I am so excited to be here. This is like coming home. I've been to many DjangoCons over the

years and over the last few years I've been lucky to speak at a few DjangoCons and now I'm here keynoting and my heart is so full. I'm so, so excited to be here. I put my foot there and not darling because if you want to contact me, I generally recommend

to do it via Twitter or you can email me and back in the day when I was like I'm gonna use the username lime daring everyone in the world including myself constantly miss like mixes it up with lime darling so I put that up there at the very beginning like you know my mistake but FYI I'm lime daring on the internet you might know of my books who here knows of my books it's a

big deal I I wrote these I self-published them I designed them which is pretty awesome kicking the laptop don't do that these are my books to introduce

people to Django largely the kind of the way that I introduce myself to Django and I wanted to you know I fell in love with Django as a web designer started a startup and decided to write these books to try to help more people to get into them and it's been kick-started thank you to anyone

in the audience if you are part of those Kickstarter campaigns thank you so much for supporting me if you bought the book thank you thank you thank you I'm in the process of writing a third book FYI that's if you've kick-started this third book it's teaching design for programmers I will hopefully have an update very very soon I was hoping to have an

update by now but long story short I don't have the release date it's going to be September or October but FYI there's a third Kickstarter campaign thank you to anyone who also backed that one now back to hello web app FYI if you didn't know because I'm working on this design book hello web

app I took all the text and I put it on the website the entirety of the book is on the website free online so if you know of anyone who wants to learn more about Django or wants another resource for learning Django you want to try something else out and you want to look at hello web app it is free like please use it you can still buy the paperback if you want there's still videos you

can buy intermediate concepts the second book but the first book is online for anyone to use it and please do that's why I do what I do just FYI this is the other thing that I usually do I've written books I also run this startup I'm actually making money off on it it's a whole

other long story right now but I have three people working under me that are being paid and it's awesome full-time employees and this is the startup I've been running for say the last seven or so years it's really cool to be back here at DjangoCon because DjangoCon 2011 is when I I first taught myself

Django to launch what was would turn into wedding lovely today I did a talk this is my first talk ever at a conference which is cool like you know six years later I went from talk to keynote which is you know first talk to keynote at the same conference really really awesome to be back here

check out my hair this recent haircut they cut off way too much and so I'm like really salty about my salt hair my short hair right now and I look at this I was like ah last but not least I do a lot of conference speaking now this is my first keynote at fluent and you know it's a big deal when they

have a giant projection of your face behind you that's cool and I was spoke at DjangoCon Europe earlier this year along with a bunch of other conferences so that's that concludes the portion of my talk of here's why I'm awesome

you know and I'm kind of like a motivational speaker which is funny because when I was a kid I saw a lot of motivational speakers coming to my high school and I was just like I want to be you and there was like you know my life is awesome and here's how your life could be awesome which is kind of what I'm doing here but the thing is when you're watching these

motivational speakers if you if I this is what I was an introvert high anxiety very very shy kid you see these motivational speakers and I wanted to be them and because there was this little voice my head is like I can't follow their advice because these motivational speakers these people have

they know what they're doing and they're always like that you know those kids in like grade school it was like awesome kids that know what they're doing and there's like super ambitious and like outgoing and you're like oh yeah this motivational speaker they've always been like that they were those kids time's up I'm gone

so you know when you see these motivational speakers and they're like oh yeah here's all this advice you might be thinking oh yeah that vice does not apply to me because I don't fit that mindset I'm not I'm not outgoing like

them I can't help promote like that because I'm an introvert and they're an extrovert like I have anxiety and I think I have anxiety and the advice does not apply to me the advice I have in this talk I'm gonna kind of go over my life because I am NOT an extrovert I might come up here and I sound like I

know what I'm doing and that's been like five years of really hard work to get to this point it's been really really hard to get this point I was I was a really screwed up kid I was I had a lot of issues talking to people I had a lot of bad thoughts about other people I didn't trust strangers I didn't

trust people I'll get into that story in a second and I wanted to start this talk out with this huge disclaimer of my life it's like I'm gonna go into these like oh yeah here's some things you can do to improve your career and you know become more outgoing and it's not because I've always been

outgoing myself like these are things that literally helped me get over these issues I had growing up so it's taking a lot of work to get to where I am right now it's taken a lot of shortcuts I've had to figure out a lot of tactics in order to get myself to be comfortable on stage to be comfortable running a

