I'm not motivated by money, but I do OK.
(Also, I spend a lot of time around entrepreneurs and programmers and business people who have done very well or faded away.)
The question is "Why?"
When I was a small kid, I wanted to do interesting things. I didn't want to be an astronaut, but instead I wanted to make rockets and spacesuits
and equipment like satellites. In 6th grade, I decided that I should buy stocks in toy companies - a very bad investment, but I learned how easy
it is to lose money. I lost everything... but being in 6th grade, with only a few shares there wasn't much to lose.
As a kid (maybe 8?) I started many small businesses (making and selling terrible perfumes to other kids, selling ice cream, etc) and starting clubs.
It got worse(?) as I got older, so I always picked something that sounded interesting and started learning about it and then found a way to work.
Computers were amazing, so of course I had to know all about that.
Eventually I started making friends in other countries and going to visit and working for them for free (or almost free) instead of regular vacations.
It's a lot of fun, especially if its for sales or some technical project. Way better than to book a tour, maybe you don't see as many sights but you
get to see what it's like to live and work somewhere. And it's nice for people to like your help. Sometimes it finally makes some money or leads to
an interesting job, but that's OK if it doesn't - it's the adventure that counts!
Now, over the years I have become immune to failure. I often keep going even when everyone else gives up... and there is usually a reward
at the end. Sometimes big, sometimes very very small, but if you take any problem and break it down into pieces, it can be done. The only thing
that can stop most people is themselves... but they don't know it. (I should point out that different rules apply to relationships and love)
Depression is often a problem for programmers. Vitamin D3 and Exercise are best. Your brain needs oxygen for optimal performance, and
you cannot get that sitting in a chair. Exercise makes you smarter. Exercise makes you faster. Exercise makes you better.
Maybe there are setbacks or circumstances or things in your life that suck the happiness from you.
Maybe you can't change them, or you think you can't change them...
Trust me, even 20 minutes of exercise will make it a little easier to cope.
Even if you weigh so much that you attract small satellites, or if you are often mistaken for a drinking straw, getting your blood pumping
every day (walk a mile, or run, it doesn't matter) lets your body fix things that are broken in your body and in your brain. You won't get
that from coffee or soft drinks or energy drinks, you will just trigger the *sensation* that you've been exercising. It's not the same thing,
and after 27, you will start accumulating damage from lack of exercise even if you have good genes and can't see it in the mirror.
Your worst enemy and also your most precious resource is time. If you worry about things and do nothing, you are stealing from yourself.
I find that a simple way to stay on top of the world is to simply write down what you need to do on a tablet before you go to sleep,
and put the date on it...then read it the next morning. And go back and look at what you wrote sometimes - it reveals a lot.
Most people worry and get motivated before they sleep, then forget everything the next morning and lose momentum.
The opposite of the movie "Groundhog Day".
* If you want to simply sell software you have written, anyone can do it. It can be terrible, and people will still buy it...but not many.
* If you make it good (no big errors, not too hard to guess how it should be used) you will sell more.
* If you make it great (by getting rid of problems as fast as they come up) you will sell a lot more, because people see progress.
* If you realize that 98% of all the people who complain about things (even things that seem trivial or stupid) are giving you
FREE product improvement instructions and providing FREE quality control testing and use cases. Big companies pay a lot of
money to get that information, because they know it's very very important to success.
* More so, if you take them seriously (even if it makes you angry sometimes), you will sell much, much more - because the
word will spread quickly that you care about your customers. This is hard in small companies where only 1 or 2 developers
carry the product on their backs, and sometimes they "burn out" and lose hundreds of thousands in potential revenue.
* Once you sell even 1 or 2 products a month, you MUST build a solid business process or you will lose money.
Because when the big waves (of sales) come, you might not be ready and they might just wash over you.
if closing sales becomes a burden, delegate it. If other aspects become a burden, delegate. You must try to design your
business process as efficiently as your very best code. It needs error handling. It needs documentation!
Most importantly - if you know your market is large and you spend 50% or more of your revenue on marketing and advertising,
you will become like Microsoft. Also, it's often good to have more expensive versions. Programmers often know nothing or
little about how business really works, so they all make the exact same mistakes in the exact same order. And it's always
been like this. Also, programmers can NEVER admit that they don't understand business because it's almost like admitting
you are not a good programmer. So they think, well, it can't be that hard... and then they do the same thing every other
programmer, inventor and engineer does: They learn by trial and error. Sometimes they are lucky, sometimes not.
Bill Gates had success not because he and Paul Allen were good programmers, but because Bill's dad was a VERY VERY
successful business lawyer, and Bill's mom knew politics and how to network. It's an interesting story. Most programmers
think their success was from programming and technical skill. It wasn't. I wanted to be like Bill Gates and Steve Wozniak,
but it turns out that's not enough to be successful. Or rich.
Don't give up! If it doesn't work, start again. The important thing is to realize that failure is really just feedback.
You want as much feedback as possible, so you must expect to fail and fail often. Unsuccessful people stop at
the first failure...successful people think each failure is just a small speed bump.
PS: Don't depend on motivation. Motivation is like a drug, and programmers often can't work unless they're motivated.
Motivation isn't very reliable, and can be defeated easily by procrastination. It's dangerous to think in terms of being
motivated. Develop habits instead... if you can. The habits will stick long after your motivation has gone missing.
So today is a fresh start! make it happen!
