Road to Speaking at Laracon w/ Aaron and Zuzana

Okay. Hi everyone. We should be live. Should be up and live. I said that with like little enthusiasm. I promise I'm awake. I've had no caffeine though. No caffeine yet. We'll make it lively in a minute. Exactly. That's true. It should be a really fun stream. Uh Susanna and I were talking about before we go live. We're just going to introduce ourselves and then we're going to fade behind the scenes and just let Aaron take it away and give his whole Get real. No way. [laughter] I don't know. I think you're prepared. You could do it. No, I'm I'm always prepared to give a talk, but that's not going to happen. Not today. So, hi Gerard Dove. Welcome in. How are you doing? Happy Thursday. Uh Jason commented. He said, "Oh, hey Aaron. This outfit looks familiar." Oh, shoot. Did I wear this exact same thing yesterday and the day before and tomorrow? Oh, no. I was in [snorts] your podcast episode for this week, right? Uh yeah. A little [clears throat] um a little secret about me is I basically wear the exact same thing every day. Like truly. I have I think this is a white shirt. No, this is a gray shirt. Um, but I have like 10 of the same black shirts. Um, and I just I just run it back. Oh, so you really do? I just like wear hoodies. No, I I I really I buy uh shirts and when I find one that fits well, I'll buy it in bulk. Um, and so I'll have like and they're usually all black. This is a gray version of the black one. Um, and I just I buy everything in uh in duplicate or triplicate or tintlicate. Um, shoes, socks, shirts, all of it. They're just all the same. To me, that feels really funny that you are the father of two sets of twins and then you're talking about like buying your shirts and stuff at duplicates. Well, before you had your twins, yeah, to be fair, I did this before I had twins, but like ain't nobody got time for that. Um, back when I was a young man, I I wore a uniform. I had a pair of I had a pair of like navy shorts from J. Crew and then a white button-d down, I think, also from J. Crew, and I bought like four of each. And I literally wore that same This is when I was going into an office. I literally wore the same thing every day. You [snorts] wore J. Crew shorts to the office. Oh, yeah. And I was the most dressed up person there. I would never expose my knees in an office anymore, but as a young man, you know, I was I was the most dressed up person. I had on a button-d down and everybody else was, you know, programmers in in pajamas. Something about the shorts, though. It's like I don't want to expose my knees to the office. Oh god, no. Some people would wear flip-flops, which is horrifying. Oh, I remember you talking about like you have a thing for bare feet, do you? You wear shoes. Men should absolutely never show their toes unless they're actively falling into a body of water. It's horrifying. Is this what we're here to talk about? Yeah, that's your feet. [laughter] Yeah, that's gonna get some lovely messages. Leah, what [laughter] the foot stream? Yeah, my bad. Hi, Mark. How are you doing? Yeah, Jason said, "Wow." Okay, J Crew, pinkies up. Yeah, he's flexing on us with Jake Crew. Um, hi Krishna, welcome in. So, we have some people here. So, let's go ahead and kind of get started. So, we are sadly we're not here today to talk about Aaron's uniform or um whether men should show their toes or not. We are here to talk about uh the road to Laracon which basically will just be us talking about how people can get into speaking at conferences and work their way up to speaking at larger conferences such as um a Laracon or something like Laracon US. But first, let's do some quick intros. So, my name is Leah Thompson. I am a Devril engineer at Laravel and I work closely with our online communities. Um, and I have spoken at three Laracons now. Um, as well as seven conferences in total. And today I am here with Zuzanna and Aaron Francis. Francis, sorry I said your last name weird. [laughter] If you guys would like to go ahead and do a quick intro. Um, let's start with you, Zusanna. Uh, so I'm Susanna. I'm the founder of Laravels and I'm a PHP and Laravel dev as well. I I don't actually know how many conferences I spoke at. I didn't do the didn't count them but I've spoken at Australia, US and Europe. So other than India I think I'm missing the Indian one but yeah um yeah so that's me Aaron. I am Aaron Francis and I've spoken at a couple Laracons and I have MCEd Laracon US a couple times uh and will be MCing the future upcoming Laracon US here in Boston. Not here in Boston. I don't live in Boston. They're in Boston. Um and I've spoken at a couple of other uh non Laravel conferences. Um and I've MCed one other non Laravel conference. So I have a good breadth of uh what conferences are looking for. So hopefully this can be helpful to people. And I didn't start speaking at conferences until like almost exactly a year ago. Um so hopefully I can help with the kind of beginner aspect too of like getting into it, applying for your very first conference talk, which I mean we all started somewhere, but mine's still pretty pretty fresh. Oh, sorry. That's my cat. Sorry, [laughter] your cat. She's very excited about speaking at conference. She was. Yeah, she's not spoken to any conference, but yeah, she wants to learn. She wants to learn. Yeah, this is the perfect place. Um, I think now's a great place to start with kind of why would someone want to speak at a conference or why should people speak at conferences? Are we going to like raise hands or who are [laughter] we going to decide who's going to speak first? Just rule it out. Go first. Susanna, you go. Um, why? Um, well, it's a good way to challenge yourself. And I'm not saying speaking, public speaking is for everyone. I know some people are just absolutely terrified about the idea of speaking in front of other people. And I get it. I was as well uh until I did it and it wasn't as bad. And it's just not only when you're preparing a talk, you learn so much about the topic you're preparing. So I think that's which probably something which we will cover later. But you don't need to be an expert at whatever it is you're going to talk about. You will most likely learn about it as you are preparing the talk. But why should people do it? Because it's it's fun. It's something different. It's the adrenaline. It's incredible when you stand well especially when you step off the stage after you've given a talk. It's the best feeling ever. Um, and it's uh, yeah, I didn't know I was going to enjoy it until I tried it. So, everyone should give it a go and try and maybe they'll enjoy it. Hopefully, they will. All right, I'll give you the other side. I agree with Susanna 100%. But, [laughter] and no, but and so it's great. Challenge yourself, live on the edge, get the rush of the adrenaline, learn a bunch of stuff. I totally agree. It's also good for your career. If you're purely a selfish actor, you can get a lot out of speaking. Um there's like uh there's like this false notion that anyone that's ever given a talk on stage is like a super genius and it's like okay well go use that for your advantage. So like if you can go and give a conference talk then you build up your credibility as someone who knows about XYZ. Um, and some of that, like Zuzanna said, is true. Like, you had to learn a lot about XYZ and, you know, refine your understanding to be able to teach it to other people. And so, you do know a lot, but people put outsized weight and importance on um people who have given talks. Same with like people who have been on podcasts or people who write blogs or make videos. Everybody looks at them and thinks, "Oh, wow. They're like on the in another tier. when in reality it's available to everyone. Like I started because I submitted a a talk to Laracon online during the pandemic and Ian chose me and that's like that's where that's where I started. That's where anyone can start. And so this like um this career advancement opportunity is totally available to anyone, but it's terrifying. And so a lot of people don't do