Howdy doo (yes, I'm running out of creative ways to say hello)

In this issue of the Top 3 in Tech newsletter I want to talk about "success" and the idea of being "successful", because I think the internet has made this discussion more relevant today than ever before. Afterwards we'll look at a video on how to get job ready as a front-end developer, and finally we talk about using ThreeJS to create 3D scenes for the web.

Let's go:

1. What is success?

Today I'd like to reflect on the meaning of "success", and why it's important to find your own definition rather than chase some arbitrary or society-defined versions. In a tweet, this is how I view the idea of succes:

Mads Brodt @madsbrodt Remember: success is what you make it. You don't need to create the next Facebook or make billions of dollars to be successful. If you can wake up every day, do something you enjoy, and have enough money to sustain your lifestyle - I'd consider you successful. November 22nd 2021 6 Retweets 40 Likes

​However, it seems that many people link success purely to a financial outcome. Like if you don't land that $200k /year salary, you're not a successful developer. Or if you don't sell your startup for millions of dollars, you're not a successful entrepreneur.

Of course there's nothing wrong with being ambitious, and chasing goals like this can be a great motivator. But I also think it can be dangerous if you neglect other parts of your life "just" to achieve some level of success that you might not even have thought about; you're just chasing it because that's how society generally measures success (financially).

In this day and age, the internet enables so many alternate lifestyles that simply weren't possible 10+ years ago. You can now work remotely / part time / as a freelancer, and find lots of happiness in your life outside of work. That's why I think it's important to critically evaluate what you mean when you tell yourself that you want to be successful. If you decide that what you want most in life is to create a billion dollar company - more power to you. As long as it's an active decision you make based on reflection and your personal values.

For me personally, as I said in the tweet, success is waking up excited every day (or most days) to work on or do something I enjoy. If I can do that while also earning enough money to sustain my lifestyle / family etc., that's good enough for me. That doesn't mean I don't want to be wealthy, or earn more money. It just means I don't want those things more than I want to be happy - and I don't think I need them to be happy in the first place.

In the end, your definition of success should, in my opinion, be entirely dependent on living the kind of life you want to live. Whatever that looks like.

2. 5 front-end skills to land your first job

Breaking into the coding industry can be challenging, because coding / development is such a broad definition. There's front-end / back-end / app development, machine learning, data science, game programming etc. etc.

That said, the easiest way to get started is definitely with front-end development. All you need is VsCode and an HTML file and you can start coding. The question then becomes, how do you learn the right things, in the right order, to get job ready as quickly as possible. And getting job ready is absolutely key, because the real learning happens on the job - so the faster you land that first job, the better.

This video goes into detail on where to start, the expected learning times for different skills, and when you should begin applying for jobs - so definitely check it out:

3. ThreeJS

You might already be familiar with the JavaScript library Three.js if you're into front-end development, but in case you're not: ThreeJS is a way to create incredible and visual 3D scenes on the web using realistic properties like physics, lighting, shadows etc.

It's definitely one of the coolest libraries I've seen in a long time, and once you learn how to use it, you unlock incredible potential to create mind-blowing experiences you thought simply weren't possible on a website. That's why I encourage you to check out ThreeJS, be amazed by the examples, and hopefully set aside some time to learn the basics and get started yourself:

​Check out some ThreeJS examples​

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Thanks for reading! I would really appreciate if you would share the newsletter with your friends on Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn, by email or copy/paste the link mads.fyi/top3 on other platforms. It really helps to keep me motivated and let the newsletter grow ✌

Until next time,

Mads Brodt