Hallway Chats

Miriam is a lead web developer at Pondstone Digital Marketing, a digital marketing agency in Ottawa, Canada. She’s been a web developer for over 12 years, has been working with WordPress since 2008.

Website | MiriamGoldman.ca

Liam: This is Hallway Chats, where we talk with some of the unique people in and around WordPress.

Tara: Together, we meet and chat with folks you may not know about in our community.

Liam: With our guests, we’ll explore stories of living – and of making a living with WordPress.

Tara: And now the conversation begins. This is episode 36.

Tara: Welcome to Hallway Chats. I’m Tara Claeys.

Liam: And I’m Liam Dempsey. Today, we’re joined by Miriam Goldman. Miriam is a lead web developer at Pondstone Digital Marketing, a digital marketing agency in Ottawa, Canada. She’s been a web developer for over 12 years, has been working with WordPress since 2008. She is one of the core organizers of WordCamp Ottawa and speaks at various WordCamps across North America. Outside of web development, she is a black belt in karate, and also a competitive Latin ballroom dancer. Hi, Miriam. How are you?

Miriam: Hi, Liam. I’m good, you?

Liam: Very well, thanks.

Tara: Hey, Miriam, nice to see you.

Miriam: Nice to see you too.

Tara: Welcome. I’d like to hear a little bit more about you and your ballroom dancing and your black belt, but especially about your interaction with WordPress and our community. Tell us a little bit more about yourself?

Miriam: I’ve got into web development pretty early. I just kind of fell into it, and WordPress I kind of just stumbled upon in 2008. I just really fell in love with it and I just built on it more and more, and I managed to get jobs that used WordPress as their content management system. Do a little bit of freelancing on the side and then I got involved with the WordPress and WordCamp community just by chance. I started just attending and then my boss at the time said, “You should speak.” So I started to speak. Then we became good friends with Megan Haynes and Sean Hooper here in Ottawa. They encouraged me to join the organizing team. That’s how I became one of the co-organizers and I believe I am taking on speaker lead for WordCamp Ottawa 2018, but it hasn’t been finalized yet.

Tara: Excellent. Is WordCamp Ottawa pretty large? How many people attend that one?

Miriam: A couple hundred. I think we had somewhere between 150 and 200 last year, I don’t recall the numbers. But it’s pretty good because there’s a core of people who come up, they come from Toronto and Hamilton, or they come in from Montreal. The cities are pretty close to each other, it’s a two-hour drive to Montreal from here and it’s about four or five-hour drive to Toronto. Kind of like the eastern WordPress community is actually pretty large and people just go from city to city because it’s pretty easy to get here.

Tara: Great. Before we talk more about WordPress and web development, tell me a little bit about the relationship between being a black belt in karate and a ballroom dancer?

Miriam: I started with karate first. I started that about ten and a half years ago because I wanted to get fit, and I was watching a karate class before a kickboxing class and I said, “That looks fun. I’m going to try it.” So with that, I got discipline and self-confidence. And the ballroom came on because I liked watching Dancing With The Stars. When I got my first-level black belt seven years ago, I wanted to do something else to build different muscles so I found a studio that just had group classes, so I did that for a couple of years. Took a little bit of a break. And then I went back and studio I was at at the time, she had just brought in a new teacher who had just come over from Russia and she had a special on private classes. I did that and he was one who encouraged me to compete. We do Pro-am which is essentially like Dancing With The Stars but for non-celebrities, it’s how I tell people. I danced with my teacher and we only do competitions here in Canada, we’ve only done Montreal and Ottawa right now. I actually have a competition in about three weeks.

Tara: Wow. What is your preferred style or do you have to do them all?

Miriam: Right now, because I came from a non-dancing background, I only started with the three main Latin dances, Cha-cha, Rumba, and Samba. And I literally just added Jive this year.

Tara: Good for you, that is great. I know a couple of other people that I follow on Twitter in the WordPress community who are ballroom dancers, so maybe there’s some correlation between that and WordPress.

Miriam: Yeah, I think Raquelle down in Phoenix is also a dancer.

Tara: Yes. And Morten, I believe, also.

Miriam: Yes, we’ve talked about that in Seattle this year. [laughter]

Liam: Tell me about karate? What– I’m not sure what branch or vein of karate do you study?

Miriam: Our school is mixed between Shotokan and Shito-ryu, it’s mostly the Shotokan katas. Again, I just did it because I wanted to get fit and look cool, and I liked to watch Power Rangers when I was a teenager. I was like, “Let’s go back and visit my teenage years again.” And I just fell in love with it as time went on. It’s got me fit, it’s given me self-confidence. Now that I’m one of the senior black belts at my school, I teach. That was one of the things I wanted to do as a kid. It kind of just all ties together. It’s just the community, I’ve made– some of my best friends are from my karate dojo.

Tara: Oh my gosh.

Liam: That’s wonderful. I think I heard you say, when you got your first belt. I’m guessing you are what degree now?

Miriam: I’m a third-degree black belt which I got about a year and a half ago.

Liam: Wow, that’s very impressive, congratulations.

Miriam: Thanks. I’m staying here for now so no more testing in the near future. Now I get to watch others get tested.

Liam: I love it.

Tara: That’s wonderful. Okay, now that we’ve gotten all that fun conversation out of the way and fascinating, by the way. Let’s talk a little bit about your background and what drove you to be interested in web development to begin with, and sort of what your specialties are in that?

Miriam: I started off in middle school with Geocities as a lot of people my age did. I was a big Sailor Moon fan back then so I was like, “I want to talk about Sailor Moon.” So I decided to just play around on the internet because my dad got it for us when I was in grade five. He got me into computers at a very, very young age. There’s a picture floating around somewhere at his place of me, maybe two or three years old, sitting on his lap playing on his Commodore 64, playing the Sesame Street educational game. I got into Geocities and I self-taught myself HTML, and I started building Sailor Moon fan pages. Then I got into Star Trek, so I did Star Trek pages. I just kind of fell into front-end development and I just did it for fun, while all the time thinking that I was going to go into some biology or a teaching degree. Then, that wasn’t working out for me in university so my manager at the Farm Boy, which is a grocery store here in Ottawa, she mentioned to me that, she’s like, “You’re always talking about stuff you do on the internet. Why don’t you look into that as a career?” I found a vocational college and I got a diploma in web development. I got my first job six weeks later and I’ve just been doing it ever since. My strengths are in front-end development but I also do back-end, basically hacking plugins and things with PHP if I need to.

Tara: Wow. The vocational college, how many years was that to get that degree?

Miriam: It was one of those for-profit colleges. I don’t know if they had them down in the States, but they have like the for-profit colleges where you work at your own pace. My program was supposed to be a year but I did in nine months.

Tara: Okay. And were all of the things that they taught you relevant to what you’re doing today?

Miriam: The core of it, the core Javascript is still relevant, the core DOM, even though that was before HTML5 was still relevant today, and testing principles, but a lot of it has just been outdated. They were teaching us Visual Basic 6 then so that’s not even relevant today.

Tara: What’s your favorite thing to do in web development? You say you’re mostly front-end but you do some back-end, too. Do you have a favorite thing?

Miriam: My favorite thing is actually playing in the back-end. Some people find it weird but I actually like the database optimization because I like to [inaudible 09:10] database, and sometimes it’s fun if I’m on the development site to tinker with the drawings and see what other relationships I can get. I haven’t done it in a while but when I have to build a custom plugin, it’s nice to just go in and plan it all out and figure out what should the database relationship be, how do I want to structure this, and then what’s the best way to get it through the code.

Liam: And where are you learning about database optimization and management because that’s not the casual web developer’s approach to getting into things? What are your tools, not what programs, but how did you learn that? I get you got excited about it because it’s really cool stuff, but how did you, aside from just playing around with it and breaking it and then trying to fix it, where do you learn?

Miriam: It was mostly that, and I got the, I guess, the foundation in college. Other than that, I just used Google and Stack Overflow. Stack Overflow is a web-developer’s best friend.

Liam: [laughs] You heard it here first.

Tara: I love that you have this multi-dimensional stuff and I’m so glad we started talking to you about your hobbies. I think a lot of times we get caught up in our space and you can get absorbed in code for a long time, so it’s great that you have these other things in your life. We talk about success on Hallway Chats and so I’m going to ask you one of our questions, which is, how do you define success in your personal life, your work life, what does success mean to you?

Miriam: That’s kind of convoluted, but to distill it down to one thing, I would say success is happiness. If I’m happy with what I’m doing and especially if I can make somebody else happy– today, I did something at work and I just heard this cheer come from the other room, and we’re sending stickers back and forth, my colleague and I in Google Hangouts because I got something done quicker than expected. Success is happiness and knowing that I’m making a difference, because some people think that web development is just doing it, “Oh, you’ve built a web page, who cares?” But to some people, having a presence on the web is very important. And sometimes just helping people fix bugs and them just expressing their gratitude to me. It doesn’t matter if I’m the top dog at a company or anything, if I have a stable job and I’m happy with where I work, which is 120% correct right now, then I consider that success, at least in the professional sense. And then, happiness is also in the personal sense. I keep myself well-rounded, as I mentioned, and I’ve got a dog who I love to cuddle with and everything. I make sure that I have time for myself, my friends and family, and it’s just balancing it all out. To me, that’s success. If I’m happy, then I’m successful.

Liam: A happy life is a wonderful thing but assessing happiness can be a challenge, right? The kind of happiness we might feel when the website we launched is well-received is one level, and when our code works, that’s another level too. How do you assess your real inner-happiness? How do you know that deep within you are happy? What kind of approach do you take to assess that for yourself?

Miriam: I think I just take the quiet times in my life and I just sit down and I think, I’m like, “Okay. Is there something I’m really missing in my life right now? Is there something that’s really deep down bugging me?” If there’s not then I consider myself happy.

Tara: What would you say is the most important thing that you do every day related to happiness?

Miriam: It’s taking time for myself. Before work, every morning I get up, walk the dog, have my coffee and I cuddle with him. And that’s a routine I’ve been doing for the past five years. And it’s just, I guess, mentally preparing for the day. It’s not meditation but it’s just having that routine and I am very much a routine-oriented person. Just following that through. And if I deviate it, then I feel off-kilter for that day. If I stay with that, it just helps me stay stable.

Liam: I’m going to be a little bit silly here and say I often like to cuddle my coffee, too, because it’s so [inaudible 14:07].

Miriam: Yeah, it’s definitely [inaudible 14:10]. [laughter]

Tara: I think she’s talking about your dog. [laughs]

Liam: Tell me about your dog? Yeah, go ahead. I know.

Miriam: I have a little Jack Russel Corgi mix I adopted five years ago, and he’s the perfect apartment dog. His favorite thing to do is just cuddle up. Right now, he’s literally in front of my laptop on the couch just lying down. He’s quiet, he’s very affectionate, he loves people. He’s pretty good with the cold, which is important when you live in Canada. It’s very good for me because for the longest time I was just living by myself in the apartment with no roommates. I’m not married, I don’t have a boyfriend so I kind of felt alone in a sense. Then I was encouraged to adopt a dog and I did, and I can’t imagine life without having him around now.

Tara: I adopted a dog also. I adopted a dog to get me out of the house and out walking and meeting my neighbors. Then I adopted a dog who doesn’t like strangers. Now I have to walk on the other side of the street when somebody is walking by. I’m glad you’ve found a cuddly dog who likes people. But dogs in general, they do, they give you that love that I think is hard to relate to and so you have a dog.

Miriam: Exactly.

Tara: What’s your dog’s name?

Miriam: His name is Sasha.

Tara: Okay.

Liam: Giving a shout out to Sasha.

Tara: Yeah. I was expecting some kind of karate or Japanese-type name.

Miriam: No. That was the name he had at the shelter and it seemed to just suit him so I didn’t bother changing it.

Tara: Excellent.

Liam: I want to ask about your focus on routine and how it throws you out if you don’t have that morning routine because that is something that I also face, and I find that it’s mostly managing my own expectations around routine rather than the expectations of those around me. I wonder how or what mechanisms do you have for when life prevents you from having a routine that works best for you in the morning? How do you adjust, how do you get back in the line at any given day so that you can make the best of whatever else comes your way that day?

Miriam: I just probably take a lot of deep breaths and I try and take time to be like, “Okay, this didn’t happen today. I ran out of coffee and I forgot my cash so I can’t go and pick up coffee on the way to work. Okay, deep breath, you can survive without coffee, get through this and just take the time.” And maybe I’m a bit quieter that day, maybe I just keep to myself. But it’s more of a matter of the mental discipline. Just be like, “Okay, this is not the end of the world, something has changed today but life goes on, the world is not going to end because I don’t have coffee today.

Tara: I don’t know if Liam would agree with that.

Liam: I struggle with that, but then again, I’m not a third-degree black belt. On a serious not though, that kind of focus to achieve a degree like a third-degree black belt, and I appreciate it’s a lot of memorization, it’s a lot of physical rigor. Those tests are not casual to get home and relax tests. And the competitive ballroom dancing, those are– they’re sweating, right? The cameras don’t zoom in on them right away, it’s hard work. It looks fun, it looks amazing but it’s hard work. How do those habits and practices and exercises, how do they help you cope outside of getting the next degree or winning the competition?

Miriam: It’s just the pure exercise to bring it back to its basic essence. Some people love going to the gym and do other things, I just found ballroom and karate were my things. Just having that adrenaline and the endorphins flow through you when you exercise and it’s great because I could have– everybody has off-days, some of the times I can have like the most off-day possible at work. Say, I’m putting out fires all day or a client is not happy with something, and then I either go to the dojo or I go to the dance studio, and either I have an amazing class or my dance teacher is just being silly and makes me laugh, then we just go in and go full out on our routine, and I come out just feeling much better. Part of it’s the endorphins and part of it is just being able to put aside everything else and just being like, “Ah, this is my release.”

Liam: Having just got off the treadmill right before this conversation, yes, I get that. I think Tara, you were probably going to say something similar.

Tara: I was going to say that unlike running or other ‘more traditional exercises’, ballroom dancing and getting a black belt in karate, as Liam mentioned, they take a lot of discipline and concentration. One thing about running is you don’t really have to think about what you’re doing and where your feet are going or where your hands are going. It sounds like that is a release for you but it also sounds like it must be also challenging to have a day where you’re concentrating so much on code and then to go into something– you’re shifting your brain but your brain is still really turned on. Do you ever turn your brain off?

Miriam: Some days. I try and do it mostly on weekends. Weekends, I’m not good because I work Monday through Friday, nine to five, your usual typical job. But it’s nice because weekends I can just turn it off, and sometimes, I just go and I binge shows or my friends call me up with like, “Hey, we are going to binge-watch Star Trek: Discovery.” For example.

Tara: Good show.

