Why You Should Just Post Things w/Francesco Ciulla, Sr. Dev Rel

How much do I have to pay to have you—

Say what? No, go ahead.

What?

What?

I mean, how much do I have to pay you to be my MC at the render? Say a price.

Just, just, just, just, just, just ask Bri. Just, just, just ask Brianna.

You know, I, I was in, um, with Brianna and Justin in Rome. Yeah, dinner. And then they said, sorry, we had to call like this very annoying guy. Who is this guy? Yeah, Taylor. Yes. Okay.

I love it. No, it would be, it would be awesome. It would be awesome to, uh, to emcee your talk. I, I've, I've, I've learned a lot, um, and, uh, just, you know, emceeing Kent's conference was, was good. And, um, uh, gonna, gonna bring some new, some new things to Render. So I'm excited. So hopefully I can emcee you, but I will— I mean, obviously I work with Brianna. I'll ask Brianna, but, um, cool. Yeah. Yeah.

Perfect. All right.

So, uh, good morning everybody. Good morning. Um, uh, Francesco, how do you say good morning in Italian?

Okay, you can say buongiorno or buongiorno. It depends if you want the Italian dialect in the US. Now I can also do the Italian dialect in the US. So it's buongiorno.

Buongiorno. I love that. I haven't perfected the rolling of my Rs or anything, so I'm really bad at it. But I love it. Francesco's tuning in from Rome. Absolutely love Italy. Wife and I, Went to Italy last was it last year? Fell in love with it. Honestly, like the greatest country ever. It was great. It was great.

So, I'm sure to say you say this to all the guests, but it's fine. Yeah. Yeah.

No, no, no. Listen, listen. I'm not going live with with with with many people from from from Italy. I'll tell you that much right now. But good morning, everybody. Welcome. Happy Wednesday. Today is going to be a busy day. So, so I got Francesco now, and then I'm going to hop on over. Um, and, uh, my dear friend Angelos and colleague is starting his new podcast on my team, which I'm really excited about. I love that everybody wants to give back on my team. So, um, Angelos is starting a podcast called The Job Decoder. Um, and basically what he's going to dive into— I'm his first guest. Um, so we're going to talk about other careers in tech. That aren't development. Um, so, um, it's gonna be a great conversation. So we're gonna talk about recruiting, how to get involved in recruiting community. Um, so it's gonna be a great conversation. We're gonna be live over there at 10:30 Central. So, but until then, it's all Francesco. It's Francesco for the next little bit. It's super pumped for this conversation. We're gonna dive into a little bit of Francesco's career that he probably doesn't talk a lot about. Um, and so I'm, I'm pretty pumped about. So, but then again, If you are tuning in, please say hey. Would love to hear from you again. I tell people this is a this this this is a this is a meetup. This is a meetup. You gotta say hey, like network with people. I tell people to network off the back of me. If you've been networking off the back of my network for five years, you would have met amazing people on the pod. So please say hey. Would love to hear from you. We're not in the metaverse yet, so I don't know if if you're watching and you're not commenting. I don't know if you're tuning in. So please say hey. Would love to hear from you. We got Ellie this morning. We got some people. We are starting a bit early. Um, because I wanted for— to maximize Francesco's time because he's a busy, busy man. Um, also a few more housekeeping things. Shout out Appwrite. I am Appwrite hero, probably the only—

Hi, Dennis.

Non-technical hero ever. Um, so shout out Appwrite. Uh, I love the crew over there. Love the community. Um, and then also if you want to give, uh, if you want to check out all the things we're doing, uh, within the Torque community, we got a lot going on. Please check that out. torque.community. The Discord is so busy I can't even keep up anymore, which is great. Um, and then text live. If you—

I text every single time.

I go live with amazing guests. If you want to be kept up to date of when I go live with amazing guests like Francesco, please text me. It's me. It's actually— it's not AI. It's not a chatbot. It's actually me. So we got more people tuning in. Mark, it's good to see you. Chris, JC, LinkedIn user Jordan, Ricardo, Chris. It's wonderful to see y'all this morning. Y'all keep commenting.

