DONN FELKER

Lessons Learned From the Software Industry

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Achieving Your Goals Feels Good

February 19, 2019 by Donn Felker

Achieving Goals Feels Good

Do you know what feels good?

Achieving a goal.

When you work for yourself, all you do is set your own goals. If you don’t achieve your goals in business you’ll fail fast and hard. Getting things done in a self-directed manner is paramount to your success.

Self-discipline = Success.

Even something as simple as striking something off of a list feels good.

I’m not talking about some massive goals (though those are also great to complete) – here I’m talking about any goal.

Small goals. Big goals. Huge goals. Anything.

Getting things done just feels good.

Let me give you an example …

The other day I came back from a trip to Miami. When I got home I knew I needed to bring my bags in, unpack my bags, put things away and get ready for the next day. I also needed to spend some time with my children because I missed them and had been gone for nearly 6 days. I also needed to write 1000 words for a new book I’m working on (as well as reply to some of you who have replied to some of my emails – thank you all by the way).

I got home at 715pm and usually go to bed at 9:30pm-10pm. There’s not much time to do all fo that. So I got after it as soon as the car was parked in the garage …

My first goal was to get our car unpacked.

I parked and immediately brought everything in a couple trips. Goal achieved.

That felt good. 

Next goal: Get the bags upstairs and unpack.

I brought them up, and then immediately got interrupted by the kids’ bedtime routine. For the next hour or so I helped them get ready for bed, showers, talked to them about their week and spent quality time with them. It ended with some much-needed affection between us all.

Spend time with kids: Goal achieved

That felt good.

It was now 8:45 pm and  I’m already getting tired. I still had to unpack my bags.

Ugh. At this point I’m tired, I want to start winding down.

“I can do this tomorrow”.

NO.

I pushed through the desire to relax and unpacked my bags, put everything away and put my luggage away where it belongs. It doesn’t even look like I traveled anymore.

Unpack bags: Goal achieved

That felt pretty good.  So glad that is done. 

In fact, that gave me some energy and inspiration to keep going.

I like this.

I remembered that I needed to schedule some contractors to give us some quotes on having some hardwood floors installed in part of our house.

Since it was a small goal I figured “I’ll just do that tomorrow.”

Then I realized “NO, DUMMY, you can do that right now, online in a few minutes.”

I stopped what I was doing and scheduled a contractor online to come over next week.

Schedule contractor for a quote: Goal achieved

That felt good. Damn, another thing is done. Hell yeah. I’m getting some momentum.

I’m starting to feel REAL GOOD because I’m accomplishing a lot.

After that, I sit down, turn off notifications on my computer and crank out 1000 words for my upcoming book (more on that later) and by then it’s around 10:15 pm. Past my bedtime.

Write 1000 words: Goal achieved

Goddamn, that feels good. 

I went out and hung out with my wife for a few minutes and then went to bed.

What’s the point in telling you all of this?

Because setting goals, even if small, and getting them done feels good. 

Remember that time you created a todo list and you started to strike those items off of them throughout the day? How did you feel? I’d wager that you felt pretty damn good when you were done.

I feel this way about getting things done around the house, scheduling calls, writing code, writing words or copy, anything.

Big goals or small goals. Inconsequential goals. Any of them feel good to get done. Even changing the cat litter, I’m happy when it’s done.

When you set goals, even small, and continue to execute and get them done over and over, your confidence and discipline compounds. Your confidence and discipline get stronger, and well, you get better as a person. You become a better version of who you really are.

Whatever goals you have right now, be it big or small. Start on them.

Maybe you’re feeling unproductive. Take something small, and do it. Just start it. Do something.

Take out the trash. DONE. That felt good. 

Maybe you need to do a long intensive task on the computer and you really don’t want to do it. Do it for 5 minutes, that’s all. Most likely it will compound into 15-20mins (or more). This happens to me all the time.

The goal is to set goals and get them done. Pun intended.

Why?

Achieving goals feels good and builds tremendous momentum when done over and over again.

Ride the wave of confidence into the next set of goals you have and let it propel you. 

Now I’m off to finish my next goal – hitting publish on this post.

 

Photo: Glenn Carstens-Peters

Filed Under: Book, Business, Development, Health, Marketing

Being Absent While Being Present (don’t do this)

February 10, 2019 by Donn Felker

I have a confession to make.

I’ve been absent, and well, I haven’t written here, consistently, for a long time and that’s not what I intended.

I’ve been “here”, aka present … but … I’ve been absent while being present. Not good.

That’s about to change, but first, let me ask you a question …

Have you ever looked back on your life and wondered … man, what happened to the last few years? Where did they go?

Yeah, me too.

In fact, that just happened to me, and to be honest it was rather depressing. Super depressing.

You see, I just wrapped up a three-day conference in Miami (where I was when I wrote this this) and this conference helped me realize I was not hitting my full potential.

Not even close.

Like, I’m a total loser slacker right now. It’s like someone smacked me in the face with a hammer. That kind of wake up call.

It wasn’t always like that …

I remember years when I accomplished so much – writing a best selling book, kicking off my consulting career, having another child, moving, blogging multiple times a week and writing apps for multiple clients. I’ve done all of those within a year before. The past three years though … I haven’t even come close to that capacity. I’ve been slacking.

How do I know?

I’ve been wanting to write a couple of books for a few years now.

Guess what?

They’re not written.

But … how do I know I’m slacking? Books take a long time to write, right?

I know I’m slacking because I wrote my first book, which was a best seller according to Neilsen Bookscan, in under 3 weeks. That’s no joke. I worked 16-18 hours a day. 6-8 hours of sleep each day and did nothing but work at my client and write a book. I finished it in 3 weeks.

