Episode 68 – Richard Kronick on Paving the Path to a Coding Career

Richard’s Bio:
Richard is the co-founder and CEO of Kronick Enterprises, a passive income website development company. 70% of all the websites the company has produced currently receive thousands of daily visitors via organic search results. He has experience with HTML, CSS, JavaScript, and WordPress.
 
In August of 2018, Richard decided to become a software engineer and is working towards this goal. He is enrolled in a .NET class where he has been learning C#, ASP.NET MVC, Entity Framework, SQL Server and Object-Oriented Programming concepts.
 
Previously, Richard spent 13 years as both an English and Chinese instructor, having learned Chinese while living in China. He has taught at both the high school and university level. He is also a life-long learner and student.
 
Richard believes in a life of service – that the great goal of life is to be useful and that achievement without fulfillment is empty – and a life of continuous growth. He hopes to join an organization where he can be a part of a team that contributes to the organization’s success and serves its clients and customers.
Episode Highlights and Show Notes:
Arsalan: Hi, everyone. Welcome to another episode of mentoring developers. Today I have a very special guest who has a very interesting story about his trip to China where he found himself without any means to learn a new language that he didn’t know how to speak, and he had to learn on his own. Then, he found himself in the situation where he had to overcome something similar that many of us face when we are trying to learn a new programming language. So, let’s hear from him. Richard, how are you?
Richard: Good. How are you, Arsalan?
Arsalan: I’m great! It’s great to have you. So, what happened in China?
Richard: Well, I did a master’s program in Asian studies and I was very interested in Asia at the time. After graduation, I was fortunate enough to find a position teaching English at a university in China. That was really my means to get over there. I was just really interested in seeing things from the ground and I wanted to learn the language. In the beginning, I just thought that I would soar everything naturally. Of course, that didn’t happen. I realized then that I would have to buckle down and really study and work hard. I had a local salary.
Richard: So, I really didn’t have the means to enroll in any sort of program. So, I had to spend a few hours each day with books and audio programs. Then, I realize it didn’t really work so well because when I went out and tried to use the language, what I learned was not applicable. So, I would study a little bit and then go out on the streets. I used to hang out in front of a small corner store. The woman was nice enough to let me sit there and talk to people.
Richard: I used to purposefully get lost on the buses. I would take a bus to a place that I wasn’t familiar with and I get often wander around and then try to find my way home. It was a great experience because I learned a lot. One of the most valuable things from that experience was that I learned a lot of confidence and I realize that if I just pushed myself that I could learn anything.
Arsalan: Yes, but did it work, though?
Richard: Yes. After about a year or so, I started to have basic conversations. That was really exciting in propelled me to want to work harder. After about 2 ½ to 3 years, I felt comfortable with the language. So, yes, it did work, and I think that if I wouldn’t have just jumped out there and started talking to people and being out on the streets and everything, then it probably would’ve taken quite a bit longer.
Arsalan: Yeah, I can imagine. This is so good to hear because this is a life lesson, right? When you are trying to learn something that you don’t know, and it could be anything (plumbing,

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