S1 E5: Instead of Using Fire, I Use Ice (Michael / @mtliendo)

Eddie: 00:00:01

Previously on WebJoy.

Jason: 00:00:04

for me, it's fun.

Jason: 00:00:05

It turns it into a puzzle.

Jason: 00:00:06

And so failure is just information.

Jason: 00:00:09

All failure is temporary.

Jason: 00:00:11

Now it's part of the learning loop.

Jason: 00:00:12

And so the goal is to try something and see whether it works so that you can then

Jason: 00:00:17

make a better informed decision next time.

Jason: 00:00:20

I think a trap that a lot of people fall into as well.

Jason: 00:00:23

I got to practice enough so that when I try, I don't fail.

Jason: 00:00:26

Like failure is not an option.

Jason: 00:00:28

So this is sort of one of the major things for me, I guess, is that

Jason: 00:00:30

now failure is like part of it.

Jason: 00:00:32

You just, you go yeah, let's go fail fast so that we can learn what to do

Jason: 00:00:36

differently so that we can get to the win.

Eddie: 00:00:38

Embrace failure as a catalyst for learning.

Eddie: 00:00:41

I love that.

Eddie: 00:00:43

Welcome to Episode 5 of the WebJoy podcast.

Michael: 00:00:47

I almost treat it like, like an RPG for the gamers out there.

Michael: 00:00:50

like, you start off with level zero.

Michael: 00:00:52

And then at the end of the game, you're like level 99,

Michael: 00:00:55

fighting dragons all this stuff.

Michael: 00:00:57

Like that's how I see myself.

Michael: 00:00:59

but at each failure of learning how to do a for loop learning,

Michael: 00:01:03

how to do an if statement.

Michael: 00:01:04

When I gave up, I didn't start at zero.

Michael: 00:01:06

Like you said, I had my save point.

Michael: 00:01:08

I'd accrued some knowledge of programming and it led me to be able to transition

Michael: 00:01:12

that and going with the metaphor here, instead of using fire, I use ice

Eddie: 00:01:17

I'm your host Eddie.

Eddie: 00:01:18

In this podcast, we interview guests about their origin story and what

Eddie: 00:01:23

makes them excited and joyful to be part of the tech community.

Eddie: 00:01:26

I hope you enjoy today's episode.

Eddie: 00:01:29

"Instead of Using Fire, I Use Ice" with Michael Liendo.

Eddie: 00:01:35

Welcome back to another episode of WebJoy!

Eddie: 00:01:38

I'm excited to have Michael joining us today.

Eddie: 00:01:42

How about you tell everyone who you are, what you do, where you work, you

Eddie: 00:01:46

know, a brief introduction, if you will.

Michael: 00:01:49

Yeah, they thanks for having me.

Michael: 00:01:51

It's great to be here.

Michael: 00:01:52

My name is Michael Liendo.

Michael: 00:01:53

I am a Senior Developer Advocate over at AWS, which I currently

Michael: 00:01:57

work on the Amplify team.

Michael: 00:01:59

We do a whole bunch of AWS for front-end development.

Michael: 00:02:03

We have a suite of tools that really help folks.

Michael: 00:02:05

And then , outside of work, I have my own brand, Focus Otter which case my

Michael: 00:02:10

YouTube channel and my blog, where I typically post about AWS solutions,

Michael: 00:02:14

startup solutions and just ways to engage small businesses in the community.

Eddie: 00:02:18

Nice.

Eddie: 00:02:19

That's awesome.

Eddie: 00:02:19

Well, that probably keeps you pretty busy.

Michael: 00:02:24

Yeah, for sure.

Michael: 00:02:25

for sure.

Michael: 00:02:25

Juggling all of that is always fun, but it's a passion.

Michael: 00:02:28

So sometimes, most days it doesn't even feel like work.

Eddie: 00:02:32

I think it's a common thing in tech, right.

Eddie: 00:02:34

For us to look back and be like, eh, this doesn't really feel like working.

Eddie: 00:02:37

But it's also a great place to be in, so that's excellent.

Eddie: 00:02:41

How did you get involved in tech?

Eddie: 00:02:43

Did you start as a developer advocate?

Eddie: 00:02:45

Did you start somewhere else and then kind of work your way over there?

Eddie: 00:02:47

What does that journey look like for you.

Michael: 00:02:50

Oh, geez.

Michael: 00:02:51

My origin story is kind of crazy because prior to advocating for developer tools,

Michael: 00:02:56

I was advocating for clothing products.

