In my book “Fast-Track Your Leadership Career“, I talk about investing in yourself – focusing on Project You. Learning new skills, meditating, exercising, doing things that help you focus on your next play.
I like to invest in myself by learning new things. So last month, I decided to learn how to create Alexa skills. I had not coded in a while. Noelle LaCharite, who happens to be one of the key people in my intellectual support system (Yes, I also talk about building an intellectual support system in my book) taught me how to create Alexa skills. I aligned my first skill “Leadership Affirmations” with my book, published it on Alexa store and shared it on LinkedIn. It was wonderful to get back to developing something and putting it out there for the world. Kai Dupé, an Amazon Web Services trainer liked the skill and found a new usecase for it – he plays the skill for his students at the start of his class. And I now play my Alexa skills for my audience at the start of my sessions at events and conferences.
That inspired me and I decided to participate in the “Alexa Super Skills” challenge to publish 5 skills on Alexa store by Oct 31. It was a long shot since I had just learned how to create the skills but I was determined. So by Oct 31, I had all 5 skills published. And then I got busy with my routine and forgot about the challenge, until yesterday, when I got a message from the Alexa team that I qualified for the challenge and my “Alexa Developer limited edition collectible” was on its way. I was ecstatic!
And today when I got it, I was disappointed! It is a plastic toy…nothing great. But I am happy I decided to learn something new, to focus on Project Me…the joy of building and putting the skills out there and so many people using them globally overshadows the disappointment of “not to collectible” collectible.
So invest in yourself my friends…get out of your comfort zone and learn something new. The joy of learning something new and working on Project You is the best gift you can give yourself!
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