A few years ago I took the decision of start my professional career, and have had a lot of help in the process, between colleagues, mentors, and books. Now I want to give a great tip, with a little luck you’ll find this useful.

Sometimes I use to think that I could learn faster and in a better way, in fact, thats because I can, there’s only help and orientation that you need.

Other situations like this make you reflex in one simple thing: “there’s something wrong with the way I Learn” and all this is part of the process, don’t jump of a bridge, now you can go on and learn from your mistake. But how can I do that…? Easy:

“Grow your knowledge portfolio”

Your knowledge portfolio is like investors’ portfolio and it keep some simple rules:

  1. Invest regularly, as a habit. Take classes, read a book per month. Invest in your education, buy magazine about topics of your career to stay current. Doesn’t matter if is a big inversion or a little one, it is an inversion and now is your habit.
  2. Diversification. Learn a Language each year, and do it well, remember that a developer is only as a strong as its weakest technology. As the previous example expose, never stay with just one language, because it will be like having just one screwdriver for work. Another thing that you can’t forget is the human part, read non-technical books for your personal knowledge.
  3. Balance between conservative and high-risk. Don’t miss the opportunities of some potential rewarding learning just for a traditional one. The research of new technologies could be highly rewarding.
  4. Buy low and sell. There’s a ton of undervalued technologies on the market, but the payoff could be rewarding.
  5. Review and rebalance. Now days this industry is a high-speed race because when you start, you can never stand in the same place. But the more we learn, the better our community is.

Remember that pragmatic programmer is an almost necesary book to read for building a career.

So, now you got it never let it go, this is your race and you can go as fast as you want. And like our friend Alice Cooper use to says: “that’s all I’ve got to give to you”