From an early age, I was interested in computers. In the late 70s and early 80s, a revolution was underway – the home computer revolution. Like many spotty kids at that time, we loved to play the games on our Commodore or Spectrum, but I also liked to program games of my own. I think it was this that helped me develop a way of thinking that is structured and logical, as well as individually creative. If I think back though to some of the approaches I had to writing code, I shudder, but that’s what learning is all about!
I didn’t just think about making games – I also thought about commercialising them. From the age of 13 my friends and I dreamt about starting a commercial venture. We tried, but in the naivity of youth, it went nowhere as we all began to discover the opposite sex. But my commercial and entrepreneurial mindset stayed with me, and here I am now.
I’ve been running SimonStapleton.com now since 2007. To start with, it was just a hobby, where I would share my thoughts and ramblings. Blogging had become very popular and I thought it would be a great channel to sell my coaching and mentoring services. But shortly after starting it up, my eyes opened to the potential in blogging as a lifestyle, so I began to learn more.
Cancer
More recently I’ve ploughed a lot more energy into this. Why? Well shortly after New Year 2008, I discovered I had testicular cancer. This was a shock to me and my family, but after I fully accepted the fact that I had the ‘C’ word, I decided to grasp life by the hand and do more with it. A number of personal changes were discussed with myself and my wife, and we decided to move home closer to our families and begin to enjoy our time with each other and our son much more. Since then I have got through the operations, treatment and chemotherapy and to be frank, I feel that I am a survivor of cancer and I feel so much stronger for it.
Since breathing this new lease of life, I have made so many good friends and contacts through my blog and twitter. Thanks to everyone for being great people!
Cancer gave me new life as a Blogger, Tweeter and Niche Builder
The other thing I decided to do was to become much more involved in building up a resource of valuable information for technical professionals aiming at building successful careers. My own experience tells me that if something like that was available when I was starting out, it would have given me a lot of insight.
A Career Choice
My aspiration is to focus solely on this. Doing so will mean I have to work hard on delivering fresh, valuable content as well as promoting it. What you can do is Subscribe to my RSS Feed or Subscribe to my Newsletters!
Of course I’ll need to build a steady, growing readership. I can measure this using webstats and subscriptions to my RSS feed and Email Newsletters. These are the most important measures to me at the moment. The other factor that will be a key indicator to growth is the number of comments left by the readership. Comments are always welcome! As is feedback to the quality and depth of the content – good and bad.
Life is too short
Going back to the cancer again, what it taught me was that as a society we get hung up on so many inconsequential and trivial concerns. Life is short. Worrying about nothing is a waste of precious time on this earth. So having truly understood that, I confidently go forward with SimonStapleton.com by putting myself into it, giving my views, my opinions and adding lots of ‘me’ into it. If some folks don’t like what I write, then knowing that is OK with me. Challenge back is part of life and is the responsibility of a publisher.
Last but certainly not least, I am doing this because I enjoy it. I enjoy writing and enjoy having written. I enjoy seeing others read and take value from my writing. If you enjoy my writing and find it of personal value, then I welcome your comments and would appreciate you subscribing to my RSS feed and Newsletters, found at the top of the page.
Hey Simon good to hear that you’ve taken a positive spin on the situation. Good luck with your venture, you have my support and I’ve subscribed to your feed. You are an inspiration!
JC
Wow Simon you take what happened very well I think that is a big experience for you.
Well done on your new blog so far and its good to see you talk about yourself. I think you posts are very interesting and I think you could add some more that go into a bit more technical detail. I am an engineer so more stuff on developing a career in this space will be welcome.
@john: thanks for the compliment John its nice to get the feedback that I am providing value
@mike: thanks for the steer Mike I do want to get more specific about job families. I will look at the particular issues of engineers, maybe you could give me some specific examples?