Episodes

Today we have Kent C. Dodds on the show. He and I talked about lots of things including how he got started developing software and some of his early work in automation. We talked about some of his mistakes and why its important to share your mistakes so that others can learn from them. We talked about giving back to the community, teaching to learn and many more topics. This is a fantastic conversation and a must listen. Kent C. Dodds works at PayPal as a full stack JavaScript engineer. He repr...

Today on the podcast we’ve go Jay Harris. I met jay a few years back at a conference. I’ve heard Jay speak several times and thought he would be a good guest for the show and he did not disappoint. He came with good topics and the ideas of celebrating our own expertise as a well to improve overall mental health and confidence in our own abilities. This is a must listen to show for sure. Jay is a code wrangler, software consultant, and owner of Arana Software. He has been developing on the web s...

Scott Drake – VP of Technology Scott Drake is on a mission to help great technologists become great leaders. His 20-year career includes stops at Microsoft in Redmond, Wash., at startups in Silicon Valley, and he is currently the Vice President of Technology for a medical education company in his hometown of Louisville, Ky. He is the author of “The Programmer Hiring Playbook: A Crash Course in Interviewing and Hiring for Your Real-World Needs,” and he is the founder and curator of LearnLeadershi...

Derek Doepker is a 7 time bestselling author and consultant on leadership, personal development, and entrepreneurship. His team at Influencing Millions helps companies improve their sales, increase employee retention, and improve performance by teaching principles of behavior change, habit development, and influential communication. You can learn more at http://influencingmillions.com and http://derekdoepker.com Connect with Derek Twitter Website Consulting In this show we talked about: Ide...

Today on the show have Andrew May with a cameo from the one and only Brad Miller. Andrew May, originally from Phoenix, AZ, started in computing when he was twelve years old, writing windows applications to assist in quick email responses. Throughout his scholastic endeavors, he continued to focus on computing; moving from desktop applications to web applications. Andrew attended Arizona State University where he studied Computer Science and Engineering. In 2007, Andrew’s entrepreneurship grew ...

Today on the show we’ve got Jeff Roberts. Jeff has more than 20 years of experience leading Information Technology for top financial services and real estate firms. Since 2015 he has served as the first-ever Chief Information Officer of HFF (NYSE: HF), a commercial real estate capital intermediary, where he is leading a digital transformation and technology platform upgrade. Prior to joining HFF, he served as CIO for four other companies: Carriage Services (NYSE: CSV), Situs, a private global co...

Today on the show we have Arthur Doler. Arthur (or Art, take your pick) has been a software engineer for 14 years and has worked on things as exciting as analysis software for casinos and things as boring as banking websites. He is an advocate for talking openly about mental health and psychology in the technical world, and he spends a lot of time thinking about how we program and why we program, and about the tools, structures, cultures, and mental processes that both help and hinder us from o...

Today on the show we have Tom Cooper. I met Tom a few years ago while we were both speaking at a conference. Tom and I served on the board of advisors for the Interface Security Conference in Charlotte, NC last year. During this chat, Tom and I discuss the 4 levels of thinking as a geek leader. Tom has put together some special resources, just for A Geek Leader listeners. Check them out at brighthillgroup.com/ageekleader. There you will find a PDF describing the four levels of thinking we discu...

Today on the show I have Daniel Argandona, Managing Director for Fortalice Solutions, LLC. Fortalice is a boutique, white glove, cyber security services firm. In this episode we talk about Dan’s journey through his career and how he got started into the cyber security and eventually found himself as the managing director for a cyber security firm in Washington D.C. While talking today, we discussed his takes on leadership, ego and management. Dan mentions that one of his favorite quotes is from ...

Today on the show we’re honored to have bestselling author Todd Henry on the show. Todd teaches leaders and organizations how to establish practices that lead to everyday brilliance. He is the author of four books (The Accidental Creative, Die Empty, Louder Than Words, and Herding Tigers) which have been translated into more than a dozen languages, and he speaks and consults across dozens of industries on creativity, leadership, and passion for work. His book Die Empty was named by Amazon.com a...

I read, well listen to, a lot of leadership books. Most of the leadership books I read are either very theoretical, with little practical advise, but very good theory, or very practical, with steps you can take, but not much on the “why” those steps really work. This book, Herding Tigers, by Todd Henry is the best of both worlds. I was telling Todd the other day that his writing seems to follow my career. His first book, Accidental Creative, is about what to do when you find that you’re accident...

Today I had the opportunity to talk to Microsoft MVP, Richard Taylor. He’s a super cool guy, with great leadership stories and an epic beard. We talked about his journey into leadership and the values from working on building your team for the longterm instead of writing code to fix short-term problems. Richard brought lots of energy and great stories of his journey into leadership. Richard L. Taylor Jr. is a 25 year software development and technology professional living in Huntersville, NC. H...

