This is a revisit of an old post from 2008, Re: Moving

Back when moving to Houston to work for The Planet was a mere prospect, I was in a much different stage of my own life and maturity than I am now. As you can probably either guess or recall, I did take the offer and I moved to Houston on the company dime. Since then, a lot has happened though.

The first major thing that happened was in 2010, when I learned that I'd actually be moving into a proper software development role as the company merged with SoftLayer and assumed their name and culture accordingly. At the time I was quite overwhelmed and didn't really see any way that I'd get far with it because of all the new things and the culture that I (at that time) wasn't really getting along with.

As time went on though, I was able to get my feet planted firmly and I got my work ethic going again. I was relatively quickly identified as a strong developer and I was quickly promoted from a Software Engineer II up through Software Engineer III for a couple of months, then on to team lead for a little bit, eventually landing at a manager title and role. While I was in team lead role and into my management role, I took on the task of interviewing candidates and hiring the best ones for positions within my team. At the time I really didn't know it, but later on I found out that these people I hired were the best of the best, demonstrated by other teams demanding that I transfer them "on loan" to help with their projects, only to struggle to get them back.

Shortly after getting the management banner on my resume, a much bigger acquisition took place: SoftLayer was acquired by IBM. Yes, you read that right: IBM. I remember a few years before this happened, I looked out across the street from my apartment and saw the IBM campus near the Houston Galleria. As I looked out, I decided to see what sort of job opportunities existed at IBM, only to find that I wasn't quite up to par with what they were looking for. Heh, or so I thought.

Let me fast forward to the current day and age and tell you what's going on.

That rash of hiring-the-best carried on and I got a pretty stellar team of software engineers under me. I now have 18 employees under me, including one manager and the team of his direct reports. Last year, my total management responsibility grew to 20 direct reports, but at the end of the year I lost 7 of them due to restructuring in the organization I'm part of, but at the same time, I gained 5 with room to hire another 10. It's been crazy, but I share all of this to point out that I have made a huge leap from not feeling like I was management material to having a large team that I manage.

In the middle of all of this, I bought a brand new car, met my wife, bought a house, had a kid, then bought another (used) car. I've flown more times than I can count. I've been on 2 western Caribbean cruises, and so much more than I can fully recall.

I feel as though it's my requirement to share all of this for a couple of reasons.

First off, the incredible nature of all of it makes most people say, "wow, great job!" when I'm not the one who deserves the lauding. All of this, every last bit, has been because of God and the immeasurable blessings he's given me. Looking forward is a huge sea of unknowns, but I do know that if I trust God through all of it, he'll continue to bless me in this way (and more).

Secondly, I want everyone who is in a similar position to read the older post I linked to at the beginning of this, then compare it with what I've said here. Yes, it's possible for you to go about and beyond where your highest dreams are today.