the power of a conference and it's community w/clark sell, founder & ceo of 'that conference"

full transcript

auto-generated from the audio, so expect a few typos. the audio is the source of truth.

Hello, hello. Thanks for listening to Guidance Counselor 2.0. Listen, I want to give you a quick rundown of what this podcast is and what you're about to get into as you listen to these episodes. We had Guidance Counselors in middle school. We had Guidance Counselors in high school, but we didn't really have Guidance Counselors in college and now as professionals, we don't really have anybody to turn to to ask a quick question to learn something about the job search or to navigate your career. And so that is what I want this podcast to be for you. I want it for it to be a tool for you to navigate the job search and your career.

So that being said, I hope you enjoy this episode. And if you need to reach me, Taylor at vaco VACO.com is how to get in touch with me old fashioned email social media at tdesntdesseyn.com. And finally, please rate and review this in the app store because I want this to be discoverable for others so they can navigate their careers. I hope you enjoy the episode. Clark, let's give the people what they want. Who are you? What the heck do you do? And we'll go from there. Shit, I'm just a guy. Oops, I didn't ask. Can I swear? Let's see. Husband, father, geek, mechanic, BBQ, aficionado, started a little thing called that conference.

Really passionate about people and community. That's it. Makes software. Just try to be a good human. I mean, really, like, it's just all today's work at that point. That's just, you know, it's just all today's work. Yeah. I mean, I don't know. I hate, like I tell people I'm just a practitioner. Like I'm trying to learn, trying to be the best that I can be, trying to help other people be the best they can be. And I love that. That's it. I do want to give a shout out. He didn't say it. So Clark actually is a coffee fan. And he has beans for sale.

So Clark, at least send me the link that I can throw up on the show every day. But yes, if you want coffee beans, I'm gonna buy some. I'm gonna buy some. I'm gonna give him ships. And that conference coffee beans are gonna be the official coffee bean sponsorship of Guidance Councilor 2.0. We have a couple of things. So here, I mean, it's easy. You just go to store that, that, that us or store that that company. There you go. And, no, I'm gonna go buy some. everybody go boss. You use code, wake me up. You'll get $5 off each bag. There you go. I love it.

Which is cheaper than the store and it's actually real stuff that you want to drink, not some moldy crap that's been sitting on the shelf. Exactly, exactly. All right, so let's talk about, so I want to talk about that conference, right? And just, you know, and really kind of maybe rewind a little bit, right? Cause I think, I think talking about community, talking about your love for people and where that came from. because you gotta love people to a certain point to start a conference. So let's talk the origin story of why you value people in communities so much. Yeah, so it comes down to, it was 2010.

I was speaking all over the US. And I live outside of Chicago pretty far outside. I live in the sticks. And if you think of any big city, I'll assume other big cities as well. There's a lot of things that happen in the city, out of the city. The city's always bring this sense of diversity. So if you think of tech, you just got whatever rails and dot net and whatever, whatever, whatever, whatever. It doesn't really matter. But back then, and still true now, you know, you know, everybody gets kind of caught in their swim lane, right? So, and they almost kind of get blinders on.

You forget that there's other stuff going on. Now, you know, 12 years ago, there wasn't a Twitter, there wasn't some of this other stuff, or at least it was just starting. You know, I don't even think there was an iPhone back then, which is kind of odd to say that. I'll do it. So I had two goals really, bring the communities together. So be a through line between and create exposure for those who aren't in tech, whether that's a kid or a spouse, because you go to work, right? And you hear the other people, right? Their names, maybe your wife and maybe a friend. And in our world, there's nothing really tangible about the things you can do, right?

I built a website, whatever, it's like, nobody sees how hard that is versus like if you built a building, you know, you're sitting there cutting wood and whatever, like it's hard work. Right. So our goal was to create exposure for kids and spouses and you know the best thing about about that is people get to see something they get to see their parents as a hero they get to see others like them whatever that would be and so we created a you know a conference at a water park and said hey everybody everybody should be there. It should be part education it should be part networking, it should be part exposure, it should be part fun.

