career conversations w/ chris gardner, platform eng manger @ accenture

full transcript

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

all righty good morning everybody I say everybody I mean nobody because we just started um checking all about what sounds about like my twitch intros and live by everybody who's not here yet because it's been 10 seconds yeah yeah everybody maybe my mom is watching yet I don't know um say hey we love to hear from you um I'm just here hello hello would love to hear from you say hey because I need to know if I'm live or not still waiting on the the notification for YouTube That's not there yet we're getting viewers where we getting viewers from X right now what's going on

Twitter it's good to see y'all this morning uh Tik Tok we're just just waiting out here so uh if you're watching all right I yes finally Live on YouTube so we got that down so that's good and then LinkedIn y'all say hey we'd love to hear from you I always love to see where people are tuning in from all right cool we are we are live on all the platforms sweet Sally what's going on John good morning good morning Richie my guy from ATL what's going on good morning everybody happy Monday hopefully you had a great weekend uh Hey fun fact I made pancakes for

the first time ever this weekend ever Chris I've never made pancakes I've never either either but that's because I don't like pancakes we make waffles all the time okay all right so I'm not the only person I'm not the only person that's not made pancakes but yeah literally I I I I I was asking my wife uh because my daughter's like really big in pancakes right now and I was like was like how do you make pancakes and she looked at me and she was like what and I was like I've never made pancakes and she goes what are you talking about so I've made

I've made two things of Pancakes I made two batches of Pancakes the second ones were a lot better than the first one second ones were Peach pancakes however the peaches were not quite ready for pancakes they're a little ripe they're a little too ripe they're a little hard they're still good though but not great I still say banana pancakes are probably the goat of Pancakes uh at least that I've had but anyways this isn't a pancake show this is a career show so good morning say hey would love to hear from you I have my wonderful friend Chris on from tune in from Huntsville Alabama

do you live in Huntsville or are you like outside of Huntsville I'm actively in Huntsville you're actively in like Huntsville proper sweet awesome um Huntsville is strangely huge compared to which with most metros uh it's built in a valley on a bunch of limestone caves so it couldn't go up so it went out so Huntsville City itself is in Three Counties there you go I did not know that and not by much in the other two but I mean it's the city itself is large comparatively speaking you you talk like Birmingham it's tiny which a huge Metro we're actually a huge City with just some

suburbs spread out I really wish I remember the coffee shop I went to when I spoke down at Dev space two years ago it was so good little hip little spot it was fantastic breakfast was great I need to find it was fantastic you point me in the right direction I could probably tell you what it was called but it was great yeah I forgot is it the one in the parking garage if I recall correctly I think so I think so that's honest rooster it's our honest Ro it's honest something cof righton um all right so we got we got a lot of people

tuning in so let's get let's start again this is a networking thing right the reason I mean I tell people this I don't mean this mean to speakers the speakers are secondary for this live stro the the only reason why I do this is I want this to be a networking platform for everybody um so everybody who's tuning in there's a lot of people who tuned in please please go connect with other just send them a DM like hey it was great to see you on the show what I've realized is networking you just need something to like not be weird in the DMS right

and so my excuse is this show so just message people again I've had two people find jobs uh directly because of this show not through me if that makes sense so like they've like networked with somebody over the course of months and then found a job because of it so again we love to see that um uh what else uh got a few announcements here uh first off shout out to gunio for hiring me and listen if if you need talent use us uh we're pretty decent at it uh want to give a shout out to endorsed AI listen this is for me this is

I I I'm I'm helping I'm advised on this company so typically when you submit your resume to a job posting it is basic it is solely Tim stamped right so let's say let's say Chris post a job for one of his projects at Accenture like and you submit your resume you can be the first person to submit your resume but if Chris's recruiter sorts it through the last person who submitted not the first person your resume would never be you never your resume would never be seen so what endorsed AI does is based off parameters you plug in it actually uses Ai and pushes the

