getting to where your going w/michael liendo

full transcript

auto-generated from the audio, so expect a few typos. the audio is the source of truth.

all righty what's going on everybody good morning good morning Michael with the moves this morning um I love it I love it it's good to see you all happy Tuesday say it's Tuesday today's Tuesday um looking forward to this episode I've been wanting to get Michael on the show for a bit um finally when we hung out down to react to Miami I I sent him my colony to book it like while we were talking in Miami um and then here we are a month later and we're we're finally getting after so excited excited to have Michael on the show um and uh really great

again there's no script right so literally like I was like hey what you want to talk about so we're going to talk about life decisions career decisions um that uh that you need to consider to kind of to get to where you want to be so look forward to diving into that um first and foremost as always I say hey say hey right hey if you're tuning in say hey drop your favorite emoji let us know where you're tuning in from the reason for that the reason for that is because this I I've said it now a lot this is a networking platform right you're

probably taking how is this a networking platform it's like listen listen this is the same you saying hey you showing up to this consistently it's the same thing like going to a Meetup because what's going to happen is that you're going to start if you consistently show up to these things not not just me let's say Michael does a live stream anybody that does streams if you consistently show up in the comments you're gonna become known right um and so that's why I tell people to comment say hey to engage um I've had people find jobs internships apprenticeships mentors mentees on this show because of

the comments so if you are watching just drop a line and say hey if you watch this in the future say hey too because there's a lot of people that come through the comments to like re-engage um I tell people I said my goal and what I've realized is what what my goal is I want you all you to network so buy yourself some coffee use the code gc2 but also go to the conference in July I'm keynoting um it's great very excited about that um and then next thing I want to give a shout to is talentest.ai so here here's the deal here's the

deal I like Talent test do I think it's groundbreaking Earth shattering and going to absolutely be the Ace in the Hole for your interview no I don't you're like Taylor why why are you pimping out a product that you don't think is the most amazing thing because I think with interviewing the problem is is none of y'all actually practice interviewing and you don't know where to turn to to at least get your head in the right direction practicing interviews like going to the gym right to train for a marathon you don't just jump into a marathon right except I did see a tick tock the

other day Michael of somebody like just waking up out of bed and just running a marathon that was hilarious but like his body broke down right it's the same thing you got to practi off the back of me right so what up what does that look like that means connect with Michael send them a note say hey Michael sorry on guidance couch 2.0 let's get connected I will connect with every single person in the comments that that have followed up then I'd hop on every unicorn fronters on Thursday where I interview Founders and CEOs of tech startups pre-seed series a series B connect with all

of them right then hop on over to recruiters Anonymous on a Friday and connect with all the recruiters that I trust that are on the platform if you do that consistently you are going to be okay and so that's why I tell people to comment say hey uh next thing um uh this is a live show ask questions Michael is a wealth of knowledge ask questions he knows what he's doing kind of uh last thing I want to give shout out to a few partners for the show first off that conference uh is the official coffee sponsor of the guidance counselor 2.0 I'm drinking it

right now you see the bag right there um it's been a while since I've seen some of these names some of them are new but for those of you that don't know me my name is Michael ligando I am a senior developer Advocate over at AWS I've been there for about two years now I primarily work on the front-end web and mobile organization that's the only organization that I work on uh on two products uh in the before right when I first got hired it was AWS amplify I primarily focus on startups amplify input production the deep end of development with that product and then

from there I spanned over and migrated something that you can easily do at a company that size and now work on a product called appsync it's manage graphql and and I've been there for I don't know eight months now it's been fun it's awesome that's awesome so uh so let's talk about you know again I was like Michael what do you want to talk about he's like I don't know we don't talk about this I don't know what do you want to talk about and so Mike Michael was like you ce so go to talentest.ai use the code Taylor um and then practice um the

questions are very simple but at least gets your mind headed in the right direction all right almost I'm almost done running my mouth I want to give shots people tune in today um Michael or Deb it's good to see you um Dev was at react Miami love to love this talk Ricardo Alex Jason Roberts Lambert it's great to see you Eugene what's going on Helen from Oregon fritzen from Orlando Memphis in the house Michael Becky Chris mark from Minnesota Omar from St Louis I love it the mean team is here I love that I don't know who that is but I love it uh Christopher