Miriam: Oh, I love it. I love Star Trek. It’s just nice to just sit in front of the TV, put on Netflix and just binge a bunch of things or just go out to a movie with my brother and basically just not really think. Especially if you go to a movie, you’re just like, “Okay, I got this with my free points from my royalty program.” I’ll see it but if I don’t pay attention, it’s not necessary, it’s not one of those mental movies. It’s more like an action thriller or something like Marvel where you don’t always have to think about what’s going on. You’re just watching stuff being blown up.

Liam: Shutting off is kind of nice, I get that. Let me take us back into the workplace, back in the office. You told us what you like to do and what you enjoy. I wonder, as a developer, you being the developer, me not the developer, what is your least favorite thing to do? As a developer, not all the office stuff, and how do you get yourself to go at it in a productive, professional, efficient way?

Miriam: I have to say that testing is actually my least-favorite part of the job, especially cross-browser testing. Especially if you have to support an older version of a particular browser which will remain unnamed right now, that is not being used a lot except for some niche market, and you have to cater to that niche market. Again, it all comes down to the mental disciplines like, “Okay, I have to do this. For lack of a better word, suck it up, buttercup, and just get to it.”

Liam: Yeah, that’s easier said than done but I see Tara leaning into the mic and I imagine she says, that’s where the black belt and the ballroom dancing focus come in, that focus on routine and willingness to push yourself into a discomfort to get to where you want to be.

Miriam: Exactly. I found it a lot harder earlier in my career, maybe it’s because I was younger then but I didn’t have the same discipline. Going back to the beginning is karate has given me the self-confidence and self-discipline, and not just in life in general but I’ve been to port it over to my professional life as well. It’s helped me to deal with the tasks that I consider unpleasant or aren’t my favorite thing to do in the world.

Tara: I’m going to shift gears. I wanted to ask you, I heard and saw on social media or something just a really great response to a panel that you had, I believe it was in Seattle over the summer?

Miriam: Yes.

Tara: I was wondering if you could talk a little bit about that panel and what it was about, and what was so well-received about it, what was so great about it?

Miriam: Myself and Rachel Cherry from Los Angeles had both submitted a Women in WordPress panel to WordCamp Seattle. And so she had panelists but a not good description, I had a great description but no panelists. So the organizer asked if we would join forces and we both said, “Why not?” We talked over Slack, so there is myself, Bridget Willard, Tessa Kriesel, I’m sorry, Tessa, for saying your last name wrong, and then Francesca Mirano, I believe is her last name, who came in from Italy. So there was all of us, I moderated. And it was just women in WordPress panel talking about our achievements, our struggles and what advice we could give to women just starting out whether they’re young, old. Basically, just getting started on in the WordPress world. I think, especially with society, with everything that’s been going on with the MeToo movement and all that, I think that it was well received because it was all women talking about their experiences and advice. It seems like that’s something that was needed because a lot of women needed that encouragement to get started and just to hear our stories.

Tara: Yeah, what motivated you to do this? What has been your experience as a woman in WordPress, as a developer and just in general?

Miriam: It’s been a lot better over the past couple of years. In my early career, it was a lot of– perhaps there was a combination of the fact that I started quite young and the fact that I’m a woman, but I found a lot of people just, I guess, to loosely use the term ‘mansplaining’ things to me, and looking down and saying, “Oh, you’re a woman, we can’t do that. Let’s go to the male developers.” There is that. And what motivated me to do this was coming from the fact that I didn’t want to do a traditional talk at WordCamp Ottawa, I wanted to do a panel. I was motivated by all the things going on outside of the WordPress world. I was like, “Hey, why don’t I put this together?” And we’ve got some people coming from Montreal, from Toronto, some local people from Ottawa, and we did it. And it went over very well in Ottawa. We did it this summer in Ottawa and that’s what motivated me to just be like, “I want to travel. I’ve never been to Seattle.” So I just threw in the application, thought nothing of it, and then I get the email saying, “Yeah, you’ve been accepted.” I’m like, “Guess I better find my way to Seattle.”

Tara: [laughs] Did you open it up to questions from the audience?

Miriam: Yes, we did. I don’t recall all of them but I do remember one question that in particular, was that a gentleman came up at the end and asked how men could help us more. And I don’t remember the responses but we’ve got some really good responses and the best thing is we ran out of time pretty much in all the panels that we did. Especially in Seattle, what was great is that they had a speaker Q&A lounge afterwards, and we were there for at least an hour, maybe an hour and a half talking with women coming up to us just wanting to learn more.

Tara: Wow, that’s great. I’m glad to hear that went over so well. I believe you’re going to be doing more of those panels at WordCamps.

Miriam: I guess I can announce it, I’ll be doing it WordCamp Miami and I’ve applied to WordCamp London as in London, England. The call for speakers closes at the beginning of February. As of the time of this recording, I don’t know if I got accepted or not, and I might throw it out at some other WordCamps later on in the year, but just don’t know at this point. It’s just a great idea and a concept, and even if I slow it up and I step back and be like, “Okay, great. You want all these panelists? Let them take over but it’s just good to get the word out there and put the bug in people’s ears.”

Tara: Yeah. Congratulations, that’s great. I want to ask you about advice and maybe even transitioning from that perhaps. You could start out by sharing maybe, if in that panel there was one piece of advice that came out that you would give to women who are starting out in WordPress, we can share that, and then after that, if you can answer another question that we ask which is, if you’ve received advice, if there’s a single piece of advice that you can think of that you’ve received and implemented in your life and what that is?

Miriam: The advice that I think is the best was just do it, don’t be scared and just do it. Scary as hell but once you get over that initial wall, you’ll find that the community is very welcoming. And my advice that I was given was don’t give up and persevere.

Tara: Those overlap, I guess, with each other?

Miriam: Exactly.

Tara: Good crossover. That’s good advice. Can you think of a time when you used that advice and it worked out great for you?

Miriam: The advice was not to give up was I went through a lot of job transition over the past two years and I just kept going and I found a position now that is– when I read the job description, I’m like, “This is meant for me.” I turned to my dad, I was at his place, and I’m like, “This is the perfect job for me.” And I got it and I’ve been there six months now and I just absolutely love it there, it’s just amazing.

Liam: That’s awesome. I love that. Thank you.

Tara: Glad to hear it.

Liam: We’ve talked about a lot of different things and one of the themes that keeps coming back in my head is your willingness and ability and capacity to get things done to reach a goal and to push yourself hard to get there. Whether that’s getting a black belt or ballroom dancing or diving into database refinement or becoming a speaker at WordCamps and ultimately, an organizer, then working hard to ensure that women are welcome and that new women are feeling like they belong in the WordPress community. And I guess what I wonder with all of this is how do you keep that going? How do you, when the batteries run out, do you figure out a way to recharge them in some way, shape, or form? Because I can imagine that giving on so many different ways and so many different levels is ultimately quite draining and it’s rewarding, I don’t want to minimize that and I don’t want to– we can go for hours on this, but I guess my question is how do you get back on the horse, how do you recharge the batteries, how do you get back in the ring? Choose the metaphor. What works for you?

Miriam: Downtime. It’s just taking some time for myself, whether it’s going to a spa or just staying home all day ordering in Chinese food and having a glass of wine and watching my favorite TV show. Just taking that time when I can shut off my brain, stay home and pretty much only go out if I need to get groceries or walk the dog, and just having that time just to self-care is what a lot of my friends use, is the word self-care and just look after myself. And then once I feel that I’ve had enough time just to relax, turn off my brain, then the batteries just go from 0 to 100%.

Tara: I think the dog is a key piece of the equation.

Miriam: Definitely.

Tara: Back to the joy and stress relief that a dog can bring.

Liam: Go Sasha.

Tara: Go Sasha. Liam. [laughs] Jinx.

Liam: You owe me a Coke.

Tara: Miriam, thank you so much for joining us. It’s really been a pleasure to get to know you a little bit more. We’ve interacted a good amount on social media and on Slack so it’s nice to actually chat with you.

Miriam: Thank you very much for having me.

Tara: Thanks for being here. Where can people find you online?

Miriam: Probably the best place is Twitter, it’s @mirigoldman and also, I have a website I log occasionally, mainly WordCamp recaps or I put up my karate story, my ballroom story, sometimes I put up tech advice. I don’t blog often but I like to try and do it. That’s MiriamGoldman.ca. Also, I have an Instagram and people like seeing pretty much pictures of my dog all the time, I believe it’s @dancingsensei but that can be found on my website.

Tara: That’s great. I have a pet Instagram that follows other pets so we’ll definitely have to do that.

Liam: Miriam, it’s been a huge pleasure having you on the show and getting to know you a little bit. Thank you so much for spending time with us and sharing.

Miriam: Thank you very much for having me.

Tara: Thanks, Miriam. Bye.

Liam: We’ll see you soon, bye.

Tara: If you like what we’re doing here – meeting new people in our WordPress community – we invite you to tell others about it. We’re on iTunes and at hallwaychats-staging.ulpgsyz6-liquidwebsites.com.

Liam: Better yet, ask your WordPress friends and colleagues to join us on the show. Encourage them to complete the “Be on the show” form on our site, to tell us about themselves.

Matt is the creator and owner of Whiteley Designs, a one-man WordPress development hosting and maintenance agency specializing in the Genesis Framework. He’s married, with a three-year-old daughter and another child on the way in May 2018.

Website | Whiteley Designs

Liam: This is Hallway Chats, where we talk with some of the unique people in and around WordPress.

Tara: Together, we meet and chat with folks you may not know about in our community.

Liam: With our guests, we’ll explore stories of living – and of making a living with WordPress.

Tara: Today’s show is brought to you in part by Liquid Web.

Liam: We sure know that there’s a lot of choices when it comes to hosting your WordPress site. Liquid Web is the manage WordPress partner you’ve been waiting for. Whether you’re a business owner, an agency, or a freelancer, Liquid Web has you covered when it comes to performance, uptime, and ease of site management.

Tara: And one of the things we love most, when your content goes viral, Liquid Web doesn’t charge you more for huge spikes in traffic. Transparent pricing, no surcharges.

Liam: Liquid Web is offering Hallway Chats listeners 33% off for the first three months. Go to Liquidweb.com and use the coupon code, HALLWAYCHATS, all one word, to sign up.

Tara: And now the conversation begins. This is episode 32.

Liam: Welcome to Hallway Chats. I’m Liam Dempsey.

Tara: And I’m Tara Claeys. Today, we have with us Matt Whiteley. Matt is the creator and owner of Whiteley Designs, a one-man WordPress development hosting and maintenance agency specializing in the Genesis Framework. He’s married, with a three-year-old daughter and another on the way in May. Welcome, Matt.

Matt: Hey, guys.

Liam: Hey, Matt. How are you? Thanks for joining us today.

Matt: Doing alright, thanks for having me on.

Liam: Excellent. Well, we’re glad to have you here. Tell us a little bit more about yourself beyond what Tara just shared?

Matt: Like Tara said, I am the creator and founder of Whiteley Designs. I do WordPress hosting, WordPress development, maintenance plans. As she mentioned, I am the father of a soon to be three-year-old and, by the time this airs, I may have a little boy joining the family in May, so that’s exciting. I’ve been married for about eight years, been working with WordPress for about ten years. Yeah, it keeps me busy and there’s always something to do, whether it’s family-related, or WordPress-related, or work-related.

Liam: Yeah, that’s quite the intro. You got it all going on there. Tell us a little bit about how you got into working for yourself and whether or not that led you to WordPress or vice versa?

Matt: It was roughly 10 years ago, it’s kind of an interesting story. It was back when Groupon was really popular and I was on the job hunt at that time, and Groupon was huge, commercials everywhere. And I thought, “This is something we can do locally. Just offer the businesses a little better revenue share if they want to work with somebody local.” Problem was I had no idea how to build a website and that is a big part of Groupon. So I did some googling and I came across something called Groupbuy site which, unbeknownst to me, was a WordPress plugin theme combination that created the functionality that worked just like Groupon. Before buying that, I taught myself how to build a little landing page and it was just a one-page HTML– it was bad but it collected email addresses and I built up an email list and we’re talking just a box in the middle of the page with an email address field. Emails came to me, I kept them in a spreadsheet, and if I needed to email them, I copied and pasted them from the spreadsheet into the email. This is before MailChimp and Constant Contact. It was a terrible process but I got about 500 people sign up for it through family and friends, and couponing groups, yard sale groups, and stuff like that locally. Eventually, I launched a site. I knew a couple local business owners that ran some deals with me. Over the next three years or so, I built that up to working with 40 or 50 different businesses that were either running coupons or running deals. And in that time, I was very active on these support forums, getting help with stuff, adding custom functionality to the site. And I got to know the owner and the developer of the company. His name was Dan Cameron, he owns Sprout Apps now, which I don’t know if you’re familiar with them. But he gave me a lot of guidance and helped me learn all of the hooks, and filters, and functions, and WordPress. That’s kind of where it all started. Then how it kind of developed into a business was through those same support forums, I met a lot of people who saw what I was doing and said, “Hey, I’d like that feature on my site.” And I started doing small custom projects here and there. And I remember doing my first month where I made like $500 and I was like, “This is amazing, 500 bucks. That’s six grand in a year, that’s great.” That’s kind of how I started out and then I started to learn more and got a little better in them. One of the gentlemen I still work today, who had a client who is using the same software as me, I’ve been doing work for him and he said, “Hey, I have a website. I need done, do you build websites,” and like any good developer I said, “Absolutely, I build websites.” He had worked with Brian Gardner from Studio Press years and years ago and said, “Did you ever hear of Genesis?” I said, “No.” He said, “Well, let’s give it a shot.” I used Genesis to build that site and that kind of led me to Genesis and it’s kind of built up from there, it’s what I’m familiar with, I know it really well. And it’s just kind of grown now to where I’m working with. I have seven or eight different agencies, Los Angeles, Nashville, Michigan, New York, a couple overseas that I kind of act as their development wing where they have in-house designers and they go out and find the clients and send them my way. It’s worked out really, really well for me and I really enjoy doing it. That’s kind of where it started and how it’s built up now, it’s been an interesting ride but it’s been all organic. I really don’t do any marketing or advertising for myself or anything like that.

Tara: If you don’t do any marketing or advertising, how have you found these agencies across the country? Are you on the Studio Press recommended developer list? Where does that come from?

Matt: One of my goals is to eventually make that list but I am not on it now. Essentially, it was all word of mouth. There’s probably three or four different agency owners or designers that I’ve met through the Groupbuy site forum that I still work with. And they have kind of provided me a lot of business over the years. Then it’s a client of a friend of a client and it’s all kind of been organic and word of mouth, it’s kind of grown out. I mean, I’ve done a couple local things for friends and family who have then made suggestions over time but yeah, it’s been organic for the most part.

