Nerd Journey: Career Advice for the Technology Professional John White | Nick Korte

Why would someone return to a company referred to as “the hurt locker” after a stressful first experience? After moving on from “the hurt locker” to decrease his stress level, Justin Kelly, our guest in episode 271, received a unique opportunity to work inside the special operations division of his former employer as an automation developer. In contrast to his first stint at this employer, the special operations role gave Justin the flexibility to begin what would later become Secure Bearing, LLC. And it began by first deciding to moonlight. We’ll share the story of his journey into entrepreneurship and the perspective he’s gained from working in technology operations and becoming a business owner.

Original Recording Date: 03-30-2024

Justin Kelly is the co-founder and CEO of Secure Bearing, LLC, an IT services provider. If you missed part 1 of our discussion with Justin, check out Episode 270.

Topics – Fond Memories of a Stressful Time, A Very Different Transition, Learning Systems Design, Back to the Hurt Locker and the Opportunity to Moonlight, Perspectives and Zooming Out, Leaning into Business Ownership

3:59 – Fond Memories of a Stressful Time



* Nick loves that someone helped Justin realize the impact of being inside his work environment (“the hurt locker”) despite the enjoyment of learning. It seems to be a pattern when people are in this scenario that they cannot see it by themselves.



* This reminds Nick of Erik Gross’ reference to being that friend for someone else from Episode 268.

* Justin tells us he worked shifts that were 24 hours sometimes. He would work 10-12 hour days and might need to get on a troubleshooting call at 2 AM. It really was the hurt locker.



* The role was very taxing, but Justin looks back on it fondly.









* Was it the growth Justin looked back fondly on or the stress and pace?



* It was definitely the growth (not stress and pace).

* The camaraderie at the MSP is something Justin wanted to recreate ever since he left. The people he worked with were a very tight knit group of people in the hurt locker together.

* There were no cubicles in the NOC (network operations center) where Justin and his colleagues worked.

* It was a military like culture. The regional manager was ex-military, and many other employees were also. Justin was somewhat of an outsider having not served in the military.







6:20 – A Very Different Transition



* What type of company did Justin want to work for after the MSP? Did the exposure to many environments make him prefer any one specifically?



* Justin began to notice the companies he worked with at the MSP and the way they treated their managed service provider and its employees. A few companies stood out as attractive (one of which was a software company he would go on to work for years later) because of how well employees and leaders at the company treated their managed service provider staff.

* From Justin’s observation at the MSP, healthcare and retail workers were operating with a higher level of stress, and he didn’t want to work in those verticals as a result.

* One very exciting part of working for the MSP was managing the enterprise network environment for Cisco as a customer.



* “It was just a massive inventory. And just about everyone that we interacted with within Cisco was very knowledgeable, very professional. It’s always nice talked to someone who,

What do drumming in a heavy metal band, achieving Cisco networking certifications, being part of a supportive technical community and family, and going back to school to study Windows and Active Directory have in common? All of these elements contributed to Justin Kelly landing his first role in tech. Justin, our guest this week in episode 270, is a CEO, a co-founder, and an advocate of continuous learning for his employees. This week we share the story of perseverance in Justin’s own learning journey to gain the expertise needed to work in IT.

Original Recording Date: 03-30-2024

Topics – Meet Justin Kelly, Motivated to Learn, Thoughts on Technical Certifications and Job Candidates, That First IT Job, Leaving a Good Culture and Exposure to New Things, Noticing Stress

2:29 – Meet Justin Kelly



* Justin Kelly is the co-founder and CEO of Secure Bearing, LLC, an IT services provider.



* Secure Bearing helps its customers (mostly Fortune 500 companies) with the full project lifecycle (architecture and design, implementation, migration, etc.) in the following areas – datacenter, campus networks, and network security. In addition to this, they help customers automate the operations of networking and networking security.





* Justin has worked in technology for about 14 years but has had an interest in computers since he was very young.



* Justin says his family was gifted a computer when he was young that ran IBM DOS and had 5.25" disks.

* One weekend Justin took the computer apart, and it never worked again. But this created a spark of interest in technology even then.

* One of Justin’s closest friends always had computers, and Justin was able to spend time tinkering with and learning about computers.

