The Inner Game of Coding: Why You're Struggling to Learn | Ep#51
[00:00:00] after five years of failing to learn to code, I was 39 years old when I finally was a coder and got my dream job as an engineer at Google.
But you know, the real story isn't about getting in. It's about the first code review that made me feel about two feet tall and like I wasn't smart enough to be there.
So why am I telling you this? I'm telling you this because of that feeling.
That, that feeling of inadequacy, that constant desire to quit, that you're just not good enough. And to be honest, that is the real reason why people give up learning to code. And unless you fix the root cause, that feeling unfortunately continues to haunt you even after you've succeeded. Now, I know this because
I felt it as a junior lawyer in my twenties. I felt it as a junior engineer in my very late thirties, and I felt it even when I was mid-level and senior level as my problems and challenges and opportunities got bigger. That sense of [00:01:00] inadequacy can sometimes come with you, and it's only in the last five years that have really figured out what needs to be done to fix it.
And in my newsletter links are in the description. I break all this down and I even tell you more about that really horrible code review that I went through, right? Which is actually a turning point. It really was a turning point not just in my career as a whole, but also in my first few months at Google.
It really helped.
INTRO
Welcome to Easier Said Than Done with me, Zubin Pratap, where I share with you my journey from 37 year old lawyer to professional software engineer. The goal of this podcast is to show you how to actually do those things that are EASIER SAID THAN DONE.
Look, when it comes to learning to. The silent killer of the big coding dream. We've all had it. You know, we want to build these fancy apps, we wanna work with smart people, we want to earn a lot of money, we want to be able to have global mobility. All of that. We all start with that.
I get it right. But the real killer of that dream is
not knowing what to do. Not knowing where to start. This is a common one. And even if you do, 'cause you have all this information, there's too much out there. [00:02:00] How do you actually do it?
Especially if you're a busy person, you know, you've already got a career, you may have kids, you've got other things that you need, you, you have a mortgage and so on.
How does one learn to code in the midst of all that?
And then you have to figure out how to get a coding job.
That's why most people quit. It's not actually learning to code a lot of people. In fact, most people that I've met, and I've met more than 2000 developers in the last five years as part of my role.
Most people will learn to code. Most people will never become a professional coder because they quit and it's really sad. So many people give up. I, I understand, but it's very sad. And maybe right now as you're listening to this, you want to, or you've thought about it or you're feeling like it and you, you know, if you do, I want you to know this.
It's not because you're not smart enough. It's not because you can't have the skills or it's for some sort of gene. It's really not. You have the ability, you have the native raw intelligence. The reason you are in this position and maybe trying and failing and not getting anywhere like I did for five years.
It's because you're probably not psychologically ready for what it means. That was certainly my case right now. I know in [00:03:00] 2025 everyone's saying, oh, you know the job market's hard. Yeah, it is. It's not just hard for coders, by the way. It's hard for everybody. I think it's harder for non coders. It's just that the media doesn't talk about it.
But the reality is
there's still a quarter of a million jobs just in software engineering in the US alone and everyday people are getting hired.
Right. The reality is also that
most people give up. Rather than get rejected. It's not like most people get rejected in interviews. Most people don't even get to the interview stage.
Now, I know this because in the last, just the last few months, several of my students in the Inner Circle program have got job interviews and offers multiples. Right? It's obviously possible, if you know how,
I mean, it's an annoying statement. I know, because, hey, everything is easy when you know how. Right?
But here's the thing, and
I noticed this so many times in multiple careers, I could give you the complete roadmap. Right. Assuming I knew everything about you and your goals,
I could give you a full roadmap in a few weeks. Everything you need to learn, and still most people will not follow through.
They will try.
They will, but life will get in the way. Other things will happen. They'll lose focus, they'll get distracted, and then they won't get there. [00:04:00] And I'm just having a real conversation with you right now. Okay? You gotta ask yourself why? Why?
Why do we do this?
Most of us already know what we need to do, but we don't do it.
Think about sports and fitness or diet and exercise or friendships, or music practice. We all know we need to practice more. We need to train more. We need to eat better. We need to live healthier lives. We need to do all sorts of things.
But we don't do it. Why?
