This series of podcasts is intended to bring some perspective in this time of great change. It’s unrehearsed and largely unedited, it’s just people telling their stories about how they’re managing right now.

Some are helpful, others just plain fun, but they’re all intended to foster one thought… in a time when we’re being asked to stay apart, there are ways we can stay together.

They were recorded at different times over the last few months and, as the way that we live is under constant change, things might have been different then than they are now. We hope that this is okay…

Interviewed by Nathan Wrigley.

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

This series of podcasts is intended to bring some perspective in this time of great change. It’s unrehearsed and largely unedited, it’s just people telling their stories about how they’re managing right now.

Some are helpful, others just plain fun, but they’re all intended to foster one thought… in a time when we’re being asked to stay apart, there are ways we can stay together.

They were recorded at different times over the last few months and, as the way that we live is under constant change, things might have been different then than they are now. We hope that this is okay...

Interviewed by Nathan Wrigley.

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

This series of podcasts is intended to bring some perspective in this time of great change. It’s unrehearsed and largely unedited, it’s just people telling their stories about how they’re managing right now.

Some are helpful, others just plain fun, but they’re all intended to foster one thought… in a time when we’re being asked to stay apart, there are ways we can stay together.

They were recorded at different times over the last few months and, as the way that we live is under constant change, things might have been different then than they are now. We hope that this is okay…

Interviewed by Nathan Wrigley.

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

This series of podcasts is intended to bring some perspective in this time of great change. It’s unrehearsed and largely unedited, it’s just people telling their stories about how they’re managing right now.

Some are helpful, others just plain fun, but they’re all intended to foster one thought… in a time when we’re being asked to stay apart, there are ways we can stay together.

They were recorded at different times over the last few months and, as the way that we live is under constant change, things might have been different then than they are now. We hope that this is okay…

Interviewed by Nathan Wrigley.

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

This series of podcasts is intended to bring some perspective in this time of great change. It’s unrehearsed and largely unedited, it’s just people telling their stories about how they’re managing right now.

Some are helpful, others just plain fun, but they’re all intended to foster one thought… in a time when we’re being asked to stay apart, there are ways we can stay together.

They were recorded at different times over the last few months and, as the way that we live is under constant change, things might have been different then than they are now. We hope that this is okay…

Interviewed by Nathan Wrigley.

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

This series of podcasts is intended to bring some perspective in this time of great change. It’s unrehearsed and largely unedited, it’s just people telling their stories about how they’re managing right now.

Some are helpful, others just plain fun, but they’re all intended to foster one thought… in a time when we’re being asked to stay apart, there are ways we can stay together.

They were recorded at different times over the last few months and, as the way that we live is under constant change, things might have been different then than they are now. We hope that this is okay…

Interviewed by Nathan Wrigley.

We hope you enjoy the show, please do subscribe on Apple Podcasts or Spotify. We’re always looking for feedback, if you have any thoughts or comments, please do reach out.

And remember… stay safe… stay together.

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

This series of podcasts is intended to bring some perspective in this time of great change. It’s unrehearsed and largely unedited, it’s just people telling their stories about how they’re managing right now.

Some are helpful, others just plain fun, but they’re all intended to foster one thought… in a time when we’re being asked to stay apart, there are ways we can stay together.

Interviewed by Nathan Wrigley.

We hope you enjoy the show, please do subscribe on Apple Podcasts or Spotify. We’re always looking for feedback, if you have any thoughts or comments, please do reach out.

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

This series of podcasts is intended to bring some perspective in this time of great change. It’s unrehearsed and largely unedited, it’s just people telling their stories about how they’re managing right now.

Some are helpful, others just plain fun, but they’re all intended to foster one thought… in a time when we’re being asked to stay apart, there are ways we can stay together.

Interviewed by Nathan Wrigley.

We hope you enjoy the show, please do subscribe on Apple Podcasts or Spotify. We’re always looking for feedback, if you have any thoughts or comments, please do reach out.

And remember… stay safe… stay together.

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

This is such a lovely and open discussion, I’m sure that you’re going to enjoy it!

We cover quite a bit of ground, but the main focus is around autism. You see Wendie is autistic and it shapes many aspects of her life.

We begin with a brief chat about her relationship with WordPress and her interest in attending WordCamps and WordPress meetups.

We then get into the main discussion about how Wendie became aware that she is autistic. At what point did she think that she wanted to be tested and how such tests are carried out.

