I want to share with you my own experience that solidified me even more the importance of having a mentor in the direction you are going.
Back when I started college, I felt an explosion of ambition to make my first steps in the Software Engineering industry. I wanted to get a job and start becoming a valuable programmer.
I wanted to learn as much as I could, as fast as I could in order to work someday on awesome products for a big company and be well paid.
The bad part was that I was refusing to learn from others how to write my resume, how to look for jobs, how to study Algorithms and Data Structures, how to solve coding questions, how to communicate during the interview and the list is long.
Yep, I completely refused because I wanted to prove to myself that I can do these things alone. Why? Because I didn’t feel good enough and I wanted to prove to myself that I WAS GOOD ENOUGH.
I thought that if I appealed to other people I would show weakness, inferiority, embarrassment. That was my opinion about having a person who would show me the right way directly.
This mentality cost me 3 years of my life in terms of my programming skills and career. I wanted to learn everything myself, I wanted to experience everything myself, I wanted to become a “guru” because I did and trained and realized all of these…. ALONE.
I was so attached to the idea that I wanted to be the strongest when in fact… all I was doing was running away from the fact that I was constantly feeling the… weakest.
Yes, I became very good at problem solving. Yes, I mastered writing super clean and quality code, yes, I learned how to present myself and communicate well in Coding Interviews. Yes, I got my dream job at Amazon and helped hundreds more people to achieve that….
BUT THE QUESTION IS:
Could I have accomplished these things in less than 3 years? Maybe even 1?
YES… I could have, if I had the SHIFT of mentality that I had at the beginning of 2021.
What happened in 2021?
In 2021, AlgoCademy started to work extremely well, and the back office work tripled. I realized I had no more free time for myself and AlgoCademy had become a pain in the ass in terms of stress levels.
I had to take care of you, I had to edit videos, I had to edit materials for products, I had to take care of accounting, I had to take care of the technical part of the site, I had to take care of the platinum clients I work with almost every day.
Where else was I in this story? I was gone.
Inside I knew that I needed help, I knew that I needed people who know how to do their job well and can take care of some of my tasks better and faster than me.
I knew that I didn’t know the laws, I knew that I didn’t know how to manage money, I knew that I didn’t know how to make the company more efficient, I knew that I didn’t know lots.
I felt like I was exploding, and one night I went to bed and while I was clenching my pillow in my fists and screaming nerves…
I once shouted: ENOUGH, I WANT RESULTS. ENOUGH WITH SHOWING ME HOW “STRONG” I AM. ENOUGH!
The next day I started looking for a person for everything I didn’t know how to do. I found them. I started collaborating.
My mind was blown when I noticed that everything I could do alone in a week, was ready in one day…
Everyone completed everything on his side.
And besides… I was learning new methods from each one through which I could shorten my work by up to 3 times less than I used to work before.
This was crazy for me and made me even more angry asking myself “WHY DIDN’T I DO THIS EARLIER ?! WHY DIDN’T I DO THIS WITH CODING?!”
From that moment I swore that no matter what I have to do and no matter what I want to learn… I will never do it alone again and I will always call an expert or a man who is already in the position in which I am and I will learn from him.
I DO NOT CARE. I WILL PAY AS MUCH AS I NEED TO.
STRESS, TIME AND RESULTS ARE MORE IMPORTANT TO ME THAN MY STUPID PRIDE.
And that’s what we keep doing.
In 2021 I started snowboarding. I knew clearly that it would be difficult because it was something new for me.
I spent 2 days alone to test to see if I like it and to my joy… I liked it.
The next session… I didn’t even blink: I took an instructor with whom I spent 5 hours on the slope to teach me everything about basics.
I compared the 5 hours I spent with him… with the 10 hours I spent alone. If I were to convert the 5 hours spent with him into hours spent alone…
I think it would mean at least 30 hours spent alone.I tell you honestly: IT IS FASCINATING, EXTRAORDINARY AND MEGA INTERESTING HOW YOU CAN DIRECTLY LEARN WHAT YOU NEED TO SAVE TIME, STRESS AND HAVE FAST RESULTS.
I DON’T CARE ABOUT THE MONEY.
If I lose 6 times more time on the slope… this is a time when I can do more work for myself, for AlgoCademy and it can be a time when I actually have fun snowboarding the right way.
If I fall off the board and hit myself badly because I didn’t learn this properly…
I LOSE MORE THAN MONEY, I LOSE MORE TIME RECOVERING MYSELF, I LOSE MORE TIME NOT SNOWBOARDING.
There are so many risks of losing a lot of things if I don’t work with a mentor.
So… that was my decision for the rest of my life.
ANYTHING
ever
IF I WANT TO LEARN SOMETHING NEWI WILL CALL A MAN WHO IS ALREADY THERE WHERE I WANT TO BE
I WILL PAY HIM, I WILL SUPPORT HIM, I WILL HELP HIM, I WILL BE WITH HIM BECAUSE I WANT TO LEARN FROM HIM EVERYTHING HE KNOWS.
WHY?
BECAUSE I RESPECT MYSELF
BECAUSE I TAKE CARE OF ME
BECAUSE I’M SMART
BECAUSE I AM INTERESTED IN THE RESULTS AND EFFICIENCY
BECAUSE I’M A CONFIDENT MAN AND I DO THIS TO BECOME BETTER
Now, a question for you.What new things have you learned from other people so far and how did they make your life better?
What would you learn from AlgoCademy?