it. But then once you're on the other side, you realize like one, it's not that scary after you get one under your belt. And two, that opens you up to a bunch more opportunities where people are like, "Oh, I saw you speak at this conference. Do you want to speak at that one? Do you want to come on my podcast? Do you are you available for freelancing? Are you looking for a job?" And so the number of opportunities that just kind of flow your direction um just by being brave enough to like submit and then go on stage is really uh can be very beneficial for your career. I agree with that because I know before we went live we were talking about your Nashville talk which is talking about publish your work and in that you talk about how if you just start talking about something you can become known for it and I feel like it's the same thing when you give conference talks like people do think oh you have to be an expert to talk about something like oh I can't do that because I'm not an expert at it and you really don't have to you just have to pick something to talk about pitch it get it approved and then you research as you're like putting piecing to talk together. But then if you give talks on that, you can be known for that subject. Correct. Like I've had people come up to talk to me about like inertia things or react things because I've given a few talks about inertia and react now and it's just like another form of like publishing your work like you were talking about. Yeah. It's just like total it's just total self-branding. I mean what do you want like which direction do you want your career to go? Do you want to be the state machine guy or girl? Well, start like tweeting about state machines and writing about it and then submit a conference talk on state machines and then suddenly everyone tags you when you're talking about state machines. That's what David K piano like anytime I see a state machine on Twitter I'm like ah I should tag David K piano um because he's the state machine guy and there's there's a guy or girl for everything and you can just become the guy or girl for whatever you want to do um because you can just do things. You're right. Uh, but from author unknown, we'll never know. That's true. You'll never know. Too bad. That's a good quote. Um, I think I was going to say that's the thing like you can just decide. You can pick one thing. You don't have to wait for somebody to tell you, you know, this is your thing. You decide this is what I want to look into and it's just it's only up to you, nobody else. And that there's a freedom in when you realize like you don't have to wait for somebody to give you that perfect job or you don't have to give wait for somebody to give you the opportunity. you can decide this is my thing now at least for the foreseeable future. It doesn't have to be forever and just do it. I think one more thing I want to say too about like why people should speak at conferences. Something for me that I didn't really think of whenever I was like I want to speak at conferences um is that you can help other people by speaking at conferences which is still kind of wild to me. Like I I'll have people come up to me who's like, "It's so like refreshing to see you speak at conferences when you're a career changer or you're someone who like switched into it. You're someone kind of newer to like the Laravel community." I even got thanked for giving like a front-end talk at Laracanu. Like people are like, "Oh, thank you so much for like giving a front-end talk here." So you can truly help people by just putting yourself out there and speaking at conferences. And to me, it's so rewarding to like get those kind of comments afterwards or get those messages from people talking about how like by just seeing me speak at a conference, how that has like helped them in any way with their like journey of like trying to get their first job in tech or anything like that. Mhm. All benefits basically. No well downsides. Are we going to talk about downsides at some point? The downsides are terrifying. Yeah. [laughter] Yeah. We we will talk about that. Okay. Uh Mark said, "I am most certainly the broadcast radio guy. Legit got my first professional software job from loving and writing radio software for fun." So yeah, there we go. You can just become the guy. Yeah. Okay. I guess maybe we should talk I guess like we can talk about cons before we get into like the path to to the conference talk of how like working your way up. Yeah. The cons are it's terrifying. Um, and it can be a lot of work to put your thought together. Yeah. I mean, it's terrifying the first time as it is now. I don't think that ever, for me at least, it doesn't go away. It's always feels like I can't do it. What am I doing? I'm don't belong here. All that. Every single time. I don't know if it's going to go away. Nah, it's not going to go away. Uh, and it's a ton. It's a [laughter] ton. It's a ton of work. If you want to do it well, which I think you should do everything well, it's a huge amount of work. Um, and so you just like you have to prepare yourself that giving a giving a proper conference talk, we're talking like 25 minutes, not um, you know, a five minute talk is still hard, but there's just so much less content, but like a 25-minute talk, especially when you're on some main stage like a Laron EU or a Laricon US or something like that, it is a freaking ton of work. Um, and it should be, you shouldn't be looking to not do the work. Um, but you just have to be prepared that it's like fully taking on a proper second job for three weeks, maybe four weeks. Um, so there are strategies around I think lessening that load, which we can talk about later. Um, but you should be prepared that giving a real like honest good effort conference talk is going to take a huge amount of work and you're not doing it wrong if you feel like boy this is like a second job. That is correct. That's how it should feel. Um, and there are strategies which we'll talk about later but uh it's terrifying and it's a huge amount of work and I would still say it's almost universally a good idea to do. Yeah. No, I agree with that. [snorts] especially if you're like traveling for the conference too because then you have to factor that in and then you have to think about jet lag when you're there and then you still have to practice and it's a lot but it Yep. I like love it so much like I feel like I've only gotten benefits from speaking at conferences here we have Hi Roxy. Hey [snorts] Roxy just had two days in a row of Aaron. Oh I'm [laughter] so sorry. And then someone said Aaron's best talk was the fusion one. That was such a good talk. RIP. That was such a good talk. See? So yeah, next we're going to talk kind of the path to conference talk as well as like where um where talk ideas actually come from. But Andy had a good question already. Hi Andy. Um, so Andy Hinkle said, "How much do you lean on a personal war story in a CFP versus keeping it technical for technical talks?" I think personally that it's always good to put some personal spin on talks because you need to in a way you kind of want to be entertaining on stage as well. It's one way to stand on stage and just give the technical details of something, but if you put a little bit of personality into it, people will engage with it more. people will pay more attention and they will remember it better. So I would always draw on some personal experience make it personal in some way. That's my even in your CFP a little bit because at least like the the people that go through those CFPs like they will have so many on the table. You need to do something that will make you stand out from the you know so many other submissions potentially similar ones to yours potentially on the same topic. So I think you need to do it in a way that will make you different, will make you stand out. How else can you do it than making a little bit personal or having like some really special use case but it's really hard to know if you don't know what the other people did. So for me at least a little bit