Sean Tibor: All right. Hello and welcome teaching Python. My name is Sean Tibor. I'm a coder who teaches, and this is episode 100. Kelly Schuster-Paredes: He didn't even let me say my line. Look how excited he was. Sean Tibor: Go ahead. It's all you, Kelly. Kelly Schuster-Paredes: Oh, and I'm Kelly Schuster as. And look, it's episode 100. Sean Tibor: Well, we have a special guest joining us on the live stream today, someone who has not appeared on the podcast for the last 99 episodes, but we are excited to have him join us for episode 100. Welcome, Michael Kennedy. It's great to have you here. Michael Kennedy: It's great to be here. Hello, Sean. Hello, Kelly. Hello, listeners. Thanks for having me. Congratulations on 100. This is no joke amount of effort to make it through basically two years of podcasting. So well done. Sean Tibor: It only took us four, so I think we did pretty well. Kelly Schuster-Paredes: Yeah. How many episodes do you guys have on Top Python? Michael Kennedy: I was just talking to my daughter today. She asked for some reason, I have on one show on Python Bites, we have 307, and on Top Python, we have 388. So it's been six, seven years we've been doing it. Sean Tibor: Yeah, it's pretty amazing. It definitely hits my weekly rotation. As I'm driving in the car or doing the dishes, I throw it on, and that's a good segue into the topic. This week is all about motivation, and I have to say, you and Brian have kept me motivated over the last at least four or five years that I've been listening. It's really kept me going each week to have something new and exciting to listen to and listen to all the guests that you bring on to Talk Python. Kelly Schuster-Paredes: Yeah. You were one of our first people to pick up for the show for motivation, because as I was telling you, preshow, I spoil alert for you. But it was you were the first person that Sean was like, have you listened to Talk Python to me? And I'm like, no. And then I remember going on there as a newbie, and I was scared. I was like, I am like, the dumbest person here. But everyone was so supportive, and you were great and just have really motivated me personally to keep learning. I still remember my son watching you on Livestream that's richer. He's got glasses. Yeah. Michael Kennedy: Pretty blind, honestly. But no, seriously, thank you so much for that. That's very kind. As you know, you sit here with a microphone and a couple of people on a screen, and you try to do a good job and you try to put together inspiring topics, but you're somewhat disconnected until you get to places like a conference or a very kind invite to be a guest on someone else's show. And you realize there are people out there listen, there are people that it makes a difference for. Sean Tibor: And I've always had that moment whenever someone says, oh, I love your show. I've listened to it so many times before. I'm like, really? Like, for real? You actually do? That's amazing. Michael Kennedy: Yeah, it's incredible. And I've had people come up and give me a hug and say, thank you. Thank you. You've gotten me a job, and it changed my life, or other things along those lines. Just like wow. That's awesome. Thank you. Kelly Schuster-Paredes: There's something very intimate and bonding about podcasts because especially if you listen to him with headphones on, you're in the ears. He's like, you're talking to the person when you're driving a car. You're talking to yourself in the car and answering back, and it's just something that makes you feel connected and yeah. So motivation. Let's get started. Michael Kennedy: Yeah. Sean Tibor: Nice. Well, let's start with the wind of the week before we go any further. Wouldn't be a teaching Python episode without that. So, Michael, we're going to make you go first. A win this week to share something good that's happened wherever it happens. Michael Kennedy: Yeah, I'll keep with the podcasting theme. I got two great shows out and really just I love being able to get things put together that I think is good work and shared with people. I got a YouTube video produced. I'm trying to do more of that and try to reach people from different channels and just try to inspire them. And so, you know, every time you make a little step forward, you learn something and you get a little bit better, little more comfortable to do it again. So just making progress on the creator side of things, I guess, is my wind. Kelly Schuster-Paredes: Nice? I already feel all okay with the on livestream after 11 hours of work. Brian Okken: Exactly. Kelly Schuster-Paredes: You want to go, Sean? Sean Tibor: Sure. My win this week is Halloween themed, and it really came about because my kids were dressing up and they had great costumes. My son wanted to be Maverick, and he had the aviator sunglasses and the haircut and everything. He was one step away from the cockpit of an F 18. My daughter was Carmen San Diego, which I as a huge nerd and a big fan of the original games. I love that. So I was like, I have to come up with a costume, and I was really struggling to put it together. And then I realized I could be Dr. Hein Stewfinchmurtz from Phineas Inferb, which is one of their favorite shows. And I put this whole thing together, this costume, over the course of a couple of days. And my favorite part was I made a black hole and a box innator for them because everything has to be innator of something. And I basically took a random cardboard box from my garage. Spray painted it black. Threw