip off a wall like in The Matrix. But over the past year, and especially the past three months, I did learn a lot about myself, who I want to become, and what I’ve been doing “wrong” for years. The purpose of these posts are not to magically guide anyone that stumbles upon my blog… simply just describing what has helped me, what I have more clearly realized about myself in the past 12 months, and where I want to go from here.
We are surrounded by opportunities and choices in our lives
I spent many years during the early days of my professional software career thinking “man, I’m lucky to have this job and better not mess it up”. This was in Michigan, where the economic downturn had already been in full-swing for years. That situation, combined with a region of the US that is still very much driven by ideals deeply rooted in the industrial age, created a recipe for feeling indebted to your employer or job. I was absolutely miserable. I moved to Arizona over five years ago thinking a new environment would help shake that feeling and found myself back in similar positions, psychologically, when the economy began to free-fall here. Again, fear and the idea of being “dedicated” to my employers dominated my decisions on if I should stay at a job or not. I have two sons and can’t exactly go live in a van down by the river, after all.
But something became very apparent for me this year, at least in metro-Phoenix. I began getting more involved with the tech community through user groups, meetings, and other events. I found more and more people taking risks and breaking away from the system of full-time employment and finding their own way to make a living and living a more meaningful life. I wanted that. I began preparing by educating myself for other development platforms and networking as much as possible. I can safely say today that I can survive without a full-time position and manage to do enough small jobs to get by. Will I be driving a new BMW? No. Do I want to? Not really. But you know what? I can spend the weekends with my kids and not feel worried about the pile of mind-numbing work waiting for me on Monday. That is huge and worth all the money in the world to me.
Thankfully, here in the metro-Phoenix area we have a great place called Gangplank, which is an open, co-working environment where you can just walk in with your laptop, use a desk, wifi, etc. Everything is free. On a daily basis, you may encounter some people working on a new software startup, a freelance marketing person who didn’t feel like working in their home office that day, graphic designers, or just someone who wanted to come hang out and work on their homework. It’s great. More and more cities around the world are getting spaces like Gangplank and empowering people like myself who are tired of being a cog in the system to break away and do their own thing.
But the key is being surrounded by like-minded people to keep you from doubting yourself and to inspire you. In just a few days at Gangplank last week I was approached by a handful of people asking what I was working on and a couple asked if I was looking for any extra work. That is great and what career freedom and “job security” is all about; the ability to be given an opportunity and being able to ultimately say yes, politely decline it, or think about it at a later time. Job security isn’t being on-call every night, constantly replying to emails on your office Blackberry when you should be enjoying your family or personal life, and absolutely not feeling like you owe your employer a favor for them giving you a job. Employees are the business. Take ownership of yourself and make hard choices sometimes. I’m absolutely not telling anyone to quit their job or ragging on anyone in a conventional 9-5, but many of our greatest innovations came from people who took risks and left an “easy” career or job to make a difference.
I’m absolutely aware that I’m in a unique situation, given my career, but I still think that everyone on this earth has something they are good at or could be good at. The trick is finding that passion and gift. I’m very fortunate to know mine.
Just some food for thought. Take a risk. You will never regret “failing” when you reach the end of your life, but you will regret not even trying.
