I wanted to be an actress and now I work on screens , I'm on stage , I give interviews , I do videos and , yes , the last story is I have a pseudonym Spalato . It's not my true name . I totally invent it like actors . My true name is very French , it's Perrier , which is in English Perrier , in Spanish Perrier it's . It don't sound good .
So it was when I entered Codaball . I have this public profile and I was living in Croatia . My partner is from Croatia and we think , okay , I have to find another name . That's yes , and so we think . In French , spalato is the ancient name , the Roman name , italian name of Split .
If you type Spalato on internet , you will see the city of Split in Croatia , which is beautiful , and I was living there at this time . So this is where my name come from .
Hello and welcome to Developers Journey , the podcast bringing you the making of stories of successful software developers to help you on your upcoming journey . I'm your host , tim Borghigno . On this episode , I receive Alexandra Spalato . Alexandra dipped her toes in many , many industries , from pharmacy and business to acting PR , investment and web development .
Finally , I would say , as a dev , she wore many hats as well , from freelance to entrepreneur , and it's given her a fabulous mix of experiences to bring to the table . She currently rocks as a DevRel engineer at StoryBlock , diving deep into the Jamstack and headless architectures . Alexandra , a warm welcome to DevTourney .
Hello , thank you , I'm happy to be here .
Oh , it's a pleasure to receive you here today , but before we come to your story , I want to thank the terrific listeners who support the show . Every month , you are keeping the DevTourney lights up .
If you would like to join this fine crew and help me spend more time on finding phenomenal guests than editing audio tracks , please go to our website , devjourneyinfo and click on the support me on Patreon button . Even the smallest contributions are giant steps toward a sustainable DevTourney journey . Thank you , and now back to today's guest .
So , as you know , alex , the show exists to help the listeners understand what your story looked like and imagine how to shape their own future . So , as is usual on the show , let's go back to your beginnings . Where would you place the start of your DevTourney ?
I don't know exactly what the DevJourney working earning my life as developer , I would say 10 years ago . But my first contact with the web not even development was in 2002 by sharing an apartment . But I have to go long before to tell you all my path .
We're all about stories , so let's go there .
Okay , so long , long ago , I wanted to be an actress . That's what I really wanted and perhaps this choice was because I was very shy when I was a child but I was extrovert and that was really hard to live because I wanted contact with people and I'm energized by people etc . But I was not confident . So I think that was .
I was appealing to be on stage , not to struggle with that . But before that , before going to that , my family wanted to make studies etc . Andi studied pharmacy and , to be honest , I was not really interested . So I was going to the university and partying a lot , I was going out a lot , etc . And learning before exams .
But now , if I go back to that , I realize that I didn't learn about pharmacy . I think many people know much more than me about , about medicaments etc . Because they get sick etc . I never get sick . I think I ate so much pharmacy that I don't be sick , so I don't have to go . So I'm never , never sick . And but I was learning .
I was studying just one month before my exam , generally in summer , because I just waiting the last , the last chance , and I think that teach me to , to learn to be a fast learner . Oh , I was perhaps a fast learner before , but it made it really in my , my idea into how to learn something quickly and to enter that and crunch it .
You know , and I didn't was not really passionate about pharmacy , but I I realized that something I love is the process of learning and I was good at that . So , yes , I love learning things . I realize that there . So after that I did a business school , because family pharmacy was business school , etc .
And then I was not learning one month before , but one week before , because many things like marketing etc . Are finally quite in Twitter . So and then I went , I failed the exams because it was a question I didn't know , and I realized my life Suddenly . I realized that I was at my exam table .
I remember that and realize , oh , but that's now , it's not just shooting and okay , enjoying my life and learning one month before you know it's really working at a company or something and it's it's not what , what I like , and so and and I was not excited anymore by pricing exams , by the challenge , because I was I think I was liking the challenge too , and
so I was not motivated and so I'm failing and because of that I had six months of a sort of hole and I went to Paris and I went , I applied to a drama school because that's what I wanted to do and I didn't come back to finish the business school . So my family was crazy and and , yes , I loved it , but I didn't succeed .
