Start today, even with just one step

These days I have tried consistently to teach my kids to do things right now, no matter how young they think they are. I spent so many years to have the simple understanding about how a journey works. It seems a little silly, and it is, indeed, but you have to start somewhere, and no matter what you do, the finish will come, but it will demand time.

I was watching a documentary about Kobe Bryant this week, and they put a part of his speech, explaining his technique to be better than others. He just worked harder than others, and as the time was passing by, the distance between than would get higher, and at some point would be impossible for them to get him, assuming that he would continue to put the same effort.

Now think about yourself, how I have done in the past years. If you do something harder, with passion, your worst version will not get you easily. On the other hand, if you do nothing for some time, or just not get really committed how you should, your lazy version will, at some point, be so far from what you could have achieved, that you will probably think that it is impossible to get there.

The journey starts with the first step; that is a fact. At some point you gave that first one, and, for any reason, you just stopped. Maybe you never did the first one. And, maybe you could be now thinking, like I said, that it is impossible, that the path now is too long.

Let me share something with you. Some years ago I was in that place. I used to stop in the middle of the day and think: what will I do if I lose this job? I have family, children, bills, and this is all I have. There was no light in the end of the tunnel. And then, while participating in a trading course, I got the question: what is your why? (I am really not sure if the translation is correct). 

After an explanation about how hard the trading journey would be, and that I had to have a good reason not to give up, I did an exercise to right it down. What I wrote is in my Instagram account, as a record. "I want to unfreeze my brain and get realized doing something for myself. I want to work to make my dreams come true and not the others's."

From them until now, I studied trading (not yet succeeded), finance, psychology, the human mind, meditation, and so many other things to get a self knowledge, including, for sure as an significant part, religiosity (It is a relief to the heart to believe in something more than just ourselves). Recently I got back on studying business administration, programming language, networks, security and other tech related things.

This week I was browsing on some job postings of my interest, with the certainty that I am no ready, but I am really closer to what I want, and, among other things, getting the possibility to at least double my earnings. Am I afraid to lose my job today? Not really! I would have some difficulties? Probably, but I did my first step again years ago, and then the second, the third, and I continued moving forward.

If you, my dear reader, is thinking today that you are lost, my advice to you is, "Start today, even with just one step", and keep moving forward. Like myself, you will probably not get the success immediately, but I can guarantee you will get more confidence after each step, and you will begin to see alternatives that seemed to not be there in the beginning.

It is not easy, but it is for sure possible. Keep walking.

The beauty on simplicity!

Sometime ago I heard that every problem has several solutions, and if the one you are in is complicated, probably you are not on the best one. I am finishing watching an ethical hacking class on this Friday, and something similar came on: it is not complicated at all, it is just a sequence of simple tasks, that must be accomplished.

The difficult, so, is not on what must be done, but the path to get the necessary knowledge, that will make you prepared to do things. Maybe that's why some achievements demand so much time to get done, and, for sure, that's why not everyone will get it done.

I saw a movie once, one that I really would love to remember the name to watch again, and there is an old mentor talking to a child in front of the nature. He teaches to the kid that every doubt he would have, could be answered buy looking into the nature and see how things work.

I invite you to make this exercise: look something being done in the nature, something wonderful, and I am sure that it is a sequence of simple minor tasks. Why is this important? How can I use this knowledge to be a better person or better professional?

If we go back to the first paragraph, getting some understanding on how something that needs to be done is done, I can brake it on little projects, that, once executed, will represent a part of the whole objective. Thinking like this, gets away the fear of not being able to do whatever needs to be done, because know we have the certainty that I can do the simple tasks, until the major one gets completed.

The beauty on simplicity is this journey to do the simple, while going forward, and knowing that all things, some impossible ones, just need a different look, into a way that the task will not change, but how we look to than, will make then possible to do.

You can start a blog to write in English, like a did; one single text per week will get you several in months or years (look out my other blogs). You can decide to get a certificate, or a degree, or a house construction; same thing.

Using simplicity, you will understand that some other capabilities will be needed, like patience, perseverance, and probably the search for knowledge, be it on classes, courses, books, videos, and so on.

Simple step, to a long journey, and there goes another text, in one more week. Hope you can benefit from it, like I already did!

Daily practice - must go on

It is really interesting how we can find good things on simple things. Some time ago, before deciding on writing this blog, I realized that I should practice English on two ways: speaking and writing. At that time, my kids were playing with an app, that I must say that sometimes I have looked in a bad way.

So, because of necessity, I decided to give it a try on this Duolingo app. There must be other ones, but this is the one I got. I installed it on my phone, just to see the interface and functionalities, and to evaluate if it could help me with my needs.

Today I am on a fifty five strike on consecutive days training, and, as I commented out days ago with some friends, some days are just 5 minutes exercises, although on others I get a little more time to practice. The good think is the daily practice.

I can use on smartphone or on web, but I get some notifications pushing me on practicing from time to time. The fundamental point of this is not just the app, or a language app, is the steps.