some stickers on it. And then I 3D printed a selfdestruct button that I designed in about 15 minutes and 3D printed. And I really felt good about it because I had spent a long time learning how to design stuff in Fusion 360 and when I needed those skills. I was able to pull them out. Make it work. Get it printing. And it all came together really nicely, so it felt good, and the kids loved it. And I got interrogated really hard on my character backstory, so I think I did okay. Kelly Schuster-Paredes: I got disappointed, though, because I asked him, okay, cool. What does it do? And he's like nothing. And I'm like, oh, that coded to light up with Neil pixels. I'm very disappointed. Sean Tibor: Version 2.0, this is just an MVP. Kelly Schuster-Paredes: And here I was Lucille Ball. Nothing funny text. You can only imagine if we didn't. Sean Tibor: Have Lucille Ball, there wouldn't be a Star Trek. So she's pretty amazing. Kelly Schuster-Paredes: Okay. Yeah. So quick my win. I'm starting to finally dig into the room after coming back from COVID and Sean I'm trying to say this politely moving up in the world. All of his projects have been kind of shoved into a couple of boxes and pulled out the light up question mark that he made before he left. And it's hanging on the wall after almost two years since you make it. And I gave it to a kid, I was like, can you just Google this thing and figure out how it works? He comes over. I thought it was supposed to be coded. It's an app. And I'm like, of course it is. He's like done. And I was like, what? It's that easy? It's been in a box for two years. Michael Kennedy: I could do it. Kelly Schuster-Paredes: So he's like, okay, next project. And I'm like, three printers. Let's go. Pulling stuff out, all these things. So the next we'll be working on the hand sanitizer one day. I'll let you know how that goes. Sean Tibor: I have some docs written up for that. It'll be okay. Kelly Schuster-Paredes: Excellent. So it feels like a little bit of Pipers back into the room and all these projects out of a box, so it's going to be a good one. Sean Tibor: Nice. Kelly Schuster-Paredes: Cool. Sean Tibor: All right, so let's jump right in. And what we came up with is kind of a top ten list of sorts, just from folks that we know and our own personal ways to stay motivated. And I think we could just go around, each of us. And Michael, I know you sent us something earlier, so I'll have you go in position number two. Kelly Schuster-Paredes: Give them the sheet. Probably doesn't have it. Sean Tibor: Well, that'll give us a little bit. Kelly Schuster-Paredes: Of time to start. Go for it. Sean Tibor: So number one that I have is finding a support system, right? So that network of people, even if it's just one or two people that you're accountable to that are asking you how's it going, or checking in on you to make sure that everything's going okay, really helps you stay on track and stay focused, at least for me. There was a point in my life where I was running quite a bit, like literal running. I was training for half marathons and everything, and just having a group of people to go run with made all the difference because it was someone that would say, Where were you if you didn't show up. It made it really hard to avoid the running practice if you knew that there were going to be people there that missed you. So I found that when I do that in my coding practice or my learning or wherever it is, I'm trying to accomplish something. Having that support system there that helps you stay motivated and make sure you're accountable goes a long way. And so Kelly's, my support system on the podcast, she's often the one telling me, hey, when are we going to publish that episode? Or how's the post production going? There's the accountability that makes it happen. Kelly Schuster-Paredes: Kelly that leads into mine. Right. So mine's always been a peer pressure. What motivates me, and I have to say positive peer pressure for those people that are very nice, but really the negative peer pressure actually works best for me whenever someone says, I can't or, well, you've only started coding, or, I don't think you have enough time for that, it really kind of ignites a fire of I can do it. And it's not that the person's trying to be mean, usually it's because they're watching out for my stress levels, my work levels, but it gives me that extra motivation. I always take courses, and it's constantly someone saying to me, you have to stop taking so many courses. You have to stop doing this. And personally, I just like to know a lot about a little bit about a lot of different things, because I feel that if I can't provide students with a direction because I don't know about a little bit of things, then I'm doing them at this service. So that peer pressure, whether it's positive or negative, and Sean's always like, you can figure it out. Go figure it out. Walk away, go do it. It kind of helps. So that keeps me, like, big motivation. Sean Tibor: Michael, does this resonate for you as well? I know you've worked remotely for many years. Michael Kennedy: Absolutely. Sean Tibor: Where do you find your network? Michael Kennedy: Well, in terms of having peers in the network to do things, I agree with you, Sean, that's really it's very important. And on one hand, there's the accountability side. For me, that's not so important because I'm pretty good at once. I get perhaps this is a personality flaw, but I get really into things, and I may