Tara: That’s great. I’m glad to hear that you’ve grown it organically. [laughs] Speaking of organic and growing, your family is growing.

Matt: It is.

Tara: That’s an exciting time. No one else can see this but I can see that you work from home, so how does that work, having a toddler and a new baby and working from home? How do you manage that balance?

Matt: It’s interesting. She goes to daycare three days a week and I actually do work in an office throughout the week as well. I’m never actually at home working when my little one is here. My wife’s home Mondays and Fridays with her, she’s in daycare Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday. It works out pretty well and we’ll probably have the same setup once the little guy come. He’ll be home for a couple of months with mom and I’ll be here with him but it will probably be the same setup. I don’t think I can keep my sanity with getting work done and having her wanting to sit here. Because she wants to sit at this desk that you guys can see and type on the keyboard which I have to turn off, She loves to be at work at her office too.

Tara: That’s nice that you have that flexibility to work from home sometimes.

Matt: Absolutely.

Liam: Yeah, working from home is a wonderful blessing if you can wrangle out the details on how to actually work from home. Well done for figuring that out, well done for that. Matt, you’ve shared a lot with us and there’s so much to unpack there. I feel like we can talk for weeks and still not get through it all. What I want to ask you a little bit about is, as you went from kind of googling things and just figuring things out, one-page website, collecting email addresses, to building Genesis sites, to being the developer for a number of different agencies across the US. How did that come together from a learning perspective and maybe you can touch on the first time, I’ll say in quotes here, ‘a real agency’ said, “Hey, can you be our developer?” How did that come together in terms of can I do it, can I not do it kind of thing, and they’re going to have real clients and the like?

Matt: Honestly, a lot of it you don’t even feel like– especially not being trained. I have a marketing degree from Pen State so I’m not trained whatsoever with coding or anything like that. So even to this day, I know I build quality things and I’m really focused on quality code but you never necessarily feel like it’s good enough. I’m always looking to improve. It honestly has been trial and error. And I’ll go back and look at code I’ve written a month ago, a year ago, and I can completely refactor it and do it better now. A lot of it is just learning on the go, sites like Stack Overflow, and there’s developer forums out there. Tonya Mork’s Know The Code is really good. I play and I’m joining that and just improving things because there’s always ways to get better. And even like I mentioned, Dan from Sprout Apps, I used to send him stuff and he would say, “You know, this is good but you should do it this way and send me code examples back.” There’s some mentorship in there, there’s a lot of, like you said, googling. There’s so many resources out there, which you also have to be careful about where you’re getting the information from that you could read a tutorial from ten different people and see ten different ways to do it, and eight of them can be awfully ineffective and not efficient. It’s a lot of work on my own and just kind of figuring out things. I’m sure I certainly don’t do things the ideal way all the time but it’s always a learning process, it’s going to continue.

Liam: Yeah, I get that. The learning process and being mindful of the dangers of copy and paste. We can start there but that can be a real problem too.

Matt: And I will say, working with Studio Press, the documentation there is extremely good and there’s a big, big community around Studio Press and the Genesis Framework being on the forums there, the Facebook group, and just the documentation itself. Brian Gardner has code snippets galore on his website that you can reference and see how things are done the right way. I think starting with that framework and knowing it was well-written and documented well was a really good base to start with.

Liam: Yeah, there’s a lot of people who would agree with you on that. Since you’ve touched on the Genesis community, maybe you can share a little bit more about how you first started getting into that community and what your engagement with the wider WordPress community is as well?

Matt: Yeah. Honestly, I’m kind of a one-off. I interact with a select few within the community. I was active on the Studio Press forums for a while but it is time-consuming to stay active on all the different outlets out there. I provided a lot of help for different people and I met a couple of clients on the forums. Like I said, I’d love to be on that developers list at some point, maybe that’s something that will be down the road. And the WordPress community as a whole, honestly, I’m not all that active. With everything else going on, I’m a part of a couple different groups, Carrie Dil’s Fearless Freelancer, I’m on there. Like I said, the Genesis Studio Press Facebook group, the forums there. I haven’t been able to go to any WordCamps just because they haven’t worked out. I know there is one in Lancaster in February, which is my area, I’m down in southeastern Pensylvania, which I believe Tara is speaking at, so I may be there.

Liam: Plug, plug, plug.

Matt: Yeah. [laughs] All in all, I’m not the most active but I do what I can.

Liam: Yeah, getting back to that, working from home and the flexibility there, or involvement with the WordPress community, with any community really, is all about balance. Sounds like you’ve found ways to engage with it in a way that works best for you and for your family, so that’s great to hear. You shared with us, Matt, the professional success you’ve established by growing your own business and growing your practice to the point where you’re doing all this different work and you have agencies and you really had to shell out marketing effort or resources, and it sounds like your family life is successful as well. And I wonder if you could share with us your definition of personal and professional success.

Matt: Yeah. I’ve heard you guys ask this question, it’s the one I thought about a lot. I think from a macro perspective I am successful in the fact that I’m able to do something I really enjoy doing, I get to do it with people I enjoy doing it with, whether that be clients or the designers or other creative teams that I work with. And it does provide me a stable income that I can support my family comfortably and not have to worry about the next build that’s coming out or anything like that. I think from a macro overall, I do feel successful. From a business perspective, while I feel relatively successful, I don’t think it’s anything that I’ll ever feel 100% successful just because there’s always room to grow, there’s always a client you could have serviced better, there’s always money left on the table, there’s always learning what you can do. It’s going to be something that you’re going to have to keep working on and keep pushing forward with. While I do feel successful to a point, I think just my personality and wanting to always improve and do things better, won’t necessarily let me feel that from a business perspective. It’s possible but I think there’s always going to be room to grow from some angle.

Tara: Yeah, I can relate to that. I think that’s a combination of these phrases that we hear probably too often. I’ll say them anyway, but the imposter syndrome combined with fear of missing out, right? You feel like there’s always somebody who’s doing more or doing it better than you are. It’s a challenge to not let that cloud your judgment of yourself or your view of your own success. I think having a personal view of success and doing something that you love and doing it with people that you enjoy and that you respect really brings you down to Earth a little bit because it is easy to get your head wrapped in that. Moving on Matt, can you tell us a little bit about your favorite thing. What is your favorite thing to do every day whether in your personal or your work life. What do you like to do?

Matt: Overall, my favorite thing is probably the development side of things. My favorite projects are certainly the ones that come that are designed well, I just get the, whether it’s a Photoshop, or a sketch, or Adobe file, and I can just build the site. When I have a couple of hours and I have a site that’s been speced out properly and I can just focus on coding, that’s definitely my favorite thing to do. Those are not as frequent as the ones that are like, “I need a website. Here are some examples. Just go with it.” Those are a little tougher to work on, but ones that are really speced out well and I just have a design and I can just sit down and turn everything else off the focus on that, that’s definitely my favorite thing to do.

Tara: Is that mostly CSS and PHP, HTML code or are you doing Javascript, another higher level of coding?

Matt: Primarily, it’s PHP, CSS, HTML but I do a lot of jQuery mixed in there. My sites are typically– I have a base starter theme with Genesis and then I use advanced custom fields for a lot of the builds and I’ve gotten really good with customizing that to make it super easy for the client on the back-end to manage every aspect of the site without having to worry about diving into code.

Tara: Okay.

Liam: Yeah, I think that’s one of the best things about the ACF Plugin is the ability to make the client experience on the WordPress dashboard that much more enjoyable and direct. If we’re going to edit something on the front-end of the page, yeah, we have to go the back-end but we can go to that page rather than it being in a setting or somewhere else that’s perhaps more obscure.

Matt: Yeah, and all the clients I’ve worked with have been thrilled with how easy it is after, instead of looking at the WYSIWYG Editor and seeing a bunch of markup in there, they can just enter some text into fields and it’s automatically formatted for them in the front-end. It works out really well, it’s been really good.

Liam: Yeah, that’s a beautiful thing. Let me ask you this, as you walked yourself over the years from that first web page to using the Advanced Custom Fields to make more technically advanced, more complicated sites, and as you’ve grown this freelance business on the side as well as the challenges of full-time employment and family, what’s been your biggest challenge to date and how have you overcome it or how are you continuing to address it?

Matt: Honestly, my biggest challenge is kind of something we talked about already, it’s putting together a plan to make that dive to do Whiteley designs full time. Like I said, there’s a lot of pieces that have to come into place first and it’s relatively close but knowing when the right time to make that move is, I think, is the hardest part for me. And just from a micro-perspective, dealing with email is one of my most-challenging things because whether it’s at work. or my personal. or the Whiteley Design, or four or five other companies I do work with that I kind of handle email for them, it’s a bear to keep it all up to date. And I’m one of those people, I do not like seeing red dots on my iPhone that says, “Message is unread!” I can’t deal with that so they have to be read and replied to. Managing that is definitely one of the challenges.

Tara: I could lead you down a path of excitement and productivity with your inbox, it’s one of my favorite things to problem-solve.

Liam: You can also just turn off notifications.

Tara: [laughs] That is what I was going to say, that is the key. That is definitely a key.

Matt: It’s interesting, I see some people that do only open email a couple of times a day and I ponder if I could do that or not, or if I only opened it at 10:00 and 02:00, if at three o’clock I’m there like, “I wonder what came to my inbox.” I can’t stand that waiting. I don’t know if I can do that one or not but it may bring sanity back a little bit.

Tara: It’s a productivity killer but it’s very satisfying to kind of see what’s new and what problem you can solve, you can leave whatever it is you’re working on that you don’t want to work on to go solve a problem right away.

Matt: Exactly.

Tara: I’m guilty of that but it’s not good for you. Boomerang, do you use that?

Matt: I do not. I’m unaware of what Boomerang is.

Tara: Look it up.

Liam: It’s more than just an Australian hunting tool. It’s an email plugin and it works for both Outlook and Gmail, and it has a variety of functionality. But one of the things that I think Tara was referencing is you can get an email that say, comes in now, and you can using Boomerang say, “Come back to my email inbox in four hours.” Or whatever.

Matt: Oh, just like a inbox triggered by snooze?

Liam: Yeah. And you can setup kind of an auto-responder that says you’re not dealing with your inbox. It’s a little bit more involved than that but it basically sends a reply to your clients saying, “Hey, I’m just working. If it’s really important, call me at this number but otherwise, I’ll be back.” Without having to turn on out of office all the time.

Matt: Got you.

Tara: Yeah. Or you can set it to come back to your inbox if you don’t get a response. So if you send a client a proposal and they don’t get back to you, instead of forgetting that they didn’t come back to you, you can have them email you. Yeah, it’s cool. Okay, productivity tip of the day.

Liam: Thank you miss Tara.

Tara: You’re welcome. We know that you don’t like email and that’s a challenge. Would you say that there are other aspects of your work life that you enjoy less than others? You do marketing, how do you feel about marketing your own business? That must be part of your trajectory in this plan to launch and become your own self.

Matt: I guess when I said I haven’t done any marketing, that’s from kind of strictly a print perspective because, obviously, doing things like this and networking on the groups I network on and things like that is certainly a form of marketing. But I would say, from a perspective of things that I don’t like to do as much as others, I’m kind of 50/50 on the design side of things because I am pretty good with Photoshop and Illustrator and I do mockups for websites and stuff. That depends on the day, sometimes I’m really into it and I want to work on a design, and others day I’m like, “Oh, I wish I could just be coding a website now. I don’t really feel like building this Illustrator file.” It can depend on the day what mood I’m in, I guess.

Liam: How do you address the mood when the InDesign file is fighting you and the deadline is not going away and you’ve got a family vacation coming up for a long weekend? It’s all stacked against you, what’s your process of getting your head and mind in the right place to get the job done?

Matt: Typically, I’ll walk away from it and work on another project for a little while and come back. I know with a lot of the media companies I work with from the marketing side of things, they always tell me I’m almost always the first one to submit my ads to them. So I’m typically extremely far ahead with regards to submitting ads and stuff like that. Deadlines typically aren’t a problem just because I have everything mapped out so far ahead, we have the year– pretty much all of our media buys and ads play out for the entire year so I’ve been used to playing that. But typically I have enough time that I can just step to another project, work on that for a while and then come back if I need to.

Liam: Yeah, that’s a good approach. I like that, I tend to take an approach of promising myself something that I will get to get it done. It’s usually take a quick break to grab coffee or tea and then come back and promise myself. Typically, it’s a run, I’ll go up for a run, I’ll blow off whatever else I was supposed to do that day and go for a run. Tara, what do you do?

Tara: I started to walk away. I usually try to plow through it though, it’s been my standard. But the more I read about it, the more I learn walking away is a good idea. I have a Pomodoro thing set and I just notoriously turn it off as soon as it starts because I just don’t want to stop. I find it hard to stop sometimes. Tell us something not work-related about you. What do you do besides work?

Matt: I am a big golfer. I had one of my best golfing seasons that I’ve ever had last year. That’s a big part of things, and that is a difficult one to do because that is not something you can do quickly.

Tara: It takes a lot of time.

Matt: Yes, a half hour drive to the course and then a four and a half hour round and half hour back and you’re losing a half a day already. I don’t want to [inaudible 26:38] or kids this summer. I know when we had my daughter, I played in a golf league in Tuesday nights. And I went the first week and I didn’t go the rest of the summer just because I felt terrible, did work all day and then I go right to golf, and she has the kid all day. It didn’t feel right so I did not golf the rest of the year, and then I golfed the two years after that. I don’t expect to be playing much after the middle of May this year, just so my wife can keep her sanity. But who knows? Maybe the first one will be easier than the first one. We’ll see, we’ll see what happens. But yeah, golf’s a big part. It’s nice to get out here, just quiet, and play and have fun, beating [inaudible 27:17] every time so it’s good.

Tara: That’s great. You must miss it in the winter. If you live in Pensylvania, there’s probably not much golf this time of year?

Matt: No, you can’t get out too much this time of year, but I do know people that play year-round here and they don’t care. As long as there’s no snow on the ground, they’ll be out there but I’m cold when it’s 70 degrees out so I’m not out there when it’s 60 or under.

Tara: [laughs]

Liam: Well, I had one of my best years ever last year, too. I golfed once and it was of last time I can remember golfing so it was one of my best scores in recent memory.

Matt: That’s one way to do it, if you golf once a year, you’re going to have your best round every time. [laughs]

Liam: I tend to judge my score on how many golf balls I lose.

Matt: There you go.

Liam: Matt, let me change gears on you one more time here, and ask you if you would share with us what’s the single most valuable piece of advice. It can be either personal or professional, that someone has shared with you and that you’ve incorporated into your life, and that has reaped real rewards in return for you?

