The Blocking & Tackling of Finding a Job in 90 Days w/Lawrence Lockhart

Yeah, I haven't had my coffee yet. I don't know why I rep Google so hard. They should just hire me for general purpose. I got the Google mug, Google t-shirt, and pretty much the only LLM I use is always Gemini and Google products. They should totally hire me, just, you know, influencer.

And you know, this— it's, it's interesting you said that. I was listening to a marketing podcast, and this kind of goes into like a whole nother conversation about like Like just ads and moving forward, uh, just like in this creator economy, because the, the guys were talking about how like, um, people, like, I think like legal is really coming down on people from a D2C perspective, like repping, like making ads, but not signaling that it's an ad. Oh yeah.

Yeah. Kind of trying to—

But like, but then they started talking about, well, what if they're like, like, like you, for example, with all things Google, like the Google's not paying you, but you're just like out here, like loving their stuff. So It's kind of interesting, kind of an interesting conundrum for sure. Um, all right, we're live, we're getting people tuned in. Hey Lawrence, I just want to be respectful of your time. Do you have a hard stop in 30?

Uh, kind of, yes.

Okay, cool, sweet. All good, all good. Awesome. All right, we'll go and dive in.

What's the 9 to 5 check, man?

No, I love it, I love it, man. I love it. Good morning, y'all. Uh, happy Monday. Excited to be back with my guy Lawrence. This is a part 2 I don't wanna spend too much time yapping because I wanna get into it. But for those of you tuning in, please say hey. We'd love to hear from you. Again, this is just really a networking opportunity, right? And I tell people all the time, we're not in the metaverse yet. I can't see you attending because we're not all in our goggles yet. But so the only way to know if you're watching is if you comment. So please comment, connect with people in the chat, connect with Lawrence. He's great. Um, uh, but again, um, yeah, shout out Noah for helping, for helping me get this mic set up. And, and what we realized, it was just one bad cable. It was just one bad cable. That's all it was. That's all it was. So, uh, go figure. Uh, Richard, it's good to see you. Kelly, Ricardo, Sally, Michael, Chris, Jordan, Barrett. It's good to see Barrett. You know what's so funny? I met Barrett, uh, at Stir Trek this past week in Columbus, uh, in person.

Best name ever.

But what's crazy, as I was like, oh yeah, I, I thought I met him in person. Like, that's the power of just showing up all the online. I was like, I told Barrett, I was like, we're pretty sure we've met in person, right? He goes, no, this is our first time. I was like, you're kidding me. And so again, I mean, just the power of like showing up consistently online. It feels like I've known Barrett and I've met Barrett.

So, you know, I know this guy, I don't know if you know him or not, but he always says, you know, content creation, right? You don't have to love it if you don't want to, but it's really networking at scale. It's this really smart guy.

And though, guys, that guy's really smart. Whoever said that, really, really smart.

I first read that on Twitter. He put it on Twitter.

I was like, Maybe, maybe not.

And the more time passed, like, he's freaking right. Yeah, it's crazy. Content creation, whatever, interviewing at scale, it's able to touch so many people at scale. Like, even with this, there'll be people who see this one, maybe they enjoy it, maybe not. But if they're intrigued and they do like it, you hear that this is part 2, they're gonna go back and watch part 1. And so they see us interacting and hanging out, and in part 1 I mentioned the fact that that was a repeat. And so maybe they go back and look at other ones. So now they have multiple data points about who this Lawrence guy is and how does he sound and begin to get an understanding of my brand. And all I'm doing is hanging out with Taylor. I'm not making it too formal, nothing too crazy, just hanging out with Taylor, sharing what I think, my opinions for the most part. But I've done it in a consistent way where now that makes a brand that people can tie into.

There you go.

Like it, they'll reach out to me. Networking at scale.

It's crazy. All right. So part 1, I don't want to hit on it too much because you can go watch it on my YouTube and the way LinkedIn LinkedIn. I put a tweet out this morning. I don't know what happened with LinkedIn, but we need to reset it because I'm seeing posts from 3 to 4 weeks ago.

I saw you tweeted that.

