Do what you love!!

Do you love your job? Or your side gig? Do you wake up every day excited about what you’re doing? I mean… we all have days we want to sleep in or hit snooze about a million times. ALL OF US. i don’t care if you’re an NBA player, an actor, an accountant, a fitness instructor… whatever. every has those days. BUT in general do you truly LOVE what you’re doing? If not, why in the world not?! what’s scaring you? What’s holding you back? Once you figure that out it’ll be easier to find something you love and make it your life! i’m SO fortunate that when i was really little I found a page from a book that had some BASIC code. literally. like 10 PRINT “HELLO WORLD” 20 GOTO 50 30 PRINT “GOODBYE” 50 PRINT “YOU GOT HERE!”. and i remember playing with that on my ghetto apple II (oh we kicked some booty at the like 2 games we had) and being so excited when the code worked! i had no idea what i was doing or what it was called or that it could even be a career- i just knew i loved it. and fortunately it turns out programming is a legit career that i enjoyed going to school for. In high school I would program my TI-82 calculator during study hall and when someone saw me doing that once they told me they had programming classes i could take. So i checked them out and sure enough there were 2.5 years of programming classes offered! I was super lucky to have that opportunity! i played with HyperCard, Pascal, and C++. Then I went to college to get a degree in the stuff and when i graduated from college I was ready to get a job in one of the quickest growing fields out there! With zero experience… zero relevant internships under my belt… and zero clue where to start. so i got a job as a temp answering phones in the call center of the best credit union on earth. and between calls i’d read books about programming and study for the GRE to get me into grad school so i could get a degree in education and become a teacher. I kicked ass on the GRE and got into the University of South Florida. I was all ready to pack my bags and head south when one of the IT people at the credit union walked past my desk. He said “hey… I see your programming book there… do you know how to write code?” and i told him I did but had no experience. He told me they were hiring for programmers and it didn’t matter if i had experience or not. So i interviewed, got the job, and scrapped the florida plans. and here I am 11 years later still working there and that guy that encouraged me to apply is one of my best friends in the world and now lives here in SoCal with me! One big lesson there… I would have NEVER applied for that job if he hadn’t pushed me because i just assumed I wasn’t qualified. TAKE RISKS! TAKE CHANCES! you never know what could happen!!

In any case I obviously love it as i’m still there after 11 years (and i’m not one to settle) and now I’m in a different role no longer writing code but I absolutely love what I do and love my coworkers and my bosses and feel so fortunate every. single. day. plus i have a side gig helping people find their goals and crush them. i mean… seriously how could my life possible get any better?! SO figure out what it is that you want to do and then make it happen! and i’d LOVE to help you figure that out and how to do that if you’re not sure where to start! just email me at [email protected] and we’ll do this together!!