Matt: I don’t remember who told me this but it was really simple and it was probably from the job I had at college but– actually, it was my boss at my old job and she just said, “Be kind.” That resonated with a lot of different things, especially interacting with clients because there’s many times where you can easily send a snarky email back and that’s just not going to get you anywhere. Treat everybody that you can with respect, be kind, especially on social media. Going out and blasting people and getting political, it’s not going to get you anywhere and it’s going to look bad, and it’s going to be there forever. Treat others kindly, and it is okay to say no to clients, which is another thing that I have a lot of trouble with. Especially if you can say no in a nice way, “This isn’t a project that fits but I have these other suggestions for you or some advice.” And it goes a long way and it can really create some longstanding relationships with clients that might not have been there if you sent that snarky response because they don’t know what they’re talking about or you expect them to do something. It’s a really simple piece of advice but it can apply to a lot of different areas of life, whether it’s business or personal.

Liam: Yeah, I like that. I think you can never be too nice to people. Niceness doesn’t imply naivety, but just being nice and being diplomatic. And I love the ‘no and’ type of response. “No, that’s not going to work here, that’s not going to be a good fit here, I’m not in the position to help you. And here’s how I can and here are some options for you.” Rather than just, “No.” You give them an opportunity to find a solution even if you don’t have it. So you’re not just turning them out in the street but you’re giving them somewhere else to look. That’s really, really helpful.

Matt: And another benefit to that is, if you can refer some business to other people that fits better, in turn, they’re always in the back of their head, “Hey, that person sent me some business, I might have a client that fits for them down the road.” But if it comes back, it does, if it doesn’t, it’s really not a big deal. But it’s good for all parties.

Tara: Yeah, that’s true. And with your clients too, when you make a good impression on them by being nice and kind, then they’re more likely to refer you for busines as well.

Matt: Absolutely.

Tara: I always told my children, “If nothing else, be nice!” [laughs]

Matt: Perfect.

Liam: I like the joke– is it Nick Cage or Nick Drake? Who is it? Cruel to Be Kind? Nick Lowe. Cruel to Be Kind, you remember that song from the ’80s?

Tara: Yes.

Liam: I would sing it to you folks, but I’m pretty sure that would be the end of our podcast. [laughter] Speaking of the end of our podcast, Matt, we’re running out of time here. Thank you so much for joining us on this show, it’s been a real pleasure.

Matt: It’s been a pleasure, yes.

Liam: Before we say goodbye, I wonder if you’ll share with us where people can find you and can find your business?

Matt: Absolutely. I am on Twitter at @whiteleydesigns, or you can go to Whiteleydesigns.com. All the information’s there, hosting, maintenance, website development, or just stop in to say hi.

Tara: Great. Thanks for joining us, Matt.

Mat: Thanks guys.

Tara: Bye.

Liam: Thanks, Matt. Talk to you soon, bye-bye.

Tara: If you like what we’re doing here – meeting new people in our WordPress community – we invite you to tell others about it. We’re on iTunes and at hallwaychats-staging.ulpgsyz6-liquidwebsites.com.

Liam: Better yet, ask your WordPress friends and colleagues to join us on the show. Encourage them to complete the “Be on the show” form on our site, to tell us about themselves.

Jean Roth thinks of herself as a creative alchemist because she brings a multifaceted background in marketing, design, writing, and intercultural aesthetics to her design work.

Website | Rotem Studio

Liam: This is Hallway Chats, where we talk with some of the unique people in and around WordPress.

Tara: Together, we meet and chat with folks you may not know about in our community.

Liam: With our guests, we’ll explore stories of living – and of making a living with WordPress.

Tara: And now the conversation begins. This is episode 34.

Liam: Welcome to Hallway Chats. I’m Liam Dempsey.

Tara: And I’m Tara Claeys. Today, we’re joined by Jean Roth. Jean thinks of herself as a creative alchemist because she brings a multifaceted background in marketing, design, writing, and intercultural aesthetics to her design work. Hello, Jean.

Jean: Hello. How are you?

Liam: Hey, Jean. We’re doing really well today, thanks for joining us. Would you tell us a little bit more about yourself? More than what Tara just read?

Jean: Well, I’m a graphic designer and now also a web designer. I started off in a totally different area. Basically, marketing and PR, and that sort of evolved organically. Now, I put all of these things together, writing, marketing, design work, and try to find out the best way to visually express what my clients need.

Liam: That sounds pretty neat. Tell us a little bit about how that works out day to day? What kind of clients are you working with and what kind of design and marketing efforts are you helping guide them through?

Jean: Well, mostly I’ve been working with small businesses. Some of them are artisans, some are other kind of service-oriented businesses. For quite a number of years, I was working for a publishing company, I was contracted as a graphic designer doing mainly advertising design. Enjoyed that very, very much and when that company was sold, I decided to expand into web design. And I already had been doing web design for myself but I decided to make this part of what I offered to clients.

Tara: There’s a difference between print graphic design, and advertising background, and also web design. Some of the things that you learn are completely the opposite in websites. What’s been your path in learning the ins and outs of web design?

Jean: I started with WordPress, first of all. Before that, of course, HTML and Shutter front page back in the ’90s when people started writing blogs and that became a thing. WordPress was still fairly new, I decided I needed to do that as well, and I found WordPress. I found it a little bit more involved and robust than Blogspot, latter Blogger, that everybody else seemed to be jumping on. And so I started with WordPress, and for all of these years, I’ve had several WordPress sites of my own. But since they weren’t my own and since they weren’t my primary gig, I could afford to be sloppy with them, I didn’t have to always stay up to date. Obviously, in the past three or four years, when I’ve been doing this far more seriously and I’m responsible for clients, I’ve had to really up my game and things changed so fast. The technology has changed, it seems like every two days there’s something new and it’s very challenging and I just keep learning every day to bring it up to speed. In terms of how it is different or alike from graphic design or print design, something still stays. Things like less is more, keeping a clean design, making sure that your clients or your audience see what they need to see, making sure your message is clear, keeping your copy succinct. All of these things still apply. Of course, there are other things and when I was first getting into responsive design, one of the things that made me crazy was that I couldn’t make my paragraphs justify the way I wanted them to justify. The lines won’t break where they want to break, and I really had to just say, “That’s the way it is, that’s the medium and there’s nothing you can do about it.” I just learned to live with it.

Liam: I had a very similar reaction to the transition to print to web where on print, when you put the photo there or you use that font at that size, that’s where it stays, and the web says, “Uh, sometimes.” It’s a psychological challenge, I get that.

Tara: Not even going into color and what you can and can’t do with color and how to explain to your client that their PMS color is not really translatable to the web and that what they see on their HP laptop screen is different than what you see on your Retina Mac.

Jean: That was true even with my print clients because they get everything digitally and they see it in their email and I had to say, “It’s not going to be like this.” One of the things that I had to learn when I went back to taking web design seriously was accessible design. Well, accessible color. Yes, a few years ago, I created a website for a local organization for whom I had done extensive branding. And then I found out I couldn’t use those colors because they really weren’t the colors that were approved, so I had to kind of change them. And my nice bright orange became kind of a terra cotta, and I kind of weighed which is more important and I decided web rules rule, that’s it.

Tara: Yeah, interesting. In this path that you’ve taken, has the WordPress community played a role in that? Can you tell us a little bit how you interact with the community? I know you live in California, is that right?

Jean: Right. I’m in Los Angeles on the Westside.

Tara: There’s a pretty vibrant WordPress community there. Do you interact with them? Have they helped you?

Jean: If there’s a community, I don’t know them. I haven’t found them, at least not on the Westside. I know there’s a WordCamp that’s kind of on the other side of town, LA is so spread out. As you probably know, it’s not exactly the most accessible thing so I haven’t made it there. I’m more involved in WordPress community online. When I decided to get into this more seriously and for clients, I was looking for– I don’t know what made me decide to look for a specific framework but I did a lot of research, read a lot of articles about things like Divy and Genesis. What was the rule one of campus? I have a friend that uses it, I don’t remember what it’s called, I’m sorry. But anyway, it seemed that Genesis had the highest marks from everybody and so I decided, yes, there’s going to be more of a learning curve there because not everything is laid out for you, not everything is there. But that would be a good way for me to learn things. I read about how it was stable, how the community was helpful and how the company itself is going to be around, it’s stable and it’s dependable, and I decided that’s the community home I wanted to hang my hat at. That’s what I’ve done. The Genesis community is my primary WordPress community, although I also pay attention to WooCommerce community on Facebook. But Genesis is really where I put most of my attention.

Tara: Yeah, that’s a great community. Do you mostly use the Facebook group or a Slack channel?

Jean: Mostly the Slack channel because it’s just there on my desktop, and you get to know people a little bit. It’s a wonderful group and they’re so helpful and I’m really very indebted and very grateful to the people there with their generosity.

Tara: So you’ve never actually been to a WordCamp?

Jean: No. I really wish I could be. I went to the one that was online. What’s it called?

Tara: Oh yes, there was a WordCamp online maybe four years ago or something like that.

Jean: Three, four years ago when I first started. I have a journal full of notes from that, that was really wonderful.

Tara: Yeah, that’s great. Maybe you’ll make it to one someday.

Jean: I hope so.

Tara: You may be the first WordPress person we’ve had on this show who hasn’t been to a WordCamp.

Jean: Really?

Tara: Yeah. Everybody has a WordCamp story or their first WordCamp story, it seems. Yeah, people love them, myself included.

Jean: I wish I could. I do have a WordCamp t-shirt though, from an old WordCamp Tokyo because the graphic is so awesome and it’s Japanese and remember my background there is that my academic background is actually in Japanese and that’s how all of this aesthetically came to be. I do have a WordPress t-shirt at least.

Liam: There you go. I would love to have just one WordPress t-shirt. I have about 47 of them.

Jean: Oh, and you have the bear in the back, I see, too.

Liam: Yeah, from WordCamp US a few years ago. Although, it’s more of a Wapuu than a bear but I knew where you were going, Jean. Let me change gears a little bit. One of our questions I would like to get into is definitions of success. Jean, how would you define success in a personal and/or professional way for yourself?

Jean: I would say it would be a sense of satisfaction, contentment perhaps. For me, it’s really enjoying what I’m doing, what I’m designing, feeling that it makes some kind of difference and that I’m serving my clients. Well, if it’s for my clients and if it’s for myself, it’s just something that gives me a lot of pleasure when I’ve designed it. And when it’s for a client, it’s part of a road of discovery. I like to get to know my clients, I always have an extensive phone chat with them, phone or online, but preferably phone, anything that’s audio. So I can really get a sense of who they are, what they are, and what their company is, what their mission is. And then try and figure out how to express that visually, or in words, if it happens to be a writing assignment. But usually, those things come together for me. And then I just get to work on how to translate that message into visual imagery. And for me, it’s just pleasure to do that. In terms of more personal satisfaction beyond that, I would say being satisfied or being even content with where you are in life, regardless of any external circumstances, I think that’s a really big thing. If you can do that, you’re doing well.

Tara: Where do you find yourself then with that being said?

Jean: I don’t think it’s an easy thing. I do try to be very mindful of where I am each day, not be too hard on myself. I think people in general are very, very hard on themselves. I know I am. Whether it’s WordPress, or design, or marketing, or anything. Like, oh, I should be doing more, I should be doing more. There aren’t enough hours in the day to do more and we really need to be balanced. I do do meditation and I just try to remind myself every day that it’s still a journey and that’s part of it. We tend to think that there is some big prize at the end of a long road, and I think it’s important to remind ourselves every day that this is good, today, where I am, right now, and what I’m doing is a good thing. It takes reminding.

Liam: The road itself is an end, isn’t it?

Jean: Yes.

Liam: Jean, you said that for you success, professional success. A big part of that is making sure that your work makes a difference. And I wonder if you can come and chat us through that. What does that mean with respect to the work you’re doing with your clients and you actively seek out some kind of clients so that your work will make a difference? What does make a difference mean to you?

Jean: Let’s see. When I work with somebody, my whole design process is rather intuitive. I do not come from an academic design background, and as I’ve said, “My entry into design has been very organic.” A lot of it just comes from the gut. I’ve many, many had clients say to me, “Well, I’d try and explain to you what I wanted, or how I feel my company should present itself, or who my audience is, or who my market is, and I just couldn’t quite put it into words and you got it.” And that for me is a great deal of success. I can’t always explain how or why, I don’t mean to sound too ‘woo-woo’ about it but it constantly surprises me so I’ll do something and I’ll go, “No, that’s not it. Doesn’t feel right.” And then all of a sudden, boom, that’s it. I would say, 99% of the time, if I give my client several comps, the one that I think is best describing what they are, expressing who they are, that’s the one that works, that’s the one that they go with.

Liam: That’s got to be rewarding.

Jean: It’s very rewarding. I do some work for also non-profit organizations or marketing organization that I’m in. Marketing, I should say actually a networking organization. And the feedback I get is really nice. I just feel that even if I’m doing something where there’s no compensation, at least no monetary compensation, it’s very important for me to still do a good job, a complete job. Again, like I said, we’re often too hard on ourselves. Sometimes we need to learn, “Okay, it’s enough. I just put 10 hours into a three-hour job. Time to close it down.” But it is very important for me to feel that I’ve done my job well for whoever it is I’m doing. Whether there’s compensation or not.

Tara: Yeah. Can you talk a little bit about that, about compensation? I’m in a WordPress Slack group and we talk about not giving work away. There’s a certain point in your business where you don’t or where I say to myself I’m not going to do free work anymore, I’m not going to discount my work anymore, and then a non-profit or something comes your way and you feel badly. And non-profits, certainly, are not usually short of money. Tell me a little bit about that when you say that if you’re doing work that’s without compensation, how does that happen for you?

Jean: Well, I’ve gotten much better with that. I understand what you’re saying about doing a lot of work for free. I tend to do that more, actually, with my paying clients. I can get very carried away, it’s hard for me to decide how much is this billable, how much is this my own research and learning. And I try to be really fair about it to both of us. I’m more likely to be more fair to the client than to myself, and a lot of times I just forget to put the clock on. But in terms of anything like a non-profit, I haven’t done any work for non-profits that are well-funded. I’ve done work for a very, very small local organization, the one where I had to change the orange colors to terra cotta. For them, yes, I’ve had to really watch the time because it can just go on forever, and I have learned to say no, it’s hard and I feel guilty but I have learned to say no. And you were right, there were plenty of organizations that can compensate, even if it’s an honorarium with something. And sometimes even a gesture is meaningful, but I have learned. The kind of organization that comes back to you and says, “Oh, but we’re non-profit.” All I can say is, “Well, yeah, but the electric company isn’t.” [laughter] And that’s the bottom line.