startup and fundraising the startup and writing a book and self promoting that book there's a lot of things I've learned over the last few years I've gotten to me this point I've taken me from this like really like you know shy mess up kid to where I am right now so yeah I'm gonna go into my little

background story let you know how it how I all got I came here when I was two my parents divorced and I was like two ish but like for me basically my parents were never never a unit they were always separate people lived in separate houses and when they divorced the courts at the time in the

you know it's you know mother and father my dad was a wonderful stable stable person very wonderful person my mom while she loved me very much was an alcoholic with substance issues and unfortunately the courts at the time

favor the mother so my dad had the choice of either losing custody of me entirely and me living with my mom or to do this system with one year one year off one year with my dad here with my mom one year with my dad one year with my mom and that's what that was the best deal that my dad

could get so that was my life growing up I was moving constantly and it wasn't like my mom stayed in the same town because of her issues we moved at least every year sometimes multiple years so you know growing up it was going going to my mom's in a new district I lived all over the

California Bay Area constantly new schools new friends new bedroom me and my suitcase being transferred between parents in a a McDonald's parking lot in Vallejo the strange thing is is like with my mom is always a new school year a new school dress like new school district and new friends but it's

actually harder going back to my dad's because he was in the same place and I would go back to the school I was before and all of my friends all my friends from that two years before you know everyone in the school knew who I was but all of my friends had moved on and so I had to remake new

friends with this really weird like like knowing but not knowing like people have moved on and became comfortable like my mom like those years I was the new kid and people would seek me out with my dad I wasn't I saw him bring this picture up because I'm legit Cowboys in my family that's me and my

dad so when I was 12 things were getting worse and worse and worse for me my as I was growing up I became harder for me to every year go out and make new friends and start a new you know in the new school so 12 I was

back in my dad's and I just gave up I decided I was not gonna have friends anymore like it was it was just too hard and else you're 12 they're going through a lot of issues and I just I just couldn't handle it and I couldn't handle people and I just trusted everyone I had this like mentality that all these kids in the school hated me and so why should I be friends with

them and I would spend my lunches in this little corner of the quad like in this doorway of a teacher and she I remember her bringing me in and asking me is like Tracy do you have friends which is like lady isn't that obvious like why am I here I probably was like yeah of course they do can I

go back to eating my lunch alone now about six months in this this one girl like took pity on me and she would I remember her coming up to me and being like Tracy we are your friends and I'm like no you're not which is weird to respond to like respond with and she's like no really we're your friends like stop stop doing whatever you're doing you know that little fantasy as kids do

is they're walking together and you always think to yourself oh if I stop everyone just gonna keep on walking and no one's you know they don't even notice I'm there and I would do that multiple times and they would always turn around be like ah Tracy come on and what are you doing so like six

months of giving up six months of this this one girl deciding to make me her project and to reintroduce me into having friends but the this mental feeling about people about the stress of strangers it's like this how hard it is to make friends of getting into groups and being completely scared and just shutting down this is something I still struggle with to this day I high

school was better for me I well at the end of that 12 12 years old end of my seventh grade I told my parents I was not gonna move anymore which is a really shitty thing for a kid to have to do to tell their mom and her dad like tell her mom I'm not gonna live with you anymore I'm gonna live with my dad

it was rough but as soon as I stopped moving I went from a D student to an A student I started to get friends in high school I was with the misfits listen to tool we played Dungeons & Dragons high school was actually a really cool time for me but moving moving to moving to university you know

leaving all this group of people that I collected these people I felt safe with University my first year was I just wait right back to my 12 year old self I went back to not trusting people not making friends and yet another year went with me not really making friends I made one friend that year on my my

dorm room like my next-door neighbor and we end up living together the second year and a second year I started making my friends of my own and she came up to me and she I was going out for like the first time and she's like Tracy you made friends and she's like so happy for me because she knew how hard it was for me to like go out there and like meet people so these

issues were already in my head stuck in my head these this distress of other people another I got walloped by another life event in this time like I said my mom was a alcoholic with substance issues and the alcoholism was

slowly killing her during this time in high school it was you know she'd be in the hospital every now and then in university she was in the hospital a lot more than just every now and then so my my times in university was constantly going up and moms in the hospital again we found out from the neighbors that she was taken away in an ambulance and it was you

know rough to say the least and then my dad my wonderful wonderful dad had originally diagnosed with melanoma in high school and I didn't know what that meant and never really paid attention and when I was 21 he was the ring of melanoma came back and I'm almost still alive at this point this is not