You know, you should get resented and energized. And you know, since the first year has grown, we think of the event itself as a family reunion. But you know, it's the time in between. Like, I'm not an event person. I don't live to make an event. I don't live to sell tickets. Right. We want to connect to people and we do that by trying to be the kind of vanguard in the community, try to snuff out the shit and try to just be awesome. So I love that. We have a bunch of things inside of the conference that we do, some principles. We try to carry them online every day of the year so that there's a support group and places to connect and help kids grow and help adults grow, whatever, and kind of move with the time.

So I love that. But I'm curious. So I asked the hard questions as a layup. So, but truly, so like for my recruiting, like I didn't really see the value of community until recently. Yep. Was there a moment where you just were like, something's got to change, I want to be the change? right because I think a lot of people are still in the sidelines. They're like, I want to, you know, I need community. I need community. Right. I mean, I'm just listening to this. I grew up Southern Baptist. Right. So it's like Bible studies in church. I mean, I mean, listen, you can, whatever you think about church is fine.

But I think one thing they get it. Yeah, I tried. Really good at building. Right. Are they good at foster maintain it? Teach their own, right? But but but I think building is something that I think church has got early on that that I'm just now starting to do with the tech community. Was there a moment for you or was it really just kind of like you just kind of woke up one day I was like I like water parks and I like family like fun. I like technicians there and that's fine, too It certainly wasn't that You know I you know to to really go kind of the 5% my my family situation as a You know when I was a kid probably wasn't the best it wasn't the ideal silver spoon shit that most have So I looked, I looked other places and I don't think I really realized this until, you know, a few years ago.

But I looked other places, you know, to kind of build that tribe. And if I think back in a day, for me, it was sports, team sports, I played basketball, I mean, track, played baseball. I worked on cars. I lived in the ghetto. I worked. I, you know, did things with car stereos and gang members cars and all that. and all that and got some protection that way. Yeah, totally. So I mean, that for me was like, you know, all of those tribes, if you will, were different aspects of one's life. And I think to now, and now more never with COVID and all the shit that's happened, you know, you need that tribe even more.

And for me, when we started TC, you know, I thought about kids, like my own kids, they or five at the time, three. Yeah. You know, if you wanted to get like a girl in tech, right? Or a black person, a tech or a black kid or whatever, a Mexican kid. There's it's pointless to like throw shit at him and be like, yeah, yeah, you got to do this. Like it doesn't work. So we tried to give the opportunity so that they could see other people. They could see other kids that were interested whether they knew it or not because then you know, okay, well, there's people like me that do this and are interested in, you know, since we've had, I don't know, we have usually 35 kids speak really every year.

So, you know, some of these are kids that are eight years old, others have grown up and, you know, got our in college now and whatnot. And, you know, my kids don't want to listen to me. they'd rather listen to somebody else. It says it's like that. So I think my problem with tech and sometimes Twitter and all that stuff is it gets super toxic for no reason. And at times, it feels like just accountability, because it's easy to throw stones over the wall. But for me, it's like, I don't know, we need a place where we can go get support that's, you know, contextual changes and sometimes it's mental health.

Sometimes it's, how do I get a raise? Sometimes like the tech, the tech shit is easy. Right? You can Google that. So like you try and learn from somebody else's mistakes. Like, oh, okay, well, you really screwed up there. Like I don't want to go down that rabbit hole in whatever JavaScript land. But yeah, how do you get all the other stuff? How do you get the, how do you say no? how do you get the, how do you grow somebody? How do you grow yourself? So what, what are you doing? Right? The change, your life changes every, every month, every quarter, like you become a father or mother.

I'm changing every day right now. Yeah. So I mean, it's, you know, how do you be a geek parent versus just whatever? Like it's, it's hard. Yeah, I agreed. So let's talk conference stuff real quick. What, what's, what's a tip or trick that you, we will only give away to somebody who's maybe sitting on the side. I was like, y'all want to start a conference. Well, the first thing I'd be like, don't. That would be horrible for you. I say that, you know, semi-joking. It's a lot. I mean, it's a lot. People don't realize like the finances that are behind it, the dollars involved, all of that.