resumes that are actually a fit to the very top instead of a time stamp so if you're a hiring manager or or ta I'd highly recommend checking that out uh what else also I'm doing a dad's group um uh so like if you're in a tech and and and you're a dad um even if you're not even if you're inspired to be in Tech or aspired to be a dad would love to have you first meet up is September 6 it's gonna be lunchtime I don't know what I'm doing we're GNA build this as we fly um or F whatever it is build the plane

while we fly it um but I I just realized I've talked to a lot of dads I mean Chris and I were chitchatting before we went live about dropping off our kids right so again I think there's a lot of topics we can Bond over and we do need a group so please go join that newsletter I will send all updates it's not a newsletter like I'm not going to spam you I'm just going to send updates with the newsletter um so go check that out uh shout out the friend zone Kelly Von and I are starting a community Discord to solely help people on

the job search there is a free membership but there's also some tiered members if you want more access to Kelly and I on a one-onone basis so go sign up at the friend zone.

LOL it's gonna be good also if you're tuning in and you want some updates when I go live I texted about 70 people that Chris and I are going live text me live to 6152 35565 and I text you every single day I go live with my guest to see if you want to pop in or not there's a lot of people tune in this morning Chris people want to see you John Katie Jesse former guest of the show Jesse hope you're doing well JC TAA Katie Chris Justin John Colin Eric waffles are greater than pancakes I do have I don't know Jordan it's good

to see you uh refle I don't probably mispronounce that but it's great to see you this morning no joke it's huge I had to go there two hours to get city for minut where I was going from Huntsville I love it I love it um cool all right Chris nothing yapping let's get the people what they want uh who are you what do you do and we'll go from there simple enough my name is Chris Gardner I am currently a the full title I believe is software product and platform engineering manager at a centure uh Technic we Consultants work on projects just it's a nice

large company so the scale of the companies I work with are probably larger than most people are are used to we're just like I'm just starting contract right now and of course I can't say who it is but let's say we are working on something for a large International Company you know that is hiring us as consultant so you know we'll just leave it at that so that's the type of scale I'm at uh I've been doing this whole Tech thing all the way from Individual contributor to where I am now for almost 30 years and yeah I got a lot of War Stories I

love it we're gonna talk about we're gonna talk about some of them for sure waffles are absolutely here listen listen I I get it I'm just saying I think I think if you have a good pancake good pancakes are just as good as waffles right um all right so Chris well for those of you tuned in I'm trying to change I'm trying to change the format a little bit right we can talk about job search stuff that's fine and Chris I gonna talk about that but what I want to talk especially seniors senior engineering leaders I want to talk about how they got to where

they're at in their career we're GNA try to change the format a little bit I'm not going to go completely in that like that's all we're GNA talk about but I do want to change it so Chris I you know listen I think a lot of people view seniors and and managers like yourself and they're like oh you have it easy but you started out as a junior right you started out as somebody not know anybody so I want to talk about briefly how did you get into Tech man and obviously it's been it's been some years it's been some years since you got got

some more yeah yeah so I'm curious man right I mean because like I talk to the vets um who like you know in the recruiting space who like used to recruit without the internet which that sounds wild to me right so like how did how did you first get into Tech man so first of all got to go all the way back that I I'm am very fortunate in my age that at an extremely young age uh about eight years old I had a father who was in the military who was doing some tech stuff with the military which it allowed him to get a

hold of a ancient PC back in the early 80s and ancient PCS that loaded by floppy disc were indestructible so I kind of had free range to do what I wanted with it so I was I was kind of able to you know like we tell people people um you know yes don't live your life programming but you know the earlier you can get started the earlier you can get courage and you can spark that and you can kind of get that you know let's just say first 250 out of your thousand hours you know 10,000 hours out of the way the better that that

