That experimenting and moving around and floating was actually useful because you start picking out little things about everything that you like, and soon enough, all of those small things create a larger picture. And when you land something like I did with graphic design, it just had all of the elements that I found in those other avenues, all in the one career. Hello, and welcome to the Py Bytes podcast, where we talk about Python career and mindset. We're your hosts. I'm Julian Sequeira. And I am Bob Eldebos. If you're looking to improve your python, your career, and learn the mindset for success, this is the podcast for you. Let's get started. Welcome to another Pie Bytes podcast episode. This is Julian, as always, and I actually don't have Bob with me again, but I do have a very special guest. This is Ranui Rice, one of my best mates, and he's joining me tonight to have a chat. How you going, Ra? Yeah, good, Julian. Thanks for having me. No, I'm stoked that you've jumped on on this special blood moon Wednesday. We should. We're inside recording this instead of outside going, enjoying that, but that is fine. Just for everyone's benefit, I do call him random Ra. So when you hear me saying that throughout the episode, don't be confused. That's just the shortened version. So the reason I have Ra here tonight is to talk about his journey with his career. It's a very unique story for him specifically, but it's a common story amongst all the people that we work with and speak to. Through pie bytes, Ra has gone from a very unique career start to where he is today in technology. And there's a lot of mindset that needs to change as that you need to have, that you need to embrace to be able to make that change. And again, Bob and I, we speak to a lot of people that want to start a career in tech, that want to get into programming development of some sort. And Ra's done just that. And I'm super proud to have him here to tell us all about his journey. But before we dive in, Rob, why don't you tell us a little bit about yourself? So, I'm 30 years old. I'm from Sydney, Australia. I like hanging out with my family and spending time developing websites in my spare time. Graphic design is my passion, and I'm into all tech. So currently I work at AWS and I'm a data center technician. So I sort of touch both ends of the tech spectrum, hardware and software. But I wasn't always that way, and I have a pretty varied set of interests. I came from a military background. I like fitness. I ride my bike. I love music. Yes. So it was a very interesting journey getting into tech. No, I love it, man. And this is for everyone that knows I work at AWS, too. This is how Rao and I met, and obviously have hit it off and become besties over time. Bob. Bob. He's still my bestie, man, but, no, this is, this is great. And what I, again, this is why we relate a lot, you know, you definitely talk about the mindset with me a lot. You. We talk about fitness, we talk about technology. There's a whole lot of mutual, you know, I guess, interest there. So this is why we get along. But it's, again, as I alluded to at the start, it's all about that journey. Right? You came from the military, didn't you? That's where you started. Yeah, yeah, I started in the military, in infantry, actually. Very interesting choice. So my background during school, I was very much into fitness. I studied physical health sciences. I liked biology, physics as well. And I thought I was going to be a physiotherapist. I actually qualified to compete in the Olympics for kayaking for the London Olympics. I didn't follow through with that, but my interests were in sport. So when it came to joining the military, I had a. It was an easy choice. Infantry, very physical, very sort of, if we're talking about mindset, Jocko Willink sort of esque. And it just felt like the place to be. I liked that discipline, and that's what led me into infantry. So how long were you in the army for? So the australian army, most obviously, but how long were you in the army for? I served in the army for four years. And it's the minimum time that you need to serve as an infantry soldier. But I left after my four years from injuries. And actually, it was related to my final year when I went to Afghanistan. So I was deployed overseas and went to Afghanistan. I was in infantry, driving vehicles and driving other infantry soldiers in vehicles. We were in a convoy and I drove my vehicle over in IED. So this IED was actually the largest IED recorded at the time. 40 kilos of explosive blew the vehicle up. None of us died. Those injuries and that. That sort of led me to leaving infantry, which is a very physical core. So I just couldn't continue on without that job anymore. Man, that's insane. Absolutely insane. I. I only found this out. You. You only told me that part of the story. I think two weeks ago, we've known each other for three years or something, so this has completely blown my mind. I can't. I couldn't believe that. So I'm obviously super stoked that everyone came out okay. And, uh, yeah, what a. What a reason to make you say, you know what, hanging up the boots. I'm done. And, yeah, so I totally agree. That's. I'm glad you did, because now we're mates, obviously. Yeah. Yeah. So when you decided to hang that up, I mean, we, through. Through these years that I've been working, one of the common things I hear is about how people from the military, they come out and they find it hard to get back into just the standard work cycle of going to a job every day, and there's things that come from the military that stick with them and all of that. So did you find it difficult? How did you just tell us. I'll stop talking here. I just want to hear this story from you. How did you get to that point where you are now? How did you go from, I've stepped out of the military, what do I do with