The Leadership Journey is a book by Jim Holmes. Jim joins me today for a great talk about his journey through leadership, his book, and some struggles and adversity he’s been through and how he’s working to overcome them. You can read about Jim and his writings on his blog Frazziled Dad. Jim’s beginnings start from a farming background, then a time in the Air Force learning technology and leadership while in the service. While in the service, he met his wife, who was an officer at the time, whi...

General John E. Michel I’m really stoked about our guest today. Retired General John E. Michel, from the US Air Force is joining us to talk about the power of Positive Leadership. Now that he’s retired from the US Air Force, John serves as the Executive Director of Skyworks Global Inc., Council Member of U.S. Council on Competitiveness, Chairman of the Board for DemandTrans, co-founder of the General Leadership Foundation and much more. John is also the author of No More Mediocre Me and The Art ...

Today we have Andy Davis from Venturi Group on the podcast. Andy is the host of Venturi’s Voice podcast (itunes) and currently the Director of Marketing at Venturi Group, an IT Recruitment agency based in the UK, New York & Berlin. Andy has an interesting story and background. He started out working for seed level startups and even worked on the now famous Hyperloop project that was spawned by a paper from Elon Musk. We talk about startup culture and some of the things Andy learned while worki...

Today we have one of my favorite people, Nicole Greer, with us from Vibrant Coaching. Nicole Greer works with leaders in organizations who want to develop their talent, increase the bottom line, and coach individuals to engage with the vision. As the principal coach and CEO of Vibrant Coaching, she helps individuals, corporations, government entities and non-profits become the people they were created to be and make what is possible…probable! In addition to speaking and coaching, Nicole is an ac...

Energy If you’re like me, you wish you had more energy to tackle the things you want to tackle in a day. I hope that this episode (last in our 5 day blitz) will help you discover a few ways to manage the finite amounts of energy that we have a little better. Below are some tips for getting more energy throughout the day. Remember, I’m an IT Geek, not a doctor. Consult your doctor or a medical professional before taking my advice on diet and exercise. Coffee If you know me, you know that I drink...

Time I get asked about time management more than I do any other question. People ask, how is it that you have time with your family, work a full-time job, teach part-time, build apps, host a podcast, and do side hustles regularly? Well, its all about time management. We all have the same finite amount of time. 24 hours in a day. We choose to spend it differently. One thing I recommend before changing the way you spend your time, is to document it. Use this link to download a template for time tr...

Assets What’s your biggest asset? Could it be your programming skills? Your education? Your experience? For me its the people I surround myself with. At home and in life its my wife. She’s my biggest asset. At the office, its my team. I have a great team of people and they are by far my biggest asset. So, how do you manage your assets? Well I’m going to list some common assets that we may or may not think of and how I try to manage them to improve my productivity. Personal Finance is important ...

Focus We all have a finite amount of focus. We may think of focus as something you do, but I think it is something you have. You either have focus for something, or you don’t. And focusing on something is like contracting a muscle. It uses energy and wears on you. And the longer you focus on something, the more tired you get and the harder it is to keep focusing. I notice this when I drive on long road trips. After 4 hours or so, its hard to keep focusing on the road and traffic. I need a break...

Today I’m going to do something totally different. I’m going to do a blitz week. 5 episodes in 5 days. These will be on the topic of managing your F.A.T.E. The acronym F.A.T.E stands for your finite resources, your Focus, Assets, Time and Energy. I first heard about this from Toddy Henry, host of The Accidental Creative. I highly recommend you check out his podcast and his books. I interviewed him a while back about his book, Louder than Words, Click Here to listen to that conversation. In this...

It’s easy to stop a train that’s not moving…But its hard to stop one that has already started. Velocity is defined as the speed of something in a given direction. Have you ever started on a project, task, program, or something and got into the “flow” state? What is flow you ask? Flow is being in the Zone. If you’ve played or watched basketball you’re familiar with this term. It’s that state where Kobe Bryant, Michael Jordan, Steph Curry or Lebron James get into where it seems as though they can...

The Power of a Field Trip One way to inspire creativity and to motivate yourself or your team is to take a field trip. This will work if wherever you work for a nonprofit organization or a traditional office. Take a field trip. I’m going to tell you two stories to prove how beneficial field trips of any size can be. Small Field Trips My team took a little field trip a couple of years ago. We rode around with some technicians in their trucks. We wanted to see how they were using our products. We ...

When we react to situations, we’re on defense. You rarely score on defense. Its much easier to score when you’re on offense. On offense, you’re responding to the situation, not reacting. There is a difference. Responses are thought-out, planned and not usually emotionally driven. Reactions are usually hap-hazardous, emotionally driven, and not thought through. Mistakes often happen when we react instead of respond. In this episode I talk about the need to respond instead of react, what happens w...