There are so many people out there, I would say, go join something else and help them. Go get your feet wet. Everybody's looking for help. Start small. We started backwards in the sense that a conference is the reunion of a community. But that's where I started. Arguably today, you could start, you are, right? You have a phone, a Twitter space, a YouTube channel, whatever, it doesn't really matter. You can start a community without having the formalities of a conference, if you will. Because your commitment letter, when you take that step means you have to have companies, you have to have revenue, you have to have contracts and lawyers and people often overlook that aspect, but a lot of conference organizers have their houses on the line have commitments beyond anybody's wildest expectation.

So I'm not saying, yeah, somebody's super passionate about doing it. Go talk to other conference organizers and say, how can I learn from you and then decide like, is that a path? Right. Do I just want to build community, right? Or do I also want the headache of a conference and, you know, I don't know. Right. Yeah, I mean, it's definitely not for everybody. I mean, I see Paul, Paul's in here. I mean, obviously he runs Little Rock Tech Fest with his wife and some other people. You know, I am seeing him flying out there tomorrow to speak out there. And so, but they do a great job.

But it is a lot of work. It is a lot of work. I want to ask you this. Go ahead. Go ahead. You mean, you just said like with his wife, as I do, she's my business partner. I mean, it becomes a family affair because you're surrounded by like, look, there's a sign here, there's a sign here, there's boxes back here, a chip coffee, there's like, it's never ending. What do you think? I want to go back to your comics. I've been fascinated with this. Honestly, it's been, you know, I was asking you off air, you know, and, you know, some questions about the conference and stuff like that.

And I think my passion for creating guidance comes with 2.0 and the community that's here today is because I realized that once COVID hit, people were scared and people were by themselves. And I think people, I always joke, I say people didn't know how to network pre-COVID let alone during COVID. And so, you know, I want to create a safe place. What, do you see that people are more open and people are more excited to get back into community now as obviously the world is opening back up. You've seen a difference of a sense of vibe. Like I have, but I don't know if you have.

So I think there's some things that have changed and some that haven't. So when COVID hit, we like deleted everything and we built that that us. And we can get into like some of the spirit of why that existed, but think of it in between the conferences, How do you kind of connect people better together at a time that they need to? And what I've seen is when COVID first happened, well, let me back up. I agree people didn't know how to network. I agree that this is a, I don't think it's just a tech thing, but people in general. It's just a general. Yeah, like it's hard to shake hands.

It's hard to meet people. There's a lot of facades built up and things that, you know, the Instagram life and the highlight reels and it's kind of hard to know who somebody's like true self. And it's really easy to get intimidated when you're in a group of people whether that group is two, five, 10, a thousand, right? And so what happened was we hit COVID and then everybody's like honeymoon period shot up And everybody was cool, great. And like, it was just a banger of a time. But then life happened, right? And they realized that the at-home life is way harder than going to work.

And mind you, I've been working at home or in our office for, I don't know, 15 years. So like, it's nothing new to me. Right. But then the honeymoon period wore off, right? and life kicks in and the stressors kick in. And now you saw this, I saw this, still see it, this kind of fatigue and people pulling back. And those who were good at community and involved started to get excited and show it up, shoot up, show it up. And there's this little slice of time right now, or arguably maybe a year ago to now, where the level of gratitude is exponentially higher than it's ever been in the past.

So instead of it being like, hey, I know you, there's hugs given, and the conversations are super authentic, but it's also not at grandiose scale, if you will, because people are companies are telling they can't go anywhere. There are people who are still, I don't know, deathly afraid of whatever it's out there and whatever, like it's you got a one hand, you got to live life, but then we're like getting back into like how do you reintegrate into things. And you know, I think I think now more than ever you need community, whether that's you know, a conference or something else you just you mentioned early, right?

