How to get along with nerds.

First things first, my good friend Jason Wieringa who helped me out a ton on my learning to code journey has started a new site that you should definitely check out....and no there is no kick back for me, I just really believe in what he's doing, so check it out!  Jason Wieringa.



The truth is nerds/developers are really smart, too smart, and even though they usually won't admit it, they look down on people that are not as smart or who they think aren't intelligent.

Here's the secret: Nerds are smart, but they have a little known weakness: Nerds equate people with "quirky" or "weird" behaviour to be more intelligent.


Okay, so you know I'm an impostor, I'm not a "full-blown-coding-from-birth-developer" and as such it's kind of funny getting to interact with this unique race of human species :-)

If you are coming from a a completely different background like: retail, garbage collector, business degree, landscaper...etc. (those are all true professions that I know of people trying to make the switch). Making the switch can be tough, but getting along with nerds is another whole skill entirely.


When feeling dumb or feeling inferior, here's how to look/feel more intelligent when facing an entire room full of nerds:

(1) Argue Math symbols.

Now don't argue how math works or equations because you will lose. However talking about why a certain math symbol came about and why it's important that everyone understands that, will always make nerds rethink whether you're intelligent or not.

(2) Have a position. or Collect something weird.

All nerds believe in something VERY sincerely, whether it be in collecting old Star Wars Lego sets from the 1960's or Barbie dolls. Or whether Linux is better than Macs, which text editor is better, the type of wine/beer you should drink. Why the world is actually a fake reality and in fact we are all just part of a realistic computer program and we don't even know it!

* What this means to you? Be Quirky! Pick something, I don't care what and become the "expert" on why it's important and why it will save the world, then when a discussion comes up at a meetup group or wherever, vehemently defend your point with weird worthless facts that are very subjective and depend on some unknown person that died in 1952. All nerds have this weird thing about them where they must be right on their one chosen subject, or collect something that you or I would be prone to throw away.

(3) The "art" of nerd talk.

There are only 2 ways to talk as a nerd: VERY SLOW with LONG pauses, or EXTREMELY FAST or even better, at a speed so fast you spit saliva or stutter.

* What this means to you? When in doubt of something or nervous, speed up your talking and look around the room with you eyes bugging out like a pug and nod your head a lot. If that technique doesn't restore your confidence when in a room full of nerds, try a SUDDEN LONG pause, look down at the table, squint, clear your throat loudly, look up and make your point very slowly while scratching the back of your head like a tick is biting you.

Okay so these rules may not be "chiseled in stone" facts, but seriously nerds are a weird/funny group. I like nerds and think its fun to be around them. Some people get offend by nerds, or can't get along. I'll give you tips you can take to the bank. Maybe I'll even show you how to tell when a nerd is feeling dumb and how to instantly get smarter in 5 seconds: "the secret nerds never share".

Oh, life is good! How can you not be happy when you get to make good money and learn lots of new things everyday?

You can still apply to my "Get hired the hard way" where I'll mentor you for 8 months and get you hired. Email me and I'll send you an application: joshuakemp85@gmail.com.

Don't forget to check out my book: "No Degree, No Problem" and if it helps you out, please leave a review on Amazon. It's hard to sell enough books to buy a private island without any Amazon reviews :-)

-Josh

"No Degree, No Problem"

It's finally here! My ebook: "No Degree, No Problem", buy it today so I can get filthy wealthy, buy a remote private island and I will then invite you :-)

"No Degree, No Problem" has 53 pages of solid content, that will give you a crystal clear step by step road map from how to go from ZERO computer knowledge to getting hired as a junior developer in 8 months!

Buy "No Degree, No Problem" now for only $4.97

...YES I'm proud of my book...can you tell??? :-)

"No Degree, No Problem!" book launch in 2 days!

2 days peeps, till my ebook is out! I can't wait, I've put a lot of thought, time, and energy into this and I'm really pleased with how it turned out :-)

I can't believe how many emails I've gotten already to apply for the October 1st launch of :"Get hired the hard way!", now I'm thinking: "Holy crap, how am I going to narrow the field down to just 1 person???" I was hoping for some feedback from you guys, I obviously can't teach everyone and "guarantee" they will get hired in 8 months, then of course I could pick the person who is the most skilled, but then how honest is that?

I want some feedback from you guys, whether it be by email: joshuakemp85@gmail.com or in the comments, should I only take 1 student? or maybe I should take on 3 and make it a "trio"? Still not totally sure yet, I wasn't expecting this many applications. In the same token it's cool to see people who really want to learn and commit to a 8 month learn to code journey!

Speaking of commitment and guarantees, a good friend of mine who shall be nameless has asked me a rather tough question:

 "You *guarantee* they will be hired? What's the return to the student if they aren't hired?"

I have thought long and hard about the question and here are my thoughts:

Each student whether it be 1, 3 or whatever number I pick in the end, will have my public and personal commitment for at least 8 months to weekly mentor them and in the end help get them hired for free.

If the student should do all the hard work and follow the "road map" outlined in "No Degree, No Problem!" and still not get hired "exactly" on the 8 month anniversary of starting, then I would view that as a failure on my part and a broken promise. 