Hello.

But that being said, Francesco, let's give the people what they want. Who are you? What do you do? And we'll go from there.

Yeah, so who is this funny Italian guy? So hi everyone, I'm Francesco. I'm a developer advocate at Daily.dev, but I also do many other things at the moment. Before, I had just one job. Now I— it's hard to say the things I do. To make it short, I like to make videos on YouTube and I stay too much time on Twitter. This is the one-liner.

Me and you both. Me and you both, man. Well, hey, I, I want to give you the opportunity to plug your— you just released— talk, talk about the video you just released because I saw stuff on Twitter. You spent a ton of time doing it. Talk about it.

Yeah, so usually you get the shameless plug at the end.

Sure, I want to do it now because it sounds like a labor of love.

I have the privilege to annoy you all since the beginning. So by the way, hi everyone. I see Chris, Ricardo. I see a lot of people here on LinkedIn. I usually don't stream too much on LinkedIn. Uh, I think we'll talk about what I do basically every day. And one of the things I like to do the most now is video creation. And I think, Taylor, that everyone agrees that making videos can have an impact on your career. Like everyone, I think, saying, oh, this can have— you can— but then very few people, they really do that. So that's, that's, uh, that's an issue. So maybe I can share the process.

Yeah.

Of what helped me to do some stuff on YouTube, find the job, developer job, or developer relations job on YouTube. get in touch with so many people. And I think, Taylor, you also— we did already one episode also on my channel. I also have a podcast. And I think I released yesterday my biggest project ever. So we can— I'm still, you know, I'm still pumped, you know, like the day after the match or the day after a conference. You still have, you know, that bit of adrenaline.

A bit of a high. Yeah, yeah.

And yes, so usually I like to be a content machine. So you're like, I do one video, I record, edit, and I publish. So it's like a one-day commitment. This is usually my style. This time I decided to go, you know, the hard path. So 12 hours of recording, 50 hours of editing.

12 hours of recording?

Yeah, it's a 3 hours and a half video, but the initial footage It was 9, 10 hours.

Okay.

And I recorded this in just 2 sessions, just because I know Rust a bit, so I could, you know, talk a lot and yap a lot.

Sure, sure.

But that was the only thing that saved me, because creating a whole, say, course— and I've been, to be honest, I've been thinking if this should have been paid or not, paid or not, paid or not, while I ran. I said, okay, let's do this for free for everyone. Let's do, you know, I want to just crush the YouTube algo, try to help some people. So I decided to go, you know, the free path for this, right? Because I think it has potential. And yeah, so my goal is just to help as many people as possible. Let's see, let's see. It's going well. And yeah, so we can talk about this, which had a bit of a different approach, what I was doing in the past, if I had a life before doing videos, whatever you want, Taylor. I'm here for you.

Yeah, yeah, yeah. So So, so this video, so again, I mean, I threw it up in the chat. So this video, I'm on your YouTube right now. So this is, this is a 3, 3.5-hour Learn Rust Programming Language course for beginners. That is, that is a heck of a video. That is. So again, so shout out to you.

Talk.

So talk to me about like, so Let's, let's, let's go backwards a little bit, right? Because people see, oh my gosh, Francesco's creating 3.5-hour Rust videos. I can't do that, right? Talk about where you were before you started your content journey, because you told me, like, in the little survey that, that I make people fill out, that, like, you didn't even want— you, like, weren't even— you didn't even want to post to the internet.

Yes. So, uh, you know, I were— I was one of those, uh, guys when I was 18 in 2000. that everyone was on Facebook and I hated that. And I still hate Facebook nowadays. So, you know, I am— it was that antisocial. Everyone was just posting stuff on Facebook in 2000. And I was not. I was just exercising, doing kickboxing and other stuff. I really hated social media. It's not that I even hated it, it's that I never found like value in these. So for me, social media equal waste of time. It was, you know, like— drugs. I don't know, something that doesn't make sense to me. Like, when you don't understand something on the potential, you say, okay, this is just a waste, I'm not interested. Uh, if people— if someone will say, tell me like, oh no, no, you can get a job just chatting with people on the internet, I would have thought this is a scam. Stay away from this. It's not true.

