life is short

Every day I wake up, shower, brush my teeth, and have a coffee.

Then I review my goals.

Yearly goals, weekly goals, and finally, my schedule for the day.

That’s when I realize one thing: life is short.

Extremely short.

We get around 84 roundtrips on this planet. With 52 weeks on each of them. 7 days a pack.

In that time, we have to learn how to make a living, keep ourselves healthy, work on our relationships, and give all this hustle a meaning.

It is an exhausting journey. But we have no other choice.

I realized that 4 years ago.

Someone close to me passed away. And that’s when it hit me.

The boogie monster is closer than you think. One day you will have to leave this world too.

Don’t leave it with a bucket list; leave it with great memories.

So I promised myself that I would become the best software developer I could be. It is what I will do for a living, allowing me to achieve all my other dozen goals.

Yes, I wanted to work for great companies, build things that have an impact and… make tons of money.

Yes, my motivation was financial as well. And that’s a good thing.

It is not only the security, comfort, and independence that money brings you, but also money indicates usually that what you do is highly valuable for others and society as a whole. If not, they would give it to someone else!

I studied every damn book on software development I could find. I bought thousands of courses. I even killed my social life, and I went dark for a few weeks.

It was work and study every hour of the day until I got sick of it.

And you know what I got out of it?

Nothing. Or almost nothing.

Six months passed by, and I was at the same level. Same responsibilities, same salary, same old code that I’ve been looking at for years.

Burned out and disappointed, I put all my books back on the shelves and almost gave up on the idea. I told myself it would come to me with time.

It never did.

But one day surfing the web, I came across this concept called “tacit knowledge.” This is knowledge that cannot be captured through words alone.

That’s why the books, the courses, and all the other stuff didn’t work.

It was like learning how to ride a bicycle at an intellectual level, without training the unconscious movements needed to ride one!

That’s when young Dragos, who was more stubborn than a pig, accepted that he might need help from a more Senior developer.

Someone who reached that expert level and knew the ins and outs of the industry that those books missed on.

Genius huh?

But I still had one big problem.

I didn’t know anyone that could mentor me! And I didn’t know how to convince them to do it! So I went to all kinds of meetups, workshops, and events. I battled with my social anxiety and introduced myself to people.

After meeting a few dozen developers, I did bump into two great developers that later became my mentors. One helped me negotiate my next pay raise and organize my learning.

The other gave me the courage to take the step and build theSeniorDev.com!

And that made it all worth it! At least it saved me another 10k spent on books and a quarter century of learning!

This is why I started this whole mentorship thing, by the way.

So I can give you what I wished I had back in the days for myself. I never thought it would get this big. I never thought I would meet so many great developers in the process.

But it happened.

I can’t tell you how grateful I am every day. I mean, it is not a lot, and we still have a long way to go, but it gives everything a meaning.

Now, I am sure you also have some goals for yourself.

Maybe you want to be more effective and confident or reach a new level in your developer career. Whatever it is, I am sure you will benefit from everything we learned, so you don’t have to make our mistakes.

On top of that, you will be in a fail-safe environment and a great community which will make everything a lot more fun!

You will not have to kill your social life, spend a little fortune on books and courses, and hope it will all click. Simply implement a proven System and get some fantastic results.

So, what are you waiting for?

Apply here now, <https://www.theseniordev.com/apply> and let’s get you to the next level as a developer!

Take care, Dragos