* Justin knew at that time he wanted to do something later in life revolving around computers. It was only later in life Justin would learn just how many niches existed when it came to working in technology.

* John mentions the pattern of the tinkerer that we’ve seen in other guests who would take electronics apart without a fear of breaking something. Justin feels he takes a tinkerer’s approach to many situations even today.







5:14 – Motivated to Learn



* In his early 20s Justin was a heavy metal drummer. At that time, he met someone who encouraged him to try Cisco networking. This person let Justin borrow some networking equipment and an old CCNA book. CCNA stands for Cisco Certified Network Associate.



* “It just changed my whole perspective, and I was hooked.” – Justin Kelly, on first discovering Cisco and then seeking to get into IT

* Justin shares the catch 22 of our industry. We need experience to get a job but need the job to get the experience. John says we’re really not great about giving entry level opportunities (i.e. no previous experience required) in this industry.





* Being a heavy metal band drummer might be seemingly one of the farthest away compared to what many think is a “typical” path into IT.



* See also Episode 174 on Dominique Top’s origin story at the Dutch Pop Academy.

* Being a drummer was not Justin’s day job. He had been working at various warehouses to support himself. The band was just something he and other bandmates did for fun.

* The genesis of Justin’s desire to be a drummer in this band was to connect with his brother (a guitarist in the band) since the two did not have a close relationship growing up.

* Justin credits becoming a drummer as teaching him...

What if you could increase your earnings potential based on the things you know and the things that interest you? Erik Gross, our guest this week in episode 269, shares the Most Valuable Knowledge Framework to help anyone identify the combinations of skills and interests which would be most valuable on the open market. Erik will share examples of using this framework when deciding to start The Tech Academy and the value of boot camps as a route into the tech industry for those with little work experience as well as for the career changer.

Original Recording Date: 02-17-2024

Erik Gross is a technologist, a consultant, an entrepreneur and founder, and a career coach. If you missed the earlier parts of Erik’s story, check out Episode 267 and Episode 268.

Topics – Finding Your Most Valuable Knowledge, Birth of a Coding School, Boot Camps as a Route into Tech

3:26 – Finding Your Most Valuable Knowledge



* Eric ultimately found the thing he could monetize. He had a foundation from which to work and some idea of how he learned, but Erik needed someone else’s perspective to tell him what he knew was something valuable. Maybe we aren’t highlighting the right things on our resumes. If someone doesn’t know what they should monetize, how do they find it?



* There were a number of skills Erik had such as sales, writing, managing people, electrical assembly, etc. He calls them “pockets of knowledge.” We each accumulate them throughout life through various experiences.



* “I had this huge collection of…things I was either really knowledgeable and / or good at, had been paid to do…. What I didn’t know was the relative value of each of those pieces of information…. Back in 2011 I had no idea engineers made the kind of money we make. I literally didn’t know that this thing I’d been sitting on for at that point decades was so valuable.” – Erik Gross, reflecting back on his accumulation of knowledge





* Erik remembers the feeling of elation after being hired for his first job in technology. Then for a brief period he was frustrated about not pushing himself to pursue a technology career earlier. Erik realized beating himself up was not helpful and put a stop to it.



* “…I had all these things that were passions or areas of knowledge. What was lacking was what are they worth on the market.” – Erik Gross





* Now as part of his work as a career coach, Erik helps technology workers / knowledge workers find out what their most valuable knowledge is. Anyone can go through the exercise, and the basic pattern works like this:



* Sit in a quiet place and document all the things you know about (areas that you have studied or in which you have skill, deep knowledge, or experience)

* Separately, list everything you are passionate and interested in, even if completely unrelated to the list of things you know about

* Put the list of passions and the things you know about side by side to identify relationships you haven’t previously seen

* Erik gives the example of having a passion for telling stories together with a skill of audio recording and editing as well as a passion for children and being a good parent. This combination resulted in a client of Erik’s realizing they could start a podcast focused on telling kids stories, do all the audio production, handle the creative work of crafting the stories themselves, and combine that with a number of monetization strategies.

