 Oh, your shit. Hi, my name is JJ Asghar, and I'm the senior partner engineer at Chef. That didn't go. Or should I say a crippling introvert? A short generalized description of the difference. Extroverts are energized by interacting with people, and introverts are drained by interacting with people. OK, cool. I realized my introversion a while ago. But as you can tell by what I mean being up here, I figured out how to energize myself with conferences. First, these are my tactics. This is how I've learned over the past two years around the world, and how to cope to get the most out of it. As you can spell, see, I've misspelled cope. See if anyone's actually reading these lines. Second, these may work for you. But you need to find it in yourself to make conferences enjoyable. No one likes a conference, eh, crabby conference goer. Oh, perfect, thank you. Third, your first conference is always the hardest. It's like riding a bike. You'll end up wanting to do this all the time. I keep thinking about putting a picture of my daughter driving around on a bike and almost hitting me. It's actually quite good little gift. First, assuming this isn't your first conference, these tactics can work for me for now on. And you might have already seen me use some of these. First tactic is carry around a game or two. As you can see, I have one. Coupe, resistance, exploding kittens are perfectly sized for this stuff, and they're fun. Find a table at lunch that is close to everyone but empty. Take a seat facing the crowd. You'll be surprised on how quickly people come to you. I'm going to get patient.bear at chef.io one of these days. Booze helps. It really does. Know your limits, though. You'll turn people away if you go overboard. As they say, drink responsibly. Do your best not to open your laptop or notebook. You want to play your work, and it's really hard to have a conversation of our laptop. Recently, I found a group of people working with the Elk Stack and learned about how crappy Kibana 4 is in 10 minutes with them compared to months and months of research. You know it's true. If open spaces are an option, be willing to start an open space that is so off the wall and so weird and curious. People will come talk to you. I'm famous for dwarf fortress, if you know what that is, we're using it in piracy. I like piracy. Find a conference buddy. That's off. Find a conference buddy. Ideally, someone you've seen at other conferences. You'll be amazed how many doors open by one other person. It's OK to slip away. As I say, naps are awesome. Take breaks for quite time. If you identify as an introvert, it's not an excuse not to enjoy tech conferences. You need to figure out what makes them enjoyable for you. Ideally, people are actually reading these. OK, cool. You'll be surprised how many other people identify as introverts. Hell, I'm up here, and I do. And I'm more than willing to talk about this. And one of the open spaces I will be asking for is an introversion talk. Very introversion one. You know yourself the best. If something tells you you need to recharge, go do it. Like this cat. Funk. Everyone wants cat pictures. Carry around a gamer, too. Seriously, it really can open up a lot of doors. And, hell, you just see I am. I even tell myself to pick up the game in that card. Uh-oh. There's a huge chance I put this talk together so people would come up to me, instead of me having to go talk and making the first move. Thank you. And if there's anyone want to play a game?