Read a Book Dummy!

What people don't realize is that knowledge is the key to success (it's not just a clever saying), very simple. Everyone is always looking for a short cut, a trick, this and that, but everything to transform your life (if it needs transforming) is right there a click away or in a book.

Everyone has an excuse why they can't do this and that, but at the end of the day if you just sit and READ and LEARN, you can transform your life right from your living room. You don't need to go to a fancy college or have rich parents or lots or money (but it doesn't hurt :). In fact you need $0.00 to learn these days. Just time and DISCIPLINE.

Discipline -- there's a concept long forgotten by the youth of the nation. Something your parents probably tried to bang into your head, but it's the ability to sit and accomplish something on a schedule, without distraction and without giving up.

And to do this, you need to "quite" your mind. That means no TV, no texting, no facebooking, no tweeting, no checking your email every 100 nanoseconds and truthfully, sitting in the middle of Starbucks among all that distraction is probably a bad idea as well. Try a good old library with WiFi if you can. Everyone these days in the apocalyptic explosion of ADHD type "diseases" could learn a thing or two about sitting still and focusing on something. But, that's another post...

If you work retail or a fast food joint or any job that you just want more.. then take 6 months read 3-5 books on web development in HTML5/CSS3/Javascript and then go on craigslist and try and find a small computer "gig" for $50-500, they are there all day long from everything to simple web pages to helping people with problems and homework. Then do another, and another, making more and more money, doing bigger and bigger jobs. Then in 1-2 years as you continue to read and learn maybe about mobile programming as well, next thing you know -- you realize, instead of just texting and talking on your phone -- YOU are writing mobile apps and low and behold? You KNOW "stuff" that others are willing to pay for and has value in the Information Age and most of all, upward mobility and job security. And best of all with knowledge, you can control your destiny instead of someone else.

And now you can use that to make money and shift to a real career. Then guess what walk into work and go tell your boss what he can do with that time card and start your new career!

It's all FREE to do. But, you have to do it. You do NOT need a degree these days to get ahead, but you do need to work hard (and always will). But, my god there are 1000's of free class and truck loads of free books. I spent a fortune on books since the 80's, anyone that knows me, knows I read a LOT, I have over 3000 books in my library of CS, math, physics, EE, and general science. Every time I move, I dread moving my library!

Anyway, check the link out below, and there are many others like it along with amazing resources like Cousera.org, Udacity.com and Udemy.com. Point is high end web and mobile developers make about $100-120K a year, that's not bad for a job you can literally learn in your shorts, sitting at the computer eating potato chips and hot pockets for free at 15 years old :) This is NOT rocket science, there is no one that can NOT understand how to do web/mobile programming. Forrest Gump could build websites considering how broken half of internet is!

Like a kid in a candy store:

https://github.com/vhf/free-programming-books/blob/master/free-programming-books.md

And I will leave those of you not converted, or believers with this. You probably say, "I hate reading, I can't learn like that, blah blah" -- I say HOG WASH -- I say, forget your preconceptions and excuses and just do the opposite of what you think you should do, and try reading a book(s). It's amazing what reading and learning can do, and here's the secret -- and I am not going to charge $5000 for you to learn this in a seminar -- ok, get close, closer -- ready?

As you read, as you learn, you literally become a different you. Your brain is transformed, your personality actually changes -- Why? Because you have more information up there in that black hole called a brain. And the more information you have, the more you transform who you are and how you think. And this opens the doors to the endless possibilities of imagination coupled with knowledge -- a most formidable alliance. After reading dozens of books on various subjects, I dare anyone to say it didn't change their life or who they are -- Andre' LaMothe