well welcome back to collaboration code I am your host Adam cuppy president of Learn Academy and my guest today is Pua Amano who lives in a uh beautiful beautiful place and many of us wish we were at um in Hawaii and so hello Pua thank you so much for joining me today hi Adam thank you again for having me here yeah so let's start with this which is I'm really curious what is something we need to know about you that has motivated you to make your way into Tech as a career path

something that I think everyone should know about me is that um I guess I've I've done a lot of different career or not different careers but like I was in the military and then I transitioned to a career of personal training and group fitness instructing mostly stayed with the military um but then we decided to move back home to Mai Hawaii and um it was when I had my my youngest she was born at 24 weeks um and then you know life changed and being here in Hawaii and having a child whose special needs that you know there comes a lot of costs and a lot of time um that uh and also like the the high cost of living here you know I wanted to do something where I could use my skills from the military from personal training to find a job where I could stay home and still be there for my family because that's really why we work right is to support our family or our lifestyle so I did I was perusing the VA programs the veterans programs and that was how I stumbled upon vet tech and that was how I found learn um and I you know looked up what is a software developer so I didn't have any experience before you know before learn um and you know I just I researched and researched and I was like you know I think I could actually do this I used to decorate my MySpace in high school you know didn't we all didn't we all uh we could all put the Blinky Blinky text on the screen and the obnoxious glitter gifts I did have glitter and snowflakes and so I was like oh it seems you know it seems pretty cool and it seems like a career that I can continue to learn continue to Excel and progress It's still in demand and most importantly I can still provide an income and I can still take care of my family and that's what sorry about the dots but um to me that's seemed like the way forward and I was gonna try it go all in and if it didn't work well at least I tried it um but I was gonna try my best to make it work so now what was some of the biggest deciding factors to choose tech over whether it be starting your own business maybe in personal training or Fitness or opening a gym or something along those lines that you had a passion for before what made this a smarter viable decision in your eyes

um so being back home in Hawaii because I hadn't lived at home for 12 years I left in 2008 we came back in 2020 after seeing like living on the mainland being all over the world coming back to Hawaii and this isn't anything I'm not trying to say anything bad about Hawaii it's just how it is the tech infrastructure here is lacking and it's not like there's not software a lot of Junior software engineering jobs here in Hawaii um a lot of it is senior level but I didn't want to be in an industry that was dependent on um someone else as far as like tourism um you know you're only in demand as much as people come to visit or and I didn't want to be in an industry that's not growing um and Hawaii is just they're just behind in Tech and I was like well if I can work remote for the mainland maybe by the time that I've gained enough experience and you know have gotten to that senior level then I can bring that back to Hawaii while by the time they're catching up you know and I can be like hey I have this experience this is what I can help Implement with the local businesses or you know even go to the college here and be like hey can we add this to the program this is what I have to offer so I saw it as a way to grow professionally but also maybe have that to give back to the community as well because I don't want to see my home fall behind you know because you sure they have to keep up like in order to stay afloat well somebody has to do it right and if if you don't then somebody needs to and so I I think the I feel like the motivation is such an applaudible thing um because it's easy to kind of sit back on your laurels and like say Hey you know it's going to be for somebody else somebody else will make that necessary change but it won't be me and so kudos to you for making that choice now looking at what your expectations were for yourself before you joined a program versus um looking back on it now did you have total confidence that it was going to work out like were you a hundred percent secure in that choice or did you do you feel like you were you know still taking a big risk and you're like let's hope this works out like where were you at uh when you had finally made that decision to to join a program and make that change

um I think it was I don't know if it was like I have a hundred percent confidence that I'm gonna you know I'm gonna succeed at it it was more of I have to succeed like I have to succeed and this has to work and I'm gonna do what I have to do in order to make it work because this is you know it's it's an excellent career field to break into there's a lot of room for growth and it's something that will be beneficial to me and to my family and hopefully the community um so I guess that was that was my attitude going in like I have to do this there's no no room for feeling so yeah was I confident yeah a total must yeah total muscle yeah

so talk me through like think back to those that moment where you're in that decision-making process and sort of evaluating your options and do I stay the course do I change my course especially given that in Hawaii you know the tech infrastructure especially for jobs isn't there or at least not to the extent it might be on the mainland or elsewhere like how were you going through that process of making that decision what things were you evaluating and how are you going about evaluating those things