my mom is my stepmom when I was 21 he was diagnosed reignites us with melanoma in May and he died in September this is actually this is actually five days before he died it was on his birthday my birthday is September 10th his birthday is September 8th so we got together for my birthday and it

was all like oh you're beating the cans are awesome like we're gonna have our birthday together like we usually do and the next day it just went downhill and he died on September 13th and my mom was still alive but not barely so and then the next year and a half a year and a half later we

became estranged I stopped talking to her I didn't see her for six months before she died so I was 22 and the years of 22 to 25 I was in and out of deep depression I these social anxiety issues transformed into panic attacks to the point of where when a panic attack would happen I would actually

start physically hurting myself because when your emotional pain is so great what what can you do then cause physical pain to distract yourself from emotional pain I've dug myself into this really really deep hole and it's really strange looking at myself now at 32 turning 33 in a month that less than

10 years ago I was completely different person I had so many problems like these problems of talking to people as problems of being social problems of having confidence in myself it's this deep hole that I was in and that I had to slowly start like climbing out of because I still knew that I liked to

build things I wanted to to build things for other people to use and this process I knew I needed to get out of that hole in order to to be up here to be giving a keynote so I know these all these like tips I give you I'm just like oh yeah I go out and negotiate spoiler alert you know go out and do

these things I know how hard it is I know how hard it is you know this is the things I've been trying to overcome for the last few years and FYI I'll remind you at the end if you are going through issues like this yourself you need someone to talk to please email me I'd love to help people out if you have anxiety issues you have panic attacks and whatnot like

I've been there and I want to help out so climbing out of this hole being an advocate for yourself like having to take life by the reins and and jump off that cliff and do things that are scary these are the things that these

are like the top tips I've learned over the last few years that have helped me go from that person what I wasn't for to now it's clever advice is not one size fits all the things that I mentioned here like are not gonna apply unilaterally to everyone in this audience my goal is that there's gonna be one thing they're like I can use that one thing to improve my

life or career so FYI if this doesn't apply to you I totally understand it's me this is things that work out for my life I really hope that at least one thing works out for you all right tip number one the worst they can say is no let's talk about the scariest moment my career I in University I

started working at a startup and it was like it wasn't like oh I started to approach me like over a startup it was like guys in the garage and they're like hey we're building this website we need a designer do you want to come work with us like sure so we went down to that website and start

hacking it up down to that garage and started hacking together which is pretty cool like legit startup and this this was really fun we went from the garage I graduated University and they moved up to the Bay Area turned into you know from this like a bunch of dudes in the garage to like an actual company in the Bay Area and I started working with them full-time as

a designer and ended up working them for about four and a half years and it was just like these are my friends like these are people like we're gonna build this website this collection of websites it was an online education lead gen company which is kind of weird FYI not like the sexiest thing to

be in but it was really cool to be these bunch of these guys and we're like we're gonna work on this together I build it up look how far we have come we're all gonna be walking away with us from this with buckets of money so now I work them for like four and a half years in total around the

fourth year I met my future husband ah and he kind of changed my life in funny ways you know not just the obvious like oh yeah we got married type ways so we started we like if anyone knows Andre so Andre is the author of your

lib3 he's a Pythoner as well your lib3 is using requests and pip and all that kind of stuff so Andre when I first met if you know him this is very typical for him somehow in our first dates he wiggled out of me that I like what I was doing what my job was and how much I was being paid which is a really weird thing to be talking about on your first dates but this is

totally normal for Andre and he was like you are being underpaid I was I originally started this job at 40k a year because you know we're a startup you know 40k like this is all we can do and then every year at my review they'd always be like oh you know you're awesome 10% raise like this is the max

we can do and you got it and I'd be like yeah I'm awesome so I think when I met him I was at 53,000 and I was just like yeah I'm making 53 he's like you were being underpaid I'm like no I'm not it's like yes you are and I'm like it's a startup and he's like it doesn't matter and I'm like they can't afford more he's like I'm sure of course they can and then I had like litany like all these excuses and so our dating kind of turned into meeting

him for coffee and we'd walk around the suburbs behind the coffee shop and I would just give him all the excuses about why like I shouldn't ask for a raise and he just refused every single one of them yeah true love right and somehow over this time he broke down all of my excuses about why I

was being legit underpaid and he convinced me I needed to go at 53 my yearly review was coming up very soon so 53,000 he convinced me I need to go in there and ask for a raise to 90,000 there's a gigantic jump and I