The answer is human psychology, just pure psychology, mindset, whatever you wanna call it. And I know mindset gets a bad name, but hey, that's what it is. It's your inner game, okay? It's your inner game.
And life is unfair, folks.
Life is unfair.
Life is hard. It's asymmetric. Everybody has good luck and bad luck. And some people have more or different points of time. One is more than the other, who knows, right? So many obstacles and setbacks. It's not easy. Life gets in the way. It really does. I get it. I get it.
So without the inner game, you're not gonna make it past those setbacks and obstacles.
It no matter how many great coding resources you have, no many, no matter how much access to data structures and algorithms,
or which [00:05:00] $10,000 program you did, or whether you go to the fancy get ready for coding interviews before you've actually learned to code kind of. None of it matters.
Without the psychology of a winner, you cannot stick to the plan.
So let me tell you, based on, you know, decades of coaching people, let me tell you the major reasons why people quit at anything, and especially good, okay? And hopefully this is what I want from you. When you understand there are only four major reasons when you understand them, you must train yourself to do the opposite.
So here's the reason why people quit. You do the opposite, okay?
That's how you don't get stuck. Right. That's how you solve problems. That's how you keep moving forward and eventually attaining your goal.
You cannot NOT attain your goal if you keep moving towards it. It's just physics, right? So here goes.
CTA
Hi, if you want a no BS insight into how to change your career, whether to code or something else and how to actually get job opportunities in tech, then please subscribe and like.
It's no BS because I have zero incentive to mislead you. I just want to help you and give you tons of value so that you will [00:06:00] consider working with me to get to your next career.
Take a look at the
description text below to learn more
about the training I offer.
Also, you may find my newsletter. Interesting. I've linked to it in the description. I only mail about two, maybe three times a week, usually around industry trends, things I've learned from other developers, the common habits and pitfalls that I see in my prevent them from actually succeeding, case studies and insights from that, so you'd probably find it quite useful. And hey if you don't, you can always unsubscribe later. No problems.
But I do post content here regularly and by subscribing and liking and hitting that notification bell you will get to know when I post new industry insights for you. You'll also know within about three seconds if you want to learn more, but at least you won't miss out.
Oh, and please follow me on LinkedIn too. I pretty much post there every single day. Just look for my name, Zubin Pratap. All right. So please like, and subscribe to this channel and let's get back to the episode.
You cannot NOT attain your goal if you keep moving towards it. It's just physics, right? Here are the main reasons why people quit. I want you to do the opposite.
Number one, the crushing weight of frustration is very real, okay? Do [00:07:00] not expect it to be pleasant.
So frustration opposite pleasantness. Okay? You do not wanna expect it to be pleasant. Expect it to be frustrating as all get out. You will spend hours, maybe days and weeks.
Heck, there was a bug at Google that got me stuck for almost a month. That's a long time, right? Look,
initial excitement will fade.
It's going to be replaced by a feeling of being completely lost and inadequate.
there's another podcast episode I did about this, another video, a great detailed video about you know, the value of despair and what's known as the emotional cycle of change.
Go and check it out if you can. I'll see if I can link to it, but you can find it on my on my channel. It talks about the exact point people quit, that you can actually plot it on a graph. Okay? And then I talk about how you can get through that, that, that dip, that trough into the other side,
where very few people get to the other side, and I'll tell you how to do it in that episode, right?
But you're going to feel your excitement fade. You're gonna be feeling lost, inadequate, hopeless, frustrated, really angry at the world, all of that. This is the moment that most people give up
and they're unable at that moment to separate their self-worth from the code [00:08:00] that refuses to work, or the concept that refuses to stick.
So don't let that happen. Now that you know, don't let it happen. Or when it happens, assume that that's proof of progress. Just say, Hey, we knew Zubin said this is gonna happen
and it's gonna happen a lot. This is happening,
so that means I'm on track. For you. Right?
Number two, the overwhelming sense. Let's start, you know, when you've opened your first online course textbook,
look, guys code is code, you know, Python, Java?
You write the same thing. I write the same thing, gonna get the same results. It's like English. Okay? You, you write the same words. People are not understand it the same way. When you do your first course, your program, whatever it is, you're, you are ready to conquer the world. Okay? You're going to be,
yeah, yeah.
