Christmas Letter 2020, Part 1: The Elephant in the Room

Last year, I talked about how crazy the year had been for us, so I guess 2020 was like “hold my coffee.”

COVID caused a mad rush for basic goods, yet recommended health and safety practices were not emphasized by leaders and health officials until much later.

This looked the coolest but didn’t stay on my nose at all. Picture was taken before it was determined that certain masks are probably worse than no mask at all.

As anyone reading this in 2020 knows all too well, COVID-19 hit the United States and hit it hard this year. I have stayed mostly silent about the subject because it has been really hard to process how to respond. As I have said in years past, I would rather be a thermostat than a thermometer (set the temperature, not fluctuate with it). I would rather be a problem-solver than let life happen to me.

So how do we bring a productive mindset to COVID-19, a thing that has dramatically reshaped all of our lives this year? A few key things have helped me personally, some of them contradictory at first glance:

• Know the facts. By the best estimates of people whose job it is to make good estimates (not that guy on Facebook who you keep thinking you should unfriend but haven’t yet), COVID-19 has killed over 300,000 people in the United States in 2020. Bear in mind that it was not in full swing until March-April, either. 2018 had an unusually-bad flu season with 60,000 deaths in the US. Though not the highest as a percentage of the population, 2019 had the highest death toll due to car accidents so far with more than 36,000 lives lost. 9/11 caused the deaths of almost 3,000 people. All of those numbers are horrible to think about. That is an enormous number of lives lost and hearts broken, on all counts.

• The reason you wear a mask on your nose and mouth is that COVID-19 primarily spreads through small droplets of liquid expelled when you breathe, cough, or sneeze. We’re not trying to prevent air from getting through fabric, here.

• Perspective is important. We need to simultaneously process that COVID-19 is the most lethal killer of those four events (since they are often compared to each other), yet also not get confused by big numbers. 300,000 deaths is less than 0.1% of the US population. COVID-19 will probably not kill you if you are in good health and do not have an autoimmune disease. If you are especially vulnerable, I implore you to be more communicative than usual about your health concerns with the people who need to be around you (even if you’ve already been doing that for months).

• The reason US citizens get confused about wearing a mask to stop a virus that won’t kill them, in my view, is that we too often think about ourselves as individuals or as small families rather than about the collective. If there is even a modest chance that I can save a life by following reasonable health and safety practices in public places, I will wear a mask, wash my hands, and socially distance where possible.

• On a similar note about the collective, both Republican President George W. Bush and Democrat President Barack Obama worked on a game plan for how the United States should operate in a pandemic while they were in office because they were professionals doing a professional job. I guess it’s in bad taste to point out that Donald Trump did not follow that game plan because he is an amateur who never held public office before becoming President, but it’s worth noting that if a more-typical President had been in office, the United States likely would have come out swinging with the plan we already had. I’m not sure I buy into American exceptionalism, but I think it’s useful to not get too down on ourselves about our unusual response, in an unusual year, with unusual leadership.

• Above all, this is a very hard time for everyone. You are showing enormous personal strength and courage to get out of bed every morning and find a way to navigate through the day, every day, in 2020! Life has been exhausting because our routines have been thrown out the window, every little decision requires cognitive effort, and we’re getting far less human interaction than we otherwise would. I miss people a lot, and Zoom screens are not a replacement for them.

• I haven’t been perfect at this COVID thing, and you probably haven’t been either. The point is to try, not to beat yourself up or criticize how others are coping. A bunch of the rules are objectively dumb anyway (restaurants are being forced to close at 8 PM where I live, for example), so we just need to use our best judgment. Focus on being part of the solution.

• Aside from being shamed and businesses choosing not to serve you (I disagree with the former and largely agree with the latter), I think it’s an irrational fear to say that we are living under authoritarian rule. The Feds aren’t going to come fine you for failing to perfectly comply with COVID guidelines. The “rules” are guidelines, not felonies. There are often many ways to accomplish the same task, like delivery and takeout services, that can help you avoid the rules you find the most inhibiting.

• Vaccines are being tested. We’re not out of the woods, but humanity is doing its best. Don’t give up on people.

