as such a nice day today let's uh let's
film outside I thought it's Coffee time
I know sometimes it's really annoying
you know we may be out on a road trip it
may be very busy there may be a meeting
or something but once it hits 3:00 p.m.
I gotta have my coffee and that's just
how it's gonna be from here on out I
don't miss coffee time for anything or
anybody now I'm a very cool man and you
may be wondering well why am I so cool
how come I'm cooler than you and you
know you don't often see software
engineers as cool as me now why is that
you know we've all seen apples last WWDC
commercial that was highly disrespectful
for software engineers treating them
like some kind of strange animal people
who are uncultured not fashionable just
scruffy little dirty animals who you can
feed red bull and pizza and that used to
be me I used to crave Red Bull and pizza
and all you had to do was give me that
stuff and I could sit down and code at a
hackathon for many hours at a time while
everybody else might be out enjoying a
nice fancy dinner at a French restaurant
me I would be back in the computer lab
just working on my code eating my pizza
now I could have easily continued on
this path and unfortunately many
engineers never get off this track they
stay uncoated and then I see as they get
into their late twenties late thirties
they remain like that and they never
develop culture they never develop
refinement and they never see that light
of success you know the tech is a power
that must be controlled responsibly and
it can overcome you if you are not
careful a lot of new practitioners they
lose themselves in that process they
forget who they are they lose their
humanity and this can lead them to be in
single and lonely for the rest of their
life so there's this image that software
engineers need to be a certain way you
know they need to be hunched over they
need to be like really scuffled maybe
have a beard and the way they behave
needs to be very arrogant if not very
sociable maybe talking a certain strange
dog on the way now how did I get off of
this track well it's very simple
back in college I had applied for this
ridiculous internship at Microsoft
one summer and during that same summer
my brother decided to go study abroad in
Japan so I decided to apply to and I
would say to myself well it depends
which I get if I get the Microsoft
interview I'm gonna do that otherwise
I'm going to do this study abroad thing
in Japan I don't know what else I'm
gonna do in the summer and luckily for
me actually I didn't get the Microsoft
internship I thought okay what the next
best thing I'm gonna do is I'm gonna go
study abroad in Japan and what I found
this day for me was allowed me to change
my identity yourself identity is
something that I think is really holding
you back in ways that you don't
necessarily understand when I went off
to study in Japan I could reinvent
myself nobody could say who I was going
to be no one had any preconceived
notions of what type of person I was and
nobody even knew that I was a software
engineer back then I was the biggest
nerd that you could imagine you know I
was extremely geeky I didn't care about
fashion I didn't exercise all that much
I just didn't care about anything except
the tech and when I went to Japan for me
I found that it was a land of culture a
fashion and culture and most of all it
was a brand new environment for me to
reinvent myself this ability to reinvent
yourself I think is a very key thing and
unbeknownst to you a lot of factors are
holding you back from realizing your
full self generally that's going to be
the people around you who are
reinforcing the notion of who you are
what your limitations are what type of
person you are for me when I decided to
go off the brand new country I could
completely redefine who I was I could
say you know what I'm gonna be a healthy
person I'm gonna be a cool healthy guy
and I could just make that happen and
nobody would be there to say Oh Patrick
I know you what are you doing what why
are you exercising that's not you that's
weird why don't you just sit down and
you know eat another burrito the same
thing by the way it happened to me when
I went from high school to college up
through high school I over ate a lot
every day I would drink one coca-cola
and I would eat a cup noodle maybe a
frozen pizza a can of chili something
like that and I would get overweight
yeah I just didn't care my life was not
really in the control of my hands I felt
that other people were reinforcing the
idea of who I was
when I went to college I decided that
you know what it's time to get my life
in order I'm gonna get the in sorted and
I'm going to start exercising and from
then on I began exercising on the
consistent basis in my first year of
college I must have lost like 20 pounds
so this brings us back to the topic of
programmers love software engineers may
be viewed themselves as nerds as geeks
and then the industry and society will
view you this way too so it's very easy
to fall into this trap and the key to
realize is it doesn't have to be this
way part of what I'm trying to do is set
a new role model for what software
engineers might look like what they may
be doing you've seen that I put out some
videos where I'm traveling doing really
cool things selling scuba diving and
overall being just well cultured so next
time you're in the project maybe in the
startup and people say well let's just
get some coke and pizza and then we can
continue working push back on that say
no no I don't drink coke and I don't eat
pizza okay I want wine and French food
let them know that you're more culture
than that and then you expect to be
treated as such now I know that you may
be thinking well I like pizza and I like
coke the truth is everybody does you
know I'll never forget this funny
research I read where they would have a
bunch of monkeys and every time a monkey
tried to grab like a banana if the
monkey would get shocked and then you
have a brand new monkey go into the cage
and then it's gonna go try and grab the
banana and all the other monkey's will
try to stop it and I think was like even
if the banana was not rigged to shock
anymore the other monk anyway the point
of this research was to show that
animals are jealous and they will stop
others from achieving higher status than
they and so what you need to realize is
a lot of people around you will pull you
down so that you stay at the same level
as they do and you know for me and I
know a number of people out there maybe
you're living with your parents and
that's fine that's great and you're
saving a lot of money I'm living at home
myself too
but you need to be careful that your
parents will always look at you like a
child and they will treat you as such
and because of that it may be difficult
for you to grow higher than that and you
just need to be aware of that and make
sure that you know what you're doing
like I like I know what I'm doing and I
make sure that I set my own course in
life
like I know what I'm doing I'm like for
example I know what I'm doing part of
why I value is having a lot of time
living at home gets me more time because
other people would do certain tasks and
chores for me I don't have to take care
of your artwork I don't have to paint
the house I don't have to repair it
other people will have manage that I get
a ton more time that's the trade-off I'm
willing to make and then what you didn't
need to keep in mind though is that the
peers around you not just your family
but also your friends and coworkers will
maintain a certain identity of you and
it can be very difficult for you to
break out of that for example if you're
known as a very shy person and then one
day you go out and you're really
outgoing and friendly and social well
that's going to be pretty strange isn't
it and people will start questioning you
and so then people will say what was
going on with Patrick today why is he so
friendly I know he's not that friendly
of a person that's a very strange thing
to be doing now all that said I wouldn't
just go off and start traveling because
the funny thing is I don't really
recommend long term travel all that much
you know if you've never done it then
yeah maybe you should do it once or
twice but the issue with traveling is it
creates a false sense of productivity
for you you're trying to find out where
the good restaurants are where the
clothing shop is were to go to buy
toothbrushes all of this is necessary
and useful things to be doing but at the
same time it's work that you've created
for yourself
there's a lot of time that's being lost
I think the key is sometimes ask
yourself where you want to be where you
are now and what's stopping you from
getting to that point and if it's people
yourself your environment then you may
need to think well maybe you need to
change something about the people that
you hang out with maybe your environment
change the way you think about yourself
it's funny that every time I live in the
u.s. in Silicon Valley
I find that my sense of fashion
deteriorates very quickly you know it's
just very difficult to act cool around
here and even though I'm pretty cool now
when I'm abroad I'm ten times cooler
than I am now
and I've got really cool haircuts then
when I come back to Silicon Valley for a
while I was still putting John my hair
when I came back here I was still trying
to dress nicely nowadays over time
though that sort of just began to wear
off
people started to think our silly doing
that I felt silly doing some of this
stuff and yeah some of my cultural
fashion sense has just evolved a little
bit from there on now let me know what
you guys think give it a like and
subscribe and I'll see you next time bye