Liam: Yeah, there’s a certain level of we all have to get paid at some point in order to provide for ourselves, and whether or not that’s through this immediate non-profit customer or some other paying client, and many times, the non-profit contacts are getting paid. It is tricky, and finding the right way to say no can take some time but it sounds like you’re making some headway there. I wanted to ask you a little bit about being content with where you are. And you have told us a couple of times that sometimes you struggle with that. And I wonder how do you check yourself when you’re not being as fair to yourself as you should be? How do you cope with that? How do you, in your own way, say, “Hey Jean, this is not where you should be.” What does that look like for you?

Jean: That’s, actually, kind of a tough question. Like I said, I do do meditation, I try to get to a specific group every week when I can and do it in between when I can. And I find that it helps tremendously, especially the one where I go physically. Liam: That capacity to reach out to a community, really, whose focus is letting go and being comfortable with where you are, that’s great that you have a mechanism there, that’s really awesome. Thank you for sharing that.

Jean: Sometimes I just need to do a reality check, look at what I’m doing. Even if it’s testimonials, it doesn’t matter what, whatever it is that I need to remind myself that I’m doing okay. If a certain month happens to be a little slow, that’s not really a judgment on myself. That part is hard, when we work for ourselves, that part is very hard.

Tara: Yeah. On that note, what would you say is your biggest challenge that you face either in your business or how you approach it? You’ve talked about that a little bit.

Jean: I would say marketing. And I know it’s ironic but my take on this is that people like me exist and do marketing-based design for others is because an outsider can see what those unique qualities are. So when I come up with the designs, for me, it’s sort of an intuitive process. I do have a process of discovery with clients and I try to find out what are those unique things. Some of them could be equality, some of it could be their background, it could be all kinds of things. It’s their, whatever you want to call it, x-factor, special sauce, and they may not be aware of it. An outsider can see it and say, “Hey, you know what? This is something that’s really unique about you.” And you don’t think it’s unique because we don’t think these things are unique. They’re so intrinsic to us, they’re natural to us, and we can’t see it. And I can’t always see it in myself. I have to shake myself and say, “You know, this might be kind of interesting and different.” Even when it came to sending in the form to be interviewed by you guys, I thought, “Oh, well, gee, I don’t design plugins or themes. I don’t do any of those kinds of WordPress things. I’m not a super coder, that’s not my bail away.” And then I thought, sometimes you have to push yourself out of a comfort zone and say, “Well, but maybe there is something.”

Tara: And we’re glad we did.

Liam: We sure are.

Jean: And I can’t always see it and that’s the hard thing. Getting out to networking events, getting involved in them, being able to walk up to people and saying, “Hello, what do you do?” All of these kinds of things, those are often said, are outside of my comfort zone. I really have to just push myself to do it. Marketing, trying to find that balance between being modest and yet, self-confident. I find that’s something I always have to work on.

Liam: That can be a challenge.

Jean: My earliest work environments were Japanese work environments and you don’t bluster, and then when I was out of them, I found you really can’t just say, “Oh, no.” You can’t do that in the western world. And that’s still with me so I have to find some time to say thank you. [laughs] “Thank you. I enjoy doing this.” And take credit for it. I think the marketing thing can be very, very hard for most people.

Liam: I’d agree. Especially that differentiator what does make you different, what makes me different, what makes Tara different, especially when we’re just getting started and we don’t really know. It takes a while to get constructive feedback, positive and negative, from clients and colleagues and partners to have an understanding of what does make us different. And a big part of that comes from, as you know, getting out and networking and marketing. Let me ask you this around that and it kind of relates to challenges, is getting out and striking the right balance between being proactive and self-confident without being over the top. What tips or techniques have you developed that work for you around that?

Jean: I think being able to hold onto a sense of fun really helps. That allows you to express pleasure in what you do without it being over the top. Many, many years ago, I remembered meeting somebody, a social event, and I said to this woman, “Your little boy is just so cute.” And again, this was in a Japanese environment where people tend to say, “Oh, my child doesn’t study well.” It’s a social construct, it’s not how they really feel, it’s social construct. But instead of saying that, this person who was also from neither a western nor Japanese background just said very modestly, she smiled and she said, “We love him very much.” That had such an impact on me. I learned, yes, you can just say, “I really enjoy doing this. This meant a lot to me.” Or something like that that shows you’re behind what you do. You don’t have to say, “Oh, yeah. I’m great.” I mean, you can say that to yourself but– sometimes we need to, but I think there are ways and I think expressing love of what you do is a great way to do it.

Tara: Yeah. That sounds like that made an impression on you. Good story. Would you share with us some advice maybe that doesn’t follow under the category, specifically, of advice but that’s stuck with you, but similar to that, a single piece of advice you’ve received that you’ve implemented in your life, most important piece of advice if you can think of one thing?

Jean: I get asked that a lot and usually what I say is, not so much advice about what should do or should have done. But more advice that I would not recommend because I grew up in the era of, you go to school, you get a degree, you get a job, you’re a team player, you’ve got to work every day, you should probably have that job for the rest of your life. And at the very worst, have something dreary to fall back on, and that doesn’t play anymore. And I kind of wish that wasn’t drummed into me. Just keep plugging away, don’t always go for your dream because you really have to have something to fall back on. And I’m just amazed at this generation. Some of my younger relatives or my friends’ kids, they get out of school usually, or grad school, and they just start businesses. They get angel investors and they invent things, and I’m just blown away by that, and I kind of wish somebody said, “You can reach for something really special.” That wasn’t how I was brought up. I was brought up with people who had nice solid city-based jobs.

Tara: What do you think you’d be doing now if someone had said that to you?

Jean: Oh, that’s a very good question. You know what? I didn’t really pay attention. It made an impression on me, obviously, but at the time, I was in Asian studies, Japanese studies specifically. And I probably would have continued on but life changed. What I might have done is not stay in jobs that really weren’t serving me well as long as I did, just to be safe. That whole, “Oh, you have to pay the rent, you have to pay the mortgage.” Kind of thing. There is something to that, there is, but there are times where I think we need to say, “It’s time to leave now, it’s time to look for something better, whether it’s elsewhere or whether it’s by myself, but it’s time because staying in this place is not where you need to be.” Way too many times did I stay in places for too long, out of just being overly careful or out of fear.

Tara: Yeah, there is the practical side of things. I think it’s changed a lot now with computers because people can have a lot more flexibility to change jobs, to be remote, to work for themselves. I was just hearing on some financial news last week about the percent of workers who are contractors, it’s the highest that it’s ever been because people can work for themselves and be contracted out. I think that times have changed in that sense. 25 years ago, you didn’t really have that much options. It was not that easy to change jobs I think.

Liam: Well, even 15-10 years ago, to say, “Hey, let’s have a work meeting at a coffee shop.” Like, “We’re not hippies, we don’t do that.” And now, it’s, “Wait, I’ve got to come to your office for a meeting?” It changes.

Tara: Yeah. We would all maybe be born a few years later if we can do it over again. [laughter] Yeah.

Jean: I think we’re working the tech pretty well for ourselves.

Tara: We are, I agree with you. I agree, and WordPress certainly has made it easier for us to make a living in tech as old people. Speaking for myself, of course. [laughs]

Liam: We’re all very young at heart, very, very young.

Tara: We are.

Jean: I do think the entrepreneurial generation of millennials is really pretty impressive. Now, I tip my hat to them because I don’t know what I would have been doing but perhaps I wouldn’t be inventing something. I did once have a very good idea that I wish I would have patented and I didn’t. Lost opportunity. But I do really admire that and I wish that I had grown up with a little bit more of, “Okay, you can reach for that special thing, that golden ring or whatever it is that you really want to do and you don’t have to just stay someplace to be safe.” But we’re still learning, you know?

Tara: It sounds like you’ve ended up in something that you seem to really love and enjoy so there’s that where you are right now.

Jean: I do. It brings a lot of satisfaction and a lot of pleasure to do it. I have wonderful clients, too. I’m very grateful with the kind of people I work with.

Tara: Well, we’re grateful that you joined us today, Jean.

Liam: Absolutely, we are.

Tara: We’ve come to the end of our recording for the day. It’s been great to meet you and hear more about you and all that you’ve done, I’m really intrigued by your Japanese story. We’ll have to talk more after we stop recording.

Jean: Thank you so much for having me.

Liam: You’re most welcome.

Tara: Thanks for being on. Where can people find you online?

Jean: My website is Rotemstudio.com. I’m also on Facebook and LinkedIn.

Tara: Okay, and it’s J-E-A-N.

Jean: That’s right.

Tara: Thank you again for joining us and we hope to meet you at a WordCamp some time.

Jean: Oh, I hope so. See you there.

Liam: Thanks Jean, bye for now.

Jean: Bye, bye.

Tara: Bye.

Tara: If you like what we’re doing here – meeting new people in our WordPress community – we invite you to tell others about it. We’re on iTunes and at hallwaychats-staging.ulpgsyz6-liquidwebsites.com.

Liam: Better yet, ask your WordPress friends and colleagues to join us on the show. Encourage them to complete the “Be on the show” form on our site, to tell us about themselves.

Tessa Kriesel is an agency and community engineer at Pantheon and she’s been a web developer for over 10 years. She’s the founder of Outspoken Women, she’s passionate about diversity initiatives and teaching people to code and mentoring new developers.

Website | tessak22.com

Liam: This is Hallway Chats, where we talk with some of the unique people in and around WordPress.

Tara: Together, we meet and chat with folks you may not know about in our community.

Liam: With our guests, we’ll explore stories of living – and of making a living with WordPress.

Tara: And now the conversation begins. This is episode 33.

Tara: Welcome to Hallway Chats. I’m Tara Claeys.

Liam: And I’m Liam Dempsey. Today, we’re joined by Tessa Kriesel. Tessa is an agency and community engineer at Pantheon and she’s been a web developer for over 10 years. She’s the founder of Outspoken Women, she’s passionate about diversity initiatives and teaching people to code and mentoring new developers. Hi Tessa, welcome.

Tessa: Hi, Liam.

Tara: Hey, Tessa. Great to see you, welcome. Why don’t you take a little bit of time and tell us a little bit more about yourself than what Liam just said?

Tessa: Yeah, there’s definitely a lot to know. I have a variety of passions and skills, but I would say things that are probably interesting to know, I am married, I have three kids, they’re pretty awesome. Really love web development and anything that it has to do with, as well as anything that has to do with bringing in new developers to our industry, as well as basically including more diversity in tech in general.

Tara: How did you get started with WordPress and coding?

Tessa: Oh, that’s a really good story. This could be a very long story but I’ll try to keep it to bare minimum since we only have half an hour. I actually got into coding a little bit in high school, I was just really interested in computers and programming. I was kind of that person that was sitting in the little– at our school, we kind of had this computer and networking club that would help with actual computer issues that teachers might have or other students, or whatever. So I joined that, I just really liked to do it. I had like a game programming class that I did and I really liked it. But I thought that my passion was actually restaurant management. I went to school for business management, then some restaurant management. I did a lot of staff management, creating menus, a lot of really cool stuff actually. But just realized that when you’re putting in a new point of sales system, that I really loved my job at that point. I kind of looked back then like, why did I really love my job during these few weeks and now I feel like I’m kind of in a slump again? And it was the computers, it was setting up all of the new point of sales, setting up the new system, getting them actually physically setup. And realized that my true calling was actually tech. My dad owned a small business so I built him a pretty basic HTML website. After that– kind of a tidbit about me is I used to be obsessively in love with Guitar Hero. I would play it like crazy, that was before I had kids of course, when I actually had time. [laughter]

Tara: You actually played the real guitar or just the Guitar Hero?

Tessa: No, I’m not a musician at all. Not even one bit. I have no idea what brought me to Guitar Hero but I really liked it. As I was playing Guitar Hero, I realized that there was no way to actually– you could play Guitar Hero with other people at that time, but you couldn’t actually set up tournaments or any type of thing like that. So I decided that since I had these new web development skills, I was going to use them. I ended up setting up a Joomla site at the time and so people would come to the site, they’d register, they’d put in their Guitar Hero screen name, and then they could say, “I want to have a tournament with this person.” And then we’d have like a hierarchy of players. Then basically you came in, it was just PHP, really quick, pretty simple, you validated your scores, and then that validation ended up in this chart of like, “Oh, this person is at this level, and this person is at this level.” And it was so cool that Activision, their community forum reached out to me and said, “We want to put your tournaments on our website.”

Liam: Woah.

Tessa: Yeah. It was amazing. It was like this Guitar Hero heaven, it was awesome. We ended up doing that, my tournaments were listed on their forum, I got a whole bunch of swags, I got sweatbands, guitar stickers, and pins. It was probably one of the coolest nerdy things I’ve ever done.

Tara: How old were you at this time?

Tessa: I think I was 22, I want to say. I had kids pretty young, I am from a very small town and it’s normal to have kids when you’re very young. My first was born at 23 and I was pregnant when Activision ended up showcasing our website.

Tara: That’s awesome.

Liam: That is so cool.

Tara: What’s your favorite Guitar Hero song?

Tessa: Oh my gosh, there’s so many. I really have to actually listen to them. There is a song that includes something with black and my brain is failing me as to like, who actually sings that song.

Tara: That’s a tricky question.

Tessa: I used to have it memorized.

Tara: Yeah, we were just talking about that game with my family over break because we were recalling when we first got a Wii and we had this Guitar Hero game and loved to play it. Of course, it doesn’t see the light of day anymore but yeah, that was really– but I remember that we had the Beatles version.

Tessa: Oh, fun. My husband actually just bought me one of the latest, I don’t think it’s the latest but one of the later versions and a new guitar because I have since gotten rid of everything. And he’s like, “I know you’ve loved it so much so I thought you’d enjoy this.” And I played it that night and I haven’t touched it again.

Liam: Did you pull an all-nighter playing it?

Tessa: I didn’t but I did play for four hours.

Tara: Wow, that is a really cool story. I’m curious, that Joomla site, how did you get the word out about that? It sounds really complicated.

Tessa: Yeah, actually I’m really surprised it got to a level that it did because I, at that point, was definitely not good at marketing stuff. I feel like I’ve gotten a lot better with those skills as I’ve gotten deeper into web development because I’ve kind of come naturally. But there was just a variety of community forums. Like, Activision’s forum, there were a couple of other gamer forums. I would just go out and be like, “Hey, GH jammers, we’re going to have a tournament, come join us, just play, it’s really casual.” Somehow it blew up. I don’t remember the actual member count by the time that I left but it was into the 1000s for sure. Tens of thousands, yeah. It was so cool.

Tara: Is it there, does it still exist?

Tessa: If you actually go– the person that I passed it on to once I had kids and I kind of still loved to play but it was like a point where I was like, I’m going to move on to my mom life and I just don’t have the time.

Liam: Life.

Tessa: Yeah, life. The person who took over, he named it GH Shredders, I think. If you google GH jammers or GH shredders, I think there’s a version out there. It’s definitely not as pretty as how I had it but it is still up there. you still can play with the original group of people.