Yes.

Yeah, it's not true. No, don't, don't trust that. So it's not like, you know, you know, like the, the the primitive tribes, like you go there and they don't trust whatever you do. Like, because it's true. It's like I was basically not trusting anyone. Richard is really stalking me everywhere. Thank you so much for the support, Richard. I really appreciate it. We'll meet on RenderTL and we'll take a selfie together. So where do we start?

Yeah, so basically, yeah, so talk to me. When did the light bulb moment click? Like, when did you like, Was it like, like when, when did you turn from social media being like not valuable to valuable? Was there a moment? Was there a conversation? What made you start to get more interest on leveraging social media for your career?

Yes. So we have, I think, just 1 hour. So I'll try to keep it short, uh, just to keep short my life. Uh, take notes. No, I'm joking. Just to go, go really quick. I started, uh, my, my job as a volleyball coach when I was 15. So that had nothing to do with coding and development.

Sure.

In the meanwhile, I was just doing just a bit of coding. And I was doing a CS degree, but my goal was just to focus on exercising, coaching people, playing with people, even if we're in Israel. So I like really to— I was used to stay in a gym like 6 hours a day, 5 hours a day. Then in 2015, I decided to switch my career to tech. So I decided, okay, now I know it's time. And I wanted to switch to a more like this job, I think this job will have more opportunities for me in the future. So zero to do with social media. So my, my goal was to step into tech without using Twitter.

No.

So 2015, started learning privately. So even if I was doing a CS degree, on the side, I was learning Udemy courses, learning Docker, learning, doing a lot of stuff on the side. So this was like—

Sure.

basically heading into life. And I stopped working there in the gym. Long story short, I'll be quick. My first job was as a full-stack engineer for the European Space Agency. So boom, like from zero. The interview process, I think it's worth mentioning, because basically you have this guy who, like, who is like graduating, And the professor sent me an email, sending me like, Francesco, would you like to work for the European Space Agency with zero experience? I replied, okay, what's the real reason why you sent me an email? Like, I thought it was like a joke. Like, let's be serious now. And he told me like, no, no, no, for real. Like, this is an opportunity. So my first impulse was to just say, no, I'm not ready. Doesn't make sense. Why should I even try?

Sure, sure.

But then, you know, it's like when a friend of you says, look, hey, let's do an acting cast for Hollywood. Okay, let's do it. I mean, it's so far from what I'm aiming at now that, I mean, let's do it. What have I to lose? My goal was that, okay, by doing this, I will practice interviewing. So that was my goal. That goal was just to go there, trying to understand the interview process. But I had, Taylor, zero expectations, not 0.1, zero expectations. When I sit for this interview, they start asking me stuff about Docker that I loved, Angular that I knew, Git that I knew, learn Git, please. And the thing is that I was so confident that I would have never get this job. I think they thought that was confidence, Taylor. So, you know, when you have nothing to do, like you are really like, I was not anxious at all because I was just sure.

Yeah.

Long story short, after one week I was working there and I would say, okay, what the hell is going on here? So yeah, and I started working in this office. So this is a funny story. So try to catch all the opportunities in your life because you literally never know. This was the first step to change my life. The thing is that when I started working as a full-stack developer, it was cool.

Yeah.

I was like going to the toilet like every 30 minutes because I was not used to sit for so long. I was used to go to the gym. So people thought like, okay, Francesco either has a you know, an issue, or is going having drugs like every, every hour, because I was literally going to the toilet like every 40 minutes. I couldn't sit. It was impossible. Yeah. Hi, everyone. The thing is that since I've always been a teacher in my life, also both of my parents are teachers, and I've been teaching math and chemistry to high school for a while, I really felt like a bit sad because I was not a teacher anymore. I was not teaching anymore. So I remember like saying, okay, so this is like, this part of my life is over. So now let's focus on coding and development. But you know, it's like I felt like that I would have missed something for a while. But this was 2017, so it was many years ago.

