Hey Pythonista,

I sent you an email the other day about valuing your accumulated skills when it came to negotiations and figuring out your hourly rate.

This whole concept of being the expert and valuing yourself as such really hit home with some of you.

On reading your responses, I realised there was something I didn't touch on.

The role of an expert as a teacher.

When you become an expert of your craft, you have a real opportunity to help people.

Many will have imposter syndrome when it comes to this, just like they would with putting a dollar value on their skills and time, but the reality is that your lived experiences in the trade count for much more than a book or course.

Think of the times when you've experienced your greatest advancements in learning a skill. It was likely connected with the hands-on experience of someone more senior in the craft.

Python aside, one of my most memorable experiences was an ex-colleague from Sun Microsystems teaching me a simple guitar riff on my own guitar. His lived experience with the guitar meant he taught me a riff that I continue to use to this day. It also served to help me strengthen my finger placement across multiple strings.

Back to Python, this is how I finally understood database models in Django. The books helped for sure, but Bob's specific experience with it really helped solidify the knowledge: 

• He knew what the confusing parts were. 

• He'd slogged it out in the past and saved me time by teaching me exactly what I needed to know to get the models configured.

• He knew the common pitfalls that would cause me pain later and informed me up front (e.g., forgetting to run the db migration to commit the changes).

Learning from an expert coach is always going to be the best way forward to learning and mastering a new skill - Python, guitar or other.

This is what we do for Python Developers. And we do it well.

Use the following link to check out our Pybites Developer Mindset coaching program where, leaning on our many years of experience, we provide you with Python, Developer and Mindset coaching to help you advance your dev skills and reach your Python goal.

Have a great week!

Julian