Wilde it's good to see you Chris um that's awesome we got the crew out Stacy Michael Michael you're a popular man all right enough of me running my mouth Michael given over you who are you what do you do yeah yeah oh man thanks for having me like you said this is a bit of work in the making uh to get here but we're here we're here uh some folks in the crowd hey uh know I I I do want to talk about I I want to talk about like getting to certain parts of your career in the decisions that need to be made so

Michael if you just want to kick it off man what do you just give me a little bit more context around that um and and and and we just go from there yeah yeah so this is going to be different than if you see me speak prior uh I love talking Tech and we if the comments want to shift that direction great but but I'm not here to do it I was like I was like I mean we can but I can also send you a link where I can talk about that sure something that I haven't done before is talk about sort of my

my Beginnings they are they are of the humble variety um so I want to take you back Taylor and audience I'm going to take you back on this journey this is going to be Circa uh 22 year old Michael I'm 35 now and at that time I had this beautiful daughter who was just born and I had to make a decision right I was waiting tables at the time I had to make decision am I gonna man up and and fulfill this role or or I'm just gonna set up coast and maybe Coast through life and I wouldn't more so as the second oldest second

oldest uh my sister my oldest sister will never let me live it down as the second oldest of 13 siblings uh mind you I have a I had a responsibility a sort of an expectation all this male in my family were getting a little uh patriarchal but that's how things were back growing up sure and um so there was this expectation that hey you make something of yourself you have others looking up to you literally and uh and you have to make sure that you're you're pulling your weight so I picked up a book on iPhone development there was this really gold rush yeah there's

this uh this cool game I don't know if you heard of it it was called Angry Birds uh it just came out and I was like you know what I'm gonna make that I've never made it I think I got past like hello world and um and got some stuff on the screen but development was different back then uh but again we're not really focusing on on the tech for right now sure it was all the life changes that I had to make it was uh the friends that I had to let go and some of them that that let go of me and I

think as folks dive down this realm of tech if you're a self-taught developer especially you need to make sure that you have your community in place otherwise you're gonna fall through the cracks very very easily I've seen it time and time again talk let's so let's I I love this and we're going super high level which I like um about this just like life in in community talk about the importance right you know I'm I'm a big my wife and I talk about us all the time like you are the sum of the five people you hang out with yeah talk about why that was

so important for you especially with your situation yeah so the five people in my life back then were uh my brother uh my mom who uh and this is getting super personal uh my mom told me I'm gonna say uh two months before she passed uh she told me the best thing I ever did in my life was make sure that I gave custody over to your dad and that was and it will always ring true to me uh because with him he taught me how to be a man he taught me how to how to make sure I present myself walk into a room

and create a presence right uh but there was a certain level of of demons that she had with her that she just couldn't overcome and and so she gave custody away to us so I was some of uh my brother younger brother father a couple siblings that were with us at the time I have plenty of steps and halves but you know big families everybody's everybody's just brother and sister sure sure uh and and that was really it I always like to say I've been raising kids since I was a kid so there's a certain level of making sure that you know what's going on

at all times hmm uh and then aside from that the biggest mentors that I had in my life were the for the teachers and the people in my community that I would let's just hang around hang out with uh that was it the distractions the at this time again we're going to early 2000s it is what it is but I mean the the drugs the games all of the negative influences all that stuff was there but I made the decision very early on that I needed to make sure that I steered away from that because I had I had bigger Ambitions sure for those of

you that don't know I live in Iowa right we're not known for Tech we're not known for uh having the best things to do outside of just drinking and cow tipping literally I've been cow tipping it's a good time [Laughter] so you you have to make sure that you find those influences those pockets of the community that are going to put you on the right path so I became a nerd and I tell my kids no I call them nerds what's up nerd how you doing nerd and it's not a it's not a dig I'm not jabbing at them sure I want them to understand