Yeah.

So I had this thought for a while. In 2020, I started being more active on Twitter, and the reason might surprise you. You know, I talk like a YouTube channel, YouTube video now, and the reason might surprise you. I created an app, an Android app, and I wanted to have some downloads. So I didn't plan like to do a podcast with Taylor Desseyn on LinkedIn. My goal was just, you know, to get— sorry, but the goal was just, you know, to have some downloads on an app.

Yeah, yeah.

So I said this to my relatives, some of my friends, then what? Like, I had zero reach, nothing, no one to talk, talk with.

Yeah.

So I said, okay, you know what, let's use this thing which is, which was called Twitter. Um, and I started to interact and say, like, okay, I created this stuff, I created this thing. And I was already working full-time as a full-stack developer. So, you know, and at some point in 2020, I decided to do something. I said, okay, let's just start following just the people who talk about tech and a couple of cool people like Taylor. So just people who talk about tech. No, really, for real, you are an exception. Um, basically I joined the tech Twitter without knowing that was called the tech Twitter.

Right.

It was just in my mind. I said like, okay, since I am a developer, makes sense that I connect with developers and I don't talk about football and music and dancing, not because I don't like it, or even cooking, but I would say, okay, let's give a sense to this and then just connect with developers. They might also give feedback about this application.

Yes.

This was the thing. And then I think in February 2020, I published an article. Literally nobody cared about it, but when I published an article, something cool happened. I felt again that teaching vibe, even if nobody watched it and even if I could never make something that I'm doing now. I felt like, you know, now I'm teaching again, creating something that people can read and learn from it. So something clicked, something absolutely clicked. It was an article on Medium. This was February 2020. Then in March, this is interesting, this is funny. Sorry to interrupt you, Taylor. I can talk for hours. That's great.

Good guest, brother. Keep talking.

I love it. Stop me, stop me, stop, mute me if you, if I go for too long. On March 2020, it was the 5th of March 2020, while I was walking for this job, by the way, I was doing a commute of 2 hours per day. So 1 hour going, 1 hour coming back. Yes, I know. After parking the car, after some traffic, I was a bit stressed. I was wearing a suit. I was a different person. I was actually working with, as I said, I worked with the European Space Agency and I also worked with some satellites from the US. There is a satellite called Landsat 8. They, they use this for, for stuff, let's say, over the observation stuff. So, you know, I felt like making this post that was like, uh, some years ago, 3 years ago, I, uh, I've been rejected for not remembering SQL commands in an interview. That was an internship. I skipped that part, but that's funny. Um, and now I'm working on this Landsat 8, working with NASA engineers and so on. So, and you know what is funny, Taylor? I made this tweet. Then I closed my phone and I started working. So this was like 8 AM, 9 AM. Then I was not like this, like a developer advocate always wasting time on Twitter. So, and I had, I think, like 500 followers that moment, 1,000 maybe. At lunch, I opened my Twitter account and I got like 5,000 likes. I said, what, what is going on? Like, like I started to see like everyone like sharing their story. Like, and this was just a tweet that I made while walking, a random one, absolutely random.

Yeah.

So this, you know, when something like this happens, this makes you think and say, okay, wait, maybe, maybe there is value on social media if you share something that happened to you, if you try to connect with like-minded people. This sparked conversations. It was, It was new to me. It was very new to me. So I said, okay, let's focus and let's focus a bit more on Twitter. Let's see if I can get some value. 2 days later, March 2020, we know what happened. We had the lockdown.

Right.