Yeah, yeah. Uh, it's crazy, my timeline. But again, that's why you should post to LinkedIn, because I think LinkedIn does a really good job of like repurposing old content. Um, but you can check this out. Basically, Lawrence, give a quick rundown of what like part 1 was.

Part 1 was Lawrence was enjoying himself, having a fantastic time as a developer advocate at a company called bought in, a company that I still love and respect, by the way. They have good products and great people. And in January, they went through a reorg, a restructuring, and I was one of many who were laid off.

Yep.

Situation I did not see coming. I was literally planning for an overseas trip. Yeah, I'm like, you know what, cancel that plane ticket, we should talk in a minute. And so that sent me into kind of a tizzy. Didn't see that coming. But I was really, really methodical and strategic about getting that process processed, right? Processing that mentally and getting it down on paper and coming up with a strategy. And so part 1 of this interview was about going from that point to rehired at a new job at a company called BeFree. We are the go-to solution for corporate email, enterprise email, sales email. We are email. We're—

Yeah.

So BeFree got me on board. I'm a senior developer advocate there. And the big win was the fact that I set a goal for myself. I had a time goal, a SMART goal. The T is time-based, right? So I had a SMART goal of being rehired in 90 days, and I actually started on day 89 of my new job. So there you go. 9 to February, March, April, April 8th I got started. Or no, yeah, April 8th. Yeah, so I've almost been there a month. 3 days from now I'll be there a month.

Crazy, crazy. Also too, Chris, um, it's on my LinkedIn— I mean, um, YouTube, YouTube. So if, if you go to my YouTube channel, um, I have all my conversations on there. So, uh, yeah, definitely check that out.

All right, so Taylor the Content King.

Yeah, yeah, actually it's so funny, I was texting one of my buddies, uh, actually, actually go to church with, and he was stalking my LinkedIn today, and I sent it in our, like, uh, uh, wives, uh, group chat, and he was like, you post all the time. He goes, it's impressive. I was like, well, it's my job. So, um, uh, but all right. So—

Another Danny.

Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. So I, I think, so the, again, part 1, we talked about just what you did. You cold applied, you wanted your brand to precede you. So again, Please go check that out. But I'm interested, I'm always curious about like what the day-to-day looked like, right? Like, how do you structure your day with being laid off? You said you waited a week, you know, before getting going. Again, check out that interview. But like, once you started going, like, what did your day consist of?

Yeah, so I'm gonna do something really weird. I'm gonna start with the punchline.

Please.

Hope it doesn't kill the interview.

Oh, I love it.

The main message I want people to pull out of this entire talk, whether it's 15 minutes, 30 minutes, whatever, is please invest time in learning who the heck you are. This— that's my— that's my salient message. I'm going to say that stronger than everything else because I'm going to give some tips. I'm going to answer your question directly, how I do all that stuff.

Sure.

But I don't want people to walk away and think that that is the answer. The reason I implemented that is because I know how I work, and I know how I work from paying attention to what has happened in the mini Taylor Oh my God, the many failures I've had in life. Things just not going right at all. Things that you never put on Twitter or Instagram because you don't want nobody to know. You're just embarrassed. But I paid attention. And that's what I want people to do a lot more. Find to ask for advice, find to listen to folks like us, get information from podcasts. But at the end of the day, know who you are, how you operate, where your energy levels are. Because if I say my energy levels are high at 6:00 AM and yours are at 8:00 PM, but you don't know that yet.

Yeah.

and you go over doing the 6:00 AM thing or 5:00 AM thing for 90 days, you think there's something wrong with me. There's nothing wrong with you. You need to figure out where are yours. The idea is not that you copy me, it's you discover you and just figure out what are the fundamental principles that I can apply in my life. That being said, I know me and I know if I don't stay busy, I will go into a horrible slump.

Same.

It happened after my divorce from my first wife. It happened after the only time I was actually terminated from a job, which was at God, Ryan's Steakhouse way back in the day, also tied into that divorce scenario. And I just did nothing and I went into the worst slump, Taylor. I was a bum, a bum of bums. A bum would be embarrassed to me. I was doing nothing because I wasn't doing anything. I am wired where I have to be productive, not just doing any random things. I have to be productive. So as you mentioned, once I got the layoff, first week I didn't do anything. I let all the emotions out, the crying, the praying. Researching myself. And right about day 6 or 7, I really sat down and mapped out what do my days need to look like for me to stay in good spirits, to go through this process and be able to have the right mental attitude, be able to show up at the best of me in every interview. We talked about this in the last one. You don't want to show up like a beggar or show up like you're desperate. You want to show up confident in what you can offer the company.