Michael: 00:02:58

I was a male model and doing that professionally for five to six years

Eddie: 00:03:03

wow

Michael: 00:03:03

Yeah.

Michael: 00:03:04

Yes.

Michael: 00:03:04

It's a really crazy story that my agent at time, Marie ping, she's amazing.

Michael: 00:03:09

She was saying what happens if something happens to the money maker?

Michael: 00:03:12

You know, what's your plan B and I, at the time was like, I don't know, there's this

Michael: 00:03:17

cool new product it's called an iPhone.

Michael: 00:03:19

And there's this really cool app called Flappy Birds, there's

Michael: 00:03:23

another one called Angry Birds.

Michael: 00:03:25

And I was like I'm pretty sure I could make something like that.

Michael: 00:03:27

So I took that as a challenge, taught myself how to code

Michael: 00:03:31

through a whole bunch of failing.

Michael: 00:03:33

Turns out I never did make an iPhone game but that led me down a path of

Michael: 00:03:38

web development, CSS, making things interactive and just sort of book after

Michael: 00:03:43

book, Udemy course after unfinished Udemy course, (laughing) Here I am.

Michael: 00:03:49

After a couple of foot in the door opportunities I ended up working

Michael: 00:03:52

at an enterprise and then long story short, I made my way here.

Michael: 00:03:56

And I think a big part of that is just learning how to be an advocate

Michael: 00:04:00

of sorts and also not being afraid to put myself out there in the community.

Eddie: 00:04:04

You were doing modeling before you shifted into tech

Eddie: 00:04:10

and went into programming.

Eddie: 00:04:11

Now advocating for good technology and helping people understand

Eddie: 00:04:15

how to use that technology.

Eddie: 00:04:17

What keeps you interested in what you're doing now and kind of you locked in there.

Michael: 00:04:23

I understood early on as I was transitioning from modeling to

Michael: 00:04:27

development that I don't like the be in the cubicle person, you know,

Michael: 00:04:33

I to be out there in the community.

Michael: 00:04:34

I have to be engaging with folks.

Michael: 00:04:36

And that's what does it for me, if anything, it's a little bit at odds

Michael: 00:04:40

because I'm naturally introverted and being able to get paid to be an extrovert

Michael: 00:04:46

is very much so within my wheelhouse, like, I'm that person where I love being

Michael: 00:04:51

out in the community, but I also like being a recluse and being in my own shell.

Michael: 00:04:56

So having the financial incentive to be like, "Hey could you grab

Michael: 00:05:00

and speak with these folks?"

Michael: 00:05:01

I love it.

Eddie: 00:05:03

I can understand that.

Eddie: 00:05:04

Definitely.

Eddie: 00:05:04

A lot of programmers are introverted.

Eddie: 00:05:06

I'm introverted.

Eddie: 00:05:07

myself.

Eddie: 00:05:07

So yeah, definitely.

Eddie: 00:05:09

If someone's like "All right, go out and socialize in order to get paid," like that

Eddie: 00:05:13

definitely would get me out of my bubble more and get me out in the community.

Eddie: 00:05:16

So that's cool.

Eddie: 00:05:17

One of the things that we like to talk about in this podcast is

Eddie: 00:05:22

something that brings you joy.

Eddie: 00:05:24

And it's funny, I heard a little tease to it in hearing about your story

Eddie: 00:05:29

and your iPhone learning journey.

Eddie: 00:05:31

So, talk us through what is the topic that brings you joy

Eddie: 00:05:35

and something that you'd like to talk a little bit more about.

Michael: 00:05:38

For sure.

Michael: 00:05:38

I always have a couple ideas top of mind, but I think the big

Michael: 00:05:41

one is just learning in general.

Michael: 00:05:44

Whenever you come across a brand new topic, there's this dichotomy of

Michael: 00:05:49

sorts where it's like, going to Excel.

Michael: 00:05:51

I'm gonna do great at this, but before I can get there, I'm gonna

Michael: 00:05:55

fail a whole lot and you have to learn to be okay with that.

Michael: 00:05:58

And once you learn that skill of being okay with uncomfortable and not knowing

Michael: 00:06:04

it really does feel like a superpower.

Michael: 00:06:06

And now that I've been doing this for almost a decade now, it's very clear that

Michael: 00:06:11

anytime I come to learn a new topic or I start that journey, I get excited because

Michael: 00:06:16

of all the failures that I know I'm going to have all the frustrations that I know

Michael: 00:06:20

I'm gonna have to endure, being able to push past that and understand that there

Michael: 00:06:24

is a light where you come out victorious

Michael: 00:06:27

uh, I almost treat it like, like an RPG for the gamers out there.