So we start working from home. So I thought this was like, you know, a sign of destiny. Like, I want to dedicate more time to Twitter. Now I don't have at least 2 hours commute every day. Plus I can't do much during weekend. Also, we had a very hard lockdown in Italy. I don't know if you remember. We have been like the second country hit and we are not famous for being organized in Italy. So let's say it has been hard at times. Sometimes you couldn't even go out for grocery store.

Sure.

So that's a bit stressful times. So stressful times, a lot of time I need to stay at home. I started staying more time on Twitter, posting some memes, posting some stuff. And this is, I think, how it started. So I started dedicating time to Twitter. I also made a commitment, like, if everything goes as it is in my mind, which seldom happens, mostly never, I will— I can even consider like quitting this role and dedicating more time on this crazy stuff.

That's crazy to say out loud.

This was March 2020. So I said, okay, in one year, Let's see. Like want to give myself a one here. So, and I remember on the seventh of March, eighth of March, I said one day I will have a YouTube channel like this. I had zero. Let's say plans. I would say, hey Francesco's voice. Yes, I know. I hate my voice, but some people like it. No, I love it.

I love it. It's great. Keep going.

Stop me. Taylor, I need to hydrate at some point. No, this is great.

This is great. Well, I here hydrate real quick because because again I want to welcome. There's a few more people. Sal, it's good to see you. Jason, my guy, it's great to see you. Elliot. Chris, it's good to see you. I need to give up learning Go and start learning Rust. I wish I had an entire day to follow Francesco. It sounds like he just stays on X. I don't know if it's that exciting.

I don't know what I do, so I would just like to follow Francesco.

Yeah. So again, y'all, thank you again for tuning in. So I think the one thing I want to get across here is that You saw social media as non-value, and then you started to leverage social media to add value, to get feedback, and to teach and to share, and it completely transformed your career.

Absolutely. So this approach, uh, I think this was, I don't know, you know, like, you know, that chemistry, that's a lethal mix, because it was Me, like, constricted, forced at home, plus I, I want to teach people, plus social media is something new for me. So, you know, when something is new for me, you are usually more excited. Yes. So I've never— so since I've never been on social media, I was like, you know, the classic boomer on social media. So it was like, it was something new for me, like new for real, like these interactions, even speaking, even chatting in English. It was something I was not used Too. I'm not even mentioning like speaking, but like just chatting with people in English, it was a bit strange. Sometimes I did it doing my job, but not like this, I would say. And so about value on social media, I started to see, okay, this is something that can bring me somewhere. To be honest, Taylor, my goal was to start a YouTube channel. I think I made a tweet even today. So I wanted to start a YouTube channel when I was 27 in 2010. I started my YouTube channel when I was, um, 37, uh, it's 5 days to 37. So if you ever posted a video before being 37, you are better than me. So that's, that's, that's—

Yeah, you heard it.

And of course, and of course I got a comment like, okay, I'm older. Like, okay, I'm talking, talking to younger generations. Um, and yes, so about the— so So for a period, like there has been a very interesting period, like from March to July 2020, when I wanted, you know, I started, you know, to come out, like, you know, crack the eggshell. But Taylor, I couldn't make freaking videos. So it was really hard for me. I never published any video on any social media.

Yeah.

If you find a video of me before the 25th of July 2020, you will win a prize. So if you want to go on a hunt, try to Google Francesco, my old accounts, you will never find it. So I decided on the 25th of July, 2020, I reached this milestone on 25,000 followers on Twitter.

Okay.

My initial life goal was 10,000. I put that goal, you know. So I would say, okay, so this is something. I wrote a thank you tweet. Then I said, you know what, this might be a script and I can record it and then I can post it as a video. This is a great tip. You can get a lot of good tips to get started with videos from me because it has been very hard for me. So yeah, if you want to start making videos, you reach any milestone you want, even 2,345, whatever, and you make a video about thanking you. this. It was very cringe. Usually I share this on the anniversary because I consider this, you know, the anniversary of me making videos. So expect for this. Um, and this is how I started publishing videos on the, on the internet. And, um, and yes, so this is how I started because I always thought that creating videos is powerful. It's a powerful media.

