More Coding, Less Ballet
Author's Own

More Coding, Less Ballet

In this series, professionals share what they'd do differently — and keep the same. Follow the stories here and write your own (please use #IfIWere22 in your post).

Okay, the biggest lesson I wish I knew at age 22 had to do with taking control of my own career. That means ownership of my own personal narrative, which has to do with personal branding and identity. Sure, that's a marketing-ish perspective, at odds with my nerdliness, but that's the human reality.

For more, check out "Nerds, hack your career." (... and to be clear, I'm an old-school, socially inept, plastic-pocket-protector and thick glasses-taped-together kinda nerd. Current nerd chic is more about media geekery, which I'm fond of myself.)

Professionally speaking, if I was talking to my 22-year-old self, I'd encourage me to be bolder, to seize opportunity, to take chances. For example, I shoulda pushed Unix really hard for the IBM Series/1 minicomputer. (Linux, which kinda rules the Internet, is a derivative of sorts of Unix.)

For that matter, I shoulda somehow gotten into the original PC project. Not only was I at IBM Boca Raton, but my first office mate wrote the fundamental code running the hardware, the BIOS.

At 22, though, I really screwed up a lot of personal matters.

I shoulda been listening to people more about, well, everything, even regarding the purchase of my first car. Instead of being a car for a guy 50 years older, it mighta been something merely ordinary, and that woulda been a big improvement.

Finally, trying to meet women in ballet class? Not a good idea. I was terrible, and failed completely.

Also, it put me into the hospital, twice, and I still bear scars, prosthetics, and dental work, ongoing after around 40 years.

Cory Roberson

Founder/CEO - FIN Group | Compliance/Training Systems for FIN Serv Firms | Mentor | Advisor

8y

More of both....there's value in the creative and quantitative.

Like
Reply
Achmad Wahyu

Owner of Angler Management - Digital Marketing Agency & Webite Management

8y

and.. what happen with the ballet women?

Like
Reply
G. Blake Ross

Systems Engineer at Metron, Inc.

8y

Dang! I'm impressed. In 2015, you found a way to convert Series/1 experience into something useful. I wonder how I can do the same? Hmmmmm... Think. Think. Think. Think.

Like
Reply

To view or add a comment, sign in

Insights from the community

Explore topics