Now although I am doing this for free, and will be promoting the student on my blog. I think the biggest *guarantee* is the fact that I will be VERY publicly embarrassed, and possibly thought of as someone who was misleading, which I want to avoid AT ALL COSTS!

However if that were to happen (which I will NOT let it happen on my watch) the student would probably be VERY close to being hired, have a ton of free exposure and hopefully have learned a lot at no cost for 8 months.

So in the end it's a risk that each person applying with have to calculate in their own mind, are they willing to go all out for 8 months? Are they going to go back to school and get a degree and more debt for 4 years? Which of these is the better bet if the goal is to land a entry level junior developer position?

Well I know for a fact that 8 people signed up in under the first 24 hours and that was the first time even mentioning it. I have several people saying they will pay me several thousand dollars to mentor them.....but that's not what this is about, I will not take a penny of anyone's money to help them in this process.

Can a person with zero to very little computer literacy "jump in the game" with both feet, work like mad, never look back and 8 months later get hired?...well you know my answer.

P.s. If you still want to apply, email me and I'll send you an application :-)

-Josh

"Get hired the hard way".... now accepting applications for October 1st launch!

Okay, so you got hired Josh and self taught yourself so what, that won't work for everyone.
I, of course, disagree! That's why I'm writing my book "No Degree, No Problem!"  

I am here to say that you can get hired by following the books step by step "road map". Let's put the book to the test! Starting now I will be accepting applications to be mentored by yours truly!
Send me an email if you would like to be considered and are willing to make the commitment and I will send you an application with some questions.

The launch date is October 1st 2013 (just over 2 weeks away)

Here's what I will promise the lucky student:

(1) "Get hired the hard way" starts October 1st, there is zero cost to you for my help/mentoring/promotion, only LOTS of HARD work.

(2) I guarantee that following the step by step "road map" in my book: "No Degree, No Problem!" and with my mentoring/guidance you will get hired no later than May 1st 2014.

(3) I will pair program with the chosen student every week for at least 1 hour.

(4) I will promote you through my blog and add your blog on to mine as a permanent link until you are hired.

(5) Every 2 weeks, I will tell the world how you are doing. If you don't put in the required time (21 hours per week) you will be dropped from the program.

REQUIREMENTS:

NONE. Only an extremely hard-work ethic and commitment to studying a minimum of 21 hours per week.

Any takers?

Here's my email: joshuakemp85@gmail.com

Junior Dev Shortcuts

So I obviously have been sucking at blogging 3 times per week these last 2 weeks :-) I apologize, and I won't make excuses because EVERYBODY is busy. I think from now on, I will shoot for writing 2 posts per week, and maybe try and make them a little longer.

One of the problems I've had besides being busy, is what to write about. Before I was hired, I never had that problem because I was SO goal focused on getting hired. I still have no problem with things I want to write about, but I've asked around and I'm not really supposed to talk about the inner workings of the company I work for because competitors could use it and stuff like that.

I've learned all these cool things, but in order to tell you how and what I learned, I would have to explain how things interact  in our system and how other parts of it work...which understandably is highly frowned upon :-(

Never fear! I am currently spending all my free time writing my ebook making sure it is going to revolutionize the way "blue collar" workers, college dropouts, and anyone who wants to can find their way into the cool IT "white collar" world.

BUT once the book is 100% done and released I have 2 really cool sites I am going to build and I will walk you through them, so that will be cool. Life is totally fun and exhilarating right now with SO much learning!

I get to work with a former "ethical hacker" so it's really cool at lunch to pick his brain. I feel like there should be a fee to be able to ask any type of IT world related question at lunch and then get to hear all sorts of opinions and differing view points from top notch developers and System admins. Last week at lunch I learned why or why not someone should use node.js and what EXACTLY are "callbacks" and how different types of things work in a "callback".

There are several new things down the road that I may be learning at ZipList depending on how things go, I can't really say just yet, but I'm REALLY hoping I get to learn this certain really cool technology, I'll of course keep you posted!

Since being hired, I've learned about 2 million shortcuts, and am getting pretty fast on the ole' keyboard, telling you all the shortcuts I've learned and writing them down is of no use to you, so I will give you 1 shortcut that is super easy and super helpful for now.

Here's the shortcut:(on a Mac)

Press the "control" key plus 'a' to go to the beginning of the line when using the terminal.

Press the "control" key plus 'e' to go to the end of the line when using the terminal.

Your like: "So what, ...big deal", well yes and no, but here's the cool part, what you just learned is a "key bindings" shortcut. These are similar to the ones used in emacs. The reason I think you should use control + 'a' or control + 'e' is when you are typing in certain windows like Blogger, the only recognized shortcut to move through the page is the shortcut I just showed you.

Here's another use with the same shortcut: Have you ever been writing an email in Gmail and wanted to go the beginning of the line? Or the end of the line to fix a spelling error? control 'a' or 'e' BINGO! See, that shortcut is good at a minimum for all emails and when using the terminal.

I'll slowly "spoon feed" you the best most useful shortcuts that are extremely handy :-)

-Josh