Liam: What a wonderful backstory to getting in development. How did you transition from that initial site and kind of building that out and getting some skills and the like, to thinking about how that would become a career or a job or some way to put food on the table as you transitioned out of the restaurant management business?

Tessa: For sure, I think that’s definitely a struggle that a lot of people had. I was actually in a very lucky situation that my husband was working. We had just had a baby. Babies sleep a lot so it was really–

Liam: Some do.

Tessa: Yeah, that’s true. Mine was amazing. He was to date one of the best babies. He slept a lot, super great baby, even if he was awake, he was always happy. I just spent a lot more time during that kind of maternity leavish period, just learning new things to code. Because I had kind of gained these new Joomla skills, I decided to just kind of look for a couple Joomla projects, would very casually work on something light. Back in the day, Craigslist was a great place to find work, actually. There was no spam, lots of people who are just looking for websites, they were good people. I would just casually respond to ads as I kind of stumbled upon them. Then it sort of snowballed. I wasn’t super busy and I wouldn’t say that I, at that point, ever got to a point of like, “This is a full-time job and I own a business.” But I did get to a point where I was probably doing about 20 to 30 hours a week, just very casually grabbing these projects. I realized that forcing myself to take a project that I felt a little uncomfortable with actually was the best thing to help increase those skills. Yeah.

Liam: That’s really neat. You went during that time of your maternity leave when you might have other tasks and activities in an addition to all those new motherly activities, you learned this new skill set. Then, how did that transition to where you’re at now in what kind of time frame here? Did you work on Joomla projects for a couple of years and then looked at this, or did something else happen? Talk us through that just a little bit more if you wouldn’t mind?

Tessa: Yeah, of course. I’m 32 now, willing to admit that. I’d like to just stay at 32, though, and not getting any older.

Liam: Good luck with that.

Tessa: [laughs] I know. I would also like to do that with my kids so if anyone knows how to do that, let me know.

Liam: Yeah, that would be nice.

Tessa: Agreed. I was 22 when I first created that Joomla site. 32 now, so 10 years in, really it progressed from, I did the Joomla self-employed type of thing for a couple of years. Again, my husband was working so I wasn’t forced to have any financial income to an extent. After that, I ended up working with a couple of different clients. I actually lived in Northern Minnesota at the time. I think I said this earlier, I’m from a very small town. Finding any type of tech jobs outside of being self-employed was basically non-existent. I did end up finding one that was probably about 30 miles from my home, pretty great company. It’s called ChamberMasters, Member Zone now. They do some really cool stuff with chambers, they offer a software that allows you to kind of have a business directory, and calendar, and all that stuff. My job there was to integrate their software into hundreds of different CMSs, which was awesome because I think I’ve touched everything at this point. That really pushed my skills to kind of troubleshoot and dig into things that I felt very uncomfortable with or I didn’t know. That was super great, that was a really great kind of entry-level first job after I self-taught web development.

Liam: Tess, can I ask you, was that a, “Here’s the deep end of the pool, let us know how it goes.” And you just had to learn and, “Okay, how am I going to do this?” Or were you lucky enough to have a team around you that, “Okay, Tessa’s new here. Let’s get her up to speed, let’s teach her this.” How did you learn every different CMS and, obviously, be more proficient with one than another, but even just looking at all of that can be daunting? How did you think about that or manage that, if you can recall?

Tessa: Yeah. I did have a couple of people around me but they were also in the same boat that I was. They might have been at the company longer, so they may have have been doing it a little bit longer to be able to say, “Oh yeah, cool. I touched this Concrete5 site, I actually know how to go in there and get a new page created, and a template, and whatever.” Every once in a while, if it was one that I felt was like, yeah, this might be common, they might have touched it, I’d ask someone. But a lot of times I get crazy stuff like Kinetico, if you’ve ever heard of that. I remember that one sticking up to me. There’s so many out there. I think Google was my best friend at that point. And a lot of that job really was just figure it out. But to be honest, it was fairly easy because all I had to do was go in and get a new page created and then figure out where that source was coming from and maybe add some CSS or some Javascript. It wasn’t overly difficult, it was just like getting through the process of figuring out what that CMS was doing.

Tara: I’m going to transition into a question about, well, it kind of takes off in that a little bit, teaching yourself all that you know and learning all those different CMSs transitioning as a mom at the same time, from the career that you thought you wanted into something different, and where you are 10 years from where you started now, we talk about success on this show. So, if you can share with us what your definition of success is personally, professionally, combination of the two, and if it’s a journey for you, where you find yourself in that journey path plan for success?

Tessa: This is kind of a different question for me, or maybe it’s a different question for everyone because I feel like I have the personality where nothing is good enough. I think that that’s a good thing because it’s gotten me where I am today, it’s gotten me through the, “Let’s switch job paths when I’m a new mom.” It’s gotten me through, “I have no idea what I’m doing but I’m going to figure it out anyways.” And it’s also gotten me, obviously, to the role that I have today, being at Pantheon. I work with a lot of very smart people and I’m just overwhelmed with happiness about my role there. I think to measure success is quite difficult for me, what I feel like is my level of success is, am I doing something better today than I did it yesterday, or am I doing something better this year than I did it two years ago. So far, it seems to be working because I keep getting better and I keep doing better things. I keep looking back and saying, that year was really great but I know I can do better. I think that’s really what’s helping me be successful in my mind.

Tara: That’s excellent. I wonder when you define yourself that way as things never being good enough. How do you come to terms with things that you did two years ago not being as good as what you’re doing now, and are you tempted to go back and try to spend the time to fix them, or do you just move and say, “Well, that was then and this is now”?

Tessa: I think it depends on the situation. If there are things that I can go back and do– let’s say, every once in a while I do some side work, whether it be WordPress or whatever. I may have a Joomla website that I’ve built and it was three years old and they kept just adding stuff to it and changing things, and I was like, “Hey, if it’s in the budget, we should really freshen up your site and change some things and make it a little better.” When it comes to that kind of stuff, I think that’s client-based because if they have the budget, then great. I’m not going to spend my free time making their website better, but it’s kind of a win-win for everyone. I get to make the project I did four years ago a little bit better, also get to make a little bit of money, make it a better site. In terms of maybe a blog post I wrote or something, I think it’s important that everyone learns from the things that they’ve done so I’ve done a variety of things and I’ve changed where I wanted to go, and lots of life things. And I wouldn’t take anything back at all. I think you do things, you learn from them and you move forward. I think it’s all good, just be better today than I was yesterday.

Liam: Yeah, success as a journey is great and it sounds like it’s a very marathon type of focused approach versus a sprint is, I can have a bad month or a bad quarter but if I reflect on the entire year, I’m in better shape than I was, so to speak. Whatever shape we’re trying to measure. I think that’s a very valuable approach and it’s a healthy approach.

Tessa: Agreed.

Liam: You have mentioned, when we first met you at the start of the conversation, that you are the founder of Outspoken Women and that you are a big advocate of diversity and you work actively both professionally, and it sounded like, personally to increase diversity to community around you. Can you speak to that a little bit? Why does it matter to you and what is the value of that, and maybe a little bit, what does that mean to you in terms of actual work? How does one go about building a diverse community?

Tessa: Yeah, that’s a very loaded question.

Liam: It is, sorry.

Tessa: [laughs] It’s okay. But I can give you some tidbits about my opinions of it and how I feel. Before I moved to the Twin Cities, I said I’m from a small town, we moved here about four years ago now, I think. When we moved here, I got involved in Girl Develop It. Girl Develop It is a nationwide organization, they had a Minneapolis chapter. I TAd for one of the classes, one of the chapter leaders was like, “You’re awesome. You have been so helpful. Can you please teach the next class?” I was like, “Oh, I’ve never done that before but why not?” I had spoken at a couple of conferences, I have done some involvement with Joomla but never really stopped down and taught someone something. Did my first class, fell in love. If I could have done that every day, all day, for the rest of my life, I would have died a very happy person.

Liam: That would have been it, huh?

Tessa: Yeah. I still feel like that today. I love, love, love teaching people. That really ignited a fire in me to get more involved in teaching and bringing more developers into the world, especially women. I think that we all know that there’s a lack of diversity when it comes to women in tech and I think that a lot of times there’s a variety of ways that can solve that. I only have a small amount of opinions but I think that the best or what I can do to help them get into the industry, I want to do that. Whether that’s teaching someone something through Girl Develop It or if that’s starting an initiative like Outspoken Women. Just to kind of take a minute to just chat about Outspoken Women, that’s actually an organization that I founded over this summer. It’s about six or seven months in, and the goal was– is that with my job at Pantheon, I’ve actually started speaking at a lot more conferences. At those conferences and with getting to know event organizers, I just see a lot of, “I wish we had more submissions from women.” I think that’s true, I think there’s not a lot of women in tech to begin with. And then when you take the number and optimistically cut it in half with the women that are willing to speak in front of people, you’re really cutting your pool of applicants down to a very small amount.

Liam: Agreed.

Tessa: Outspoken Women is a mission and a resource to be able to provide mentorship to someone who wants to be a speaker, or maybe just to showcase of the fact that, like, “Hey, I am a speaker. If you’re looking for women, you can come and ask me to speak at your event.” Also kind of another side of that is the events piece. Event organizers can add their events, they can also add like a call for papers, they’re looking for speakers, and get a little bit more exposure to the women that are a part of Outspoken Women. It’s very beginning stages but we’ve gotten a lot of really awesome feedback, we’ve got quite a few speakers on there now, a lot from the WordPress community, of course. But the focus is to be open source tech in general, so bringing in Drupal, and Joomla, Ruby or whatever else that’s out there that’s open source. Check it out, Outspokenwomen.io. But in terms of diversity, I also have gotten to be– I’ve just dedicated a lot of time, especially in the Minneapolis area, to kind of put myself out there and be known as someone who is helping with that. I actually am having lunch with someone today who is a junior developer, they just want to pick my brain, get some ideas, just chat about how they can get involved so I can give them any information I can, maybe help them set up some training times, whatever that looks like, whatever I can possibly do, I want to do it.

Tara: That’s the spirit of WordPress too, not just WordPress but I appreciate what you’re doing. Did you have anyone that did that for you, where does that come from, Tessa? Obviously, your passion is clear in the fact that you tried teaching and loved it, but do you have anyone who had that impact on you?

Tessa: I actually didn’t and I think that that’s why when I taught the first class, it was a kind of– what was supposed to be an intermediate level HTML and CSS class, and after the class, I was like, “Could you imagine if I would have had this class when I was trying to learn this?” I would have been so much further ahead. I could have dug in a lot quicker. And that part resonated with me, the struggles that I went through to try to learn web development, in terms of like, I’m teaching someone this and they’re getting this because I’m physically there helping them through this problem. And it just made me realize, this needs to be a thing, this is how if someone wants to dig in, just like I wanted to dig in, I’m going to help make this happen.

Tara: Wow. You love teaching. What would you say is your favorite thing that you do every day?

Tessa: I actually get to teach people stuff at my job and that’s why I love it so much. My role at Pantheon, agency and community engineer. What that means, I know it’s kind of a long complicated role but what means is that I’m helping agencies, I’m helping developers, I’m helping anyone in the community that wants to learn something on Pantheon. Great thing about that is like, sure, I do a lot of actual Pantheon teachings where I help you through the dashboards, and our workflows, and our environments and all that awesome stuff, commands line and whatever. But it also gives me an opportunity to teach topics that might not be very specific to Pantheon. For example, I put together an introduction to Git. We had some agencies that were coming in, there were like two to three-people agencies, they’ve been working with SFTP, they’ve been working right on the server, which is totally great. But once you start to introduce other people, I think that having some version control is a really great asset to have, very helpful. In that role, I’m able to put together that stuff. I’ve offered the entry level to Git, offering it multiple times and it’s been very helpful to those people. I would say, every day I get to teach someone something, every day in my job, and I love it.

Tara: That’s awesome.

Liam: I like that. That ability to do that regularly and clearly, from the tone of your voice, you really do like it. You’re not making that up. If that’s the highlight, let’s talk a little bit about the low point. Can you tell us what your least favorite thing to do is every day?

Tessa: Let’s see, least favorite thing to do. From a personal standpoint, I would say the dishes but my husband stays at home with the kids so I don’t have to touch the dishes, that’s lovely.

Liam: I love doing the dishes.

Tessa: Really?

Liam: I totally do. I find it therapeutic but this show’s not me. Go ahead, carry on.

Tessa: I actually really love organizing. I don’t want to do the dishes but I love going into the bathroom and being like, “Oh, people have destroyed the cupboard, I’m going to reorganize this.” I love doing that. I would say, in a professional capacity, probably just the logistics of going and creating calendar events and adding Zoom links and just the little intricate, “I have to do this in order to do the thing that I really love.” And it’s a part of it so you just have to deal with it.

Tara: Yeah. Building the time for these things.

Liam: Let me ask you about challenges. We like to talk about big challenges and clearly you’re not afraid of them, and from what you’ve explained about your life and your career, you’re more than willing to tackle what will be difficult if you want to do so. I wonder if you can speak to what might be your biggest challenge to date or some of your biggest challenges, whether it is personal or professional on the Pantheon office, maybe before that, maybe even around diversity, any one of those kind of topics, or maybe it weaves in some way that takes them all in? I don’t know.

Tessa: Yeah. I think I definitely could take on all of those different things. I would say from a personal standpoint, I love the town that I’m from, I really love going up there. I’m like a big outdoorsy person so I like fishing, and hunting, and four-wheeling, and snowmobiling, I shoot archery and stuff like that. I really love doing that stuff but I don’t like actually physically living there. There’s a lot of toxic drama that goes on with everyone knowing everything about your life. You do make a mistake and everyone knows about it and you have to hear about it for years to come. I would say that I think one of the biggest challenges for me was getting out of that town. My husband and I are both from there. He’s four years older than me, we didn’t go to school together so we don’t have the cute little high school sweetheart story, but we’re both from there and have met after the fact, and ended up together. It was really hard for us to leave. My parents are there, they own a business, his parents are there, his mom’s a little bit older, it’s nice to help her with things. It was really hard for us to physically leave the town and get out of there. But I needed to, I needed to expand my career, there just wasn’t work there that was going to push me to where I wanted to be. We talked about level of success and kind of setting those personal goals, and my personal goal was to get better, get out there, get more experience, put myself in corporate situations or agencies, or other places where I was working with teams that could teach me things that I can’t teach myself because I don’t know what I don’t know. I would say that was a personal one and, obviously, we made it, we’re four years into living in the Twin Cities. But we compromised, we ended up living in a suburb of Minneapolis, it’s about 30-40 minutes out, so when I come in Minneapolis, it’s a good drive. But my backyard is a farm, not my yard but the yard behind me is a farm. We found the compromise and we’re still there. I would say, professionally, I think that I am actually very good with challenges. I don’t know how, I don’t know what I do, if it’s just my aggressively passionate personality or what it is, but any time that I’ve been faced with any type of professional challenges, whether it be someone talking down to me, that’s happened, or whether it be getting a new job for something I want to do. I just do it, I don’t know how, but somehow I figure it out, I move on, I persevere, and I get out of any situations that I feel uncomfortable in. [CUT THIS: To speak about the situation where I was kind of talked down to, it’s actually crazy because I know that there’s a lot of diverse conversations about men speaking down to women but this is actually a woman speaking down to me and being very– I don’t really know the best word for the way that she was acting but it was just like putting me in the situation where she was better than me, she was the boss, whatever she said goes, and that’s just not a personality that works well for me. I’m very outgoing, I’m very opinionated, I definitely can take other opinions and I think that it’s great to work together on those things, but to be told that I have to do something and my opinions aren’t valued, that’s an issue for me. That was definitely a major professional challenge, it’s actually the reason that I left the job that I had up north, the one where I was working with lots of CMSs. It is what it is, it’s challenges that we all have, and] I think that in terms of the diversity one, the team that I’m on right now, I’m the only woman. But it doesn’t bother me because I know that I’m out there doing things to change that. I know that our future applicant pool is going to include more women because there are initiatives like Girl Develop It. Other things that I try to get involved with and I think that it will take some time but we will get there, our pool of applicants will become more diverse.