We move on to talk about how Wendie’s life is shaped by her autism and how she uses routines and systems to keep things running smoothly.

There is so much in here that I did not know and Wendie describes it all with such charm and good humour.

If you’ve been impacted by any of the issues raised in this podcast, please reach out to us by using the chat on the wpandup.org website.

Interviewed by Nathan Wrigley.

We hope you enjoy the show, please do subscribe on Apple Podcasts or Spotify. We’re always looking for feedback, if you have any thoughts or comments, please do reach out.

And remember… Together we can #PressForward

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

This series of podcasts is intended to bring some perspective in this time of great change. It’s unrehearsed and largely unedited, it’s just people telling their stories about how they’re managing right now.

Some are helpful, others just plain fun, but they’re all intended to foster one thought… in a time when we’re being asked to stay apart, there are ways we can stay together.

Interviewed by Nathan Wrigley.

We hope you enjoy the show, please do subscribe on Apple Podcasts or Spotify. We’re always looking for feedback, if you have any thoughts or comments, please do reach out.

And remember… stay safe… stay together.

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

This series of podcasts is intended to bring some perspective in this time of great change. It’s unrehearsed and largely unedited, it’s just people telling their stories about how they’re managing right now.

Some are helpful, others just plain fun, but they’re all intended to foster one thought… in a time when we’re being asked to stay apart, there are ways we can stay together.

Interviewed by Nathan Wrigley.

We hope you enjoy the show, please do subscribe on Apple Podcasts or Spotify. We’re always looking for feedback, if you have any thoughts or comments, please do reach out.

And remember… stay safe… stay together.

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

She works for BlogVault in Bangalore India in their marketing department.

We have a wide ranging chat today about a multitude of subjects. To start with we discuss Swaahili’s passion for reading and how it shaped her early years. In recent years, she’s devoured 300 books per year, which is rather remarkable I think.

We then go on to talk about the tech scene in India and Bangalore in particular. Bangalore you see is like the Silicon Valley of India. Start ups are popping up all over the place and the tech industry is booming. As everywhere else where tech jobs dominate, it shapes the city itself. Costs rise, there is tension between the former way of living and the new way of living, in which many feel the pace of change is too fast.

How do key workers such as teachers and nurses keep pace with the high salaries that some people in tech are expecting to earn?

We then take the conversation in a different direction. Talking about Swaahili herself and her role at BlogVault. How she ended up in marketing, which by her own admission was not a career path that she imagined for herself.

We end with a lengthy chat about how Swaahili manages her ADHD. How it’s impacted her life and how her company has been able to assist her in the expectations that they set for the work that she produces.

It’s a lovely conversation and I always enjoy learning about life in other parts of the world. Sadly, the quality of the audio on Swaahili’s side is not all that great. It’s certainly listenable, but the audio gremlins were definitely out in force on the day that we recorded this podcast episode.

If you’ve been impacted by any of the issues raised in this podcast, please reach out to us by using the chat on the wpandup.org website.

Interviewed by Nathan Wrigley.

We hope you enjoy the show, please do subscribe on Apple Podcasts or Spotify. We’re always looking for feedback, if you have any thoughts or comments, please do reach out.

And remember… Together we can #PressForward

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

This series of podcasts is intended to bring some perspective in this time of great change. It’s unrehearsed and largely unedited, it’s just people telling their stories about how they’re managing right now.

Some are helpful, others just plain fun, but they’re all intended to foster one thought… in a time when we’re being asked to stay apart, there are ways we can stay together.

Interviewed by Nathan Wrigley.

We hope you enjoy the show, please do subscribe on Apple Podcasts or Spotify. We’re always looking for feedback, if you have any thoughts or comments, please do reach out.

And remember… stay safe… stay together.

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

He’s on the podcast to tell us his story from childhood through to the present day. There’s a lot in there!

We start right back at the beginning at a time when Daniel lived in Germany. A mixture of difficulties with his family life and trouble at school lead to problems with drugs. At this point Daniels’ life seemed to be following a certain trajectory and there was no real way out.

But, as we find out, there were some positive influences during this time too – other family members who Daniel was able to look up to.

The key moment was when Daniel moved away from the town of his early childhood and was able to completely reinvent himself, unencumbered by the shadow of his former self.

We hear about how things started to work out for him and eventually he came to the UK where he attended university and started up some of his own businesses.

