Episode 220 | John Baluka - Fully Engaged

Guest: John Baluka @johnbaluka John Baluka talks with Dave Rael about business and software, presence in daily activity, the power of mastermind groups, and creating useful content John has been developing software with the Microsoft stack for 20+ years. For most of the last 10 years, John has been a sub-contractor, business owner, and a dad. John enjoys researching and applying new technologies to real world examples. Chapters: 0:45 - Dave introduces the show and John Baluka2:46 - John's business emphasis6:41 - Becoming fearless8:39 - John and subcontracting12:14 - John's experiences with Visual Basic and moving to C# - "It's okay to be a beginner"14:48 - The things that "light John up"18:01 - Becoming a speaker and creating content22:16 - Parallels between business and producing content - testing an audience to see if there is interest23:48 - John's story of failure - getting in too deep on borrowed funds26:15 - John's success story - delivering consistently, code generation that made life easier28:14 - How John stays current with what he needs to know31:39 - John's family33:35 - Getting better at presence37:19 - John's book recommendatons39:53 - The things that have John most excited41:13 - The concept of mastermind groups42:55 - John's top 3 tips for delivering more value44:56 - Keeping up with John Resources: John On LinkedIn nopCommerce Cory House on Developer On Fire remarkjs John's Presentation - Hacking PowerPoint for Developers The Morning Brew - Chris Alcock The Pomodoro Technique Dave's Blog Post on the Pomodoro Technique John's completed Pluralsight Courses John Papa's Pluralsight Courses John Papa on Developer On Fire Julie Lerman's Pluralsight Courses Pluralsight Course - Jeff Ammons - Build a Better Blog with a Static Site Generator DH Unplugged Pam Selle on Developer On Fire Go the F*** Home - Pam Selle's Talk on Getting it Done and Living Life Startups for the Rest of Us (Podcast with Rob Walling) MastermindJam James Sturtevant on Developer On Fire John's book recommendation: The War of Art: Break Through the Blocks and Win Your Inner Creative Battles - Steven Pressfield Getting Things Done: The Art of Stress-Free Productivity - David Allen The Phoenix Project: A Novel about IT, DevOps, and Helping Your Business Win - Gene Kim Start Small, Stay Small - Rob Walling John's top 3 tips for delivering more value: Marry the problem and not the solution Try not to create a solution that's looking for a problem to solve Weekly milestones help better manage the workflow for everyone involved