that that nerds rule the world it's cool to be a nerd yeah so so I instill that at a very uh early age with them because I've realized at a young age myself that that was the direction that I wanted to be on what yeah and but was there a moment right because I I'm I love like hearing people's OG stories and like the mental shift like was there a moment where you were like you know this moment was like I gotta get out of this I gotta be more positive influences like you know yeah or anything like that so when growing up again uh

surrounded by by machismo uh so Black and Hispanic right here uh so we have strong male presence on both sides of the family there uh but when you witness things like domestic violence yeah when you witness things like um you know drug addiction sure alcohol addiction uh you you have a mental shift and I'm gonna go as far as to say that it isn't it isn't even a conscious one it's something that just Digs at you and says I can either be like that and be a product of my environment because who's going to say otherwise right yeah you almost get a pass you almost

get a p e remember those yes Millennial babies I would copy their handwriting to write my note and that's how I got good handwriting that's why I increased my penmanship because whenever it's crazy my love letters uh you know we folded them and made them look like hearts and all that these kids don't know anything about that no they don't know about that Kristen H uh I was feeling her she could not date me not would not could not date me because of my my background because of my my baggage what I came with and that was the first time that I realized uh and

we're not even talking about race it was just a matter of he comes from this cut of cloth and her parents did not want her associated with that um that's what it's made me reflect what's what's wrong with me I'm a nice guy right I might hang around and I might get detention you know a couple suspensions but I'm I'm a nice guy morally I just made bad decisions it was at that point I had to realize you know what's going on here hmm and I would ass you get you get a free buy-in to this lifestyle because it's what you grow up in so

it's like how can you how can you be great when when this is the ceiling yeah when mediocrity is the good uh so so I wouldn't say there was one individual moment it was more of the realization that uh oh actually there there is one there is one moment um uh Kristen H I'm going to leave the last name out uh we are in uh seventh grade and and oh man was she beautiful gorgeous I love it I love it Kristen was the one uh I liked her she liked me and you know you work up all the courage and all the swag and hey

girl oh I was terrified oh man I was I was smooth I was I'm sure you were you're smooth as hell I am not I'm like all right so they would um so girls would back then right we were kids don't these days don't know anything about it but we would write love letters to each other love right seventh grade Love Letter remember that yeah I would take their notes and take the jelly roll pen I remember thos d and not you know I I I've heard it from multiple people right the Mountain's Too Tall I can't get into Tech yeah um you know I

don't come from a nerdy family or you know Tech background I want to be in Tech right I mean talk about kind of your your the rest of your story yeah definitely definitely so uh we didn't we didn't have a computer in our household that wasn't something that we had until I was a graduating senior back then you had to pay for email uh you know AOL all that stuff take tha t moment on the Nokia phone where you actually logged into the internet you're like oh my gosh I took the battery out exactly exactly this this episode is brought to you by Millennial Nostalgia

exactly what year were you born uh 88 okay I'm 89 so this makes perfect this lines up yeah so you get it you get it yeah yeah in between Hey Arnold this is great I'm gonna change the title of this episode to just Millennial Vibes right uh it was it was a different time back then honestly um you know not saying right or wrong it was just different so when it came to when it came to technology I didn't really experience that until until College uh my my first year of college because there wasn't a year too I dropped out after the first year oh

really yeah yeah my highest degree is a is a high school diploma okay so in that first year you get exposed to all the tech right I had my cool flip phone that flipped out but it had the keyboard in it uh you go I had the uh I would go to the library pretend say from from seventh grade if it wasn't for that moment uh I easily could have con gone down that that was crazy I appreciate you sharing that that's cool um stuck with me that she could not date me and it's just a matter of you know some girls that you know

you're not feeling each other but 100 could not it's different yeah yeah that was that was the one that was the one so you know talk talk about what it looked like from there on out right because I think I think a lot of people think um an ge that they have over maybe a traditional background not saying that one's better than the other right you know plus one for that corner Yeah a hundred percent so um so went through so dropped out of college first year talk about so let's talk let's talk education real quick right because this is the conversation I have a