be overdo it in terms of diving into them, but as I get excited, if there's no one to share it with, kelly it's like, maybe this isn't that cool after all. And I spent a while working at a company where I was the sole software developer. And who do you turn to or to get advice? Am I doing this right, or is this really awesome? Or actually, should I not just all of those things are absent. And I really started to thrive when I found Meetups. They were called user groups at the time. They're all now on Meetup.com now. But you would show up being like, these are my people. Where have they been? And it's so excellent to be able to share that excitement, enthusiasm. And you come back to the projects excited to try and you hit those roadblocks that would maybe sometimes be derailing. You're like, whatever, I don't care. I'm super psyched. I'm going to figure this out. If I got to read Docs for an hour, that's where we're going because this is happening. You know what I mean? Sean Tibor: Right. Michael Kennedy: Show up and make it go. So it definitely resonates with me. Sean Tibor: Nice. You had mentioned some. Michael Kennedy: Idea of people either encouraging it or saying that you can't do it. I think one of the things that I've learned going through different programming languages in different areas and even in science and math before I got into coding was so much of this stuff is a bunch of small steps. From the outside, it looks like there's one huge step, that geniuses leap. And in reality, someone's built 100 little tiny steps. So you got to figure out what those small steps are and it's not nearly as daunting. You just have to keep a dory, like just keep swimming, like keep making progress. Sean Tibor: Well, and that's the thing, is, people see maybe the final product or they see that last big lead, but they don't see all of the work, all the little steps, the setbacks along the way. And I think that's where sometimes when I look at my Twitter feed, for example, I go in there and people are doing all these amazing things and it's really easy to get discouraged because you're like, oh, I'm not doing all the things that Simon Wilson is doing with, like, data set and sheepdog and all these amazing things he's doing. Right. Michael Kennedy: I do have an automated Twitter feed that pulls it and generates a graph of its life like, what am I doing, right? Sean Tibor: But yet I'm sure Simon's going to be the first one to tell us. Yeah, but it's a lot of little steps along the way. It's finding one little thing to fix or another thing to change and he just keeps at it. And I think probably his persistence is what gets him through more than anything else. Kelly Schuster-Paredes: I have to say, though, when I look on my Twitter feed, I'm like, oh, my gosh, I got to learn from that person. So I love it. I'm telling you, that pressure of seeing people do some amazing things really just gets me excited. It's like that learner in me, that nerdy. Sean Tibor: Teacher so, Michael, you shared with us a story about some examples of things that you find really personally fulfilling and how that motivates you in terms of the problems that you're able to solve. Can you share us a little bit about that? Michael Kennedy: Yeah, I'd be happy to share. There's a bunch of these examples, but I put together one and I wrote it out for you because I wasn't sure if I was going to be able to make it here today. But for me, part of the motivation is there's all these little challenges in your life, and they can be abstraction, they can be discouraging. And so I just picked one kind of out of the blue that was really frustrating and it seemed like it shouldn't be that hard, but it turned out to be incredibly hard. So I have a bunch of online courses, right? And each one of those courses is made up of 150 videos. And I've got to put all that information just right into the database. What is the file name of this video? How long is it? Those sorts of things. And it would take me like an hour to have all the videos, to put those all in, and I would mess up something. This video says it's 15 minutes long. It's really 5 minutes, and somebody would complain, this is wrong. You know, I can't there it goes again. I never looked forward to it. Obviously looking forward to being done, but it was just one of those things you're like, oh no, I got to do this. Here we go again, right? And I was even going to hire somebody whose job it was just to make sure all that stuff was right and do it. I could hand it off to them, like on a part time basis, obviously. And I realized, you know what, I'm actually a programmer. I could probably just automate this. And it took me 2 hours to write this program. And then instantly I just opened a command prompt, type one word, and boom. It's already just copied right in the format that goes in the database, right into the clipboard. Even the program puts it in the clipboard for me, so I have to go back and select it. It's brilliant. It's like one line of Python paperclip. And when you solve those problems, the joy doesn't end just when you get the problem done. It's been years since I've written that. And a couple of weeks ago, I had to put a new course, and I'm like, yes, it's still there and it still works. It just goes and goes. So anytime I'm on some problem where I'm like, I don't really feel like working on this. I don't really feel like sitting down to figure out what I got to do to make this work. I just remember that feeling of