blog – Gameplay Coder

How to Create a Blog That Boosts Your Software Development Career

Hey guys.

No updates for Thunderjack! in this post, but they’ll be back soon.

This post, I wanted to take some time to reiterate why I created this website.

I previously mentioned in my article, The “Taking Control Of Your Life” Contract, that I’ve been following John Sonmez for a while now. He is the founder of Simple Programmer, a company that helps software developers improve themselves, both professionally, and personally.

In efforts to improve my career as a freelance gameplay programmer, I found John Sonmez, SP, and his free course on creating a blog. This inspired me to go, “You know what? Fuck it. I’m gonna take the plunge, start start this blog, and see what happens”. 😠

It’s a five-part course that goes over several topics, such as getting set up with web hosting, choosing a theme, coming up with post ideas, and a very important aspect, remaining consistent. The course is split up into sections, and each section contains actionable to-do items that break down the process of getting started.

Staying consistent in keeping your blog updated at some regular interval is so important and is . I’ve made a commitment to one post per week. Occasionally, I can squeeze two in there, but as long as I can post at least once, I’m fine.

At the end of the course, John would like you to share his free course, and talk about it on your blog. Hence this article ✔

If you’re a software developer of any kind, and you do not have a blog, I invite you to consider starting one. A blog can help with improving your job opportunities, get your name out there, and establish yourself as an authority in your area of expertise. It will take time (think years). It won’t be a success overnight, and there are no guarantees that anything will happen.

John has one of many videos about blogging:

Finally, on a side note, John also has a book out called Soft Skills, which is a book that helps you to improve on that that – your soft skills. It covers topis like marketing yourself, learning how to learn, improving your career, productivity, and even fitness, finances, and spiritual balance. While the book is geared towards software developers, anyone can read this book. It’s an awesome book; I highly recommended it.

Well that’s it for this article. Look forward to additional on developing those soft skills.

Thanks for your continued support. I’ll talk to you next time. Take care.

– C. out.

The “Taking Control Of Your Life” Contract

Hey guys.

No updates on any game projects for this message, although I’ve been busy working on them! Instead, I’m going to be taking a different route here.

I’ve been following John Sonmez for quite some time now. For those of you who don’t know John, he is founder of Simple Programmer, a company that helps software developers become better software developers, and better people overall. As well as technical skills, it entails soft skills (including a book published by John of the same name – an awesome book by the way; I highly recommended it).

He also has a YouTube channel called Bulldog Mindset, which focuses more on personal development in the areas of fitness, mindset and building mental toughness, wealth and business, improving social skills, and relationships / sex.

I am lacking in all of the aforementioned areas (well, maybe not fitness so much; see my note at the end of this post). As long as I’ve been in game programming (about 10 years now), I thought I’d be a lot farther ahead in my career (and with my life in general) by this time.

When I found his YouTube channel, after listening to just a few videos, I became a subscriber. I wanted to turn my life around, starting with my career and financial situations. It was in fact his free course on creating a blog which inspired me to create this website, take the leap, and start putting myself out there.

In another one of his videos, he mentions a “contract”, stating his philosophy on how you should live your life. I really liked what he said, and decided to have some fun with it.

This inspired me to create a contract based on this (just like I said I would in my comment) on his video, and viola! Here it is.

The Taking Control of Your Life Contract

I would encourage you to check out John’s material if you haven’t already. Hell, download, print out, and sign the damn contract while you’re at it. Put it somewhere where you can see it every day.

A note on fitness: I’ve been working on the fitness for a while though, already. First, I began with this free 30-day fitness body weight-only challenge, just to get into the habit of doing daily exercises and sticking with it. After that, I found a free workout on BodyBuilding.com, but I modified it a little, due to lack of some equipment (I bought some equipment and train at home).

Then, I eventually moved onto Body Beast with Sagi “The Beast” Kalev. I’m having a lot of fun with this one! The Beast likes to talk a lotta shit in his videos, which will be why I’m gonna outwork his ass – right along with John Sonmez. I’ve also been learning a lot from fitness expert Jeff Cavilier Athlean X Dot Com.

Working to become a stronger, better version of myself, physically, professionally, socially, and mentally, and building confidence are all big challenges. Not being good in these areas has been the bane of the my existence, and have been holding me back long enough!

I’m not done with this topic, but that’s all for now. Thanks guys, and stay tuned.

– C. out.

Creating a Blog to Boost Your Career

Hey.

Putting yourself out there can be a challenging task. At least it is for me.

As I am working to advance my career, I’ve been hearing a lot about putting out your own content. Owning your own online space. I mean a space you can really call your own. YouTube is an excellent resource, but you don’t own the platform. Facebook, Twitter, and LinkedIn are also great resources, but you don’t own those platforms, either, no matter how long you’ve been on them, how many posts or videos you’ve made, how many followers you have, or how many likes you get.

What I’m talking about is having your own website or blog, hosted on a domain that YOU OWN. And on there is where you can post all your content. Content is king. More content! Om nom nom, rawr, rawr, RAWR!!

I’ve been following John Sonmez for quite some time now. He’s an highly successful entrepreneur, and author of two best-seller books, Soft Skills: The Software Developer’s Life Manual, and The Complete Software Developer’s Career Guide. He’s also the founder of Simple Programmer, a site which helps software developers advance their careers, on both the technical and interpersonal sides. He also provides coaching in several areas of life such as business, health and fitness, personal finance, and mental & social advancement. He also created over 50 online courses for Pluralsight, which is a software developer training platform. I don’t want to seem remiss by leaving things off here, but in a nutshell, he provides lots of value to his customers, clients, and followers.

One of John’s products is a blogging course, Creating a Blog to Boost Your Career. It’s a free 5-part e-mail course that will help get you set up with starting and hosting your own blog website. It will walk you through finding hosting, coming up with ideas to post about, and getting traffic.

If you’re wondering how to take your software development career to the next level, be it getting a higher paying job, a raise, more freelancing clients, or raising your freelance rates, a blog may be just what you’re looking for. I’d recommend giving this free course a try.

That’s all for now. Thanks for reading!
– C. out.