Yeah.

What do I need to structure my day? And I knew I need to hit a few key points. I need to do something for my body, something for my spirit, something for my brain, something for my family. Those were the 4. And so it was so simple. It was not complex. Nobody needs to buy like a 90-page book on how to structure your life. I knew those 4 were critical. Something for my family, something for my brain, something for my spirit, and something for my body. And so on Google Calendar, Google Calendar only, not even Notion, because I've tried Notion so many times, it doesn't work for me. No matter how many YouTube videos I watch or how many people sing its praises, Notion it doesn't work for me, but Google Calendar does, particularly when I put in reminders.

Yep.

Me on my phone, and I simply put in the time, particularly since I typically work from home and I'm just home not working at all and nobody's here. I put in the time where I wanted to make sure I worked out every day, the time where I was going to pray and have devotion, the time where I was going to read or code. Also the time— so this wasn't a requirement, but I had to do it to get another job— the time I was going to either research companies or apply. And family time was in like every evening.

Yep.

5 days a week. 5 days a week. That was a system. It became so rigorous after like 2 weeks. I was kind of proud of myself. I started posting about it like, by the way, here's my calendar. And people are like, oh wow, it's so structured, so amazing. And I was like, it's really not amazing. See, I don't believe— I've never believed in this. People have asked me this in like Twitter Spaces and in mentorships. How do you achieve work-life balance? I think maybe it's just a misnomer, but I've never, ever, ever believed in balance between work and life. I believe in getting the things done that are important to me. Whatever's important to me, get it done. And the way that I get it done is to put it on a calendar, put it on a schedule, put it on Gcal, put it on my whiteboard, put it down somewhere that's visual, because I know me, I'm very analog, very kinesthetic. Put it somewhere, put a reminder on it. And then just get it done. And if I put the things that are the most important to me on my calendar, I'm not going to miss. The only time I miss is if it's out of sight, out of mind. Yeah, a week passed and my wife's like, hey babe, did you pay so-and-so? I was like, oh shoot, it wasn't on the calendar, I didn't write it down.

Same way.

That happens all the time. I'm so forgetful about things. And I know that, I know I'm forgetful, right? For all the praises I see of myself, I'm very forgetful.

Same. Horrible memory. Same.

That's not a thing to just complain about. Do something about it, right? I know me. I know I'm forgetful. Therefore, if it's something I want to get done, write it down. Write it down on pen and paper. I am still an analog person all day long. Put it on Google Calendar, put it on my whiteboard, put it somewhere where I will see it. If it's possible, drop a reminder on it, and then I get it done. That's the answer. End of the podcast. Y'all have a nice day.

Yeah, I know. Yeah. I also want to give a shout out to Elliot. He just landed a job as well. 38 days unemployed. He, uh, he, he texted me last week, so congrats to him. Man, congrats.

I love that. That's my Christian brother down in Jackson, Mississippi. I met him at the original, the first ever Magnolia JS.

Yep, Magnolia JS.

I love it. Great place. I met, uh, I saw, uh, Justin Samuels from Render for example. I heard him speak before there was a Render. He had spoken at Magnolia JS. So shout out to Elliot. Super happy about him. I'm trying to get him on, um, on a video to interview him too. So I love that first.

I love it. I love it. Elliot, I'll interview you. Slide in my DMs. Um, all right.

So, uh, It be your own.

So, so what, so like what worked? Like how did you balance? So you were applying, you were, you were mass applying. Obviously the conversations you would have for mass applying, huh?

I was not mass applying.

Or, or cold, cold applying?

Yes. Cold. Yes.

But not that.

Cold. Yeah.

Yeah.

Sorry. Let me, let me put a parenthesis there that I'm gonna come back to you because mass applying is random and that's— Yes.

Yes. Okay. That makes sense. Yeah.