* “But ultimately all you’re trying to find out is, ‘this intersection of passion and knowledge that I just found…is anyone paying for that in any form out on the market?’ And when you find,

The entrepreneur, business owner, and people manager are faced with difficult decisions as a part of leadership whether it be deciding to abandon a goal or eliminate jobs through a layoff. Erik Gross, our guest this week in episode 268, highlights the importance of learning from our failures while also owning the decisions that led to those failures. Listen closely to the way Erik owned his decision to become a software developer after some very pointed feedback from a friend.

Original Recording Date: 02-17-2024

Erik Gross is a technologist, a consultant, an entrepreneur and founder, and a career coach. If you missed part 1 of Erik’s story, check out Episode 267.

Topics – Advice for the Technology Entrepreneur, Resilience or Blind Optimism, Three Perspectives on Layoffs, Managing People and A Good Manager, Paid to Work in Technology

3:07 – Advice for the Technology Entrepreneur



* Would Erik’s advice for technology entrepreneurs be the same? He thinks back to former guest Al Elliott’s description of an entrepreneur from Episode 235, emphasizing that the entrepreneur’s initial idea of the solution to a problem may look different than the ultimate solution.



* Erik says as an entrepreneur he’s had both successes and failures. The form something was in when it became successful or failed was quite different than what Erik had thought in every case.

* “There’s this thing I learned…over the years…moments when you find out that you’re wrong about something are golden. They are some of the most important moments you can ever have in your life. You find out a few really important things about yourself in that moment.” – Erik Gross

* In those moments…



* Do you have the self-respect to admit and realize you were wrong?

* Identifying what you were wrong about, which could have been affecting your performance for years, presents an opportunity to never do that thing wrong again.





* The above took Erik years to learn and handle and is how he generally reacts once he gets past the emotion of being wrong about something. In his entrepreneurial work and in his work with people trying to break into tech (via The Tech Academy), Erik coaches others to process these situations in the same way.

* We know that no one can be right all the time. It’s the way we respond in those situations that helps us grow! Erik calls these moments “growing moments.”

* Nick would point out two hurdles in these situations:



* Getting past your ego and questioning your self-worth

* Motivating yourself to keep going and change what you’re doing or decide to quit





* Erik would agree and say there are 2 factors at play:



* “What you say to yourself sticks. When you say positive, self-validating things about you, they have a tendency to stick. But when you say negative things about yourself…maybe you never voiced them out loud but they are inside…those unfortunately stick really, really well. I’ve found it really helpful to recognize that most of those things, they come from outside influences. They come from others’ criticism, others’ attempt to belittle you or cause invalidation or cause uncertainty or worry in your life. And you can grab on to them and hold them, and they start to feel like that’s actually you. But they originally came from outside of you. When you’re a kid, man, the world is your oyster and life is full of brightness and gold and goodness and joy. External influences can beat that out of you, but it never truly goes away.” – Erik Gross, on negative self-talk and its origination

* When you have been knocked down,

As a boy learning about computers, as a Nuclear Engineering student and instructor, and as a franchise owner and successful salesperson…the early career experiences of Erik Gross, a senior technologist and our guest this week in episode 267, contain a theme of learning. Erik learned resilience, adaptability, mental toughness, business operations, empathy for the beginner, how to teach others effectively, and when it makes sense to leave a job.

Original Recording Date: 02-17-2024

Topics – Meet Erik Gross, Pursuing Naval Service, Perception and Reality of the Nuclear Engineering Program, Abstract and Concrete Learning, Selected as an Instructor, An Unexpected Career in Sales, Deciding to Make a Change

2:32 – Meet Erik Gross



* Erik Gross is a senior technologist with 3 principal activities:



* Erik is a Cloud Transformation Consultant, he helps run a software developer boot camp, and he consults technology entrepreneurs on building scalable businesses.

* If you would like to follow up with Erik on this discussion, you can contact him using one of the following links:



* Career Architect – helping technology entrepreneurs launch and scale knowledge-based businesses without risky investments and years of trial and error, using an engineering-based approach to design, testing, launch and growth.

* The Tech Academy – a licensed trade school which helps people transition to careers in technology through delivery of online and in-person coding boot camps











3:13 – Pursuing Naval Service



* Right out of high school Erik went into the Navy’s Nuclear Engineering Program. It seemed an odd choice to others after growing up in Northern California.

