🥊 Mentorship Minute: Ultimate Life Experience

✅ Join Us In The Virtual Python Community ➡️➡️  https://virtualpythonmeetup.com I want to share with you an experience I had today.   Today I interviewed someone on the podcast who works at Lyft in the software development space. Beautiful things happen when you get an intimate conversation focused on python programming. The reason that I bring this up is to reflect on the last 30 episodes.  All of these episodes constitute a library of expert teaching that no single person could deliver to you in a classroom or boot camp. I couldn't be more pleased with the decision I made to pull the trigger and start the podcast.  If you are looking for a way to expand your network and get on amazing people's calendars, consider starting a podcast. There are significant wins you can experience with making a podcast.  You get to meet amazing people.  You get to drive the conversation and curate content for your audience.  You get to build a personal brand. Going forward with the podcast, I am trying to branch out into more business and leadership insight while curating the content in a way that python developers benefit most. I look forward to continuing to lead as a change agent in the python training space that curates high-quality content for you.   I forgot to mention, not only do I enjoy writing code, it saved my life.  Some of you may know I started my engineering career in the oil and gas industry during the bust of 2016.  I thought I had landed my dream job.  Little did I know, but ten months later, I would be laid off along with 2000 other people.  The scenario got a little worse because the entry-level jobs I was applying for were also the same jobs people with ten years of experience were also trying to land.   There was no way I was going to break through the recruiter's stack of resumes using a traditional approach.  Upon realizing that truth,  I got serious about developing my programming skills by practicing many hours per day and cultivating relationships that would ultimately lead to freelancing clients.  After two months of solid face to face networking, I ended up landing a series of opportunities that put nearly 150k into my bank account over the next two years.  Not only did I acquire that income, but I cultivated relationships that ultimately landed me a full-time position with a fantastic opportunity. Writing code wasn't always the driver of how the money got in my bank account.  It took a massive layoff at my dream job to push me out of my comfort zone and learn software development skills deeply.  I sincerely believe I wouldn't have the podcast today if it weren't for the layoff.  The layoff triggered a series of events that ultimately changed the trajectory of my life experience. I could not have imagined back in 2016 how things would have transpired, including operating my own freelancing business and meeting amazing humans along the way.   I hope you are leveraging my experience to build your dreams as a software developer and freelancer. - Ben McNeill https://profitablepython.fm --- Send in a voice message: https://podcasters.spotify.com/pod/show/profitablepythonfm/message