lot I'm sure you get it to boot camp College doesn't matter where do I go let's talk College real quick right I mean I've been pretty outspoken about it um about I don't think you need to go to college to be in Tech um obviously I think there are some pros to college but I I do want to hear your thoughts College boot camps what are just some thoughts on that yeah yeah so I'll start off by saying I would never want a self-taught doctor operating on me correct yeah yeah there are some Fields where it's just like uh yeah you know it I'm gonna

need you to have a certain level of Education now how you obtain that is oftentimes outside of medical and outside of of traditio to do school work it was it was it was amazing because you realize how accessible that is again dating ourselves this is back when Facebook just opened up to high school people and college people but it was still pretty much invite only at that point yeah yeah uh so so yeah this is um when it came to Tech I had to I had to force my way in and something that I told folks now is I say I'm not supposed to be

here the system isn't set up for folks like me and my background and my Beginnings to excel here and this is what I'm honestly it's what I'm doing these days yeah and when you when you're constantly being told that you can't do something this is kind of our superpower when you grow up from those humble beginnings and people tell you you can't do something you find a way to get in there right you break through that and if I if I have to put a bias out there I would say like this is the advantage that folks from from humble beginnings from folks that are

self-taught this is the advanta hat boot camp to go to I would I would ask about the community the network yeah because that's the most important thing Michael I didn't any thoughts on that no I I 100 percent agree uh I was speaking at a conference and one of the other speakers during their presentation they said no one is no one is independent hey not a single person on this on this planet is independent you are at most codependent interdependent but everyone relies on something so even as myself that will get up here and say I'm a self-taught developer I've had mentors I've had books

written by individuals I've had meetup groups that have supported me uh boot camps are an excellent way to find those pockets of community folks that are going to stick with you because you're learning and you're making the same commitment but that is that is where it's about you can find that in University and you can pay to obtain that or you can go to a free Meetup or or spend a couple thousand uh for a six-month boot camp and be do nal Fields is oftentimes irrelevant for me if I was a front-end developer and and I knew I wanted I want to design I want

to make websites mobile apps things like that I would never recommend going to college for it that's just me now somebody has to be the one to make the programs that let me develop on those programs and I'm gonna need them to know what they're doing right the tools that make my life easier require an intensive knowledge of algorithms and data structures I work a hot I work a level up from that right sure I work off of their abstractions some people like building those abstractions themselves and that's where I say um I think Gary Gary uh freed yeah yeah don't confuse education with a

degree 100 100 I love that so much I think um to have the biggest thing well I mean listen and and here's my thing with boot camps like I actually tell people I would do boot camps even over the instruction is the network the community if I would look if if I were to be researching on w they had their own Ambitions they had their own cultural influences and as much as I still to this day preach let's let's get stocks Let's Travel because you know what when I started traveling there was a whole different shift in my mental perspective same um I want to

I want to teach you how to code like I will sit down and teach all of my siblings how to code and they weren't into that and it took a little a little bit of sort of self-realization to realize that maybe I had uh broken wing syndrome where you know you see the bird with the broken wing and all you want to do is mend it but sometimes there's nothing you can do and it's one of the hardest things that I've that I am dealing with right currently is that you can't save everybody so I'm saying so I say I'm here and and as a

developer Advocate I put that emotion out there uh I say I am here for you I will help you I will help you to achieve whatever goal that you want to have uh if you get stuck on a tech problem I'll help yo ne with it but either way like you said and like they're saying in the comments community and and finding folks that will uplift you along the way that's what goes back to our circle of influence right exactly the five people um that you surround yourself with um so what so what's I I want to pull a little bit of of more of

this like this words of encouragement out of Michael this morning what what are just some other thoughts man about your life and decisions you've had to make that that we haven't covered yet oh man in the beginning uh not to get biblical in the beginning Genesis 1 1.

we in all the areas on this conversation right right oh man I'm just I'm just my first cup of coffee wait till I have one I love it so I realized that they're at one point 13 siblings right at one point I wanted to carry each and every one of them on my back Taylor you know I've made it out of here I'm gonna get everybody out of here um and then and then and then sadly we grew up and and I realized that e ones that will actually care and they're not caring so we've had to go through kind of some exercises and some

counseling of being like hey you know you got to meet people where they're at how did you finally because I know it's tough because brothers sisters that's a whole other layer I'm talking about friends you're talking about family how have you gotten to the point where it's like listen I love you I'm gonna be here but obviously you know you can't change their minds yeah yeah it's um I hate to say uh because it sounds selfish but it was carried after my own mental health yeah you know I asked how selfish you gotta look out for you I have siblings that uh you know I've