You got to show up. I had a hard time getting people to show up before. And now we're fighting these stigmatisms of showing up to, you know, being in a room full of whatever. Right. It's, yeah, it's, it's definitely interesting time. I want to ask you this. What, what are your thoughts? Like, how are you trying to pivot? Not pivot because you're still doing the conference, but what are some exciting things or some vision that you have with that conference and kind of what you're wanting to do from a community community building perspective outside of the actual conference. Yeah, so like I said, the conference is a reunion.

I am different and I'm going to say that there is a, my opinion, may not be shared by most and that's okay. That's okay. That's okay. But I will say that we should be doing online things differently. To do a pixel parity presentation online is useless. I tell people all the time, please do not do what you can Google. If you think of the medium that we have, like when you're in person, you can have just a banger of a conversation, you can go to a whiteboard, you can sit down, you can share coffee, you have this acoustic space where you can go back and forth and you can play off on one another's emotions.

Some people are so empathetic you can feel somebody is also emotions because you're, you know, feet away. But when you're online to try to replicate that shit doesn't work. And you have things that you're not taking advantage of, scale, right? Video recording, there's all kinds of other things that you can do online that you shouldn't try to replicate from in person. So let's talk about a conference. A conference you have halls, walls, time schedules, food, right? You have this very rigid thing that you're trying to move through life. When we built that.us, we took a piece of inside of that conference called open spaces and we put it online.

So if you think of meetup, meet Slack, meet Zoom, meet this ability to have a conversation about anything when it's time for you to have that conversation. For as many people and for as long or as little as you want, that's what we tried to bring to online. So if the reunion is this high velocity conversation, then we want the in between to be where you have this support group where you get this help, where you can go, I don't know what I want to raise. And I don't know how to ask for it. So you can go on that thought, I'm going to say, listen, I need help getting a raise.

And then the people who are interested in that thing can come join that session. And what are you doing? You're having this conversation like you and I are having now, not some async bullshit where somebody can type in something and kind of throw the common away and not be involved. right? Because you need to context. So somebody says, hey, I need to raise. And then they go, oh, okay, well, how much do you make now? And they're like 300 grand. You're like, cool, bro. Like, that you're not like that does that's not that's different, right? That's a different thing. So there's so we try to take the stuff on that that doesn't make it much more authentic, much more accountable.

Yeah, maybe we've got work there to do because part of we've built everything and if people want to go look at it, it's up on GitHub. But we want to do things like, okay, well, you're looking for a job, okay, well, Taylor, I should be the platform should go to Taylor and say, hey, he probably has something to say, oh look, you're a manager or you're this and try to help bring some of the people together to say, hey, would you be interested in helping us person? Yes or no? Cool. You know, and then anybody else who's welcome to join to join. So, you know, we got a long pass and say a long way.

But, you know, we just keep on trucking on that. But yeah, I love that idea. And I think too, I mean, this is this may be a hot take on my part, but I'm interested to hear it does. I think you and I are pretty aligned and which I'm interested to see if you did that conference, so you didn't title it with a specific city, because I think conferences should be everywhere. Like, I don't think, if you have a conference, I don't think you should be just tied to your city. Because I think now, because of the virtual world, right, you're doing this, that.us stuff, and you're doing these small sessions, like, let's face it, like, we have people on this live show right now from Africa to Canada, right?

I think now more than ever conferences, tech conferences have the opportunity to be national and to build a national following a national community within tech that could be greater than they ever would have thought. So I love you brother, but I don't disagree. And obviously we've been in Wisconsin for 11. We've done 11 shows, 11 years. 11 shows, I like that. We went to Texas earlier this year. That was our first show and we'll be back there in January. So January and July, Texas and Wisconsin. And while you're right, it should be everywhere. Like I hate that we can't go to Europe. Yeah. But I also like ask everybody to realize the commitment and the, you have to kind of separate like who we are that versus like, I don't know, Microsoft or Google, right?

They have endless resources and marketing teams to be able to go into a new market and say, I just clunk down, go do this, go, like let's go get our event people and they'll sign the contracts. But the reality for me is like there's four of us, five of us. Yeah. Right. I mean, usually conference contracts are three, five, ten years long. Right now inflation is working wonders. So when I get people who are like, Hey, your ticket's too expensive. I'm like, my ticket is upside down. Like, so, and going to Texas was hard. hard. Like it's a new market. It's a whole new like bag of everything, how you work with the local government, how you work with the businesses.