Yeah.

That can, like, the fact that I can turn on the, you know, turn on and do stuff.

Yeah.

For me, super powerful. 30 years ago, if you wanted to have this sort of things, you had to, you know, go on a newspaper or TV.

Yeah.

These are the 2 options. These are the options. Now you can create your own life. It's a paradox because now it's what people consider like for granted, I don't because I'm a bit older. So I don't give this for granted, the possibility to do this, to reach people here in the chat. It's not for— it's still— social media always feels new to me because when I was 16, I was playing hide and seek.

Yeah.

So that's it. So for me, it always feels a bit strange and new. So this is where I started to find some value, and it has been a Great ride, I'll say. Now I'm absolutely 100% enjoying it. I'm going to conferences. I met Taylor Desseyn in person. He's very tall, by the way. And, and I, I'm not joking when I say that creating videos really changed my life. It, it's, it's true. Now I'm here advocating for what I thought it was impossible. It's, uh, it always feels a bit, uh, strange to me because, you know, it's like negating what you were in the past. And this is why I like to do this. I don't have like a paid course on YouTube, no worries. It's just, I just wanted to share this possibility. And also for people who are not native speakers, there are many things that we can talk about. But I think that creating this content, this whole process of doing these things on the internet is very important.

Exactly.

And you know what, Taylor, especially in this period, which when everything is AI, everything can be vibe coded. I'm joking, of course. But okay, so like, okay, so who you are, it's even more important now. The human connections, they're even more important. If I can do an e-commerce in a day and you can do an e-commerce in a day, and I have a YouTube channel with 300,000 subscribers, probably have a better chance than you. I'm sorry. Yeah, that's, that's it. Because we are getting better tools. So who you are and what you do and the reach you have is even more important than 5 years ago. I'm a strong believer in this.

Yeah, 100%. And I wanna, I wanna highlight, and I want your thoughts on this because I posted this to LinkedIn yesterday, that I don't think people understand. I think that people watching right now understand, but I think generally, especially from a business perspective, people don't understand how hard it is to create content, to have a podcast, to consistently invite people, to apply to conferences, to find conferences, to go speak at conferences. Like, I mean, you said it yourself, you're a content distribution machine. And I think the more I kind of get into this thing in my career, the hardest part is content distribution and in that funnel. So I don't know if you have any thoughts on that, can speak to that, the importance of it. I feel like a lot of businesses, like in my past, like some companies I've worked at are still struggling to put out one piece of content on LinkedIn a day. And it's like you have me and you and a lot of these other amazing creators who are distributing at scale, and it's so important. So I want to see if you have any thoughts on that.

Yes, I want to, as usual, trying to make an analogy. Uh, is the analogy between who just takes a— makes a travel and they enjoy it, which is fine, and a person who also does travel vlogging, which still find it kind of hard. So what's the difference? The difference is in the mindset. If a person does travel vlogging, travel blogging, they, you know, it's a bit hard because you have to do context switching. But at the end, it's like what we do also during conferences. And now I started doing these and it's not that easy because I'm not that used to it yet. So you should go there, then interact with people, then you record something, then you keep going, and then you record something, and then you're going. It's very similar. So I still do the stuff, the, the job. I've been like, like, for example, I was— I published a video before jumping in this live. It was a reaction about a T3 Chat by, by Tio.

Yeah.

Because I can now, I can do this content switching so easy. If you're not that used, for you to stop working and start to record a video, and then you will understand all the things, the lights and many things. And then you need to go back to your job and it's midnight. That's the thing. And that's why many people, they find it hard. It's not that different from exercising. Now I am jacked. So now I can do my own stuff and in the flow, I throw tweets while I edit, while I organize my my day. I go for a run and then come back and another post and then I interact with these. After this, probably also go live because I'm going a bit crazy lately. It's all about the mindset. It's the difference between who is, you know, exercising like crazy in a gym and who is like, who is just at the gym checking the phone. That's the difference. Yeah, I respect that. We are both at the gym, we're doing different things.