As for Aarica and me in particular, we have been enormously, shockingly, fortunate. Neither of us lost a job directly because of COVID-19 (though Aarica made a career move partly in response to it - more on that later), and our friends and family are almost entirely in similar positions. We feel tremendously grateful for our relatively-comfortable livelihood this year, in spite of some of the sacrifices we had to make.

This is part 1 of our Christmas letter, the giant downer full of COVID talk, because it’s such a monumental moment in all of our lives and I think it’s hard to avoid talking about, but I don’t want it mixed in with all the other news.

And trust me, there is a lot more news.

Post number 70.

DoorDash: Your time, your goals. You're the boss.

Thank you to DoorDash for sponsoring us this month!

Look, I am as skeptical as anyone when it comes to side hustles and the gig economy. Some companies (which we will not name here) are notorious for cutting costs for end users by skimping on pay for their 1099 employees.

Yet when my wife started bringing home $100/night or more driving for DoorDash in the Colorado area, I have to admit that I started to change my tune a bit. With nothing more than a car and some spare time, driving for DoorDash can be a great way to earn some extra cash while you work to level up your career and make ends meet in these difficult times. Plus, they currently offer contactless delivery options so you and your customers can feel safe with every delivery.

Sign up today and start bringing in some extra revenue!

The 4 Advantages to Waking Up Early

“We all have 168 hours a week, but not all hours are equally suited to all things.”

- Laura Vanderkam

Imagine the following scenario:

• You stay up late Sunday night for whatever reason: you played video games late into the night, you got some drinks with friends, you put in another movie with your spouse, you let YouTube keep playing its bottomless queue… something came up, as it always does.

• Monday morning comes and you hit your snooze twice… no, three times… Wait, was that four times? You keep adding more alarms, but you do not remember how many times you snoozed the cacophonous noise you feel certain should be waking you.

• Your head pops off your pillow. You are late to work, so you throw on clothes, skip breakfast, and hurry to the office, angry with yourself.

• You arrive a bit late. Did someone notice? You do not get an answer to this question, adding to your anxiety, stress, and exhaustion.

• You are so frazzled that you feel you cannot convince yourself to tackle the next big assignment yet. You scroll through email, Facebook, and Slack messages for an hour instead before rushing through a couple of quick, simple tasks that you can fit in before lunch.

• It is not your best work, but you manage to complete one of the larger items on your todo list.

• You head home, thinking about how exhausted you are. You set a goal to go to the gym every day, but how could you possibly summon the energy now?

This routine is all too familiar to me: in fact, it was me. I worked a lot of shifts at a lot of different jobs that closely resembled this.

In short, it was miserable. I want to encourage you to try a different scenario:

• You read a book around 9 or 10 at night. You fall asleep at a decent time.

• You wake up to your first alarm and spend a relaxing morning eating breakfast, drinking your coffee, and writing in a journal. You have plenty of “me” time long before the workday begins.

• After easing into the day, you hit the gym, shower, and feel refreshed. You feel accomplished because your workout is out of the way already.

• You get to work on time, well-rested and off to a great start.

• Work is productive. You dive right into the hard tasks on your plate, feeling no need for half-assed self-care via social media. Your boss remarks on your sustained results.

• You leave the easy tasks for the afternoon. You get caught up on email and Slack before you finish work rather than trying to rush more important tasks.

One key difference separates these two days: the morning.

Mornings are such a big deal because they set the tone for everything else. One event tends to snowball into the next, building into either a positive or negative attitude throughout the day, and a focused morning tends to start off better than a harried one.

Laura Vanderkam, author of What the Most Successful People Do Before Breakfast, put it this way:

“The madness of mornings is a key reason most of us believe we have no time. We have time, but it’s consumed by sound and fury that culminates in few accomplishments beyond getting out the door… Learning to use mornings well is, in our distracted world, what separates achievement from madness.”

If you are interested in chasing a dream, pursuing some big career goals, or even just forming a new habit, I would like to encourage you to try doing it in the morning. Yes, this includes those of you with self-defeating mindsets around how you were simply born “a night owl,” or that you do not have the time or energy or willpower.