It was not all plain sailing though, troubles with money and a sense of purpose still dogged Daniel, but he got through those times too.

We end with when Daniel is now working in a successful digital community of like minded people who are all trying to assist one another along the way.

It’s a very frank discussion and Daniel is very honest and forthcoming. As so this is a trigger warning that in this episode of the podcast we do touch up on the subject of substance abuse.

If you’ve been impacted by any of the issues raised in this podcast, please reach out to us by using the chat on the wpandup.org website.

Interviewed by Nathan Wrigley.

We hope you enjoy the show, please do subscribe on Apple Podcasts or Spotify. We’re always looking for feedback, if you have any thoughts or comments, please do reach out.

And remember… Together we can #PressForward

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

She’s a content marketer, blogger, podcaster amongst many things and has been extremely active in promoting the WordPress cause.

We talk today about a wide variety of topics and I’m sure that you’ll find Kim both engaging and entertaining. The conversation begins with a discussion about her general attitude towards life and how people from different parts of the world might view situations differently.

We then go on to talk about two episodes of bereavement in which Kim lost her husband and her mother. We talk about the impact that this had on her family and how she came to rely on those around her.

We also get into how Kim makes use of a therapist to assist her and how this has really helped over the years.

It’s a lovely chat with a wonderful lady.

If you’ve been impacted by any of the issues raised in this podcast, please reach out to us by using the chat on the wpandup.org website.

Interviewed by Nathan Wrigley.

We hope you enjoy the show, please do subscribe on Apple Podcasts or Spotify. We’re always looking for feedback, if you have any thoughts or comments, please do reach out.

And remember… Together we can #PressForward

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

She currently works for Wordfence, the popular WordPress security platform.

Today we have a wide ranging discussion touching on many aspects of Kathy’s life. We talk about her history with WordPress, how she got involved and her relationship with the WordPress community.

We also talk about her personal life, some of the decisions that she made which affected her life. One, which we focus upon, is her choice to homeschool her children.

This leads to a discussion about how WordCamps are encouraging children to become involved in practical, hands on, Kids Camps. It’s getting a new generation educated in the need for open source web solutions in the face of compelling competition from proprietary platforms.

We also talk about a stressful time in Kathy’s life and how this forced her to re-evaluate the way that she approaches her work and life. She calls this a “Hacker Mindset” and it’s about facing the challenges in a manageable way.

She’s been using this technique for many years now and it’s quite likely not the way that you approach tasks within your life, so there might be something of benefit here.

If you’ve been impacted by any of the issues raised in this podcast, please reach out to us by using the chat on the wpandup.org website.

Interviewed by Nathan Wrigley.

We hope you enjoy the show, please do subscribe on Apple Podcasts or Spotify. We’re always looking for feedback, if you have any thoughts or comments, please do reach out.

And remember… Together we can #PressForward

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

He’s a WordPress website builder and agency owner and has a remarkable story to tell.

Paul has been through a lot in the last few years and he lays it all out for us today. It’s a story of incident heaped upon incident. It’s a story of keeping going in the face of enormous adversity, and ultimately it’s a story about a family who managed to get through the most difficult of times.

It’s all in here… worries about his business, concerns about money, relationship, family crisis… everything. Not knowing what the future might hold and having to react again and again to emergencies which cropped up with no warning.

It’s remarkable that Paul is able to tell this tale at all, but tell it he does, and by the end of it all… a lovely ending. 

If you’ve been impacted by any of the issues raised in this podcast, please reach out to us by using the chat on the wpandup.org website.

Interviewed by Nathan Wrigley.

We hope you enjoy the show, please do subscribe on Apple Podcasts or Spotify. We’re always looking for feedback, if you have any thoughts or comments, please do reach out.

And remember… Together we can #PressForward

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

He’s a WordPress backend developer working at Illustrate Digital in Bristol, UK. He’s on the podcast today to talk about WordPress Meetups.

You may or may not know that WordPress is far more than just a collection of code that you can download to build a website with. It’s also a real community in which people meet up and share their experience and expertise with other WordPress users.

The most talked about WordPress events are the WordCamps. These are often sizeable events put on in large urban areas. They often span several days and have multiple tracks of talks that you can attend.

Perhaps less frequently discussed are the WordPress Meetups. These are smaller events, which take place more regularly and usually run in the evenings.

Simon has been a key member of the organising team at the WordPress Meetup in Bristol.

We talk about what a Meetup is and how it works, how it is organised and who can get involved.

It might be that there’s one near you and this will serve as great introduction to the ethos of such events and how you might become involved.

Interviewed by Nathan Wrigley.

We hope you enjoy the show, please do subscribe on Apple Podcasts or Spotify. We’re always looking for feedback, if you have any thoughts or comments, please do reach out.

And remember… Together we can #PressForward

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

At the outset of recording this podcast I had not met Leo, and had never spoken to anyone who has to deal with the things that he does. I was struck with just how positive, kind and thoughtful Leo is.

We talk about what it means to be bipolar, how it manifests itself and what precautions Leo takes to ensure that the ups and downs are easier to manage. We find out that this is not easy and life can be hard at times.

We also talk about how Leo copes with his chronic insomnia. How he has to manage his expectations based upon the length of the sleep that he gets.

He’s built up mechanisms over the years to mediate the impact upon his life. These include medication and writing to his future self with messages that he knows he will need to hear… messages written at a time when he was more reflective and thoughtful.

Lastly we talk about his WP Hugs initiative, a WordPress support network which was recently rolled up into WP and UP. We find out why he started it and why he’s happy with its new home.

It’s such an interesting chat with very likeable guest.

This is a trigger warning that in this episode we talk about depression, bipolar and insomnia.

If you’ve been impacted by any of the issues raised in this podcast, please reach out to us by using the chat on the wpandup.org website.

Interviewed by Nathan Wrigley.

We hope you enjoy the show, please do subscribe on Apple Podcasts or Spotify. We’re always looking for feedback, if you have any thoughts or comments, please do reach out.

And remember… Together we can #PressForward

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

She’s been working with WordPress for many years and specialises in helping companies with their social media channels. She’s got an international client base and posts helpful content about how you or your company can leverage social media. Bridget also has a podcast over at WPblab which is worth checking out!

Today we cover a lot of ground. We talk about her relationship with social media, how it’s presence is being felt more and more in our lives and how we can manage this. We get into the idea that social media is a valid replacement for so many older forms of communication.

We also discuss the loss of Bridget’s husband a few years ago. How she’s coped and what she did to get through this difficult time. This led us into a chat about her journey with depression and anxiety.

So this is a trigger warning that we will be talking about depression and anxiety during this podcast.

Bridget is an energetic and enthusiastic guest and it’s a fun episode to listen to…

Interviewed by Nathan Wrigley.

We hope you enjoy the show, please do subscribe on Apple Podcasts or Spotify. We’re always looking for feedback, if you have any thoughts or comments, please do reach out.

And remember… Together we can #PressForward

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

She’s been working with WordPress for many years and is currently working for GiveWP as their head of customer success.

Her story today is divided into roughly 4 sections.

First we talk about her WordPress journey, how she got involved with the community in the deep way that she has.

We then move on to speak about her encounters with depression over the years, how it has impacted her life and what form it takes.

Next Michelle tells us about Fibromyalgia… a painful condition which has a profound effect upon how much she can do each and every day.

We end with an uplifting chat about her fabulous initiatives to bring more kindness into the world.

It’s a really broad and deep discussion about so many different subjects. I loved chatting with Michelle, and I hope that you like listening.

As I mentioned we do cover the topics of depression and anxiety and so this is a trigger warning if these subjects impact upon you.

Interviewed by Nathan Wrigley.

We hope you enjoy the show, please do subscribe on Apple Podcasts or Spotify. We’re always looking for feedback, if you have any thoughts or comments, please do reach out.

And remember… Together we can #PressForward

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

She’s been working with WordPress for many years and founded an agency – WP Barista.

She’s come on the podcast today to tell us about the journey that she’s had creating and maintaining her website building business.

It’s quite a personal story as we mix family and business, separation and struggle along the way. You see, Cathy had a period where things were not working out so well. Her WordPress business needed to move from being a fun thing to do to raise some extra cash to a way of funding the whole family, and this transition needed to happen very quickly indeed.

We learn about the steps that Cathy took to achieve this… what she thinks she did well, and other things that she feels were less effective. Overwork, hiring staff, worry, and a happy ending, it’s all here.

So have a listen to the podcast and get in touch to tell us what you think.

Interviewed by Nathan Wrigley.

We hope you enjoy the show, please do subscribe on Apple Podcasts or Spotify. We’re always looking for feedback, if you have any thoughts or comments, please do reach out.