So yeah, I know I am capable of massive action.

This last few years though …. Not so much … I haven’t done shit in comparison to what I can do.

Ok, sure … some things have happened … I’ve helped our podcast (Fragmented Podcast – An Android Developer Podcast) grow to over 2.2 million listens, I’ve re-launched Caster.IO (an online platform for teaching mobile development to all walks of life) and I’ve expanded my knowledge of leadership, sales, marketing and more.

Some might think “work that’s a lot that you’ve got done”. You kicked ass man!

I don’t think so. Not at all.

I know I can do more.

A lot more.

You see, I could have done all of that in a matter of months, not over three years … but I didn’t push myself.

How is that possible? Why didn’t bigger things happen, Donn?

It’s because I was absent while being present.

Yes, I was in the chair.
Yes, I was doing the work.
Yes, I was showing up.

But …

No … I was not giving it 150%. I was there, but I was mentally absent.

I was giving it 25% while my mind was aimlessly wandering around. Social media, books, distractions, shiny objects. Drinking a few beers “to relax”, watching Game of Thrones. You name it.

The only thing I was crushing it at was my consulting career. I can do that with my hands behind my back and to be perfectly honest with myself, I could have done that 3x better. So… let’s scrub that too, I didn’t crush that at all. I should have though.

Frankly, I’m rather disgusted that I haven’t done more. I have much to offer everyone and I’ve kept it to my self, and well, … thats just plain selfish.

Why am I telling you all of this?

Because I’m changing things.

It’s a simple concept to grasp – If you want changes to occur the #1 thing you have to do is CHANGE.

Do you want to work for yourself?
Then CHANGE what you’re doing.

Do you want to get more speaking opportunities?
Then CHANGE what you’re doing.

Do you want to be a leader in your field?
Then CHANGE what you’re doing.

Do you want to have a bigger social following?
Then CHANGE what you’re doing.

You can’t get better doing the same thing you’re doing.

You need to CHANGE and then you need to be disciplined to perform the life-changing tactics over and over again over long periods of time.

Change + Discipline + Long Periods of Time = Life altering results

That’s why I’m writing today. I’m changing. I’m going to be much more active in your inbox.

What am I going to be sharing with you?

I’m going to start sharing more information about how you can start working for yourself.

That’s right.

Be your own boss.

No more full-time job for “the man”.
No more commute (or less of one).
No more saying “Yes” when you really mean “No”.
No more saying “I wish I took that one change”.

We’ll start off with consulting and work our way into some products that you can create over some time.

Stay tuned because some more stuff will be coming your way soon.

If you’ve read this far. Hit the comments section and let me know.

Thanks for reading.

I’ll be sending these articles to my email list a week or two in advance. If you’d like to jump on that list, you can do so here.

Photo by Fortyozsteak on Unsplash

Filed Under: Book, Business, Misc

My Book Hits #1 on Nielsen Bookscan

January 28, 2011 by Donn Felker 8 Comments

I’m totally floored right now. My book hit and stayed at #1 in sales in ALL OF PROGRAMMING BOOKS for last week on Nielsen BookScan. Maybe it will do it again! Hopefully it will! What does that mean? It means that my book was the best selling book in the Programming Books category, ranking higher sales above all .NET Dev books, iPhone Dev Books, Java Books, Ruby Books, Rails Books, etc, you name it. My book was #1 and is showing no signs of slowing down (in fact, exactly the opposite according to my publisher). Again, I’m totally floored and feel very honored that people like my book that much. If you bought my book – thank you very much. 🙂

As always, if you’re a reader and you have any questions or problems feel free to contact me. Just scan the QR Code to the right to get my contact info with a bar code scanner. I’d be glad to help you.

Filed Under: Book Tagged With: Android

Android App Dev For Dummies: USB Driver Installation

January 13, 2011 by Donn Felker 4 Comments

Recently Google Updated their SDK to Version 9 and along with it came some other changes.

One such change is the movement of the USB Driver installation location.

New USB Driver Install Location

On page 50, on Figure 2-25 of the Android Application Development For Dummies book I reference the USB driver to be inside of the Available Packages area of the Android SDK and AVD Manager. Unfortunately this has changed in the most recent version. The USB Driver is now located under Third Party Add-ons under Available Packages in the SDK and AVD Manager, as shown below. Select this item to install the USB Driver on Windows.

Filed Under: Book Tagged With: Android

Dummies Book: SDK Path

January 11, 2011 by Donn Felker 3 Comments

If you have a copy of my Android Application Development for Dummies book, then you might run into an issue with a recent update to the SDK. The recent SDK, moves the adb executable (Android Debug Bridge) and Eclipse will need to be updated in order to reflect the proper placement of the new ADT for Eclipse (which tells Eclipse where to find the adb executable).You might see this window (below) that says “Could not find /<path>/<to>/<android>/adb! Please check the Android Plugin’s preferences.”

To eliminate this problem, do the following. You will need to update the ADT Plugin in Eclipse. The process is very similar to the initial install of the plug in, but this time instead of installing it, you will update it through the menus built into Eclipse.

  • Update the SDK to the most recent version
  • Open Eclipse
  • Select  Help Check for Updates (as shown in the screen shot below)

You will see a dialog window with a bunch of random updates being checked. Once this completes you will see the following window.

Select Next, then Next again, then select the “I accept the terms of the license agreements” radio button and then select Finish.

During the process you will see a window that looks like this:

Select Ok to continue.

At the completion of the upgrade, you will see this window:

Select Yes to restart Eclipse.

Eclipse will restart and you should not receive the error above anymore. You can now build your Android projects.
Enjoy!

Filed Under: Book, Mobile Tagged With: Android

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