Are you feeling stuck in your career? I've felt like that too. Let me tell you a story and a secret that made my career explode.

The year is 2002. I'm in the American Chamber of Commerce in San Paolo, attending the Sun Tech Days. The venue is full and I'm a little lost.

Maybe lost doesn't define it very well. Out of place sounds much better. After all, I'm just a tech newbie in the middle of giants.

I see some known faces. Bruno Souza, Fabio Velloso. Should I introduce myself?

Of course not... who am I? Leave the guys alone, they are too busy in a conference like this.

I read the program and see that there is a keynote in the main room. Looks like it's someone important called James Gosling. I have no idea who he is, but I go there.

I'm the first in line. Of course, I'm a newbie! Everyone is having some conversation while I'm here alone in front of the door. What are they talking about? For sure, some super technical discussion that I can't understand. Better stay here and wait.

Five minutes before they open the doors and there are 200 people after me in the line. Hey, looks like I'm a lucky newbie, huh?!

I walked in and took a seat in the second row, waiting for the keynote to start.

Holy God, that James Gosling is the Java creator! What a dumb newbie I am...

His talk is awesome! You know, he is not the best speaker in the world, but there are some things in his speech that amaze everyone in the room. Maybe it's his passion, his knowledge, or even the super cool project that he is working on: the operating system for a remote-controlled Mars rover. Damn!

It's already the end of the second day of the conference and I'm absolutely disturbed: there are so many possibilities with this Java thing. I've tried it a little by myself, but seeing all those Sun evangelists talking about real and cool projects took me to a whole new world of possibilities in my mind. My career needs to go in that direction.

After some days out of the office I'm back and can't help myself: I need to tell everybody what I've just seen during those days. You know, most of us work here with Visual Basic and Delphi... but Java brings a new set of possibilities to our projects.

Just six months since I've attended those Sun Tech Days and I'm in my first Java project. Yes! The company outsourced a project and asked me to work together with our partner.

What a terrible idea! Our partner's lead developer knows as much as I do about Java... OK, let's do this. At least I have the opportunity to work on a real Java project.

It's 2004, and I'm about to talk in a big conference for the first time ever. I have to admit, I'm terrified. But actually I'm joining in on a talk with a new friend, Mauricio Leal. He is one of the top Java influencers in Brazil and agreed to give a talk with me to the Just Java conference. Or was it me that agreed to him? Well, it doesn't matter now...

It was very hard for me to go there as my mother had started a fight against cancer just a few months before. I'm not only very concerned about her, but I also didn't have enough time to get prepared for the conference. However, she herself encouraged me to be here and said she was proud of her child talking at a big event. Thanks, mom!

We gave our talk and it was great! I have a lot to learn from Mauricio and all his Java friends. Actually, I need to keep going with this community thing: events, open source, talks, and so on.

Here I am in 2005, and I've decided to join a big project at the same company that I've been working with for the last three years. No, it's not a Java project, but it's so big that I can't miss the chance. It will be good for my career and I'll have some opportunities as a project manager.

We are in June, 2006, and my mother has just lost the fight against cancer. I'm destroyed. I never thought in my entire life that I would lose her when she was only 58 and I'm 26... Who cares about career? Who cares about the job? Who cares about anything?

The year is 2015. The month is December. I'm driving my car. My wife is at my side and my baby daughter in the back seat. I'm telling my wife that I'm very concerned about my career.

I'm not a kid anymore. I'm 36, have a good job, getting decent money from it, but... I'm stuck. Since when... 2004? I know, it was a big mistake to join that project, even though it was a big one. We all failed on it.

I tell her: "You know, I have to do something...".

After a couple of sleepless nights, some hours of research on the internet, and some reading of reference books, I think I have a good list for someone who has done nothing for years:

• Write a technical article for publishing
• Give a tech talk at some small event
• Get a Java EE Architect certification

I've decided to go with Java until the end. I know a lot about it. I've being studying it and working with it for many years. I have to focus on it and I can definitely do it.

And suddenly, in the middle of this big confusion and lots of doubts, I've made it! Now I'm a partner in the company.

Well, maybe I've done something right, huh?! All these years of hard work and study finally paid off.

But… what was I thinking? I hate sales, I hate dealing with clients, I hate negotiations, I hate wearing a suit, and I hate chasing money. I hate this partner stuff!

To have my own business was always a dream, but my life right now is much more of a nightmare. This wrong decision literally made everything fall apart. The situation is unbearable to the point that I now need medicine for depression.

All this poison in my mind makes me think, "what the hell am I doing with my life?" That's not the path I want to follow. I mean... yes, the company is great and they are doing great, but not in a way that works for me.

I really need a change. I need to make a move. If I don't, what about my family’s future? What kind of support will I be able to give my wife and daughter when I get old and retire?

It's just another terrible day and then I got an email from... Bruno Souza? The Brazilian Javaman? How the heck does this guy have my email? Oh, yes... I'm subscribed to some mailing list.

He is talking about dreams, saying that one of his friends will help him this year with a career dream, so he decided to help others too. He says: "Tell me your career dreams for 2016 and I'll try to help you with them".