Yep. No, absolutely. I mean, it's, it's absolutely a muscle. Um, and that's again, like when we're hiring for Torque, like that's what, that's what I look for. Like I hired Jason because of obviously his, his brand awareness and his creation, right? Same thing. That's why I hired Brianna because of obviously her deep relationships. And now she's doing a stream. Like again, organic content in today's world is just so important. And, and if I think if you can flex that muscle, I think it's huge. So obviously Elliot comes in here. Um, and we got, we got 10 minutes left here. So, uh, Francesco, did you ever find it— yeah, yeah, it goes by fast. Francesco, do you ever find it challenging for you to create content because of pressure from others who aren't on tech Twitter? What pressures have you faced that you've overcome to be so consistently active?

Okay, so no, I don't, I don't get the, the, the— why are you mentioning tech, tech Twitter? Uh, I'm like, now I consider YouTube my main, uh, main social media, but sure, so I don't get it. Um, It's always challenging, but it's all about the priorities. So top of priorities is my family, the girlfriend. Second, one day she also probably will be, she'll be my wife. I proposed last year because I asked her JavaScript or marry me. So she asked, you know, to marry me. So she chose the—

Perfect, right? We were there for a second.

Yeah, exactly. So I tried to make her try JavaScript, but I couldn't make it. I lost track. Okay, so, so let's say that, um, creating, creating a video is usually challenging, but, um, let me see, uh, overcome to be consistently active. Yes, I think that having, um, like a backlog of ideas is useful. Yeah. Okay, and I was talking about priorities. Okay, so girlfriend, um, physical health, content creation. That's my priority. I love that. If I didn't go for a run and I have to record a video, first I go to exercise. I went also today at 5 AM and then I do this. So this may say, okay, so you're wasting your time, but then I have more energy. So at the end of the day, I did more, more things. And having worked in sports since I was 15, 8, when I started exercising, gave me the right priority of these. So, and I understand this is not, might not be for everyone, but giving the right priorities, maybe I can end the day without, not without doing what I wanted to do about content creation, but then when I wake up the day after, it's 4 AM and I'm pumped.

Right.

So If we, if you, we, if we make this challenge, usually I win because even if I don't create content in a single hour because I want to, you know, to do an extra short or whatever, in the long run, these, I think we can say that this mechanism works better because I prioritize my physical health over content creation. It's a bit hard. I love that. But, uh, that's it. That's, it's a simple thing. If you, you know what, Taylor, if you create content, you need to be in your best condition. If you're tired, content creation is, um, it's like drawing, it's like playing the piano. Can you play the piano if you are stressed, if you didn't sleep? You will end up not just not doing it because, uh, it's hard to enjoy it.

Right.

So this is how I see content creation. If you are pumped, you can go like, like Taylor does, boom, like a machine. Because at the end of the day, yes, it's just turning on a camera and then you do stuff. if you are in the right condition. Like now I am, I'm trying, I'm trying to see my six-pack again because since I started learning JavaScript 2015, I never saw my six-pack again. So I'm working hard on this. Maybe for Render ATL I'll be ready and we can see some decent results. But, uh, but it's very important. I— it's super important. So yes, Elliot, that's, uh, that's how I, I try to do it.

I love it. All right, so as we wrap up here, man, any last words of encouragement to folks who may be Um, you know, who, who may be struggling to get started? You know, again, like, like, uh, again, I want to reiterate that Francesco started with no followers. He started by just starting to share an app he did in Android, right? So Francesco, do you have any words of encouragement to folks who maybe are just scared to post because they're worried about what people think of them? And we'll wrap up here.

Yeah, sure. This is one of my favorite topics. So, um, you know what, Taylor, and everyone who is listening, so people will judge you for your, uh, your, your aspect, your funny accent, uh, your thoughts. If you say, you know, something a bit wrong about a specific language because they went to check to the book and say, okay, so in this case, you in that second, you said something which is not exactly perfect. people will even judge you if you don't create content. Like, you're not good enough to create the content. So at this point, since they are judging anyway, uh, do—

Yeah.