Yeah. Throw numbers in your favor and you don't even care. I didn't. I never did that. Every single company, every single application I put in was super targeted. I knew the companies, I knew the teams, I knew the products. I knew I would be a good fit. I knew I had qualities that made me highly competitive. I don't care who they had as a candidate pool, those companies. And I also knew every company I applied for was first of class in what they did. Sure. For any bunk companies, regardless of the size, they had to be the best. And that's why in 89 days, I only submitted 47 applications. People will say that's a small number, but if every single company is tailored and every single resume is tailored and I did a cover letter for every single one that offered it, that's a good number.

Yeah, yeah, I agree. Okay, great. I'm actually glad you— I'm glad, I'm glad you corrected me on that because I like that a lot. So, like, so first off, obviously time block the stuff that's important to you. Get outside, go on a workout, have quiet time, family time. So first off, like, that's what you started. So time block the calendar on those like 5 areas. And then what did your— were your mornings crafting your CV and your resume and applying, and then the afternoons were interviews? Like, what, what did that look like?

Yes, mine was— and I could pull it up probably— but mine was obviously— so every morning I get my daughter off. So sure, 3 kids, my teen daughter's still here. I'll take care of her breakfast and lunch every morning. Yep, the standard thing. Get her done, check on my wife, she's next. You need help with lunch, you need this, you need that. Get her out. Once they're gone, that's when I start. Okay, prayer and devotion every morning. Sure, everybody, we get it on our phone from our church, so I read that. Love that. Great time, do that. I haven't cleaned up myself yet, so it's a great time to work out. I'll grab the weights. You can't see the weights. Either grab the weights or the Oculus, or I'll go out and garden. Gardening is amazing workout.

It is, can confirm. When you're outside, it's a lot of work.

Breaking ground for the first time.

Yeah. That's—

oh yeah, that's like old man strength work. So I would do that in the morning while I haven't cleaned up yet. Now I've done all that kind of stuff, jump in, do a good routine, get myself together, feeling good, put on real clothes because I want to be in the mindset like I'm an active professional, not a bum. So I put on real clothes every day, get online, and I would go to it either researching companies or applying to ones that I already researched for, adjusting resume, adding a little something to a LinkedIn, adding a little content out there to make sure my brand is being continuously refed. Kind of like you mentioned, feed and LinkedIn was a little lagging. I want to make sure people's feed of me was not a little laggy. So putting out little content, little nuggets of wisdom that are tech-related, that are professional, but continue to extend my brand. Hey, even though I'm not employed, I still know things, right? I'm still a valuable guy. So that would be kind of mid-afternoon break for lunch. I would take an actual break for lunch in a separate room that I come back here because this is one of two things.

Talk about that. Talk, talk about that. Talk about that.

Yeah, well, just getting out. Yeah. Oh, I wouldn't leave the house. I would just go to another room.

Oh, no, I just meant getting out of your office.

Yes. So that's really important because I need that mental break. I need, I need that mental shift. I believe in neural associations. Not everyone does, and that's fine. But I believe in neural associations, that things you do consistently enough, your brain will begin to attach meaning to them. So when I come in here, I'm getting something done. This room right here is getting something done. It might be something like I said, working out. It might be working personally on my personal computer. Obviously, I'm on my work computer now, but this is the getting something done room. When I go out of here, yeah, my tempo slows, my cardiovascular slows. I'm not yelling at people on the mic, and so I can digest my food better. I put on some YouTube, and I'd have lunch and sit down and have an hour lunch, and then I come back here, and then I hit it again.

Yeah.

Get back to that mode. And then 4 o'clock, youngest daughter is back home. It's back into family time, typically from like 4 to 8, 4 to 9.

So let me ask you this.

I made a work day out of every day I was unemployed. Every day felt like—

Yeah, no, no, no. And I think you should. I mean, and, and I think that's the best thing I want to highlight, which you've done, and, and I want to continue to drive home. I mean, you have to approach the job search like it's a job. Like, like, like if you just wake up in your pajamas and your bathrobe and you're like Uncle Bob and rants on bathrobes, uh, which is wild, um, and you're just out here sending DMs willy-nilly, Yeah. And hoping it's going to work, it's not going to work. Like, you have to approach it from a day— like, just from a, a grind perspective. Let me ask you this, I, I am curious.