Michael: 00:06:30

like, you start off with level zero.

Michael: 00:06:33

And then at the end of the game, you're like level 99,

Michael: 00:06:36

fighting dragons all this stuff.

Michael: 00:06:37

Like that's how I see myself.

Michael: 00:06:40

Every time it comes to learning something new and I wish more

Michael: 00:06:43

folks could take it on as that way.

Michael: 00:06:45

Instead of oftentimes we find ourselves focusing on the short term result,

Michael: 00:06:49

which is typically not very good.

Eddie: 00:06:52

That makes sense for sure.

Eddie: 00:06:54

Well, and it's funny, right?

Eddie: 00:06:55

So many times like RPGs, have these save points and we save, and then

Eddie: 00:06:59

we go out and grind and you grind and you fight the enemies and then

Eddie: 00:07:02

you run into an enemy who kills you.

Eddie: 00:07:04

And you're back to the save point.

Eddie: 00:07:06

And think in RPGs, we have actually accepted this fact that we fail

Eddie: 00:07:12

on the journey and that's okay.

Eddie: 00:07:13

Right.

Eddie: 00:07:14

Like we realized that that tactic didn't work against that enemy, that boss And

Eddie: 00:07:19

it's okay, because we've got our save point and we're gonna figure out what

Eddie: 00:07:22

other tactic maybe we need to use fire instead of ice against this monster and

Eddie: 00:07:27

in RPGs we often embrace that, but I think in the real world, learning for

Eddie: 00:07:34

our jobs and things like that, we can get overwhelmed, Do you know what I mean?

Eddie: 00:07:38

And we don't think of that as an okay.

Eddie: 00:07:41

Option.

Eddie: 00:07:41

Like we get, I guess, embarrassed, if we fail in some way or something,

Michael: 00:07:46

Yeah.

Michael: 00:07:46

Starting off, as I mentioned, I went the iOS route.

Michael: 00:07:49

I wanted to be an iPhone developer.

Michael: 00:07:51

And when it came to learning structs and fetching data and all that

Michael: 00:07:55

stuff, it was brand new to me.

Michael: 00:07:56

It was a brand new language.

Michael: 00:07:57

I'm still Google searching, what is the best programming language?

Michael: 00:08:01

It was just something I'm sure we've all done, but at each failure

Michael: 00:08:05

of learning how to do a for loop learning, how to do an if statement.

Michael: 00:08:08

When I gave up, I didn't start at zero.

Michael: 00:08:10

Like you said, I had my save point.

Michael: 00:08:12

I'd accrued some knowledge of programming and it led me to be able to transition

Michael: 00:08:16

that and going with the metaphor here, instead of using fire, I use

Michael: 00:08:20

ice and that ice tactic was to take that same approach for an if statement

Michael: 00:08:25

and apply it to web development and that allowed me to progress to the

Michael: 00:08:28

next stage yeah, it is very much so in that role, playing game genre.

Eddie: 00:08:34

I think that's really encouraging to hear.

Eddie: 00:08:35

because a lot of people when they're learning and they encounter

Eddie: 00:08:38

failure, really isolating.

Eddie: 00:08:40

You don't want to tell anyone about it.

Eddie: 00:08:41

And since people don't often talk about it, I think, it's

Eddie: 00:08:44

kind of like a dirty secret.

Eddie: 00:08:46

I don't want anyone to know that I failed when I try to do this.

Eddie: 00:08:48

And so they'll announce when they get a success, but they won't

Eddie: 00:08:51

announce when they have a failure.

Eddie: 00:08:53

And so love how you talk about this and how that allows other

Eddie: 00:08:58

people to know it's okay.

Eddie: 00:08:59

For them to encounter this failures and that they can do similar things

Eddie: 00:09:04

to how you have and say, what have I learned and how can I take that save

Eddie: 00:09:08

point to launch a different strategy.

Eddie: 00:09:10

I think that's cool.

Eddie: 00:09:11

Right?

Eddie: 00:09:11

Cause you were thinking, oh, I'll build iPhone apps and now you do development,

Eddie: 00:09:15

but as a Developer Advocate, like you're showing other people how to

Eddie: 00:09:19

deal with programming, which is its own whole different skill set as well.

Eddie: 00:09:24

So you really did end up taking a different strategy in the long

Eddie: 00:09:28

run, which is really interesting.

