Potential is nothing
without execution.
I didn't know coding was for me. I thought it was for the PhDs and the rocket scientists. I didn't wait for the tech industry to invite me in. I built the door myself.
See The Blueprint ↓The Full Story: From the Fryer to the Future
For over ten years, my life was defined by the smell of old grease. It is a distinct scent. It clings to your clothes. It seeps into your pores. Eventually, it tries to settle into your soul.
I was working at a gas station frying chicken. I was working eighty hours a week. Sometimes one hundred hours a week. When my son was born, I worked one hundred and two hours in a single week. I was killing myself with effort, but I was standing still.
To be honest, for a long time I thought I was doing great. I grew up in the hood in Brooklyn. I wasn't in jail. I wasn't dead. I had a job. The bills were kind of paid. But there was a looming fear that lived in the back of my mind every single day. I knew that if I took even one week off work, the lights would go out. I couldn't afford to be sick. I couldn't afford to rest. I was working hard enough to survive, but I was working hard enough to still be broke.
That gas station was my ceiling. I thought a guy like me wasn't allowed to do anything else.
"Bite-sized goals lead to a full meal."
The Moment Everything Changed
I was thirty years old when I finally hit the wall. I looked at my life and had a terrifying realization. I was at a fork in the road.
"If I go right, I'm going to work in this gas station until the day I die. If I go left, I had to make a change. It had to be now."
GO LEFT
The Unknown. The Struggle.
The Opportunity.
GO RIGHT
Comfort. Stagnation.
Dead End.
Around that time, I saw an interview on TV. A rapper had invested millions into a tech company. The interviewer asked him why. He said simply, "I am learning how to code."
It blew my mind. My thought process was that coding was for PhDs and rocket scientists. It wasn't for average people. It certainly wasn't for me. But his reasoning hit me hard. He asked why we wouldn't want to understand the machine we touch ninety percent of our day.
I realized he was right. From the RAM to the Application Layer, I was clueless about the tool I used daily.
So I opened my laptop. I went to FreeCodeCamp.org. I started to learn.
The Old Me
DEMAND
YOUR VALUE.
I went in there, and I demanded it.
Closed Mouths Don't Get Fed
While I was learning, something happened at the gas station that changed my entire perspective on value.
I had been working there for years. I was outworking everyone. I was covering shifts. I was doing everything I thought a good employee should do. A new guy joined the team. Four or five months later, he walked into the boss's office. When he came out, he was the Store Manager.
I couldn't comprehend it. I had been there longer. I worked harder. I knew the job better. I asked him how he did it.
He looked at me and said, "I went in there, and I demanded it."
That moment changed my life. I realized I had missed out on life changing opportunities simply because I didn't raise my hand. I missed out because I didn't say, "I am interested. I think I can do that." I was waiting for someone to tap me on the shoulder and reward my hard work. I learned the hard way that closed mouths don't get fed.
I made a vow to myself that day. I will never miss an opportunity again simply because I was too afraid to speak.
Motivation is Fleeting.
Drive is Reliable.
I took that energy into my studies. But finding the time was brutal. I had a wife, a kid, and that one hundred hour work week. The math didn't work.
The only time that belonged to me was before the sun came up. My family woke up at 7:00 AM. So I started waking up at 4:00 AM every single day. I wasn't motivated. I hate mornings. But I was driven. Motivation is fleeting. Drive is doing it because you have to.
I built my first app. It was a terrible image filter that was Instagram's worst nightmare. But I was proud of it. I decided to go to a local meetup.
I walked into that first room and instantly realized I knew nothing. They were speaking a foreign language. Java. C Sharp. SQL. I felt small. I realized in that moment that I was being excluded from the conversation.
I vowed that night: I will never be excluded again.
But the reality of those meetups was harsh. My nickname became "Popeyes." I would time my shift to end at 6:30 PM so I could sprint to a 7:00 PM meetup. I didn't have time to shower. Within twenty minutes, the entire room smelled like fried chicken because of me.
"I sat there fighting suffocating imposter syndrome. I told myself they wanted a professional developer, not a professional chicken fryer."
But I kept showing up. I went to fifty four meetups in my first year. I realized that while I couldn't choose my family, I could choose my influences. I asked senior engineers to tear apart my code. I weaponized my ignorance to learn faster.
The First Meetup that changed everything.
Day 1: The Pivot Realized
Strategy Over Spray and Pray
"Stop negotiating with your potential."
When I was ready to apply for jobs, I didn't just spray and pray. I used strategy.
I analyzed the market in Memphis. I saw that the top ten companies I wanted to work for weren't using the trendy new frameworks. They were using Java and Angular. So I didn't waste time on what was cool on Twitter. I learned exactly what my target market was buying.
I started cold messaging hiring managers on LinkedIn. I was terrified. But I did the risk analysis. If I send a message and they say no, I have lost nothing. They aren't coming to my gas station. I will never see them again. But if one person says yes, my entire family tree changes.
The strategy worked. But I didn't jump at the first offer. I turned down six job offers before accepting my first role.
People thought I was crazy. I was broke. But I wasn't desperate. I knew that if I took the wrong job, I would just be trading one depression for another. I wasn't looking for a paycheck. I was looking for a trajectory.
I walked into interviews with a Value Mindset. I didn't beg for a chance. I said, "I am valuable. I will bring value to this team. If you give me the opportunity, I will bring so much value you won't be able to afford to lose me."
From Syntax to Strategy
"I don't hire credentials. I hire trajectory."
Getting the job was just the starting line. My journey wasn't linear. It was exponential.
I learned early on that a hard worker is the poorest person in the room. A hard worker with a plan owns the room.
My technical evolution mirrored the industry. I started by mastering the Enterprise Stack with Java and Angular because that built stability. But as I moved into leadership and became a Director of Technology, I realized stability isn't enough. You need velocity.
I led teams in migrating legacy monoliths to Microservices using Go (Golang) and React. I learned that Go offers the concurrency needed for modern speed, and React offers the scale for modern UIs.
Today, my role isn't just about writing code. It is about de-risking architecture. It is about aligning engineering with revenue. I leverage tools like Snowflake for data and AWS for scale. I don't sugarcoat code reviews. When you sugarcoat something, people eat it instead of looking at it. I give my teams the raw data so we can fix the problem and ship.
The Measure of Success
I achieved the goal. I climbed the ladder. But I realized that success that isn't shared is failure. I am no longer obsessed with making the most money. I am obsessed with leaving the world better than I found it.
That is why I founded the Commit Your Code conference. That is why I have spoken in prisons. When you teach a prisoner to code, you aren't just teaching them a skill. You are dropping their recidivism rate to near zero. You are handing them a tool to rewrite their future.
"I stand here today not just as a Director of Technology, but as proof of a simple truth: Potential is nothing without execution."
You can be Popeyes today, and you can be a leader tomorrow. The smell of grease was temporary. The skills I built were permanent.
I changed my story. Now, I help others engineer theirs.
I changed my story.
Let's engineer yours.
Whether you need a Director to overhaul your architecture, or a Speaker to shift your organization's mindset from 'maintenance' to 'growth', I am ready to execute.