366 or How I Tricked Myself into Being Awesome

Like most developers, I am an introvert, so it is hard to say this:

I am awesome.

Fuuuuuu.... I can't even leave it at that. I look at so many amazing people in the Ruby, Javascript, and other communities that actually are amazing and I feel like I haven't done anything. But even so, looking back at the 366 days of the last year, what I did was, well... amazing.

I wrote three books on very different technologies that I knew nothing about.

I wrote The SPDY Book, which is still the only book on SPDY:

Three months later, I co-authored Recipes with Backbone(.js) with Nick Gauthier:

Three months later, I wrote the first book on Dart, Dart for Hipsters:

Each of these technologies has two things in common:

1. They are game changing (or at least possibly)
2. I knew nothing about them before I started writing them.

What business did I have writing books on topics about which I knew nothing? Well, let me put it this way: I did it so why shouldn't I (or anyone else)?

How did I do it?

Blogged every, single day. For one full year. 366 days. Every day. No matter what.

I honestly don't know why I started doing this. One night I had a brilliant idea and before I stopped and thought about how stupid it was, I publicly committed myself to doing it.

And it worked. Every night, I ask a question to which I don't know the answer and I try my damnedest to answer it.

Every time I do this, I learn. The daily deadline forces me to learn. Blogging about it challenges my assumptions and makes me learn even more.

And then, doing it again the next day reinforces the learning. As does writing the book. And the second edition.

I am proud that I didn't let this get in the way of what's important. I still took vacations with the family—drove to the beach and Disney World. Birthdays, anniversary, sickness—I was there for it all.

And in the end, what did I learn? Well aside from a ton about cool technologies, I learned that...

I tricked myself into being awesome

I heard a story on RadioLab about a lady named Zelda. She tricked herself into quitting smoking by swearing that she would donate $5,000 to the KKK if she ever smoked another cigarette. And she never did. Would she have really donated that money if she had given in? Maybe not, but it was enough for her to have convinced herself that it would happen.

And, in the end, I did the same. Would the world have ended if I missed a day? Of course not. Very few, if any people would have noticed. But I would have noticed because I committed to doing this. And, after 366 days, I have more than not smoking to show for it. I have three books, the last of which is being published by The Pragmatic Programmers.

So what's next?

Day 367.