you're going to smile every time this thing does the work for you and you don't have to do it for a long time. So just, you know, just spend an hour or two, get through the roadblocks, and then enjoy the fruits of it. Kelly Schuster-Paredes: 100% roadblocks. Sean Tibor: I was definitely thinking the same thing as you were with being motivated to solve problems. I know the types of problems I'm motivated to solve, and it's not the little same repetitive one over and over again. It's always something new and novel and let me think of a unique way to solve this. But what I really liked about your story was the way that you use that reflection on the feeling right. That help motivate you for other tasks. Right. And that was something I hadn't really thought about, like why I do that or why that matters. And I think that's a really Kelly great point. Kelly Schuster-Paredes: That's the endorphin Sean connection. It's our whole presentation. Sean Tibor: It's so good. It's a really great example. I love it. Kelly Schuster-Paredes: I know you get them all. I would watch him working, and then he would have this problem or something he couldn't solve, and all of a sudden, he would pick up some sort of hardware and start building something, and he was like, oh, look, I just made and so I think that's always his motivation of finding that endorphins. Sean Tibor: Yeah, absolutely. I think the other one I want to add, and I think this is a good one, too. And Michael, I think you can probably share your experiences with us, developing courses and running cohorts. Dotty in the YouTube chat says that she staying ahead of the kids, motivates her. Right. Trying to be that one step ahead of the people that you're teaching is a huge motivation because you can feel them nipping at your heels. Right. Like, they're smart, they're motivated, they want to do it. You got to go a little bit further so that you can still teach them and help them go further. Right. Kelly Schuster-Paredes: I think that as an educator for her and me, so I jumped on you. This is my cute lot of things that Dottie said. We've been tweeting back and forth and messaging, like, her vibe about what's keeping her going, what's making her push through that. It's just a lot of vibe with a lot of educators trying to always say something new and be ready for that question that might happen. Sorry. Your turn, Michael. Michael Kennedy: Well, no, I was actually thinking of you and put that comment up, because as a teacher, one of the things you do to really learn the technology, beyond just fiddling with it is learning it well enough to present it. Whether that be in a classroom with students or on a video course or some other venue, it doesn't really matter. Well, I kind of can make that work, but if I want to really present it in a way that will enable others, I've got to go just one level deeper. And for me, that's a huge motivation. One, because it's terrifying to be in front of people and have them see that you have no idea what you're talking about. But on the other, it's also that, oh, here's a chance that I can take what I'm supposed to be doing already and double down on my experience on this thing, and people go, how did you learn that so well? They go. Kelly I had to. I did hour long presentation. You don't understand. Kelly Schuster-Paredes: I had to figure this out 100%. Sean Tibor: Yeah, that is definitely the motivation. Right? And there's a difference, I think, between being able to go up there and say, well, I'm not really sure how this works, but let's figure it out together, versus, no, I really need to be able to show this to you and make sure that you understand it, because that's my job. That's what I promised I would do for you. And it's definitely that integrity of being a teacher that if you say you're going to teach them, you have to teach them well. Kelly Schuster-Paredes: Yeah. And then that backs up against the fact of that time when they get it and they have that AHA moment and they finally understand what you're trying to teach them, and you want to get those endorphins released as a teacher, that's what you've been waiting for the whole nine weeks, is when they go and you're like, yes, I did it. Michael Kennedy: We've been working so long, so hard. Kelly Schuster-Paredes: That's, like, a huge, big one. Sean Tibor: And I would say that's probably the thing that I miss the most about being in the classroom, because those wins are shared, right? Like, they're really the students win, right? But when you know that you helped and that they get it, it's contagious. You can feel it. Kelly Schuster-Paredes: It's totally our win. It's totally my win. Getting these kids to get it and understand, that's all me, my jumping around, you see me teach. I'm like jumping and doing all these metaphors and hamburgers, and today we coded magic eight, but it was something from Mordor, and the kids were, like, making up these crazy things. I was like, okay, we'll go with it. So, yes, it's my win, sean, do not take that away for me. Sean Tibor: Yeah, so that was another one from Kelly and Dotty is just that shared win of when the kids get it. That AHA moment is amazing. And unfortunately, I don't get those as often now, but when they do come about in a corporate setting, I still do the happy dance on the inside. That's the teacher part of me. Kelly Schuster-Paredes: Do you want to share Shreeze? Sean Tibor: Yeah, I thought Shreeze was great. This is great because sometimes it's the