personal. I'm not saying like a go all in uh but definitely make it stand out by making it personable. Yeah, I think conference organizers, their primary goal is to if not put on a good conference, at least not put on a bad conference. Um, and so the more that you can convince the conference organizer that uh your talk will be um good and interesting and people will like it, the more likely they are to choose you. And so you want to lower as much as possible, you want to lower the risk of uh appearing to promote or pitch a bad talk. And so that being said, like you've got you've got hard one experience that other people don't have. Put that in the CFP for sure and talk about that in the talk. Like anybody can especially these days, anybody can read the docs or have Claude read the docs and then tell you tips, tricks, and tactics. And that's like maybe valuable. I think that's becoming less valuable from stage. What's becoming more valuable from stage is what is not in the distribution. And that is your lived experience. Especially if it's a fun story where everything went wrong. like that is going to be and like I don't know if this is jumping ahead but I feel like part of what you want to do in a conference talk especially these days is sadly you're there less to communicate technical knowledge and you're there more to like um share enthusiasm and inspiration even if that is around a technical subject right so if you get up there and you're like hey live wire 4.2 came out. Here's the change log. Here's like what you can do to enable Blaze. And isn't that cool? Everybody's gonna be like, "Yeah, I mean that's cool, but like I'll just have my clanker do that." But if you get up there and you're like, "Guys, I installed LiveWire 4.2. Look at this before. Look at this after. Look how awesome my product is now. Look how great my development experience is now. Look at all these things that like, isn't this so exciting? Don't you want to do this?" like your primary job I think is to transfer enthusiasm about the topic on which you're speaking even if that is a super technical topic and like you pepper in like uh actual technical learnings I think the more that they're rooted in like I had this pain I implemented this fix I came to this solution more every step is like the hero's journey of was I going to make it oh my gosh I made it like that is I think what conference organizer ers want. And sadly, maybe even more so than ever, they care less about like the nitty-gritty, especially at like a like a almost general purpose conference like Laracon. If you go to like uh CubeCon and you're in a you're on a second stage talking about the internals of Cube whatever Kubernetes, yeah, you probably don't want to like transfer enthusiasm. you probably want to share nittygritty technical details about the internals of Kubernetes. But when you're at like a general population conference, I think it kind of has to be a little higher level of hero's journey. Here's what I learned. Here's the sticky situation I was in. Here's how I use this technology that applies to you all to fix it or to make it better or whatever. No, I agree with that cuz you're you're trying to like engage the community too, right? you're trying to like connect with the audience and stuff is a big part of it. I don't know if I always like mention impersonal war stories in the CFP, but I always try to make sure it reads like my tone and I put some kind of personality in it, whether by like kind of like the hook or something like that. Um, also part of that is some conferences when you apply, they leave you a spot to upload a video. And I would say almost always upload a video, especially if you're a first-time speaker because I think to me that's what helped me get picked is because if you have no other proof of you speaking at conferences, but you send them a short little video of you talking about like what your talk's going to be, they kind of get an idea of your like speaking style and like how you might relate that same subject on a stage, you know, because it's all about closing that gap between um you and the conference organizers like showing them you can be a good speaker like lowering the risk for them to accept you as a speaker at the conference. Okay. Can we can is it okay if we riff on that for just two seconds? Yeah, let's do it. I didn't I I looked at the doc you sent and it was amazing and perfect and then I closed it. So, I don't really know where we are in in the in the timeline, but I'm just going to go for it if that's quite all right with you. Let's do it. Um, all right. Getting to the Laracon US stage. Mhm. So if we hold constant and this may not be true but if we hold constant that Laracon US is like the pinnacle which I think in the Laravel world it probably is. So we'll just hold that as a truth. Um it is very difficult although not impossible to go from having never spoken to speaking on the Laracon US stage. That is that is a tough road to hoe. It is not impossible. If you want to do that I encourage you with all your might to apply for Laracon US. That's fantastic. A strategy that is potentially more profitable is to start with an online meetup. Anything anything that is recorded. Start there. Um not because it's like not because it's worse, but it's just lower stakes. So you can go and you can present, you can take that recording and go to potentially, you know, a smaller conference or an an online conference instead of an online meetup. And then you have two like you have two pieces of proof that's like maybe I've never been on the LICON US stage, but I promise based on these two things that are uh concrete proof, not just taking my word for it, I promise I can speak. Like I'm not going to get up there and just throw up on the stage. Although if you do, I'll come out and save you. But like I can speak in front of people, right? And so that increases the odds of the conference organizer looking at that and saying this person is not risky. And conference organizers want to lower the risk of somebody throwing up on stage. And so the more like the more proof you can build up um in like concrete artifacts, the more that you can take it to the CFP and be like, "Hey, here's my war story. here's like my general outline why I think this would be interesting and here's four YouTube videos that each have a hundred views. Like I'm not talking about doing something like viral. It's like this is just proof that I have spoken at places before and I'm less risky than somebody who has spoken at no places before. And so if you want to go straight for the top, go ye with God. I encourage that. If you want to layer on, which is exactly what I did. I layered on uh Laravel worldwide meetup, Laracon online, Laracon online, Laracon inperson. Like that's the exact path that I went down. Um and I would encourage anyone who's looking for that just get anything under your belt that is an artifact that can be shared. And then after that, it's kind of like you've bootstrapped yourself into the correct path. And I want to say like people might think, "Oh, I will be okay on stage." But you don't know what you're going to be like until you are standing on that stage. You do not know what it's like. So I think for everyone's benefit, it's not just for the organizers, for yourself as well. Give yourself a chance by doing, you know, maybe bit by bit rather than just going for the big deal straight away because you don't know. You'll be like, I'm not going to throw up. And then you're standing there and you freeze and you didn't know throw up. And all the things [laughter] about throw up are making me see the pitch perfect scene. So now I see a [laughter] stage perfect. [gasps] What a great film. We just someone throws up and you see Aaron like sliding across the stage. Honestly, if somebody if somebody threw up on stage, I might throw up. I am [laughter] the weakest softest person in the world. But I'll I'll do it for the for the sake of the speaker. I'll come save you. But boy, that would be a rough day. [laughter] Oh man. So you and half of the audience probably. Yeah. I don't know what I would bring. I need I need to bring some of my uh surgical gloves in case I need to clean up any vom off the stage. I'll bring I'll bring Dramamine for next. I appreciate that. I did pin the meetup. Which is for the Laravel worldwide meetup on the website. You can propose a talk there. So that's like a great way to get started with um speaking at like meetups or kind of like online conferences like Aaron said. I will say Aaron gave me the same great advice in December of 2024 when I was starting to like think about getting into conferences, speaking at conferences. I talked to you at commit your code about Oh yeah. Yeah. Some people came up to me at the conference and they're like would you think about speaking at conferences? Because I was already live streaming and stuff then on my personal Twitch and I was like maybe I should. I mentioned it to you um when telling you how great your talk was and you were like you should do it but like try to speak at meetups first and I completely did not listen to Aaron's advice and I applied for Epic [laughter] Web and React Miami and some other conferences and I was accepted and that started me on the speaking trajectory because I've done seven conferences in a year because I didn't start speaking at conferences till March of last year. Um, but I will say my first ever conference talk was a lightning talk. So it was a like a five minute talk at Epic Web. So it was a nice little entry into conference speaking which is good because I did not realize how much prep it took to give a conference talk at that point. And Epic Web is like what 200 150 people and so even that is like it was a great conference but it's a much smaller conference than something like a Laracon US and so doing a small talk at a regional conference is also a great idea. Um and to be fair I did say if you want to ignore my advice and apply for the big [laughter] the big conference you can. So that still technically counts as listening to Aaron. So, I'm going to put that one down in my journal. Yeah, I'm going to pat myself on the back. Wow, I'm such a good listener. Um Dave did say too, he said, "There are so many Laravel events with CFP's open. Laraveville Live UK in Denmark and Laracon AU just open, which are all wonderful places to speak before you get to Laracon US because Laron AU is great. I is a Laracon, but it's I think it was like 300 something people." So, it's also a little smaller than like EU and US. So, it's a good kind of place to start um before you go speak at a 1,00 plus people conference, which can be terrifying. And here's here's a here's a little bit of strategy as well. Um this is a fact. We'll get to the strategy in a second. Australia is hard to get to. I know a lot about geography and what I know about Australia is that it's very far away. It's down in the lower right hand corner. And so, um, like if you're thinking strategically, how many people are applying to speak at Laracon US? Probably a lot. How many people are applying to speak at Laracon AU? Probably fewer. I mean, I don't know. I don't know numbers, but I'm 100% confident that that's directionally accurate. How many people are applying to speak at Laravel Live Denmark? Probably fewer. And so, your odds go up of applying at one of those. Now, is it going to be hard to get there? Well, I don't know. Where do you live? But you have to like take into account um like statistics of what's like what is attainable in terms of just raw numbers. If you're one of 50, that's better odds than one of 500. Not to say you're not going to get picked at one of 500, but one of 50 is better odds. And so, consider that um when you're thinking like, where do I want to get my foot in the door? Well, what conferences need people to speak? Turns out a lot of them. Am I willing to travel to one that needs uh a speaker? Depends on how bad I want to like get into the game. Yeah, I agree with that. Uh Dave did say Aaron, there's a non-stop from DFW for Brisbane. And he is right, but it is like 15 something hours. Yeah, nonstop from like DFW to Oklahoma is a different story than non-stop DFW to Australia. Okay. So, sure you're correct, Dave. Author Jmack. Hi Jac. He said, "What to do about conference blues?" Oh, you just have to keep going. The more conferences. Well, yeah. I think it's discussed. Is that what he means? I think. Oh, yeah. Define conference blues. So, I think the way I understand it, post J as well because we spoke about it at Brisbane is yeah, when so preparing for a conference, it takes over your life pretty much for the weeks before and then you travel especially when you travel far away. So if you from US going to Australia or of me from UK going to Australia. So it's a big thing. So you prepare for weeks then you make this massive journey. You get there and then you give the talk you meet all your friends and you hang out and you give the talk and then it's over pretty much overnight it's gone and everyone starts leaving and yeah I find myself a lot of the time not this time after Amsterdam not as much but before that most of the conferences when the conference is over the next day it's really hard. It's like all my friends are leaving or have left and the thing that I was preparing for for so long it's over and I'm just left feeling like you know blue. I think [laughter] that's the only way to describe it. So what do you do about it myself? I know it's coming. So at first I was surprised. I didn't expect it. So my first inerson conference was Lisbon Larco near Lisbon and I didn't expect to have so much fun there. meet so many amazing people and even giving the talk was amazing and then it was all over and I was shocked. I didn't expect those feelings. So now that I know it's coming, I kind of prepare and I know okay the next couple of days I'm going to be emotionally exhausted, physically exhausted, mentally [clears throat] exhausted. So just know it's coming. It's going to be okay. But I think it's important to know and I don't know. I'm not the only one. Have you experienced it at all, Aaron? Yeah. Oh, totally. Yeah. It's like uh it's like the adrenaline, you know, it's like the coming off of the adrenaline. Um yeah, you know, [gasps] not to get all like uh not to get all mortality, but all good things come to an end, you know. So, you just Aaron talks about vomit and now he's talking about vanity. Vanity, everything is fleeting. There's nothing new under the sun. Um yeah, it's tough. I think you uh one you you put in all this work. Um then hopefully you perform your duty uh to your utmost and then you get off the stage and you're like, "Well, what the heck? What do I do now?" Um first you check Twitter and you receive all the accolades. Like you put in a lot of work and people liked it. You should feel super proud of yourself. Um and then you go mingle. Like you go hang. Um, like I think speaking at a conference is a great way um to have instant friends at a conference because then people just come up to you and they're like, "Oh, you gave a talk like that was amazing." And then you can just be friends with people. Um, and I think that is the durable like that's the durable solution to the postconference blues is you get off the stage, you you check your accolades, you feel super proud of yourself, and then you go mingle and you know, you go make Jenzy Abby take you to a bar for a beer or a soda water or whatever your heart desires. and like you talk to people and you make friends um and then you keep those relationships alive via the internet um until the next one that you go to and now you're hooked and you just keep going to conferences and I think the long-term I think the long-term value of conferences um potentially has always been meeting people and becoming friends with people. I think the uh percentage to which that is true is increasing with AI. Like as we discussed earlier, the technical aspects are potentially decreasing um and the relational aspects are definitely increasing. And so go speak and then wander the crowd and people will come up to you and then take that opportunity to like create durable friendships that you maintain via the internet for a long time. Like that's how I met I think that's how I met you, Suzanna. That's how I met Russa Bubbles. Leah, I think we might have met in person at Laracon Dallas for the first time at that uh Laracon Afterdark thing. Um and I like, you know, I've DM'd, I've tweeted, I've hung out with y'all at conferences. And so like we just became friends because we were all in the same place at the same time. Um, and that helps that helps stave off a little bit of the blues, but the adrenaline come down is certainly real. Yeah. No, I feel that every time. I also like when I travel internationally, it's like jet lag and that. So then I'm just like sleeping all the time. It's like I miss my friends. But I know we talked some about CFPs. Um, and we talked about how much prep it takes for the conferences. So, I think it'd be a great time to kind of talk like behind the scenes of that, like preparing the talk. Um, but if we could briefly touch on kind of how you guys come up with talk ideas and how you write your CFPs first before we talk about like once it's accepted and you actually have to build the talk because I'd love to know kind of like how you decide like how you write your CFPs and stuff. Okay. Start. Okay. Yeah, the subtle hand gesture was please Susanna again now. [laughter] Go ahead. Too subtle. Noted. Um I I they come to me. I know that sounds weird, but I have to have a kind [laughter] of I have to have like a revelation. This is the talk I want to give. If I sit down and think, oh, what what would be a good talk to give? I that takes me nowhere. I can't do that. But then I might be doing something completely random and I'll get a title in my head. So my first talk was well my very first one. Okay. My very first one in the Laravel space was also on Laracon online and it was about the Jigsaw challenge. I think it was the same year as you did Aaron and that just came to me. I think I was I was traveling. I was on at the airport. I was just thinking oh how long does it take to install Jigsaw and have it up and running and everything done? And that just I didn't go looking for that idea. It just came to me and I went with it. And that's that's how I do all my talks. I can't go looking for what might be interesting. I know the ideas people say, "Oh, maybe go and check out other talks and see which one is the most popular. This is what how you will know this is a good talk and then find like something you can you know take from that and come up with your own idea." For me, I just they it's usually the title that comes to me. Same with the one I gave in Lisbon. You can't be who you can't see. I had the title came to my head and then I build on from that. So I don't have in a I don't have a like a scientific process. It just they come to me. I'm like [laughter] come talk come and reveal yourselves and I I'll take it from there. All right. So Zuzanna says trust the universe. Um I say trust the universe. So totally same. Um okay. So, have either of you or anyone listening ever having ever had to give a wedding speech? Like a speech at one of your friends weddings? Yeah. My sisters, there you go. So, if you ever had to give a speech at a wedding, the worst thing you can do is like sit down and think, what should I say at this wedding? Like, what should I say now that it's tomorrow uh at at my sister's wedding? Right? And so I think the same thing applies with like coming up with a conference talk. So I think you should like um mentally set your sights on giving a conference talk. That's it. That's step one. [snorts] Then you trust your uh either the universe or your background information processing centers in your brain. Like as you're working things are starting to coales. You're like, "Oh, this is like this is interesting. this was really hard. I just learned this. Why don't people know this? And those things start to like coales around kind of like a nucleus of or a nugget. And then as you're like just going about your day-to-day work, maybe keep like a a scratch pad if you're like 37 like me, like a piece of paper with a pen that you write with and you just write down like, "Oh, this was interesting. This was hard. This was stupid. this was really clever. And then you look at it and you're like, wait a second, four of these things are kind of the same thing. Maybe that's a like maybe that's enough of a skeleton or a structure or a nugget to form a conference talk around. And then when it comes time to write the CFP, you've got a scratch pad of like, hey, here's eight different ideas. Four of them I hate and I would never want to talk about again. These two are pretty good. These two are okay. And so I 100% agree with it just comes to you, but it just comes to you after you've planted in your brain somewhere, I need to be on the lookout for conference talks. If you plant in your brain three months ahead of time, I need to give a speech at my sister's wedding, then memories will come to you while you're driving and you're like, that is a great memory that illustrates this character quality about my sister that I want to highlight. I'm going to write that down. And then like 3 days before the wedding, you've got all these things like you've got all these nuggets and you're like, "All right, these three stories illustrate the same character quality and I'm going to put those together. I'm going to do the funny one first and I'm going to do the touching one last and that's going to be a great way to end with people crying and I win." And so I think that's how like that's how the universe conspires is you plant it in your brain and then your brain cannot help but to churn on it in the background and then it just becomes a matter of coalating all the ideas when it's time to write the CFP. I will say I'm sometimes the problem. I know shocker. Um but you're like you shouldn't just sit down and be like I need to talk. Do you listen to anything I say Leah? Occasionally. [laughter] Unbelievable. Sometimes I I have to do things the hard way cuz you can just do things. That is something you said I didn't know. You can just do things the hardest way possible. It's a little less piffy, but I I will allow it. Okay. That's a Leah Thompson one. That's on. That's an original. Um so whenever I was applying for like React Miami, I was really nervous to apply to speak at conferences still. So I waited till like two hours before the CFP closed and then I'm like, "Okay, I need a talk idea. So, let me do my talk and let me make my little video, you know, and I did it and then it got accepted and then I was like, "Oh, no. Now I have to give this talk." It's like I'm just speaking into the void out here. You're here for I can see a talk happening in a future Leah talking about I do things the hard way. [laughter] that would be a great I I think a better title is never listen to Aaron. That's a hook. That's Oh, I might be able to get that taken. I've got a lot I've got a lot of sticks and bits and you can just go one by one and tell the audience why they're all bad ideas. I would listen to that talk. But then I would say your good your good idea is like the shower idea. We're not going to get into the shower idea. You had like a shower speaker, right? You have a shower. I bought a shower speaker after we bought that at Miami. It's amazing. Love a shower speaker. The best like it I bought a cheap one. So I think it was like 40 bucks. It was the best 40 bucks I spent. Yep. So shower speaker, what does it do? It's in the shower, Zuzanna. It's all in my name. It's Listen to music. Why' you need somebody to talk to the shower? You hook your phone up to the speaker and then when you're in the shower bathtub, you have your music playing. So you're like, you have the ambiance, right? And you have the lighting and then you have like the speaker playing your music. Imagine being alone with your thoughts for one god second and then you don't have to. You take the speaker in the shower and you can listen to podcasts in the shower. Okay, it's a good idea. That's a good ender. You can end on that, Leah. That's a good one. Okay, ending 20 minutes early. That's it. Yeah. [laughter] Hi, Mary. Welcome in. Which Mary is someone who went from not speaking at any conferences to speaking on the Lacon US stage, but she she did listen to Aaron and she did speak at some uh meetups leading up to it. So, I met I met Mary at Laracon Nashville. That was her first conference. She came totally by herself. Zuzanna uh came backstage and was like, "There's this woman that loves databases and loves your talk. You need to come talk to her." And I was like, "Somebody likes databases. There are two of us." Um and so I came out and met Mary. And then Mary has gone on to great heights. Um, and speaking of going from no speaking to speaking on Laron stage, I believe Mary could correct me if I'm wrong, um, that you workshopped your talk beforehand. And I think that's super like super important. So if you like speak at a small place or even if you gather up some friends to speak to them, it is okay nay very good to like workshop the talk that you're planning to give. So you don't have to come up with a bunch of new talks, but you give a talk and you realize like after you gave it, boy, that section that was a little confusing, wasn't it? And then you refine it and you take that talk to the big show. Um, so don't think that like [snorts] if you speak at worldwide meetup and then you speak at whatever, it all has to be a new talk. Um, you do you do want to keep things fresh, especially if you're like going to Laracon US. Um, but it is a very good idea to workshop a talk whether publicly or with a group of uh trusted adviserss. Yes. And Roxy said earlier, I've listened to Leah practice her talk at 11 p.m. because that is something I do. Um, I will do full runthroughs of my talk and I workshop it as I'm giving the run through. I also like starting to get into how we practice. I practice differently beginning than I do now. I do not write a script anymore. I just adlib my whole talk, but I do my slides and I make my coding demos and then I adlib running through the whole thing and I record myself like I make a video, a recording of it and I time myself and then I put that video on YouTube unlisted. I send it to my husband and to some of my friends. is I make them listen to me and then I keep doing it and I run through it at least four to six times all the way through talking just ad libing not looking at notes just going through it and that's how I kind of find my cadence of like oh I like how that sounded or oh I didn't like how that sounded let's go back to refresh um the demo or different things and I iterate from there I also have given the same talk I think like four times but each time was a different talk uh because I like Aaron said workshopped Like the first one I had no live coding and I was like okay I was reading from my slides too much here I had a script like how can I make this better and each time I did go and like completely redo the talk which is time consuming but it's worth it it's fully worth it if you know something can be better why not make it better and I think that's a good thing to realize that your talk will never be perfect and doesn't matter how much work you put into it when you when you do when you give the talk you will most likely think oh I should have done this differently I always do I forgot to say this or I said I spoke too much about that it will never be perfect and I think once people understand and accept it that it will never be perfect it will be much easier on them and then you can always take it further and you know do it again agreed and it'll never [clears throat] be perfect but uh enthusiasm covers a multitude of sins if you get up there and you give an imperfect talk that you're excited about and the audience is excited about, it doesn't super matter. Like you can you can mess up, you can stumble, you can backtrack, some demos can go poorly, but if you're pumped, it it just [clears throat] really doesn't matter that much because your primary objective is to transfer enthusiasm for the subject matter. And if you get up there and you're enthusiastic and things are like at 80%, that's better than getting up there and being bored out of your mind and giving a 100% perfect talk because the audience is going to be bored out of their minds. Yeah. And they can't see your script, right? So you could hit every note on your script and it could be the most boring talk for the audience because again they could feel that you're just reading off a script versus like your energy when you're kind of doing like crowd work in a sense you know like you're engaging with them. They see you are excited about what you're doing like Aaron said that is like a completely different vibe. So even if and there are times I'm on stage and I say something I'm like that was so stupid. Like in my head I'll think that but then afterwards no one says anything like I just get people saying they like the other parts of the talk or that it seemed natural because again you're not reading off a script. They don't know what you plan to say. So, as long as you just like go through your actual points, you do your demo and stuff, and you are having fun and you're engaging with the crowd, like you're doing a great job, and they're not going to know you forgot to point out one little bullet point. Yep. Agreed. Should we talk about prep? Is that what we're doing now? Yeah. Let's give a little let's give um I guess kind of like a shortened summary of what you would like how you prep for talks or how you would like recommend people prep for talks. Thank you. Yeah, that was okay. Cool. Well done. Um it changes with me every time I do every time I prepare for a talk. So I don't really have a strategy because it's different every single time. I I do like I said I start with a title and then I kind of think of the main bullet points of what I want to cover and then think the thing is when I practice so one thing is you have to say it out loud that there's massive difference between you saying it in your head and out loud not only when you say it out loud some things will just sound off weird or you know things that you think might land well they don't land well once you say them out loud so definitely say say it out loud and then as I do that I will take down further bullet points for each slide, for example. So, let's say I've got a title and I've got the main topics I want to cover, put them as slides, and then as I go through it, I start taking notes on each slide. So, I do kind of have a script, but not to read it. It's just to remember the main things I want to mention. But to be fair, when I do stand on the stage, I hardly ever look at those notes because it's awkward just standing in front of the computer trying to read and then suddenly I can't read anymore. Seems like the words don't make sense to me. So it just doesn't make sense. So it's really just yeah for my like feeling of safety knowing that I've got those notes there but I never use them. So my prep is yeah start in the title main points of what I want to cover and then just talk about those points write down notes I just mentioned say oh this was fun this was not fun and just do it over and over again. I don't think I prep as much as other people. Definitely not as much as Julia because every time we at a conference you're like I need to do this three more times and I'm like once I'm at the conference even if I'm on the end of the last day the second day I will still only maybe do it once while I'm there because I'm so distracted by everything else that's happening by the people and all the events and being a conference. I just can't revise anymore once I'm there. So all my prep has to happen before I even travel because once I'm there that that's it. thought, you know, it's not going to happen. But yeah, I don't practice as much. I just need to be comfortable knowing what I kind of want to talk about because the more I practice, the more then if I forget something. So let's say if I practice in the