In 2015, I was brought into a room with about ten of my peers, and we were all told we couldn’t do something. Our jobs were being eliminated, and we couldn’t recruit for that company anymore. And guess what, I’m still bitter and haven’t forgotten about it.
That “can’t do” convo, as hard as it was to hear, set several of us on a different path.
Whoever it was, who crossed our names off that list, was wrong. I’m sure every time I write about January 30th, 2015 it annoys someone. However, that kind of day can transform a person, igniting feelings and emotions that result in a great epiphany. For me, that was about the time I started writing about sourcing and putting my ideas “out there.” The whole “you can’t do that” mindset never set in with me. I had more to say, so I eventually wrote several articles about the whole layoff experience.
Like a stubborn mule, I wasn’t going to disappear. In fact, just the opposite happened. I posted my “Sourcing like a Sith Lord” article on LinkedIn, and some people read it. In fact, a few of my friends told me I should submit it to SourceCon.
So I did, and well what I found was I had so much more to write. Not only that, the tool awakening I experienced after attending SourceCon IRL was like a great new Renaissance. Tools, hacks, Levy and Da Costa, the whole deal was an enormous “wow” moment. The ideas flowed like a ginormous DIY slime smoothie at that point.
What kept me writing, exploring, and building things was this wonderful SourceCon Community. The tools, innovation, and evolution of this conference into multiple events, session tracks, labs, and workshops has catapulted many of us into new realms of understanding. There’s no way we saw the number of scraping/streaming stacks out there or automation tech coming, but dang there’s some cool stuff out there now.
The friendships we’ve made, virtually, IRL, domestically, and internationally is phenomenal. I had no idea some of the CSEs I built would be used globally, but what an impressive free tech we can share across oceans.
What elevated the curiosity were people like:
What keeps me coming back and continue to write, vlog, build and live stream is you! Seriously, people amaze me every day, and it is cause’ that’s the sourcers way.
What I get out of SourceCon is not my voice, it’s multiple voices, from people way smarter than me (below are a few):
Mark Lundgren and the Sourcing Challenge Show
And they are at this conference!
It’s YOUR voice, and whether you realize it or not, YOU can ask questions, show us a hack, blow our minds, YOU are a teacher as well, we all can learn something from one another.
Inspiration comes in many forms; mine has always been YOU!
What I learned from SourceCon, no, what WE learned from SourceCon is this:
- How to write articles:
- How to build Websites and Toolboxes to help people:
- How to Be a Speaker and not fall off the stage (yet)
- How to Vlog (is it still called Vlogging) and stream:
- Learn to inspire others, even some gurus.
- And most importantly, learn from you guys and BE inspired.
Don’t ever let anyone tell you that you can’t do something. You can do more than people realize. I look back and it stills astounds me. Nothing is impossible.
I think of six impossible sourcing tasks before breakfast.