um I would say every week probably from the moment that I signed up and went through um the veterans uh with with Kumba sorry I don't remember it was like the where like you go into the room and she tells about I forget the exact word but um it was sentences probably yes yes thank you sorry so the info session um from like the week before that and like every single week even throughout the boot camp I was looking up jobs and I was going through the job descriptions and if I didn't know what it was I would look it up I'm like oh okay so that's you know that's what c-sharp is or that's what you know oop is like oh we just learned about that or you know I was trying to I guess build my confidence like hey you're looking you know from before you joined you didn't know what any of these job descriptions were talking about and now you're like hey we learned that or okay I understand the concept you know I may not know exactly what you're talking about but I I can understand the concept if I dig a little further um so yeah I think that was the motivation as far as like you you are learning you're learning you're understanding and you can always grow if you understand the basic concept of it um so yeah that was that was motivating for me like you're you're getting it you know sure yeah this little winds right I mean it's it's such an abstract idea ultimately you know career change be a software engineer developer you know it's like saying I'm gonna be in fashion or I'm going to be in food service or restaurants or you know something like that it's like such a big and Broad category you know we've talked a lot about this or I've talked a lot about this personally with my wife is even we're talking about our own Journeys you know I've Crest the age of 40 and thinking a lot about what was my outcome what have been my outcomes in my own life especially professionally and what's the thing that motivates me and drives me and what's the thing I hope to see in the future and one of the things she actually pointed out just this last weekend was how a lot of what I do is to help other people achieve their goals too and so there's kind of a deeper more contributory motivation for myself there's a greater purpose that I feel in that yet at the same time is the importance of having my own goal my own must the thing that serves me that makes me feel like I am doing something I want to be doing yeah and you spoke earlier about your youngest and having a special needs child and you know feeling that how important it was that you you provide for them and the family and the things that you need as a family and household but speak for a minute about what it gives you why are you motivated to do it what's what's it serving for Pua outside of those kind of external factors I would say like a personal motivator it kind of reminds me of when I uh did Intelligence in the military I went in I didn't know what intelligence person was I just chose my job because I wanted to get out of there but then when I ended up doing it and learning it and I applied myself I actually ended up being really good at it um and I'm not saying that to speak highly of myself you know I do have Awards and you know personal uh like recommendations and stuff but I also loved it and so I guess doing software development for me um just proves to myself that I can do something new and I can work at it work really hard at it and I can be good at it um while still helping others if that makes sense like it's I can Excel and I can show myself like hey you did this you conquered it you're getting really good at it keep going but at the same time not being so proud where I don't impart that knowledge onto others like I can help in a mentorship and also in like a you know a business-wise like providing a great product to someone else um I don't know if that answers your question but just kind of saying like hey I did that good job me you know you still got it you can still work hard you can still um learn and you can still be humble and I haven't lost any of those qualities that I admire about myself um does that make sense or should I did I say that correctly did that make sense okay I think it does yeah uh no you said it completely wrongly um I completely disagree with your assertion of yourself no no I I I honor that a lot um I think of certain moments in my own life where that it felt very what you said felt very true for me where I wanted to just know I could that I didn't necessarily even though for me in the examples I'm thinking of for myself they were kind of bigger items the re the the truth the fact of the matter was that it I didn't actually need to achieve something big I just needed to feel like I still had it in me um yeah and so that resonates a ton that

