Turn Coding into Game and Win

If you want to become a developer successfully, you need to turn everything into a game. In this email, I will show you exactly how to do it and how I turned my gaming addiction into a successful IT career.

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Gaming Background

When I was a teenager, I was a big fan of the game called CS:GO (Counter-Strike).

I was even planning to become a pro player in this game.

I've spent over 3500 HOURS playing.

Just imagine that amount of hours.

One subject in university is around 30 hours of lectures and 30 hours of practice PER SEMESTER!

In 3500 hours, I could have finished 3 universities, and passed 10s of programming courses 😅.

BUT I NEVER REGRET SPENDING THIS AMOUNT OF TIME ON GAMING.

Because gaming actually made me VERY COMPETETIVE.

And whatever I do in my life, I treat it like a game.

And I don't like losing.

Now, let's break down everything that gaming has taught me, and how I used it to become a $10k/month software developer.

Gamification Framework

#1 You are Responsible For Yourself

In games there 2 types of players:

• Players who blame their team, the game itself, their keyboard or their monitor for their loss
• Players who understand that they are losing, only because they are not good enough

You need to learn how to become a second type of player in life.

Because if you say:

It's not my fault!

It means that you don't have to do anything, and it's not your responsibility.

If you don't do anything, you won't get anywhere in life.

So if you learned programming, but nobody wants to hire you, DO NOT BLAME things like:

• market situation
• your country
• AI
• companies

Most likely you are not getting a job, because you are missing something and you aren't looking good enough in the eyes of recruiters.

So keep working on improving your skills, portfolio, and social profiles, until you WIN!

#2 There Are Different Levels

Every game has different levels.

At level 1 you learn the basics.

At level 2 you apply basics in practice.

At level 3 you learn more basics, etc...

And only at level 100, you compete with the final boss.

Same thing in programming.

At level 1 you don't apply for jobs, you learn the basics.

Only after passing 100 levels of learning, practising and mini-bosses, you can try to compete with the final boss, a.k.a passing the interview.

So you need to figure out at what level you are right now and decide what to do based on that.

#3 There Are Different Players

There are solo games, but the most interesting and rewarding ones, are multi-players when you compete with other people.

Same thing in programming, you are not learning it in a vacuum.

You learn in the real world, while other people are also learning the same thing as you.

If you want to win you need to:

• Play Smarter
• Play Harder
• Or both

I recommend both.

You need to outsmart "other players" by being more creative and outwork them by working way harder.

While it might sound complex, in reality, there are a lot of super lazy people.

And if you are really dedicated, it won't actually be that hard to win.

#4 A good team is very important

There are games where you play 1 vs 1.

But the most popular ones, are those where you play team vs team.

To play team games, you need to not only become really good in-game but also learn how to collaborate with your team.

Same thing in programming.

You can be super good at coding, but if you aren't able to communicate with other people and work in a team, you won't succeed in your career.

So start networking, building relations and learning how to work with people as soon as possible.

Conclusion

Combining those pieces of advice together, helped me to build a pretty good career quite quickly, and although I can't say that it was easy, I still enjoyed it, because I was treating it all as a game, and playing games is fun.

If you treat your life goals not as torture, but as a game, you'll actually enjoy going towards your goals.

It's hard to lose games, but you can't become really good in the game, without losing 100s of times.

You also can't become really good at the game without playing a lot.

So if you are learning programming, treat it as a game, learn a lot, enjoy the process, don't let failures stop you and FREAKING GO UNTIL YOU WIN.

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Andrew "Gamer and Programmer" Zacker