like still to this day I have no idea how he convinced me to actually ask for that because I think that's still scary for me now to go that amount of money so I went into that interview and just like shaking my boots like I am just like oh this is I'm gonna get fired like I am breaking all the rules

that are set by you know companies for employees and of course that in that in that review they're like the same thing for our Tracy 10% raise you're awesome like congratulations you can leave now and I was like well

like I did some research and I think I'm actually worth I think the raise was going to be to like 60,000 or something like that I was like I should be be paid 85 now notice that 85 not 90 is the number he convinced me and I went back to Andre afterwards and I was like oh I said 85 because I knew you

would that's why I said 90 this is this is Andre this is so him so I said 85 and my bosses did faces with whites and they're like you need to leave now

like not quit like not I wasn't fired just yet but they're like you need to leave this office we need to deliberate about this and so I went back to my desk and I was just like oh my god like I am so fired and not like less than half an hour later they called me back into their office and they said well we can't do 85 we can do 82 which is like they're gonna

offer me 60 and they went up to 82 and I'm just like of course I took it 55% raise Wow later I started doing this I was wait that was too easy they

knew they were underpaying me that's why how that's why it was so easy to

get that raise they knew that they're underpaying me and there was no reason for them to ever pay me a market salary even though they obviously could until I asked for it this was like a nuclear explosion in my brain like my whole world turned upside down learned a very valuable lesson about working in a

company is that there was no reason to pay me more unless I asked for it and things like the max 10% raise are just there by a company to you know stop you for asking for more prevent you from asking more and thank goodness that Andre came along and helped me out with that this was such a

transformative time in my career to realize that it was up to me to know what I'm worth it was up to me I couldn't rely on this company these friends that I was working with these buckets of money they were all promised each other I couldn't rely on other people to to know what I was worth and pay me that and it taught me that I need to ask for it and

this is super scary like I I would much rather just be working at a company and know that I was being taken care of but you can't trust on that and I understand as a business person I run wedding lovely I have full-time employees under me I totally understand the whole like oh crap I hope they don't ask for a raise because you know the company is stretched

really thin I understand it from a business perspective too I know why they did that but it taught me that as an employee I also had to be in charge of myself so how do you know how much you're worth how do you know to take these steps you know other than me being up here being like hey now

you know I know the secret protip number two build a support network can't just do this alone here's Andre yeah I wish I could be like you know I am woman I did this all on my own but no I like it took another person took this you know this awesome dude to tell me that I needed to take these

steps I'm glad that he came in my life and like decided to pry so early on in our dating life to like help me out take this big step and this one step this like led to me being here running my own business like learning this lesson of having to ask and having to like take charge of myself was really

crucial for me I just wanted to like bring up some resources like if you don't have you know Andre in your life some of you do actually but you don't have Andre in your life there's a lot of things on the internet that that help you build this support network the people out there who are totally happy to like second chess I like you know you can say you know

here's how much I'm being paid here's how much I think I've been worth people can help you out people can say yes that's the right instinct that's the wrong instinct now there's email lists there's slack groups like Jenga Khan I know you have to take that step of asking for help yes I saved this one

that was on an email list or someone just says hey I got this job I think salary is great should I negotiate spoiler always negotiate like this is a very easy question to respond to like even if it's like your initial offer is awesome it's just a little ask for a little bit more and that's what the people have said in this email list they were able to help out this person

and give them the advice that they needed to take that step that would potentially affect their career for pretty much the rest of their life in terms of knowing how much you're worth obviously look at salary aggregators and you know there's things like salary.com payscale.com glassware.com I wish I did that when I was at this company and I would have realized how underpaid I

was I mean it's still I would have still had those other excuses like oh we're assertive oh we can't afford it that required another person to be like oh yeah they can but it would have been good to at least know what other people were being paid and there's actually this was a couple years ago that's got really big died down since then but it's still happening people on

