On a similar note: I've been listening to various podcasts with Allan Judd for probably more than 10 years now. It's amazing to see someone go from a FreeBSD docs contributor and talented systems administrator to C programmer and ZFS developer.

You have to have serious motivation to not just stay with what you know, but it's a nice kick in the butt to the rest of us to see that it can be done, with you put in the work.