antidote for staring at your screen and not understanding what to do next or how to solve the problem. Shrees idea was get out of pencil and paper and just write the whole thing out. Just draw it out, break through that kind of block that you have of looking at the screen and think of a different way of solving the problem that's not using the keyboard. And I've done this a lot. Just that scratch piece of paper on next to my desk. Or taking the paper outside and sitting in the fresh air and sketching it out. Just changing it up makes the biggest difference. When you're in that stuck place, you need a bit of motivation to figure it out. Kelly Schuster-Paredes: I got to love this. This is also a high school student, by the way. He's 17 or just turning 18, I think. So the fact that he's got this motivation and his ability to just decompress and walk away. And of course he also says contact discord. Yes, of course. So meshes the people and don't stress about the collaboration. Why do we stress collaboration in the first place if we actually don't collaborate? So he's totally with it when he talks about the educational side. All teachers and we all say you need to learn how to collaborate. It's a 21st century skill. It's a C skill. Go, go. And then we get mad at them if they go and they hunt down, stack overflow and Google and discord. But why, right? We always say this. Why are we saying no to these kids? And they if they can communicate well enough to get an answer back from a PLN learning network, then please, please do it. So I'm so impressed by him. Can't wait. I always said this. Sean Tibor: Michael, any other tricks? Michael Kennedy: Sure. Well, first of all, circling back to the support network and stuff, we made it sound like, oh, these physical experiences where we're at a meetup or we're at a company or we've got colleagues at a school, it could be discord. It could be like Python Discord with 1000 members and you find a group there or some of these other online forums like you were just saying, Kelly. So it doesn't always have to be live synchronous or even just virtual synchronous type of experiences. For me, this idea and the suggestion totally resonates. I used to I still do be sitting here working and I get stuck. You know what, it's time for a walk. It's probably healthy for me to not sit at my desk for 8 hours. And if I sit here and stare at the screen, I'm only going to get frustrated. So let me just take a ten minute walk. When I used to go to an office building and walk around the office park area and now I take my dog for a walk up in the neighborhood and the dog's happy. I'm happy to be out in the fresh air and sometimes try around here. But yeah, just the getting away and looking at different angles. Maybe watch a YouTube video about it just to kind of keep it going on your mind but not focus on it. Or you listen to a podcast or you read a book or you just go in the woods and get away from it. All those things are really helpful. Kelly Schuster-Paredes: Yeah, we got a message from Nick Tolera, one of the creator of Moo with his team, just talking to him and it goes along. The same idea what Barbara Oakley always talks about, about diffuse learning. And Nick says, when I'm stuck, I go play music. So by ignoring the problem while retaining some sort of level of concentration and doing something that's completely unrelated, he finds that his mind is like going over things in the background that he doesn't really think about, right. And it feels like he says it's helpful to deliberately ignore the problem so a different part of one's brain can swing into action. And I just love the way he writes, and so I'm going to have to read this. He says, often I'll be mid piece and realize, oh, damn it. If I try it that way, it'll never work because of blank, blank, blank. It's like those moments in cartoons when wildly Cody suddenly realized something in a light bulb appears over his head. And he goes on to say, but I'll let you comment on that. Sean Tibor: Oh, yeah, I'm going to bring Brian. And while we're right in the middle of this. Kelly Schuster-Paredes: While he's coming back. Michael Kennedy: I. Michael Kennedy: Think the subconscious mind is so good at solving problems and it's hard to engage it. But I really like Nick's idea. If you focus on something, go play pool or go for a bicycle or motorcycle ride or just like something that kind of takes concentration. Watching TV won't do it, but something that takes a little, but not a lot of concept. Oddly, it's powerful, but it's hard to do on demand. Kelly Schuster-Paredes: He says it's like being British. They have a notion that it's a cup of tea bug. And he first heard about it in his first job as a software developer. When you're stuck, go make a cup of tea. In the same way playing music, you step away, ignore the problem. So does boiling a kettle. And he says this gets an added advantage. You get to have biscuits and dunk your teeth into dunk your teeth. Got to love he has so many other ones, but I'll let you well. Sean Tibor: I love this and I think there's something there for everyone with that. I think that watching TV is a good example. Doesn't really help, but I found kickboxing. I had ideas about kickboxing. And my mind is free spinning while my body is exercising. Running is great for this. Walking is great for this physical activity. But then music like drawing something that just engages your brain in a different way while letting the kind of verbal