You have the capability. Here are 4 key reasons why you should:

1. Bad Habits Break

We all know it to be true: good habits are formed in the morning, while bad habits are formed at night. Laura Vanderkam found evidence on the subject in the form of the work of Roy Baumeister, a psychology professor at Florida State University. In Baumeister’s words,

“Diets are broken in the evening, not the morning. The majority of impulsive crimes are committed after 11:00 p.m. Lapses in drug use, alcohol abuse, sexual misbehavior, gambling excesses, and the like tend to come about late in the day.”

I have found this to be true in my personal life. If there is any one time of day when I am likely to buy energy drinks and candy, binge on Netflix and video games, and break every good habit I am attempting to build, it is late in the evening. I am frequently exhausted from the demands of the day by this point and have no energy to commit to healthier alternatives.

But imagine if you went to bed a little earlier, skipping over most of this indulgent time, and focused instead on what you are capable of in the morning. What could you accomplish? What incremental step could you take toward your big goals every single day?

2. Good Habits Form

Maintaining a habit is hard. You should not take on too many changes at once because of how fatiguing it can be to upend your entire routine. Think about the big life changes you have made, or that have been made upon you:

• moving to a new home,

• going to college,

• getting a new job,

• moving in with roommates or a significant other,

• entering adulthood, or

• the lifestyle upheaval caused by our COVID-19 response.

These were likely stressful and exhausting times because you had to make a lot more decisions every single day until you built yourself a new routine. The same is true with trying to form a habit like waking up early.

As Professor Baumeister put it,

“Getting things down to routines and habits takes willpower at first but in the long run conserves willpower. Once things become habitual, they operate as automatic processes, which consume less willpower.”

The cool thing about the habit of waking up early is that it begets other good habits. The reason? It becomes harder to stay up late when you wake up early, and mornings feel so peaceful and full of possibility that it is easier to push yourself toward other goals.

I do not recommend that you try to build the habit of waking up early so you can immediately begin a task you do not currently do. Making the morning even more daunting is bound to make both habits harder. Instead, make mornings the time you look forward to most!

3. You can focus on you.

“Successful people have priorities they want to tackle, or things they like to do with their lives, and early mornings are the time when they have the most control of their schedules. In a world of constant connectivity, of managing global organizations, the day can quickly get away from you as other people’s priorities invade—sometimes even those of the people you love dearly and share a home with.”

- Laura Vanderkam

Start slow and keep things simple. Mornings are a great time to do something easy and enjoyable: reading a good book and drinking some coffee, for example, or going on a walk and listening to your favorite podcast.

This time is when everyone else is sleeping in, and that is exactly why it should be all about you.

Once you have built your morning habit (which takes about 66 days), you can always add more to your mornings. Maybe, like me, you like to go to the gym first thing so you are no longer dreading it and can shower before work. Maybe you are working a side hustle and mornings are an uninterrupted opportunity to build on it. Maybe you just want to try meditating.

None of these things are what you must do. This is your time! Use it to craft the person you want to be.

4. Mornings are beautiful.

We pretty much always catch the sun set. Imagine getting to peacefully watch the sun rise before the day’s hustle begins.

I sure want to.

Post number 69.

The 10 Steps You Should Take to Get a Higher-Paying Job if You Make Less Than $50,000/year

In the 12 years I have been in the workforce, I have become exceptionally skilled at finding and landing jobs. I have held 18 of them in that time window, from "gigs" to "dead-end jobs" to "careers" to "side hustles" to "running my own (very) small business."

In that time, I worked my way up the pay scale from $8/hour part-time ($8,000/year) to approximately $45/hour full-time ($85,000/year) in base pay when accounting for vacation time.

Obviously, this means that I am not about to start telling you how to become a millionaire. Instead, I want to talk about the smaller, more actionable first steps you can take to build a respectable career and leave the American lower class behind.

If you have ever budgeted your money and still come up short, like I did when I worked in food and retail, this is where you can start. These steps are more actionable than a millionaire lifestyle moonshot when you are living paycheck to paycheck, so they are a great way to lay the foundation for the life you want to lead.

1. Choose Your Adventure

The first step is to narrow down your options. There are infinite career paths to choose from unless we filter out the unviable possibilities. Therefore, we will focus on careers that:

1. are lucrative enough to pay your rent.

