What defines my name
These blogs are intended to allow me to share my thoughts, ideas, and my career online. This gives me a moment to reflect. I have made a lot of decisions and spent a lot of time learning and being exposed to alot of software, services, functions, and things in my career and never seem to sit down and think about or reflect on what happened or why. Before my brother passed away from covid in 2020 we spent some time together in New York, drunk as hell during thanksgiving weekend looking for a comedy show were we met Dina Hashem in Dumbo. On that day we started a conversation about our careers. I had officially become a Linux Administrator back in february of 2018 so this conversation was a little over 9 months after I acheived that goal. My goal after that was to learn about “DevOps” and cloud technology being used. I had just spun up a kubernetes cluster and was trying to explain to my brother how docker containers are used in kubernetes. The name kubernetes kept making him laugh as he asked me the question “When will you have enough? Whats your endgame? “. I froze for a second and explained to him that this is the endgame. The work and the fact that im using Linux and open source software to grow in my career allows me to stay up to date with trending software, learning new things, stay challenged and sharp, and enjoy the journey. He then asked me again “Whats your endgame?”. I didn’t understand. At the time he was trying to get me to step back and learn to appreciate and celebrate the little moments. The fact that I was making enough money to pay my own bills, fly out to new york and have a fun holiday weekend, and relax at a time where other people are struggle to pay rent month to month or feed their children. “You made it!” he said as he patted my shoulder. “Think about where we started back in the room when we were listening to Lupe Fiasco and creating boneheads videos. Remember when you learned about virtual machines and hacking terminals using virtual-whatever? Look how far you’ve come. Why can’t you sit back and start a family and get a boring car with a backwards dad hat like everyone else? Thats where you should be”.
While reflecting on his thoughts now, my daughter, named after him, Kendall is now two years old, and I have a black dad hat that says “Im just out here trusting God”, so his words, although he’s not here to see them internalize into physical things, helped me get to where I am today. That, however, has not lead to a journey of up’s, downs, and loops through my career that I want to reflect on. I have tried writing about this when my daughter was born in my passion to profession blog post. This is a bit of a continuation of that.
The cable repair man joke and finding a name in this world
My friends and I tend to joke about a lot of things, like most friends do. I tend to be the butt of most jokes, which may be the cause of a lot of different things. Maybe I can take the jokes and laugh it off better than most, or maybe because I overshare my experiences with my friends about everything and anything. The world may never know. What I do know is one joke that my friends made about me back in the day (and still use) is that I am a cable box repair man. I have spent a lot of time trying to brand and label myself as your neighborhood IT guy. Someone who can fix anything and setup anything. Products and services used to range from Amazon firestick provisioning to PC repair and virus removal. I had gotten to a point where I was sharing business card from vista print and trying to become my own Managed IT service provider. After learning about Linux and finding out that it was mentioned in college at a computer club meeting I knew that I needed to change the branding, I wanted to label myself a software guy! Having a name for yourself means a lot to me. My mother, a teacher, would always ask me during the first week of every school year what I wanted to do when I grew up and what I wanted to be. When I finally told her in 9th grade that I wanted to be a graphic designer and artist and take my art to the next level she laughed it off and said “Artists don’t make money, you need to find something that will make a lot fo money and make a name for yourself”. Getting hit with that comment has always burned a hole in my brain when I think about who I am and what I am doing. Ironically I am making very good money using free software and get to use my creative muscles to write scripts to resolve problems and find solutions for people. May not be an impression of water lillies like my favorite french artist Claude Monet but still something I value and keep close to my chest. A friend of mine once asked me “Aren’t you a cable repair man? I really don’t know what you do for a living” and as I tried to explain the things I was doing at different jobs the room filled with laughter as no one noticed how much it annoyed me that I had bee chasing my dreams and trying to create a name for myself for the past decade. We tend to make fun of each other all the time and one friend, who jokingly said “go fix cable boxes” yesterday (as of writing this blog) may never understand how much I have gone through to get to where I am today and what defines my name. Over the years I have “self diagnosed” myself with having a fear of success. Since my brothers passing its been 4 years and I have worked with some big named companies, and small small niche places, but one things I have continued to do while failing upward is break through the thoughts and ideas regarding this “fear of success” and re-evaluate myself. It is easy to get lost in the sauce of the cybersecurity world or the IT field in general because everything is in one way interconnected. What is hard is learning to “grow through what you go through” and continue to define your name, sharpen your skills, and stay sharp. As a certified Linux Engineer I have found a list of quotes that seem to reoccur whenever I reflect on my career.
Quotes about branding
- “Brand yourself for the career you want, not the job you have.” – Dan Schawbel.
- “The best way to predict the future is to create it.” – Peter Drucker.
- “Personal branding is not about you. It’s about putting your stamp on the value you deliver to others.” – William Arruda.
Albert Einstein may have been misquoted for saying this but the truth that “if you judge a fish by its ability to climb a tree, it will live its whole life believing that it is stupid” is something I have learned over time. I have also focused on learning to be kinder to myself, and I can’t thank my wife enough for helping me do that. So happy early mothers day to her.
Happy Early Mothers Day