I am sure that is something in your life that you want to improve, be it a professional skill, your relationship, you self steem, or whatever. Why don't you try a single step each day?

It is amazing how what we can accomplish after sometime, with some really little steps from time to time. Read just some pages, walk just some steps, practice just five minutes of English each day, and sooner or later you will be writing with resourcefulness, getting vocabulary, or getting a stronger body, or a meaningful life!

I will not go further on this text. The message is simple, but valuable. I hope you can get and start something, and keep going.

See you on the next one!

"The only thing I know, is that I know nothing"

I have always loved this sentence, assigned to Socrates. Unfortunately I have never read on source, but the beauty inside it makes me feel amazed. As I shared with you in the later post, I return to the path on searching for knowledge, and it's really amazing how this thought fits perfectly.

The more I read and go on classes, be it live action or recorded ones, the more I get sure that is so much to learn. And at this point we always have at least these two choices: give up, because it will be impossible to learn everything that it is to be learned, or realize that everything, to be learned, demands effort and time.

So let me share with you my daily search for the holly grail. As everyone full of desire to learn it all, I go from lesson to lesson, sometimes changing subjects, for later returning to the one I started. Besides having the urge to get all the knowledge available I always come back on thinking about what I really want, and where I want to arrive.

It's so easy to get lost, when there are so many amazing paths to go, but there is this magical tool, that can make us succeed: objective. I know why I came back on learning infosec, for example, but I also know some things that I don't want to do or learn. As the multiple choices get in front of me, I have to choose between going wrong, sometimes letting the webmarketing be my driver, or sometimes even stop my drive, go back a little, and have the certainty that I am still on my way.

It's not so simple, I know, but it is something like this. For example, as I write this text at this exactly moment, I have to be honest with you that sometimes I do not have all the worlds, as a lack of practice on writing in English. But what was my first kick on this goal? Wasn't it exactly practicing my thoughts and writing in English?

And there goes another tool: patience. Like when I am learning on my daily path, I sometimes have to stop writing, looking for the write word, make some adjustments, control my willing to stop, and go on. That's something that took me time to learn; we have to understand that good things may have to wait for the time to make than happy, while you continue to put you efforts on it.

Like written in the title, you have to know, that you know nothing, but knowing it, makes you certain about one little thing: you won't know everything! So, why get crazy about it?

I will keep my journey going on, slowly sometimes, other times having to take a break, but moving forward. You can too, just have to try. You don't need to get it all in one day, and you will probably not. But you can for sure do one step each day, and, thinking about this blog, this one is just one step more.

I am sure that I have already gotten my drop of practice and knowledge today, after this text completed! See you in the next one!

New blog, new post, new project!

I just decided to create another blog, although I have already others, about my own thoughts and about financial education. I have been publishing for a while on the Internet, here on Blogger, Youtube, and on some tech sites. Searching on the Internet, I can still find some old things.

Let's go to the beginning. First of all, let me explain why a blog in English. I need to practice writing (and for sure some errors will appear here). For those out there, I am a native Portuguese human being, that have been studying English for his whole life, including a certification, but without much daily practice on speaking and writing, just for the lack of need. I read and listen in English a lot, as part of my tech studies (maybe my biggest passion).

And explaining some points already mentioned, I worked on tech jobs in the past, mostly on security, unix system administration (Solaris, Linux, OpenBSD and so on), but had a change in my career, shifting gears towards project management, but never letting tech completely forgotten.

As an example, I created years ago a Youtube Channel called "Kanso Tech", and as the name suggests, I published so many videos about tech things, including some unboxes, but not limiting to it, and also contributing with some knowledge on financial, trading, personal thoughts and more.

Some time ago I started asking myself: why not really get back to what makes me feel alive? Everyone that is really close to me can see, without much effort, that I love tech, computers, servers, Linux, security and much more on this world of bits and bytes.

And so I started to search on that. For now, let me share what I got and what I have been learning.

First, I don´t really know about you, but I love to see difficult things being solved. And I love knowing that people can count on me, and I also have so much interest on security. Years ago, even getting close to the work hacker would not be understood and probably criticized.

But things change, and companies started to understand the importance of it. Now we have something called "ethical hacker" and that is my first goal. But why? Money, fame, or the felling to be on top? No! Absolutely not! This goal for me I like returning to breath. I want to do something that I have always been doing, just because I like to. I want to learn and have fun while doing something that makes me feel alive!

Along with that, came back programming language. First Assembly, than C, and now Python. But wait! I started on Assembly (yes, because I wanted), but than put it on wait and focused on C (just beginning also). But now I am putting my efforts on learning Python, on where I have already done some automation. I will for certain comeback to C and Assembly, also as a primer goal on getting knowledge.

What about the money? For now I won´t change anything with hurry. It is not my first goal, but I know that this journey can shift my passions into materials compensation. So many years have passed, and I know that this return is a long run journey.

That is it for today! I hope to inspire you to get back some forgotten passion, that maybe, like me, was let behind, while you were occupied paying bills and doing what must be done.

See you on the next post, and feel free to comment on this post (If possible, in English! Let's help each other).