I first discovered Michael's content a couple of years ago when I was learning everything I could about Kubernetes and this past year at the Microsoft Build 2022 conference we were both on a panel discussion about the new Azure Container Apps product.

Michael is the principal for his company Michael Levan Training and Consulting. He's a leader in Kubernetes and Containerization Training, consulting and content creation. For content he writes blogs, creates videos and now has a podcast on the Packet Pushers network

In this episode we talk about his background, how and why he prefers to not be an full time employee, his philosophy on how he's gotten career to where it is, some important thoughts on what it really takes and what is important - we even get into extrinsic vs. intrinsic happiness and end the episode with some final advice for you want-to-be content creators out there.

• Background
• • Infrastructure
  • Development
  • DevOps
  • Platform Engineer
  • Full time for a while
  • Independent now
• Reasons why he's not a full time employee
• Experience with doing stuff on the side while still a full-timer
• How he has grown his different content streams to where they are today
• • "Be so good they can't ignore you" - Steve Martin
  • Have to put in the hours and the work
• Writing, podcast and then video as a preference for content
• Thoughts on role models and mentors
• • Internal drive most important
  • "7 Habits of Highly Effective People" - Stephen Covey
• Extrinsic vs. Intrinsic happiness and being human
• In person, hybrid and virtual events
• • Networking vs. learning
• Final advice on content creation for want-to-be content creators

Website:

https://michaellevan.net/

Twitter:

https://twitter.com/TheNJDevOpsGuy

LinkedIn:

https://www.linkedin.com/in/michaellevan/

YouTube:

https://www.youtube.com/clouddevengineering

Podcast:

https://packetpushers.net/author/michael-levan/