And so there's this. So you're right, on one hand, yeah, I want to be everywhere. But on the other hand, we had to learn how to get like a semi truck to get our shit from here to there. Right? I know exactly. Right. Like, I don't want to learn how to get a plane to get to Europe. Like I want to get on the plane and get to Europe. And I want someone else to do it for me and then just be there. Yeah, exactly. Right. And like I said, we're different in the aspect that we do everything like that sign you see back there we made.

That's very cool. That's so we have our own kind of, you know, love into it. And I think that makes us unique. We're not hiring some event company. And it's like, yeah, that's not me just slap up my shit all everywhere and yeah, run everybody through the halls like cattle. Like that's not our But in this global world, which is why we started that that us, how do you go across the boundaries to say, yeah, how do I be more inclusive, worldly inclusive and yeah, this shouldn't easy. I mean, no, it's not. Maybe one day to two is hard. Oh, yeah. No, for sure. So I want to ask you this, so kind of go, we're going to go kind of cool.

We're going to say what? Oh, I love it. And so for those of you who have questions, definitely ask Clark is a wealth of knowledge. I want to go specifically to kind of career stuff real quick, right? And how it applies to the conference. What are some big tips for people going to a conference, right? If you're going to a Little Rock Tech Fest tomorrow, if you're going to momentum developer conference, developer conference, I've seen Michael Richardson pop in here in Cincinnati, if you're going to connect tech, I mean, there's obviously more that are going on, but I just listened to the ones I'm going to, because I'm on my head.

What are just some tips you have for folks that attend? Look, people, there's millions of developers. There's millions of engineers, millions, whatever, tech folks, whatever you want to kind of classify us in our days. Here's the thing, not a lot of people show up. And showing up is like 80%. Like you want to be good at basketball? Or you want to look good? You got to show up, right? You got to lift the weights, you got to do the reps. You got to go do something. And I think a lot of people expect that something will come to them. But I mean, if you ever listen to Gary Vee is like the first person I'll tell you, like you got to give, give, give, give, give, and then the gets come.

And I think of conferences much like that. like you're going to be surrounded by others who, who've stepped out as well, which means you already have something in common because everybody's decided to step out. Now, maybe, maybe your company paid for it. Maybe you paid for it. I tell tech folks like, you need to start investing a little cash in yourself. It'll grow you exponentially. Don't be cheap. You're already in the 5% of earners in the US, 10%, like don't, don't, you can gain, you can go really far, really fast by spending a hundred bucks on a course. But show up, meet people and meet other people.

Don't just hang around with the people you know, go sit at a different table. Go somebody's gonna mention the hallway track. Hell yes, go to the hallway track. Like, there is just, you know, email the organizer before and say, Hey, I'm gonna get like the best I can out of this. What should I do? How, when should I, can I help volunteer? Like that seems odd, but if you wanted to meet everybody, we're being- I think volunteering is the best. Well, right, where would you want to volunteer? Where? What would be the best place to meet everybody? Registration. Yeah. Rightly. Right. Like that and the everybody.

Everybody. Yeah. But you got to, you got to step out. Um, and you can't be afraid. Sit at a different table. Just, just, just meet people. Like be authentic. Be yourself. Um, and that does it, that doesn't mean you. I realize that it's hard for some folks, but there will be somebody else there. Er, er, er, you. And grab your hand and go, go show you, right? And I can tell you countless times to people who show up, I know people that have gotten raises, new jobs. It just takes a little bit and it's amazing what will come to you. Yeah, absolutely, absolutely. Michael got another conference organizer.

Yeah, volunteering is kind of a cheat code and he also starts to speak. Yeah, I mean, if you have any passion, meetups, conferences, yeah, do that, absolutely. So Clark, time flies when you're hanging out with friends. I have one more question, but I want to leave it to you first. Any last words of wisdom that you want to give out to folks who are watching, either on the hiring or the job search or the conference side. Anna comes in here because I was lucky to volunteer at REACT, REFACTOR, hopefully I make that next year, met a bunch of people in Elegus and a connection for an apprenticeship.

There you go. You know, I don't know. I tell people all the time, just show up. Like I like, like, I'm gonna do the title of the episode. Just show up. Yeah, like Michael's talking about Smith to speak. Like I tell people, literally tell people, I will help them with their submissions. I don't care if they're speaking at TC or not. I will help you. Well, go through it. I run an office hours and you know what, you know, when people take me up on it? Zero. Handful. Isn't that crazy? I mean, listen, like. Yeah, I don't get it. Yeah, I don't get it. I have literally read probably 10 years, probably 8,000 abstracts, 9,000 abstracts.

I've read. I could tell you everything that I hate about an abstract, like it's nobody's business. And yet, I've seen it all. And I continue to see it. One liners, rhetorical questions, things you could Google, people hiding behind the big keyword buzz keywords. But yeah, show up. If you're going to a conference or anything and meet up and you don't have a plan, you don't have intention and you're not living intentionally, then you're just walking through life and you need to ask yourself like why? Yeah, take your time seriously, be part of, be part of what's around you. And it goes a long way. Yeah, I talk about all the time, the intentionality of it is huge.

Like go to a conference, show up, take notes. Like, and one of my biggest things, because I just love content so much, and I think it's the ultimate way to get back to people. I say it's all the time, and I've seen some people start to do it at conferences. Live tweet someone's talk. Yeah, like live tweet someone's talk on a thread and post it instead of taking notes in your notebook that you're never going to read posted on Twitter. So I think Chris Chris brought up a good a good comment here. It says can't speak for anybody else, but. Being deathly afraid of imposing on people, especially if you perceive them as busy and I think.

Like, Chris, the fact that you brought that up, like I think is that's like the first step. But the other side of that is everybody, if we're talking conferences in particular, any time a community thing, that's exactly what everybody's there for. Like you're not imposing it by any stretch and your perception is sometimes your own fear. You just got to sure there's better ways to network than others and whatnot. And recognize that sometimes people may be busy, but then make it easy for them to get to you, right? Hey, I've got, hey, especially me, like I get it all the time. People are, they want to come say something or whatnot.

And there's sometimes where I'm fighting a fire and I can't do it. Like I'm talking like in the thick of things. But that doesn't mean you can give me a business card and follow up or follow with me later and give you the time of day. I give everybody 110%. So, and I think that that's pretty true for 99% of the people, but making it easy kind of on both sides and recognize that there's sometimes where things don't work, but I wouldn't, I don't think you're imposing on anybody. Honestly, here's what I would do, Chris. Again, everybody knows I'm a social media fiend when it comes to networking.

What I would do, so if you pull up LinkedIn on your phone and you open it up and go to the search tab on your phone, There's a QR code symbol on the right hand side of the search bar. Click on the QR code. It pops up. Take a screenshot, save it as your background. Chris, what I would do if I were you, because I'm an introvert, literally an introvert. I do, this is great. I'm in my zone right now. I've got coffee. I've got, you know, Clark and I chilling. Right. Vibes are immaculate right now. But if you throw me at that conference and, you know, with a hundred people around me, I'm going to freak out.

So Chris, what I would do is I would go around and I would say, Hey, my name's Chris. I'm super introverted. It's very nice to meet you. Can you just scan this code and I'll just follow up with you on LinkedIn later? I'm going to be honest with you. Everyone's going to offer to scan your phone and you're going to have a great opportunity to just be at home in your hotel room the night, night one of the conference and just send out DMs. Send out DMs. I've got it. I'm trying to, why my phone is not behaving with me right now. Oh, I got to go this way.

Look, right here on my home screen, I got both Snapchat and my business card. Oh, nice. You can scan. I need to do that. That's brilliant. And as a widget, that's great. And one, what I ask people to do is you scan me and you reach out in five days, right? Yes. I'll reach out today. Don't reach out tomorrow. And it depends. It depends on kind of what's going on. Sure. Reach out in five days, met, referenced this conversation, and we'll get it going, right? Because when you reach out today, you're probably in the inbox with a thousand other people. It may get lost, right?