I kind of was given that um fast forward through playing around with that all through the years then then to get to the meat and potatoes uh After High school I went to the Air Force Academy for a couple years left when I left I was fortunate enough that my dad at that point had a friend that was starting a software startup and so I kind of got thrown in as an intern so yes my first job was a little bit of nepotism um you know but it was an introduction from somebody in the field there you go it just happened to be there it

was from my dad uh worked there for a couple years got some experience under my belt was fortunate enough to trans s that into a couple contracts yes some of those also were with the help of friends but that's where you get where you're yeah so I want I want to interrupt you in I see questions coming in um so if you have questions for Chris I'm gonna get to them John I see yours so I'll get to them here in a few minutes but Chris I know you talked you like that right there friends and family talk about the importance of that I feel

like we're all and and I preach it right I preach all the time go out net new net new net new you know contacts net new people new contact y y y but talk to me I mean it sounds like you just leveraged your friends and family yeah basically I mean the the I if we go back into that time perame so yeah I I and to go a little more granular into that per I left the Air Force Academy the original intention was just to get a silly job you know I was 19 at the time silly job get a silly job build up

some money move back to where I mostly grew up North Carolina what part and H what part of North Carolina uh fville because Dad military yeah yeah yeah okay so you move but I wasar goingon to go back to pille it was you know either look at the options well it was originally accepted to UNCC Asheville I had friends who were at NC State um you know go to a different College finish out my degree there uh during that period of time had a couple silly jobs and then that's like I said my my dad had a friend he worked with at another company from

he moved down there that was starting his own little startup kind of like hey my son's does a lot of programming low overhead type of thing you know because I was kind of still mostly living at home at the time and whatnot take him on you know show him the ropes let's see what's going on and just it was a matter of when I got there just taking it seriously and absolutely trying to kill it the best I can and it was even really kind of difficult because growing up in the 80s and 90s all the programming was doing was of course for somebody in

high school uh basic and Pascal and stuff like that yeah um nowadays it would be more like you know python which python is a valid language but it's the same idea that you know it's not a big boy language it's a very flexible very learning language uh that just happens to run half the world right now okay a third of the world third of the world's on python thir of the world's on JavaScript the rest of it's on performant languages um I shouldn't say that that's me they're performant because they get the job done but you know that that kind of lowlevel more more intense

languages um go ahead so I I was I was gonna ask just because I want to dig into this like like what like if you were to tell people that are on the job search right now and again I told y'all who are listening I'm G to work some some tips into this thing what what would you tell them when it comes to leveraging their Network the Network comes from the strangest places and I've got a reverse story on that which I'll get to in a minute but um blind applying is really strange and hard and I've had it work a couple times oh really

that's that's literally one of them was was sure luck the rest of them were yes blind applying worked but I sent out aund blind applies to get one I got lucky on and I don't necessarily when you're on the job search there's nothing wrong to going to I think at the time most of those except for the the one where I got really lucky uh early in my career were were I just went to stack Overflow jobs and just anything that fit the right criteria I sent to and I sent to hundreds of them and very few of them hit back and I had some

some good interviews and you know especially a blind interview is a really good practice because you've got no information coming into it it's just what you can research on your own sure but when you get to the point where you're like hey I heard you're looking who can you hook me up with and whatnot and you can get directly to the right place I've gotten much farther in all those interviews and landed much more of those jobs than those blind ones just sometimes it's been a while where you're on a search and you just have to go for it yeah absolutely so so so got

your first job obviously out of school talk to me man if there is if there has been maybe a misstep that you made early in your career that you wish you could have back or maybe not even a mistake but like if you could just like if you're if you're thinking about man like if I just did this now granted you're in a great spot now you're you're at Accenture you're an engineering leader I mean people think you probably have it made but if was there something early in your career like man I just wish I would have done that a little bit differently um

there there were a couple points where I was just young and stupid where just not taking showing up the next day to the work there there was a great story not great but it worked out um and it was probably out of a couple of my defining moments in my career one of the most defining moments of my career because I it would have just been over at that point um young just turned 21 still working at that job everything's going great uh got a little too drunk the night before woke up got to work stupid late still obviously hung over B was like nope

that's it you know you're done the the quote unquote Advantage was the the commute to this it was technically in the next County the next city over um was like long enough that I I asked the boss hey look okay I get it I did something stupid I'm gone sure uh but I already drove all the way out here I'm here let me finish out the day honestly I'm done uh and he said okay and just didn't didn't let it get me down just honestly just concentrated and did what I needed to do that and absolutely did everything I wanted to and at the end

of the day he was like okay look we can't have this happen again but sure you know I'm not gonna fire you we're gonna consider this your final warranty comeback and it was kind of a Scared Straight moment yeah but he he honestly told me that you going I'm already here let me finish out the day is probably the smartest thing you ever did because it it gave me time to see the value you're doing we just got to fix you and it was one of those things that helped fix me from hey at this point in time I'm still technically you know I'm still

