Im coming back to the intro, cause as I was writing this on a freezing cold Saturday morning -9 degrees outside, I realised this intro might lose you haha

But I promise, my talking about a Junior developer has EVERYTHING to do with you

AND i’ve got a little present for you at the end, if you ask nicely :))

Anyway

Last night I was writing to a developer of ours, Austin - we hired him last year in March and its been a rollercoaster, in not the best way for the kid haha

We did EVENTUALLY find work - and it took me months, even begged some people, side note, begging rarely works haha

So we got him a new gig, and he is starting next week Monday - fantastic company, they work with cool brands, they have super star devs (the way i know the founder is i actually tried to poach one of his devs (awkward!!!)) and they were looking for someone junior to join and train up - so its a win win, all around

The chat I had with Austin last night, really got me thinking about his future, but also my own and subsequently yours

Because 2026 just started, the year is yours to dominate, grow, learn, capture new opportunties, but it is also yours to completely screw up and regret or complain

So today I want to chat about how we can make 2026 a great freaken year!

Well here’s the thing. Whether you’re junior, intermediate, senior, VP or CTO, it doesnt really matter - we are all junior at something, crawling around like little babies, shitting ourselves and crying out loud

I made this image with google Gemini - here is my prompt:

“create an image of a baby - but i want it in the style of a cartoon”

my black and indian brothers and sisters, if you use the same prompt, is it making an African baby or is Gemini racist and only making white people babies? Reply and let me know!

I’ve been lucky to meet some killer devs in my line of work, we hired one in December, Nikola - i spent a whole year trying to hire the dude

Anyway - even he is junior at some things, for example, he created his own RAG solution - ShinRAG - and he wants to market it, so we spent two hours on a call chatting about cold email, reddit, linkedin marketing - he basically knew nothing and he is starting from scratch, he is worse than junior, he is like a sperm cell lol

He needs to put in the work and figure it out - and that will be achieved by himself and with the help of others - enter Sensei Bojan

There is no escaping this - some of you (and this is just because of the law of averages) - will think working 8 hours a day is enough, and even if you do believe it is enough - fair play - but i guarantee you, your 8 hours are pretty useless…

I worked for a client, 8 hours a day - after 3 years - i asked for a substantial raise - 25% more salary and 20% fewer work days too - well it was like 4 day work weeks ever other week, so more like 10% fewer work days

Surprise, Surprise, they said “NO”

What did I do? I went from working 8 hours a day, to 6 hours a day, to 4 hours a day over the course of a few weeks.

Did anyone notice? Did I do less work? Did I care if anyone noticed?

The answer to all of the above, much like my rejected promotion was a big fat NO

We still delivered great features, we still busted out requirements like no bodies business and stakeholders still thought I was the best consultant they’ve ever worked with (that last point is a lie, well maybe its true, but they didnt tell me that, bastards!)

It means that your 8 hours arent focused, they’re not productive, and if you want to limit yourself to 8 hours, more power to you, but im telling you, your 8 hours are you at 30-45% effort at BEST - so you can do so much more with those 8 hours.

Personally - I put in more hours and try to be more focused during those hours - i like 12 hour days on weekdays and 4-5 hours on weekends

Finding a skill you are junior at - is easy

Finding time to invest in the skill - is easy

Staying with it - thats the difficult part, learning something new is EXCITING, starting something new is EXCITING, the beginning is the easy part - sticking with it is the difficult part and that’s where deciding comes in

That’s where making a decision comes into the picture - particularly, the definition of a decision - which in my mind is the commitment to the thing, at the expensive of all else

So if you committed or decided to create a Newsletter, when someone calls you on a Friday night to go out on a bender, and you know that will wreck your saturday morning when you plan to sit and write the dam thing - you tell that someone NO 😛

For everyone that replies to my email - i’ll send you a PDF version of one of the best books i’ve read on Turning Professional

Its name is literally Turning Pro - and it’s by Steven Pressfield - I cant find that book on takealot, but he does have a few on there - highly recommend him

Its like 40 pages, so you can read it in 2 - 3 hours and its been really helpful to me, and leveling up my professionalism, its like my bible of hard work 😄

And its yours, free, just reply to this email to ask for it :))

This was a different kind of post - it was a long ass story, so I want to know what you think about it

Reply here and let me know - do you prefer these kinds of stories that then tie in advice? do you think i grew my balls or just acted emotionally? do you miss the old format? should I combine the old with the new? etc….

ANY HOW!

Let me know if you like this and as usual: