Dave Navarro, Jr.

Father, Web Developer, Journalist, Film Maker, Creative Soul

WordCamp Fayetteville 2018

Dave Navarro, Jr.   June 24, 2018

I had the great privilege again of speaking at WordCamp Fayetteville, and this year I gave the keynote address… “I have never worked a day in my life”. Of course, I have worked and I work for a living, but it’s hard to call programming, photography and shooting video work. I enjoy what I do for a living and have been blessed for my entire adult life that I’ve been able to take that passion and turn it into a paycheck.

Anyone who knows me, knows that I have a tremendous ego and I love being the center of attention. So it’s been 30+ years since I was last nervous before talking in front of a large group. But as I stood on the stage and the auditorium filled, I was nervous. The purpose of the keynote, to me, is to motivate and inspire people… and set the tone for the rest of the conference. I hate keynotes that try to be educational or are veiled commercials for the speaker’s business. I wasn’t anxious or feeling ill, it was just a mild nervousness I hadn’t experienced since the first date with my fiance.

I didn’t write my speech, I never do… Just wrote some bullet points about what I wanted to cover and then created slides to indicate those bullet points for me as a visual cue. I did run through my speech in my head the night before and “tweaked” a few things. I talked about the power of earning money for yourself and how my parents gave me that power when I was 6. I talked about how I inherited my father’s entrepreneurial spirit and launched my first lemonade stand, which I ran like he ran his restaurant. I talked about finding his TRS-80 and beginning my life-long obsession and passion with computers. I talked about my successes and my feeling of being blessed.

As I spoke and moved around the stage, I heard laughter at all the right places and I looked into the audience and saw faces that were genuinely interested in what I was saying… it fed my ego and it fed my need to be the center of attention and I was in my element…  When I finished everyone clapped and it didn’t feel like a pity clap or a polite clap. I think I did well.

Afterwards, throughout the rest of the day a lot of people came up to me and thanked me. I had talked about my beginnings in the 1980’s and a lot of people were old enough to remember those times. A few people even told me they were inspired by my speech and that’s what I really wanted. At least one person to tell me I inspired them.

As for WordCamp Fayetteville itself, it was another great year for them. A lot of great sessions and a lot of friendly faces. I love going to Fayetteville, and I’m looking forward to next year.

Filed Under: WordCamp

Where to Find Me on the Web

Facebook
Flickr
GitHub
Topeka WordPress Meetup
Twitter
YouTube
Vimeo
WordPress

Adobe Stock
Pond5
Shutterstock

Blog Categories

  • Code
  • Coding
  • GridPane
  • Plugins
  • Review
  • Themes
  • Web Server
  • WordCamp
  • WordPress

My Favorite WordPress Developer Products

Advanced Custom Fields
Code Snippets
Custom Content Shortcode
Custom Post Types UI
DesktopServer
Genesis Theme Framework
GridPane Cloud Server Management
Instant IDE
Meta Box
Post Meta Inspector

Copyright © 2023 · Dynamik-Gen on Genesis Framework · WordPress · Log in

Running Dynamik Website Builder child theme on the Genesis platform.
Copyright © 2019 Dave Navarro, Jr.