99 Dev Problems with Aaron Francis

January 16, 2025

99 Dev Problems features candid conversations with developers at every level about real-world challenges, career growth, and the evolving tech landscape. From technical deep dives to career advice, each episode brings practical insights from developers actively building in the field. Join us as we explore the human side of coding, share battle stories, and uncover solutions to the problems developers face daily. Whether you're a seasoned engineer or just starting your journey, tune in for authentic tech talk.
Watch on YouTube →

Transcript

Tessa
00:00:01 – 00:00:15
Good morning, everyone. I am cold over here in Texas, which rarely happens. My lovely guest, Erin, happens to also be geographically near me. Erin, Aaron, I would love for you to introduce yourself. And are you cold as well?
Tessa
00:00:15 – 00:00:16
Because it's cold in Texas.
Aaron Francis
00:00:17 – 00:00:26
It is cold in Texas. I am I am not cold right now. It's actually quite nice here in the, in the studio, where I'm sitting. Yeah. I'm Aaron Francis.
Aaron Francis
00:00:27 – 00:00:43
I am, oh goodness, software developer, developer educator, dad to two sets of twins, all all sorts of things, and we can we can go into any of those that you want. But I'm happy to be here, so thanks for having me.
Tessa
00:00:44 – 00:01:00
Yeah. Of course. We were actually just talking about twins and children, before we went live. So we might come back around to that conversation because there's a lot of relatability with that, I think. So you shared quite a few different things that you do, you know, developer, educator, variety of different things.
Tessa
00:01:00 – 00:01:06
So what is your sort of day to day, your role as it as it will be to today?
Aaron Francis
00:01:08 – 00:01:27
Today? So every day every day is, almost every day is different. So, I am the cofounder of a company with my friend, Steve. So me and Steve, started a company in, goodness, almost a year ago. It was, like, April of of last year.
Aaron Francis
00:01:27 – 00:01:48
So we're getting yeah. We're coming up on thanks. We're coming up on the one year anniversary. And what Steve and I do so the company is called TryHard Studios, and so it's basically super focused on video, specifically for developers. So so far, we have launched, two, like, in-depth, video courses.
Aaron Francis
00:01:48 – 00:02:20
One is high performance SQLite, and the other is mastering Postgres. So my background is pretty heavy into databases at a company I used to work at. I did a course on MySQL, and so feel like I've gotten, a look at the the big three now. So day to day, it just kinda depends on, like, what we're doing. So right now, like, right now, this morning and super late last night, I was working on, a new open source library.
Aaron Francis
00:02:20 – 00:02:43
So I am a part of the Laravel community, which is a PHP framework, and there's a conference coming up in, sooner than I would like. I think it's, like, February or something, Groundhog Day, and I'm giving a talk. How exciting. That's so wonderful. However, however, Tessa, I submitted this talk with, like, hey.
Aaron Francis
00:02:43 – 00:03:02
I'd love to come give a talk on this new library that I'm writing thinking this would be a good forcing function. If I get accepted to this conference, I'll actually, like, finish this library. It was, you know, 50% done. Turns out it was, like, 10% done, but I thought it was 50% done. And so they said, sure.
Aaron Francis
00:03:02 – 00:03:37
Come, you know, unveil this new and exciting thing. And I was like, And now hoisted by my own petard, I'm here writing this library and just, like, going through cycles of this is so stupid, this is so genius, just like over and over and over. So this past, you know, couple weeks and today and the next few weeks, very, very focused on writing this library and getting it to a point that I think I can release probably an alpha on stage. If if not, just do a great demo. Like, demo is the is the bar.
Aaron Francis
00:03:37 – 00:04:07
Alpha would be, like, a stretch goal. So that's kinda where I'm at right now. I guess, like, how does that why does that make sense for a education company? I don't know if it super does, but, like, directionally, I think, you know, I like to teach, but I also like to make things. Like and I think, in terms of, like, running our own company, I am kind of the top of the funnel.
Aaron Francis
00:04:07 – 00:04:28
Right? So I am I am the marketing arm of the company. And so having stuff like this out in the world really increases my odds of, like, people stumbling upon us and then seeing how this guy is, you know, making these great libraries. And also they have these courses. And also there's this YouTube channel, and there's this email news list.
Aaron Francis
00:04:28 – 00:04:40
And so just trying to get more, I guess, little, you know, marketing assets out in the world. So that's that's a long answer of what I'm doing today.
Tessa
00:04:41 – 00:05:00
I love that so much. Honestly, like, it's it's fun to really hear about your work because you get to do a variety of different things. Right? Like, as developers, I think one of sort of our roots and at our core, like, we really, really, really want to help each other. Because by extension, that means that, like, we've built something and we've accomplished something.
Tessa
00:05:00 – 00:05:17
And I personally think at the end of the day, it's because we wanna be like, I built this or we built this. And so I think it's it's really fun when we get to take that, like, developer role and actually bring that teaching role into it, which is one of the reasons why I very much love DevRel, and I'm sure that you can relate honestly.
Aaron Francis
00:05:18 – 00:05:30
Mhmm. Yeah. I like I like the teaching aspect. I so I did go to college. I didn't go to Baylor.
Tessa
00:05:30 – 00:05:32
I was just gonna ask you.
Aaron Francis
00:05:32 – 00:05:36
I know. Literally, I did go to Texas a and m, so just down the road from you.
Tessa
00:05:36 – 00:05:37
Yeah.
Aaron Francis
00:05:37 – 00:06:00
So I went to I went to a and m, and for some reason, I got two degrees both in accounting. So I got my undergrad and my master's in accounting, went on to get my CPA license, worked for a year as an accountant, and then was like, this is for the birds. I'm out of here. Never looked back. So but when I was when I was at school, I just loved accounting.
Aaron Francis
00:06:00 – 00:06:14
Turns out accounting in school and accounting in practice are very different things. And accounting in school is like, is like business programming. It's like, hey. Here's a bunch of stuff. Here's a bunch of rules.
Aaron Francis
00:06:15 – 00:06:23
Go figure it out. It's like, ah, that's I I like that. That's a puzzle. You know? The accounting is not really math in the same way that software is not really math.
Aaron Francis
00:06:23 – 00:06:59
Like, knowing some math helps, but you just gotta know the rules and play by the rules, and you can figure out anything. In school, I started tutoring accounting because I took this one class that was, like, sophomore level financial accounting, freaking loved it, crushed it, and everyone else hated it. I was like, I could teach this. And so I spent the next, you know, three or four years, teaching, tutoring soft or not software, tutoring, introduction to financial accounting, and it was just so much fun. And so I think early on, I realized, one, that I enjoy teaching and Mhmm.
Aaron Francis
00:07:00 – 00:07:22
Maybe more importantly that people like people also enjoy my teaching. And so that was, like, a formative kinda early experience of, you know, that has led me to where I am now. The subject the subject matter is different, but I still enjoy teaching, especially teaching these complex topics that other people seem to super hate, like databases or accounting.
Tessa
00:07:24 – 00:07:37
I love that. Okay. So you led into question, obviously, that was was coming. So I would love to hear how you went from accounting and an accounting role to becoming technical and doing what you do today?
Aaron Francis
00:07:39 – 00:08:36
Yeah. So everything I've learned about programming has been either through study self study or practice. So I started when I was quite young, probably started messing around with HTML, CSS back when HTML goodies was a thing, when I was maybe tailing 12/13, something like that, and picked up picked up PHP around that time, which I still stick with today. And everything that I have accomplished and learned and done since then has just strictly been a result of, like, following my curiosity, trying to figure something out, wanting to see something exist and not knowing how to do it, and so just kinda, like, brute forcing my way through it. All of these books back here, those are all programming books.
Aaron Francis
00:08:36 – 00:08:47
And I am, I guess, the person that buys and reads programming books. Because anytime I talk about it, everybody's like, Nobody does that. I'm like, I do that. I do that all the time. I love it.
Aaron Francis
00:08:47 – 00:09:25
And so everything I've learned has been through that. I consider myself, I consider myself like a a working man programmer. Like, I think that I can solve any problem just by, like, sitting down and quietly working for a very long time on it. And so that has that served me that served me quite well, including this project that I'm working on now for Laracon EU and a library that I recently wrote that's very terminal heavy. It's like, I'm not qualified to do any of this stuff by any, like, external it's true.
Aaron Francis
00:09:25 – 00:09:56
By any external, like, metric, I'm not qualified to do any of this stuff. The only thing that qualifies me to do it is that I've done it. And so now it's like, well, I didn't you know, the guy that wrote, the guy that created the database SQLite, has since said that if he knew, at the time that you weren't supposed to write your own database, he wouldn't have done it, but he didn't know that. And so he wrote his own database. Turns out it's the most highly used database in the entire world.
Aaron Francis
00:09:57 – 00:10:18
And he just did it because he thought, I need this, and I bet I could do it, and I bet I could figure it out. And twenty five, you know, thirty years later, it's like a universal standard. And so that's kinda how I feel, which is like, I have an idea. I'm just gonna, like, keep poking until I figure it out. I may not be the most efficient.
Aaron Francis
00:10:18 – 00:10:25
I may not be, like, the, like, most talented, but I have a lot more, like, grit than I think most people do.
Tessa
00:10:25 – 00:10:52
Oh, I love that. I think, honestly, grit can far surpass a whole lot of things. I attempted to go to college, and college is just not for me. But I have a lot of grit, and so therefore feel like I've been able to make it on that. You you said something really, really, really powerful in there where you said that you are not, your exact words essentially sorry.
Tessa
00:10:52 – 00:11:22
I don't remember exactly how you worded it, but it was it was the resonance around it was essentially that you, weren't qualified per se to do it, but you happen to be the person who did it. I think that is incredibly powerful. I'd love to maybe just hear a little bit more on that if if you have anything that you wanna share there because I think that very much is relatable as a developer. Right? We as we start to dive into these things, like, we are constantly filled with imposter syndrome because there's no right or wrong way to essentially do anything.
Tessa
00:11:22 – 00:11:39
We can go about every solution that we come to in a variety of different ways. And so I think at the end of the day, when you really think about it, are any of us really qualified per se to do the things that we're doing as we are navigating these new spaces? So I just think that's a very enlightening, way to look at it.
Aaron Francis
00:11:39 – 00:11:50
Yeah. Yeah. I, so coming coming out of accounting, and getting into software development, kind of kind of a tough road to hoe. You know? It's like Yeah.
Aaron Francis
00:11:50 – 00:11:52
Totally. How am I gonna do that?
Tessa
00:11:52 – 00:11:52
So Right.
Aaron Francis
00:11:53 – 00:12:19
It's the same it's the exact it's the exact same story. I, was working on something just like, you know, nights and weekends when I was at the firm. I was working on something, and as I was doing it, I was writing about it. So I was just writing writing blogs, if anybody remembers those. So I was I was writing blogs, and it was, like, the most, it was the most niche esoteric stuff.
Aaron Francis
00:12:19 – 00:13:06
Like, I remember one of them at the time was, automating migrations using, the PHP framework Yee on, the cloud hosting platform Heroku. And so that is, like, that is the blog post that I wrote was how I automate my Yee migrations on Heroku. And so I'm writing this, like, as I'm learning it, here's what I'm learning. Here's how I figured it out. Not trying not trying to hold myself out as an expert because I wasn't, which I think is, a trap that a lot of people fall into is either they think they need to be an expert and so they stop themselves from writing, or they think they need to be an expert so they write as if they're an expert instead of, here, let me recount to you what I've learned, which is, I think, way more important.
Aaron Francis
00:13:07 – 00:13:28
Because if you hold yourself out to be an expert when you're clearly not, you're gonna get found out and it's gonna be harmful. And if you, tell people what you've done, there's no one in the world that can refute what you've done if you've done it. Right? So you can go to someone and say, my life experience has taught me this, and they cannot say, no. It hasn't.
Aaron Francis
00:13:29 – 00:13:43
They just can't say that. But if you go to somebody if you go to somebody and you say, Next. Js is the best and you're an idiot, it's like, well, I don't think Next is the best. And it's like, oh, okay. Well, now you've, you know, you've made this statement that is refutable.
Aaron Francis
00:13:44 – 00:13:55
And so, like so I was writing about what I was learning at the time. Yep. And that. This niche esoteric stuff. And some company in you know, as we said, I live in Texas.
Aaron Francis
00:13:55 – 00:14:15
Some company in California reached out and was like, hey. We're writing this big application, and you you're clearly an expert. Can we pay you to work with us? I was like, what do you mean I'm clearly an expert? And that was the first that was the first, like, like, the scales fell off my eyes kinda moment of, wait.
Aaron Francis
00:14:16 – 00:14:32
Do you this this company thinks that I am the expert? I don't feel like an expert. That's interesting. Why do they think I'm an expert? Because I'm writing about these things that I'm learning, and I'm I'm putting it out onto the Internet.
Tessa
00:14:32 – 00:14:32
Mhmm.
Aaron Francis
00:14:32 – 00:14:57
And so that was that was when I realized that, like, accolades accrue fairly or unfairly. I'm not interested in making that distinction. But accolades accrue to people who are putting stuff out publicly. And so that was when I that was when I realized that, like, wait. If accolades accrued to people who are putting stuff out publicly, what if I put out more stuff publicly?
Aaron Francis
00:14:58 – 00:15:26
Then I bet I get more. And it's you know, you can you can look at it from, like, you can look at it from a cynical point of view or an opportunistic point of view. If you look at it from a cynical point of view, you look at other people writing articles that aren't very good and still get a lot of, like, speaking gigs, job opportunities, invites on the podcast. And you could look at all that stuff that they're writing and be like, that stuff is crap. I'm a genius.
Aaron Francis
00:15:26 – 00:15:47
That person's an idiot. Why doesn't anybody care about me? That's the cynical point of view, which I, you know, I took for some period of time. The opportunistic point of view is, oh, that person is an idiot. Whether you think you should think that or not, a lot of people think that.
Aaron Francis
00:15:47 – 00:15:59
Right? So you look at it and you're like, wait. That person's an idiot. But they're doing a lot of they're doing a lot of, like, public work, and they're getting all of these benefits that I want. I think that I'm the smartest man in the world.
Aaron Francis
00:15:59 – 00:16:19
Why am I not getting anything? Well, maybe there's an opportunity here. If I just start, like, putting stuff out there in the same way that these people are, maybe I can get some of those benefits. And that's that's just like, you can say it as as many times as you want, and people are still gonna be like, wow. I just, you know, I I just can't put myself out there.
Aaron Francis
00:16:19 – 00:16:34
And I'm like, I totally get it. It's terrifying. People are gonna look at your stuff and be like, ah, you're an idiot because they want the credit that you're getting. Right? So there's this whole, like, there's this whole everybody wants everything for themselves, and it's all these defense mechanisms.
Aaron Francis
00:16:35 – 00:17:11
But if you can brave the fact that people are going to say that you're silly or people are going to not care, which maybe is even worse, if you can get over that hurdle, everything you want is on the other side of that. And so, you can you can just look at the world in a very, it's not fair, which I agree it's not fair. It's not fair, and therefore I'm mad, or it's not fair. I wonder how I can use that to my advantage. And I think finding the path to the second one is a lot more profitable.
Tessa
00:17:12 – 00:17:19
I fully agree. Absolutely. Fully agree. I love the story that you related to that, obviously, because you put yourself out there. Right?
Tessa
00:17:19 – 00:17:49
And you were just sharing your knowledge, and that led into an opportunity. And I think oftentimes that folks don't realize that, like, it's okay to write about things that you don't necessarily know about because I will I'll say the same exact thing. When I was working at Twitter, I was just really, really, really frustrated that we wouldn't internally change some things for developers. When they rolled out v2 of the API, they that's when I had been brought in. The effort there was like, how do we regain the trust and love of developers again?
Tessa
00:17:49 – 00:18:02
Right? And I'm like, if you want to regain the trust, you need to actually talk to developers. You need to care about them. And it's not that they didn't, right, but there was just obviously, it's enterprise. There's a lot a lot to that, and we know how all of that works.
Tessa
00:18:03 – 00:18:32
And so it was just really hard to actually advocate for it. But at the end of the day, all of that turned into me ranting about here's what you should be doing, here's how you should be talking to your developers, here's how I've done it in the past because I just had this angst around it, which led to, like, an immense amount of opportunities. So I think there's there's always just something that whether you're frustrated, whether you're learning something new, whether you, you know, wanna just share things that I think can lead to many, many opportunities. So I love that. Take grit.
Tessa
00:18:32 – 00:18:54
Put yourself out there, which, by the way, Erin gave an amazing presentation at Commit Your Code. Like, amazing. So, second speaker that we've had or second guest on the show that we've had that spoke at Commit Your Code, Actually, third, now that I think about it, Tim, Noah, and Ju. So for yeah. So for anyone listening, go find Aaron's talk.
Tessa
00:18:54 – 00:19:17
It's on the software developers meetup over on YouTube that Danny Thompson has lovely pulled together with his awesome crew and and team. Okay. So I wanna dive into what are some of the challenges that you're solving. So you have, this awesome studio where you do video production, education, a variety of different services in in that vein. When your clients come to you, what are what are they normally looking for?
Tessa
00:19:17 – 00:19:24
Like, what are you what are sort of their challenges, and how do you translate those challenges into the results that that you create?
Aaron Francis
00:19:25 – 00:19:45
Yeah. So it's kinda it's kinda interesting. You know, when you as you're well aware, when you start a business, you don't really you have an idea of what you're gonna do, and then it changes. And so we started we started the business with an idea, that turns out I don't know if it was bad. It just didn't work.
Aaron Francis
00:19:45 – 00:20:04
Nobody wanted it. And so we started the business with the idea that, Steve and I would, help developer education and developer relation teams produce more effective video. Yeah. And we thought this is a great idea. We're really good at it.
Aaron Francis
00:20:04 – 00:20:11
We've proven that we're good at it. Companies really wanna be doing video. They're struggling with it. Yep. We can help.
Aaron Francis
00:20:12 – 00:20:20
And so we got in touch with a bunch of companies, and they were all like, sure. Sure. Sure. But will you make videos for us? It's like, me?
Aaron Francis
00:20:20 – 00:20:37
I don't I don't know anything about GraphQL. Why do you want me to make your videos? Like, I don't care. Just make our videos. And so it became very evident that, people rather companies did not want help leveling up their video creation.
Aaron Francis
00:20:37 – 00:20:56
They wanted to outsource video creation. And so that immediately, I wasn't, that was a wrench in the works because it was like Right. I cannot be and don't want to be the face of a bunch of different companies. Right? Because then my credibility is spread thin.
Aaron Francis
00:20:56 – 00:21:28
Because if I'm doing, you know, GraphQL one day and Kafka the next, and it's like, there's no way I could do high quality education to the level that I want to for that many different companies, let alone that many different technologies, which I don't know. And so I'm really it yeah. I'm sure. It it became clear that, like, what we're offering, people weren't interested in. And so since then, we've we've pivoted more to, a lot of in house work.
Aaron Francis
00:21:28 – 00:21:51
And so the two courses that we've done have been, fully our deal, but we have partnered with, two great companies to, like, be a part of those courses. So for Superlight, we partnered with Terso. And for Postgres, we part partnered with Zeta, x a t a. And Cool. So there's still, like, a client aspect of, hey.
Aaron Francis
00:21:51 – 00:22:08
We're gonna make this, you know, fifteen hour, you know, hundred video course about Postgres. You're a Postgres company. You know, you know, Can we talk about you? You wanna put your name on some stuff or have a little, you know, business exchange here, a little capitalism? And it it's that part's worked out great.
Aaron Francis
00:22:08 – 00:22:54
And so we still get we still get, like, creative control, and I still get to do the curriculum and all the education and speak about things that I actually know about. And the company still gets the benefit of being associated with people that really wanna learn x y z and want, to learn it from what we think is a really high quality source. And so that's kind of the shape of the business now and the the permutations to get there. And it sounds like it sounds like such a straight line, but it has just been up, down, left, and right, and, like, I feel like we're finally finding our way out. But, you know, when you tell it in a nice, neat story, it's like, oh, they, you know, had a hypothesis and tested it and it failed, and now they're a success.
Aaron Francis
00:22:54 – 00:23:06
It's like, well, kinda was a disaster. I mean, it wasn't, but it was it was an emotional disaster to get there because it was like, we're gonna do it. And everybody's like, no. You're not. And they're like, shoot.
Aaron Francis
00:23:06 – 00:23:26
Well, what are we gonna do then? And so finding our way through has been, has been trying, but that is, you know, what we do. And so now now we're I think we're we're out. And the shape of the business is currently, we produce in house courses and sell them to consumers. So that's that's where we're at now.
Tessa
00:23:27 – 00:23:47
I love that. My facial expressions are probably quite expressive as you were saying that because, and we sort of talked about this on the preshow too is, like, it is so hard to start a business, especially when you go into it. It's hard to start a business period. And I love what you said about, oh, they had a hypothesis and they tested and they validated and it didn't work. And then they pivoted.
Tessa
00:23:47 – 00:24:10
Right? Like, that story feels beautiful. But the story that's like on my side of the world is I'm like, yeah, that happened six times over ten months because I just wanted it to be perfect. And it's like, it is, it is not what we expect it to be. And I think going through all of that is hard, especially when you and I, at least I'm speaking for you as I say this, like, we just wanna help developers, right?
Tessa
00:24:10 – 00:24:31
We want developers to succeed. And, like, how do we get to play that role where we get to have our business, have that freedom, make the money that we need for our family, not looking to be rich? I just want to enjoy my day to day job and serve developers. So it's, yeah, that emotional roller coaster is quite difficult, and I am on it too. Yes.
Aaron Francis
00:24:31 – 00:24:40
And I'll I'll I'll hit you at the yes and. Yes. I wanted to help people, but, boy, do I have a big old family that needs to eat food. And so, like
Tessa
00:24:40 – 00:24:41
Yep. Same.
Aaron Francis
00:24:41 – 00:25:03
I'm the sole I'm the sole breadwinner. And so, you know, starting a company when you've got four kids and a wife that works super hard but doesn't bring in any income, and you have help for the kids. And so you're you've got, you know, myself included, seven mouths to feed four kids and three adults. It's like, oh, crap. We gotta make some money.
Aaron Francis
00:25:03 – 00:25:17
And so finding out that your adorable little hypothesis is not gonna work is not as fun when it's like, oh, crap. Alright. Well, the kids don't know about the hypothesis. They don't care about the hypothesis. They want pouches of yogurt.
Aaron Francis
00:25:18 – 00:25:32
And so that that part has been that part has, like, added to the, the amplitude of the oscillations between I'm a genius and I'm an idiot. It's because it's like, it just everything is amped up to, like, two or three times.
Tessa
00:25:32 – 00:25:50
It really is. There's a there's a tweet that I think that you would really love. Essentially, I I don't remember exactly how it was worded, but they said something about, like, starting your own business or, like, owning a business. If this is what you want is, like, one day feeling like king of the world and the next day feeling like a giant pile of crap. And I'm like, that's it.
Tessa
00:25:50 – 00:25:51
That's it.
Aaron Francis
00:25:51 – 00:25:59
Yes. I would I would take day to day. I'm hour to hour, man. It's it is. The feedback is tight.
Aaron Francis
00:25:59 – 00:26:07
One hour, I'm a genius, and one hour, I'm a failure. And so, yeah, it takes a little bit of takes a little bit of fortitude for sure.
Tessa
00:26:07 – 00:26:21
It does. Sort of takes the wind out of your sails a little when you do like when you have those wins, but then you have those those losses that are even harder. And so it's harder to see those wins some days for sure. Yes. Yogurt pouches are a must.
Tessa
00:26:21 – 00:26:31
Yes. I agree, Jason. The kids must have the yogurt pouches. My husband and I were actually just talking about that. Like, I'm still working towards the other end of finding it.
Tessa
00:26:31 – 00:26:49
And I think I found it now, but it's like, as you know, you have to it takes time once you think that you're ready to sort of shift and hypothesize. It takes calls and months of, like, the sales process and whatever else to really get that feedback. So I'm hoping we can still keep buying yogurt pouches for a little bit longer. I'll be looking for a job myself. So
Aaron Francis
00:26:50 – 00:26:52
Yeah. Well, good luck to us both.
Tessa
00:26:53 – 00:26:56
I know. I know. Right? Okay. Coming back to the techy stuff.
Tessa
00:26:57 – 00:26:59
PHP. Why PHP?
Aaron Francis
00:26:59 – 00:27:00
Gotta have it.
Tessa
00:27:01 – 00:27:03
I love that. Love it. Gotta have it.
Aaron Francis
00:27:04 – 00:27:41
As a as a working man developer, PHP meets my needs. And, so I think there's a lot of discourse. Boy, is there a lot of discourse. Uh-huh. And I try to tune most of it out because to the extent, to to the extent that anyone thinks I am an influencer, I wish they would think of me as, an educator or as somebody who does things and also happens to have influence.
Aaron Francis
00:27:41 – 00:28:06
And so my goal in life is to not ever, like, opine on the day to day of what's going on in technology. I don't care. I do not care at all about what is going on day to day in technology. Some of it is interesting in the same way that, like, watching football is interesting. It's like, oh, neat.
Aaron Francis
00:28:06 – 00:28:16
The boys are doing it again. Alright. Well, let's turn it off and get back to work. That's kinda how I feel when people argue about, like, TypeScript. I'm like, that's awesome.
Aaron Francis
00:28:16 – 00:28:27
I don't freaking care one single little bit. So I think my, and if people care, I'd I I don't care if people care. That's wonderful. Congratulations. That's fantastic.
Aaron Francis
00:28:27 – 00:29:00
I just care about different things. It's not a moral judgment. It's just a reality that I don't care about that because what I do care about is, one step beyond that, which is, making things. And so, I have found a nice, like, a nice workflow, a nice set of tools that allows me to make things that I think are high quality. I want the things that I make to be really, high quality.
Aaron Francis
00:29:00 – 00:29:13
I wanna put my name on it. I want to, metaphorically show it to my kids and say, dad made this. Right? Like, I want to be proud of something. And I have found a tool set that allows me to get there very quickly.
Aaron Francis
00:29:15 – 00:29:28
And so why why would I, why would I spend a bunch of time exploring all these new technologies when I have a toolset that gets me to where I wanna go very, very quickly? And
Tessa
00:29:29 – 00:29:29
Exactly.
Aaron Francis
00:29:30 – 00:30:02
Subjectively, I think it is one of the best tool sets, if not the best toolset. I have happened to fall into, I happened by pure chance to fall into a community and a tool set that I think is objectively, I think, very, very good and very, very productive. And so I have not found a reason to explore outside into, like, rest or something. What am I gonna do with rest? I have no idea.
Aaron Francis
00:30:03 – 00:30:51
Now when I do something that is, like, outside the bounds perhaps of of Laravel, then I do enjoy learning and exploring and, like, poking around. But the end goal the end goal for me is always to, produce an artifact that goes out to the world. I enjoy learning for the sake of learning. At this stage in my life, the things that I want to learn about are not other technologies that I'm probably not going to use. And so I would prefer to spend my, to spend my learning, time budget getting better at my toolset that I already have or reading books about how to write books because I wanna write a book one day.
Aaron Francis
00:30:51 – 00:31:07
And I I just don't I don't wanna pick up Next j s 20 six. Like, I'm happy. And so that's a big, like, that's a big personality trait of mine. There's there's two, supposedly, two types of people. There are maximizers and there are satisficers.
Aaron Francis
00:31:08 – 00:31:32
And a maximizer is like an economics thing. A maximizer is always on the hunt, on the hunt for something a little bit better. So there you go. So these are the types of people that go to a restaurant, and they try, you know, repeatedly, a a local place, and they try everything on the menu because they wanna find the best dish there. That's a maximizer.
Aaron Francis
00:31:32 – 00:31:44
Nothing wrong with it. On the other hand, the satisficers go to a restaurant. They may try one or two or three dishes until they surpass a certain bar that says I am satisfied.
Tessa
00:31:45 – 00:31:45
Yep.
Aaron Francis
00:31:45 – 00:31:55
And when they find the bar that says I am satisfied, they order that forever. And that's what I do. That's me. Like Yep. I love it.
Aaron Francis
00:31:55 – 00:32:22
Something I find something that is good enough, and that that can include exploring a bunch of different options until something, like, meets those needs. I've used this brand of pen for fifteen years because it is the best in my opinion. And so I find something that, like, passes the satisfaction bar, and then I'm like, boy, am I happy. This is wonderful. What a great life I have.
Aaron Francis
00:32:22 – 00:32:35
I'm so satisfied. And so that's kinda I feel like that's kinda how that's kinda how I am with with PHP. And even inside of PHP, I've done yi. I've done cake. I've done, goodness.
Tessa
00:32:36 – 00:32:36
Oh, okay.
Aaron Francis
00:32:36 – 00:33:00
Cake Cake two and three. And then then I found Laravel. I think I think I found Laravel at, like, four or 5.1 or something like that. And at that point, I was like, this is a hammer with which I can build things, and I've just continued to use that. And so that's, like, my my personal, my personal journey to PHP.
Aaron Francis
00:33:00 – 00:33:25
I think, like, from a from an ecosystem perspective, it is the, it is the no fuss. It truly is the no fuss, like, looked down upon working man's toolset. And so there is no there's no pomp and circumstance. There's no, there's no pride. There's no, like, we're better than, like, we're everyone thinks we're stupid.
Aaron Francis
00:33:25 – 00:34:05
Like, everyone makes fun of us. And so that has led that, like, that that, like, outside evolutionary pressure of we're not popular, we're not cool, we're not the jocks. Like, that that that evolutionary pressure has, like, shaped the ecosystem into an ecosystem that, in my opinion, is very focused on, shipping things Mhmm. Versus talking about the ecosystem Oh. Versus, like, naval gazing about, like, we should argue about this portion of the stack, and we should all invent our own solution.
Aaron Francis
00:34:05 – 00:34:27
Like, just not to name names, but the PHP ecosystem doesn't doesn't really have that because it's not a popular place to hang out. It's a place it's a place for, like, construction guys, plumbers, HVAC guys. Like, all these working class people of the programming world are over there being like, well, you know what? We can hook up those two pipes and I bet the thing will work. And, like, yeah.
Aaron Francis
00:34:27 – 00:34:34
Let's do it. That sounds great. Let's do that. And so we've gotten to this point where it's just like, guys, I don't know. I'm just I'm I made it.
Aaron Francis
00:34:34 – 00:34:37
Do you like it? I shipped it. And they're like, yeah. We love it. It's awesome.
Aaron Francis
00:34:37 – 00:34:44
Instead of, hey. Let's all get around and fight about our ecosystem forever. So Mhmm. Yeah. I
Tessa
00:34:44 – 00:34:59
would agree with that. Okay. So I'm gonna take the opportunity to speak about PHP Tech because it was a PHP event and has been a very, very incredible PHP event. Have you ever been to PHP Tech? So good.
Tessa
00:34:59 – 00:35:01
It's so so good.
Aaron Francis
00:35:01 – 00:35:02
That one? PHP
Tessa
00:35:02 – 00:35:03
TEK? Yep. Yeah. Yeah. Okay.
Tessa
00:35:04 – 00:35:28
So it is coming back this year, and I got an email in my inbox that they had dropped sponsorship prices. And so I'm I'm selfishly, but also selflessly wanting to promote PHP tech because it is such a real it's just such a great event. And you hit it exactly on the head in regards to the PHP community. I have no idea why I have stayed sort of devoted to PHP. Yes.
Tessa
00:35:28 – 00:35:40
I've dabbled in my DevRel career into these other places. It's the community. Like, it absolutely is. Like, I can go in there and, mind you, some of the first PHP events, I was, like, one of maybe five total women who were there. But guess what?
Tessa
00:35:41 – 00:35:55
I never got hit on. I never got, like, harassed. I didn't have anyone trying to get in my like, it's it's so different from the other events where I will get developers who will either, like, honestly try to hit on me. I'm, like, old and, like, I don't get it. Right?
Tessa
00:35:55 – 00:36:02
Why are we doing this at tech events? Events? Or they'll try to essentially, like what's the right word?
Aaron Francis
00:36:03 – 00:36:03
Assert dominance?
Tessa
00:36:04 – 00:36:10
Yes. Let's call it that. Yes. They will assert dominance. And it's like, I don't care.
Tessa
00:36:10 – 00:36:26
I wanna go hang out with other people that just wanna build stuff. We don't have to have this drama. And so I very much agree with you in the sentiment of the ecosystem. And so, yeah, PHP Tech and PHP, both awesome. If you're in the PHP space, please check out PHP Tech.
Tessa
00:36:26 – 00:36:40
Also, if you're a company that can benefit from it, please check out their sponsors sponsorship levels because I would very much love for this event to not die off and to be, to still continue. So, anyways, I agree.
Aaron Francis
00:36:40 – 00:36:41
It's in Chicago.
Tessa
00:36:42 – 00:36:53
Oh, I didn't know that, actually. It was in Atlanta before. Oh, man. There's I have some very funny memories of PHP Tech, Atlanta. That was a very good time.
Tessa
00:36:54 – 00:37:04
I'm catching up on the chat here. Jason has called you the PHP king. Reach. I love it. Yep.
Tessa
00:37:04 – 00:37:09
And heard nothing but good things. Hey, Nick. Glad you're here. Well, hello to, Rizelle. Hello.
Tessa
00:37:09 – 00:37:18
Nice to see you. Jason, Emmett, and Nick. And I think before that, we had Ryan and Kevin. So great to have everyone. Okay.
Tessa
00:37:18 – 00:37:32
So I haven't tried Laravel yet. We we talked about that. And so you alluded to a few different things. So before we wrap up here, I'm I wanna ask about this. And I have one more question, but you alluded to the fact you can build really quickly.
Tessa
00:37:32 – 00:37:48
So Mhmm. I'm going to assume you're referring to Laravel when you say that. So for those who who haven't touched Laravel, or who haven't touched maybe PHP, walk us through Laravel. Like, what like, you know, what's your experience like with that? Like, why is it so quick?
Tessa
00:37:48 – 00:37:52
Why do you think that it's so efficient? I've heard the same thing, but wanna hear wanna hear your side.
Aaron Francis
00:37:53 – 00:38:03
Sure. Okay. So we'll frame this whole thing in the context of building a a proper web application. Right? So a couple of couple of words in there.
Aaron Francis
00:38:03 – 00:38:18
Proper, meaning, a little bit beyond just like, like a to do list or demo or something like that. Right? Web application, meaning some sort of SaaS, something that's something that's online. Right? So we're not talking about embedded systems.
Aaron Francis
00:38:18 – 00:38:40
We're not talking about a lot of different stuff. We're talking about building a proper web application. So when you're building a proper web application, you would need to consider a lot of things. One of those things is what's your front end going to be, and that's where most people stop. That's where people are like, I'm gonna argue forever about my front end.
Aaron Francis
00:38:40 – 00:38:50
Okay. Cool. You picked the front end. Now what? You need you need background jobs because in a in a proper web application, you have to offload some stuff.
Aaron Francis
00:38:50 – 00:39:08
Like, if if you haven't thought about or implemented CSV handling, there's a question about whether it's like, is this a proper web application? Like and at some point, every every web app has something like, hey. They need exports. I'm like, well, f. How are we gonna do exports?
Aaron Francis
00:39:08 – 00:39:19
They need imports. How are we gonna do that? Okay. So then you you start to get to the point where you're like, okay. If we're building if we're building even not even a SaaS, it could just be a back office for a company.
Aaron Francis
00:39:20 – 00:39:43
If you're building a back office for a company, you've got some processes that need to run every morning, every weekday morning, every Monday morning, every first of the month. And so you're building you're building a proper web app and you're like, wait. The business dictates that email reports go out on Monday morning and Friday afternoon. How do I do that? Okay.
Aaron Francis
00:39:43 – 00:40:06
Well, you have a few options. One is you could sign up for a service. You could sign up for a VC backed service that is trying to sell you Kron for $99 a month. And you're like, boy, building web apps is is complicated and expensive. And so that that is, that is a a a viable path that a lot of people take that is not my preference.
Aaron Francis
00:40:06 – 00:40:29
And so when it comes to building a proper web application, Laravel comes with, all of the things that you need. And I hear people saying, well, there are open source packages for all of the things that I need. And so I prefer I prefer to grab all my favorite components off the shelf and stitch them together. That's fine. If that's your preference, that's totally fine.
Aaron Francis
00:40:29 – 00:40:53
That is not my preference because every time you grab an open source, library off the shelf, a best in class open source library, and that's always the argument. It's like, well, I wanna use the the most popular queuing library that it has all the all the bells and whistles. You're like, okay. This month or this year. What's gonna happen when next month there's a better one?
Aaron Francis
00:40:54 – 00:41:11
That that is an argument. I think the more, the the more impactful argument is okay. You've got, some some, like, internal some nucleus of, like, business logic. Right? And then you're pulling in a queue, a queue library.
Aaron Francis
00:41:11 – 00:41:25
You're pulling in a background, like a cron library. You're pulling in an email thing. You're pulling in an auth thing. You're pulling in an ORM. Everything that you pull in must talk to every other thing.
Aaron Francis
00:41:25 – 00:41:47
Right? Mhmm. And so now now you have this nucleus of, business logic, which is probably ill formed, unformed, living in some, like, slash lib directory. Right? You're you've you've you've got your nucleus of business logic, and then you are maintaining the connections between all of these different best in class, like, resources.
Aaron Francis
00:41:48 – 00:41:57
Right? So, like, okay. Well, here. What about this? I need to queue I have a I have a user that wants to send an email.
Aaron Francis
00:41:57 – 00:42:31
I'm going to queue this job, with this user and these models and send this email later. In Laravel, you can queue a job and, you can send the models into the queue and the models get dehydrated. And then when the queue comes back alive, they get rehydrated out of the database, and you can just send the email directly with Laravel first party components because everything is meant to work together. And so you can have you can have this system where it's like, alright. I need, authentication.
Aaron Francis
00:42:32 – 00:42:41
These are all things that Laravel comes with out of the box. I need authentication. I need an ORM. In my opinion, a world class ORM. I need an ORM.
Aaron Francis
00:42:42 – 00:43:06
I need background jobs. I need scheduling. I need, a a sort of like pubsub, like a venting system so I can get to, you know, send data back and forth between the front end if I want. I need all of these things, and I need them to all, like, work together. And that's where I think Laravel really shines is it has everything.
Aaron Francis
00:43:06 – 00:43:31
So, the the term full stack framework has become a little muddied, and so I think there's been a a a shift. I I don't work at Laravel, but I think there's been a shift towards, like, batteries included framework. And so Laravel is in the same way that Rails is, Laravel is a batteries included framework. So imagine you want to actually build an application like Restream. You're gonna need a bunch of stuff.
Aaron Francis
00:43:31 – 00:43:43
Right? Yep. You're gonna need all sorts of background work that is not, like, close to the web because you're mucking about with video. You've gotta scale up, scale down. You gotta do all this stuff.
Aaron Francis
00:43:43 – 00:44:02
Laravel has everything you would need to do that. And so whenever, like, whenever I encounter these these are solved problems. Like, background jobs are not new. They've been around for one thousand years. And so I don't want to have to, like, figure out, oh, how am I gonna do a background job?
Aaron Francis
00:44:03 – 00:44:16
I just wanna know, alright. I can just say put this in the background, and I know that I've got a key worker that's running that is also managed by Laravel. And I can say, hey. Run this job. Retry three times.
Aaron Francis
00:44:16 – 00:44:37
If it fails, send me an email at admin@mysite.com. And also write the output to this log and also raise this alert to Slack. It's like, hey. That's pretty great. Like, there are a lot of things, there are a lot of things when building, an application, a back office, a SaaS, whatever.
Aaron Francis
00:44:37 – 00:45:04
There are a lot of things that you have to figure out, but figuring out how to run a schedule, like, run a run a command on a timer should not be one of the things that you're having to figure out. You should be figuring out what is my, like, unique value. And beyond that, how am I gonna make anybody care about it? And so, like, we get so hung up on, well, Prisma versus Drizzle. I'm like, what the hell are y'all talking about?
Aaron Francis
00:45:04 – 00:45:21
Like, you're switching your whole ORM layer? Like, why? And that that's the thing where I I'm just like, that's not my interest. Some people, I think I think that is a hobby for some people, and I am so happy for them. That is not that is not my hobby.
Aaron Francis
00:45:21 – 00:46:10
And my my my time my time is better spent, trying to figure out what is this application gonna do and how am I gonna make people care about it and not spent thinking, well, Prisma does joins on the client side and Drizzle pushes them to the database. It's like, alright. I got stuff I gotta do. And so that's kinda like that's kinda like my my view on the landscape of, programming frameworks and why I like Laravel, because I like the batteries that they have included, and I like that it all works together. And I am sensitive to the notion that some people come to something like that, and they're like, I wanna choose my own batteries.
Aaron Francis
00:46:10 – 00:46:46
I'm like, that's great. I'm happy for you. I don't want to do that. And so I think that's a that's something that gets lost a lot, in these discussions online where people want different things and are optimizing for different things and then talking to each other as if they're optimizing and wanting the same things. And so people are, like, optimizing people are optimizing for control and flexibility, and then they're talking to people who are optimizing for speed of, deployment and joy and stuff like that.
Aaron Francis
00:46:46 – 00:47:02
And they're like, why are you why can't you understand what I'm saying? And it's like, because we're not even pointed the same direction. That's why. And so that's where I think people just talk past each other. And the question the question needs to be asked, like, what are you optimizing for?
Aaron Francis
00:47:02 – 00:47:34
And if you can get if you can have a discussion with someone who is optimizing for the same thing, the discussion is gonna be a lot more profitable in terms of, like, coming to an agreement. But if you're having a discussion with somebody who's optimizing for different things, that's super great. Just don't try to argue about who's right and who's wrong because one of you is optimizing for, like, let's say, one of you is optimizing for making a ton of money and one of you is optimizing for living in the woods. Like, of course, you're not gonna come to an agreement. Those are totally different things.
Aaron Francis
00:47:34 – 00:47:39
Why would we do that? And so I think that's where people, people go awry online.
Tessa
00:47:40 – 00:47:55
Yeah. Wow. That was, that was amazing, first off. Amazing in regards to explaining Laravel and why you should choose to use it or not use it, but also amazing to how you sort of unveiled this way of looking at things. Because you're right.
Tessa
00:47:55 – 00:48:03
Right? Developers constantly want to argue, which I tell my clients. I'm like, hit them in the feelers. I don't fit mean physically. I mean, get them having that argument.
Tessa
00:48:03 – 00:48:18
Get them talking about that. But you're so right about them being pointed in the right direction, right? Because oftentimes it really is just a let me throw out my favorite tool. And it's like us advocating for, like, our dogs or our kids, right? I'm like, I have the cutest kid.
Tessa
00:48:18 – 00:48:23
You know, like, you're never going to win that argument with someone else who has another kid. Kid. It's just not gonna happen.
Aaron Francis
00:48:23 – 00:48:23
Nope.
Tessa
00:48:24 – 00:48:25
Okay. This is
Aaron Francis
00:48:25 – 00:48:30
this is convince somebody why a certain TV show is objectively the best in the world.
Tessa
00:48:30 – 00:48:31
Exactly. Right.
Aaron Francis
00:48:31 – 00:48:40
And some people might want to have a technical discussion about that, and some people might just wanna say, oh, man. I like Seinfeld because it's funny. Like
Tessa
00:48:40 – 00:48:41
It's French. Pass away.
Aaron Francis
00:48:42 – 00:48:54
No. See? Here we are. Those are just those are just different. And it's like, let's have a fun let's have a fun, like, you know, dinner time discussion about their differences, but let's not try to convince each other that Yeah.
Aaron Francis
00:48:54 – 00:49:04
Like, these two things are even able to be compared. And so I don't know, people people seem to people seem to miss that all the time, online.
Tessa
00:49:05 – 00:49:33
Yeah. I think so for me, like, you know, coming, coming back into sort of the Laravel conversation, for me, what I have struggled with in the latter part of my career, because I've been in developer relations and been in, you know, leadership, and so I haven't necessarily been able to code and build things like I I would have been enjoyed building things. Mhmm. And so I still struggle with generally, like, the frameworks because I'm a little bit of, like, maybe an older dev. Like, I, I wanna know my whole system.
Tessa
00:49:33 – 00:49:47
You know? Like, I wanna understand Laravel from the bottom all the way to the top. How does all of that function? How does everything connect together? Because I don't like using frameworks and things that are already prebuilt because then if there is something that is wrong, I'm like, I have no idea how to troubleshoot this.
Tessa
00:49:47 – 00:50:02
So do you feel like that like, how do you relate to that or how does that resonate with you as you think about Laravel? Is like, it doesn't matter because they're you don't experience those types of issues, or have you found yourself sort of over time understanding the the actual system at which exists behind Laravel?
Aaron Francis
00:50:03 – 00:50:15
Yeah. I think I I'm I'm super sensitive to that point, and I think this is, another, another vote in favor of picking your thing and sticking with it.
Tessa
00:50:15 – 00:50:16
Like Totally. Yeah.
Aaron Francis
00:50:16 – 00:50:44
I I am I am able I am able to one, I either just know what's going on. If not, I'm able to deduce what's going on given all of my, like, years of context in Laravel. Right. And so I think those two things help a lot. But, also, I think I have, I think I I think I potentially took the hard road to get here, and it is now continuing to serve me well.
Aaron Francis
00:50:44 – 00:51:32
And so, like, I everything that I've learned has been through sheer force of will. And so I will watch, I will watch people or see people online or sometimes watch streams, and they're like, oh, this didn't work. And I guess I'll just go, like, make a stack over from not anymore, but make a stack overflow post about it, or I'll go ask chat GPT about it, or, like, I'll, you know, complain on Twitter that it's not working. And that has literally never been my first gut reaction. My gut reaction is to command click into, like, the method that I'm calling, which takes you down into the source of of Laravel and put, like, a a a poor man's debugging statement down there, which is just, like, dump out this variable and then terminate program.
Aaron Francis
00:51:32 – 00:51:47
Just dump and die. And then I look on the screen and be like, That's not what I thought it was. Let me go one level deeper. And I just keep doing that until it's like, oh, that's that's as false. I thought given this point, I thought that would be true.
Aaron Francis
00:51:47 – 00:52:05
I wonder why that is. And then we come back out. We figure out, like, where in the stack my understanding of the like, my internal, compiler is wrong. And I'm looking at the code, and I'm like, oh, okay. Well, when that happens, then it switches it from true to false because this thing is not available.
Aaron Francis
00:52:05 – 00:52:35
Oh, well, that makes sense. I guess it's gonna make that thing available. And so, like, in terms of not understanding, what the framework is doing, that certainly still happens, but it's happening few fewer times and further between. And anytime it does happen, I update my internal reference by just, like, by source diving. The number of times that I've asked people, like, well, did you go look like, did you go look in the vendor directory, which is like our node modules?
Aaron Francis
00:52:35 – 00:52:42
Did you go look in the vendor directory? Oh, no. I don't go in there. Why not? That's where all the code is.
Aaron Francis
00:52:42 – 00:52:49
Go see what's happening. And people will tweet at Taylor. I just see it, like, fly by my timeline. People tweet at Taylor. Hey, man.
Aaron Francis
00:52:49 – 00:53:06
Like, I I'm doing this thing and this thing isn't working. And I'm like, brother, you're lost. You're never you're never gonna get there. If this is your reaction to tweet at the the creator of the framework, like, why is this part not working? Dude, he has no idea.
Aaron Francis
00:53:06 – 00:53:36
Like, go dive down there and figure it out yourself. And then then after you have done that, ask all the questions in the world. But never in my in in in my in my opinion, never go ask a question without being able to say, here's what I've tried. So if you go to ask a question and you're, here's what I've tried, array is totally empty, you're not ready to ask the question yet. You need to go ask the question and say, well, I dug in to this part.
Aaron Francis
00:53:36 – 00:53:57
I found this event fired, but it wasn't caught anywhere, and I I don't understand why. That's great. You do not have to figure everything out on your own, but by Yep. God, you've gotta try. Like, you've gotta try something, and then you can go out there with a richer set of context and ask better questions and say, like, I've tried x, y, and z.
Aaron Francis
00:53:57 – 00:54:06
Don't offer me solutions there because I've tried that. Given that information, what do you think is going on here? And it's just like it just goes way, way better.
Tessa
00:54:06 – 00:54:19
Yeah. Okay. I love that so much. Well, I think between my tweets and conversations, I'm I'm definitely convinced that I need to start with Laravel in my in my actual build out, so I'm so excited to dive into that. I just need to, like, get back into code.
Tessa
00:54:19 – 00:54:33
I feel so much imposter syndrome over, like, I'm a developer, but I'm not a developer. And it's like, no. I am still a developer. I still build things and create solutions with code. And by therefore, need to just continue to do.
Tessa
00:54:34 – 00:54:38
Getting a little spam in our chat today. It's because of your your big influence.
Aaron Francis
00:54:39 – 00:54:46
Oh, the best viewers are on smingen.online. Yeah. I believe that's definitely true. Probably true.
Tessa
00:54:46 – 00:55:02
That's definitely true. Okay. So you shared last question before we wrap up because we are, like, really, actually, literally nearing the actual extended block of time that I have for the show, because it's such a joy to chat with you. But how do you get unstuck? You gave us a a really good sort of clue into how you get unstuck in Laravel.
Aaron Francis
00:55:02 – 00:55:03
Mhmm.
Tessa
00:55:03 – 00:55:14
Awesome. Loved it. How do you generally get unstuck? And so maybe you're thinking about more high level things, you know, decisions, process, or maybe it's tool decision. Right?
Tessa
00:55:14 – 00:55:19
What do you use when it's outside or adding upon your beautiful Laravel stack?
Aaron Francis
00:55:19 – 00:55:52
Mhmm. Oh, I I feel like I feel like I get stuck a lot. And so I don't I don't know if anyone like this exists or if it's just a facade, but it seems like some people just breeze from, like, success to success and win to win. And I feel like I sit here in this studio often being like, what the hell am I doing? This like, what am I going to do?
Aaron Francis
00:55:52 – 00:56:13
What am I doing? Why am I doing any of this? And so I am I am no stranger to, like, that feeling, and I have it quite often. And so, I have a I have a few, like, a few tactics, techniques, strategies. One is, motion motion begets motion and progress begets progress.
Aaron Francis
00:56:13 – 00:56:40
And so when I'm feeling very stuck and I wrote a I wrote a article titled this I do literally anything. Like, just do anything. And once I have found, that motivation springs from action and not the other way around, like, I don't I don't, I don't sit here and, whip myself up into a lather and be like, alright. Now I am motivated and I'm ready to work. No.
Aaron Francis
00:56:41 – 00:56:59
Usually, I I I actually don't know if that has ever worked. What has worked is I'm going to start working. I am going to start working. I don't know exactly what I'm gonna do, but I'm going to do something. And once I get in motion, like, the clouds start to part and I'm like, oh, okay.
Aaron Francis
00:56:59 – 00:57:03
Like, yeah. Alright. Let's do some stuff. Let's let I'm here. Let's go.
Aaron Francis
00:57:03 – 00:57:14
Let's do it. When I don't know when I don't know where to even begin, I, I just write stuff down on paper. Like Oh,
Tessa
00:57:14 – 00:57:14
love that.
Aaron Francis
00:57:14 – 00:57:34
I I don't I don't wanna faff around with, like, second brain systems. I've got I've got, like, stacks of legal yellow pads, Amazon basics, legal yellow pads, and a Zebra pen. And I just start writing down everything that is stressing me out. Literally, like
Tessa
00:57:34 – 00:57:35
Oh, smart.
Aaron Francis
00:57:35 – 00:57:53
Need need to replace the need to replace the rails on the cab the trash cabinet at home. Need to respond to this email that I've avoided for five days. Like, just write down everything that is stressing me out. And even that process of writing everything down makes me feel better. Because then I look at it and I'm like, those are just tasks.
Aaron Francis
00:57:53 – 00:58:08
Like, what is wrong with you, man? Yeah. But then then I look at all the tasks and I'm like, I don't wanna do any of those. But the one I want the one the one that I I I don't mind as much as the others is this one, and I'm gonna start with that one. And then you're in the game.
Aaron Francis
00:58:08 – 00:58:28
Like, then the wheels are turning, and the other stuff becomes a whole lot easier once you get over this, like, the world is stressing me out. Yeah. I don't know why, and so I'm going to look at Twitter. That can go on for hours, and so you have to break that cycle of, like, alright. The world is stressing me out.
Aaron Francis
00:58:28 – 00:58:45
I don't know why. I don't know if I'm gonna do literally anything, I literally don't know of anything to do. So I'm gonna sit down, and I'm going to write out my hopes, dreams, and fears on a piece of paper, then that will help. And that has always that has always helped me every single time.
Tessa
00:58:46 – 00:59:08
I love that so much. I am a a very much a pen and paper person, but I kept, like, losing notes. And I'd be like, I already thought through this. Like, I already had this brain, you know, scape. And so I switched to the iPad with the Apple Pencil so I can, like, start searching my, like, massive amounts of notes because I do the same thing.
Tessa
00:59:09 – 00:59:18
I'm still not as diligent as I could be, but, yeah, I love that approach. Just getting it out. I definitely don't write about my stresses, and I and I should. I think that would very much help in my
Aaron Francis
00:59:18 – 00:59:19
business. Should.
Tessa
00:59:19 – 00:59:24
You should. I am going to try that literally after we get off this call, honestly. Yes.
Aaron Francis
00:59:25 – 00:59:43
Good. It's very, very helpful. I think, yeah, back here, those are two or three or four or five, Amazon Basics yellow legal pads. So they're totally full. Page after page after page after page, totally full of, here's what I'm working on today slash here are my deepest, darkest fears and why I'm a failure.
Aaron Francis
00:59:43 – 00:59:52
And it's like, alright. Next page. And then we're on to the next day. And then, let's go back, like, three or four or five years, then they're just that's just there. And I don't like Wow.
Aaron Francis
00:59:52 – 00:59:59
I don't organize it. I don't keep track of it. What will come will come. What will go will go. And if I ever need to look back, I can you know, I date.
Aaron Francis
00:59:59 – 01:00:07
Every single page is dated. So if I have to look back, I could. But most of the time, it's just the process. That's that's the most helpful part.
Tessa
01:00:08 – 01:00:26
Yeah. I love that. Honestly, like, you probably will go back and look at that notebook, over the last year from your business because I feel like that's where I I feel I've been the most reflective in my life is, like, is the last year, right, of, like, almost a year of growing my business and being like, okay, what did I do last month? Where is this different? What have I learned?
Tessa
01:00:27 – 01:00:43
And man, if I had all that in a notebook, I have some in my mind, I guess. Go back and just relive that life, hopefully. Right? Hopefully, there's a future at which we are out of the emotional pains of starting a business and and, can see it from a more beautiful light in the future.
Aaron Francis
01:00:43 – 01:00:44
That's the dream.
Tessa
01:00:44 – 01:00:48
Love it. Yeah. Alright. Well, I don't wanna keep you any longer. It's already eleven.
Tessa
01:00:48 – 01:01:02
Thank you so much for your time. I, like, love chatting with you and hanging out with you. I know that you made a comment about people looking at you as an influencer versus an educator. Absolutely an educator. One of the best educators I've ever met.
Tessa
01:01:03 – 01:01:20
But, honestly, you are such a good human being that you are an influencer by extension, and the world needs it. So as much as you, yeah, well, as much as you don't necessarily care for that term, I personally appreciate that that you do have the clout that you do because you deserve it, and the world deserves to have more errand time. So That's
Aaron Francis
01:01:20 – 01:01:24
incredibly kind. Thank you so much. And thank thanks for having me. This was a lot of fun.
Tessa
01:01:25 – 01:01:29
Yeah. This was super fun. Okay. Well, I hope that everyone has a fabulous rest
Me

Thanks for reading! My name is Aaron and I write, make videos , and generally try really hard .

If you ever have any questions or want to chat, I'm always on Twitter.

You can find me on YouTube on my personal channel or the Try Hard Studios channel.

If you love podcasts, I got you covered. You can listen to me on Mostly Technical .