Michael: 00:09:31

Yeah, and to bring it full circle I've built several iPhone

Michael: 00:09:33

apps, I just went React Native instead, So was never native iOS.

Eddie: 00:09:39

Well, that's brilliant.

Eddie: 00:09:40

Right?

Eddie: 00:09:40

Because didn't even have to give up on your initial, thought and dream.

Eddie: 00:09:45

You could still do what you initially wanted to do, but a different way.

Eddie: 00:09:51

I think that's awesome.

Eddie: 00:09:52

One of those things, you also mentioned giving the introduction about yourself,

Eddie: 00:09:55

that you work on this Focus Otter.

Eddie: 00:09:58

I think oftentimes when we're learning there can be a lot to learn.

Eddie: 00:10:03

Right.

Eddie: 00:10:03

Especially if you're trying to do a new thing, if you're trying to do a new

Eddie: 00:10:06

business or different stuff like that.

Eddie: 00:10:08

So, do you want to share what you do with Focus Otter and how you help

Eddie: 00:10:12

people manage like how much they have to learn and different things like that.

Michael: 00:10:17

Yeah, absolutely.

Michael: 00:10:18

It definitely ties in with my role at AWS as well.

Michael: 00:10:21

We're allowed to pick different niches of how we would like

Michael: 00:10:24

to advocate in the community.

Michael: 00:10:25

And one of mine is specializing in building production applications on top of

Michael: 00:10:30

Amplify and I really use that and leverage that advantage with my own business Focus

Michael: 00:10:35

Otter in the sense that I don't want to teach folks how to make a to-do list.

Michael: 00:10:40

And I don't wanna show them how to make hello world.

Michael: 00:10:43

I wanna give you the secret sauce.

Michael: 00:10:44

I'm gonna show you what a real world solution looks like.

Michael: 00:10:48

And that goes from how do I accept payments on my application?

Michael: 00:10:53

Developers, Don't like to hear this, but sometimes it's not, well, you need to

Michael: 00:10:56

install Stripe and you need to, learn, react and HTML it's like, no, no, no.

Michael: 00:11:00

like sometimes you just need to pay the 15 bucks and let

Michael: 00:11:02

somebody else handle that for you.

Michael: 00:11:04

Like, get your Shopify account set up.

Michael: 00:11:06

And those are the things that save time.

Michael: 00:11:08

They save frustration, because when you're in a small business and I'm talking about

Michael: 00:11:12

the solo-preneurs and the individuals out there who are just trying something.

Michael: 00:11:17

Really you just wanna make sure you have a small ball of success that

Michael: 00:11:22

you can really get that ball going.

Michael: 00:11:24

So that your, business seems sustainable and as long as you have that impression

Michael: 00:11:28

that it seems like this is going to work $15 a month to get an account set up

Michael: 00:11:33

or a blog post that lets you understand what is Stripe and what is this service

Michael: 00:11:38

where I have to enter my baking details.

Michael: 00:11:40

stuff is scary for people outside of tech having information that

Michael: 00:11:44

us as tech individuals can create for the non-tech folk is great.

Michael: 00:11:49

And that's what I'm all about.

Eddie: 00:11:51

I love that.

Eddie: 00:11:51

I've done some different podcasts in the past and it's funny, because in

Eddie: 00:11:56

previous podcasts I've built my own website and I've built the backend where

Eddie: 00:12:00

I need to upload the files and suddenly I'm not just producing a podcast.

Eddie: 00:12:04

I'm also developing software that has been a really challenge to keep it

Eddie: 00:12:09

going and keep it working correctly.

Eddie: 00:12:11

So this time, even though I can build something like that, I went with that

Eddie: 00:12:16

guidance and I was like, you know what, I'm just gonna grab a company

Eddie: 00:12:19

that hosts podcasts and they do it well, and I'm going to give it my

Eddie: 00:12:22

URL and they're going to handle it.

Eddie: 00:12:25

And I can just do the podcast and I don't need to do everything,

Eddie: 00:12:28

even though the developer heart in me wants to do everything.

Michael: 00:12:34

You know what, I take that and I guess for the developers out there,

Michael: 00:12:36

I'm not saying don't for some of the low hanging fruit where you can help out

Michael: 00:12:40

these individuals and make a small profit.

Michael: 00:12:43

the way that I approach it is I get asked by many folks how do I get

Michael: 00:12:48

my email, so that it's my company or admin or support @mycompany.com.

Michael: 00:12:55

And after a while I was just doing it for free.

