The humility is one of the bests adjectives that we always need to run for.

I like to think that we can try to reach a senior career, but never lost the junior spirit!

Love this reflection.

I always say, we’re standing on the shoulder of giants.

Where would we be in our careers without Veeam.

Where would Veeam be without the amazing technologies it leverages.

Where would those technologies be without those that preceded and evolved into their current iterations.

This follows down and down to the operating system and a few key names such as Linus Torvalds, Bill Gates, and Steve Jobs might come to mind. And where would the operating systems be without the CPU architectures that drive them, and again more names will echo out such as Gordon Moore & Steve Wozniak. And those architectures are revisions and improvements on architectures that came before.

We can follow this path back and see names such as Alan Turing, and his incredible contributions to the field, but then we can also reflect back to how Alan read extensive notes from Ada Lovelace herself and once again see how even Alan Turing was standing upon the shoulders of Ada Lovelace.

This continues throughout history, other key names such as Charles Babbage but this still follows back further based on principles of human-driven ‘computing’ that enabled the concepts that could be used by Charles to design his machine around.

The point of my writing above there is, no-one has done this alone, without any historical influence or building block for where they are now.

But collectively, humanity has designed some truly wonderful things.

I’ve said for a long time, when my career is done and I’m on my final 5 years to wind down, I want to go into teaching, I want to pass the torch. It’s the reason I blog and share my knowledge, to not do so is a crime against all those that shared their knowledge historically in the pursuit of more knowledge.

If I was honest, I’m a little of both as well @Geoff Burke . I can honestly say I started interacting with VMware/Veeam communities because I love doing so and really enjoy getting to know tech colleagues. I did this the 1st few yrs of my vExpert years. No swag was involved, minus VMW licensing...& early on, even those weren’t being disseminated. It was purely for the “joy” of lab’ing on and promoting a fun, new tech → virtualization. Then vendors started offering swag and I think that became most folks’ main focus to wanting to join vendor evangelist communties. Don’t want to assume; and not wholistically for sure, but just a guess.

I had a discussion on this topic on Twitter a few yrs ago with someone; how I thought it would be better for folks to have that ‘do it for the knowledge-sharing’ focus as @MicoolPaul stated, rather than the ‘material’ (swag & accolades). He disagreed, but that’s ok. I think internal fulfillment is better & more ‘eternal’. Anyway, good reflection.

That is the best attitude to have and great to see how humble people can be.  It is great to see this from many in our industry.

It pays to be humble at all times! There is a saying as follows: Pride comes (goes) before a fall. This means, when someone is excessively proud, he often suffers a fiasco. 

> I was honest, I’m a little of both as well @Geoff Burke 

I think the focus shouldn’t be on why you are engaging because, if you do not love what you do, you will never have the zeal to engage. And while engaging, these are just add-ons for your work. Because, without them, you will still engage. 

@coolsport00 yes I have talked to @MicoolPaul about his swag addiction . I said “just say no”. I know from personal experience, “Hi I am Geoff, I am a swagaholic!” It was that first free t-shirt at VeeamON 2015 in Las Vegas, then the bouncy balls that changed colour, it went further downhill when I was exposed to an assortment of pens, notepads and the final straw was the never ending stream of backpacks. I knew I needed help when I realized that I no longer own a pair of non IT socks!!! Even now as I speak I am wearing a Vmware shirt, Legend cap, vanguard hoodie …… there is no hope and in the weeks to come I will be face to face with my old foe… I had better bring an extra empty suitcase!

@Geoff Burke ...I will indeed be wearing both my Legends & Vanguards polos and socks next wk myself, so who am I to talk?? 

These companies know our weak spots :)

Thanks for the post @Geoff Burke It’s a great reminder. Check our egos when we check our bags on the way to VeeamON ?

Being humble should always be #1, however, you can be humble, and still be proud of your accomplishments.

I am always proud of what I have accomplished, but no matter what it is, there is always room for improvement. 

As someone who drives themselves pretty hard, I used to have the opposite issue. If my band played a gig and someone would complement me, I’d usually find the flaws in my performance and be quite negative on myself..  Learning how to say thank you and take a complement is important as is being humble and leaving your ego at the door.    

What if I am not going to VeeamON? 

This post was not written for the Veeam 100 group just a note. 

I am sure you will be there.  

:) yeah I just don’t want the folks that can’t go to feel bad. I myself have been hyping it like crazy and then I thought about how I would feel if I could not go.  Plus to be fair this was a self reflective post not aimed at anyone. I found myself getting a big head about Kubehuddle this week, luckily at my age all I need to do is look in the mirror and my ego is instantly tamed :)