2. can offer stable income.

3. can be done by most people if they achieve the necessary qualifications.

4. do not require a graduate degree.

There are dozens of jobs that fit these criteria. Here are a few examples:

• Engineering (software, hardware, electrical, mechanical, etc)

• Sales (especially outside sales. Some sales jobs are commission-only, so do your homework about the pay structure)

• Management

• Designer (UI, UX, and Graphics)

• Healthcare professional (radiation therapists, dental hygienists, and nuclear medicine technologists only need an Associate’s Degree to get started)

• Plumber

• Welder

• Operate planes and boats

I am not saying that you should give up your dreams for life to pursue one of these relatively-stable career paths. What I am saying is that the vast majority of artists, cooks, journalists, and teachers are simply not paid well in the United States. It is important to be cognizant of this reality when you are trying to pay your bills on time.

Pick a career that sounds appealing from that list, or do the research to find more options (you can start with this post, or this one, or this one). Consider the work environment, what benefits and drawbacks the field may have, and what type of work makes sense for you and the lifestyle you want. Can you imagine yourself being happy at work in that career path? Remember, this is not a commitment yet; we are simply exploring the possibility.

If you are unsure what your strengths are, as was the case for me when I decided to pursue software engineering in 2016, consider taking a personality test or two, or asking some friends what they think your key strengths are. Get an outside opinion of what makes you unique so you can see yourself through other people's eyes.

Chances are, you are already skilled at something that will make you a good fit for a high-paying position, but you may be so good at it that you take your skill for granted!

2. Schedule an Informational Interview

Once you have picked a career you want to explore, you need to test your idea by asking someone who knows better than you. This was one of the best pieces of advice I got from the coding bootcamp I went to, Bloc:

1. Go online. Find 25 companies that are part of the field you are interested in pursuing and put their names in a spreadsheet. Rank them on a scale from 1 to 5 These companies should be places that you would at least consider working for if they offered you a job today.

2. Narrow these 25 down to 10 or fewer. Cut companies that require in-office work and are nowhere near you geographically (unless you would happily move to where they are); cut companies that scored 1-3 in the last step; cut companies that, after additional research, pay poorly or have bad reviews on Glassdoor. If other employees dislike them, you probably will, too.

3. Find contact information for someone you would like to meet at these 10 companies. This could be the CEO, a founder, a hiring manager, or simply a rank-and-file employee with the job title you want to have 1-2 years from now.

4. Follow the companies on LinkedIn and/or Twitter. Learn about what they do, what their culture is like, and figure out whether you share their values.

Then, at last, if a company is still on your list and you think you would be a good cultural fit for them, reach out to your points of contact for informational interviews, starting with the companies that interest you least. This will allow you to practice on the least-interesting ones and be prepared when you get to the companies you liked best.

What's an informational interview, you ask? It is an opportunity for you to learn about someone, and for someone to learn about you.

When you contact the person you want to meet, ask if you can pick their brain about their company and their work for an hour if you buy them coffee. Bring about 20 questions to the interview that you genuinely want answers to. Some examples could be, "What is your day-to-day job like?", "What do you like about Company X?", "How does Company X stand out from the competition?", "What are the next big opportunities for Company X?", or "I am interested in entering this career field. What advice would you give me for how to start a career in {field} right?"

I found that the contacts at the companies I liked best were more than happy to sit down with me. The hardest part was getting them to let me pay for coffee!

A wise man once said that good business starts with a good conversation over good coffee.

Here's what NOT to do in an informational interview:

• Ask for a job.

• Ask them to be a reference for another job.

• Ask them to sponsor or fund something.

The point is not to ask them for a job. For one, you just started pursuing this field, so you probably don't have the qualifications anyway. But even if you do, you just met this person. The person you are talking to likely gets bombarded with requests for favors. By wanting advice, not a favor, you are establishing rapport with this person, which is far more valuable than an entry-level desk job anyway.

There are several purposes to establishing this rapport:

• Someone in the field you are interested in now knows your name and face, and likes you. Again, why do they like you? You offered them free coffee when you met them instead of approaching with your hand out. This is tremendous leverage for when you start applying to jobs.