centers kind of process the language seems to work pretty well. Kelly Schuster-Paredes: Hi, Brian. By the way, I interrupted a segue on that. I surprised, Sean. I was like, by the way, Brian's coming in. Brian Okken: Yeah. So congrats everybody in the hundred episodes. That's awesome. Kelly Schuster-Paredes: Thank you. We weren't sure Brian was still in a little bit down in the weather. It must be cold. Getting cold. Brian Okken: Yeah. I went to Chicago earlier this month and I must have. Been feeling bad for like two weeks, but I'm finally getting better. Kelly Schuster-Paredes: So yeah, it's an episode about motivation. So what motivates you when you're stuck? Brian Okken: Well, podcasting wise is Michael. So one of the having somebody doing it with you, and I'm sure you probably have already covered this already, but having both you, Sean and Kelly together, you stay there for each other every week, so that helps. But the little comments like every time I'm about ready to go, you know what, I don't want to do this anymore or something. I'll get somebody that sends me a note that says, I feel like I'm the only one in my area that thinks like this. And your podcast or your blog or your something helped me realize that there's more of a community out there that thinks like me, things like that. And I'm like, oh, this is cool, I'll keep doing it for a while long, so other people but money helps too. Kelly Schuster-Paredes: I'm a teacher, I don't make any money. Sean Tibor: Well, I have to tell you, if it wasn't for Kelly, I think teaching Python would be up over after episode two, so it really does make a difference. Brian Okken: Yeah, so probably didn't apply to you too much, but like for instance, so Michael's got his courses, I've got other podcasters, have things that they're selling. I have like the book, but I have a course now. The book has done really well and I think in part that's because of the podcasting. So making sure that you are still as part of the conversation helps to make people remember that if they really like what you're talking about, maybe they'll throw in cents of money away for people to have something to sell. Kelly Schuster-Paredes: Yeah, I think that kind of goes on to one of my other motivators is like focusing on these emotions, the positive emotions from Twitter. Whenever I have an issue on the Twitter and whenever I don't have a positive tweet or LinkedIn post, I go to my daily Affirmations or motivational Monday is what we do in school and finding those quotes or something that I can just say positively. And this one quote and I don't know, maybe you guys met Patrick Mackenzie. He's a pretty popular coder, but I don't know him. Says every great developer, you know, got there by solving problems they were unqualified to solve until they actually did it. And it's things like that. I'll keep saying, okay, I can do this, I can do this. Positive motivation, focusing on my positive energy and getting positive emails from listeners always helps. 100%. Michael Kennedy: That completely describes my first job really. Brian Okken: Well. I know that a lot of people listening to tech podcasts or learning to code or learning to be teachers or tutors or whatever, that keeping their motivation around, that that can be a struggle. And knowing I think that imposter syndrome stuff is real. And I think knowing that a lot of people it's inevitable that people show their best side. So when you look at people, like, just doing awesome stuff, and you're like, I don't do that. They're not doing that all the time, either. You're just seeing the good stuff. So it's okay to not be the rock star. And it's also perpetual that you I follow people that are knowing more about the thing that I want to learn about. So I am inevitably always following people that know more than me about whatever I care about. If suddenly I feel like I know more than somebody, I probably am not going to keep reading their blog post. So it's okay that it seems like everybody knows more than you. It isn't true. It's just the people you're watching know more than you. Sean Tibor: Kelly I think the other thing I always used to explain to students, and I still do this with interns is that they're seeing the version of me now that has gone through all this, but they haven't seen me bashing my head against the keyboard for the last 20 years. Right? They didn't see me struggling to complete my first coding class, and they didn't see me failing that build 35 times before I got it right on the 36th right. And so one of the coolest moments we had over the summer with our interns was all of the senior engineers were sharing all the dumb things that we've done over the course of our careers, like dropping production databases and, like, introducing crippling bugs that made it so 100 people can't log into the system and just kind of showing that we didn't always behave this way. Right. Even at this point, we're still making mistakes, and we're still struggling our way through, and we're still figuring it out. It's just we maybe picked up a few tricks along the way to make it a little bit easier and less painful. Kelly Schuster-Paredes: That's often hard. Like, for educators. We've talked about the idea that to tell students about failing and making it a point to let them know that we were there. And this is just today, I was talking to a bunch of seniors and juniors. They were like, oh, I haven't seen you in so long. You should be proud of me. I'm taking