When is the least time you have received someone’s thanks for the work you have done?
Just the other day, I was working at the local coffee shop. One of my clients came in and, as he often does, sits at the same table with me.
After a few minutes, he got out and went to his car. I thought it was a little odd, but I really didn’t think about it.
A few minutes later he comes back and hands me a brand new Yeti® Thermos with his company’s logo.
He said, “I really appreciate all the work you have done for us this year, and I consider you a part of the team.”
Believe me; I was pleasantly surprised.
It is that kind of thankfulness that makes each one of us feel valued.
This is the time of year when we take stock of what we have to be thankful.
In fact, many of you know, next week is Thanksgiving in the United States. We will be doing a lot of being thankful.
Thankfulness, it turns out, can be good for your career, but I would argue it is just good for us to have an “attitude of gratitude.”
This month’s roundup is all about being thankful. We are spending time being thankful for what we do and the WordPress world in which we are all apart.
For this month’s Thanksgiving Roundup, here are 5 Things for which WordPress Entrepreneurs can be thankful.
Matt Mullenweg
Matt Mullenweg isn’t anything if he isn’t willing to go to bat for what he believes. Mullenweg, our fearless leader, and creator of WordPress, recently took a shot at Wix letting them know he thought they used some code from WordPress for their app.
The problem with this, it seems, the WordPress code is a GPL Licensed code (Open Source) which, by definition, means that the Wix’s whole code should also be GPL, which it is not.
Wix CEO Avishai Abrahami fired back claiming that Wix had been big advocates of open source code. However, according to others, Abrahami never addressed Matt’s real complaint.
Frankly, I am not real adept in the nuances of open source software and the GPL License, but I am thankful for what Matt has brought to the table for WordPress Entrepreneurs which means I am thankful for Matt Mullenweg.
Matt fights for what he believes in, GPL, and that, in my opinion, is something worth being thankful.
Want to read more on this discussion?
Supportive colleagues
This week is the famous WordPress Mastermind retreat, CaboPress, which is put on by one Chris Lema.
Now, who doesn’t want to spend a cold week in November in Cabo? What a place to go and learn and brainstorm with some of the brightest minds in all of WordPress kingdom.
It is really easy to slave away and isolate ourselves from one another, but that is a real disservice. One of the things I have always admired about the WordPress community is collaboration.
I have learned as much about doing things in the WordPress industry as I have in any other industry.
Maybe it is the air of Open Source, but many are extremely helpful. Tutorials, courses, networking groups, WordCamps, WordPress meetups and more abound at every step to become a better WordPress Entrepreneur.
Sure, some cost, but often, it is worth the price.
So, is going to Cabo for a mastermind a good idea?
Well, according to the guys from LifterLMS, it was worth the cost:
“I can guarantee you this … There will be future success that I will trace back to a lunch conversation, to a discussion in the pool, to a relationship that was formed at CaboPress.”
Besides, it looks really, really nice there, right?
This is the view from our room and the sponsored tweets in my feed are in Spanish. #ThisIsAwesome #CaboPress pic.twitter.com/1kDfDqRG9V
— Tracy Levesque (@LilJimmi) November 14, 2016
Thankful to do what we love
We help people and companies solve problems.
Developer David Yarde put it like this,
“The ability to help people make their dreams a reality through code!”
The ability to help people make their dreams a reality through code! https://t.co/HzUGrcIW6u
— David Yarde (@dsmy) November 16, 2016
I couldn’t have said it better myself.
Thankful for Productivity Resources
As I said earlier, I have always been grateful for a community that is willing to collaborate and help others. Therefore, I am thankful for tools that help with productivity.
Or, websites.
For years WP Beginner has been a staple for getting help working with WordPress regardless of your level of experience.
The popular blog started in 2009. Well, this past week WP Beginner launched a new look they are calling WPBeginner v5. The site looks really nice, and they have reorganized some of the content.
Screenshot: WPBeginner.com
Among many new features, one thing that Syed Balkhi and the team accomplished was a responsive website. You can read some of his thoughts on why they waited until this version to be fully responsive.
Balkhi noted the irony:
“This was a bit ironic because our own website was not responsive. We got a lot of criticism on social media from other WordPress designers and developers in the community.”
I am thankful for Syed and others who have spent a lot of time and effort to build these kinds of platforms that help both us as WordPress Entrepreneurs and our clients.
By the way, congratulations to WP Beginner on a new look and being there to help us all for so long!
WordPress is open source
I am thankful that WordPress is Open Source. Open Source is a little hard to understand at times.
Earlier this year I wrote a guest post for the Open Source on my use of WordPress.
Open Source, as you know, is more than just being about free code, it is a movement and a narrative.
“By design, open source software licenses promote collaboration and sharing because they permit other people to make modifications to source code and incorporate those changes into their own projects. They encourage computer programmers to access, view, and modify open source software whenever they like, as long as they let others do the same when they share their work.”
Open Source software for content management systems such as WordPress has become a game changer for various small businesses across the globe.
I can remember about 15 years ago hearing the price points for content management systems, and it was way more than any regular small business could afford.
Once open source software began being available for content management systems, it meant that hundreds of thousands of small businesses could have dynamically driven websites which could be updated by someone in their company. This saves thousands of dollars.
It also helps developers.
Robert DeVore says this,
“@tejones thankful for open source. It saved my life. No idea where I’d be without it to be honest.”
thankful for open source. It saved my life. No idea where I'd be without it to be honest
— Robert DeVore (@deviorobert) November 17, 2016
Robert told me as a teenager he was on a road headed nowhere when he came across WordPress and learned how to create revenue using the software. What an incredible testimony!
Wrapping it all up
WordPress is a part of who we are. Of course, we are more than the tool we use, but WordPress is a big part of our professional lives.
There is so much to be thankful for.
There are so many people to be thankful for.
What things are you thankful for as we finish 2016?
Who are you thankful for?
What tools are you thankful for?
Discuss in the comments!
1 thought on “Thanksgiving Roundup: 5 Things for which WordPress Entrepreneurs can be thankful”
Personally, I think we need a TampaPress hosted by MainWP on the beaches in Florida 🙂
What do you guys think?
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