Twitter and other social media networks talking pay talking salaries the talk pay hashtag and FYI you can't talk to your co-workers about salary you're under the impression that it is illegal or against the rules or it's you know it's in your employee handbook where it says hey you can't

talk to your co-workers about your salary all those are just things made up by the company to prevent you from talking to each other and then asking for more there it's not illegal you totally can talk and you should talk talk to your co-workers make sure on even footing and don't wait until

you're unhappy to become informed like you could be like I'm when I was at that company I was totally happy and like I would have just continued on as I was until this other person let me know where I actually was positioned so it's worth even if you're happy of where you are yeah do some research make sure

that you're you are indeed being paid and then you're able to ask that asking part is the hard part I found this yesterday and immediately put it into this so what you do if you're in a yeah right yeah what you do if you're in a job interview what's if number B point one always be beeping get real

poofy there's a couple books that really did change my life during this

time as well and I know this is a controversial book I know there's a lot of people out here don't like this book I loved it if you haven't read it I encourage you to read it make your own decision I think lean in is a really really good book and it it helped me take those like take those steps of

leaning in and then asking and you know making doing negotiation or figuring out where I was in terms of my career and salary and me and being able myself to make those changes I totally believe that someone we can you know as women try to change the world in terms of how we how it is like the

culture change the culture together while also being advocates for ourself and this book is a really great book for helping you're helping you learn to be an advocate for yourself and this book is magical if you have not read this book you should read it is great it is well written is a great story

and has such great lessons art of asking by Amanda Palmer or how I stopped worrying and let people help you know when you have this support network building the support network and people you know who are there to help you you have to let them help you and that sometimes can be a really really hard thing to do when it comes to feeling confident enough to ask for

things we're taking that step of putting myself out there and asking for something I need something that's helped is practice asking for small things and there's a lot of like weird marketers out there who who talk about this like asking for you know what I'm talking about people who like kind of break

the rules and they'll like try to get something that benefits them but like hurts I think you have Tim Ferriss and the sumer I don't know some Tim Ferriss things you might know I'm talking about where they're like yeah you can totally like take the world and then they're kind of being scumbags don't be evil I try to when I try to find small things to ask for in my day-to-day life I try to find things that benefit me as well as

a person whom I am asking for example airplanes well I think a lot of flights I spoke at 17 conferences last year which was pretty baller and so therefore I was on a plane a plane a lot and about one tenth of the planes I am on I'm actually not on the plane that I booked because I say

you're here and your plane is leaving at like 5 p.m. and the hotel is kicking you out at 11 so you just go to the airport with your computer and I'll just work until my plane takes off and get to the airport and there was another flight going to your destination leaving earlier in the day and you probably saw it when you're booking the flights and it was

probably more expensive which is why you booked the later one but now you're at the airport there's a flight leaving earlier walk up to the desk and ask if they can put you on that flight it works all the time oh my gosh seriously do this it's like the airlines incentive to put you on earlier

flight if they have room because that means the later flight you know something could go wrong they want to have more seats in that later flight just in case like it doesn't hurt them really to put you on that earlier flight and of course it benefits me because now I'm an earlier flight going home way earlier on a flight that's probably more expensive the book but I don't have to pay anything more like some like some of the big

carriers American Delta United sometimes will ask you to pay an extra change fee and about 50% of the time I'll like oh yeah okay change fee all right I'll do it about 50% of times like and wave that for you it's totally worth asking is a really cool you know if you're traveling a lot and you see that opportunity you can ask and see if they'll move you to the

other flight and the worst thing they can say is no so that's one of the ways that's something I I practice doing whenever I'm flying and I try to look for other opportunities for me to I mean really like promote myself like take advantage of the system but in a way I can ask for ways I'll improve my

life that also you know works out in the other person's favor look for those opportunities the other thing that helps me with asking with asking for things that that will benefit me as I'll think about what's the worst-case scenario you have to think about this logically because the worst-case

scenario could be oh a meteor is gonna fall from the sky and then it's gonna smoosh me and then the world's gonna explode and you're like you can go really far with the worst-case scenario dial it back think logically what's the actual worst-case scenario back to the whole salary negotiation thing the way I look at it salary negotiation is that

there is about 25% chance I mean you know these are all guesses but this is how I really like I really think this is pretty accurate my feelings are as there about 25% chance of them just being like sure you know one in four chance of them being like okay cool we can do that number and there's a

larger chance there's a 50% chance that they'll negotiate back they'll say let's meet in the middle like that company did for me they don't want to say don't I just like the people I was to work with are like master negotiators so of course they'll never take my offer they always try to like save face by like cutting me down and be like 52 or 82 and I'm like okay like

people are usually gonna meet you in the middle but I believe it's like a three four seventy five percent chance of getting a better offer than we had before so I'm like that's a risk I totally can take 75% chance of getting a higher offer but of course there's some negatives there's like say a one in five chance of them this thing no saying no which puts you

right back to where you were before so you know that's a what 90 percent chance of either making a higher salary or nothing happening and then there's the worst case scenario like what was the worst case when it comes to a job offer