Tara: Good for you for standing up for yourself and I’d like to ask you where you think that part of personality comes from but I also want to ask you about advice. We ask people a lot to think about advice they’ve received that’s been helpful, that they take with them, whether it’s personal or professional. Any single piece of advice that you can think of that you’ve been given that may have influenced that you approach challenges in such a positive and ‘can do’ way?

Tessa: I don’t know if I really have any advice that someone has given me. My dad’s personality is very much like mine. If he is faced with the challenge, he just overcomes it, tries to keep a smile on his face and just kind of pushes through. I think that I saw that a lot in him and actually being older, I see that in him more. I’m not sure if that had any influence on it but I think that being a lot like him, I’ve obviously had some of those influences. But there is one thing, in terms of advice, I would say it can be very hard to do, especially if you’re put in a situation where you financially need to keep that job. But I think that no one should be treated in a way that doesn’t make them feel successful. It doesn’t make you feel comfortable, whether that be financial or not, you shouldn’t be in the situation. Whatever it is that you need to do to move forward with that, I think that people have done it, you can do it, you just have to take that leap, I guess. I think that you’ve asked another piece of– oh, I remember what I was going to add. Sorry, had a little brain fart there. There’s one thing that I want to share and I think that I’m very lucky that I have this person in my life, but my manager at Pantheon, amazing person. He’s just like the best manager I’ve ever had. When I first started at the job, I actually went to San Francisco for my first week of training and it was very coincidental that they were already having a team training. That’s when I joined. Him and I went for a walk, I think it was the second or third day, maybe first day, I don’t recall for sure. We went for a walk in San Francisco, so we were just kind of walking around and he’s like, “What do you think? I know this is a lot to take on your first week. How are you feeling?” Just a very open conversation about my feelings, how I felt, it was awesome. But then he added into this conversation, and I wish that I can remember the exact words that he said, but he made a comment about, “I can see that you’re very outspoken.” And he goes, “I don’t want you to ever change that.” I thought that that was the best thing that someone could say, especially to me, because that is my personality, I’m very outspoken. I’m not aggressive in a bad way but I can be very persistent and opinionated. For my manager to tell me like, “I love that you’re like that and I want you to keep it up.” Was just the most reassuring thing in the world. If you’re a manager, embrace your employees’ awesome personality traits and tell them about it.

Tara: Great. Sounds like you’ve found a good place to be, that’s wonderful to hear. Awesome.

Liam: That must have been really rewarding, you said it as much, but in your first week or two at a new job and the individual to whom you’re going to be reporting, and in some ways to whom your paycheck depends, right? Not the company owner but if that person says, “She’s not cutting it here.” There goes your paycheck. To have them embrace who you are in the way that you’ve brought yourself to the job. That’s just must have been a massive comfort too, aside from just nice to hear but just like, “Okay, yeah, this is going to work, this is going to be great. Rent, mortgage, and bills are covered. That’s awesome.”

Tara: Yeah, right off the bat, that’s really awesome.

Liam: That’s so neat, it speaks a lot about your manager. Thank you for sharing that.

Tessa: Yeah, he deserves the recognition, he is fabulous.

Liam: Certainly sounds like it. Well, we have run out of time on our little hallway chat here and it’s been a fantastic time that flew by.

Tara: I know, I wanted to hear more about your kids but we’ll do that next time or offline.

Tessa: Yes, we can definitely do that, they’re adorable, I’ll share some photos.

Liam: That would be great. Before we say officially goodbye to you, can you let us know where people can find you and can find again Outspoken Women and maybe even, if you’re actively involved and a part of the GDI community up there in the Twin Cities, where people can find them too, as well?

Tessa: Of course. You can find me at Tessak22.com. My username pretty much everywhere on the internet is Tessak22, so if you just google that, you’ll find me. Outspoken Women, I would love if you would check it out, join if you’re a speaker, join if you’re an event organizer, even just become a supporter. That’s Outspokenwomen.io. And then in terms of Girl Develop It, there is definitely a chapter here in Minneapolis. I think the best way to go out and do that, I think all of you are going to be from all over the place, is go to Girldevelopit.com. They’ve got lots of different chapters listed there, and you can go and find your own chapter, there are lots of kind of women tech initiatives but that’s the one that’s really out there actually offering classes and teaching women how to code. Strongly recommend that organization as well.

Liam: They’re a great organization. The Philly chapter is great. I’ve TAd a class or two and it’s just fantastic. Thank you very, very much. It was a wonderful pleasure to spend some time with you, Tessa.

Tara: Thanks for joining us.

Tessa: Thank you for having me, it’s been really great.

Tara: Thanks for being here, see you soon, hopefully.

Liam: Bye.

Tessa: Bye.

Tara: If you like what we’re doing here – meeting new people in our WordPress community – we invite you to tell others about it. We’re on iTunes and at hallwaychats-staging.ulpgsyz6-liquidwebsites.com.

Liam: Better yet, ask your WordPress friends and colleagues to join us on the show. Encourage them to complete the “Be on the show” form on our site, to tell us about themselves.

Alfredo Navas is a full-stack designer and front-end developer. He’s a web artisan and WordPress wrangler who organizes a WordPress meetup where he lives in Costa Rica, and is an organizer of WordCamp San José.

Website | elpuas.com

Liam: This is Hallway Chats, where we talk with some of the unique people in and around WordPress.

Tara: Together, we meet and chat with folks you may not know about in our community.

Liam: With our guests, we’ll explore stories of living – and of making a living with WordPress.

Tara: Today’s show is brought to you in part by Liquid Web.

Liam: We sure know that there’s a lot of choices when it comes to hosting your WordPress site. Liquid Web is the manage WordPress partner you’ve been waiting for. Whether you’re a business owner, an agency, or a freelancer, Liquid Web has you covered when it comes to performance, uptime, and ease of site management.

Tara: And one of the things we love most, when your content goes viral, Liquid Web doesn’t charge you more for huge spikes in traffic. Transparent pricing, no surcharges.

Liam: Liquid Web is offering Hallway Chats listeners 33% off for the first three months. Go to Liquidweb.com and use the coupon code, HALLWAYCHATS, all one word, to sign up.

Tara: And now the conversation begins. This is episode 32.

Liam: Welcome to Hallway Chats. I’m Liam Dempsey.

Tara: And I’m Tara Claeys. Today, we’re joined by Alfredo Navas. Alfredo is a full-stack designer and front-end developer. He’s a web artisan and WordPress wrangler who organizes a WordPress meetup where he lives in Costa Rica, and is an organizer of WordCamp San José. Hi, Alfredo.

Alfredo: Hello, Tara. Hello, Liam. Thanks for the call.

Liam: Hey, Alfredo. Thanks for joining us. You’re welcome, thanks for joining us. Tara told us a little bit about you, tell us a little bit more?

Alfredo: Well, I live in Costa Rica. I was actually born in Peru from Italian parents and then when I was around 11, I moved to Costa Rica and I’ve been here since then. It’s almost 30 years. I started as designer and I turned into developer, and now I’m full in on everything regardless to WordPress. Organizing meetups, I was the lead organizer of last year’s WordCamp San José, and I’m part of the organization for this year’s WordCamp San José. I’m also a speaker on some WordCamps. I was invited last year to WordCamp Managua to give a chat, and I’m probably going to be a speaker this year, too, on WordCamp [Managua.

Tara: Great. How did you discover WordPress?

Alfredo: It’s kind of a funny story. I was working maybe 10 years ago in a company that they had their own CMS, they developed their own CMS and they called it The Beast. But it was so hard for a regular customer to modify and add content and images, so I started looking and I found WordPress and I said, “Oh, wow. This is very easy to use.” And I got hooked up since then. It’s been 10 years already and I can say WordPress changed my life. I know it’s a cliche word but, actually, it did. I’m traveling more, I’ve been knowing a lot of people. The community is something that I love and I think it’s like the most important thing WordPress has, this wonderful community of people around the world. Every time I go to a WordCamp, I know really nice people. I met Liam on a WordCamp Miami and I’ve been friend with James from Orlando, Zach Gordon, Christie Chirinos Josh from Caldera Forms. It’s awesome, I can’t be more than happy.

Tara: Yeah, it sounds like the community is almost as important as the functionality of WordPress for you.

Alfredo: Yes, yes.

Tara: Yeah, that’s great. You have a design background and since I can see you, I can say you have some gray hairs in your beard, so I know you’re not 22 or something.

Alfredo: I’m 44 actually.

Tara: Yeah. You started in design. Was it graphic design, print? And then you moved into web stuff or tell us a little bit about that?

Alfredo: I just started doing screen printing, making the designs for screen printing by hand, make the color separation by hand. Then when I was in college, I’ve also studied marketing actually, advertising but advertising was focused on marketing at the time. There was no graphic designer career. But then I just started doing all the works for my friends, and one of those guys actually works in an advertising company and he said, “Oh, you should take your drawings.” Because I also do comics. Whenever you go to my page, you can see I have some drawings there. And I go to this advertising company with no experience, I have like, what, 19 years probably. And I show my drawings and they say, “Okay, can you start tomorrow?” And that’s how I started. I started learning Photoshop, Illustrator, I worked. Then I moved from the screen printing to graphic design doing some print ads, a lot of campaigns, and then, like I said, around 1999-2000 is when I get hooked up into web design. And it was normal at that time, a graphic designer moved and started doing web design. There is no UX career or–

Tara: Yeah.

Alfredo: And then I start getting into code, and one thing turns to another, and right now I’m not designing that much as I want, but I do more coding basically. Right now I work for a company in Austin, Texas. I work remote from my home, and basically what I do is all WordPress, coding WordPress, not even design. Just making custom solutions for clients. It was like a long road from graphic design, and a lot of books, actually.

Tara: Yeah, I was going to ask how you learned to code and what are you doing when you’re doing custom code in your current job. Are you doing front-end stuff like themes or are you doing PHP and plugins and stuff?

Alfredo: I do both. I do custom themes but I also do custom functions for them. Like, “Oh, I want a plugin that will do that.” And I start creating. Yeah, I don’t have any formal education in computer science. Basically, everything I learn, I do it by myself. Online courses and books, and that helped me out with my English too, because most of technologies come in English.

Liam: That’s exactly what I was going to ask you about is so many of our guests tell us, when they were learning WordPress this or WordPress that or code this or code that, they just googled things and read it. And clearly, WordPress is not limited to English and there are so many people everywhere in the world whose first language isn’t English. So yeah, tell us about that. There must be a whole world of Spanish speaking and writing WordPress experts and another language experts. Tell me a little bit about your experience, I’m really interested?

Alfredo: Yeah, probably yes. But what I found is every time I get a book in Spanish, the technology has completely changed because it almost takes a year to make the translation and a year in coding is a lot of time. In a year, a lot of things change. WordPress makes up three or four updates every year. I was lucky when I was a kid, my parents put me in a bilingual school so my English was okay, not much because I don’t practice. So I get it started into books, I get it started in looking for online courses like Udemy, Team Treehouse, all this front-end mastered. And yeah, it was hard when I started because there are some things that I don’t understand. Like, “Oh, what is this guy trying to tell me?” I was looking and looking until I found it and then I started working on an American company in Costa Rica. Basically, everything I did was in English. And it’s funny because at that time, when I got into that company, there were four guys and none of them spoke English. And my English wasn’t that bad, I was good at that time. I was the only one who was able to communicate with my boss and he put me in charge of that department because I was the only one who kind of spoke and kind of understood what they wanted. But then I worked for them for 10 years and everything was in English so I guess my English was still getting better, and better, and better, and now I can understand any book you put me in front. I also have a daughter who lives in Atlanta so I practice with her a lot my English. She has not good Spanish and I don’t have really good English so we try to teach each other.

Tara: What’s it like working with WordPress? Do you work with the Spanish translation version of WordPress or do you challenge yourself with English version?

Alfredo: Everything is in English because most of my customers are in the States. And when I have a few clients here, I always do it in English. It’s most easy for me. I’m used to some words like, okay, appearance, I know where to find the appearance tab. Then in Spanish it says something else and–

Tara: Yeah. I tried to help someone at a meetup once who had the Spanish version of WordPress so I had to kind of guess my way around and test my knowledge of where things are located because I didn’t know what words meant. But it’s all at the same place, so– [laughs]

Alfredo: Yeah, they are in the same place but it’s weird. I actually just finished one website in Vietnamese. I used this translator plugin but the guy wants everything in Vietnamese, so every time I make a change or I need to make an update, I have to, “Oh, what it is? Where it is?” And I have a bunch of plugins too, so, “Oh, man, where does this plugin come? What’s the name?” So I have to switch between English and Vietnamese all the time.

Tara: That’s cool, that’s really cool. Have you worked on any translation with the polyglots at all?

Alfredo: Yes. Actually, I’m a polyglot on WordPress and I started translating JetPack, and I have reviewed a few sites too, but the Spanish one is Spanish from Costa Rica, so the Spanish version that comes from Spain, it’s 100% done. Basically, the Costa Rica one is– Costa Rica is very Americanized country, we use a lot of English words. For example, we don’t say all the Javascript language like promises, Async, we use in English. We don’t say like ‘promesas en Espanol’. We speak in English. So every word we do like that. We use the word ‘plugin’, we don’t use the other word. We have to change this translation to the Costa Rica one. What is this is it basically includes some English words.

Tara: Okay, that’s interesting. I know that there’s also UK English WordPress too.