I think it was not my path and I was a very bohemian life , trying things , meeting people . But so also , I think , being in this kind of life , you are solving problems . You are solving life problems because it's quite bohemian and complicated and it's creative and at the end , the code is creation too . So I was there in Paris , I did many things .
I wanted to be a casting director then and of course , I have to work my life so to do other things and so I was mostly in sales jobs because I'm more , I'm more contact person , communication person , that I'm not practical at all . So even even you know , jobs like working at restaurants and things were not for me , so only only sales and communication .
Pharmacy I tried because I had the diploma . I don't , I didn't finish the thesis but I could work in a pharmacy , but it was really , really not for me . It was . I was literally counting , counting the seconds . Yes , I remember that I have an internship and I was counting the second , so I really hated that . So it was terrible .
And and so in 2002 , I was sharing an apartment and my roommate was a photographer , but he was earning his life by doing websites . Okay , yes , and so what ? I didn't know what to do with my life . At this moment , I see the actress thing , where it was quite complicated to stick to that and I knew I wanted to be independent .
I didn't want to work for a company at this moment , and and and that I love learning , and so I I asked him oh , how much money you make ? It was not much and so much money , but for me it was enough at this time . And , okay , you were working , working from home , and you have learned by yourself . Yes , oh , so I can do it , and I have a computer .
I have a shitty computer that I buy from nothing . So I was not , I was . I have nothing around about tech , about computers , et cetera . In my life I had no people in tech . No , it was really something totally out of my , my universe at this moment . But I enter into that with dream weather in visual , because I was not thinking about coding .
You know it's . I'm not a math person . Yes , I'm not a math person . I didn't do puzzles , I even don't drink coffee , so so , and I'm a right brain , I think is more than the left one . And and so it was fun because I'm a creative yes , I'm a right brain , I'm a creative . So I said , wow , I can create things .
And I remember passing the whole night creating a fake websites about my partner , you know crazy things , et cetera , and and and , because I was hooked by that , by creating something , and it was a time we dreamed weather . We will have these buttons . We know if , with this star that was turning into .
So I was trying all this crazy animation , because when you begin , you love them . You don't realize that this is totally true . You'll taste , develop later , and but at this time I don't . I use it for me , I , I , I learn HTML templates too , but I didn't get into code , perhaps I .
I built some websites , some for business ideas I had and things like that , but it was just the seed , and so this was in 2002 . And then I did many things I want to even bring the investors in IPOs and things and working at public relations as assistant , and so that this was in 2011 . And in this position , that was really not fun .
I asked my boss oh , you don't have a website . I can do it for you . For 500 euros I can do a website . And I did it with weeks . It was weeks in flash at this time . Okay , but it's a seed . I had reborn and and I I create something . That was really nice and and I was really hooked by that .
And then I discovered WordPress , and WordPress , as you know , you don't know come with many pre-built themes , et cetera . And in the beginning , when I discovered that was like , wow , this is how it works . It was like , like you know , taking out the wheel of something , oh , that's how you do it . And I was hooked with that .
At all my free time , I was passing it , taking a theme from WordPress and and trying to build something and , yeah , it works . And learning a bit of HTML and and beginning to do websites for actors , singers and people like that .
And and then , yes , the change , the chance was she was working with a , with a jeweler , and the communication agency from the jeweler would become friends and one day I had this guy on the phone and say , hey , I'm doing . You know , I'm selling some websites with WordPress , et cetera . I say , oh , how have you done it ? But I have learned .
And oh , but I will need you , and so quickly . After I was working with this agency , but as freelancer because I wanted to be freelancers I was working from home and my work was just to implement the WordPress theme . It tell me , okay , take the theme , implement it with this , this feature , and make a tutorial for the interns . So I was doing that .
So it was six months after I began . I was earning my life with that equity of PR agency and I was already earning my life , but then I get bored of working with films and so , welcome to hello to CSS , a little bit CSS .