You know, I'm ready to go. I'm gonna do this, I'm gonna do this.
Gonna underestimate your psychological experience through the journey, and very soon you're gonna get hit with a wall
of jargon, complex setups, things that work on that computer, that don't work on my computer, things that you're seeing on the screen that aren't what you're seeing in your screen.
The simple act of beginning can feel like an impossible puzzle, right? Why the freaking hell is it so hard for me? It leaves you feeling paralyzed, inadequate, [00:09:00] stupid, moronic, and defeated. Even before you've gotten out the starting gate, okay, expect it do the opposite, which is assume that that's part of the process,
and the fact that you're not seeing something that somebody else is seeing is exactly what happens in the real world, okay?
This is why things like Docker was invented is because there's a well-known problem. Does it work on my computer? Not that it doesn't work on somebody else's, just on my computer, or people with setups like mine. It's a real thing. Learn how to deal with it. This is part of the process.
Number three reason why people quit. So, so close to the end really is the myth of rapid progress. And this is marketing.
Okay? This is like anytime people say, oh, I, I went to the gym in two months and, and I got a six pack. They're not telling you of, of the one year of dieting that went behind that, that their body type made a big difference that helped them get that result in time and that they probably only needed to go to the gym twice a week because they had low body fat in the first place.
Or they'd gone on a stripping diet for, you know, a year or six months, whatever it is that they did, right? You only see what the marketing message tells you is the success. So you see the success [00:10:00] stories online. People have learned to code in a few months, and you expect the same.
You don't know whether they were doing it 15 hours a day, whether they'd done it in college, whether they had a computer science degree, whether they have friends who are in a startup that give them a job.
You don't know anything. You don't know whether they were like me and they tried five times before they finally succeeded. Right. People think, oh, you learned to code in in eight months? Yes. My plan that worked took me eight months, but I'd been trying to learn to code for five years. So what, what is the right answer?
Was it five years in eight months, or was it just eight months?
It's, it's a bit of both. Right. So your journey is gonna be different.
You've gotta run your own race. You are gonna have tiny victories. You're gonna have massive setbacks just like everybody else, okay? Monumental setbacks and tiny victories. But the victories will keep you going. And when you compare yourself with other people,
that comparison, you know, it's a, it's a thief of happiness, right?
It'll steal your motivation.
It will. Corrode,
like acid will corrode the metal. It'll do that to your motivation
and it'll make you
feel like a failure for not being on some bizarre, unrealistic, accelerated timeline
that you assume is the whole story, and it rarely is.
Okay. Number four.
Why people quit is they
forget how lonely this journey psychologically,
especially if you're a [00:11:00] career changer. And I'm, that's mainly who I speak to, right? 'cause like I said, I was in my late thirties when I made the career change.
It's a very lonely journey, and it's not lonely just because things aren't working in your computer.
It's lonely because everyone around you and a voice in your head is saying, are you freaking crazy?
What are you doing? What are you doing? You're never gonna succeed.
That voice. Inside your head, people outside your head, people who care about you,
people who are telling you, Hey,
I would never do this crazy thing,
therefore you should not.
But it sounds like they're saying, why are you doing it? What they're actually saying is, I would not do it right now. You think that this journey is a solo thing? Okay. You're the hero of your own story. I get it.
But the truth is:
success is always a team sport.
Without a community to turn to for help without a good mentor, someone who believes in you before you do believe in yourself.
This is, this,
I truly believe is my primary role in the Inner Circle program. People think it's giving them the custom coding curriculum. Great. That's what they think it's all about. I know that what really moves the needle on them, that makes them actually follow through on that curriculum that I give them.
'cause it could be different levels of complexity [00:12:00] for different people. What makes them follow through is that I
know what they can do before they know what they can do.
And I have to constantly believe in them to help them do it.
Okay. So those moments of frustration and self-doubt are very real.
They're very isolating and they tend to magnify every setback all out of proportion.
' Cause you are in the hurricane and everything looks like it's going to shit around you. Okay? So it
magnifies everything until people finally just say, it's too much.
I've got this job. I'll just
try and make do there. I'll try and, change my dreams.
I'll never buy the big house that I want.