compsai, whatever. And I'm like, I am proud of you, because, boy, I was a horrible teacher four years ago, I was teaching you python. The fact that you still love it, I'm so proud of it. They're like what? I'm like, yeah, I was struggling. I couldn't remember how to do anything. They're like, oh. And it was just sometimes as teachers, we try to COVID up a lot, but the kids all know, I'm like, I've been only doing this four years, so stick with it. I feel your pain, and it helps them to see it. Michael Kennedy: Sometimes what they needed was the inspiration and the example, not a perfect code written. You know what I sean. Brian Okken: So Kelly, when did you start coding? Kelly Schuster-Paredes: When I started the podcast. Brian Okken: Really? How long has that been now? Kelly Schuster-Paredes: Four years. Almost four years. In December we started the podcast and then I started in August, 4 years ago, literally with zero experience. Brian Okken: See, that's incredible. I don't know how I'm in awe because I was coding for decades before I decided to try to be public about it. Kelly Schuster-Paredes: Just code in Python, that's all I say. I don't know anything else. And then so but it's a language that really lends itself it lends itself to a lot of kids, it lends itself to a lot of different types of learners. I think it's just one of those things that it's very adaptable. So we won't go into that show. I can go on. But I want to add on to someone who motivates. Eric Mathis from Python crash course. He sent me a message. He sent me two. I'm going to read the second one because it goes along with what we're saying. But he says he's motivated by Simon Willison, who is the co creator of Django. He works on such interesting projects and has been quite open over the years about how he works. Knowing that other real good programmers have a similar workflow is grounding for him. To be specific, simon writes detailed notes and long issue threads when he's working through no obvious bugs. He's quite open about not knowing everything the right way, even though he has produced popular, well used libraries. And he exemplifies the idea that none of us can really do significant work completely on our own. But most of us can do very interesting work if we can learn how to collaborate effectively. So I think Eric's another great writer in email and I think he sued that up. Well. Brian Okken: As up, Simon's amazing. I also try to not compare yourself to Simon as well because it just motivates. Kelly Schuster-Paredes: You not comparing? Brian Okken: He's very motivating. But I saw him speak at PA, I was like stretching out a talk to 25 minutes and I went under and he had a 45 minutes talk that really could have been 3 hours that he gave in 45 minutes. It was massive. But it's impressive. Sean Tibor: Well, what I really like about that is just look at the cool work that people are doing, right? It's exciting, it's motivating. And even you can take something that may be relatively mundane and on your own workload and make it more interesting and more fun. I remember seeing I saw Simon present data set at PyCon 2019 and I think the same day I saw Katie McLaughlin, McLaughlin from Scotland present her Python project on making cross stitch patterns using Python. And I have to find that YouTube link because this was like it was completely blowing my mind. And the whole reason I went is because my mom has been doing like machine embroidery and arts for years. And so I knew a little bit about this, but what amazed me about her approach was it just kept going, right? So she starts off saying, well, I basically wanted to take pixel art and turn those into cross stitch patterns. And by the end of it, she's talking about how she's color averaging the pictures of the thread samples on the manufacturer's website and then applying some advanced color theory to match that color of thread against the pixel color that she wants to it was like, the whole time, I'm like, but wait, there's more. And I'm just completely blown away by this. And it was so motivating to see how far she went with this that I was like, Well, I could do more with my code. I mean, if she's color averaging, I could do that. I'll find a way. Right? Kelly Schuster-Paredes: That whole python, I was like, oh, my gosh, what have I gotten myself into? I have no clue what they're talking about. I remember that talk. Sean was like. Sean Tibor: I don't know what number we're up to, but just python is motivation. Kelly Schuster-Paredes: Motivation. I think that's almost our list. I don't know if anyone has to add anything else. We had a silence, and we're a good time, too. Yeah, that's it on my list of people. Sean Tibor: Brian, any other things that you find motivating when it comes to work life? Python I think that you probably covered. Brian Okken: This, but looking outside of where you're normally looking. So if you normally whatever you normally do, change up your change up your schedule, take a different route to work, take a walk somewhere where you don't normally walk. You know, read it. I mean, one of the things I've been doing lately is going back and reading fiction. So reading some like, I read a Dan Brown book that was just, like, fun read. And it just gets your mind in a different place that it's just getting somewhere different. And then I get more excited. So just stepping away helps a lot. There's a lot of courses, a lot of books, a lot of podcasts that I want to do in the future. And