safety of my home and there's some things I want to say and then when I'm on stage, I forget this one thing, it will throw me off. It will throw me off the whole thing and I will forget what it is that I wanted to say. So I don't really want to practice too much. I don't want to always say the same thing because then yeah, if I forget one thing, whole thing falls apart. So yeah, I do practice but kind of I kind of wing it like many many things in my life. Yeah, [laughter] Aaron. Oh, I appreciate that smooth handover. [laughter] Um I think I I I think I do it the same way that Leah does. um I am unable I'm unable to sit down and write something compelling with regards to a spoken talk. Um and so the way that I do it is I begin uh and this I think has a couple of benefits but I begin writing my talk by saying it out loud like actually pretending that I'm speaking. Um, which means I end up giving the first couple of minutes of my talk like 30 times as I'm trying to figure out what is this talk even about. What that does is by the time I go on stage and I'm the most nervous, I'm about to deliver the part I've practiced the most because I've like uh practiced and then but been like, "Well, that was crap." Like, I have no transition here. Let me start over. And I practice again and again. So, by the time I'm on stage, I got that first five minutes down cold. That part's no problem. And five minutes in, I'm I'm hanging like we're having a good time. I'm not nervous anymore. And so, the latter half of the talk is always the one that's less rehearsed. But honestly, by then, I'm just cruising. So, it doesn't super matter. Um, with regard to memorizing or not, the only thing So, like at Laracon, uh, what was the last one? Denver at Laracon Denver. I gave like a short like 15inute opening talk and the I did no slides, no computer, nothing. And the only thing I had in my back pocket literally was a sheet uh it was like the the key card from my hotel, the little cover for it. I I opened it and I wrote down like what I call the signposts. And that's the only thing that I care about um is like what is the order of the signposts? Which direction am I heading? Because if I know that I'm starting with uh welcome to the show, here's the bathrooms and then I'm moving on to let's highlight some people in the community. I can get there. Like whether I get there the same way every time is fundamentally irrelevant. But if the structure of my talk is I've got these eight signposts and I just need to make sure that I like meander my way to get there, I'll be fine. Now I do practice it maybe, you know, 10 to 20 times fully all the way through. So I have a few um I think a a term of art is cow paths. I have a few cow paths of like normally I go this way like this is the welltrod path. This is the area that I typically end up going. And I'll have a few ers and ns that change each time, but I know more or less how I'm getting from 0.1 to point two. And especially once you reach the demo, if you're doing a demo, once you reach the demo portion of your talk, you're home free because you're just like giving the demo. And so that part that part is super easy. I would say um give your give your conference talk in in full hair and makeup at least five times all by yourself. at least five times. Like I don't do that. Get your clicker, set up your computer, keynote in presentation mode. Come out on stage in your room like a crazy person. Come out on stage and say thanks Aaron, I'm not there. Thanks. I super appreciate that. How's everybody doing? Like do the full thing because you don't want to walk out. I know, Roxy. It's It's hard for us us beautiful people to do our hair all the time. I totally No, I think Roxy's talking about me and her. I'm sorry, Erin, you're excluded from this. Um Well, I don't know. That was unclear to me. Um, [laughter] but like you want to come out like you want to at least have a few runs under your belt where you know what the first thing out of your mouth is going to be when you walk out on stage and the bright lights are on. You want to say thanks. I'm super excited to be here. This is a lot of fun. Whatever. Whatever. Whatever. Maybe not hair and makeup part. [snorts] No, hair and makeup is right. Don't listen to Dave. I mean Dave has it easy, but don't listen to Dave on [laughter] that part. Um, but like you want to be like you want your nervous system to be prepared to walk on stage. If you start like in your rehearsals with all right, okay, so I'm going to do this and I'll just skip this first intro slide because that's just about me and my family. You're you're like you're papering over what is not the hardest part but what is the most nerve-wracking part which is your first 60 seconds on stage. So my recommendation is practice that part a bunch even if you feel insane because then when you go out there the rope mechanics of hey thanks Aaron hey how's everybody doing? We're going to get started. This is my family. Like that is just like you're good and then you can get into some of the more technical or harder stuff that you have also practiced but by then your nerves have calmed down a little bit. I like that. I agree. Never thought of it but yeah I like that. Not the hair and makeup. I don't agree. I do practice like the morning of and even like backstage I'll go run through my slides and in my head like practice like I'm talking you know giving it just to make sure I know my flows and stuff. See I can't do that because I get stuck and then I'm like I forgot everything and now like if I do it too close to the actual talk and I I stumble it throws me off. So I actually cannot do that like I'm I think somebody told me could have been Jess Archer in Australia. She said I think it was her that she knows like the first sentence for every slide just so that like once the slide comes on on and she knows okay this I'm going to say that and then goes from there on. So just to know for each slide just to have like the first prompt this is what I'm going to talk about this is how it starts and from there on it just goes. There's something super nice about practicing a bunch before and then the day of you're just chilling because like I used to do this when I was uh when I was in school for accounting. I would walk in the exams were at night and I would walk into the accounting building and there would be kids sitting outside the door with their their textbooks still studying and I would I would like the stress level there was insane. People would be like, "Oh, did you get the present value of an ordinary annuity?" Like, "Oh, no. What are you talking about?" And I'm like, "Guys, you are only hurting yourself at this point." And so my strategy was always for accounting exams, stop studying about 3 hours before the exam. And then you just like you just trust yourself and you walk in and you put in headphones and you don't listen to any of the people that are freaking out who are like, "Oh, did you see?" You're like, "No, I either saw it or I didn't. I'm not going to let you get in my head. You put on some music to like get yourself amped up and you just trust that when the time comes, everything you've studied will come to you because if you get if you get into a frenzy right before you go on stage, that's just going to throw you off. At that point, you either know it or you don't. And you should just trust like your backup systems of, you know, work in the crowd. You've tr you've practiced a lot. That's what you should rely on. Not if I look at this 4 seconds before I go on stage, everything will be better. That feels stressful to me. I live in a frenzy. My we know that about you, man. My internal like system is like shark week. Like it's always shark week. That explains all the monster energy drinks. It does. Like I'm always like a Chihuahua that's like shaking. That's me at like all seconds. So before I go on stage, I'm like, "Oh no, what if I go on stage and I don't know my name?" Like what if I forget everything and then I go on stage and it's like hey everyone so today we're going to be and I just like