Episode 70 – How to start when you are clueless about technologies?

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, Richard, how are you?
Richard: Just fine. How are you, Arsalan?
Arsalan: Pretty good. Alright, everybody. This is another episode of Mentoring Developers. I’m talking to Richard about his career choices. We’re doing a little bit of counseling here. He really wants to do well in his fledgling software development career. He’s really passionate, but he has so many questions as I’m sure that people who are listening and watching right now will have questions as well. I love to help and I’d love to help you. Richard reached out to me and I’m here to see what we can do to help him.
Arsalan: So, how are you feeling this week?
Richard: I’m alright. I have no complaints. As time goes by, things become clearer and clearer, which is always a nice feeling.
Arsalan: So, what were your impressions when we had the first session last time when you had to force yourself to think about this in a different way. A couple of weeks have passed since then. So, what happened in the meantime?
Richard: Over the last few weeks, the biggest result of our chat was that it directed my attention more to thinking about deciding when I wanted certain things to be done. When you spoke to me about what interests I had and what area of web development might be most suitable to me, it really helped focus my thoughts in a direction, which resulted in a written plan of attack, really. I know that we planned this meeting to lay that all out, but it feels like it’s all sort of falling into place just from being forced to really take a serious look at it.
Arsalan: So, it’s always a good idea to take a step back if you’re in the middle of something. If you’re in the middle of a forest, you can’t really see the big picture. You don’t know where, in the scheme of things, you are. It’s the same for everybody. It happens to me a lot. When I’m in the middle of something, I forget why I’m here and where I’m going.
Arsalan: It’s always important to know where you’re going. It’s like a lighthouse back in the day … I think they still have lighthouses … so, if you on a ship and don’t know which way to go, you have this lighthouse and if you follow that, you’re going to get there, but along the way, you’re going to have challenges. You’re going to have minor goals and milestones. It’s common sense, but only seems to be common sense to you once someone points it out and then you’re like “Oh yeah, of course. Of course, I should have goals … and mile markers … and milestones.”
Arsalan: It makes sense, but it’s hard to do that when you’re in the middle of it because you’re stressed out. You have life issues. Some people have health issues. Some people have technical problems.

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