myself? Yeah, this was really the. I would say the road to hell in my life. I would label it that way. What happened was, before I joined the army, I actually had issues with my family, and it caused me to live away from my family, and I hadn't actually seen them for almost a decade. So that's all family, siblings, parents, everything. So during that military time and during the time in Afghanistan, all through the incident there, I didn't really have any support. At the same time, I went through a pretty nasty breakup from a long term partner during Afghanistan. So that was also playing on my mind. I also had some friends die overseas and also back in an oncoming in Australia. So there was a lot of things happening at once. And it was really, really hard. Like you said, it's hard enough just to leave the military and find a new career, because that's all, you know, the community is very tight. The way that you do things is very military esque. It doesn't really transfer very well back into civilian society. So I had left, and I really didn't have anything to go off. I didn't really have a specific interest that I could just latch onto and go with. I was very broad in the way that I had my interests, so there was nothing I could really direct myself to when. So that that was really difficult for me. And I went through a big period of just floating around. I sort of dabbled in some things. I had. I tried experimented with different things. What did I try? I tried djing at one point. I tried art. I tried drawing and art. I gave physical training a go and potentially personal training. I tried some study. I ended up landing myself in graphics design study. And that was something that interests me, but something that was structured enough that I could latch onto something and go with. And that's where I started to move up out of that road to hell. Wow, man, it is that uncertainty, and I like that. What speaks to me from that, I should say, is that you were seeking something, you were seeking some structure. You were seeking something that you could sink your teeth into that would provide you purpose, that would give you that purpose that you no longer had after leaving the military, because, as you said, that's all you knew. And that's what I think a lot of people are still searching for. You can even still be working a job and feel like you have no purpose and just still be seeking the entire time. By the way, I just have to say, I got to connect you with one of the guys in, in pie bytes, because Reese, who I interviewed two weeks ago, is a dj on, on twitch or whatever. So I also hope you have embarrassing dj videos and things for us that I will ping you about after. So look, what about graphics design pulled you in because you tried so many things and you landed in graphics design. So you said there was a little bit of a structure there, right. But I mean, I take it you're pretty creative because you were doing art, you were doing djing. This is all sort of really creative stuff. Yeah. Why graphics design? So this is where I think the technical side came into it. When I was young, I did an IT course, and my first exposure, this is high school, my first exposure to anything, it was a course in front end HTML, very basic stuff. Create a website. I think I did some Simpson's website where you can click on the characters and it pulls up a quote or something. That's cool. Yeah, it was good fun. I really enjoyed that. I really enjoyed tinkering with the design and the way that you can create some sort of visual elements on a two space and it could be potentially on the Internet. So I had done that. I'd also dabbled once upon a time with an open source media player called FuBAR. And so for those of you listening, you might have known FUBaR, you can customize the UI completely with CSS. So that was really good fun. But I never really got into tech, and so I went through this phase of exiting the military, learning a bit more about different arts and things like that in my experimenting, and then I sort of saw graphic design, and it was kind of a combination of tech and design because everything was done on the Adobe suite at the time, and it was very much tech focused. So you needed the tech tools. You needed to know how to use a laptop. You needed to know Internet space, because a lot of modern design is done there in that space. So that's what I thought. That was a perfect opportunity for me to do both. And so I took it on. I did a course that was a diploma for two years, and it was very, very. It was the gateway for me into technology and into something of some sort of structure. So all of these little things, all of these, like, you know, these fears that I had of, like, I don't know what I'm doing. What am I doing with all of this stuff? I don't have any direction that experimenting and moving around and floating was actually useful because you start picking out little things about everything that you like, and soon enough, all of those small things create a larger picture. And when you land something like I did with graphic design, it just had all of the elements that I found in those other avenues, all in the one career. That's super interesting that you say that, because there's that adage that I can't remember who says it, but you can't know what you're passionate about unless you actually go out there and try it, you know? So people who say, you know, I have no passion. Well, what have you tried? How do you know your passion? You're not passionate about, say, playing the guitar if you haven't actually tried in earnest to play the guitar. So it's cool. It's same with your career. You need to get out there and try different things to know that, okay, where I'm going to spend the next five to ten to 20 years, if that's what you want, this is something that I'm passionate about. And if