This Is Head First
Episode one, before I was ready. A few hours ago, I walked out of my first speaking gig. And I figured that's probably the best possible time to start a podcast that I've been thinking about for a very long time. So I'm Darian Glausier. I'm a software engineer, and as of today, I'm a speaker. I can say that now, officially, it just happened.
And this is Head First. It's basically a show where I can think out loud about the tools, the hard stuff, and what it actually looks like to become who you want to be — or who I want to be.
The Two Gigs
So I just came back again from HomerCon. It's basically an internal conference at Home Depot. It was all online and I gave a 10-minute lightning talk. Now I do have a second gig in June with Women Who Code 2026. Completely different topic, I believe a completely different kind of audience as well. So I've never done either of these before today. I've done chats, I've done presentations, but nothing like what I'm doing and what I plan to keep doing.
HomerCon, What If Your Constraint Was You?
The HomerCon talk was called What if Your Constraint Was You, AI, and NDPH? The premise was basically something that I built for myself. It was a daily planning system that uses AI to design around my day — with my actual capacity and not just the capacity that I wish I had, the one that I actually woke up with or that I'm dealing with at that moment.
So I have a chronic condition that affects me every single day. And I'm not gonna go deep on it today — that's its own conversation. But the short version is I had to learn to work differently. It was difficult. It wasn't something that I could outdiscipline. It was a constraint that didn't respond to discipline. So I had to build a system around it instead.
And that's what the talk was about. Not just for people who have what I have — it's actually pretty happily rare, I guess. Anyone who's been exhausted in a way they couldn't explain — that feeling actually has a name. It's cognitive overhead.
The thing about overhead is that it is invisible until it already cost you something.
I went in with six drafts. I timed my slides out to where I roughly wanted it to be because it was only 10 minutes and I didn't want to run over too much. I did like 10 minutes and 30 seconds. So I appreciate those extra 30 seconds. I practiced a lot, I knew where the hard parts were. And it still fell short to me. The problem wasn't the talk itself. It wasn't what I covered. It was basically that 10 minutes is really small for a topic that big — especially when it can be personalized to literally everyone.
I knew it going in wasn't going to be enough. That said, people even said it to me afterward, "you packed a lot in." I'm taking that as a compliment and a fact at the same time.
But here's what I know now that I didn't fully believe before I walked in there. Packed doesn't mean incomplete. I gave out a link at the end — a full walkthrough, everything they would need to actually go and build this for themselves. The talk was actually just the door. The resource was the room. You don't have to deliver everything in one session. You just have to deliver enough that people want to walk through that door.
How did it actually go? Really well. About 70 people in the session. Better than I expected. Good turnout. And coming from me, I'm really proud.
Women Who Code, Coming in June
Fast forward to my next one — Women Who Code. It's gonna be in June, in New York City. Developer-focused audience, more tech savvy. HomerCon was literally for anyone and everyone, so I had to be a little bit more broad on how I talked. With Women Who Code — it is in the name — I feel like you're a little bit more technologically savvy.
The topic is basically a tool that I built during an innovation week at work. It's a way to use AI to understand a codebase. Not just search it, but understand it — the structure, the patterns, what connects to what. If you've ever joined a new team and felt like you were reading a language only you hadn't learned yet, this is the problem that it solves. There's so much information that you have that AI doesn't, and it needs some of that information too, and you have to know how to give it to it. So this just helps.
I actually got something sharper during the week I had to build it, so yay.
The talk hasn't started. And I find that gap interesting to sit with.
HomerCon: extra. Every beat mapped. Slides done. Practice out loud. Women Who Code: I know what I built. I know why it matters. And that's exactly where I am right now. I'm not going to spiral about that. I have time. I have the thing. I know my process works.
Having something worth saying and knowing how to say it really aren't the same skill. One comes before the other. And I'm in the right order.
What Prep Actually Looks Like
Finding the Spine
I don't start with a script. I start with a question — what am I actually trying to say — then I let it expand. Sometimes it's like a canvas with branches coming off of it. Sometimes it's just a brain dump until I can see the shape. Either way, I'm looking for the spine. Three or four things that actually need to be said. You may want to talk about everything, but not everything needs to be said.
I've had to cut things out that I really wanted to talk about. You have to learn to take yourself out of it a little bit. You need a story to hold everything together — the moments that make it feel real rather than presented. Data gets you in the door, but feelings make someone stay.
Drafting and Pressure Testing
Once I have the rough shape, I draft it out. And now this is when I'll use AI — not to write for me, but to pressure test it. Where does this flow? Where does it drag? Where am I losing my thread? Where am I rambling?
And once that's done, I work from the talking points, the high-level beats, the details that I know I want to hit. Maybe a line I've worked on because I know exactly where I want it to land. But I'm not performing a script. Because it's so hard if you lose your spot to get back to it. It's not worth it.
If I go 30 seconds over because something else came up, that's fine. That's real. But you need your high-level points — especially if you've got memory issues, ADHD, anything like that. You need something almost physical to anchor to.
Designing Around Who You Actually Are
I use slides partly because my memory isn't always reliable. Mid-sentence, I can lose a thread. A slide in front of me means I can pick that back up. It's not a limitation — well, I mean, yeah, it's a limitation I'm working around. And it's also a design decision.
It's the same thing I said in the HomerCon talk: plan around who you actually are. Not the version of yourself that slept eight hours, had no meetings, and has unlimited focus. That person doesn't exist for any of us on any consistent basis.
The goal of a system is that it holds on the hard days. Not just the easy, wonderful, data-is-flowing-in-nicely days. At some point, I stopped being able to tell where that work ended and the rest of my life began. Which I think is probably the right outcome.
What I've Been Sitting With
Here's what I've been sitting with since this morning. I didn't have opportunities like this before I got sick. I know how that sounds kind of backwards. But something changed in me — a specific kind of impatience. If I want to try something, I should probably try it now. I've learned not to assume later looks the same as now.
So I said yes to the podcast today. I said yes to two speaking gigs. Figured out what ready looked like on the way there. I'm realizing that ready isn't ready. You're never going to be ready. It is a figment.
Head First doesn't mean you're not scared. It means you decided that waiting wasn't the answer.
Your good days, your bad days — they're both real. The constraints you're navigating — real. The thing you haven't started because you don't feel ready — valid. But you don't have to have it all figured out before you move.
I'm Darian Glausier, and this is Head First. Bye.