S1 E5: Instead of Using Fire, I Use Ice (Michael / @mtliendo)
Michael Liendo joins the show to talk about his origin story, starting as a clothing model to attempting to learn iOS development, and shifting to web development before becoming a Developer Advocate.
We discuss how we experience failure as a part of learning and how viewing life like a video game can help provide a bit of perspective for persevering through challenges when learning something new.
Discussed Links
Previously on WebJoy
Transcript
Previously on WebJoy.
Jason:for me, it's fun.
Jason:It turns it into a puzzle.
Jason:And so failure is just information.
Jason:All failure is temporary.
Jason:Now it's part of the learning loop.
Jason:And so the goal is to try something and see whether it works so that you can then
Jason:make a better informed decision next time.
Jason:I think a trap that a lot of people fall into as well.
Jason:I got to practice enough so that when I try, I don't fail.
Jason:Like failure is not an option.
Jason:So this is sort of one of the major things for me, I guess, is that
Jason:now failure is like part of it.
Jason:You just, you go yeah, let's go fail fast so that we can learn what to do
Jason:differently so that we can get to the win.
Eddie:Embrace failure as a catalyst for learning.
Eddie:I love that.
Eddie:Welcome to Episode 5 of the WebJoy podcast.
Michael:I almost treat it like, like an RPG for the gamers out there.
Michael:like, you start off with level zero.
Michael:And then at the end of the game, you're like level 99,
Michael:fighting dragons all this stuff.
Michael:Like that's how I see myself.
Michael:but at each failure of learning how to do a for loop learning,
Michael:how to do an if statement.
Michael:When I gave up, I didn't start at zero.
Michael:Like you said, I had my save point.
Michael:I'd accrued some knowledge of programming and it led me to be able to transition
Michael:that and going with the metaphor here, instead of using fire, I use ice
Eddie:I'm your host Eddie.
Eddie:In this podcast, we interview guests about their origin story and what
Eddie:makes them excited and joyful to be part of the tech community.
Eddie:I hope you enjoy today's episode.
Eddie:"Instead of Using Fire, I Use Ice" with Michael Liendo.
Eddie:Welcome back to another episode of WebJoy!
Eddie:I'm excited to have Michael joining us today.
Eddie:How about you tell everyone who you are, what you do, where you work, you
Eddie:know, a brief introduction, if you will.
Michael:Yeah, they thanks for having me.
Michael:It's great to be here.
Michael:My name is Michael Liendo.
Michael:I am a Senior Developer Advocate over at AWS, which I currently
Michael:work on the Amplify team.
Michael:We do a whole bunch of AWS for front-end development.
Michael:We have a suite of tools that really help folks.
Michael:And then , outside of work, I have my own brand, Focus Otter which case my
Michael:YouTube channel and my blog, where I typically post about AWS solutions,
Michael:startup solutions and just ways to engage small businesses in the community.
Eddie:Nice.
Eddie:That's awesome.
Eddie:Well, that probably keeps you pretty busy.
Michael:Yeah, for sure.
Michael:for sure.
Michael:Juggling all of that is always fun, but it's a passion.
Michael:So sometimes, most days it doesn't even feel like work.
Eddie:I think it's a common thing in tech, right.
Eddie:For us to look back and be like, eh, this doesn't really feel like working.
Eddie:But it's also a great place to be in, so that's excellent.
Eddie:How did you get involved in tech?
Eddie:Did you start as a developer advocate?
Eddie:Did you start somewhere else and then kind of work your way over there?
Eddie:What does that journey look like for you.
Michael:Oh, geez.
Michael:My origin story is kind of crazy because prior to advocating for developer tools,
Michael:I was advocating for clothing products.
Michael:I was a male model and doing that professionally for five to six years
Eddie:wow
Michael:Yeah.
Michael:Yes.
Michael:It's a really crazy story that my agent at time, Marie ping, she's amazing.
Michael:She was saying what happens if something happens to the money maker?
Michael:You know, what's your plan B and I, at the time was like, I don't know, there's this
Michael:cool new product it's called an iPhone.
Michael:And there's this really cool app called Flappy Birds, there's
Michael:another one called Angry Birds.
Michael:And I was like I'm pretty sure I could make something like that.
Michael:So I took that as a challenge, taught myself how to code
Michael:through a whole bunch of failing.