you're not, well, yeah, experiment. I love that you went and tried different things. You gave it a crack and then moved on and said, okay, that's not for me. I'm going to try something else. Yeah. And I'd just like to add something that one of my recent mentors told me. She told me this woman had an amazing career as a project manager with some of the biggest tech companies in the world, and she ended up in AWS, and that's where I got to speak with her. But she told me that none of this time where you're spending going in all different directions is ever wasted because all of those skills and abilities you accumulate and as well as that, you cross off the roads that you don't need to go down, and in the end, you're left with the roads that you should be going down. I love it. That's such, that is perfect advice. That's amazing advice. So I'm going to take that one on as well. I love that you're essentially crossing off the things that you realize don't actually matter to you, that we're just like, okay, great. I tried it, didn't need it. Moving on to the next one, and then, you know, you learned from that. That's really cool. So, all right, I'll dive into the next piece, then. So you've, you're doing the graphics design stuff. You've done the course. Did you take on any jobs? Did you seek any jobs in the graphics design space? Yeah. So one of my fears, actually, one of my, one of my fears that I recognized over my whole time experimenting as well, was actually getting into a civilian job role. So getting out of the military and moving into a space where you need to go and interview again, and the interview is not assured. Like in the military, there's a, there's a test that you go and turn up to do, and that narrows down your roles, but I don't think anybody would be so narrowed down that they couldn't find something. Whereas in the civilian world, you go out there and ask for a job and you might be turned down and that's it, move on to the next one. So that's very daunting. And I hadn't, I hadn't been in the game for such a long time. So that was very hard. So what I did was I started where I could. I know that my mom actually has a business, a clothing business, and her logo was looking a bit rusty, and that was something I really enjoyed doing. So I said, hey, mom, do you want your logo to be updated? I can do something for you. And she said, yeah. She said she'll pay me to do it. She understands that there'll be value that comes out of it. I had shown her some of my work and she was happy for me to do that. So that's where I started. I got some sort of freelance work going on. And as far as a career, I didn't really get far into a graphics design career before I picked myself up and found this AWS job. Man. Before we dive into the AWS, im going to rewind for a sec, because youre hitting the nail on the head here. This is such a great way for anyone. It doesnt matter what industry it is, if youre in any sort of a role, you have to make yourself valuable to other people to get opportunity. And in your case, you didnt sit there and wait for things to come to you. You didnt sit there and just, you know, hit your head against the wall and say, the world's out to get me. You found someone. Okay, fair enough. It's, it's your mum. You know, she's there. But yeah, you saw that her logo needed updating and you offered the service. You went to her and you said, I can do this for you. And just like something Bob and I always waffle on about, you had a portfolio, you're able to show her. Here's the proof that I can actually do this stuff. And, and again, this is in line with a lot of the stuff we say, which is get coding, get building, get making, build your, build up your portfolio, show people that you have the skills in your own personal projects, and then you can actually be able to offer that freelancer, do whatever you want. Sure. And these skills, they, and the word of mouth that comes from it, that snowballs. Marketers still all agree word of mouth is the best marketing tool we have. So if you start small, start with your friends and family, and if they need small jobs done, you can get those done. It's not high risk. It's not something to be afraid of. They have friends. You're one person away from a thousand other people. So statistically, one person will have a thousand friends or acquaintances over a lifetime, actually likely more to be friends. So if they're going to go and tell all of their current friends that, hey, you know, here's this graphic design job that I got done. It's great. There's a good chance that one of those friends will want another job, too. And so on and so on. So if you're building code, if you're doing a python project for somebody, it might be just the same. I mean, that's brilliant. Love it. Again, this is why we're friends. It's fantastic. So, all right, so you, now this is the interesting thing. This is where I want to change pace a little bit. You ended up at Aws in a tech role, working on physical hardware. Same job I did, we did at the same time. It's fantastic working together. Actually, it was the darkest period of my life working with you, so I'm glad I've changed roles. So with that in mind, how did you make that call to say, all right, my, my passion here is graphics design, but I'm moving into a tech role, such as, I'm just going to try Aws, like what happened there. Okay, here's another, another great tip that I got from my mentor, and this was, I'm attaching this to my story in hindsight, but I took the opportunity. I went through a military recruitment company I had, okay, here's another thing. If you fear getting out there and getting a job and the transition, find a recruitment agency who will throw you into a job, they'll throw you into the deep end. It doesn't matter what company, you've never had a job. You're afraid of this. Just get out