Michael: 00:12:57

Like, you know, here it is.

Michael: 00:12:58

And then you transition just like with anything else you say, well I'll

Michael: 00:13:01

record myself making a video of it.

Michael: 00:13:03

And then I'll give that to folks.

Michael: 00:13:05

And if for whatever reason, they still don't feel comfortable.

Michael: 00:13:08

Well, okay.

Michael: 00:13:08

So now, you know, I have a product there that's free.

Michael: 00:13:12

You can check it.

Michael: 00:13:13

If you still want me, well, then that's where the money comes into play.

Michael: 00:13:16

And I think that's a fair way to do things.

Eddie: 00:13:19

I love that.

Eddie: 00:13:20

Like you said you put some information out there, right?

Eddie: 00:13:22

You give good free information, but then some people need a little

Eddie: 00:13:27

bit more guidance or they have very specific things or situations.

Eddie: 00:13:30

And so they want be able to pay some money to actually dive into

Eddie: 00:13:35

that a little bit more precisely.

Eddie: 00:13:36

I think that's awesome.

Eddie: 00:13:37

You know, As we wrap up the episode today, we always like to see if

Eddie: 00:13:42

there's anything they'd like to share with the community, so do you

Eddie: 00:13:44

have anything you'd like to share?

Michael: 00:13:46

Yeah, I have my own channels.

Michael: 00:13:48

I have my own blogs in, in YouTube.

Michael: 00:13:50

you could find me at Focus Otter, however instead of plugging those directly, I

Michael: 00:13:55

would actually want to shout-out one of our former AWS community builders.

Michael: 00:14:00

I have to say former because she just actually got an offer and started last

Michael: 00:14:04

week at the time of this recording at AWS as a Developer Advocate.

Michael: 00:14:08

So this is gonna be, Linda Viva, and she has this amazing

Michael: 00:14:13

product line, Coding Crystals.

Michael: 00:14:14

You can check it out over at CodingCrystals.com.

Michael: 00:14:18

the cool thing about that is she creates by herself, apparel

Michael: 00:14:23

for Developer Advocates.

Michael: 00:14:24

So this is in sense of hair clips, hair ties, I'm sure you can get t-shirts.

Michael: 00:14:30

But it's amazing.

Michael: 00:14:31

And the fact that there's this whole section of broadening out, tech for

Michael: 00:14:35

underrepresented individuals, I love it.

Michael: 00:14:37

So that's what I'm going to plug today.

Eddie: 00:14:40

Awesome.

Eddie: 00:14:40

That's great.

Eddie: 00:14:41

Michael, thank you for joining us today.

Eddie: 00:14:43

It's been a pleasure to chat.

Michael: 00:14:46

Always great.

Michael: 00:14:46

Always great.

Michael: 00:14:47

Thanks for having me.

Michael: 00:14:48

This has been amazing and until next time.

Eddie: 00:14:51

Thanks for joining us for Episode 5.

Eddie: 00:14:54

"Instead of Using Fire, I Use Ice" with Michael Liendo.

Eddie: 00:14:58

You can find out more about Michael on his Twitter @mtliendo.

Eddie: 00:15:03

You can find links to everything we talked about in this episode, as

Eddie: 00:15:07

well as a link to Michael's website and Twitter in the show notes.

Eddie: 00:15:11

If you enjoyed this episode, please consider rating and reviewing

Eddie: 00:15:14

it in your favorite podcast directory: iTunes, Spotify.

Eddie: 00:15:19

etc.

Eddie: 00:15:20

and follow us on Twitter @WebJoyFM.

Eddie: 00:15:24

Thank you for listening and have a great day!

Eddie: 00:15:36

Next episode on WebJoy.

Kelly: 00:15:39

Ultimately I really loved UI I loved just everything about the

Kelly: 00:15:44

corner radius of a button really fascinated me I don't know if that's,

Kelly: 00:15:50

um, normal or what, but I was obsessed.

Kelly: 00:15:55

With other games there is a set number of animations, everything

Kelly: 00:16:01

feels very AI and very obvious.

Kelly: 00:16:04

So if you dodge two times roll it's like oh this feels like a very scripted event

Kelly: 00:16:09

And I feel what Elden Ring gets right is that It's just kind of unpredictable.

Kelly: 00:16:14

There's so many different animation sets from someone who's made video games,

Kelly: 00:16:17

just the amount of diversity in terms of the movement sets and how they move.

Kelly: 00:16:22

You remember the fights, you remember the encounters they're so challenging