@MikeBenkovich

I am, I have, I do

Went on a retreat this weekend, and there was a talk that dove into an interesting way of looking at things. Instead of doing things so that I have and I can then declare what I am, we look at what I am, so therefore I have some things, which mean that I do things. To me it was an intriguing way of looking at life, that as a christian I am loved by God, that being loved I have security to know that I am empowered by his love to do things which are aligned with his mission. 

I do --> I have --> i am

vs

I am --> I have --> I do

---

Are You Climbing the Wrong Ladder? The Power of Being Before Doing

We’re taught from a young age that success follows a simple pattern: Work hard (Do), get the rewards (Have), and then you’ll be happy (Be).

It sounds logical.
It even seems to make sense.

But what if that ladder we’ve been climbing is leaning against the wrong wall?

Chasing Success, But Feeling Empty

A friend of mine once poured everything into getting a promotion. Early mornings, late nights, checking emails at all hours—he was doing everything he could to climb higher. And eventually, he got it.

The title. The raise. The corner office.

But something strange happened.

He wasn’t any happier. In fact, he felt… the same. A little emptier, even.

Because deep down, he realized he had spent years chasing something he thought would define him, instead of defining himself first.

Flipping the Script: Be → Have → Do

Most people live by the idea that if they just work harder (Do), they’ll get what they want (Have), and only then will they feel like the person they want to be (Be).

But the truth is, it works the other way around.

Be → Have → Do.

  • Who you are determines what you have and what you do.
  • When you start with identity, the right actions flow naturally.
  • Instead of waiting for success to define you, define yourself first.

Success isn’t about climbing faster—it’s about making sure your ladder is against the right wall.

The Power of Identity

Think about it.

If you see yourself as a leader, you act like one.
If you believe you’re confident, you carry yourself that way.
If you know you’re disciplined, your habits reflect it.

But if your identity is tied to external validation—titles, money, or approval—then you’ll always be chasing something outside yourself, never truly arriving.

Call to Action: Start With Being

Here’s the challenge: Flip the script.

  1. Decide who you are first. Instead of waiting to feel confident, choose to be confident. Instead of chasing success, start with the mindset of someone who already has it.
  2. Let identity drive action. When you focus on being, the right habits follow naturally.
  3. Trust that the results will come. The right identity creates the right actions, and the right actions lead to success.

Final Thought: Who Are You Becoming?

At the end of the day, it’s not about what you achieve—it’s about who you are.

So instead of asking, “What do I need to do to be successful?” ask:

“Who am I becoming?”

Because when you start with being, the doing and having take care of themselves.

And maybe—just maybe—you’ll realize you don’t need to climb higher.

You just need to make sure your ladder is leaning against the right wall.

Where's the wonder of wonders

How did we get to a point where we’ve lost our sense of wonder?

Ever asked the question of what happened to wow? Welcome everyone! Today, we’re talking about rediscovering wonder in everyday life. We live in an incredible time, yet we often take things for granted, and that the smallest actions can have lasting impact. Let's explore how shifting our mindset can change that.

This morning, my Fitbit buzzed on my wrist, waking me up right on time. This tiny device is packed with sensors that track my steps, heart rate, and movement—constantly processing data to give me insights about my life. It tells me where I’ve been, where I am, and even gives clues about where I’m headed.

That’s incredible.

Not too long ago, I had a simple watch that had to be wound up—and it didn’t even show the date. Later, I upgraded to a digital watch that beeped when the alarm went off. And now? My smartwatch does things that would have been mind-blowing to my younger self.

It doesn’t just tell time; it syncs with my phone, vibrates when I get an email, reminds me to stand up, and even helps track my health.

And yet, instead of being amazed, I barely think about it.

Why is that?

Perspective Shift: Everything is Amazing, But No One is Happy

I heard a quote recently:
"Everything is amazing, and no one is happy."

It reminded me of a conversation I had with someone who was complaining about their last business trip.

They were frustrated that their flight was delayed by an hour, they got stuck in a middle seat, and—can you believe it?—they weren’t even offered a meal!

But let’s pause for a second.

They were traveling across the country in a few hours, something that, just a century ago, would have taken months, if not years. And if you even survived the journey, you might never see or hear from your loved ones again.

Now, we sit in a pressurized metal tube, hurtling through the sky at 500 mph, sipping orange juice from a plastic cup, probably browsing the internet... and all we can think about is how annoying it is that the guy in front of us reclined his seat.

We've lost the wonder.

The world isn’t lacking in amazing things—it’s lacking in people who recognize how amazing it all is.

Choosing Gratitude & Kindness

We have access to more information and technology than ever before. My Fitbit doesn’t just track numbers; it recognizes patterns. It can even detect irregular heart rhythms. When that happened to me, I looked at the data, I started investigating, and I turned to AI—ChatGPT—to learn more.

I asked: What is this? Is it serious? What can I do about it? Where did I go wrong?

