Shawn Rakowski talks with Dave Rael about finding inspiration, creating content, and being lit up for software and human interaction
Shawn Rakowski is a father, husband, software developer, wantrepreneur, and the host of the My Life For The Code podcast where he interviews passionate software developers with the hopes of inspiring others. Since graduating with degrees in Computer Science and Philosophy in 2009, Shawn has been employed as software engineer and recruiter for an electronic components distributor in rural Minnesota. In addition to his professional work, Shawn also enjoys coding for fun by participating in game jams and hacking away on side projects. He blogs occasionally at mylifeforthecode.com and aspires to one day start a business of his own.
Chapters:
- - Dave introduces the show and Shawn Rakowski
- - Philosophy and Computer Science
- - Shawn's definition of value
- - The things that "light Shawn up"
- - How Shawn got started writing software
- - Shawn's story of failure, comfort as the enemy of growth
- - Shawn's greatest success story, being inspired - producing content and self-care
- - How Shawn stays current with what he needs to know
- - Shawn's book recommendation
- - The things that have Shawn most excited about his present and future
- - The greatest sources of pain in Shawn's life and work, corporate politics and deciding on specialty
- - Shawn's prediction for the future of software
- - The things about which Shawn likes to geek out apart from software
- - Shawn's top 3 tips for delivering more value
- - Keeping up with Shawn
- - Farewell
Resources:
- My Life for the Code - Shawn's Blog and Podcast Site
- Subscribe to the My Life for the Code Podcast
- TI-83 Programmable Graphing Calculator
- John III Sobieski
- The Scarlet Letter - Nathaniel Hawthorne
- Hanselminutes Podcast
- Electron - Cross Platform Apps with Web Technologies - from GitHub
- Matt Johson on Hanselminutes about DateTime and NodaTime
- Dave on the My Life for the Code Podcast
- Dave's Blog Post on ToDo Lists and the Email Inbox
- Scott Adams on the Hanselminutes Podcast
- Shawn's Blog Post on Micro-Quotas
- Game Jams
- You Are Your Own Gym: The Bible of Bodyweight Exercises - Mark Lauren
- Side Hustle Nation
- Ray Cronise
- The 4-Hour Body - Tim Ferriss - Features a chapter by Ray Cronise on Cold Thermogenesis
Shawn's book recommendations:
- Code Complete: A Practical Handbook of Software Construction - Steve McConnell
- How to Fail at Almost Everything and Still Win Big: Kind of the Story of My Life - Scott Adams
Shawn's Top 3 Tips for Delivering More Value:
- Focus on the people to whom you are providing value
- Exercise
- Take cold showers