That getting stuck part is actually the hardest because I think you go in as a mindset, like I'm supposed to know it all, but you don't because these are new applications, new stacks, new technologies. But actually, if you get stuck, then the real teaching starts, because then they see how it actually is, and that's highly valuable. And I think you just have to push through that and ultimately you fix it, and then it just shows realistically how it is as a developer. Hello, and welcome to the Pibytes podcast, where we talk about Python career and mindset. We're your hosts. I'm Julian Sequeira. And I am Bob Valdebos. 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. Okay. Welcome. Welcome to another Pie Bytes podcast episode. I am Julian, and I'm here with Bob as always. How's it going, man? Welcome, welcome. Glad to be back and not our episode for you this week. How are you doing? It's bedtime. It feels like forever since we recorded one of these, but happy to be here mid week for once. It's weird. Yeah. I think we now have recorded every day. The Wednesday dynamic is pretty good, right? No, I prefer the start of the week. Let's do this Monday next time. Look at us procrastinating. Oh, shame on us. But I'm going. I'm going. Well, man, I'm doing well. It's been a good week. What about you? Yeah, pretty good week, as always. Coaching a lot of people, doing a lot of coding. All good stuff. Good couple of good wins for our Winstock at the end of the week. Oh, yeah, perfect. Yes. So. All right, so I hope everyone is doing well as well. Having a good week. We are in lockdown in Sydney, Australia at the moment, so, yeah, I could definitely use a break, but that's how it goes sometimes. So I hope you're all doing well, and let's dive into the episode. Bob, what did we want to talk about? We're going to talk about getting into the arena. Well, no, not literally, but, Julian, you showed the other day a book you bought, dare to lead by Brene Brown. And every time you show books, Amazon gets richer. Because I buy those books then immediately. And I started reading it. And it's very inspiring because we love that mindset stuff, leadership. And what seemed to be a pivotal moment for Brene was that Roosevelt. Roosevelt. Yeah, Roosevelt. Was that Roosevelt quote about getting into the arena? Which. Can we quote that? Shall we quote that. Yeah. Yeah. All right. Go for it. It's not the critic who counts, not the man who points out how the strongman stumbles or where the doer or deeds could have done them better. The credit belongs to the man who is actually in the arena, whose face is marred with dust and sweat and blood, who strives valiantly, who errs, who comes short again and again, who at the best knows in the end the triumph of high achievement, and who at the worst, if he fails, at least fails while daring greatly. That's a mouthful. But I think this comes down to you have to get out there. You can talk about stuff, but at the end of the day, your actions will reflect your character. It's an important one, especially in the corporate workplace, that a lot of us tend to be these days. And whether you're remote or not, there's always going to be people who talk the talk, right? But they don't know how to walk the walk because they've never walked it before. I think we've all come across people like that in our careers and will continue to do so. And the message from me in that wonderful little paragraph there that you read all that wonderful monologue was just that it really pays off to be that person who has slogged it out, who's put in the hard work, who has been in the trenches, as we like to say, at work and get in there, you get your hands dirty, you'd know what to do, what it's like to have done the actual core job. And my take on that is that it makes you an effective leader, it makes you an effective operator, employee, whatever you want to call it. But it also earns the trust of the people around you, makes you well rounded. Haha. There's the well rounded developer thing and, you know, it just, there's nothing bad about it. Whereas on the flip side, when you don't have that experience and you come in and you just start talking, telling people without having actually lived the experience, it's very shallow. And people see right through that very quickly. And the ability to lead and earn the trust of the team is much less. It's much harder. So what's your take on that, Bob? What are you. That's a great point. It's really. And you see that with managers, right. The managers that are most pleasant to work with is those are in the trenches. They know they're very technical. They have been there themselves. And yeah, they talk to talk, walk to walk. And as opposed to leaders that just only can theoretically speak to it, but don't really have that experience. Yeah. So as we talk with a lot of people, that's also one of the biggest fears. Right? Like people getting a promotion. Usually they get promoted to a manager and all of a sudden they have to deal with all these paperwork and a lot of conversations and meetings and they're like, oh my God, I'm losing my technical skills. And it's a real concern. And, yeah, that's really what you have to keep up to be an effective leader, be it python, be it any developer skills, but whatever your domain happens to is be right. And you know that. That's the thing. As a software manager, it's not impossible to stay on in touch. One of the, I've seen both sides of the spectrum where you've got the manager who just distances themselves from the tech, from the team, from all of the hands dirty work that they're doing. Right, and focuses more on the manager stuff, which is fine, but because they don't know exactly what's happening or how the team works together with the problem solving and what the latest tech is that they're dealing with on the team, because they're completely out of the loop there, they struggle. On the flip side, I've seen managers who understand the tech, and even though their managers have to deal with all of the stuff, like annual