sometimes you got to recharge those batteries. So coming back, going back and doing something else, that just something to enjoy and then coming back to it. And I also think that I don't know if you've covered this, but it's okay to not be motivated sometimes. It's okay to just slow down. I've been doing that with test and code testing. Code is not dead, but there hasn't been an episode for months. And so what's going on with that? What's going on is I'm focusing on family and cooking and reading books and doing some other things for a while so that I can recharge. And when I get back to it, I can have the energy to give it. Kelly Schuster-Paredes: I agree with that. Sunday and Sunday, yes, sunday was my binge day. I watched the entire series of this. Well, a couple of episodes of this new series or whatever. I don't know if it's new. It's about this autistic Korean lawyer that's really good. You have to read everything so it's actually focus a lot because you're reading the entire time and the kids are like, why are you watching this? But it's really good. And she looks at solving solutions always through the idea of these whales. I think when you shut down and you just stop and you take the time to go watch a soccer game, go play with the kids, go binge on some TV, you come up, you're like, okay, I've done nothing for 24 hours, let's get started. So it's a good one. Forgot about that one. Sean Tibor: I think the other idea of seasons. Michael Kennedy: Sorry, go ahead, coach on. Sean Tibor: Yeah, no, that's a good point. That not everything has to be constant all the time, right, Michael? It can have some seasonality to it. Michael Kennedy: Yeah, I like to actually use that metaphor for sort of careers and stuff. So, for example, this summer it's been sunny and lovely and I was just like, you know, it's three. I think I'm just going to go and do some motorcycle riding and enjoy the mountains and if I don't get as much work done, whatever, but it's getting wet and cold and I don't want to be outside at all. It's just like I know that when other times I'll be really into sitting down and focusing and just spending a lot of deep time on things. And if you're in that mentality, like, I need to go to the beach or I need to go outside and you try to force through it, maybe it's better to say, look, give it a few weeks, enjoy that stuff and then come back when you're more motivated. I think that might be a bit of a path to burnout. I would really rather be doing something else, but I know I need to force myself to make this step or go through those things and then you kind of don't really enjoy it, whereas a little bit later maybe, this is exactly what I want to do and I'm thrilled to be doing it. Kelly Schuster-Paredes: Unfortunately, there's no seasons in sunny South Florida. I'm always wanting to be at the beach. No, I got to stay inside, close the blinds, don't look at the blue, blue skies that we have 98% of the time. Michael Kennedy: I lived in San Diego for a while. Same problem. Brian Okken: Okay, well, like seasons of TV shows or sort of thing. Sean Tibor: Yeah, actually you have a pumpkin spice season when they have those available at Starbucks that's I guess fall in South Florida. Leaves don't change, but the coffee flavors do. Michael Kennedy: Exactly. Michael Kennedy: Another way that I think of it. Michael Kennedy: Is are you new at your job or are you new in a career? You might spend that extra time really spending 2 hours a night learning about a thing you're not going to always do that. You might do that for six months until you're kind of up to speed and you go through, like, a different phase and so metaphorical seasons. But I do understand the problem of Florida. Kelly Schuster-Paredes: Yep. Sean Tibor: Well, and I think that the last thing is to kind of wrap this all together is I'll speak kind to yourself. Brian Okken: Right. Sean Tibor: Like, don't be so critical of yourself if you're not making the progress that you think you should be or that you could be. Give yourself the space to be who you are at that moment. Find the motivation when you need it and seek out the opportunities when they arise. I think that's a great way of looking at it and thinking about it. And I know over the last 100 episodes, there's been times where we've gone weeks between episodes or we've been busy doing other stuff where we just haven't felt like it. So to be able to give yourself the space to say it's okay if we don't publish every 7.5 days exactly. Right. We can take a little bit of extra time, and it's going to be all right. Brian Okken: Yeah, definitely. Michael Kennedy: For sure. Sean Tibor: So I think we should wrap it up here. I think Kelly's got to run, and I've got a visitor who's joined me in the room here. Michael Bryan, thank you for joining us on the show. It really has been great to catch up with you and talk about motivation and staying motivated. And I think we'll definitely apply as many of these lessons as we can as we go through the next 100 episodes of Teaching Python. Kelly Schuster-Paredes: Yes. Looking forward to more. Thanks, guys. Sean Tibor: All right. Thanks, guys. Brian Okken: Thanks for including us. Kelly Schuster-Paredes: And you're going to do it for teaching Python? Sean Tibor: Oh, I guess I should. Kelly Schuster-Paredes: I'm not used to this live stream stuff. Sean Tibor: All right. Oh, wait, hold on. So for Teaching Python, this is Sean. Kelly Schuster-Paredes: And this is Kelly signing off.