Episode 40 : About to get fired, how Marcus redeemed himself

Meet our next guest, Marcus Blankenship. Marcus began his career with some formal education but was never able to finish the degree. Yet, he used the knowledge and skills that he gained to learn how to learn programming languages, and you can too. Marcus’ experience provides for a unique story because he experienced some serious struggles early in his career that almost resulted in job loss. But, not only was he able to move past those challenges, the changes he made brought his career more success than he imagined. Listen in to episode 40 as Marcus and Arsalan hash out the details.
Marcus Blankenship’s Bio:
Marcus Blankenship is a consultant, author, executive coach and a Calvinist. He serves as a management consultant for software managers and leaders. He helps solve problems and seize the opportunities that his clients know exist – but struggle to find.  He has authored several articles on management, jobs, programming, and self-improvement at his website, marcusblankenship.com.
He graduated from the Oregon Institute of Technology, worked in software development for a number of years rising into management levels. Then he became a guided selling manager for a door systems manufacturer until 2010. He also worked as an adjunct faculty member at the Oregon Institute of Technology until 2013.
He founded the TWUP tracker in 2011 that helps Environmental and Compliance managers’ tracker water usage against permits. He currently serves as a project director and an adviser for a web and mobile app company. He also owns the CREO Agency, where he gets paid to coach newly minted technical managers, consultancy owners, and startups. His clients quickly feel dramatically more confident and capable and start seeing better performance from themselves and their teams within weeks.
Please say hi to Marcus on Twitter.
Episode Highlights and Show Notes:
Arsalan: Hi, everyone. Today, I have Marcus Blankenship with me. Marcus, how are you?
Marcus: I’m well. Thanks for having me on.
Arsalan: I’m so excited to have you on. You have a great story. You were about to get fired after having warnings after warnings, but you somehow managed to stay on and remain with that company for a long time. So, we want to talk about this story a little bit. But, how was the feeling? Were you really scared or apprehensive? Did you doubt yourself during those years?
Marcus: Well, I wish I could say that I had been treated unfairly or my boss was a jerk, but he wasn’t. It was all me. Yes, I was completely scared. I think I was really arrogant at first. I kind of felt at first like maybe I didn’t deserve it. Maybe I was better than that and they just didn’t recognize how good I was. But, when I finally understood that in two weeks I was going to be fired if things didn’t change, it got my attention. I went out to my car, put my head in my hands and cried because I realized that I was about to screw things up.
Arsalan: Yeah, that’s got to be hard for anyone. We’ve all been in uncomfortable situations, especially when you’re just starting out and are unsure of yourself and don’t know where you stand and now your dreams are going to be shattered. You dealt with it and we’re going to talk about that, but first let’s talk about you. Who is Marcus Blankenship?
Marcus: Marcus Blankenship is an old guy who lives in the desert of Oregon, sort of in the middle of nowhere. He has found the things he really loves in life and at this age is helping developers become greater managers and even helps developers transition from their first promotion into senior developers, and helping experienced managers make their transitions into other levels of management or leadership roles. I find that the transition period that we have was one that was really hard for me personally for a lot of different reasons.

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