And as I kept asking, I got better at asking better questions.

This is the world we live in—one where information, insights, and even solutions are at our fingertips. But instead of using these tools to expand our curiosity, we often get caught up in the small frustrations of life.

We let the little things annoy us. We get impatient. We forget how incredible it is to be alive in this time.

But here’s the thing—just like a rose needs to be pruned to bloom beautifully, sometimes we need to let go of frustrations to make space for gratitude.

A while ago, I was at the grocery store when a stranger offered to buy my groceries. It wasn’t something I needed, but the kindness of it made my day. Actually, it made my year.

Imagine if we all lived like that—choosing kindness, choosing gratitude, rediscovering the wonder in the things we take for granted.

Call to Action: Find Your Wonder & Pass It On

So here’s my challenge to you:

  • Pause and notice—find one thing today that amazes you, no matter how small.
  • Shift your perspective—when something frustrates you, flip the script and think about what’s incredible about it.
  • Choose kindness—do one unexpected act of generosity for someone else.

Because here’s the thing—small actions don’t just stop with you. Kindness has a ripple effect, like a pebble dropped in a pond or a butterfly flapping its wings on one side of the world and causing a breeze on the other.

Think about it: A stranger once offered to buy my groceries. It wasn’t something I needed, but it made my day. Actually, it made my year. And because of that, I was inspired to pass that kindness along to someone else. Who knows how far that simple act has traveled?

That’s the power of rediscovering wonder. That’s the power of perspective.

So today, take a moment to appreciate the incredible time we live in. Do something kind for someone, no matter how small. You never know how far it might spread.

Because at the end of the day, we only get one shot at this life. Let’s not waste it being annoyed. Let’s make sure we see the wonder in it.

And most importantly—let’s pass that wonder on.

Reviewing Julie Ng's CI/CD Checklist

I recommended a video by Julie Ng, who has a blog and a video thing on YouTube you can subscribe to that provides some great information about containerization, kubernetes and Azure. The video is CI/CD Review - How DevOps in Real Life & Mature Organizations works | Julie Ng

Here's some tools and links from Julie's talk

The Right Things

I was watching the movie "The Right Stuff" over the holiday week and was impressed by how far we've come in terms of technology and using it to help us accomplish amazing things. From the story of Chuck Yeager chasing the demon in the sky limit of Mach 1 in the Bell-X1 to how they developed the Mercury project to launch space exploration, I loved seeing how the people and technology were used to make it possible. Of course there were mistakes, but without trying how do you learn? 

Doing things right is a mindset that is a requirement if you want to get in the game anymore. It's no longer good enough to think we can just show up and get paid, we have to provide value. The value of being willing and able to make decisions and try the impossible, by reaching for the sky we don't come up with a handful of mud. But is doing enough?

Doing Things Right

In the movie Apollo 13 we see Tom Hanks play Jim Lovell as the commander of the crew that experiences what can go wrong, and we see how the team responds to see if they have what it takes to bring them home. The challenge comes when one of the oxygen tanks malfunctions and damanges the return ship on their way to the moon. The drama plays out, but ultimately by thinking outside the box the team on earth comes up with ways to repair enough of the damage to bring them home.

Doing things right means having the right people in the right places there when you need them. Knowledge of what's possible, how to do things, what tools work for which jobs, all of these are important. Knowing how and when to combine the ingredients are what separates the star baker of the week from the one who gets voted off the island. It might mean finding someone who's done it before and knows the things to avoid. Doing things right is a whole lot easier than doing it poorly and doing it again and again.

For example, in the work that I do we're talking about containers and infrastructure and cloud. It is important to understand Docker and Kubernetes, as well as DevOps and Infrastructure as Code options like Terraform or Bicep. Doing things right means combining these tools to develop and deliver solutions where we follow sound project management practices. Whenever I come across a new project there's good questions to ask so you can get an idea of where things are at.

But Because you Can Doesn't Mean You Should

With that said, does the use of these tools and technologies mean success? Should we use containers and DotNet Core with WebAPI's? Should we use Agile and 2 week sprints with daily scrum meetings? We are putting together a team and it's going to go in and solve the challenge and keep the world safe for technology!

Sometimes we immediately prescribe an answer, using our best practices and ensuring we're using the right stuff to deliver value, but we fail to hear the requirements and understand the lay of the land. We kick off the project and by hook or by crook we drive the daily scrums and manage the sprints and work like crazy. We dedicate ourselves to the task at hand and make sure everyone participates. We deliver our solution, then realize it solves the wrong problem.

Do the Right Things

We fail to ask the right questions, so we end up doing the wrong things. Who is our team, and what is their experience? How much learning do we need to do to bring people up to speed? What is the timeline and who is the audience? The consultant's answer is it depends. Who do you ask? What is the vision and how is it related to the mission we're working on? Based on this are we ready to move on to new tools and technologies? Are we ready to make smart decisions that fit the reality we are in? 