Alfredo: Yeah. We have WordPress as the Spanish version from Peru, there is one from Colombia. And I don’t think they change that much. But if you compare it to the Spanish version from Spain, yeah, that changes a lot. It’s very different.

Tara: Right. I’m going to move on a little bit now and talk about my favorite topic, success. We ask our guests to tell us a little bit about what success means to them, whether that’s in their personal life, or their professional life, or both, or the intersection of both. Can you tell us a little bit about what success means to you?

Alfredo: Okay, that’s a nice question. I never think about it, actually. Well, I can say two things. Success, I don’t know I’m reaching success right now on the professional part of myself. I think I still need to do more stuff, I really want to do more stuff. But on the other hand, I have a really wonderful family, really wonderful kids, I’m working on what I like, and this is something I really enjoy. I can stand 16 hours behind a computer with no problem at all. I’m really happy solving problems, looking for new technologies, learning. For me, that’s basically success, working in something that I love or doing something that I love, it’s success. On the other hand, I have my wonderful kids that make me laugh all the time. I’ve been a parent not when I was young, I started being a parent when I had 38, I think it’s enough, it’s a good age. Even though sometimes I get really tired and just want to go to sleep. These kids make me crazy, and this is what is success in my life. On the other hand, I’m doing a lot of meetups, I’m helping people to understand WordPress. With the help of my local government, last year I started teaching some classes about WordPress to low-income single moms women. It was fun, I just started with a group of 20, I ended with a group of six. But those six women, those six moms who don’t have an idea what to do in life, with no education at all, now they know how to manage WordPress and how to make an online store, so they can sell whatever they want. I think it’s wonderful because it’s just a tool to people to get something different. Again, that makes me really, really happy and proud of myself. Like, “Oh, I’m doing something for my community that is helping people to move out of that poverty hole that I have.” I can say that’s success too.

Tara: Yeah, what inspired you to start that? Does that organization have a name? Is it something that–

Alfredo: Well, I like politics a lot. I always talk about politics and I always complain, and one time I was talking to my wife and I said, “Do you know what? I complain a lot but I don’t do nothing to help my community.” So I started looking for a way to help my community so I can complain about it, you know? I’ll do it but I will still complain about this. This is how I start. And right now, I have a call from the same guy who said, “Oh, we have another big group.” And I said, “Okay, that’s nice. The thing is I don’t have that much time.” I have to give this class on Saturday and Saturday is the time I dedicate to my kids. My wife is really pissed about this. “Let me just think about it, let me find a good time, but this is something I really want to do too.”

Tara: Do they have computers, the women that you help? How does that work?

Alfredo: They don’t have computers, not all of them. But all of them have phones, and one of the beauties of WordPress is that you can change your content through your phone. You can follow the app or just simply log in on your phone and you can start working on it. That’s awesome, they don’t need a computer, I told them, “You can just take a picture with your phone of your products and just upload, type there, I know it’s hard.” But most of them, when I leave homework and they give me the homework, and I say, “How you do it?”, “Oh, I do it on my phone.”, “Yeah, that’s it, that’s awesome.”

Liam: That’s really neat. And Anthony Paul, one of our guests from a while ago, at WordCamp US, I want to say the first year, did a talk on not just editing a website from your phone but actually writing a custom theme from your phone. He had a really interesting talk around trying to use tools that somebody who only had a phone and had low bandwidth, and wasn’t at a Starbucks on fast WiFi or anything like that. And it was more laborious than what you and I might have in our current work environment but it was totally doable and it was really inspiring.

Tara: That’s really interesting.

Alfredo: You don’t have the computer? You always carry a phone. There’s some other times, “I don’t have money but I have a phone.”

Tara. Yeah, that’s true.

Liam: I want– sorry, Tara, go ahead.

Tara: I was just saying what a great thing that you started. Go ahead, Liam.

Liam: Yeah, that’s wonderful. I love that comprehensive definition, I know you said you don’t really have a definition, you don’t think about it, but you talked through really the major aspects of life, right? Work, family, and sharing with others.

Alfredo: I have to have a balance of it.

Liam: Amen to that, that’s what it’s all about, right?

Alfredo: I am trying to go to the beach.

Liam: Yeah. Especially because it’s summer for you. This success that you have, this balance, this wonderful family who make you laugh and this job that you find enjoyable and editing code, doing some design, mostly code at this point, and then giving back to the community. Within this ebon flow of the different measures of success, what’s a single most important thing you do to continue to achieve that balance, that success that you have going in your life right now?

Alfredo: Keep learning, that’s how I call it. Keep learning, learning technology, learning to be a parent, learning how to solve problems, that keeps me active. That makes me active all the time, and I love it. I see a bunch of people who don’t do nothing, they are complaining about their jobs, and I said, “Dude, it’s not the money, it’s how you live.” Everyone is going to have financial problems once in a while but you don’t have to let that go. Just be happy, try to find something that fulfills your spirit, and that’s what will happen. Reading good books now, keep learning, that’s something I really love. I enjoy learning. When I discover something, I say, “Oh, yeah. This is how you do it. I’ve been looking this for a long time and now I understand it.”

Liam: You do a little dance?

Alfredo: Yeah. [laughter]

Tara: I think there’s a common personality trait among people who do the type of work we do, that we get that satisfaction from solving problems and will persist and stick with it for however long it takes. You can spend two hours trying to find the one semicolon missing and you’re so– or it might take you five minutes, it’s equally satisfying when you figure it out. Certainly, it’s more productive when you do it in five minutes but yeah, I think that we–

Alfredo: Exactly, that’s what I think. I enjoy nature, I enjoy a good book, I enjoy time with my kids. But yeah, learning is what fulfills my spirit the most, to be able to understand something that takes me a long time to get it. And once I get it, I feel so good with me. Like, “Oh yeah, you’re old but you still get it.” [laughter]

Tara: Yeah. Along those lines, what would you say is your biggest challenge that you face?

Alfredo: Right now, trying to get into– if we talk about work, my biggest challenge is trying to get in all these new frameworks that are coming out. I keep pushing me, I’ve got a list that my wife showed me the other day, and the last two years, I was, “You have to learn Javascript.” And I try, sometimes I take courses. But I’m still on it, and I’m almost there, I think I almost get it, to I fully understand how it works. Since I don’t have computer science background, sometimes you’ll see computer logic, it’s sometimes hard. Right now, I’m getting more into it, I’m more mature and so I understand better a lot of things. But again, I’m still learning. Right now, I actually got a book from logic, How to Understand Computer Logic. And I’m reading and doing the exercise because it’s a really fun book. It comes with exercise that you try yourself. And I solved more of them so, okay, I’m getting there.

Tara: Yeah, plus, you have a job and client work you do, so all of that learning comes outside of that, and so many hours in the day, right?

Alfredo: Oh, yeah. Sometimes I wish I can have a 48-hour day, not 24.

Tara: Yeah. How do you balance that passion that you have and that you can work all the time with your mental health, because that can take a toll, right?

Alfredo: Yeah, but I’m trying to– for example, when I first wake up in the morning, I dedicate to my family until nine. I work remote so I have my own time. What I did is, okay, I’m going to start with them from seven to nine every single day. On weekends, I don’t work at all. I just completely dedicate to my kids, I don’t turn my computer. I do have my phone, just in case, but I’m trying not to do nothing with that. I wish I’m with my family, but from Monday to Friday, they know that I’m working so I think we have a good balance right now. My wife understands that. For example, right now, she took the kids to the park so they don’t mess around here. Yeah, I manage that really well. Basically, I don’t have really bad time, something like that, I think I have a really good balance. I hope it keeps that way.

Liam: So, you’ve mentioned your children a bunch and I love that, I just love that focus. I work from home and I get to spend a lot of time with– I have two children. Can I ask you how many do you have and what are their age ranges?

Alfredo: With my marriage, I have two kids. Mia is seven, and I have Phillipo who is 18 months. And from another relationship when I was younger, I have Daniela, she is 26 and she lives in Atlanta.

Liam: That’s wonderful.

Tara: 18 months old, that’s fun.

Alfredo: Oh yeah, he is the crazy one. And he is turning to be a lot of energy. [laughter]

Tara: That’s excellent. Do they get along well?

Alfredo: Oh, yeah. The thing is, every time they see me, it’s like, “Papa, papa, papa.” All the time like, “Papa see. Papa.” [laughs] It’s nice. It’s crazy sometimes.

Liam: Yeah, I get that. Having worked from home for, geez, since 2005-2006, from when my children were very young and before they were there, it can be a kind of a crazy fun little, how am I going to actually do things when the cutest thing in the world is right next door screaming my name. Alfredo, let me change gears on you a little bit here and ask you about advice. What would you say is the single most valuable piece of advice that you’ve received in your life and integrated into your life in a way that has made it better, has made you better, had a lasting positive effect on you and your life?

Alfredo: Well, one time a mom of one of my friends when I was younger– again, I told you I was really into politics and what happened to the world and whatever. She gave me this beautiful advice and she says like, “The world is too big, don’t worry about it. Just live your own world and don’t worry about it.” I said, “Well, that’s a lot of truth.” I worry about a lot of stuff that doesn’t affect me directly so I’m going to start living my own life the way I want and trying to be the best I can. That advice, I still remember it. Every time I have an issue with something, I say, “Don’t worry, everything is going to be fine. Just live your small world, don’t worry about it.”

Liam: And it sounds like you followed that advice when you decided to stop complaining about politics, only complaining and do something, and you went and helped not the world organization or somebody afar, but you found some mothers in your own neck of the woods who could use a hand. You’re worried about the world immediately around you.

Alfredo: Exactly, that’s the best world. The world that is around me is the one I have to take care. Even that I affect– because right now, we’re so connected with everybody. Things happen in Africa, you just know it. That makes me sad, but on the other hand, when I go to all these meetups, these WordCamps, and I know all these people around the world, I say, “Well, I’m not alone. Everybody’s thinking like me. The good people, we are more.” Yeah, that’s a good advice that lady gave to me. I still remember it and I’m still trying to live with it.

Liam: Yeah, I love that focus on the here and the now, and the local– go ahead, Tara?

Tara: No, as Liam mentioned, I like how you implemented that, too, in your local community and what you can impact versus just worrying about things that you can’t. That’s a hard line, especially in these days, it’s a hard one to figure out where you walk that line, I think. But I think one person at a time, one thing at a time, one step at a time.

Alfredo: Exactly, anything you do, even the smaller thing, is going to affect positive to somebody else, so just keep doing it.

Tara: Yeah, WordPress is very much a pay it forward type of community also. I think we can think of people who’ve helped us and then it inspired us to help others. Who knows who you’ve helped then will help someone else, and so on, and so on. There used to be a hair shampoo commercial that was like that, and so on, and so on, and so on.

Liam: And I love how if we think back on our lives and with the people that have helped us along the way, not just with WordPress but with life, maybe, Alfredo, with your example of your friend’s mother who gave you that advice, she may or may not have any idea what might have just been a comment in the kitchen afternoon after school, and it’s been a guiding light in your life for so long. It’s kind of, I’ll call it a throwaway comment. I don’t mean that in a negative way but just the positive effect we have on each other by caring for each other and thinking about each other, trying to put other first. It’s not to be underestimated.

Alfredo: Right.

Liam: Well, we’ve got a little bit of time left so I wanted to ask you something, unless Tara, did you want to jump in and say something? Okay, here I go. We’ve talked about, you started in design, now you’re in development, and I want to ask you because it sounds like you were working in design long enough and had some professional accomplishments about what you’d be proud, magazines, campaigns. And now you’re working and you’re really enjoying being a developer. What about development do you enjoy in a way that you couldn’t get from design? What about working with code versus working with pixels, to grossly oversimplify the two fields, do you enjoy?

Alfredo: I enjoy designing a lot. Trying colors, moving this image, moving that, but what I love of development is, in a certain way, you are also designing but the difference, you’re designing algorithms. And I kind of love it because even that I enjoy design, I enjoy painting, I enjoy drawing, writing code is something like– first of all, I didn’t figure it out that I’m going to do what I’m doing now 10 or 15 years ago. I see myself at that time and I see myself now, and I say, “Wow, if you can do it, anyone can do it.” This is what I tell to everybody, “If I can write code, you can write code. I learned to write code watching videos on the internet. You can do it, too.” That’s what I told to my students, too. “Anyone can do it, even if you have 40, 60, 50. If you pay attention enough and you focus on that, you can learn to code.” And basically, at least in Costa Rica, learning code is something that can give you a better future–

Liam: A surer career, a surer job.

Alfredo: Exactly, that’s what I tell to everybody. And when I do code, I feel so nice, so happy. I don’t know. I just sit down, put my headphones and start writing code and start looking for solutions. It’s awesome. Sometimes it gets frustrating when– did you see that meme, “My code works, I don’t know why.”? It happens often to me, you know? But yeah, I think things are turning more difficult. Now, you have to install 20 packets just to get a header and the footer on your screen but it’s fine, it’s how modern times go. It’s okay, you don’t have to be that complicated but if you want to do it, okay, that’s fine.

Tara: Yeah. You’re an inspiration, I’d like to learn more code than I know, too, so I’ll take your words to heart and thanks so much. Alfredo, we are out of time but I want to thank you so much for joining us today, and if you can share with everyone listening where they can find you, website, Twitter, all of that?

Alfredo: Sure. My website is Elpuas.com, that’s kind of my nickname. You can see my profile and you can see some of my works. Also there, you can find links to my Twitter account, to my Facebook account, too. I use a lot of Twitter now so it’s the same, it’s my same nickname. That nickname sounds funny, I have it since the school, so yeah, everybody called me like that so I said, “Okay, let’s do it my brand.” But yeah, you can go to my website and you can find all the links and some of my work.

Tara: Great.

Liam: Excellent. Thank you so much for joining us, it’s been an absolute pleasure having you on the show today.

Tara: Thank you. Really great chatting with you.

Alfredo: Thank you, guys. I enjoyed a lot sharing my experience with you guys. Thank you very much.

Tara: Yeah, we’ll see you at a WordCamp sometime.

Alfredo: Oh, yeah. WordCamp Miami, I’ll be there definitely.

Tara: Alright, me too.

Alfredo: We can come to WordCamp. You can spend a nice weekend and then you can go to the beach and enjoy these beautiful beaches here in Costa Rica.

Tara: Awesome.

Liam: That is a very, very tempting offer. With that, we’ll say goodbye.

Alfredo: Bye.

Tara: Thank you.

Tara: If you like what we’re doing here – meeting new people in our WordPress community – we invite you to tell others about it. We’re on iTunes and at hallwaychats-staging.ulpgsyz6-liquidwebsites.com.

Liam: Better yet, ask your WordPress friends and colleagues to join us on the show. Encourage them to complete the “Be on the show” form on our site, to tell us about themselves.