Michael:Turns out I never did make an iPhone game but that led me down a path of
Michael:web development, CSS, making things interactive and just sort of book after
Michael:book, Udemy course after unfinished Udemy course, (laughing) Here I am.
Michael:After a couple of foot in the door opportunities I ended up working
Michael:at an enterprise and then long story short, I made my way here.
Michael:And I think a big part of that is just learning how to be an advocate
Michael:of sorts and also not being afraid to put myself out there in the community.
Eddie:You were doing modeling before you shifted into tech
Eddie:and went into programming.
Eddie:Now advocating for good technology and helping people understand
Eddie:how to use that technology.
Eddie:What keeps you interested in what you're doing now and kind of you locked in there.
Michael:I understood early on as I was transitioning from modeling to
Michael:development that I don't like the be in the cubicle person, you know,
Michael:I to be out there in the community.
Michael:I have to be engaging with folks.
Michael:And that's what does it for me, if anything, it's a little bit at odds
Michael:because I'm naturally introverted and being able to get paid to be an extrovert
Michael:is very much so within my wheelhouse, like, I'm that person where I love being
Michael:out in the community, but I also like being a recluse and being in my own shell.
Michael:So having the financial incentive to be like, "Hey could you grab
Michael:and speak with these folks?"
Michael:I love it.
Eddie:I can understand that.
Eddie:Definitely.
Eddie:A lot of programmers are introverted.
Eddie:I'm introverted.
Eddie:myself.
Eddie:So yeah, definitely.
Eddie:If someone's like "All right, go out and socialize in order to get paid," like that
Eddie:definitely would get me out of my bubble more and get me out in the community.
Eddie:So that's cool.
Eddie:One of the things that we like to talk about in this podcast is
Eddie:something that brings you joy.
Eddie:And it's funny, I heard a little tease to it in hearing about your story
Eddie:and your iPhone learning journey.
Eddie:So, talk us through what is the topic that brings you joy
Eddie:and something that you'd like to talk a little bit more about.
Michael:For sure.
Michael:I always have a couple ideas top of mind, but I think the big
Michael:one is just learning in general.
Michael:Whenever you come across a brand new topic, there's this dichotomy of
Michael:sorts where it's like, going to Excel.
Michael:I'm gonna do great at this, but before I can get there, I'm gonna
Michael:fail a whole lot and you have to learn to be okay with that.
Michael:And once you learn that skill of being okay with uncomfortable and not knowing
Michael:it really does feel like a superpower.
Michael:And now that I've been doing this for almost a decade now, it's very clear that
Michael:anytime I come to learn a new topic or I start that journey, I get excited because
Michael:of all the failures that I know I'm going to have all the frustrations that I know
Michael:I'm gonna have to endure, being able to push past that and understand that there
Michael:is a light where you come out victorious
Michael:uh, I almost treat it like, like an RPG for the gamers out there.
Michael:like, you start off with level zero.
Michael:And then at the end of the game, you're like level 99,
Michael:fighting dragons all this stuff.
Michael:Like that's how I see myself.
Michael:Every time it comes to learning something new and I wish more
Michael:folks could take it on as that way.
Michael:Instead of oftentimes we find ourselves focusing on the short term result,
Michael:which is typically not very good.
Eddie:That makes sense for sure.
Eddie:Well, and it's funny, right?
Eddie:So many times like RPGs, have these save points and we save, and then
Eddie:we go out and grind and you grind and you fight the enemies and then
Eddie:you run into an enemy who kills you.
Eddie:And you're back to the save point.
Eddie:And think in RPGs, we have actually accepted this fact that we fail
Eddie:on the journey and that's okay.
Eddie:Right.
Eddie:Like we realized that that tactic didn't work against that enemy, that boss And
Eddie:it's okay, because we've got our save point and we're gonna figure out what
Eddie:other tactic maybe we need to use fire instead of ice against this monster and
Eddie:in RPGs we often embrace that, but I think in the real world, learning for
Eddie:our jobs and things like that, we can get overwhelmed, Do you know what I mean?
Eddie:And we don't think of that as an okay.
Eddie:Option.
Eddie:Like we get, I guess, embarrassed, if we fail in some way or something,
Michael:Yeah.
Michael:Starting off, as I mentioned, I went the iOS route.
