ep. 07 - first time in dallas, tx speaking at commit your code

Two hours. This is seriously two hours. Who wants to listen to him for that long? Patrick, we're back. Missed you. Miss you too, buddy. It's not quite as early as it has been, which is nice. Time to get coffee. Heading to love. Anyways, let's go get some coffee. Let's try to wake up. As they carry on their personal lives, I'm gonna take the entire road to myself.

Small shoulder bags.

No, I'm sitting in. Literally, no one's on the plane. It's like me. You should literally sit right next to me, like not even just like right next to me. Water. Gotta stay hydrated.

Welcome to Dallas. Yeah, great. We're right over here. Sorry for the last. I, I want something different, and that's when I joined Ronstadt. So it was kind of like a friend of a friend was like, hey, this team is hiring. It was very basic, like entry-level tech recruiting. I didn't know anything about tech and I didn't know anything about recruiting. But what it takes to become a good salesperson is to be so trusting. There's something about the—

I said this from the get-go, recruiters make the best salespeople.

There is something about the way that you connect with And like the sound of your voice and the way that you talk to them, that if— and maybe it's like the pitch, you know, I don't know, like it eases them and they're just like, I feel like I've known you my whole life.

Well, I think the interesting thing is, and this could be, this could be a hot take and that's fine. This vlog is full of hot takes. It's basically like, I think recruiters come at a place of helping and I think salespeople come at a place of taking.

Yeah, it's a tough dynamic.

And I think the best salespeople are the salespeople that can give and And take, and it doesn't feel like taking. And that is a hard, hard line.

Yeah. I got to a place where I realized I can develop these connections with, with people, but it doesn't— because it's so high volume, I feel like it's not making as big of an impact. I'm not able to— like, I still have contacts who I worked with when I worked on the advisory side of Broadstad who I still keep in touch with to this day.

Yeah.

Um, and that's because when you're working on something like a solutions or an advisory, that relationship is with spending a lot, like a much larger timeframe than when you're working on a high volume. Like, it also feels more authentic coming from a perspective where you're like, I care about you, I'm invested in your career, like I'm trying to help you. How much can I actually do if I'm— if it's this high volume? Like, I can't focus on you as an individual, I have to focus on the immediate client need. And when staffing industry, I feel like, is a delicate balance between the needs of the client from From the enterprise perspective and then from the individual contractor talent perspective. Yeah.

This is really scary.

Yeah.

Keep posting.

I will.

Keep doing your shit. I will.

Have a safe trip to Guadalajara and tons of fun.

Thanks, girl.

Yeah.

Thanks.

Good to meet you guys.

Absolutely. Good to meet you.

Bye.

Had a great lunch or breakfast. It's breakfast, 11:25 breakfast with Jordan from Ronstadt. You know, it's really my focus whenever I travel to either like meet people I usually to work with or am currently working with. And so, you know, I found Jordan on LinkedIn because she was posting on LinkedIn. I was like, oh, Jordan's a Ronstadt employee. So I started following her and then she hit me up because I was going to be in Dallas. We had a great conversation, great meeting. It was so good getting to know her. But I think it's incredibly important even internally. I think we lose sight. I think we're always looking at the outside in terms of building community. You know, what are we doing externally? But I think you can't forget building internal community. And I think literally just Just even breaking bread with people over coffee or breakfast goes a super long way in today's world. So again, something I really try to live by. Have lunch, have coffee, break bread with as many people as possible on a trip, even though I am introverted. So we are off now. It's 11:26. We are off to a developer lunch. We got about a handful of individuals coming out to hang out. So excited for this, excited to see the folks. And then we are heading to our hotel to get checked in, and then a crazy busy afternoon. So pumped. I gotta go to the bathroom. We gotta find a Starbucks.

More talking.

Let's go! Where's the Starbucks at though, for real? What is Taylor taking us to? Ice. Sparkling chips. The biggest thing I hear is like, oh, like, I don't have a big email newsletter, it doesn't matter. I don't have a big, you know, I don't have a big meetup or whatever. Like, we had 5 people show up. That's it. Like, to me, it's like, it's the same people. It's depth, not width. I think so many people are like, I gotta have more followers and more of everything, more, more friends, more people in my Substack, more Twitter followers, more Bluesky followers. And it's like, you know what? Like, if I get 5 people that show up consistently, I'm happy with that, right? Taylor, what exactly are we doing here? I was running errands yesterday and I told Brianna, I was gonna get things for the Pose Dev, the conference we're going to in Mexico, and I forgot to. When Brianna sees this, she's gonna roll her eyes. Yeah, last finishing touches on the talk. 2 hours. I have not— I've only given, I think, one other workshop, and it was in Louisville. So this is only my second workshop. Pumped for this. This talk is combining like kind of all my talks together. We're gonna talk about the power of community, We're going to talk about how to leverage like LinkedIn. I'm going to talk about Blue Sky. That's a first. Haven't talked about Blue Sky in a talk yet. How to interview. I'm going to answer some questions and just going to have a really good conversation. Usually the most attended meetups are the job search meetups, and that's what my talk is, especially with this market right now. I feel like there's like an appetite. People want to sink their teeth into some job search stuff. So I think tomorrow's going to be great. I mean, I think tomorrow's going to be— I think it's going to be a packed house. I think it's going to be a packed house. If it's not, this is going to be very embarrassing. In hindsight, but I think it's gonna be a great conversation. So gonna get this done. Got speaker dinner tonight, or speaker drink happy hour that Torque sponsoring. My brother's like, Taylor, you need to do more food blogging experiences because he was like, nobody cares about community. And I was like, okay, well great. But he didn't say it that way. That's just me interpreting what he said. So I'm gonna do a little food blog here. All right, if you're in Dallas, listen, Vivay— what is it? Upscale American casual. Everybody's tired of American upscale American upscale casual. I'm not kidding you. This was like one of the best dining experiences I have had in a very long time. Like, if you're in Dallas, like I may come back tomorrow. It was that good. Caesar salad. I'm a Caesar connoisseur. Ten out of ten. Incredible. You got to add the pepper to it. That was great. Got some steak and fries. Solid. Creamy horseradish. Fantastic. Great wine. Great dessert. Gluten-free everything. Fantastic. Ten out of ten. We'll be back. Now we are headed off to the speaker happy hour. I'm gonna go talk to a few people, and then we're gonna go to bed because your boy's tired. I'm running off of five hours of sleep. So let's let's let's try to figure out where to go. Very Christmasy right now. Christmas in Dallas. So they really know. Nice to meet you. Nice to meet you, Bernie.