or a salary offer and the worst case could be they're like no and we're taking offer away like it's it's scary if someone says okay I want offering this job for 50,000 you're like actually 55 you know there's a chance they're just like you know what we don't work with you anymore and that's really scary you don't want that job offer to go away and that's what stops

a lot of people from taking that step in negotiation so the thing that reassures me in that case is would I really want to work for a company with that attitude it'd be better to suss that out that they have that attitude about money earlier on than later so that's kind of how I look at things in life in general I try to really think about what are the

chances of something going right for me what are the chances of something going wrong what's that worst-case scenario and if that worst-case scenario happened how would I react to it so with saying out salary negotiation it's all positives it's either gonna be a no a yes and if it's a horrific like response like they were send the offer I don't want

to work with them anyways and so that reassures me reassures me and helps me take that really scary step of asking for more money some general negotiation slash asking tips really quickly if you're negotiating money this works for salaries this works if you have a company and you're raising money

try not to give the first number yourself now what the other person did a number resist the urge they're like oh what were you making your last job you're like I don't think that's relevant or something you know try not to give that number they're trying to get you to say your number so they can be like hey we gave you a 5% boost words if you didn't give a number

they might have given you a 10 to 15 percent and in any asking situation when you're asking for money fundraising asking do you switch planes how to switch planes don't undercut yourself keep the request brief I have a tendency to babble I try not to do that or it just like

you're asking for you know earlier flight you're like I I see there's a flight open and I have an important thing at home in this meeting I need to get to and so I was like kind of hoping that you can move me to this earlier flight because that would be really awesome it helped my cat or something like that you know you just like keep going it's much better just be

like I see there's a flight available is there I'm on the later flight is there any way I can be on this earlier flight and stop or you know thank you for your offer of 80,000 I think I'm worth 85 stop like don't babble I can go on for ages about this ask me more about it more about it later in

general negotiation does not mean you're a mean person or selfish you're just asking for something better and this this reassures me when I need to take that step and ask for more this is why I love Jenga Khan that support

network the people out there that can help you make these ask or tell you where you are you know in terms of salary or career this is such a great place to meet other people that leads me into my next big tip because if you're someone with anxiety or social anxiety or me you know walk into a room

with strangers and your brain is yelling at you like these people are my enemies and they all hate me like if you're like me it's really really meaningful connection at events you don't have to meet everybody just make

one my very first conference ever was South by Southwest in 2008 this is deep into my being scared about people phase and someone had told me someone I could a mentor when I was in school told me that if I wanted to make it into tech I needed to go to South by Southwest and I went to this

job this job that I you know the whole story about money was from and none of them were really interested in going out and meeting other people I asked them like oh there's this conference they're like we're not doing that and I took the really scary step hello I took the really scary step of designing to take that person's advice bought the plane ticket bought the

hotel room and I flew this off by Southwest knowing no one and that first conference was largely me walking into like an after-party seeing everyone in little groups talking to each other going huh and then running away I was like everyone is talking to each other I can't like jump into those

groups ever like everyone has their friends and I'm here on my own and so I just sit in my hotel room on the plane back I go into the sessions I still had a good time I was like oh that's cool I was largely alone for the entire event on the plane back found some people who were at South by Southwest you know and we're going back to the same area which is kind of cool and we got to talking and we became friends on the plane and those

people in the Bay Area like from then I met more people and then I met more people and it's like a direct line from those people in that plane to where I am right now in my career like just person to person to person to

event to event event like meeting those people just like changed my career I still have anxiety at events and there is a few things that I use nowadays to help me you know walk into that crowded after party room where I was

talking to each other and go out and try to make that connection see if there's that person in there that's going to change my career in my life this is what I did earlier on I haven't done this in a few years earlier on Andre same dude I talked about before we would go to a lot of events in the Bay Area a lot of tech events that are there and we would we kind of turned

into a game so instead of walking to a room being like okay now I need to go mingle for you know 30 minutes and you don't really have a purpose it we didn't have like rules there wasn't like any like you have to talk to this many people there was nothing like set in stone but the agreement was is that we would split up not be with each other because sometimes that's

kind of like you know hand-holding holding me back with meeting people we would split up talk to people and then we came back we had to tell each other like who we met and why they were cool and changing it from this like weird meaningless activity of like walking to room and just trying to chat people