Can I pause you? I'm sorry.

Please. Yeah, go ahead.

No, yeah, no, you're—

yeah, you're the guest.

We'll come back to that. Yeah, what you just said is so spot on. We just had a person on, uh, the Hunt Twitter Space Saturday, and they were asking for help with their CV, okay, because they are in basically a place where they do CVs, not resumes. And when it came to my time to speak, I said, how do you know it's your CV that's a problem? I began asking some open-ended questions and digging in and found out, number one, they were randomly applying. I said, you can't do that. It's got to be strategic.

Yep.

And then there was something else that they weren't doing right that had nothing to do with the CV. I said, let me help you. You're an engineer. So here, and as an engineer, your job is not about the code. It's about solving problems. Hopefully, you have a methodology, a system about how you solve problems. problems of any type, finding a bug, there's a network issue, a database issue, you have a system of how you solve problems. Here's your first engineering problem, how to get hired. I need you to get a pencil and paper, a Google Doc, a Google spreadsheet, I don't care, get something and get a system, get a strategy that you're going to follow. That doesn't mean it's going to work, right? You have a system that's giving you results. That's data that you can learn from. Because the next thing is you track everything, where you apply, when you apply, the interview process. Everything I did, I tracked. I got it in a spreadsheet. It's still there. I did this 7+ years ago when I got my very first tech job. I did it this last 3 months. Every place I applied, every rejection email, every interview, everything is in a sheet.

Wow.

And you can literally just copy that spreadsheet, throw it in an LLM, and get all the data analysis you want. Like, hey, these companies hated your resume, or whatever you want to extract, right? You figure out your thing. But you've got data. So the point is, don't do random things when you need to get a job. That is a problem to solve. You should use your engineering brain to figure out what system, what flowchart can I put together that's a series of steps likely to at least get me a call. And this young lady unfortunately wasn't even getting calls. So that's like step zero, right?

Yeah, right.

And so maybe it was CV, but maybe not. How do you know where you're applying even higher skill from where you live? What data are you working on? What is your strategy? Please get a strategy. And so the thing that I did is not necessarily the best thing. It was just my strategy. The places where I applied, there were places interesting to me, places where I felt like my unique skill set, my maturity, the life experience I have in business before tech, all those things combined with my brand, with my networking, with my public presence would make me a strong candidate. Now, I had places that rejected me quickly. places that rejected me in a week. I had a rejection just last week from like 2 months ago. So I was rejected from tons of places. Yeah, it's not about the rejections. You have to do this. That's just dust. It's about getting that one to give you a chance. Yeah, get in there and freaking kill it. And that's what I was able to do.

Absolutely. Did, um, I, I— how did you balance not over-researching? Because I feel like, and correct me if I'm wrong, I feel like in the, the engineering mindset is deep research, trying to really figure that out. And I feel like some folks can over-research stuff, right? You're researching the jobs, you're researching companies, you know. How did you balance the research versus the, hey, sometimes we just gotta let it rip and move on, right?

Um, I think I had a simple system. I didn't do Again, I want to really emphasize for anyone listening, I did not do anything fancy in this process. Nothing highfalutin, nothing that would take like reading some 90-day book. I just would research a company, make some assessments based on what I was looking for. Are they the best in class? Is it technology I'm interested in? Do they seem like they have some growth? I would copy information from their website, drop it into Gemini because I'm Team Gemini on everything for whatever reason, ask it some questions. And then ask it to do deep research. So Gemini has a thing called deep research. I would ask it to go into deep research and give me some financial information about the company and their strength and probable growth, like all that stuff. And if I like what I saw, I would apply.

Yeah.

Bear in mind, 89 days, only applied to 47 places. That's almost like one every 2 days.

Yeah. And, and I think that would freak some people out.

That's awesome. Because when I applied, I was applying with confidence.

Sure.

This place I like, and I think they'll like me. So if I did the research on Monday, I might apply to that one place on Tuesday.

Yeah.