College age actively taking a couple college classes at the time time to be the big boy and actually take the career seriously and you know sometimes it's the inverse of how do you get hired well sometimes when you have the job what's the smart things you do to stay on and that's when you mess up own up to it and then still do your best well and I I was going to ask you right because I mean I'm trying to put myself in the shoes of a lot of people right now that may have a job but they're probably scared to get laid off you

know and and and I tweeted something out about knowing your worth you know that's something I'm really big on right now what what's your recommendation coming from a guy who just told his story right about making a huge [ __ ] up staying showing the worth you're now an engineering leader how can somebody show their worth right now what's the best way that somebody let's just say someone on your team how can they show their worth to you right now to me when it comes to Tech and I I've talked about this a lot the actual Hands-On keyboard is the easiest part um yes we're

dealing with hard problems yes we're you know there's the co but that's just focus mindset flow stack Overflow as much as I hate it co-pilot which can get you 90% of the way there etc etc that's the easiest part the human aspect is the hardest part to to manage and to me when I've been working in contracts the people who treat their co-workers well who ask questions when they need to get involved with the team y who aren't afraid to do that stuff those are the things where I we had a contract at as centure not too long ago where we were trying to to

backfill a couple positions and there was someone who I knew from the Past who I I hadn't directly worked with but I I think I'd worked with their people lead uh and and knew and was like look she's not she she's not the going to hit the ground running she doesn't know everything she's pretty you know pretty green but she puts in the work she asks good questions and at the end of the day she gets it done and based on that we got her hired on of the project and she killed it and it's all because of that reputation of you're a good person

you ask the questions you work with the team you you know you do the part you need to and I I think people underestimate how much that goes you don't necessarily even have to be the most likable guy there are people I've worked with in the past where I absolutely hate them but they get the job done and they treat you fairly fairly may be meanly it's fair interesting okay okay that's interesting so obviously kind of progressing through your career and I think this could be a great question that John asked a few minutes ago H H how did how do you jump or how

did you jump from seniorlead to manager right what when did that career shift happen What were some thoughts right because I know there's I know I mean I've interviewed a ton of engineering leaders on this like what was kind of what was kind of the moment when did you start to feel called towards a little bit more of a leadership side of things it it happened gradually when I was at tnw operations which you met me during that period of time okay uh for and about 10 years and I ended up over the course of time being the the CTO of that organization okay um

so the the story behind that was is if we go back to the that first job I had eventually just company went out of business um I I scraped together through a recommendation of the owners I I got a contract gig with his sister making a little program use that to get a couple other programs use that to get another job which I think there was I think there was some nepotism involved with that it was like my dad was like hey we can't hire this guy because of the nepotism rules at the company but we're way behind on this and I know he's available

we get him on get him in on a contract just to help get the the project removing back to where it needed to be um for a long time early in my career a lot of it was through recommendations it's like this guy will get you back on track yeah he will pull amazing things out and we'll get to some of those stories here in a minute um but you know I kind of fumbled my way through until while I was at that one and I was realizing things were coming to the end again this is the 90s keep this it may have been early

2000s but you get the time frame sure um looking through the newspaper in the job section there was an ad that jumped out of me that said Hot Shot C++ programmer wanted send resume to this email address that's all it said why not so I sent it off ended up getting that job and was with that company for five six years yeah uh we're gonna kind of you know there's some interesting things that happened there but we're gonna kind of sweep that one under the rug uh but from there through that period of time my dad had formed not even a company to do Tech

work he formed a company so that he and my uncle could flip houses and protected under an LLC okay and then let's talk about knowing your friends one of his golfing buddies who happened to be a colonel on Redstone Arsenal was like hey we kind of have this thing we're playing around with what we want to think about uh you think you could help us out with it and he had this holding company laying around and he spun it up into this company and he grabbed me to be the software dad just hooking you up man but but through all that we got this contract