I have so many I could say I can talk about one of them they'll you know nobody knows um but but I mean I have some that no matter how how good I do it will never be enough right um it's you're seen as a as almost a failure for leaving that tribe right we all we all had the same beginnings and how dare I leave I u if you need mentorship I'll help you but at certain points I have to say but are you actually looking for help or do you have your own route and maybe you just want to throw a feeler out

but really you have your own goals and Ambitions and I've learned that I can't I can't force everybody to come up if they're not ready to so you you remind me that I this is why I like you so much I mean I can tell you know you have a good heart and and you try your best and and you know I think my wife and I have struggled with this with we are my wife and I are are the type of couple that we we hate to talk about the weather right we're like hey how's your heart right what's going on in your life

right and I we what we've had to deal with is people sometimes aren't like that they want to talk about the weather they want to talk about the color of the sky and and and it's it's it's difficult for us because we're like well they're not right or like you know they need to succumb to us because we're th pend myself to to no length to make sure that that I can be there for them I love that I love that um so uh let me let me ask you this kind of as we wrap up here um any piece of advice for job Seekers

right now yeah I guess at some point we've got to talk jobs right yeah no no no I love this this was very non-career oriented more life stuff and and honestly I you know I I love these I don't have enough of these conversations everything's about career so but but obviously do want to ask you just your general thoughts around the job search right now yeah yeah um I two I have two thoughts here if there's time um first and foremost you you gotta you gotta come with the grit yeah in particular right now it's tough it's tough to get a job compani 're reallocative

resources but you got to come with the grit uh because what I'm saying is it might not be as easy as maybe what it once was when Tech was booming and everybody was hiring uh pre-pandemic all that good stuff that's one uh two is you get is it's the corollary to what I just said as you come with that grit and as you say I'm gonna invest all of these nights at weekends and I'm gonna make sure that I'm distraction free make sure that you're keeping sight of what you're working towar on't have the energy or the or maybe the the mental capacity to sit

here and and and give drops of my bucket to everybody but for those that are those that are saying hey I want to be like you can you teach me can you teach me how then then I will ex es like Amazon we have freezes going on um other companies they're trying to see how they can compete with salaries like Amazon uh and I saw a tweet that you shared it's like oftentimes they can they just need to make sure that um you know maybe they have others that that look up to me and they say I'm I don't want to be maybe in Tech

but I want to be like you so saying I d have somewhere you know I could I could cure coven and they say well I mean why don't you cure cancer right uh so and then I me seasons of your life where maybe you only work until four in the afternoon and you can take the time off right so I I love that I think expectation setting's huge yeah um last question I ask everybody um before we well actually last two questions ow or messing around with that you think's got some promise that people need to check out yeah yeah I think uh this isn't

going to come to a surprise to many folks but AI uh is the one in particular though what I'm working on these days this is a lit right so we're going a little a little techie here a little techie let's do it what is one Tech Trend tool obviously you can do AWS if you want what you're working on but is there any sort of like tooling or Tech that you're keeping an eye on right n tle behind the scenes uh what I'm working on these days behind the onion here we go is a multimodal AI so I want to give you a uh I'm

gonna stitch together a series of generative AI um applications for example let's say I'm creating a bedtime story o ds because I found myself in that situation where now I'm very fortunate where I have a wife and I have three kids uh and I said I'm gonna I'm gonna bunker down you know babe I'm gonna Focus you're not gonna see me for a little bit but then it's like what am I working for if my kids aren't seeing me if my wife isn't spending time with me uh maybe in the long run right but was it worth it so making sure that you're you're balancing