And if I did the next 6 and finished today doing research on that, I might apply to one on Wednesday or Thursday. It wasn't a whole lot of applying. And so that was, I guess, related to the balance. But again, I don't think in terms of balance. When I say balance from mathematical mindset, I think 6 in one hand, half a dozen in another. Things balance. I wasn't balancing anything. I was just digging into a company until I find what I was looking for and then applying. And that averaged out to be about one every 2 days, give or take, maybe one, one pro— 5 days. But that wasn't the plan. Like, I'm gonna apply once every 2 days. I just wanna research.

If I don't—

plenty of times I did not find what I was looking for, even with some big popular companies that had openings. I would research it because I'm in a lot of networking groups that would post jobs about DevRel all the time. And I wanted to do DevRel again.

Yeah.

And I'm like, oh, exciting. I would look up like, They don't seem like they're very good at what they do, or I'm not liking the profile of this one. Like, there's a lot that I rejected before I even put in an application, right? I'll come across one that was intriguing, I would dig deeper. If I saw what I was looking for and it felt like I would be a good fit, at least to me, then I would apply.

That makes sense.

In many cases, I would change my resume up because, again, I would throw my resume and throw my JD into Gemini. Now say, give me a revised version of the following resume that better suits this. Be sure not to add any skills not mentioned. in the resume. They just have a master resume that's way too long. It's like 3 pages long. And I have it to condense it down.

Oh, I like that.

A 1-page resume. The 3-page has everything I can do, but everything I could do is not relevant for every position. So I had to condense the big resume down to a small compact—

And use AI to do that.

Absolutely.

That's smart.

Now, after it puts it, I read it top to bottom and make sure everything on there— everything on there I can back up. Everything on there is a word that I would naturally use in conversation.

Correct.

Everything in there sounds like my tone. If it's not my tone, I'll change that. But it is me and it's done very, very quickly because I use AI for it.

Love that. Love that. Uh, uh, Noah comes out, has a great conversation, uh, question here. Lawrence, how did you go about follow-up? Like if you hadn't heard back in 1 or 2 weeks? I think this is, this is such a, a thing that most people struggle with.

Talking about follow-up with companies? Okay. So again, I can only share my experience. I never followed up.

That's crazy.

Again, and I know everybody hasn't seen part 1. Part 1 was I'm just going to apply and the strength of my brand is all I need. I don't need to follow up with anybody, check with anybody. I'm not going to pull on my network. That's enough. That was a 90-day test. Had the 90-day test not passed, right, and I was still unemployed today, well, I would be doing all the stuff. I would be doing the follow-up. I would be calling friends. I'll be on Torque. I would be everywhere. I didn't even ask you. I didn't even ask. I didn't, because that's my network, that's my people, and that's like an ask. And I wanted to kind of keep that in the kitty. That was like my emergency fund. My network was my emergency fund. Following up with people and pursuing them and getting in their DMs, that was my emergency fund. I know I could do it, but I was testing myself even while unemployed to see, has all the stuff I've been teaching people about brand management for 7 years, have I actually done it, or have I just been blowing smoke up my own butt? Do I have a brand where people can look my name up online as a DevRel and see a body of work that proves the resume is accurate?

Yep.

And in my case, it came out to be true, but it could have gone the other way. And if it had not, I would have definitely followed up. Um, time-wise, but then again, you know, many times you're applying to, you know, just a system and not a person. So I'd have to think about that one, honestly.

Yeah.

But in my case, I didn't follow up with a single, a single company. Not one.

That's crazy. Also, Noah, great shirt on your profile. A little Torque shirt. Love it. Love it. Love it. Oh, my friends. Um, uh, here's— this is curious. Did you send a thank you? Uh, is a thank you email considered follow-up?

I had a few that I sent for interviews, not for applications, but yes, I did send a few thank yous for interviews.

Um, do you ever follow up with the interviewer on LinkedIn? I talk about this a lot, like, and just send them a quick note when you connect with them after the interview, like, hey, thanks for chatting, hope to talk to you soon. Did you do any of that? No, I didn't. Okay, there you go, there you go.

Those are good things to do. Um, I just don't want to misrepresent history. Sure, all these smart things I just didn't do. I was really, really just cold, cut and dry about what I did, and I felt good in my little process. As a test. Had I not, all these things people are asking would be definitely yeses because they're just smart and they're good relationship management above and beyond in the individual job.

Yeah.