Michael:I wanted to be an iPhone developer.
Michael:And when it came to learning structs and fetching data and all that
Michael:stuff, it was brand new to me.
Michael:It was a brand new language.
Michael:I'm still Google searching, what is the best programming language?
Michael:It was just something I'm sure we've all done, but at each failure
Michael:of learning how to do a for loop learning, how to do an if statement.
Michael:When I gave up, I didn't start at zero.
Michael:Like you said, I had my save point.
Michael:I'd accrued some knowledge of programming and it led me to be able to transition
Michael:that and going with the metaphor here, instead of using fire, I use
Michael:ice and that ice tactic was to take that same approach for an if statement
Michael:and apply it to web development and that allowed me to progress to the
Michael:next stage yeah, it is very much so in that role, playing game genre.
Eddie:I think that's really encouraging to hear.
Eddie:because a lot of people when they're learning and they encounter
Eddie:failure, really isolating.
Eddie:You don't want to tell anyone about it.
Eddie:And since people don't often talk about it, I think, it's
Eddie:kind of like a dirty secret.
Eddie:I don't want anyone to know that I failed when I try to do this.
Eddie:And so they'll announce when they get a success, but they won't
Eddie:announce when they have a failure.
Eddie:And so love how you talk about this and how that allows other
Eddie:people to know it's okay.
Eddie:For them to encounter this failures and that they can do similar things
Eddie:to how you have and say, what have I learned and how can I take that save
Eddie:point to launch a different strategy.
Eddie:I think that's cool.
Eddie:Right?
Eddie:Cause you were thinking, oh, I'll build iPhone apps and now you do development,
Eddie:but as a Developer Advocate, like you're showing other people how to
Eddie:deal with programming, which is its own whole different skill set as well.
Eddie:So you really did end up taking a different strategy in the long
Eddie:run, which is really interesting.
Michael:Yeah, and to bring it full circle I've built several iPhone
Michael:apps, I just went React Native instead, So was never native iOS.
Eddie:Well, that's brilliant.
Eddie:Right?
Eddie:Because didn't even have to give up on your initial, thought and dream.
Eddie:You could still do what you initially wanted to do, but a different way.
Eddie:I think that's awesome.
Eddie:One of those things, you also mentioned giving the introduction about yourself,
Eddie:that you work on this Focus Otter.
Eddie:I think oftentimes when we're learning there can be a lot to learn.
Eddie:Right.
Eddie:Especially if you're trying to do a new thing, if you're trying to do a new
Eddie:business or different stuff like that.
Eddie:So, do you want to share what you do with Focus Otter and how you help
Eddie:people manage like how much they have to learn and different things like that.
Michael:Yeah, absolutely.
Michael:It definitely ties in with my role at AWS as well.
Michael:We're allowed to pick different niches of how we would like
Michael:to advocate in the community.
Michael:And one of mine is specializing in building production applications on top of
Michael:Amplify and I really use that and leverage that advantage with my own business Focus
Michael:Otter in the sense that I don't want to teach folks how to make a to-do list.
Michael:And I don't wanna show them how to make hello world.
Michael:I wanna give you the secret sauce.
Michael:I'm gonna show you what a real world solution looks like.
Michael:And that goes from how do I accept payments on my application?
Michael:Developers, Don't like to hear this, but sometimes it's not, well, you need to
Michael:install Stripe and you need to, learn, react and HTML it's like, no, no, no.
Michael:like sometimes you just need to pay the 15 bucks and let
Michael:somebody else handle that for you.
Michael:Like, get your Shopify account set up.
Michael:And those are the things that save time.
Michael:They save frustration, because when you're in a small business and I'm talking about
Michael:the solo-preneurs and the individuals out there who are just trying something.
Michael:Really you just wanna make sure you have a small ball of success that
Michael:you can really get that ball going.
Michael:So that your, business seems sustainable and as long as you have that impression
Michael:that it seems like this is going to work $15 a month to get an account set up
Michael:or a blog post that lets you understand what is Stripe and what is this service
Michael:where I have to enter my baking details.
Michael:stuff is scary for people outside of tech having information that
Michael:us as tech individuals can create for the non-tech folk is great.
Michael:And that's what I'm all about.
Eddie:I love that.