Fine. I'll live in a small house, whatever it is.
People change their goals rather than changing their plan and their strategy and their psychology.
Okay. Changing psychology is really, really important if you haven't figured it out yet. Okay? So that's why in Inner Circle and in everything in my life, I do a lot of psychological preparation.
Now, this is not surprising when you look at what athletes do, what CEOs do, what people in the military do what musicians do
before they go on stage, or
public speakers do before they go on stage.
They prepare psychologically. Some people meditate, some people have chants. Some people have invocations, [00:13:00] some people have physical movements.
Tony Robbins talks about this. He does a combination of chants and physical movements and a little dance like thing
to get the state right? Internal state means psychological preparation. When you're trying to get a state change in sight to change your mood on the inside out, it's psychological preparation.
That's where the expression getting psyched for something comes from. ' cause it is psychological guys. It is psychological preparation. It is essential, okay?
Because learning to code is a long journey and no one actually knows how long it's going to be. I know people will tell you two months and three months and there's a reason I say 12 months to people.
'cause most of the time you can get it in six to eight, but I'm gonna say 12. I'm gonna tell you the extra bit because life's gonna get in the way. You're going to lose interest at some point of time or lose motivation 'cause difficult things are happening.
Or you know, somebody got married and you had to go away for two weeks and you lost momentum and you know you're gonna face roadblocks. All of this is gonna happen. It can lead to feelings of anxiety and helplessness.
Now I want you to really understand something very, very important. I just had this conversation with a couple of my, my students just last week.
Okay. You have to know whether you're feeling anxiety or [00:14:00] helplessness. 'cause they're very different.
I may actually do an entire different episode on this, but anxiety is a feeling of being worried about something that could happen
or, you know, you feel like, oh, I need to do this, I can't, I don't, you know, it's the sense of dis-ease of malaise.
Whether you can get a handle on all the information. It's a sense of, Ooh, I need to, or I don't know how to, or, you know, I gotta do all this. That's anxiety.
Helplessness is a very different thing. Helplessness
crushes you like that. It makes you feel like that big anxiety is more fear driven. It's, you know, anxious energy, right?
Helplessness is no energy. It is
just being crushed because you have no choices. There is nothing you can do.
It is a belief or an actual fact that you can't do anything.
To change a difficult situation.
Anxiety is driving in high traffic with people doing stupid things around you. Helplessness is standing in front of a a mega truck that's just hurtling down on you and you cannot move.
There's a big difference, okay?
And helplessness is not what most people feel. Okay? It can be, but most people feel anxiety.
[00:15:00] And I can promise you, at every level of your life in career, you're gonna feel anxiety and helplessness in different scenarios, okay?
Especially when you're growing.
It's proof of growth, okay?
Your mindset is what's gonna keep you going when growth feel painful. And let me tell you, growth always feels painful if it's real growth. So it's not about avoiding these feelings, but it's about
having the psychological readiness to navigate around them without giving up.
Now, here's the trick .
What's really important about these two feelings is there's a trick to handling them when you're anxious. You can do something about it.
When you're helpless, it's 'cause you can't do anything about it.
So the, the antidote to anxiety and fear is action. Do the things. Just start,
get started and keep going.
Do it for 20 minute blocks if you need to build up that momentum, but do it and you'll find anxiety goes away. But helplessness doesn't go away just 'cause you take action. It could if you take the right side of action to generate choices and optionality, but you know, that's a long conversation for another podcast.
Maybe. Look, I'm gonna leave you guys at this point in time. I think it's, I
, I made the point that psychological preparation is super important. Everybody jumps into execution mode. Being action heroes without psychological preparation,
you're not gonna execute the action properly.
[00:16:00] or for long enough? Probably both.
This is why sports people always have moments of quiet before they get onto the stadium.
Most of the.
Preparation before game time is psychological.
Okay, now I'm gonna leave you on this. Hope that was useful. Look out for a video at the end where I talk about three reasons why people fail. Okay? There's
only three reasons by the way, why people fail.
And just by knowing that there are these three reasons you can reverse engineer those tendencies from failure into success.
Okay? So hope that helped. Alright, I'll see you next time over in hour.
OUTRO
Just subscribe, you know you gotta do it.
