Today I shared part of my testimony at my church which has encouraged me to write it down. Here goes... I was born into a Christian family. My parents were a part of the Anglican church before having children. My dad met a lady who was miraculously healed of cancer and she gave him a booklet with 7 steps to obtaining the gift of the Ho...

It's been a joy looking back at the last 20 years of my experience where I co-founded one business and founded a second on my own. Both were self-funded and both were sold. I never had the intention of selling, it just fell into my lap. Each attained different levels of success and brought with it a lot of wisdom, knowledge and talent ...

The more you do something, the more experience you have with it. You can do things badly for sure so it’s not perfect. Question…. What do you practice often vs what do you want to be good at? -Ben

At our recent all-in meeting with the Australian team at Tithe.ly, we had a constructive discussion about what it's like working for an international company. This got me thinking. The bottom line is, running a remote international synchronous (RIS) company is hard. The hard part revolves around the word "synchronous". I define an RIS ...

My church ran the Freedom in Christ course recently. I'd seen it before and as someone who'd been a Christian my whole life, never even stopped to consider it. My amazing wife suggested I attend it as I wasn't in the best place due to events that had occurred over the last 2 years. I agreed to do it without thinking much of it. After a...

I got into cryptocurrency in 2021 like many others. The excitement, the adrenaline rush and the hopes for riches out of nothing was all so alluring. Bitcoin to $100k! I definitely got caught up in the hype and to be honest it was a little bit of an escape from what I was dealing with. I went deep down the rabbit hole and consumed hundr...

“The world's concept of happiness is having what we want. However, never has there been a society where people have so many things yet are so unhappy. Happiness isn't about having what you want. It's about wanting what you have. As long as you're focusing on what you don't have, or what you can't do, you'll be unhappy. But when you beg...

I saw an ad for a local university/college on a bus stop that read something along the lines of "do what feels right now" when choosing a course to pursue. In a similar vein, I was also reading a health and wellness book (written by a millennial of course) and it was suggesting that if you're not enjoying your job or your partner right...

I've been participating in the Freedom in Christ course that was held at my church recently. Definitely a top 10 best decision in my life to do this course. Something Steve Goss mentioned in the last session around tough times really resonated with me. “If we don't come out of a tough season changed for the better, it would have been w...

At our recent company all-in, someone in their 3-minute lightning talk shared about an acronym called NEAT which really caught my attention. “Non-Exercise Activity Thermogenesis (NEAT) is the energy expended for everything we do that does not include sleeping, eating, or exercise; and ranges from simple things like standing and fidgeti...

You always have time to do the things you want to do. It always comes down to what you prioritize. What you prioritize, you do. Quick example. If you prioritize an extra 30 minutes of sleep over exercise, then you will sleep. If you prioritize waking up 30 minutes earlier and doing exercise, then you will exercise. Take responsibility ...

At the company I founded, before selling it in 2018, we had your typical employee handbook. It had a section on policies and rules. Rather than a big list of dos and don'ts, it simply said that we don’t have any policies for social media or using your phone and so on. Instead, the one rule we had was to use good judgement. I wanted to ...

Have you got a habit you want to get rid of? Do you want to exercise more? Eat healthier? Have more friends? Overcome low feelings or depression? Most of the time, a solution is not going to fall in your lap. Getting all the help and knowledge is almost useless if you do nothing with it. You have to do something. Take responsibility fo...

It can be easy to be triggered by something that makes you go down a negative path either in your mind or verbally to a friend, loved one or maybe some stranger on the train. Breath. Rethink. Calm your mind. Be present. Is it worth getting worked up about? -Ben

It's interesting to see the security decisions decided by companies. Some value security over usability which can do more harm than good. Two examples... Example one: forcing users to manually type their password A bank I use does not allow me to autofill my password when I log in. I have to manually type it. That's right, I can't even...

Why are software companies so obsessed with dark mode? I saw an app the other day proudly announce in their release notes, their top feature, was the fact they now had dark mode. I have nothing against dark mode but I struggle to see why there’s so much excitement around supporting it. Dark mode makes me think of the old school develop...

Jason Fried made a great statement in a podcast I was listening to. The best way to become more uncertain about something is to ask one more person’s opinion. It’s a challenging thought that encourages me to make decisions without the need of including too many others. -Ben

I learned the other day something about handling my 5 year old son when he is really upset about something. If I try to distract him or downplay his reason for being upset, it can subconsciously teach him that it’s not good to show emotion. Instead I should do the opposite and show him it’s ok to be upset and to show emotion. I can sco...

One thing I’ve been trying to do this past year is to be more self aware. What I think about is a tell tail sign of what’s going on in my inner world. The Bible says to “take every thought captive” (2 Corinthians 10:5). Once a thought has been captured, I ponder whether the thought is truth. I also think about where the thought coming ...

I love this comic. It’s so true! “I’m Glad We All Agree by Jeff Patton” This comic reminds me why it’s so important that we write ideas up first to get everyone on the same page. Discussing verbally can be thwart with problems around everyone leaving a meeting thinking the same thing. Writing ideas up goes along way in saving time and ...

The true test of what one truly believes about themselves, others, the world is put on show based on what they do - their actions. Does what you believe match your actions? If not, maybe you don’t truly believe what you think you do. -Ben

I got this quote from The Manager’s Path book that I listened to back in 2021. What you measure, you improve. How does one improve something if they aren’t sure on the performance of it? This book is highly recommended for juniors all the way up to the leadership of an engineering department. Great quote! -Ben

I was listening to the 37signals founders today talking about some decisions they made around the recent Card Tables feature release. There was a quote DHH mentioned that resonated with me. Build less, don’t build worse. Often we half-ass build a feature just to get it out the door but it’s not at the level it should be. This statement...

Are you listening? I mean, really listening? Or are you thinking about what to say next, what’s for lunch or that thing you have to do later that day? If individuals really feel listened to, that can lead to them feeling understood. If they feel understood, they feel accepted. It’s a challenge to be a good listener in all conversations...

I was listening to the Good enough is fine podcast by the 37signals guys today and it really resonated with how I see software development today. If we aren’t careful, when making a decision for building or upgrading a feature in our applications, we can totally over bake and spend far more time on it than required. In the podcast epis...

A concept that has really been solidified in my mind over the past couple of years is the idea of time preference. As a millennial, it's obvious that my generation has a low-time preference. Delayed gratification is normally weeks or months instead of years or decades. This idea is being fed even more as inflation runs rampant and the ...

For those who call themselves a Christian, we are instructed to pray for those in authority over us (1 Timothy 2:1-2) and submit to governing authorities (Romans 13:1-7). The only time God permits us to disobey earthly authorities is when they require us to do something morally wrong or attempt to rule outside the realm of their author...

“Closing the loop” means to follow up or finalize a discussion with a customer, employee, or colleague. Businesses really flounder when someone (especially a leader) doesn't close the loop. Important discussions and decisions get delayed or forgotten about. People end up focusing on the wrong things when the loop isn't closed. Closing ...

We have an in-person all-in meeting here on the Gold Coast, Australia next month. We decided axe throwing could be fun (should I be nervous?) so I found a local place and wanted to contact them about a booking. I wanted to book in a group of 11 and see if I could split the group in two so we could go with a specific package. Since this...

Another comment in Ask Your Developer reminded me of something I’ve been thinking about for a while now as I’ve been CTO at Tithely. Coders are creative. I swear more than half the engineering department, including our Director of Engineering, Christian Helvin are musicians. Others love to draw or paint. Some are what you’d describe as...