money is an amazing and fun thing to have but the pursuit of it alone is empty. It's so easy to just nod your head at the above statement and agree, deep down believing it's true but that your pursuit is somehow more justified. Don't ever embark on a project because it's "part of an x billion dollar industry", don't ever tell yourself you'll do more of x or y once you "save up and get a bit more padding". Don't rip off someone else's idea because you will never truly understand it the way they do. Don't let a project define your life, you have to be bigger than the project and know that if it fails you will be just fine. Don't ever be the 'idea guy' or 'the money guy' - if you don't fully understand a project and the industry it's in, you're going to get fleeced. If you're really good at X, why would you spend all of your time doing Y? Because Y is a 50 billion dollar industry? lol. This applies to the stock market too - if you're good at code and not so good with securities (impulsive?) - why would you spend so much time researching how to thrive int he stock market? Is it because you truly love the idea of the stock exchange and owning a part of a company as a long term investment - or are you trying to make quick and easy money? What would you think if an expert stock broker came to you with his idea for making an amazing iPhone app, that he's putting trading on hold until his app is finished? You'd maybe tell that guy to slow down for a minute.
Write your ideas down - every single one - because eventually you'll have many per day and although you will only ever develop a very small percent, those ideas build on each other and become something amazing. Be an expert in one field, but be proficient in many many more- the truly amazing ideas come from connections make across multiple disciplines that haven't been seen before because historically people are told to excel in just one area. Those truly amazing ideas, good chance you won't develop most of them either but you will delight yourself with the ability to be creative at a moments notice and it will give you the confidence that you can accomplish very big things, and it will be backed up.
Know when a project has lost steam and know when to drop it, when to tell the team members it's time to work or quit. Don't be afraid to trash a project even if it has some potential. If you have a crappy codebase on a non-trivial project - if it was created by 1 or 2 people it's probably a lot faster in the long run to just rewrite the thing very clean. Team is important - only work with people who really impress you - if you think you're better than everyone else on the team in every area - you have selected/joined a really bad team. Know how to spot other people who give a crap and want to develop cool things. Learn from other experts who know something you don't. Never be afraid to admit you were wrong or misspoke. don't act like you know it all - the feeling that you 'know a lot' after studying something for a few weeks must be some kind of common thing, but after another few months you start to realize how very little you know. Don't be satisfied with a cursory knowledge of a programming language if you have decided to use it in a project.
Don't ignore best practices, they help you progress a lot faster and become mentally organized. Don't overcomment code - also don't obsessively refactor to the point the code is unreadable. Make sure you're always learning something new.
Find out your favorite way to learn: reading, classes, videos, hacking. These are great but after you know the intro stuff, start to read the official documentation.
You know how you say "I can't believe how ignorant I was just 2 years ago"?- well in 2 years you'll be saying the same thing hopefully - that means you're ignorant now and you just don't realize it. Be humble, keep up the pace, keep learning - don't be lazy you ignorant fucker!
If you're stuck on a coding problem and have been sitting more than a few hours frustrated- get some help and talk to someone (and stretch). Those ruts that can last 10, 20 hours - they are not good, they are incredibly wasteful and they hurt. Speaking of sitting - get a damn aeron (or whatever your favorite chair is) - even if you're poor it's worth it. Don't be afraid to spend on really good equipment, it all pays off. Always be open to paying more for quality, but avoid paying more simply because of brand. Avoid getting the 'base version' of a product without carefully considering all of the 'add ons' and determine if they are actually valuable to you (again on the aeron, the only people who I have really heard say they've very unhappy with it seem to have the cheaper, not-so-adjustable version -it's like paying 20% more to get 50% more.
If you ever think you will get into creating electronics, don't throw away old things with PCBs - at the least pull those things out.
Autodidacticism is a wonderful thing as is contextual knowledge - do your best to eventually back up those things you learned with some formal book study. Also - peer programming is an amazing thing, do it at every chance you get. Try your best to find answers to your own questions. Learn more about yourself, try to figure out what makes you motivated, happy, tired, overemotional. When you're stressed and emotional your ability to think logically and be effective is drastically reduced.
Enjoy the things you like, food, music, books, fashion - based on what makes you happy - try never to buy anything with the thought in your head of how you're going to feel when other people see you - it's an insidious thought that I assume we all get but if you recognize it you can squash it. Don't be afraid to listen to a genre of music because it's been stereotyped - if you like corny music then forget it - listen to the corny music and if anyone laughs at you, you can smile and not care a single bit. If you act with indifference to peoples insults or ad hoc arguments they'll become insanely frustrated - don't continue a debate on ad nauseum. If someone always says you need to have the last word - that's a pretty good time to stop taking because not only has the argument become pointless... but yea.
ok that's a lot - a nice reflection for sure.