for a half an hour before you can leave turning that from that to okay I need to go meet someone and then because I'm gonna have to report back to Andre and then we're gonna split up again and go meet with a person then come back together it just switched something in my brain it made it easier for me to just walk up to people I'll be like hey I'm Tracy nice to meet you cuz I had to do that like it was more of a game instead of just this

weird like social activity and it really helped me like get the confidence to start breaking into groups of people and just like saying my name and meeting them and this is what I do nowadays this is like this social anxiety I was at PHP tech earlier this year and I've been doing

all these conferences I think I've come so far in my life and PHP I don't know PHP it was a completely new environment for me didn't have any friends there and I did that thing where I walked into after party and I was like oh my god there's all those feelings again they're not they haven't gone away in that case what I do nowadays is I again instead of just meaningless activity of going into a room of people and trying to meet

people and not having a purpose I tell myself that I cannot leave until I've made one meaningful connection like it's not just like me five people or just like talk to five people like in one meaningful connection might sound a little scary you might be like oh I could talk to like ten people and they can all suck but I find that just one person and it's actually easier when I

do it it's actually easier to meet someone where I'm like oh I'm glad I met that person and then I'm like cool I could leave now I made that my connection but it's like changed events for me it's made it so I continue to network even when I'm feeling scared when I you know give

networking events a little bit more purpose the other thing the last thing that really helps me out with events as I really it's really hard nowadays I really try to tell myself that 99% of people are awesome now it's a really big number you might be like I looked at Twitter today and it's pretty obvious

that people are awesome like 1% of people is actually pretty big number number took me forever on the plane to draw even though it's just happy faces and the person next to me is like what is she doing but you know there's like say 350 people here I think that's how many people are

doing a con that leaves like three and a half people who suck you know I'm sorry if that's you let me know but that also leaves like over 300 people who are awesome and when I look at Twitter and there's people I know that social media amplifies negative horrible people I just try to tell

myself that they are being amplified and that the vast majority of people in the world are people just trying to make their way that are nice people they don't have to agree with me we can have completely different values but they can still be a what I say an awesome person it makes it easier for me to be around people it makes events less scary I have to really

really internalize this that people are going to be more good than bad you know because I'm fighting against that brain instinct that people will hate me non tech ways there's been a really big non tech way that helped me like renew my faith in people I do a lot of outdoorsy hello bad speaker turn

your phone off all right it's on silent now all right I do a lot of outdoorsy events um a couple few years ago I took I decided to hey run away from tech I'll get into that in a second run away from tech and do the

John Muir trail in California 200 something miles and did it by myself because I couldn't figure out find anyone else who was willing to go run around for three weeks in the wilderness with me and I was like that's not gonna stop me I really gotta get away from the computer so I'm just gonna go do this hike and it's a lot of people are like whoa you did

that on your own you did that on your own as a woman like wasn't that scary you know you look at that's the movie wild yes I've seen it I've seen the movie wild I've read the book it kind of drives me nuts I actually do not like the book it made I feel like they're yeah yeah you talk to me a

lot later I had a great experience people on the trail became my family people found out that I was on my own and without me asking people were trying to take care of me people were checking up on me I felt so safe on this trip it was amazing these are some people I met on the trail when I was

there these are my besties you know this is two weeks into which is kind of cool like the thing with backpacking is that you say you're at a restaurant here and you see people group of people at the table you can't just like sit down next to them be like hey I'm Tracy they'd be like what are you doing why are you in my seat but with backpacking you're on like a

long trip like this specific Crestrail anything you walk into a restaurant you see a group of backpackers all sitting around a table and you can tell who they are because they're the ones who are really dirty and sneaky and you just like walk up to them sit down being dirty and sneaky yourself and be like hi I'm Tracy and you're like hey how's it going need to like make new friends and that's like that's why I did that entire trail as a sailor

first night it's like went from table to table meeting people walk to people some days can't to people other days and like got like really got over that fear of just like meeting strangers and then trusting them and in backpacking world is a little bit different than the real world because again you can't do that really but this is one of those things that kind

of really helped me become more outgoing like I said remember that social media makes awful people like more common I again I try to tell myself that anything awful I see on social media there's that 1% of people I don't like and then I can move on my life and try to reassure myself that

there's still awesome people fighting those off people you know what I'm talking about and it's also important to get to this point to be the support network for others you know while finding a support our people to help you

it's important to give back I don't mean that in a completely altruistic way self is secret selfish secrets when you help other people if you're helping someone with negotiation and you're telling them hey you know you should don't ever take that first don't take that first offer you can always negotiate more when I give that advice it makes it more likely to take that