And I remember it was in 2012 and the first time I took a logo and I put it from the semi was on the right and they need it in the middle , and I put it in the middle of an 2 CSS . I was wow , that's amazing . I was amazed just by that . And again , it was discovering something new and that thing , it's in development . For me is all like that .
You think something oh , how to do that ? And you discover how to do it is wow . And then , okay , it becomes something common and you need more . It's like a drug at the end , you know , because you need more and more and more and to not get bored , because I'm quickly bored and so , yes , so that that was with CSS .
And then I get bored of working with WordPress themes , of course , so I learned how to build WordPress theme with PHP . I don't like PHP , but well , it was only front and PHP , so I was really front end and and after that I quit this agency and I entered in Codébol , which is a platform for WordPress experts .
It was just beginning at this time now entering is really complicated , but it was in 2014 . It was easier , it was a beginning and that was great because I was really beginning . But , yes , I was good at design . That's the summer before beginning really with the web . I pass it looking tutorials at Photoshop , so I have the eye for design .
Naturally , I'm not a designer because I don't master the tools . I prefer development because it's like giving life to things . But it gives me an advantage as freelancer because you , you know how to make things nice , and that's a big advantage . And to enter in Codébol , I made a website with a builder , you know , because I was not into PHP but it was .
It was really nice in colors and things and it was creative . So I entered in Codébol and then I have clients from all over the world because I was paying well , etc . And and that was , yes , a beginning of beginning really more professional and building custom things .
And I ended up building custom WordPress theme , really advanced , with a custom back office and everything . I was not using pre-made themes at all . I didn't like it and and of course , I get bored just before we go to the after boredom so I mean you mean you .
You gradually added more and more and more to your theme building .
At first it was very much theme tweaking , taking a thing that already exists and just changing stuff and adding a little bit and then in the end it was not just the theme but WordPress as a whole ecosystem of plugins and really making the theme work with a plugin , and actually the whole spectrum of customizing WordPress .
Yes , it's giving me a design , like like I do if I do in React now , but clients was giving me a design and I was building everything from scratch , but in WordPress , with a WordPress back office .
Taylor made for the client , taylor made builder and and everything like that so did you realize at that point , looking back and saying , wow , all the things I learned in in in little time and saying , well , I , I saw WordPress as a black box at the beginning and just plugging stuff into it . And now I see the . I see the , the box completely open .
I see how it's working . I see the in the , now that I can find my way easily in all this technology . Did you realize that at that point ?
yes , I think it's our story as developers and and with the importer syndrome imposter syndrome , if you love , if you , if we look at all what we don't know and that other people do , then we have the imposter syndrome and of course I have it . But , yes , the way is to . If you look back you say , wow , I , I learned all that .
And you realize even more when you tell the story of because I've done that , that , that and that , because I think the , the knowledge is comprising in your mind . You don't realize that you know all that because it's being part of you .
And then if you have to tell I know that , that , and then say , oh , I know all that and it's , and then you realize that it's , that it's a lot , but yes , it comes gradually and , and it's better for me , it comes by working , so always stretching , and I think also , what is different it's as you , you have an engineer formation , so you know , learn
everything and you , you come .
But we're good for nothing . That that's what we say about engineers they're ready for everything , but they're good for nothing , so yeah , I don't know that .
Yeah , so we do . In my case , we do a lot of things . And then anybody was more going from the periphery to the center . You know , I want , okay , I have something that is pre-made and and , yes , a black box . You're in the black box and you are taking , like an onion .
You take , you're peeling the onion and you want to go to the center and to be free , also to have the freedom to create whatever you want and that's , uh , yes , better than boredom , is that ? But I want more . I want to do that . I want and I don't want to have limits . Yes , I hate limitations in in anything , so I like freedom .
So , if I want freedom , I have to learn to do it myself and not to be limited by this of this from a WordPress team or whatever this is awesome , this is really cool .
So so you , you learned all of this .
You really peeled out the onion , as you said , and then it stood the ins and outs of WordPress , and at some point you probably reached a plateau saying , okay , you know , you know a lot of things , if you want to know twice more , it will take exponentially more time to really go deeper , and that's probably where boredom started to to emerge again .