As 2023 starts out it's apparent to me that we need to make time to reflect and give some space to think before we act. Doing is good, but sometimes not doing or doing something else is better.

Agile DevOps West 2022

This week in Las Vegas at the Agile DevOps West conference I'm presenting the session Permit to Cloud - Land with Confidence in Azure!

We'll talk about a lot fo things, but the goal is to provide an introduction to how to get started with Azure in a way that will help ensure continued success in taking advantage of the promises the cloud offers. For the code and demos I've published them to https://github.com/benkotips/askdad - Check it out!

DevUp 2022

Guess What? In person events are a thing again,  and I'm back on the road. It's great to be back to St. Louis, this week I'm delivering sessions at DevUp on how to work with Azure and Infrastructure as Code topics. 

  • Permit to Cloud : Land with Confidence in Azure
  • Cosmos DB Performance Tuning
  • Infrastructure as Code Bake-off : Comparing ARM, Bicep, Terraform and Pulumi

The link to the code is on GitHub at https://github.com/mbenko/du22-ptc - Check it out!

Azure Office Hour Fridays

Thinking about going to Cloud? I've been consulting around Azure for the last 8 years since I left Microsoft where I helped launch it in 2009. I want to offer my support, so I'm starting a thing called Azure Office Hours on Fridays, where anyone can block out 15 minutes to chat about anything Azure.

  1. Find a time that works - https://bit.ly/BnkAzHrs 
  2. Let me know what you want to talk about
  3. Let's chat! 

I speak at conferences and have LinkedIn learning courses on Azure and DevOps including templating, compute, storage, messaging, networking and governance topics.

My calendar is open. Let's connect!

Using Cosmos DB for my Blog

Have you thought of using new/different technologies to explore the impact of using new tools? I'm presenting a new session at Minnesota Developer Conference on Tuesday 5/4/2021 (Star Wars day) that will explore the technology and implementation details to make this type of implementation work.

Check it out!

Cosmos Tools for the Relational Developer

Tuesday 5/4 at 11:00 am - MDC 2021 | Minnesota Developers Conference (mndevconf.com)

Understanding how your data works is crucial to taking advantage of the capabilities and power of Cosmos DB, from setting up and migrating data, to querying to understanding performance consequences of data manipulation. These tasks become easier thanks to a growing ecosystem of tools around the Cosmos DB platform. In this session we'll look at how Cosmos DB tools available from Microsoft and 3rd parties make it easy to make the transition from the relational to Cosmos.

The topics we'll cover include:

  • Why Azure Cosmos DB
  • Provisioning a Cosmos DB from the Azure Portal
  • Code patterns for working with Cosmos
  • Data Migration
  • Data Modeling and strategies for performance and cost optimization

Some reference links:

Enjoy!

Pi Day thoughts

It's mid March and the start of Daylight Savings Time (again). It's a crazy thing we do where we change the clocks so that you wake up an hour earlier in the spring, and then you get to switch them back in the fall and the cycle continues. Most years it would be a thing that is maddening, but this year, what with Covid and working from home, it isn't a big deal because I don't have to get up to be at an office an hour earlier tomorrow. I just need to adjust my work frame and be available earlier. This week will be focused on working on a few features of myTLDR, including

  • My Posts.  List my posts by date descending...
  • My Uploads. Get the resolution right. Save 3 sizes but at 72 dpi, thumbnail (40x40), gallery (100x100) and full (500 px wide), all at 72 dpi.
  • My Feeds. When I log in or view a user or a blog I want to see that blog. If I view a User I want to see thier public blog posts. Private blogs shouldn't show up in that feed. Also I'd like the user to just see the feeds of people they're following...i.e. I get to add a number of feeds I want to see and the system will figure that out.
  • Default Feed. The default feed should return posts by day, prioritized by those that have the most activity...
  • Email. Notify users when they get a comment...by email for now with a link to the post?
  • User Profile. Update it to make it easy to see a user's posts, uploads and feeds (?)
  • Markdown Editor. As an option let users enter markdown, see a preview (?)
  • Likes/Reactions. Allow a user to react to a post once, with whatever their vote is...thumbs up, down, ok or some other emoji? Save the post/user response in Cosmos with an upsert? 
  • Views. Do we need views? I think it's good to have some analytics
  • Referral URL/Post Image. This is where I want to make it easy to have a link to something you want to respond to, and then the tl;dr; is the text that explains/responds to the referring link.
  • Attachments. Include on post a section of links for downloads...slides, code, pictures, etc.

Sharing References

I'd like to add a feature where when creating a post you can include a link to a referring article...The point of tl;dr; is to provide feedback or a more complete story, and if something inspired a post that's where we'll start.

Add a referring link, then add your thoughts about it. Upload images and select one as primary, and we'll create a summary for it. 

 

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