The other day I posted on Twitter that I was taking a coding boot camp to learn Python. I was surprised by some of the responses I received.
Several people commented and sent me DMs that I shouldn’t waste my time learning to code and should instead lean into my leadership skills.
First, these comments were obviously kind and well-intentioned. But, I think they’re misguided as I’m extremely protective of my time and I’ve never regretted spending any of that time learning new skills.
I’ve always had this mindset that I can spend however much time I want learning new things, building projects, or spending however much $ on books because if I just get one idea that makes me $1 million, then it pays for itself.
I also have a deep belief that the largest opportunities sit at the intersections of disciplines/industries/technologies. Having an understanding of those different fields and technologies provides the insight to see things that other people can’t and it opens up the path to big ideas.
But these people’s comments weren’t wrong on the surface.
When I first started working in the oil field, I wanted to become the biggest oil man in Texas. I was busting my ass every day on the rig dreaming about starting my own oil and gas company and I thought that I needed to master every skill in the oil biz in order to do that.
I wanted to learn how to drill a well, how to frac, how to run land and title, how to finance assets, etc.
I would spend my days off studying these oil and gas courses on artificial lift, metering, wireline, etc. taking down notes like a madman. I wanted to learn it all.
What I came to realize several years later, was that as an entrepreneur, this is foolish.
The idea that you can learn everything in oil and gas on an expert level is comical. Second, there will always be someone better than you at specific skills or disciplines. The job of an entrepreneur is to recruit the best people in those respects and lead them as a team to produce outsized results. That was a huge mental unlock that took me some time to learn.
But that’s not an excuse to stop following your curiosity and learning new things.
I’m extremely grateful for all of the time I spent learning about oil and gas—I wouldn’t have been able to build DW if it wasn’t for that foundation of deep understanding.
There are a few other things that come to mind that I want to call out—Parts of my journey where in the moment it was easy to say “Why the hell would you spend your time doing that?” but now that some time has passed, these things turned out to be important.
Creating Instagram Pages
In 2014, I was paying close attention to the rise of Instagram. At the time I was managing specialty projects in oil and gas and I had a lot of extra time throughout the year when I wasn’t on rigs.
I looked at these Instagram accounts that were growing and thought “I can do that.”
Long story short, Julie and I ended up building these corny AF business motivation accounts to 300,000+ followers and monetized them through selling advertising to consumer brands and people like Gary Vaynerchuk.
This experience taught me about the power of social media content and how it could be utilized.
It also allowed my mind to be primed to see the next opportunity which was “No one is creating content in one of the largest industries in the world, Oil and Gas.”
In 2017 I started writing posts on LinkedIn that were gaining great traction and used that to launch the Oil and Gas Startups Podcast in 2018 and all of this eventually turned into Digital Wildcatters.
If it wasn't for my curiosity and early work on Instagram, I wouldn't have recognized this opportunity in oil and gas.
Bitcoin Mining
Through Instagram, I made a lot of interesting friends.
There was a group of them in Los Angeles that were on the ground floor of crypto and things were crazy back in 2016-2017.
People were raising millions of dollars on simple whitepapers through events called ICOs (Initial Coin Offerings.) I didn’t understand it, but I couldn’t ignore it, I wanted to wrap my head around it and learn everything about crypto.
This is what ultimately led me to become a Bitcoin maxi and understand Bitcoin mining and in turn realize that we could use natural gas to power Bitcoin Miners (which I think is one of the biggest plays that everyone is sleeping on still.)
Looking back, it’s pretty crazy to see how all of these things have tied together for me.
It wasn’t intentional, I actually put zero thought into it. I just did it because I was interested in doing it.
So why am I learning Python?
Because I want to and I do whatever I want.
We are building AI applications, so I want a deeper understanding of Python to have more intelligent conversations and have the ability to tinker around with new tech and projects. There’s 0% chance that learning Python won’t be useful to me in business.
I believe everyone should dedicate a few hours each week to learning new skills, regardless of their current expertise. Curiosity can lead to unexpected opportunities, and the knowledge you gain today can be the foundation for something amazing tomorrow.
Get out there and learn some shit.
If you missed some of my recent content, here’s a recap:
Vlog on meeting with GreenLake Energy’s executives
They’re crushing it on managing their data and exploring Bitcoin Mining
Emergency BDE on the Exxon-Pioneer merger
Scott Sheffield getting hammered by the FTC for collusion SMH
Follow me on Instagram and twitter if you want unhinged takes 👇