Working with Russell on a Saturday. We talked about all kinds of subjects and topics. Here are some of my notes:

- Self-help and continued education and learning. One little bite at a time.

- Using Microsoft Paint for quick drawings when I don't have the drawing tools from Zoom or GoToMeeting. It works pretty slick and can be pulled up quickly.

- On CSS templates and themes - spending time to get to know the templates and CSS themes. Get to know the components and what is already done and what can be modified and tweaked as needed. Well worth the time to get to know the templates.

- Priorities and getting the correct talent and teams together.

- CSS theme forest - some great pre-built themes - Making things flow and look pretty.

- Splitting up backend code, database logic and access, and frontend views and code. Once you get them all split up, it makes changes, on either front or side, easier to make.

- Back to templates and components, he explores around, looks for elements and asks, can I use that theme for something that I (or my client) wants? Don't get tied in to just what you see - look for potential.

- We can't do everything by ourselves - if needed, hire someone who has vision and can spend the time to make it happen. Make it a priority.

- Looks, performance, functionality, ease of use, and support - what clients are looking for.

- How easy is it to do a certain task? Learning from the user's habits and expectations. If needed, get a good UX/UI developer. Ideally, have a nice frontend that hides the whole backend. This can make it more feel more industry specific.

- Paving a path for our users.

- Full API socket backend. That is true power if it can be harnessed.

- Russell's goals - powerful, looks good, and easy to use.

- Using Adobe XD to mock things up.

- Making little building blocks. Then you can move them around and put them anywhere.

- Full mock-ups for the whole course or phase(s). Getting approval, then breaking things into smaller tasks to assign out. Figuring out routes, templates, flow, etc. Russell uses his team to help prep it for the developers.

- Someone has to manage it or coordinate the rollout.

- Using greenies (newbies) vs a senior developer. There are pros and cons to this approach. You have to almost look at each scenario and then decide what your course of action will be.

- Building things more modular for reuse.

- Everything comes down to choices. Including... whatever we don't change, we are choosing to let it be. It all comes down to choices.

- Leaving things better than you found it. Just like going camping.

- Grow from where you are at!

- Teach me (whatever) and then I'll choose.

- Russell's underlying concepts - pray hard, work hard, and use the talents of others around you. Russell likes to use the Big Guy upstairs (prayer and inspiration).

- What's our budget? What can we do to get more budget? Don't just see the budget and then stop there. If it's not enough, look at other angles and see what you can do (within reason).

- We talked a lot about life's pace. The keyword is "pace".

- Pondering the path of your feet - where are you heading? Mixing and blending what's in front of you.

- Smart goals - S.M.A.R.T. goals - Specific, Measurable, Attainable, Realistic, and Time bound.

- The drip affect - that is awesome - the accumulation of tons of drops over days, weeks, months, and years. The compounding effect over time. Leaning for transfer, means leaning one thing and it helps you with another thing. Learning starts compounding and multiplying. That is really cool!

- Going back to measuring growth - what does a little bit of (____ - fill in the blank) do for us?

- Virtually filling our lamps, small changes, seeking and putting ourselves in good habits.

- It's ok to need help.

- Plans for our next meeting time. Russell and I talked about building out a small, baby component, from research, to mock-up, to code, in order to go through and do the whole process. Sounds fun!