Hey, what's up?
John Sonmez here from simpleprogrammer.com.
I got a question, an interesting question,
and I've never gotten this question before
or any variation of this question, but it
is, "What can you do to survive a recession
as a software developer?"
This is from Tim and he says, "Being that
it has been about eight years since the last
recession and in theory we're due for another
one soon, what are some tips for surviving
a recession as a developer?
Also, I noticed that you started your career
around 2001 so you've been around for the
dot com bust and housing bubble collapse.
Could you please comment on how you weathered
those recessions and how to survive recessions
in general?
I have two years of experience, worked with
.NET and Angular.
I work in the middle stuff at a Wall Street
bank."
Okay, so Tim, here's the thing.
This is going to be a short video, I think,
because I've got the absolute smoking gun
answer for how to survive a recession.
Be the fucking best.
When you're the fucking best, recession doesn’t
matter.
It doesn’t matter.
When you're at the top of your game, it doesn’t
matter what the economy is doing.
You're still getting the job.
You're having no problem.
The people who have problems in a recession
are the people at the bottom rung or the middle
rung.
Those are the people that can't get jobs,
they get wiped out, that have crap happen
to them.
Don’t ever be at the average or below average,
or even slightly above average.
Be the best.
If you're the best, a recession is not going
to hurt you.
All throughout the time when—you can check
out my software developer career story.
I've got a playlist on that, but all throughout
the time when all this stuff happened, and
I've been through plenty ups and downs and
I could talk about real estate as well.
It's a little bit different.
All throughout that time, I survived and I
didn’t even feel it.
I didn’t even know what was going on.
I didn’t even know that people were having
a hard time getting a job.
You know why?
Because I wasn’t having a hard time and
it really helped when I started my blog.
You can check out my course.
I've got a free course on how to create a
blog to boost your career.
You should definitely check that and you should
start a blog if you haven’t because that's
going to recession proof you like nothing
because you're in high demand.
When you're getting job offers everyday from
people that want to hire you because they've
read your blog or because you've built your
name, your reputation in the industry, you
don’t care about the recession.
It doesn’t matter.
Now, I'm not saying it's not going to affect
you at all, but what I'm saying is that like
because I consistently invested in my career
and invested in myself and made sure that
I was at the top of the game, and I wasn’t
always, right?
When I first started my career before the
whole crash came down, I wasn't in the best
condition, but I quickly realized that I needed
to invest in myself and I did.
When I did that and was at the top of my game,
at one point I was one of the top ranked people
on Topcoder in C++, I didn’t have to worry.
It didn’t matter.
I didn’t even feel it.
I didn’t even know what was going on.
That's the biggest thing.
The other thing, I'll give you one last—one
other piece of advice here which is it takes
some time to become the best, but that's what
you should be aiming for.
The other thing that you can do is have—and
I encourage you to do this no matter what
is to have some reserve.
Have some money set aside.
You should have at a minimum about six months'
worth of living expenses set aside in saving,
so that if the crap dose hit the fan, that
you're going to be able to survive that and
weather that out because—I did a video on
this.
I'm trying to think of what it's called.
It's called like squeeze situations or a squeeze
situation.
The biggest thing that hurts people is not
getting kicked in the shin.
What hurts people is getting kicked in the
shin and because they're kicked in the shin
and their shins are weak, they double over
and then they get an uppercut to the face
and then they get laid out on the floor, and
then they get stumped on.
That's what happens when you have one weak
spot.
What I'm trying to say here is basically this.
If you don’t have money set aside, if you
don’t have living expenses and recession
hits and you're not at the top of your game
or even if you are and you have trouble getting
a job, then what happens is that you're living
paycheck to paycheck.
You don't have a paycheck anymore.
You can't make your car payment.
Fuck, right?
Okay.
You can't make your car payment.
What happens?
Well, you lose your car.
Now, you don’t have wheels.
Now, you can't even get a job at McDonald's.
Great.
Now, what happens?
Now, you get unemployment and now you're—you
see what I'm saying?
Like this whole cascading thing happens.
Your girlfriend dumps you because you're a
freakin' loser because you don’t have a
car and you can't even get a job at McDonald's.
You can't get yourself out of the pit, you
keep on going further and further.
Now, you get sick and you don’t have health
insurance because you couldn’t afford that.
You see what I'm saying?
All this stuff.
You get kicked out in your apartment.
You're living on the street pretty much and
your life is ruined.
What happens is this chain reaction, this
cascading chain of events, can happen in life
if you don’t have some kind of reserve.
You always got to be like live below your
means and be prepared.
Have a reserve set up so that you could live.
I could live for a long time.
I mean now I could live for the rest of my
life without having to have income come in.
At one point when I was in my software development
career, I had like two years' worth of savings.
I wasn't an entrepreneur.
I didn’t have a bunch of businesses.
I didn’t have—I wasn't making a ridiculous
amount of money, but I just lived so below
my means, I slept on a freaking mattress on
the floor for a period of time because what
was really important to me was to make sure
that whatever happened that I was taken care
of, that the shit can't take me down because
I know that that chain reaction of events
is what really screws people.
You can weather a storm.
You got to be able to weather the storm.
Make sure that you've got a war chest so you
can weather the storm.
Two things.
One, be the best.
Two, have a war chest.
All right.
That's all I got for you today.
Good question.
If you have a question for me, you can always
email at john@simpleprogrammer.com.
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All right.
That's all I got for you today.
I'll talk to you next time.
Take care.