Eddie:I've done some different podcasts in the past and it's funny, because in
Eddie:previous podcasts I've built my own website and I've built the backend where
Eddie:I need to upload the files and suddenly I'm not just producing a podcast.
Eddie:I'm also developing software that has been a really challenge to keep it
Eddie:going and keep it working correctly.
Eddie:So this time, even though I can build something like that, I went with that
Eddie:guidance and I was like, you know what, I'm just gonna grab a company
Eddie:that hosts podcasts and they do it well, and I'm going to give it my
Eddie:URL and they're going to handle it.
Eddie:And I can just do the podcast and I don't need to do everything,
Eddie:even though the developer heart in me wants to do everything.
Michael:You know what, I take that and I guess for the developers out there,
Michael:I'm not saying don't for some of the low hanging fruit where you can help out
Michael:these individuals and make a small profit.
Michael:the way that I approach it is I get asked by many folks how do I get
Michael:my email, so that it's my company or admin or support @mycompany.com.
Michael:And after a while I was just doing it for free.
Michael:Like, you know, here it is.
Michael:And then you transition just like with anything else you say, well I'll
Michael:record myself making a video of it.
Michael:And then I'll give that to folks.
Michael:And if for whatever reason, they still don't feel comfortable.
Michael:Well, okay.
Michael:So now, you know, I have a product there that's free.
Michael:You can check it.
Michael:If you still want me, well, then that's where the money comes into play.
Michael:And I think that's a fair way to do things.
Eddie:I love that.
Eddie:Like you said you put some information out there, right?
Eddie:You give good free information, but then some people need a little
Eddie:bit more guidance or they have very specific things or situations.
Eddie:And so they want be able to pay some money to actually dive into
Eddie:that a little bit more precisely.
Eddie:I think that's awesome.
Eddie:You know, As we wrap up the episode today, we always like to see if
Eddie:there's anything they'd like to share with the community, so do you
Eddie:have anything you'd like to share?
Michael:Yeah, I have my own channels.
Michael:I have my own blogs in, in YouTube.
Michael:you could find me at Focus Otter, however instead of plugging those directly, I
Michael:would actually want to shout-out one of our former AWS community builders.
Michael:I have to say former because she just actually got an offer and started last
Michael:week at the time of this recording at AWS as a Developer Advocate.
Michael:So this is gonna be, Linda Viva, and she has this amazing
Michael:product line, Coding Crystals.
Michael:You can check it out over at CodingCrystals.com.
Michael:the cool thing about that is she creates by herself, apparel
Michael:for Developer Advocates.
Michael:So this is in sense of hair clips, hair ties, I'm sure you can get t-shirts.
Michael:But it's amazing.
Michael:And the fact that there's this whole section of broadening out, tech for
Michael:underrepresented individuals, I love it.
Michael:So that's what I'm going to plug today.
Eddie:Awesome.
Eddie:That's great.
Eddie:Michael, thank you for joining us today.
Eddie:It's been a pleasure to chat.
Michael:Always great.
Michael:Always great.
Michael:Thanks for having me.
Michael:This has been amazing and until next time.
Eddie:Thanks for joining us for Episode 5.
Eddie:"Instead of Using Fire, I Use Ice" with Michael Liendo.
Eddie:You can find out more about Michael on his Twitter @mtliendo.
Eddie:You can find links to everything we talked about in this episode, as
Eddie:well as a link to Michael's website and Twitter in the show notes.
Eddie:If you enjoyed this episode, please consider rating and reviewing
Eddie:it in your favorite podcast directory: iTunes, Spotify.
Eddie:etc.
Eddie:and follow us on Twitter @WebJoyFM.
Eddie:Thank you for listening and have a great day!
Eddie:Next episode on WebJoy.
Kelly:Ultimately I really loved UI I loved just everything about the
Kelly:corner radius of a button really fascinated me I don't know if that's,
Kelly:um, normal or what, but I was obsessed.
Kelly:With other games there is a set number of animations, everything
Kelly:feels very AI and very obvious.
Kelly:So if you dodge two times roll it's like oh this feels like a very scripted event
Kelly:And I feel what Elden Ring gets right is that It's just kind of unpredictable.
Kelly:There's so many different animation sets from someone who's made video games,
Kelly:just the amount of diversity in terms of the movement sets and how they move.
Kelly:You remember the fights, you remember the encounters they're so challenging