Well, I'm sure this guy won't even read my email, but let me reply to it anyway. At least writing down my dreams for this year will help me visualize them. I'll use that list that I told my wife a few weeks ago.

What? Just half an hour and he replied?

OK... he is saying that he can help me this way:

• Article: He can help me on finding a good topic and publish it at the Oracle Technology Network? Is this serious? I was just thinking about a blog post or whatever.
• Talk: Once we have the article, he can help me turn it into a talk. Ok, sounds interesting.
• Certification: He won't help me at all. I should sit down and study. Yeah, makes sense.

From all the conversations I have with Bruno one thing is always on top: sharing. Share knowledge, share what you know, share to help others, share, share, share. Seems like this guy really wants to help people.

So I manage to leave the company (and the partnership) and finally got a position that I really want: systems architect!

That's it, I love architecture, and I love to deal with all those trade offs when planning an application from scratch or scaling/refactoring some legacy application.

That's it, now I've found my place!

Not so fast, pal. Not so fast, within a month or so the company changes its CEO and the guy just decides that Java would die there and then. The focus now is .NET! OK, let's try it.

In the meantime, Bruno and I publish our first article in the OTN and it gets thousands of views in just a few days. That's awesome!

This article becomes a proposal on the same subject for The Developer's Conference (the biggest developer event in Latin America) and JavaOne Latin America. Both are accepted and I have the opportunity to talk with Bruno to hundreds of people at these events.

On the last day before submitting to JavaOne San Francisco I decide to give up on it. I don't have the money to afford it. Bruno almost kicks my ass and says: "Come on! Submit it! If it gets approved you figure out how to afford it".

The talk gets approved and Cristina Saito, a former boss (and partner!) sends me a gift: the air tickets to JavaOne. She said she was proud of me. I could probably never thank her enough for her kindness and generosity, and I hope this mention here goes some way towards that thanks.

It's hard to believe. Just 10 months since I opened Bruno's email, 10 months since the depression medication, 10 months since the darkest moment of my career, I'm in San Francisco, California. In a couple of minutes, I'll be giving a talk with Bruno at JavaOne, the biggest Java event in the world. A movie just went through my mind. And here I am now.

The talk was great! Some stuff went wrong, but... we made it! Seems like this sharing stuff is really working. I'm feeling really confident and can't wait to be back in Brazil and getting back to work. Getting things done. Climbing my own success mountain.

So I land in Brazil, go to the office, and... get fired? Really? I thought that all this sharing stuff would help me, not cause me to lose my job... somebody lied to me!

OK, OK... let's take a deep breath... you know, I'm more confident now. No, I wasn't prepared for something like getting fired after achieving the best accomplishment of my career until now, but... I think I'll figure something out.

It doesn't take long until I get a position at Summa Technologies. Yes, sharing is working: I didn't even need to send a resume. They heard about me (because of sharing) and here I am, working with things that I've been talking and writing about.

The company is great, the team is highly skilled, and the project is challenging. But, you know… six months later and it looks like the things are getting stuck again… the results are just OK, the project is just OK, and there is no big deal to learn or to do here.

We are in May, 2017. In a few months, Java EE 8 will be released. What if we interview some top Java EE influencers from all over the world and share all the information, expectations, and news they have about it? Sounds good. Let's call it Java EE 8 - The Next Frontier.

Bruno was skilled enough to convince me to do this Java EE 8 stuff, and SouJava would give all the support needed. Actually, it was a SouJava initiative from the very first moment.

But, come on, why would all those Java EE experts give me an interview? Who am I?

It's been just three months since I've been working with SouJava for the Java EE project. We've already interviewed 15 of the top Java EE influencers. Thousands of developers from almost 70 countries see the interviews. Our playlist on YouTube is featured on the official Java channel. All the content gets thousands of views a month.

I have to be honest: I would never have imagined that the Java EE community would be so open to this initiative. I mean, it's like they were expecting this content. They are willing to consume it.

The thing I was lacking this entire time? Focus! Anything you do without focus is almost useless. It can be helpful, but won't have continuity.

These projects led me to write this book you are reading right now. In one of my conversations with Packt I asked them how they found me. They said, "well, you've been sharing a lot of Java EE 8 content... that's what we need".

And just a few days after signing with Packt I got a call from... Oracle? "That" Oracle?

So I'm here, writing these lines and working at one of the biggest companies in the world, doing exactly what I'm telling you in this chapter: sharing knowledge.

I insist to you: if sharing changed my career, it can also change yours. Don't think you don't have what it takes for it: you have it! I can assure you that you know many things that other people would love to learn.

Why don't you find some good way to help them? Can I give you some suggestions on how you could help others based on what you just read here? Here they are:

• You can write a little block of code based on something you learned in this book. Share it on Twitter or in some blog post.
• Record a video explaining some insight you had when reading something in this book. Share it!
• If you don't want to expose yourself at this point, email me telling me anything that this book has taught you. I'd love to read it! Write to [email protected].

Sharing is a habit. Exercise it!