 DJ Nelson Jr. I met six years ago at Salt Lake through the internet. We've watched a lot of episodes of the OC. You know, we've gone on road trips. He's shit you not. He is the best photographer and videographer I know. He worked for three or four years at the Apple Store or the creative bar. You know, people would come in and say, I've got all these photos. What do I do with them? And he'd show you how to use all the eye-life stuff. And he's gonna tell some stories about that. So my story is a little bit more about, you know, the previous talk was more of a universal application. Mine is more about personal failure. So one of the things that my dad always told me was, fail as fast as you can. Because then you're kind of free to do really great things. And my mom expected a lot of me. So she said, be brilliant. And so I kind of held on to the be brilliant part and the whole failure thing really scared me. So all throughout elementary school I was, basically I would fake-sick every single time there's some kind of oral report or anything I had to do with the presentation. And I shit you not. Valentine's Day was the worst because that is like the scariest thing to not get a Valentine, right? So I kind of grew up with that and in my profession have gone towards film editing. If anyone has ever sat in a bedroom, you know that you're in the dark, you're in the cave by yourself for 8 to 14 hours a day and you don't really talk to anybody unless they want changes on something. So I did that and I was a youngster. I edited on my first film when I was 20 years old which is kind of unheard of because it's a very, it's a profession that film world, you know, you start off as a PA and you get coffee and that's what you do for a really long time until someone gives you the trust to sit in front of a computer. So I did that and eventually got really lonely. Not talking to anybody is kind of really depressing and being, you know, an Apple geek I guess you would say like in Salt Lake I saw there was a retail opening and thought it'd be a really fun thing to take a break from film world and go into something more social. So I applied and I never heard back and I was like well whatever, you know, it's retail and I can do it without. And then one afternoon in June I got a phone call that said you saw your application but we don't think that you're right for the job that you applied for but there's this new position called the creative where you teach how to use software and software is something that comes really easy to me. I can learn it really fast so learning new software seemed to be kind of my back. So in August of 2005 I interviewed for the position and they liked me and said they'd be in touch and so I kind of sat and waited and waited and waited and waited and then finally in September of that year they called me up and said you've got a week we're gonna send you to the Bay Area to train and we'll stick you in a store for a bit. And so I packed my bags and they sent me off and we spent two really great weeks on the Apple campus it's back when they treated their employees a little bit better. So we got you know per diem and hung out on campus and ate at the cafe and kind of just saw how the Apple culture was and how it worked and then after that they stuck us in a store. I was under the impression the entire time that I would be giving kind of one-on-one lessons because that's kind of how it worked the best. But as retail kind of changed they started doing more and more of the oral presentations. If you've ever been to an app store and heard one, you're talking about iPhoto and stuff like that. And so my first day in Palo Alto, Tim Gregory was the guy that I was shadowing and he asked what applications I knew the least and his garage band. Because I'm a photo guy, I don't record music. And so he said well that's great we have a garage band lesson coming up at 10 and you've got an hour to learn the script, learn the software the best you can and we're gonna stick you out in the US. And I was like oh well this is what I asked for I guess, it's more social it's a good answer. So I went in the back of the store and I sat in and I flipped open this huge white binder full of the script on how to talk about garage band. Apple has a pretty specific vocabulary. You learn things that they like they like you to talk their way. They don't want you to talk and then you know and you personalize it but there are there are ways you present certain things. So I'm going through the script and learning about mini keyboards which was like this to me I didn't know you know I didn't know what MIDI was and and how to create a song basically you have to create a song in you know in your lot of time which is an hour but about 45 minutes. And so 45 minutes later I didn't get the full hour. He comes back and grabs me and he says alright well you've got these two ladies who are they're regulars they come and hang out they come shop and sit and listen to presentations. You've got a couple of Stanford professors who they all like to hang out to it's you know no pressure and and you have Laurie and that's Steve Jobs wife. So you know I turned I know I turned like bright white and I kind of power out into this big wooden horseshoe shape with two screens behind me and put on the microphone and what precedes is the worst oral presentation one could ever give in their life. In front of the people who you find would be the ones who are judging you the most. First up you know I open up I open up my my keynote presentation the screens don't work and so filling dead air trying to press buttons on the little console to try to like screens are lighting off lighting turning off lighting turning off. I'm talking and I can hear myself just like I can hear myself now but I don't know if the speakers are working or just going to work. Then comes the part where I bring out the microphone and I bring out the MIDI keyboard and the MIDI keyboard's not working and at that point I've turned from a white white to a bright red. I can hear the heartbeat in my ears my cheeks are hot I can feel them and at one point Laurie says just take a breath do your best and so I took a breath and with 15 minutes left figured out how to get it all. So at that point I felt like okay that was the hardest thing I've ever done ever going from someone who doesn't speak during the day to is giving these presentations and you know since like after that I moved to the Salt Lake store and I had more proficient with it. I was asked to move to the Manhattan store and was so comfortable that I was teaching people how to teach. I had I had messed up so badly that I had figured out all the ways not to present and for my year in Manhattan was teaching new employees how to give presentations and how to give lessons once one hand to a group setting. So that kind of I finished off with my my employment at Apple and I really liked it I wanted to get back into the film world so I got a gig on another film came back to Salt Lake and found that in that span of time learned a lot about myself and about what I'm capable of doing and how I'm capable of presenting myself and then again still for young I think I was 23 or 4 at that point I had the confidence to deal with these companies like Panavision who are used to speaking to old hats and people who were in the industry for a long time and I had the confidence of calling Panavision and saying how does this work this needs to work this way how can we get it to work on our movie and I think back to what my dad said about failing very fast and my mom saying about being brilliant and how those go hand in hand you know you you hear hear these like lessons from people in your life young or even now about about things like that and how and you don't quite take them to heart until you've gone through the experience and you can look back and see like oh wow yeah I should have just given that world presentation in second grade and I would have been much more prepared now and even you know lying in bed last night still get a little pitter-patter knowing that I'm going to speak in front of a group of peers and what they're going to think and how that's going to come across to them but I know it's not going to go as worse as it did in front of learning a quick talk that's all I've got do they do that to everybody oh did they do that often with learning no I was the lucky one she does visit the Palo Alto store and the surrounding area and shop but it was sort of just a random occurrence did you have an opportunity to speak with Lauren after just does you know tell her maybe have her tell her husband give it some good you know it's a good word for you the furthest I could be the better no but but she did give me a wink thanks for listening guys