I used to be a smart kid, you too?
Labor Day is past us and now the lazy, lilting days of summer are gone, too.
There's football on the TV, and the kids are back to school.
Summer's end has also been a whirlwind on my end as it feels like my business is at an inflection point.
More on that later, but I wanted to start today talking about vulnerability, leadership, and mental health.
Decades of being a software engineer and a manager of software engineers have gradually made me realize that many of us were the smart kid in school. The kid who was good with computers, or logic puzzles, maybe standardized tests.
I was that kid. I sometimes joke that I "used to be a smart kid." I still have a photo hanging in my small town high school celebrating my achievements. At least, so I've heard.
Mental health issues - depression and social anxiety mostly - came along with a crash of sorts in my college years. I had a full ride scholarship - one of only five given out each year - that I couldn't maintain through that period.
I initially wrote "squandered" there, a familiar phrasing from the decades I spent beating myself up over this.
But thanks to years of therapy, I've forgiven myself. More than that, I'm proud of myself for making it through that period.
I eventually graduated.
I've had an amazing career.
I have a marvelous family.
I survived.
Many of the engineers around me - and you - have similar stories and traumas they are carrying around.
Eventually, every smart kid runs into smarter kids, or problems they can't solve, or things that don't come so easily for them.
Sometimes, this happens at work, and viewing behavior through this lens I've often found to be helpful.
I've shared this story in lots of contexts. Doing this helps other folks open up and share their stories as well.
I run the risk of being labeled a "loser" or a "failure" ... but I don't think that happens anywhere but in my own brain.
When you read that story, did it change how you think of me?
Or did it make you more likely to share your story the next time we meet?
At the Rally Conference here in Indy last week, Marcus Lemonis kicked off the last day with a keynote around this same topic.
The gist: You can't expect the people you manage and work with to open up to you until you open up with them. And we are much more likely to work with fully realized humans. Being vulnerable, sharing your life and story and values, draws people to you.
Not everyone, but the right people.
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I mentioned the business.
Later this morning, I'm meeting with a design agency to help me come up with a logo and such for this wacky business I'm building.
I have a lawyer on retainer now. Aside: Lawyers are expensive. They put software developers to shame.
I'm talking to an accountant tomorrow.
I'm sending out tens of thousands of dollars per month to other freelancers as things start to scale past my own capabilities.
I have a coaching client who renewed for a second month, and I'm onboarding a new client with a new offering tomorrow as well.
It's a lot, but it's fun.
In my first six months of this business, I've made lots of mistakes but my family is rolling right along as I manage to keep making "payroll" - paying myself roughly what I was making with a full-time job before.
I have three ongoing clients - plus one on hold. These are all small startups of various sorts, and I help in either managing development (see previous about other freelancers) or straight up Ruby development in one case.
I have one coaching client.
And I have my new client this month, a small nonprofit here in Indy that I'm using as a test subject of sorts for a new offering: a one-time fee for a deep dive into the technology, team and product to analyze, recommend, and audit.
One reason for the design agency is so I can expand this offering to startups and nonprofits, locally at first.
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I ran into a subscriber at Rally who asked me about my book.
I figured I owed an update.
Today, I am 10,017 words into it. Some of it has gone through copy editing, and some of those are in snippets and partial chapters.
I paused working on it for the summer, essentially.
Writing can be lonely, and I lost the plot (not literally!) about what the book was trying to say and who it was for.
That interaction helped re-energize me, and this week I'm spending time each day writing again.
Today, that writing is this newsletter.
More to come.
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Thanks again for following along.
I like and appreciate you.
You're doing great - keep going.