* Erik says the Navy is where his formal technology education began, but it isn’t where his love for technology originated.



* Erik remembers the day his dad brought home a VIC-20 vividly. He was 11 years old at the time.

* Erik’s father had programmed IBM mainframes in the 1960s, and at that time people wondered what it might be like one day to have a computer small enough to sit at your desk. When home computers came out, Erik’s dad got one right away.

* “And he did something that changed my life…. He unplugged it, turned it over, pulled out a screwdriver, and popped off the back. And then over the next hour or so he proceeded to teach me EVERYTHING about the fundamentals of the internals of a computer…. Every bit of mystery about computers was removed from me in like an afternoon. My dad is a very patient, phenomenal teacher. And that’s where the journey really began.” – Erik Gross, on the first time his father taught him about computers





* Erik’s choice to go into the Navy is really due to an overeager Navy recruiter, which he appreciates to this day.



* Erik would tell you his grades in high school were not great and did not reflect his intelligence. They are also not necessarily a reflection of one’s future career trajectory.

* Erik scored well on the ASVAB test for military service. Based on Erik’s scores on this test, the Naval recruiter gave Erik a second test covering math and science. Though Erik is not 100% certain how he really performed on it, he did get accepted into the Nuclear Engineering program.

* “And it changed my life. So no, it was not originally what I was intending, but the things I learned in that program, I use them every day now…decades later.” – Erik Gross, on the influence of the Nuclear Engineering Program

* A normal enlistment was 4 years,

Sean Tolram, our guest this week in episode 266, became a people manager because he truly enjoys helping others. In this episode, Sean will describe the gaps he needed to fill after taking on the role of managing technical people, the mindset shifts he adopted, and the impact of mindfulness principles on his team’s performance which eventually led to becoming head of mindfulness. We will also discuss the human stress response, business cases for wellbeing programs, and practical tips for using mindfulness to lower stress levels.

Original Recording Date: 02-10-2024

Sean Tolram is Head of Mindfulness at HSBC. If you missed the first part of our discussion with Sean, check out Episode 265.

Topics – Transition to People Management, Mindset Shifts and Becoming Less Technical, Defining Mindfulness, Shifting to Full-Time Work on Mindfulness and Wellbeing, A Business Case for Wellbeing, Stress Reduction Tips

2:38 – Transition to People Management



* Nick suggests the act of clarifying and simplifying your message is part of working with higher level leaders.

* People management isn’t something Sean went looking for. He left IBM after no longer enjoying it there.

* Sean started working for British Home Stores as a developer focused on building an e-commerce site.



* “I wasn’t looking to be a manager or to manage a team. I was just looking to do my job. But then, as time went on, I found that I was really enjoying helping other people…. And it was from doing that that I then became known as somebody who is able to make other people better.” – Sean Tolram, on transitioning to people management

* Sean spent time with some of the younger people on the team who were struggling. As a result those people were able to perform better, and their managers noticed. The people Sean had helped had told their managers he helped them.

* For example, Sean taught one member of the team HTML after work in multiple short sessions. Putting him into a team became associated with people becoming better at certain things.

* “When I think back now I realize that that was the point where I stopped chasing the money and chasing the promotions and I just stopped thinking about it. Prior to that when I was at IBM it was all about how to do I get rich…. At that point when I stopped thinking about that and I just started enjoying my work and enjoying the people that I was with, I realized that I enjoyed helping other people. That then led me into management roles…. I didn’t really go after it, but it was through the behaviors that I was showing that I put myself in that position.” – Sean Tolram



* As the organization grew and restructured, people knew Sean was able to do the work of a people manager and put him in that role.





* Are helping others to build technical as well as not technical skills looked upon equally as relatable experience or evidence that we are capable of being people leaders?



* Sean would say yes and feels he was not good in his earlier career at managing up but good at working with his team. In fact managing up is still something he finds difficult to do well. Sean sought improvement in this area by forcing himself into areas of discomfort.

* Sean eventually became a bridge between his team and senior management and would relay messages from senior management to his team.

* “So it was all those little things that added up where it was kind of management type behaviors even though I wasn’t called a manager that then led to me being given that role.” – Sean Tolram





* How is the way you manage up different for a front-line people manager compared to an individual contributor?