That's where I cut you before .
So , yes , I had also a really complicated project , but with the toxic client that the type of friends that you have doing everything and then they do Q&A for they will they were loading literally an image of super heavy and I told them and they are , know you for a little arrow on the Samsung phone , etc .
And re-itering new Q&A and not letting you go for six months , and and so I think , yes , that was the plateau and and I realized , oh , I want you to learn more things , and so I did a JavaScript bootcamp in 2018 how did you decide on going for a javascript bootcamp at that point ? I think I don't .
I don't remember some Twitter , somebody talked about bootcamps and and I begin to look at this and some something , oh , I want to do this , and when I want something , I become quite obsessed by it . It's Mono Maniac , so you have . Perhaps that's why I learned quickly , also because I became obsessed by something and and yes , and I don't see anything else .
And so I found it one in Barcelona , and it was in Spanish and , as I'm born bilingual , my mother is Spanish , my father is French , I'm born in France and I live in Madrid now , and so I speak English .
Oh , yes , one thing also that is important for development it's I have lived in Andalusia 15 years ago and when I arrived there , my English was basic , the English for school . As French people , as you know , we are not the better education in English .
So , yes , I have this basic English , but I was in Andalusia , by the coast , in a place where there was people , english people there from 20 years that don't speak Spanish . So I came back after three years there . I came back fluent in English .
Yes , and without believe it or not , without that I will not be there today , because I was not realizing you really need English for that and well , that's been very limiting . In all the courses I take online were in English , but this boot camp was in Spanish and say , okay , it's to have less load on my mind .
You know there is already so much things to learn that doing it in one of my native language it's easier . So that's why I choose this one in Barcelona . And it was full stack , node and react . So , yes , three months full time and , yes , it was really good , because the boot camps you are totally immersed .
You can do it online , but being live , you cannot think about anything else . It's really an immersion . I even was wasn't able to think about WordPress or things , because your mind is turned on this and , yes , you learn faster . It's an immersion . So after that , most of my colleagues at the boot camp were getting jobs . I was not there to get a job .
I was there to not get bored , to learn more things , and but after that , yes , I learned , react and say , okay , what I'm going to do now and at this time in 2019 and the really the hype was with Gatsby , so everybody was in Gatsby , so I dive into Gatsby and all begin .
Yes , I never took at conference at this time and I had my friend , zach Gordon , so that Gordon was a teacher , very well known teacher , in now he's not yet retired from tech in WordPress and his by his courses .
He was in Team Treehouse that I learned how to make WordPress themes and Zach made a course named JavaScript for WordPress , because they announced he has learned JavaScript deeply because of Gutenberg , which is built in React etc . And so he creates this course .
He is a very good developer , but also a very good communicator and businessman and speaker , and many people that have passed by his course and I was on his course and he was organizing every year conference JavaScript for WordPress and I was learning Gatsby .
And so I write to him say , oh , perhaps I can speak about Gatsby at your , at your covc and with WordPress . And oh , yeah , yeah , yeah . And then we had a call and we meet in person and at the end of our meeting he said me oh , look , I want to propose you something to build .
I have the project to build , uh , free themes with free WordPress theme and turn them into Gatsby . Are you interested to work with me on that ? I say , oh , yes , yes , yes , I want that . And , uh , that was the beginning of really a new , a new adventure , um and uh .
And so we built that , together with other guys too , and and Zach , yes , helped me a lot , uh , personally , etc . Really a nice guy . And after that and I speak at his conference it was in 2019 uh , online , you went well . And After that , gatsby write me on Twitter to be speaker at Gatsby Days in London .
And the funny thing is , I took I have already took my ticket to go to Gatsby Days , to the conference I wanted to go , and so they found me and it was my first in-person conference in 2019 , the Gatsby Days in London . But it was really , really great .
How did that talk go as the shy extrovert that you described yourself being ?
But I already cure the shy thing with the drama school .
Oh , okay .