for me to take that advice later like I help people I totally selfish I help people to help myself out in the future it helps remind me the things I need to do you know when someone's buttons on the line when it comes to negotiation it's totally easy for me to give them the advice they need to hear and the more I give that advice it is easier for me to take it

down the line so of course help people become a support network for others because that's what you should do and be good people and you know help each other out but if you also want another reason to do so remember that helping people to code helping people with support questions helping someone

negotiate a job offer is going to improve yourself as well last but not least take breaks as needed there is this weird like stigma against people

taking breaks I was talking to Kim and you're saying you're taking your first your first vacation soon after a year and I was like hell yes because that's what we need to do we need to like take you can just run away and take a huge break and turn off tech and don't worry about people judging you when I

did the job your trail is actually in the middle of fundraising for my startup that's kind of the worst situation to run away from tech but also for my mental health it's when I really did need to run away because oh my god fundraising is awful don't so I was like I didn't tell anyone I didn't

announce it on Twitter I didn't do anything put Andre on my email to respond as me if someone's like hey Tracy where are you I was like oh I've been here this whole time in the meanwhile I'm running around the wilderness for three weeks I've done this a few times over the last few years a year and a half ago I went to a surfing retreat for three weeks in

Costa Rica this makes me look awesome which is why I love this photo but believe me it's because I only look awesome because I'm on land I am the worst surfer in the world three weeks was not enough like look at me look how awesome I look yeah there's nothing on me and on a board because

that doesn't exist this has been like key for my life especially as I've I've gone like way far into the whole like I have to promote myself world by having a startup and writing books and putting myself in the situation where I just constantly have to self promote and work against these like feelings that my brain had built up from age 0 to 26 every now and then I

get completely overwhelmed and then I turn off all electronics and tech and computers and not just like a week I run off for like three to four weeks I'm lucky I can do that too that's another reason why I work for myself and even when I do this I'm always there's always this voice in my head

it's like what if someone judges me for walking away like what if someone's like Tracy has a book to promote and why is she just like running around in Costa Rica surfing when she really should be promoting her book but no one does that it's just my brain as it's my brain yelling at me you know and breaks I do physical activities I really like you know

running off and doing something really physically challenging breaks don't have to be I don't recommend everyone to go on the John Muir trail it could just be stepping away from Twitter for a little bit get away from negativity and the things that are going on especially right now which is kind of frustrating you can step away from tech take the breaks you need

don't burn yourself out I think we all know this but it's still hard to to do yourself you know hey again that selfish secret the more I tell you to take breaks easier it is for me to take breaks but seriously step away from tech if you need a bit don't feel like you have to be always on all

the time it's really important for mental health and this is something that's helped me a lot with anxiety in conclusion you are your own best advocate I it's it's awesome if the world comes together and supports you

and that's it happens a lot and that's why I say I have said people are awesome but in the end watch out for your own opportunities watch out for things that you need to do it's hard to say that you have to make that effort especially as you know like I said I was shy and had a lot of self anxiety to take that step but really you are your own best advocate take

care of yourself first remember the ask ask for what you need and the worst they can say is no remember there's more awesome people than terrible I like you can disagree with me I know a lot of people do disagree with me

this is something I have to remember in order to survive really in this world and I hope it helps you I hope I can help I truly believe this and I hope that I can help y'all feel the same way build a support network you know you are your own best advocate but it's always easier to go as a group and to

have a group around you so build that support network ask the people ask for help when you need it and be the support network be the support network for others again it's a good thing to do just in terms of our community in our in our world but also it's going to help you in the long run as well

and take breaks as needed now I talked about so my background and any of this talk I got one of the one of my few delights in life is when someone messages me and says hey that helped me or someone messages me and they say hey I have a question or I'm going through this problem or I just want to

rant like please I love getting these messages I respond to every email I get follow you can DM me my DMS are open at lime daring you can email me Tracy at lime daring calm or any of the various email addresses that are on all my websites I am sure you could figure it out but please if you if you need

someone to talk to I love to help thank you everyone here it has been an honor thank you self-promotion thing because I have to do it because I'm a

self-promoter remember I have a book coming up called hello web design it's

to help teach design to programmers I think it's going to be awesome it's going to come out within one month or two they like completely out paperback and everything and hello web app hello web app calm please use it it's free online you can still buy the books you know these are my books I hope you read them and thank you again