go and it's fine and I don't even think about it. I just talk. Well chat, you have been presented with two visions for your future and I leave it to you to decide which one you [laughter] would prefer to choose. I think they're going to choose Shark Week honestly. Um also [laughter] what Dan said, "I use an ironing board as a makeshift lectern which is a really good idea too." And hi Dan. Let's see. So, we're almost exactly at an hour. I know Suzana has to leave. Um, we covered like CFPS, how to start, how to come up with talk ideas, kind of where to start talking as well as um, well, I think we covered everything. I know Aaron talked about he started speaking at like meetups or like online meetups and conferences before getting on the Laracon stage. Susanna, how did you start? Oh, I started with local meetups. Yeah, actually WordPress meetups. That's where I gave my first talk and on the back of that talk, I got my first job. It just happened there and then like somebody saw me. It was very small meet up. I 30 people I gave the talk. I gave two talks I think close one after the other and I got a job. So it it does work. And then I did the Lacon online during COVID and then Lac Lon EU Lisbon was my first inerson one and then it just went from there. So you heard it here folks. If you want to get started with speaking at conferences, a great place to start is meetups or smaller even like smaller inerson conferences. I pinned the links for the CFPs or the websites for Larvo Live UK, Larvo Live Denmark, Laracon US, and Laracon uh AU. Like we said, the Laravel lives are smaller conferences as well as like Laracon AU is a smaller LARON. They're great places to start. Make sure to go to the website and apply um fill out a CP if you want to get started speaking as well as look at local meetups. Thank you so much Zuzanna and Aaron for being here today and answering. Um some great questions. Me realizing I somewhat don't listen to Aaron which I'm sorry about. [laughter] Are there any like closing statements or advice you want to give to people looking to speak at conferences? And then also where can people find you offline? Just do it. I know it sounds like a big sorry sounds like a big big thing but like just apply and worry about it later. That's the other thing. Don't overthink it. Apply. Chances are you never get you're not going to get selected but apply apply apply and when you do get get selected then worry about it. Don't worry about it beforehand. Just keep applying applying applying and it's going to be great because everyone is nice. Also remember nobody wants you to fail when you're standing on that stage. Nobody's going to boo you off the stage. Nobody's going to say oh that sucked. or maybe some people online might have opinions but nobody in person will ever tell to your face it was horrible. Everyone is so supportive especially like Lacon conferences or Laravel events in general people are so nice and I truly believe that the reason I I am happy to speak is because my first inerson conference the Lisbon one everyone was so nice all the speakers we are all sitting in the front row everyone was there for each other I don't know if you remember Aaron but like everyone was there and said like if you're nervous just look at me don't worry about anyone else and it was that that made it such a good experience which made me want to do it again and again and again. So, just remember, nobody wants you to fail. Everyone wants you to do good. And it's it's just just do it. And I linked to Zana's Twitter where you can find her, too. Yes. Because my website is still down. Yes. Yes. [laughter] Uh I would agree. I would say um that [clears throat] before you've ever given a conference talk, you think that there's something fundamentally different about people who speak at conferences and people that don't. And I would say that the only the the 80% difference between people that speak at conferences and people that don't is the people that speak at conferences applied to speak at conferences and that's basically it. Um, and so if you're waiting for some uh mythical mystical bar for you to pass in your career before you start applying at conferences, I would encourage you to not do that and to go ahead and just apply to start to start speaking at conferences if you want to. Speaking at conferences is not um is not the silver bullet for a career, so you don't have to do it. But if you want to do it and you're thinking, "Well, I'll just do it when I have uh a different level of expertise." I would like to disabuse you of that notion and say just do it now. Just start now. Um just I can't read that because she's going to distract me. Just start applying. Start applying now because the difference between you now and you on stage is merely applying and putting in the work to speak on stage. That's it. What did Roxy say? She said to Hold on, I'll find it again. I have to find my mouse. Unbelievable. I'm trying to inspire the nation or to follow along with Leah and ignore Aaron's advice. Unbelievable to ponder today. No, there's never anything to ponder. Always listen to Aaron. That's what that's what we say around my house. Also lands on deaf ears there. But always listen to Aaron. I I think the true answer is sometimes listen to Aaron. Um, [laughter] let's listen to Aaron and then we'll leave we'll leave the first word blank. It can be always, it could be sometimes. You get to fill in the blank. Yeah, it's like blank. Listen to I would take umbrage with that as well, but that's fine. X.com the everything apparend is where you can find me. Yes. And thank you both for being here Hold on. Leah, what's your advice? Oh man. Um, my advice is, man, mine's just do it as well. It seems terrifying, but once you do it, I feel like you kind of have to try it to know if you're going to like it or not. Like the idea of speaking at conferences terrified me, but I kind of liked it. And so I was like, you know what? Let me just try it. And I was terrified, but as soon as I was on stage, I was like, oh, I like this. You know, and that's something I never would have known if I just let me psych myself out and hold myself back. And again, like Aaron said too, you don't need to be an expert. Like you don't need to think like, oh, I have to be a senior engineer with like three or five years of experience. Well, I guess it'd be five or more five or more years of experience to do this or I have to be like a super uh super knowledgeable about this one topic or have something like that no one's ever seen before to do a talk. Like you don't have to keep moving a goalpost to when you can speak at conferences. just apply. Like you never know if they'll accept you or not. Just do it. Just put yourself out there. Build in public. Go like speak at conferences. All of these things can only help you. And for me, it helped me find my community too. Like it's not even just about like the career growth, but like personally like I found a community doing this and every time I go to these conferences, I'm able to connect with other people who I've talked to online but never met before because they're in a different country or things like that. So just the sky's is the limit. Just just do things. Now I'm becoming Aaron. Speak at conferences. I like that. Yeah, that was that was a good one. Yeah, I think you you rectified everything now. You It's all good now. I think I if you want if you want to be Leah, you just turn up the intensity to 11 and never stop. That's kind of my takeaway. It's like Aaron with really bad anxiety. Not that you ever Yeah. No, that's cool. [laughter] I'm into that. Yeah, you can just do things. There you go. And with that, I think it's mic drop. We end the stream. So, thank you all for coming here today. Um, if you're interested in speaking at conferences, look at the links I posted earlier for Laravel Live UK, Denmark, uh, Laracon US, and Laron AU. All of them are accepting CFPs right now. And yeah, go speak at conferences and go do things. Go and hang out. Yeah, let's hang out. Bye. I lost my mouse. Bye bye. [laughter]