Yes , it's always there , you know . It's always a wound somewhere and if you find people , for example , that are talking a lot , talking too much I'm part of them it's because we want to hide this shyness , so we do too much and we can seem very extrovert , but it's a struggle to because we are not somebody that is very confident and secure .
We'd be calmer , etc . So you can find this type of symptoms . So , but yes , it goes much better .
So that all went well .
Yes , but to have been in drama school of course make me much more confident on stage and the way of speaking , etc . There is things that you don't forget .
I'm planning actually to perhaps retake a drama school here in Madrid to have fun and to improve my speaker skills , because I'm doing a lot of talks now and so , yes , but I was amazed when Gensby called me for that . I said wow , and I had great time , it went well . And one thing that I remember speaking at conference .
I think it's great to take out to cure the imposter syndrome too , because you see the reaction of people . You feel that people are learning something from you and they are happy and they come to see you and ask questions . And the most crazy was somebody that created things , really , really a great engineer and come to me oh , your talk was great , etc .
And he learned things . And then you realize that what you know is not what they know and it's complementary in my path in life . Yes , it's doing creative things and it's not the same that deep engineers that will have perhaps will be better in code , but perhaps I will have all the creative ideas because who I am and because of my life too .
So it's two different things , but the imposter syndrome never goes totally away .
You just learned to live with it .
Yes , so that was my first conference . That was great , and yes , and after that I decided to create professional Gatsby WordPress themes . So not ?
the three ones you did with .
DAQ , but your own company to do that ? Yes , I always wanted to create a product , to create something against the creative thing . So , that's something I always have in mind , and so I did it with Paulina , a colleague .
She's really good , she's a doctor in math and super creative , and DAQ was supposed to be the marketing , but DAQ retired and you realize that I have a lot of fun creating it . They are beautiful , but without marketing .
You don't say so you had to do marketing on your own .
No , because I don't like marketing .
So it's not my thing .
I don't have the money to invest , to hire I had no . I had a woman who joined me , Bridgette . She was doing Twitter , but she has to earn her life too . She cannot put full time on that . So at the end I mentioned it a time . But then when I entered Storyblocks , I stopped it because I was making one sale a month , and so it was exciting .
Somebody said , oh , buy it in Japan . And so it was exciting to know it that you have created something and somebody on the other side of the world buy it . And I learned a lot by building that . So I never regret to have done it , but I learned that if one day I create something , I will not do it alone . I need a business partner .
I can learn it , but it's not my thing , it's not something I enjoy . So you cannot be everything , and building a business has several parts . So I'm building a block template now in Storyblocks for the community . So I'm retaking that , you know , but inside the company .
So how did you decide on the next step when you realized , okay , this Gatsby theme business is not working as well as you expected . You need to do a next step . How did you went at solving this ?
problem At this moment . When I did the Gatsby theme , I was stealing , being a freelancer . When I was a freelancer , but more specialized in the headless WordPress world Using WP . Graphql is a plugin for WordPress . Create a GraphQL API .
So I was a lot in this community and I made several projects as a freelancer in headless WordPress , especially once they called me because I saw my product and it was transferring WordPress blog . It was music tech . It was a beautiful blog with I don't know 8,000 posts transferring it to Gatsby but keeping the back office in WordPress .
I like my design too and it was close to what they do and they have creative . The brand design was there , but I have to create the design too . I did it in code with Tailwind and so it was really one of my favorite projects because it was creative . The team was great .
It was also developers , so they will take back on other things and the website was beautiful . So it was really one of my favorite projects and they came from the . They contacted me because they saw my website for the themes , so that was nice . So I was continuing both and hoping that the moment it take off , et cetera .
But no , the next step came because it was just 10 years . I was freelancing , so it's like , yes , it's fun because it's really a decade and 22, . And my , my project I get become bigger . So when you have something that can be toxic and I was and you go to the bigger step , you can underestimate it and a project can become toxic , and that happens .
I have two toxic project 2021 . I remember the summer 21 . I think I didn't even take weekends , I was just turning crazy with this project . Yes , it was . That's how you find out . So , yes , you talk about hiring people .