that company grew to by the time I you know and when I got grabbed because we got to get back to the question about uh leadership from from but he grabb I was the software guy dad was the hardware guy uncle was who was a logistics guy from the military was the logistics we all kind of figured it out as we went along uh spun that company up into what was a multi-million dollar company at for a while you know close to a 100 employees worldwide um but but that was a slow journey of okay I was the software guy okay we I we have

more stuff grabbed a friend of mine who was between jobs who I knew was a good programmer got him involved but that's kind of what turned me into the senior programmer because I I grabbed him yeah over time as the company grew the responsibilities grew and that that's how I went from hey I was just one of the three founders to now I'm the CTO and we've got all these employees and we're working on multiple projects and things like that and a lot of it is just that somebody's got to be the guy to do it and you got to be the guy that steps

up to do it a a joke because we haven't got this far in the career but a joke in a centure is is you don't get promoted by just waiting around to get promoted you get promoted by proving you're doing the job anyways and so they eventually give you the title real quick pause I want to talk about this real fast and then we'll talk about the jump to leadership I feel like for the longest time we have been told to sit there shut up do your job to get promoted now what I've realized over the course of a few years that you got to

be proactive and essentially do the job that you want to do before you even get the look on to do the job and get promoted thoughts on that that's 100% correct especially more recently it used to be as the joke went you could just stick around long enough and they'd give you more money and more title until you you found the place where you were incompetent then you would stick there yeah um that what what it's Huns there's a there's a joking name for it but it's in any corporate structure a personal rise to their level of incompetence um and but that was the old

way uh these days it's like they look for the people who are starting to display those leadership yeah things um and move on at a job I had before I got to where I am in asentra where enture is very explicit about you get to the next level when you're already doing that yeah yeah um but the idea was was when I was pulled on and I was pulled on again because it's like this guy has the skill you need grab him on contract me and the team got along well enough I've converted it into fulltime and I stayed there for almost five years um

until they they actually offered me the job but we we'll get to that more explicitly in a second but the idea was is that originally they're like you just sit here you program you work on this thing and then it was like you know if we cut out the middleman so instead of having my my tech director talk to the client if I could talk to the client directly a lot of this would move on faster and then I handled that relationship so well I mean when I told them I was leaving she literally cried but I mean managed that relationship so well that they

started helping letting me move in on other things and then by the time I left they actually offered me the job of the tech director from where I was I just kind of knew from where I was at that point in time and I and I loved the company I won't say anything about about the company but I knew I would never advance and skill up like I wanted to there just because of the nature of that business sure um which which is why I then when I ran into the opportunity took the opportunity where I could get into a censure where I could really

advance and level up and be challenged yeah but and then but yes the same thing it's it's you start showing those things you start doing you start learning that communication you start showing those leadership skills you start doing it and that's what gets the people to notice to move you forward do you let me ask you this and maybe you don't want to answer truthfully do you actually enjoy management yes and no sure yeah I love it talk well let me ask you this talk about what somebody needs to be mindful of before they jump in the management then so the biggest thing you need

to be mindful of is that if you love Tech and you love programming that goes out the window love that it's not saying I feel like that's very straightforward I I don't I don't say I don't do any programing anymore I mean and there's of course the peripheral stuff like I'm a one of the approvers for poll request so I still have to get in the code and get dirty and occasionally there's like look this is just a grunt work task that nobody cares about I'm GNA go in there and knock it out so that all of you can have fun because I did my

time uh but you know your dayto day is more putting out fires and wrangling things and letting your team stay focused so they can work on the hard problems more so than it is getting in there and having fun with the hard problem uh and I do highly miss that how do I get around that I have this lovely pet project open source project I work on sure on sides in the weekend so I can stay stay active um but one of the reasons I wanted to get into it one of the reasons why I started the twitch streams with the with the live coding

which I've got to find a way I can get back to but as centure schedule is crazy yeah um but uh and doing all that is because I've hit the point in time where I've been doing this now for so long that even the hard challenges as much as the hard aren't necessarily challenging for me I've done my time and I've had my fun well if I want to be we're going to use the the horrible saying but we're going to use it in the correct way if I want to be a 10x engineer the way I'm going to be a 10x Engineers by doubling