• You and this influential person get the chance to evaluate each other on a friendly level, without the pressure of an interview over your head. I found my current and previous jobs at BillGO and Radial Development Group through informational interviews, but I interviewed people at several other companies who I did not align with at all! I am glad I steered clear of their companies.

• Down the road, this person may think of you when a job opening pops up at their company. Alternatively, this person likely knows other people in the field, and you may come to mind when they hear someone else is hiring.

• Based on this person's responses, you can evaluate whether you are making a good decision. Does this person hate their job? Does this person suggest that you stay away from the field? Are they thrilled by their work, or cynical about where they landed? If they sound displeased, try another company on your list. If everyone in the field hates their job, maybe that field is full of toxic people in your area, and you should consider picking a different path!

If you are worried about wasting this person's time, do your homework. Research their company, the industry, and, if you can, the person you will be speaking to. Bring smart questions, not offhand ones. Show that you value their time. They will love you for it!

3. Commit to the Path

Now you have to make a decision. Are you going to commit to this career choice?

If you find yourself needing more clarity, see if you can get some firsthand experience working in the field. Can you job shadow someone? Can you do some practice lessons online? Try actually doing the job for a day, as described by the informational interviewee, and see if you like it.

If the work seems decent, you probably found a good option. If the work is like nails on a chalkboard, it is probably not right.

A few key points to keep in mind:

• No job, of any kind, is always fun. There will be parts you dislike even in a career that is your true calling.

• I am okay with the work feeling "acceptable" when you first try it. It will probably be better at a good company you click with once you are there. When you build relationships with coworkers and see what the day-to-day is really like, it will feel less foreign and uncomfortable than a brand-new career path.

• You should not judge the work by whether you are good at it. Spoiler alert: you are going to be terrible at it at first, and that is okay! How could you possibly be good at it? You just started.

But the most important rule is this: commit to the career path for five years. Yup, five. Why? If you bail out before five, you are likely bailing because of one bad circumstance or because you struggled with the work right out of the gate (which is not a good reason to quit). After five years, you will truly know whether the career is right for you. If you hate it, go do something else. You can have many careers if you want to!

4. Begin Acquiring the Skills You Need

Hopefully your informational interviewees pointed you toward a place where you can get the skills you need. If not, do some research online about where you can. For me, this was Bloc, but there are trade schools and hands-on training programs for most of the career paths I mentioned.

Some lucrative careers I did not mention (becoming a lawyer or a surgeon, for example) require a college degree, which is typically a longer time commitment than I recommend if you need to raise your standard of living soon. However, if you think you can make ends meet for four or more years, you have far more options available to you.

Do not pick the first thing you see. As with the list of companies we made earlier, get a list of potential candidates and compare their price, value, and reviews. Education can be exorbitantly expensive in the United States, but there are often ways to get around it. For example, if you decided on a career that requires a four-year degree after all, consider working as a TA through college. My sister gets paid for it and gets her tuition paid for by the school!

5. Get a Mentor to Hold You Accountable

Bloc hooked me up with a mentor all on its own, but one way or the other, you should get a mentor. The people who are the best in their field get mentors, and you should, too. This could be one of your informational interviewees, a teacher in your learning program, or someone you admire and want to emulate.

The purpose of getting a mentor is that it is hard to push yourself to work on a new skill every day, or at least on weekdays. Accountability will force you to keep going when it gets tough and give you goals to aim at. Don't work in the dark.

6. Network Iteratively

Continue to schedule informational interviews. They should not sidetrack your learning program, but an occasional interview will give you practice networking and talking about your new field. By doing this, I got a job before I even completed my Bloc coursework.

It is also worth spending a little time every week seeking out online forums (or in-person events, post-COVID) where you can network with people in your field. There is a strong possibility that you will find companies and opportunities this way that have smaller online presences. Lots of companies are focused on their local community, and they can be the best places to start a new career!

7. Search for Great Learning Environments

As you acquire the skills you need and network with people in the industry, be on the lookout for places that are great learning environments. This can be either a company or one of those online forums I mentioned with a friendly community of people, happy to help you problem-solve.