I was people working with me and I find a collaborator because I was stuck in this thing and everybody has let me down and and so I find on discord this , this guy solve a bug I have , and so we had .
Because if , if you ask from people's and you have 20 people that came and you don't , you don't know who to choose and and and so this guy we had a call is from India and we had immediately great feeling and and his personality to it goes with me and he really helped me on this project , set my life on this project at this end , at the point when I
entered story block one month after he entered to yes , yes , yes , so we still in the same company , etc . So it's really really a nice , nice story and is amazing . He's just somebody that can take any documentation they don't know and a few hours after he has a solution . So it's yeah . Yeah , he didn't do engineering .
He's doing that for three years , but I think , yes , in India I talk with people , they they have math education very young and I think it trains the brain , and another friend told me also that they written language is so complicated that it trains the mind to understand it .
So , okay , so there is yes , some when there are brilliance are really really good and it's always amazing me . So so , yes , I had this toxic project that's 2021 and 2022 . Then it was a cancelled project after cancel project . So I had 10 years flowing . I didn't do marketing's projects that were just flowing by contacts and things and and it was easy .
I never , I never had to buy my friends like was . I don't know if I , if 2022 was bad luck or if the 10 years before was huge luck , because I never had a plan or make marketing or anything . So I think the next step would have been to have an agency .
The way I was going okay , and I believe in science and things like that , and I think if I realized now being an agency would have been an ego of things . You know , if I business , etc . But if I realize what I like to do , I like learning , I love , I love creating and I love communicating .
I don't , like , you know , running after clients , doing marketing and and managing and managing people . You know it's not what I love to do . I love to create things and learn things . So I think it would have been the the wrong path , almost this way .
So it's like the sign okay , no , no , that's not the way you have to go , so we are going to cut you the money and you are going to go to another path . Now it's time . So this really , I really take the message like that and and I've been asked to be there I was asked to be developer relation in 2020 after I made my talks , etc . By frontity .
Frontity was a react framework for , exclusively for WordPress , and now they have been bought by automatic and not the framework , but the team the team is working on on Gutenberg and they are from Spain and so they contact me to ask me to be developer relation , but at this time . Okay , I didn't want to work for a company , I want to keep free .
And I was thinking that developer relation was only about writing documentation and that's not something that wasn't enjoying . So I say I even didn't think about it . I say no , no , I'm not interested .
And so they asked me if I can recommend somebody and I recommend my former teacher from my job for my bootcamp , which entered there just before the pandemic and and he's super happy and he's fun because we became friends , because he was interested about WordPress and I was in WordPress and now he worked at automatic and me I work in JavaScript .
So he worked in JavaScript , but he worked at automatic .
So it's a . It's a fun story too . So , yes , I have been asked for that . Then it was on WPngine's hosting of WordPress . They contact me saying me oh , we are searching for a manager for developer relation and Jason Langstorf has recommended you . To what ? Why me ?
Jason is super nice and and recommend me , so he really appreciated , but I didn't understand why he was recommending me for that it's . I said no , I didn't think about it . But then 2022 was really hard . I even I began to learn web-free , but in front end , and I had a project for a NFT marketplace , so it was going to save my my finance .
And then the crypto crash came and the project died . So it was really a bad situation and Gatsby was searching ahead of Debra . So I apply and I pass for interview , but you don't go from freelance to head , I imagine . So it didn't work . And then I met Debbie O'Brien . Perhaps you know her . She's at Microsoft and she lives in Mallorca .
I was living in Mallorca and somebody told me oh , you have to meet Debbie , and we had lunch , not for work , but just because we have two women in tech in tech living in Mallorca . And that was 10 days after the rejection from Gatsby in June 2022 , and she told me , oh , you have to apply at Storyblock and at Prismic and I know them .
You can write from me , etc . And this day I was working on my team again , etc . And say , okay , I'm going to do something else . I would Storyblock and I apply the same day and three weeks after I had an offer .
So , yes , I never applied to a lot of companies , so , but I only go from yes , that's a things too because I see people applying to many , many , many things and I was not really searching for a job . I was searching for some things that bring me somewhere somewhere else , but something I like .
