Profitable Python

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Would you take payment from someone if they asked you to do their homework for them that did not give you credit?  

I recently ran this poll on IG, and the results shocked me.  A vast majority would take payment and effectively help the student cheat. The more I think about it, the more conflicted I get.

Are the incentives all messed up on the freelancing platforms?  If you don't give the client what they want, then you get a bad review.  Bad reviews will haunt you the reset of your python coaching career.  If you choose to have integrity, then you possibly do not get paid. 

If my family must eat, do I sell my integrity to the highest bidder, or do we starve together so I may preserve my integrity?

If you were an open-source contributor and someone took my work and called it their own, that would undoubtedly be wrong.  

The fraud homework submission could be the agent of change that moved the curve so abruptly that someone on the tail suffers from having integrity.    

You could certainly argue this the other way. Let's take Walmart, for example.  If someone went there and purchased alcohol, but their doctor told them if they drank alcohol, their kidneys would fail, and they would likely die.  Is it Walmart's job to police everyone?  Is it their job to probe your medical records to make sure you can drink that alcohol?  In this case your integrity might just get you in trouble. 

My goodness, the more I think about this, I understand how I would deal with it.  The way I see it, my character is on the line, nothing else matters.  If my character is one of high integrity, then I should choose to work with the student in a way that guides them to the right answer.  I want to be responsible for being the agent of change that made the student better.  Doing their homework for them is not helping the student, ultimately it will catch up to them at test time or when they get a job and have no clue how to execute.

After reflecting on this with you publicly, I keep getting reminded of how important it is to understand how we chose to act and ultimately brand ourselves.  

No one may finally know about the homework submission except the client and the tutor.  What matters more is the choice you make as the tutor.

Some guidance that was given to me when situations like this arise is to ask yourself if this story becomes published in the Wallstreet journal tomorrow, how would you want the story to play out?  Approaching life with that question simplifies decisions when integrity is on the line.

- Ben McNeill

https://profitablepython.fm

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I want to talk to you about business building and an idea on how to prioritize your ideas.

Before I jump into this topic, I want to share my gratitude towards the audience that continues to support the podcast. Thank you, I am honored to serve you.

If you folks are looking for some ideas, you need to check out the Noah Kagan Presents show (see iTunes link below).  A recent episode they made that caught my attention is the episode "7 businesses I can't believe anyone has started yet".  You need to check out that episode if you want some ideas for building a software business.  The significant nugget I got from that episode is when it comes to plans for building startups they recommend to solve a problem you have first.  I love that concept, and I am sure it is not foreign to you either.

Part of my role I chose to take on when hosting the profitable python show is to not only share my experience to help you make fewer mistakes but also to make sure you are aware of excellent resources that I come across and the Noah Kagan show is undoubtedly something I recommend you consider.

The other thing I wanted to mention to you is the 100 days of code challenge.  One hundred days from today is the leap year day of 2020.  Think about where you want to be in 100 days.  If you tried to put in the work, you could have learned a new programming language.  You could have also gone deeper into an area of expertise you have already developed. The 100 days challenge doesn't only pertain to code. You could choose to develop habits in other areas of your life. 

If you haven't guessed yet, I love the 100 days code challenge.  It is long enough where you can get some immersion in a focused area but short enough where the risk is low if you pick a  topic that ends up not being something you don't want to pursue.  

Consider getting some ideas from the Noah Kagan show, then spend the next 100 days building out that software and watch how much you will grow in 100 days.  Who knows?!  It could be the critical link in the chain you need to upgrade your career or brand awareness.  There is nothing magical about the 100 days challenge; it just a way to gamify a good habit.  One thing that is guaranteed is if you don't engage in the daily sharpening of you saw like the 100 days challenge, your personal growth is guaranteed to have a limited trajectory.

🌮Noah's Show link🌮

https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/noah-kagan-presents/id1187402810

🐍Profitable Python Website🐍

https://profitablepython.fm

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If something is free you are the product.

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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

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On this episode you will meet Vuyisile Ndlovu who is a Django freelancer, content creator for realpython.com, and Mozilla core contributor.  This episode is your chance to get some insight from a developer knows how to consistently get clients as remote work.  You are sure to enjoy this content packed episode.