there. So I did this. I went to a military recruitment company. They sent me this job opportunity and I thought, hey, it's in tech. They deal with Linux, which was something that I was dabbling in at the time. I thought, why not? It's something to get my foot in the door. I can learn about server hardware. I can immerse myself in the tech, which would satisfy the tech side of me, and I can freelance design on the side. That's awesome. At the same time it builds your network to have tried it. Actually, let me backtrack for a second. Was it a good decision for you? Yeah, I don't regret it one bit. One answer, mate. I wouldn't, I wouldn't be on this podcast if I, if I did, if I missed this. So, um. Opportunity? Yeah. No, no, it was great. It was great. I loved it. I think like, like I had said before, you, you never, time is never wasted. What time is wasted when you don't do anything. If I didn't take this opportunity, I might have still been sitting in fear at home. I could have just been doing nothing. I don't know what I could have done. But this is something, and this is movement towards my own development. And I had an interest and I followed it. No, I love it. That's what we have to do. So as you're using this as a stepping stone, let's say, I won't ask you what the end goal is because that's, it's constantly changing. But I know one of your passions, again is this graphics design stuff. And if you're to be in a sort of full time role doing that hybrid with something else, I know that's something that you want to step into. Obviously, that's not what you're doing now, and that's not something you can do in the current role, but, you know, does the current role, having moved into this, taken this chance, taken this opportunity, has it exposed you to anything, has it allowed you to, you know, grow your other skills, the graphics design in tandem? Yeah, actually it has. So within the company itself, there's been opportunities for graphic design. I've had people come to me for internal team logos. I've had people come to me for t shirts and memorabilia. Outside of that, I have. I have friends at work that have said, hey, I've got something that I need to do graphics design wise, outside of the job. Building websites, for example. So there was one case where there was a nonprofit that we helped as AWS. We helped them, and I got a chance to build their website, and that was an external job, but it really gave me the experience I needed to move forward in my freelancing. So the opportunities are there. The other thing I would say is the time. So during my work, I do, I am committed to my role. So I do my hardware troubleshooting, I do my data center technician work, but outside, I don't leave that time to waste. I'm trying to build this up. So, you know, I get home, I have a bit of a break, and then I just jump on my laptop and grind at it. Oh, man, that's brilliant. The, this, again, is messaging that I think is key for a lot of people. Is it just because the current job that you're in doesn't explicitly support your, say, interest of where you want to go and provide that opportunity? There is opportunity everywhere around you, and you just have to seek it. So, you know, I remember that. I think I asked, I've asked you for multiple things over the years now, like logos for the team and stuff. And I heard that. I heard you say so. But the thing is, you know, I didn't know you could even do that. And it wasn't through. It was. Wasn't until we were having a discussion. You're telling me about the history. So putting yourself out there, having these conversations, networking, having just taken this opportunity at AWS, you were able to then meet people who were interested, and you were then able to grow from that. But that would not have happened if you didn't take the opportunity. And if when you got into the job, you didn't put your hand up to volunteer, to have conversations with people, to meet new people, to network, whatever it is you had to keep pushing. And like the last podcast episode, Bob and I recorded new levels, new devils. Every time you got in, there were new challenges. But you put up your hand and you face those challenges and there were new levels that came from that and new opportunities as well. I mean, it's really cool. Yeah. There's always new challenges. There's always new challenges. Time management becomes a big challenge, dedicating time to the right things. Knowing when you can put that work, when you can put that your ability to work at work, in the workplace is an important thing. Yeah. You can't just sort of drop your current role. So you really need to balance it. But what you can do is you can find out where you can apply that skill. Put your hand up and you might be the niche market within the company. You might have a skill that nobody else does and people will find value in that. Yeah. Yeah. You're exactly right. That's how I moved into the coding role. Right. You know, where they. I won't go into it again. I think I mentioned it 5000 times, so I'll stop. But it's true. And you have to find that value you can provide. And I think that's key. So to bring this to a bit of a close, one of the key things I want to talk about, or just mention is that you're not there yet, are you? You're at that perfect place at the end, right? Not even close. Yep. So why? Why not? There's always a niggling, a niggling thought in your mind that you're just not good enough. And this thought is the same one that paralyzes you and stops you from doing anything. But at the same time, it's the same thought that drives you forward. So you've got to become friends with that. You can't let it overwhelm you to the point of freezing up and not moving forwards, not taking opportunities, worrying that you might go down the wrong path and there's no going back because that's not true. You