So , gatsby , first , because it was , it was organic for me , because I was building product with them . I even did a video for them as a contractor , so it was quite obvious . And Storyblock , oh , okay , it's a headless CMS , so this is where I come from .
So it was really , you know , speaking to me and and so it happens very , very quickly , instead of applying to hundreds of things like I was very lucky , but but well , three weeks after I had an offer and and I begin as a , as developer relation just one year ago , it was why it would be one year on the 25th .
So so yes and congratulations for them that's how it happened are you still working on the on the themes part or no ? I keep it as yes , I leave it .
In the beginning I was thinking even I put on Twitter yes , don't worry , I will maintain it , but no , it's , it was not selling so and I was so occupied with my , with my job , I quickly realized I was not . He cannot be profitable if I don't have somebody dedicated to marketing . You know , and take it , really taking that .
So I let it die and but I have to . The website is still alive and it's because the website is really nice and I believe myself , and once or two I had somebody who buy it and so I refunded immediately . I have to take it down .
I have to take the time and take everything down because it's it's not there anymore , but I don't know at what time I decide okay , no , I cannot , that's not possible .
Perhaps one day , you know , and I'm learning a lot , you being a developer in a company , and also I'm learning being a freelancer and alone you learn what you can , but you have nobody that teach you anything . So it's you stretch , and but you , yes , and and so , being at the company , you , you see bigger projects and bigger things and you learn things .
And also , yes , for the imposter syndrome . You realize that you're thinking sometimes . You think why I think like that and people don't think like that , and you think that you're right because other people approve you so and you can find help also with colleagues . So it's really refreshing after working alone for so long time .
Do you think there's something that that alexandre who was learning , always studying pharmacy I don't want to say how many years ago that this person should have , should have , or that you would have something to tell that person and say don't worry about the future because , don't worry , this is not what you are going to do .
Yes , yes , you will be . No , a fan story . I always tell it's . I wanted to be an actress and now I work on screens , I'm on stage , I give interviews , I do videos and I yes last story it's I have a pseudonym Spalato . It's not my true name . I totally invented like actors .
My true name is very French , is Perrier , which is in English Perrier , in Spanish Perrier it's . I don't sound good , so it was when I entered Coddable . I have this public profile and I was living in Croatia . My partner is from Croatia and we think , okay , I have to find another name . That's yes , and so we think .
In France , spalato is the ancient name , the Roman name , italian name of split . If you type Spalato on Internet , you will see the city of split in Croatia , which is beautiful and I was living there at this time . So this is where my name come from .
It's fun to see how how things connect in . You know how you can look at your story and say , hey , I picked that from here and that from there and that from there , and that's where am I now . I couldn't piece that out before , but now I see . Yes , absolutely .
Yeah , yeah , yeah .
And I , when I , when I begin with WordPress and all that I was thinking to do small website to actors , you know already is a theme thing I was building digital themes but it didn't work and but I never , ever imagined to be where I am now and speaking at conferences in the US and and I made a joke about that of my last co-op at Renix .
So so I don't know what did happen next , because ten years ago I didn't even imagine doing what I do now . So in ten years I don't know where I will be , to be honest .
So we'll be keeping an eye on you .
Being open , keep open to life , that's . That's don't put barriers . Keep open and play and see what happened .
I'm into that , alexander . Thank you so much . It's been a blast listening to a story . Thanks .
So where would be the best place ?
where would be the best place to continue this discussion with you ?
Twitter . Twitter Alexa Dark on Twitter , not because I'm dark , because my partner name is Darko , okay , so well . Well , I'll link to your .
Twitter account in the show notes directly . Yes , just scroll down and click on it . Anything else you want to plug in before we call it today ?
I think , yes , I think I'm okay , can continue for hours like that , because I like as an extra what I like communicating , talking with people .
so it was really nice speaking with you and thank you and thank you for that , and this has been another episode of the Opposite Journey and we see each other next week . Bye , bye .
Bye .
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