Vuyisile was named PyDev of the week 11/11/2019 so make sure to check out the article Mike Driscol did here: http://www.blog.pythonlibrary.org/2019/11/11/pydev-of-the-week-vuyisile-ndlovu/

If you want to contact Vuyisile try these methods:

https://vuyisile.com/

https://twitter.com/TerraMeijar

Brought to you by Ben McNeill

🐍 profitablepython.fm 🐍

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I want to talk to you about consistency. My mind is on this topic today because of a story I heard about a python coder in Hong Kong.  

Meet Tony.  This guy tweets at me every day with his 100 days of code challenge progress.  He does this consistently even though his city is burning.  Wow.

First of all, how thankful are we in the states that Hong Kong is not our reality.  I sure reflected on this story and fell very humbled. The other thing that comes to mind is how amazing is this guy's commitment to self-improvement in the face of disaster.   If you get this message, Tony, all I have to say is it's going to pay off in a big way to learn software development skills.

The big lesson I am getting from this story is gratitude and inspiration.  I can't think of a good excuse to stop being consistent with my progress towards my goals.    

As a sidebar, the 100days of code challenge is an excellent way to invest in yourself.  The best type of investment is in yourself, and the 100 day code challenge is precisely that.  If you want accountability with the challenge tweet @pypodcast your progress, we are routing for you.

My last message to the readers is to make sure you reach out to Tony with encouragement.  Ask yourself, and please comment if you have ideas on how we can help as a community with the scenario in Hong Kong.    If I was a young person trying to cut my teeth in software development and having the challenge of political unrest, it makes me think gratitude and a bigger purpose.  

I am embarrassed to say this, but I sincerely wish I had more ability to help!   Please comment or share this if you have ideas on how to help people in Tony's situation.

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I have been working on a code project for the past three weeks using flutter and dart to make an android app that leverages machine learning.  The experience has been a challenge!

The issue I was having for the last 40 hours was integrating firebase with the flutter.  I spent hours watching videos, reading documentation, starting and restarting projects probably 50 times.  I couldn't get the damn to thing to work!  There was a handful of times I felt like giving up, but I didn't give up.

Today I finally broke through.  I began to reflect on how persistence played a massive role in my ability to get what I want in life.

At the moment, things may seem like there is not anything good going on, but persistence pays.  Often when we want to quit, we are so close to winning.   I wonder how I would mentally be if I had accepted defeat when the solution was just a few hard pushes away.

I wanted to share this story with you because I am sure you have had moments like this, too, or you may find one on the horizon.

The lesson here is to stick it out.  As Marie Forleo states, "Everything is figure outable."  Often we need to be creative with our problem-solving techniques.  The rewards at the end of the persistence tunnel are waiting for us.  The funny part is as soon as we get stuck and then unstuck, we look back and see it was just a speed bump preparing us for the next barrier we face at a later date.  Tis is the life of a programmer.

Have you experienced something like this?  Did sticking it out eventually pay off or not?

Ben McNeill 💚https://profitablepython.fm👽

#pypodcast #profitablepython

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How much do you like to read each day?  Statistica shows that the average American's daily reading is about 15 minutes per day.  They also show that 75% of Americans finish the book.

I am not trying to lecture here. I enjoy reading because of how it has helped me grow, so I wanted to share this info with you.

I highly recommend reading books on a subject that will help you grow your strengths.  If you want to get a deeper understanding of the content, consider creating content around the learning nuggets that you collect. The last step in the internalization equation would be to teach the material then.  If you need some ideas for how to do this, consider making a podcast or blog.  If you have ever wanted to be a content creator but felt it would be hard to be prolific, consider integrating reading as a core daily habit.

Not all books are created equal.  I would recommend to orient the books you read towards the areas in your life you want to get a more in-depth learning experience.  Seek out books that have reviews that show the content has practical and actionable content.