What is the best, what is the best for you, you know? So, so creating, creating something, I would say this is not for everyone. I'm not saying here that it's— it worked for me, but I would say, I would suggest everyone to start to create at least 100 videos in their life or 100 blog posts. Or, um, I see sometimes, uh, like people— this was also a mistake that I made in the past— they jump over things every 2 weeks. So this is also what I, I'm also guilty when I was like 20. Do you— this also applies to job searching, for a job, learning a skill? try it for 6 months, try it for a year. I started, I don't know, learning Rust, okay, 2 years. I start check, you know, learning Docker, 5 years. So it's not like— because just one week you learn nothing. So take some time to learn something. When you want to start creating content, do it for 6 months because at least you'll have a real try. If you—

Yeah.

sign up for the gym and you go 3 times, you don't even know if you like that. If you sign up, I don't know, for volleyball and you do 5 lessons, you have no idea what is that.

Right.

So I like to have these extensive, like, tests. So if at some point you decide, okay, now I intentionally don't see the value because, I don't know, I can give more value because I get this job, this job is $300K, I don't have time to record videos, I'm happy with my life. That's fine. It's, uh, it's okay. It's okay. Maybe you have a, uh, maybe you have a startup, but you have to dedicate some time. Maybe you can pay someone to create videos for you. Um, that's fine, but it has to be, uh, something you decide, not because you can't or because you tried one video. You have no idea, Taylor, how many friends I have, they struggle so much to create a video. Then they spend, they spend like 2 months to create a video, one video, and then they stop.

Yeah, I know.

It's, you know, it's like having this, uh, so can you really say that you really tried, tried or not? So this is, I think that this is a suggestion. So try it for an extensive amount of time. Yeah, I already did that. And then if you don't like it, we are not here to judge you, of course. Someone will, someone will, but I will not. And, um, and then, but at least you know that you don't, uh, you don't like it. So yeah, I mean, I even, I mean, I even tried the pineapple on pizza. Of course I didn't like it, but I tried. So now I can say it proudly. And if you like it, I will block you on LinkedIn. Yes.

Yeah, absolutely. And again, I tell people all the time, and this was part of one of my talks, is I think everybody, everybody, I truly mean it, I think everybody is I obviously talk about LinkedIn a lot, is like 90 posts, 90 consecutive posts away on LinkedIn for something awesome happening in your career, whether that's another job offer, whether that's a conference spot, whether that's you're speaking at a meetup, whether that's somebody wants to pay for a sponsorship. Like, I truly think everybody's 90 posts away from doing something great, which obviously is very close to 100 um, videos, or, you know, like, like Francesco said— say what?

I mean, once you— I'm sure that once you reach 90, you will make 100. But that's a nice strategy.

Exactly.

That's a nice strategy, Taylor. I like it.

Exactly. So again, yeah, push stuff out there. Um, uh, I, I love what Francesco said. Everyone's gonna judge you regardless, so you might as well put something out there. So, um, I love that. Well, Francesco, thank you, my friend, for coming on the pod. I appreciate you. I'll see you at Render. It's gonna be a blast. For those of you who are tuned in, please go follow Francesco on YouTube. Check out his Rust video he just dropped. Like it, add a comment on YouTube. Let's fuel that algorithm for him. I will link it in the show notes after this. But again, Francesco, you're great. Stay on real quick so I can say bye to you backstage. But y'all have a great one. And tomorrow, Another great guest on Guidance Counselor 2.0, my guy James Quick. Our guy James Quick is coming on the show tomorrow. Yeah, so pulling him out of not retirement because he's still very much working, but online retirement because he's been a little quiet. I'm sure we're going to talk about it. So James Quick tomorrow, 9:30 AM Central. Y'all have a great one. We'll see y'all tomorrow. Peace.

Bye.