have to take care of that thought. Use it to drive you forward. When you feel that thought come up, it means you're not where you need to be. You need to keep moving. You need to build up something. You need to follow some interest somewhere. Open your eyes and take those opportunities and don't let it overwhelm you. I would say speak to people about it. Let people know that you have this thought because people will tell you where you need to be sometimes. Like you might, uh, you might tell yourself all the time, I'm not good enough. I don't know programming, I don't know design. But your friends will tell you otherwise, they'll they'll tell you, oh, you might not be good at this, but you're good at that. They might tell you, yeah, you're not good enough. Why don't you do this course and so on and so on, but. But you need that feedback because sometimes you can be your own worst enemy. So, yeah, that's important. Surround yourself with the right people. I think that's a good tip as well. And, yeah, that's imposter syndrome you're talking about. You know, we. You're never going to get rid of it. No one will embrace it, because, you know, when you feel imposter syndrome about something, that generally means it's something you've got to do, oh, crap, I'm worried about this. Got to do it. So, no, I love it. And with, like, your mindset, I got to hand it to you, is. Is just incredible to see and hear and this story, because it's tough, you know, it's easy in this, what, 2030 minutes chat to digest it all and get it out on. On the table. But this was years and years of your life. This was pain. I'm sure it was misery at sometimes. I'm sure it was difficult, but I just want to point it out that through sheer determination, and I think, what is it? The thing I've said before, the two things you need for success, persistence and consistency. Right? Just got to keep it up and just don't stop. And that's what you did. And look at you now. One of the biggest tech companies on the planet. You're doing amazing things that we can't talk about here, and you're, you know, you're building up that skill set, that portfolio. You're doing big design jobs on the side, which are just incredible to hear about when we do chat. So it's all. It's all upwards, man. All up from here. Yeah, 100%, definitely. That perseverance. You need to keep going. You don't even know. You won't even notice. When you keep growing. It's a snowball. It starts off small, and it just gets bigger and faster and bigger and faster, and you won't even notice. And all of a sudden, you just be wrapped in it. And it's not until you look back in a podcast like that you realize that, hey, I've actually come quite a way, and it's something to be proud of. I'm just picturing you standing at the top of the stairs, you know, jumping up and down. If you've just done some training. Rocky theme song. Exactly. I made it. I made it, ma. No, man, it's. It's great. And as, as always, you know, it's just so enlightening and motivating, spending time with you. I really appreciate it. So, as we come to a close, just as I like to wrap it up, you know, if there was one message, if you had a message for the listeners here, what would it be? From my own experience, I would say. I would say, treat yourself like you treat others. That was the biggest thing I've learned. I used to beat myself up. I used to criticize myself. I used to say the worst things to myself. And if I flip that and I. And I tell those things to other people, I would be in jail. I would be friendless. I'd be getting hit by Julian. I would be. Yeah. You can't treat yourself like that. You need to treat yourself like you're valuable, like somebody else. So if you can do that, you can take care of the impostor syndrome. You can say, hey, I'm not where I want to be, but I'm good enough to get there, and that's all you need. Totally, man. I actually had that same thought the other day. I was just worrying about something or something was weighing on me, and I thought, if this was Bob saying this to me, what would I. What would I tell him? And then I told myself that, and, you know, I drank the beer. No, I'm joking. It wasn't about. Yeah, it's a really powerful technique because we are our worst enemies, but we can also be our best friends, you know, so we have to go easy on ourselves, get out of our own heads. We're completely biased against ourselves, you know, even a guarantee, as you listen to this podcast back, you're going to sit there and go, oh, is that what I really sound like? But, yeah, everyone else out there is going to be like, you sound like you. Doesn't matter. So, yeah, that's a really good tip. I really like that. So, Ranui, I have thoroughly enjoyed it. I hope everyone out there has listened. So thank you so much for joining. It's been an absolute pleasure. Thanks for having me, Joanne. No worries. And hope everyone out there got something from Ra's story. Definitely inspirational. If you do want to know more about Ra, just let us know. Ra is actually a bit of a social media. He's a bit absent from social media, I should say. So. He has a website coming, which we will put in the show notes as time goes, as it's ready. Otherwise, just send us an email through the many pie bytes channels that exist hit us up in slack. Actually, I'll make sure if you haven't joined yet, I'll get you into the Slack channel and people can find you there. That'll work great. Nice. All right, take these men. Enjoy, and thanks, everyone, for listening. Cheers. We hope you enjoyed this episode. To hear more from us, go to Pibyte free. That is Pibit es friends and receive a free gift just for being a friend of the show and to join our thriving slack community of python programmers, go to Pibytes community. That's pibit Es forward slash community. We hope to see you there and catch you in the next episode.