Your first job in the field does not need to be the #1 dream job in your spreadsheet. You can always work toward that as you go. In fact, if your dream job is a position at a huge company, it is probably the wrong place to start. The bigger a company is, the more the responsibilities are split into bite-sized pieces, and the less entry-level team members see the overall picture. Starting at a small company can expose you to all aspects of the business, and that can in turn qualify you for a higher position at your dream company.

8. Help Others Before They Help You

Once you start getting comfortable with the skills you're learning, focus on helping others, not on getting help. For example, in the software community, contributing to open-source projects (projects that anyone can see the code for and contribute to) is a great way to gain exposure and make a positive impact for others.

As with the informational interviews, your goal is not to come to people with your hand out. The best way to get things from people is to give them things first; humans are just wired that way! Offer to pitch in on a project that is relevant to someone in the industry or a company on your list.

9. Apply When You Know You Stand Out

Impostor syndrome is difficult to work through when you are new to a field. In my case, I could not help but feel like I was not really qualified to write software when I finished my coding bootcamp. But try to evaluate yourself honestly: what do I know six months' into my training that I did not know when I started? What can I do that I could not do before? Who do I know in this industry that I had never met before I started?

A common piece of advice is to apply to jobs whether you think you are qualified or not. I am sure that this has worked for some people; sometimes no one (or no one qualified) applies to an opening, and you are the best option! But this is not what has worked for me.

In my experience, my persistence and passion gets me jobs, not luck. In many cases, I have applied to a job, been rejected, applied again not long after, and gotten the job the second time. The first round gives me practice and confidence; by the second one, I am more than ready for the job I want.

Of course, you have to figure out what works for you, but I would encourage you to leverage every tool available to you (networking, technical skill, and relevant life experience from other jobs) to stand out from the crowd when applying.

Once you feel ready, apply. If you have followed all of the steps above, you will have a qualifying skillset and have tipped the odds in your favor by knowing someone at the company you applied to. If you are turned down, be sure to ask for feedback on how you can improve. You may not get it every time, but you will definitely expedite your job search when you do and leave a good impression behind.

10. Listen to Yourself First

Through all of these steps, one of the most important things to remember is that people like to criticize until they see success. You will likely tell people around you that you are going to go be a software engineer, or get a pilot's license, or become a realtor or graphic designer, only to be met with skepticism.

The reason is that they have not done what you are setting out to do, and they will have plenty of reasons why.

• Pursuing that path is expensive!

• You have to be really smart to do that!

• The work hours will be long!

• It is a huge commitment!

Don’t listen to them.

They have not seen you in action yet.

They do not know what you are capable of.

And don't worry; once they see your success, they will say they supported you all along.

Your voice comes first. Listen to how you feel about your choice, even if those feelings contradict your friends’ and family's input, or even the input from this post.

Do what's right for you.

Post number 68.

Treehouse: Learn programming, design, and more—all on your own time

Thank you to Treehouse for sponsoring us this month!

We talk a lot about launching a new career and improving your financial future here at Novum Opus. One of the best ways to do this in the modern job market, as I can personally attest, is to acquire the skills you need to become a software developer. There are several reasons for this:

1. Software developers are paid exceedingly well.

2. There are a ton of software jobs on the market right now, more than there are developers. With the right skills and enough commitment, you can likely get a job in the field.

3. Software jobs typically offer significant perks due to the nature of the work, such as the option to work 100% remote.

4. Software jobs often require on-the-job training, and are therefore supportive of ongoing learning and career development. The three jobs I’ve held at software companies felt nothing like the dead-end jobs I had when I was younger.

The problem? You have to get the qualifications first and may not want to try and negotiate a refund if the coding bootcamp you choose is not the right fit.

Fortunately, there’s a solution: Treehouse. Treehouse is a software development learning platform that offers something unique: you can take introductory courses to see if software development is right for you, and they offer more intensive bootcamp programs that can qualify you for a career in the industry. Many platforms only offer one or the other.

And the best part? Right now, Treehouse is offering 4 months off of their basic program so you can try software development before you make a huge commitment with your time and money. Try it out at this link risk-free to see if a software development career is right for you!