both right have that grit but talk to your partner about maybe what it's going to take see if you can work out a schedule I love that I love that I think that's I think I'm so glad you brought that up I think that conversation is not being had I think there's you know and my wife and I have gone through it I think there's seasons of your life where it's the expectation needs to be there hey plus one spouse partner here's the deal it's you're not going to see me that much during the day like I have to hunker down it's where I'm at

my career and then there's so count yeah when I'm programming those and I'm having those services do all of that stuff for me they're they're mine as far as I mean I don't know about the copyright of this stuff but they're in my own hosting environment sure sure the audio file the text for the image and then the um and then the the image for the the header all that stuff lives in my account so stitching those together for one single prompt I think it's pretty powerful and that's probably where we're heading in terms of houses we're going to be adapting to AI going forward

I love that I love that and will will Johnson just popped his head oh my god um uh all right last last question here um so we had I asked this with every guest so we had guidance counselors in middle school high school and college but now we don't have them as much right that's why this show is called guidance counselor 2.0 what would you say is your biggest and when we talked about obviously some career advice stuff but what would be your biggest kay I want AI to generate it for me my kids love bedtime stories okay so I want to say give me

just type into a form give me uh a bedtime story about a cool guy named Taylor and he's walking his dog spending time with his wife yeah awesome I don't know why I read that to my kids but we're going with it sounds great I'm there I'd listen I want AI to generate a image for me like that's one whole AI service I want AI to generate the story and I want AI from this one single prompt to give me an audio file so that it reads it back to me right in a neural language uh this is what I'm working on actually for the

past couple of days but the cool thing is that typically when you have services do this when you have mid-journey do this uh they generate images for you but now you don't have a place to to store them you know you could right click and save but wouldn't it be nice if they were just stored in your in your own service and this is the AWS side of things if they were starting your AWS ac she just traveled with me on our very first work trip and she's 12 now and the very first thing I told her is when we walk in these doors you're

going to see Engineers you're going to see people of influence I was like I was like millionaires are gonna be around us uh and I said I want to give you one little homework assignment okay and I was like don't make yourself look small let people know that you're here and once you learn that skill I swear the World is Yours not saying that you necessarily have to talk back to disagree yeah yeah but you never want to be like I told you you never want to be forgettable I get it right um so yeah I would say it was 11 years old where I

got a real smart mouth um and I was like uh I was developing a skill is how I'm gonna spin that I was developing a skill where I wanted to make sure that people knew who I am and that's that's what I do now I show up to everything and I want to make sure that people know who I am because hey maybe I have something piece of career advice to your younger self like if you could talk to your younger self today what would you tell them oh um is there an age range like what what stage of Michael whatever yeah like whatever yeah

you could even go through age ranges right now right uh we're gonna go with um we're gonna go with 11 year old Michael okay all right um Le'Veon Michael I'm super hard-headed I'm starting to talk back uh and it's not working out my favor okay uh I'm gonna tell him keep doing that uh even though it's getting you in trouble keep talking back yo talking back oh why is that I'm curious what you're gonna say yeah yeah um because once you once you shut your mouth it's hmm no no wrong answers okay okay I'm just making sure I'm just making sure here let's unpack this

um keep talking back keep making sure that you are making a scene uh keep being the person where it's just like what's gonna happen when he gets here uh because that's how you want to show up in in life I tell my daughter to offer or maybe we can help each other out but if you don't know me and I'm just another blip on your radar it's never going to make sense it's never going to occur I love that I love that that's awesome well Michael that was fun man thanks for hanging out with me always a good time that was awesome I'm staying real

quick so I can say bye to you backstage but y'all thank you again for hanging out with us today this morning we appreciate it Go connect with Michael uh Focus otter is his uh handle on Twitter um and uh and he's a great follow and then also anything AWS I love that I need to get a guidance counselor 2.0 mug I gotta work on that um so y'all have a great one tomorrow I have Jacob Harrington on the show Jacob um is a developer turned product owner um he works for Walmart now and and um and he wants and we're gonna break down just kind

of that transition right and there's there's a few devs that I know that are jumping from the developer space to the product space we're going to talk about that transition so another great conversation tomorrow 9 30 a.m Central you'll have a great one connect with Michael love y'all see y'all