In my case, not a single one. Yeah. And again, thank you for interviews though.

Yeah. And I want to reiterate, I mean, the reason why I'm interviewing Lawrence on part 2, I mean, his strategy was very, very different. And that's why I said, go please watch episode 1 on my YouTube because it is a different approach. And I wouldn't say it works all across the board, but it's This is fascinating enough where you could pull in a lot of—

Yeah, like 7 years ago, I didn't do any of this crap that I'm talking about, right?

Yeah, that's what I'm saying.

Yeah, I had no brand. I wasn't senior anything. No one knew me. So I was going for all the jobs and sending all the thank-yous and all the follow-up and begging everybody I knew because I was in a different place in life. Yeah, but I was very, very interested in testing, did Lawrence do a successful job in building a brand that speaks for itself? That was—

did— I know we're almost at time. Did you try to do interviews in the morning, the afternoons? Like, when'd you work best with interviews? I'm curious about that.

Whenever they scheduled them, because my entire day is free. I didn't, um, sure, I didn't try to manage that in any particular way. Um, good question though, good question. I'm not sure if that would have been a strategic thing to try or not, but if they said 2:30 in the afternoon, I'm like, good, I'm there. And my mind just structured my day to thinking, hey, Thursday, 2:30, it's time to be on. Coffee at 1:30, Alpha Brain at 2 o'clock.

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

I had a, I had a stack.

Yeah, no, I love it. And that's to show up because I remember interviewing before I ended up at Torque. I had 3 interviews in one, in one afternoon. And I mean, I was, that was awful. Like I, yeah, it was.

Yeah.

So again, space, space. I mean, did you ever have more than one interview a day?

No, not.

Okay.

I had more than one a week. Had like 3 in a week, but never in a day.

Sure.

Yeah, because, because I show up kind of like this, and this is— this kind of expends a lot of energy for me.

Oh, it does. Oh, it does.

If I were to do one of these after this, yeah, they wouldn't get this guy, right?

Yeah, yeah, I know.

Lessens my chance of getting another callback, correct? I want them pacing 100% Lawrence, whatever I am. Yeah, 100% Lawrence every single time. They feel the energy, they feel the passion when I say I want to work for you because I can do these things. Unbelievable. Like, they're looking at my eyes on the camera. They're like, I believe this.

Yeah, I mean, I'm looking at your eyes right now. A lot of eye contact. Yeah, yeah, I love it. I love it. Ah, man, that's great. Anything else, man, as we wrap up?

Man, definitely have to plug my company, BeFree. Yeah, absolute go-to for email. Fascinating that we had over half a million people use us to make emails within the last year, and many of those were through our app, which is very popular, drag and drop, but also many were through our white label SDK. That's the part where I come in, the software development kit where you can embed our software into your existing platform and have the power of BeFree. It's an amazing team. Massimaro, CEO, awesome guy. My boss, absolutely awesome guy. Samantha, my teammate, love her. We've got, uh, oh my God, Mike Nelson from RGE, really good emails. He's the god of email. He's on the team. It's an amazing company. So everyone check out BeFree and definitely go check out Taylor and Torque and all that they're doing. I love that community. and the community-based approach to candidates and getting candidates onboarded. Yeah, that's really unique. Yep.

Awesome. Sweet. All right, y'all. Well, again, thank y'all so much for hanging out. Lauren, stay on so I can say bye to you backstage, but y'all have a great one. Busy week this week. So, um, I, I am off tomorrow. Um, I'm podcasting actually with Osama on her podcast, um, tomorrow morning. Wednesday's busy. Uh, we have our boy Francesco Uh, coming on the pod. And then, um, I'll be on Angelos's, uh, first podcast on called The Job Decoder, basically talking about all things in the tech industry, non-software development that you can get involved with. Um, and then our boy James Quick Thursday, he's coming on the show.

What time?

Yeah, yeah, this time, 9:30. So, uh, yeah, so, so, so 9:30 on Thursday, I'm pulling James Quick out of, uh, not retirement because he's working, but I would say like online retirement. So It's gonna be a good one.

So I'll be there.

Yeah. Yeah. Y'all have a good one. Appreciate y'all. Love y'all. See y'all. See y'all on the Discord.

Peace.