Audiobooks are another cool way to download the content into your brain.  Be careful with audiobooks, though, because it can be easy to veg out a possibly becoming a waste of your precious time.  Also, I would personally advise against listening to the books  at 3X speed.  If you want to practice patience, consider slowing it down lower than 1X.  You don't need to consume a book a day to get the impact you seek from the material.

Whatever you chose to do, make sure to allocate time to internalize the information by implementing it into your life.

What is your reading plan going into 2020?  Tweet @pypodcast to report your reading adventures. I look forward to learning from your experience.

Ben McNeill 💚https://profitablepython.fm👽

#pypodcast #profitablepython

You are not your past.  You are the summation of your future potential.  For the sake of this article and lets call that your future value.

You can determine your present value if you know your future value and assume a rate of compounding.  Converting between the present and future value is something you can try in a spreadsheet program.  Most people talk about time value analysis when making investment decisions.  Everyone is in the business of deploying capital, and the same principles of optimizing that allocation applies to relationship building and skill-building.

In a previous episode, we discussed cost-benefit analysis within the context of opportunity cost.  You experience cost-benefit analysis every day, but I want to break this down in a way that covers the nuances, so no misunderstanding occurs.

Let's say you have two options, option A and option B.  You can only choose one option, so what do you pick?   One of the best ways to do this is to select the option with the highest net present value (NPV).

To calculate the NPV, we need to compare options to see what the incremental difference between picking one over the other is.

Incremental value is just the difference between the two options.  As a side note, this analysis works when choosing the least bad decision, but I digress.

The opportunity cost of choosing option A is the incremental difference forfeited from leaving option B on the table.  Since option B also has an NPV, we can see how this simple decision between A and B has a massive impact on the future value of this one decision.  We make 100 decisions like this in a day.

When it comes to your life and the decisions you made up to this point, your current value is your present value. You are where you find yourself in life because of the choices you have made up to this point in life, but that does not define your present value.

Let me ask you this.  What is your future value?  If you know your future profit and make some assumptions about the rate of compounding, you can determine your present value.  The key here is knowing that your current value is a function of your future self and not your past.

If you still don't' believe me, let me ask you this.   What is the present value of creating meaningful relationships with people in your niche over the next 50 years?  Everyone says your net worth is the size of your network.  I am arguing your net worth is the size of your future network.

You must convince yourself of the power of compounding and how converting the present value back and forth with future value works.  If you want to play around with these equations, check out the present value and future value conversions with a spreadsheet program like Excel.

Why do I hammer on this topic so hard? I believe it contains a vast amount of empowerment.  We are the only person that has control over how we respond to the stimulus in our life and is the fundamental principle of being proactive. The more we are aware of our ability to be proactive, the better decisions we can make.   Ultimately we raise our future value by improving our decision making in the present.

If I were dead, the message I would want you to remember is that the only math that matters is knowing how to calculate present value. When you understand time value and the different parameters that impact time value conversion between future and present, you will be on a path towards abundance that few ever achieve.  Your wealth of skills, relationships, and finance with be unrecognizable.

My homework I assign to you today is to challenge yourself to learn how the present value calculation works.

Ben McNeill 💚https://profitablepython.fm👽

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What are you doing to optimize your online presence?

I can help you answer by bringing you a great interview I made with a freelance python developer and tutorial maker for realpython.com named Vuyisile Ndlovu.  Stay tuned with Vuyisile Ndlovu's podcast episode that will be released very soon.

Vuyisile Ndlovu talks about how getting clients is relatively easy when you have trust.  Building your online presence helps establish this trust before you ever get in front of the customer by simply creating your online presence.

I ask you again!  What are you doing to optimize your online presence?

I have some ideas for you if you would like to hear them.  First of all, check out Gary Vaynerchuk.  He is the OG King of online brand building.

Gary is famous for taking a keynote speech and slicing it into 30 pieces of content.  We might not have the resources to do exactly that, but we can try something similar. 

My formula is to record a video/audio podcast and then listen back to the audio and braindump that summary and ideas onto a notepad.  Some times you will find gaps in the sound that you want to expand on.  What you have here is a blog that accompanies the podcast.  Steal this idea and start the upgrade of your online presence immediately.

Ben McNeill