leave and reporting and all of the other bureaucracy and stuff, they still make the effort to come and sit with the team, and it doesn't take a lot. That's one of the key things as well for me here, is that it doesn't take a lot to get your hands dirty. You know, come and sit with the team for half a day, code with them, ask them what they're working on, you know, ask to understand what they're working on and make that effort. And making that effort goes a long way with the team, but also in your own development and ensuring that you stay technical and, you know, relevant. Yeah. Do you have an example from your career? A story, story time with Julian. Yeah, storyteller, story type children. So sit, sit down, my son. So my favorite story is actually of a manager that, you know, I recently reported to, and he's, I won't go into the detail who he is. If he listens to this, he'll, he'll know. But one of the things about him, and while he is a region manager now, um, he still is technique, he's still technical, and he has earned the trust of the team. He was exceptional at the technical, and it's wonderful because then when you see, when you're seeking approvals, when you're seeking support, uh, you don't have to try and justify what it is you're doing in the sense that a lot of justifications to leadership, you have to try and explain the technical because they don't understand. But in this manager's case, he completely understood everything. And because of that, when you came to him with the problem, he was very much aware of it already. Already working on it, and just took what you said as ammunition to, you know, further the fight to push back or to fix the problem. And it was inspiring because I've also, you know, in my career, I think, again, we all have. We've had managers that are completely detached. And this particular manager, you know, he was just so good and even now continues to, in my opinion, lead by example. He joins meetings, technical meetings, sometimes even when he doesn't have to, just to stay involved. He gets involved in employee engagement initiatives. And, you know, his hands, you know, metaphorically speaking, are completely dirty. They're covered in blood. They're on the ground. He knows exactly what it's like to do the day to day job. And while it's not a coding job, it's still relevant to the conversation and it still matters because it means he's an effective leader. And to me, that's a message that I've taken with me to, to my coding job, uh, even here, to pie bytes. And in everything that I do, you know, I want to lead like that, that guy, like that leader, and I want to be, you know, technical and keep going down the path that I want to go down. Lead by example, right? Exactly. Awesome. And what about you? Any, I mean, you have a great example. I know, man, setting you up. I just want to say I do have a similar experience with previous managers and being knee deep into code and even committing code as a manager and check ins, being about screen sharing and coding and doesn't even feel like your manager. So that's really cool. That's a great story. Yeah. I want to share what I'm living these days as a coach, helping people, building their pretty complex applications end to end, and kind of the balance as well that you're not going to write the code for them because they won't learn, but you cannot also just tell them what to do without actually showing the code, debugging together, sometimes writing little parts together, and that's really cool. So to find that balance between how much do I code for the client versus how much teaching from a theoretical standpoint do I do? And finding that middle ground was kind of pretty tough at the start, but I think I found that balance. And it's really joyful to be able to help people build applications and do it very interactively. A lot of debugging, screen sharing, and help them get to that goal without giving away too much. So not giving the fish, but teaching them how to fish, right? Yeah. So that they, after that experience, can do that themselves. I love seeing that, man. It's so. It's such a pleasure to see those one on ones. And even the group calls where you do that because it earns so much respect with everyone. And, you know, they see that you're not just words, you're not just telling them what to do. You're living that by example. You actually understand what it is that you're talking about. And I think that's the true embodiment of what this quote is about. You know, you're. You're in there, you're coding with them, you get stuck with them. I think that's a huge, important piece of the learning process for both of you. That is the client and you as the mentor. And I just think it's. It's brilliant. It's amazing. I'm not blowing your horn or anything, so hopefully no one can hear this, right? No, thanks, bro. That getting stuck part is actually the hardest because I think you go in as a mindset, like I'm supposed to know it all, but you don't because these are new applications, new stacks, new technologies. But actually, if you get stuck, then the real teaching starts, because then they see how it actually is, and that's highly valuable. You just have to push through that and ultimately you fix it. And then it just shows realistically how it is as a developer. And, you know, just a slight segue based on what you're saying, a bit of it is imposter syndrome, something we've spoken about many times, you know, to get in there and get in the trenches. If it's something that you've never done before, especially if you're coming into, say, a team or a career, whatever, as a. As a leader, and you've never had that experience, you know, you have to be vulnerable. You have to just get in there, except that you don't know that you're not the expert. Don't feel like you're an imposter for being in that position and just get in there and start working, you know, and be vulnerable. Don't know how it's going to work out. And just start building, start learning with people. Start asking questions and just do it. Because