10 people under me and I would rather move on and teach and give all these lessons to people and show them hey here's the thought process we went to here's how the tech actually works behind the scenes here's what's going on let's level you up and create this beautifully High performing team that can do incredible things yeah and I don't even want to take credit for it I want to sit back and go did you see what this guy did that was awesome I've had those moments in my career it's awesome it's just as awesome going this guy who was a little timid when we

started just pulled that off yeah I love that I love that man that's awesome all right so as we wrap up here time FES when you're having fun with friends um I know let me let me ask you this is there anything that you would want to impart on the people watching again the ticker's been I mean a lot of people watch today um is there any like last words of wisdom from Chris Gardner that you would want to impart either on job Seekers or hiring managers or leaders or any just anything any anything that's on your mind right now so if you were talking

about from the hiring perspective that side and I've been on the the hiring side of course being C and whatnot the the big thing I tell people is stop looking at the resume the resum you're talking at hiring managers right now yeah the res the resum needs to be good enough to say okay it looks like they have the technical skill amen if if you're hiring a junior or an level what doesn't matter anyways I wouldn't even look at it because you're try well it's nice to go go okay look they at least have enough of an of a of a background yeah but you're

you're literally you're saying I want to take somebody that doesn't know what they're doing and I'm gonna guide them to where they want to do and I've been fortunate enough that I've been able to grab people during my career and be able to do that for them um back to things we were saying earlier a friend of mine in the pool league I was in saying you know knew I was you know this kind of hiring manager position was like hey I've got this hot shot guy just out of high school doesn't know what he wants but he's pretty good with computers can you grab

him on sure I talk to them granted it only lasts like eight months and we ended up having to land off just because of business stuff but just being able to grab somebody and guide them and point them in the right direction and then you know I now still follow them on on Twitter and they're progressing and they're moving forward because somebody took a chance on them because they were a good guy yeah and I think yeah Hing managers need to realize the thing you're looking for is not the person that can check all the boxes you need somebody that is open and collaborative and

excited and hungry and you know wants to do the work but on top of that just knows how to think yeah uh I was Notorious at tnw operations when I was the hiring manager I would tell people I don't expect you to answer any of these technical questions I'm giving period into of subject I picked some of the most obscure things we ran into while we were working on this project that took us days of research to figure out and I don't expect you to know it off the top of your head what I want to do is I want to present you the problem

yeah and I want you to talk it out and as you're talking it out I'm G to be your Google search and told you tell you what took me three hours to figure out and I want to see how you attack the problem I love that um and and the people that would just sit there and just start talking it out and say okay yeah that part this feeds into this and could work it out were the absolute best hires we ever had the people that would just freeze up and be like I don't know I just and and like with th those aren't the

good candidates yeah or or even if they were like I don't even know how to start to attack this problem I might talk to some people but I I don't even know what to look for to start with and we're open about it okay they're you're they're admitting they don't know they're at fault uh at a centure the last project I just rolled off of we had one guy we staff that was H he was interviewing for lead program we ended up hiring him for Tech lead because he was hungry for it yeah and he did he did a great job and and it's seeing

that part there and looking beyond the resume where the resume say this just needs to be that guy where this guy was saying yeah I'm really interested in this and I did this with the the people I'm working with I'm working with like we're gonna try you over here was he the perfect POS Tech lead no I mean we could have found somebody that would we had to help him a little bit we had a hand on him a little bit but we knew that when we when we took him yeah but he did great with his team and he had probably one of the

largest he was the he was the front in Tech lead so he had the most forward-facing position out of all of us you know I was the devops tech lead I was like nobody saw the stuff I was working on right right but because of that and because I had a lot of experience I was able to go hey you know let's let's look at how we're doing this maybe look at this this way maybe step back from here maybe you need to move forward on here and kind of get him where we where we needed him to be and he just absolutely killed it