Yeah, absolutely. I do that all the time. It's don't ever place the onus on somebody else. Like, hey, just email me. It's like, well, that person's got a thousand things going on. And probably we'll forget given the context of what's going on at that moment. 100% totally do it. I love it. People bag on LinkedIn, but I'll tell you, it works. It works. It works. It works. All right. Last question. We'll wrap it up here. So we had guidance counselors in middle school at guidance counselors in high school. I think we had them in college, but now we don't really have as much anymore. No.

What would you give? What's the best piece of career advice you would give your younger self? I think for me, I oppressed who I truly was. And I was living impressed. I oppressed my inner, my inner me. And I tried to live, I to live, I to live, I to live. What, what seemed like you were supposed to do, right? I got, I got the corporate job. I got the, I made got the raises. I did the big things. I shook the hands with whatever. Like I did well. But my true self was kind of owning a business and community. And I lived a long time of, and if going through the motions and not really acknowledging who I really was, especially as a kid.

So when I hit 40, I did a lot of self reflection. And I think doing that earlier, learning from others, talking to others about their things, not trying to live up to somebody else's standards and just being intentional. Like the career, like the career, whatever, like, you work to live. You're gonna work for a long time. I damn you better enjoy it. So you can always quit. You can always do. So I went from being a developer to own two businesses. Is that I mean, I'm successful. No, like I'm on a break a disaster, but I'm having more fun now than ever before, right? I make less money than I ever did before and I wouldn't, uh, I wouldn't change it.

So I love it. That's awesome. That's awesome. Um, well, uh, y'all, thanks for tuning in today. Hopefully you got something out of this. Clark is a wealth of knowledge. Uh, go connect with Clark. Um, if you, uh, again, um, there's a comment up here about the coffee, um, but then there's another comment of where to that's fine, never try to pull it up again. We have store that that that us. There you go, store.that.us. So check that out. And conference organizers, thanks for hanging out. Chad Givens, I see you on Twitter space. Thank you for tuning in. That's Code Palooza. We got Paul Gower with Little Rock Tech Fest, Barrett Blake helping run conferences in Columbus.

We got Michael Richardson in obviously Cincinnati. So again, I appreciate y'all hanging out with us today. Hopefully you guys have got to connect with Clark. And this will be the last one for the week. Again, I'll be in Little Rock for the rest of the week. I'll be sending you all updates from Little Rock Tech Fest which I'm excited about. And you all have a great rest of your week. I'm going to add one more. Thank you. Sure. I believe that there are, I guess four pillars to every community. OK. So you think the other conference organizers So I think is a thankless position in said community.

There's a lot of shit that they get. There's a lot of work. So for sure, thank you for the folks that are there kicking ass. But also at the same time, thank you to the speakers who give and share their stories. Thank you to the sponsors who make it financially vital. And thank you to the people who show up. Because without any one of those things, none of it works. Right. If there's no people, there's no, there's no need for a speaker. Right. If there's no organizer, there's no facility to do this stuff in. There's nobody kind of looking out for the greater good. So I think everybody needs to realize that their role in a community is equally important to everybody else and they should not feel somehow, feel, somehow, feel, somehow.

So they're all, they're all important. I love that, man. All right. Well, you all great risk your Tuesday. Appreciate y'all. Take it easy. Bye. See you. Hey, you did it. You listened to an entire episode and I am very grateful. Cause you know why? There's a lot of podcasts out there. There's a lot of episodes and I myself rarely finished an entire episode. So I appreciate you so, so much for listening. Quick reminder, please rate and review this podcast in the app store. I want this to be discoverable to others. And the only way that happens is if you take the time right now and rate and review it.

Please, like right now, unless you're driving, then don't do it. So, thank you again. If you need to reach out to me, Taylor at Vaco.com or at T. S. and on all social media handles. And I hope you have a fantastic day.