This is a note to myself
Don’t forget how you got here.
During the whole of school you were essentially self taught. You did not pay any attention in class, yet you still managed to get through 13 years of school.
You organised a rally trip from Madrid to Ulan Bator. You did this in a seat 127 that fell to pieces. No one believed it was possible, specially since the car would not even start 3 days before the trip was to start.
You rallied a bunch of people to get behing the project and raise 1k to charity. This may not seem like a lot now, but it was a lot back then.
You looked and found sponsors for your trip. You cold called a lot of businesses, and got a few good sponsorships. You were on the radio, and on TV because of this trip. You also appeared in the local magazine which got you a sponsorship with a big car company. You negotiated a 1k sponsorship from them for the trip.
This project you led end to end, from getting the car, to fixing it, to organising events and securing the sponsors. But most impressive of all, you, Fred, and Fer managed to get this car to the very end, and not because the car made it, but because you wanted to make it happen.
Don’t forget when you moved to Scotland, you learned a new profession as a chef, even though you were in line to land a job in a bank because of your degree in Marketing. You took a risk and went to Scotland instead because you were not happy with your career prospects. You did not know what you wanted to do at the time, but you took a step in any direction rather than following the path set for you.
You taught yourself programming for three years. Completely self taught, from front end development, to Machine Learning going from HTML & CSS to Javascript to Java and then to Python. No formal training. All at the age of 23, while you worked 45h a week in a restaurant. Back then you had a purpose, you were enjoying yourself.
Eventually, you wanted to formalise your expertise in programming and AI, so you did a Masters. You crushed this Masters. It was so easy for you, not a challenge at all. But you learned some things, and it gave you the opportunity to land an internship to later get a job.
You were so excited to land your first tech job, finally someone recognising your machine learning skills. The masters got you the credential for the job, but it was you who taught yourself all you needed to know. Programming got you interested and excited and you went for it.
Five years down the line, and the tech industry has let you down. You are back where you were after finishing university. You are not longer looking forward to the path set ahead of you. It is time for a change.
You are feeling a bit hopeless and stuck. Now you have more responsability than you did before, making decisions is more difficult. But remember you are the shit. You have done things not everyone is capable of.
Believe in yourself. If you don’t know where to go next, take a step in any direction. See where that takes you.
You’ve got it in you. Carry on.