now he's moving on to other positions like that because of it so that's where I go on that side from the jobseeker side one there's nothing wrong with with with blind applying don't get your hopes up on if you see a cool job apply if you don't know anybody there you may get lucky I've gotten a few jobs off of blind applying I've gotten lucky a few times but yeah the best things come to stick in your slack communities talk to your Twitter people talk to your friends conferences if you can get things like that yeah because anytime you can have somebody going back to

the hiring manager side of don't look at the paper look at the person when somebody says look at this person I look at that person yeah so so that's where that that you know knowing your community and knowing people and using that to get your foot in the door there's nothing wrong with that that's how half this this industry comes especially when you start getting at that senior level and that Tech Le leag level um as I was getting more into those positions as I was moving up it was all about recommendations I love that I love that all right last question man Show's called

guidance counselor 2.0 because we had guidance counselors at middle school high school and college but now as adults we don't necessarily have them if you can go back in time and talk to Young Chris what would be your biggest piece of career advice to Young Chris keep moving same thing I always do but it's just keep moving don't don't let the setbacks bring you down don't let it it's okay to occasionally have to take a step back and do something else especially if it like fulfills a you know a minor there was a point in time when I was working careers and I was in

tech and my career was pretty established and I got laid off and I said I need a small break and I went and I worked at nightclub for a year and worked as a bartender and as a DJ and insecurity eventually even you know assistant managing the club for a while and during that time of course I was always doing some tech stuff on the side and I was playing around with ideas and doing things that could have become projects later none of which none of those actually turned out but you know playing around with things and staying active but I just I needed a

break it was fine got to scratch another itch of mine you know doing stuff in the music industry and whatnot and then when I came back I was ready to kill it and I did I love so you know don't be afraid to chase those intellectual interests and don't be afraid to do those little side projects and to take a little time off and uh you know when when the career knocks you down it's fine you can get back yeah just keep going I love it if you're doing it the right reason which is the love and not the paycheck and there's nothing wrong with

doing it for the paycheck but if you're doing it for the right reason just keep going I love it that's awesome I love that man well y'all thank you again for tuning in this morning appreciate the comment section's been out of control so thank you so much it was a great episode I think I think people did enjoy uh this um uh this type of format oh Chris last question I forgot I I forgot to ask you this the beginning it's like an intro because we got caught up on pancakes over waffles um uh the the question starting to ask at the beginning of every

episode is is what did you want to do when you were in grade school and do you think you would be good at that now knowing you uh grade school would have been one of three things one of which was software like I said I started programming at eight I've always go always been there uh I wanted to be an astronaut but I knew you know while I wanted to do astrophysics uh I do have a degree in math I do love math physics is just just applied math I think I actually would have done well in that if I would have went to it

and the other thing is I always wanted to be a musician talked about doing the DJ stuff for a while I've got a ton of guitars stuff behind me that I still Tinker around in the background uh if I had the work ethic I have now and I developed through Tech yeah at 21 could I have maybe made it a musician maybe you know is there always going to be that hey could I and you know who knows I might one day just just release some stuff on Spotify and record it myself I have all the equipment now I love it but you know was

was I do I see the people who are now famous musicians and go they were blessed with that work ethic at a young age that I didn't grow into until maybe my mid 20s yes yeah so that's where it all comes back to where I was talking earlier with that worth ethic so am I doing what I wanted to do when I when I grew up in in a way yeah I mean yeah there's another interest that would have been fun to to tickle that may or may not ever happen but I'm happy with how with with young me would be pleased I love it

that's awesome that's awesome y'all thank you again for hanging out Chris stay on so I say bye to you backstage but yall have a good one tomorrow I have Liz on the show Liz is a recruiter I don't know Liz at all Liz had a really good post on LinkedIn that I saw through the algorithm around followup in the job search I know a lot of us struggle with followup how to reach out how many times reach out what does the Cadence look like what should what should I write so tomorrow 9:30 a.m.

Central we're going to talk about how to follow up in the job search from another recruiter then Wednesday I have my dear friend Ryan Burgess from Netflix previously Netflix on the show on Wednesday so it's going to be a great next two days hope you all have a good one Chris thank you my friend and we'll