finding a challenge that reminds me that I can that kind of reinvigorates that sense of determination and drive is one that is very resonant for me for sure and I wonder if that for people who are making choices like these that there's something in this industry where we're surrounded by challenge you know almost by definition if you're working for a company in Tech that's innovating by its definition it means that you're going to be encountering newish problems very frequently at least as a team you will and so to that extent that that's kind of what makes it exciting is yeah there's a there's an almost uncountable amount of ways to do the thing in software but having just been able to do it at all and finding maybe a unique way of doing it that I see is unique and is exciting for the group I'm working with is where all the excitement can come from as well so it's just the act of doing it that's fun yes and um I I didn't realize this until actually like after the boot camp and at my internship um I didn't realize how much their how much more there is to Tech than just Tech like I do feel like there's this misconception of the tech industry it's just being like Oh everyone just stays behind their computers and makes stuff you know I said but and yes and no like you're still interacting with humans whether um on a professional level like with your co-workers and then your clients as well you know it's not another computer asking another computer to make something for them you know it's it's humans talking to one another because they're trying to achieve a certain goal or product so having customer service skills and people skills also applies heavily to Tech and that was something that like personal training actually helped me with so just kind of bringing in all of my career experiences into the tech industry also made me kind of realize like I can do this you know and and no experience that I have had was like oh I didn't really need that you know like being a cashier did help me um dealing with with people did help me um so that was something that that is something that I do enjoy about this industry um and yeah yeah I just wanted to put that in there yeah and it's a part of this Journey that so many career transitioners are taking that they discover along the way and I'm always surprised by how much doubt there is that the their prior experiences professionally they doubt that they will have Merit in this career path I come from being a stage actor which listeners have heard a lot about and so like you I came from a quite different industry yet at the same time as when I get the question what have you used from that career or from your stage acting degree it's like oh my gosh where do I even begin because so much of it translates over and uh a journey that I have spoken about before that wasn't my own but I met a woman at a conference who had come from being an attorney and was now a junior developer and I remember sitting around a table and asking her like what did you take from being an attorney and what have you taken from being an attorney that made you an incredible software developer even though you are lacking some experience against your colleagues and her answer was just great it was like oh my gosh I can find a bug faster than anybody and again it was because as an attorney so much time had spent figuring out where the gaps were what was missing where might the problem be and how do we identify and hone that thing in that that skill easily translated over into the work she was doing as a software developer and so to the point you made just now you know hold those customer service skills the ability to work with people and meet them where they're at and show compassion I mean these are things that are 100 a part of the trade of software development it's not just about writing that code and in fact I would even take it a step further and say in a lot of ways those traits you just mentioned are almost more important than just being able to write the code obviously you need to be able to deliver on that side too but you know we've all worked with people who just have really poor communication skills or they focus so heavily on their experience and they focus so heavily on what they want out of it that they forget that there's other people involved in that even to the extent of the consumer whoever's going to use it on the other end there's so many other people involved and keeping that in mind is so important as we're building code that we keep that there so anyway that was a long thought but it very much resonates for me of how frequently we can take other experiences and take them into our new career path and not necessarily have to feel like we've you know wasted our time over there in any way shape or form

I want to kind of wrap up here on you know your journey into Tech and I want to end on a question about what do you feel you have discovered about yourself through this journey that you've gone through not only from being in Fitness and making the choice to having your youngest and learning from that experience and then making that leap into this new career path up until where you're at today what have you learned about yourself

I've learned and I understand that this statement is relative to whoever says it but I I can do hard things you know I can transition out of the military at a job that I was you know pretty good at actually you know and I loved a job that I was pretty good at I loved and I wanted to do it but I lost myself in the process hit rock bottom started a whole new career um a whole whole new life found my passion or a passion you know personal training group fitness still helping people which is you know like I said career another career transition and also like the physical aspect of it um personal training and learning that and then changing life again uh moving back home across the ocean and starting over again which and then having my youngest and then starting another career um it is a lot and it's hard it's a lot of ups and downs trying to navigate trying to stay afloat and figure out um how to do life and this entire career this career transition um just showed me that I can do it I can do hard things and once you go through it you're gonna you know you can only go up from there and it sucks while you're in it sometimes but the the journey is really what makes you um and I'm glad I did it I'm glad I I took that step you know so yeah well I think that's an awesome place to end uh with the journey is what makes you I love that we might steal that as a great tagline because that is so true the journey is a hundred percent what makes you so I love that well Pua thank you so much for giving us your time um I enjoyed this brief conversation I actually gave me a really a lot of opportunity to reflect on my own journey and how the challenge in my way has fed into the motivation that I have had so to that extent thank you so very much for your time thank you again Adam for you know inviting me and talking with me I really did enjoy this so thank you well with that to all our listeners thank you so much for joining us on another episode of the collaborative code Radio podcast uh again if you have questions about learns programs or if you just want support you're welcome to reach out we would love to hear from you and we're happy to help with that I better do and until next time