then that is, you're almost earning that respect back by saying, you know what, I'm here. I don't know, but teach me. I want to know. Yeah. Yeah. Part of this is you have to get out there. You have to fail. Accept the fact that you will fail and that's going to help you get to the next level. And that's, that's at all levels, right? I mean, small example. Yesterday I posted a tip on Twitter about making a random string with the string and the random modules. And of course, I should have used the secrets module instead of the random module. And that was quickly pointed out and just go with it. Thank you for the feedback. That's a great addition. And just accept that if you consider that a failure, that, you know, some of your content is going to, quote, fail, and that's okay, that's part of being in the arena, I think. Yep. The alternative to that was to just not tweet at all and. Yeah, but then, you know, there's no growth. No one would have gotten the message, that correction wouldn't have been put there and taught you and many other people who saw it. Oh, hey, here's a perfect learning lesson. Here's an opportunity. You know, the alternative was that Twitter was just a little more quiet that day, which is hard to. Hard to imagine. But yeah, I think this is a great, great topic for people, especially these days, where it is very easy to just talk the talk and not do and especially be on teams where people are doing that. It's very common in the workplace and it's very easy to get around. If you find yourself maybe being in that situation where you feel like you are talking and not walking, just get in there. It's as simple as that. It's getting vulnerable. Just getting in there and trying, and it won't, it will never set you back. It will never do you any harm to do that. Yeah. I think the whole thing with the vulnerability thing and what Bernay talks about is like, people don't want to be perceived as, as vulnerable. I think that that's a weakness, but it's actually a strength, right. Because if you dare to show that you're not perfect, that you're also making mistakes, that you're learning, if you're willing to show that that's actually a strength. Yep. No, completely agree. And you know what, again, it earns that respect. I still remember a time, I think I was working late, we had an outage I don't remember the circumstances, but when my manager walked in and just rolled up his sleeves, he wasn't even on shift, wasn't working anything. And when he just walked in and said, okay, what, what do you need me to do? It just, you know, blew me away. And he didn't understand at that exact point the technological issue we were having. You know, he just said, what do you need me to do? And I remember him running, I think, a 50 meters fiber optic cable through a data hall for me while I was doing some troubleshooting, you know, and it just, that was stuff I didn't have to do because he just got in there to get dirty and he was just trying to understand and said, how can I help? You know, so completely admitting that it wasn't something he could do in the moment, but he wanted to just be there and help. And I think, again, getting your hands dirty, it earns respect, sets you up as a leader. And I think that's a really important thing that we'll talk about another time, about being quality leaders and all that. But, yeah, it's amazing and definitely doable in the software developer scene. Awesome, man. I think that's a wrap. What are you reading apart from there to lead? Oh my gosh, so many things. So, as we've discussed before, ten books at once, I've actually picked up a book that I started reading a while back and just forgot to continue reading because I got distracted by other, by indistractable no less, was a book called because Internet. And it's this book about the way the language is changing these days. So the initial thought and example that the lady gives in the book is the author gives in the book, I should say, because I can't remember who wrote it. She says that if you think about it, we can communicate in emoji. I can send you in WhatsApp tonight, a couple random string of emojis, and you know exactly what I'm talking about, because you and I, Bob, have come up with our own bloody language, right? We can communicate in many different forms, right? I think we even communicate in Python code in our chat emoji will express 50 words. Yeah, exactly. And it's this amazing read into how the english language and language these days is changing to accommodate due to technology. And, yeah, I just find it very incredible. It is a heavy read. It can definitely put me to sleep at night, but it is worth it. I'm enjoying getting through it. So what about you? What are you reading? Nice. I finished the tipping point by Malcolm Gladwell, which was fascinating, like how things. Trends happen and also how things can be reverted. There was something I remember from the book was there was violence on the subway in New York and how the environment influenced that. So once they started to get rid of all the gravity and stuff, the violence went down and a very lively example. So that was a great read. And, yeah, I went back to Ray Dalio's principles because, as you know, growing the business, and I think that's a very good read. Cool. No, nice, man. All for it. That. That other book sounds pretty good. I like those real world examples. They make a difference. Yeah. Very engaging. Yeah. All right, man. Well, look, thanks for the chat. Hope everyone enjoyed it. I hope you all enjoy your week whenever we happen to publish this episode. And Bob, thanks so much. As always, man. You take it easy. Yeah. And dear listeners, if there are topics you think we should cover, then send us an email or hit us up on our slack. We'll be in. The show is for you and we would be happy to hear what you want to hear more about. Cool. We'll chat to you next time. Thanks for listening. We hope you enjoyed this episode. To hear more from us, go to Pibyte friends, 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.