How's life?

Going well, kickin'. I love the podcast, by the way. Hey, appreciate it. Yeah, yeah. I love the podcast. Photographer in there.

That's him.

Shout out to him, man. The quality is— It's Leon, by the way. What I've realized is these small intimate conversations I'm having at conferences actually would benefit the developer community at scale. And so I was like, I need to capture these small moments. Sure, I can give a talk, but I think talking to somebody about a specific topic on a one-on-one I think it's gonna resonate more with people in some cases. So literally I started just with like my cell phone and then I like literally my budget started out years ago at $150 a month. Yeah. And I basically had to justify revenue all the way through it. And then now I'm managing a budget and my own team. So yeah, it's a lot of fun. See you, bro. Aaron, the great Aaron Francis. So nice to meet you, brother. It's so good to see you in person. Bring it in here, buddy. Oh, cheek to cheek, man. So again, thank you for Danny for allowing to sponsor, um, and blessed to be here. I just want to say one thing to all y'all. This is from me. Thank you for being here. Seriously, like, I know a lot of y'all really went above and beyond. Seriously. Yeah. Hey, it was a pleasure. I'll see you tomorrow. And I'm a big fan of you from afar, so I'm thrilled to see you in person. You're wonderful. I love you to death. It was so nice. Left handshake. It was wonderful to meet you. I'll see you tomorrow. Okay. All right. All right, day 2, Dallas. The world is my oyster today. It is cold out here. Uh, went to get some coffee, cold brew, headed back to the hotel. Uh, excited for today, excited to give my talk. It's going to be fantastic. This is the hard part for me. So the question is, Saturday night, what a wild, wild dream. The room feels like a full-screen cinema. Got you close, got you so, so close, but not for long. So I keep my head down, keep my heart open, 'cause maybe one day you'll want to stay. You are so I mean, seriously, I love that talk. Basically, like, I'm talking a little bit about that today, but dude, I'm so proud of you. You're unreal. I appreciate it.

You're unreal.

My talk is in an hour and a half. Really pumped, a little nervous, but the energy's there. I'm pretty— I'm excited. I'm really excited. I'm gonna go to a talk. Here in about 30 minutes and, uh, then present mine. It's gonna be great. Patrick, hopefully you're there to record some of it. I want individuals to come out of the talk at 1:30 to basically be like, you got this. It's okay if you get laid off. It's okay if you have to go through a career transition. 2 hours? This is seriously 2 hours? Who wants to listen to him for that long? I want to thank Danny and the team For this, give it up for Danny. I mean, just where Danny? Where Danny? He's just in here. Danny, thank you so much for inviting me and throwing this conference. I want you all to be like rock solid with your job search by the end of this talk. This is a very in-depth talk. I've I've only given this talk one other time, and I just came up with my outline this morning. Now's the chance if you've ever wanted to slide into. Someone's DMs to network, now it's time to do it on Bluesky. I've connected, I've used it to my advantage, and I've— that when I have slid into so many people's DMs on Bluesky that I've always wanted to meet because their Twitter inbox was too loud, right? So now's the time. It's attention grab. Attention is starting to go to Bluesky. If I was a— if I was a recruiter, I would get into Bluesky and I would just recruit off Bluesky. I will tell you this, I would not be where I'm at today if I didn't Comment on social media, on everybody's posts. At the fundamental level, it's literally just commenting, liking on people's posts. It's the craziest shit, but it's it's what it is. So I was having lunch with Ryan. I was like, I was like, man, if you're I was like, I was like, I was like, you found a job in tech, right? He goes, no, I'm still trying. I was like, what? That's crazy. Why? Because Ryan is on Twitter consistently posting and engaging. And talking tech and Ingrid and documenting. And I think Ryan's like doing the damn thing. He's not yet, but he is, right? Jason, fuck, where you go? Everybody was like, you have to go listen to him speak. I was like, yeah, all right, fine, I'll do it.

Yeah.

And I love the energy. Yeah, I love the passion. I love the transparency. So I'm sorry. Yeah, of course, man. Also, have you ever heard of a band called Cherry Case? Because you look— oh, you're not— shut up. The drummer. Well, Dallas, thank you. Today is one of those days in my career again. When I was first at Vayco, her name was Kim Wainwright. Kim, if you watch this, shout out to you. Kim told me there's gonna be points in your career at Vayco when I was there, you're gonna feel like you kind of hit another level. And shout out Aaron Francis with his talk. Aaron Francis said the same thing. There's gonna be parts in your career where you feel like you've made it, and in reality you're just getting started. Today is one of those moments. Like, the response for my talk was humbling. Um, for everybody who came to my talk, thank you again. I, I, I, I, I know I sound like a broken record, but I don't take this lightly. Like, showing up to a non-development developer talk at a developer conference is, again, like, it's, it's— I don't take it for granted. So thank you, Danny Thompson, for putting together a hell of an event. Thank you for everybody at Commit Your Code who showed up, and hopefully see y'all next year.