And remember… Together we can #PressForward

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

He’s a WordPress developer heading up the IdeaBox team in India. You might have heard of some of the plugins that they’ve created, things like PowerPack for Beaver Builder and WP Fomify.

We talk about what the tech scene is like in India and how it differs from other parts of the world. We also spend quite a lot of the conversation talking about Puneet’s approach to growing and maintaining his team; how he likes to treat them like a family and encourage them to grow and develop in their roles.

We also get into the subject of mental and physical health and the way that these areas are becoming more important in the workplace.

It’s a lovely interview with a very humble man…

Interviewed by Nathan Wrigley.

We hope you enjoy the show, please do subscribe on Apple Podcasts or Spotify. We’re always looking for feedback, if you have any thoughts or comments, please do reach out.

And remember… Together we can #PressForward

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Jan has been working with WordPress for many years, developing solutions for clients. More recently he’s been creating WordPress related summits, and they’ve been very well received.

Our podcast today covers a range of subjects, but focuses on a period in Jan’s life which saw him taking on too many things. He decided to take on a masters course concerning internet security and although he thought that this would be of interest, the main driver was financial. Jan was hoping that having this qualification would enable him to secure a good salary, but as we find out, the course did not live up to his expectations. The content was hard to learn and wasn’t really something that he enjoyed. The pressure mounted and Jan had a nervous breakdown.

We talk about how Jan got into this position, and what actually happened on that day. How his family were able to offer support and help in this time of great need.

We also discuss the aftermath of the breakdown… how life is now and how it forced Jan to re-evaluate his priorities.

Towards the end we hear about how Jan is doing right now, how he’s continually tweaking his life so as to ensure that they things and people that matter most get the time and attention that they deserve.

This is a trigger warning that during this episode, we talk about nervous breakdowns, depression and anxiety.

Interviewed by Nathan Wrigley.

We hope you enjoy the show, please do subscribe on Apple Podcasts or Spotify. We’re always looking for feedback, if you have any thoughts or comments, please do reach out.

And remember… Together we can #PressForward

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Tim works for 34SP, a hosting company based in the UK. Over the years Tim has been incredibly active in the WordPress community. He’s been involved in multiple ways online but has also been a regular attendee at WordCamps.

The podcast today focuses upon an episode in Tim’s life which occurred in 2017. He had a panic attack which changed his life considerably in the space of just a few minutes. He wrote an article about it entitled “I’m not okay, but that’s alright“.

We talk about the events that lead up to this moment and how Tim has adapted his life as a result. So this is a trigger warning that we will be touching upon the subjects of panic attacks.

It’s a wonderfully honest episode and you’ll get a real insight into what Tim went through. Perhaps this episode will be useful for someone that you know, and if that’s the case, please feel free to share it with them.

Interviewed by Nathan Wrigley.

We hope you enjoy the show, please do subscribe on Apple Podcasts or Spotify. We’re always looking for feedback, if you have any thoughts or comments, please do reach out.

And remember… Together we can #PressForward

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Leo has been working with technology and the internet since the early days, long before WordPress existed. During that time he’s experimented with multiple content management systems, some of them still exist, but many fell by the wayside.

Leo’s area of expertise is working with sports brands and governing bodies. Creating web solutions for them, solutions that work at scale and are always available. He works with some of the biggest names in the business and his current company Sotic work with some household names.

The journey, as you will hear, has not always been smooth, there have been many problems along the way. Trouble with the press, changing CMSs and personal bereavement. It’s a really interesting chat, touching on many topics.

We do touch on the topic of bereavement, and so this is a trigger warning should you choose to listen to the episode.

Interviewed by Nathan Wrigley.

We hope you enjoy the show, please do subscribe on Apple Podcasts or Spotify. We’re always looking for feedback, if you have any thoughts or comments, please do reach out.

And remember… Together we can #PressForward

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

We talk about his highly unusual start in website building – from the back of a van whilst touring with his band. How he had to work when he could and how he juggled two completely different work personas at the same time.

We also talk about his decision to move to website work full time and his desire to grow and agency. How he managed to get this up to twelve people… the issues that arose on the way and how he coped with them and where he looked for support.

He’s a very energetic character and so towards the end we get into the topic of how he manages to keep this energy going when times are hard.

Interviewed by Nathan Wrigley.

We hope you enjoy the show, please do subscribe on Apple Podcasts or Spotify. We’re always looking for feedback, if you have any thoughts or comments, please do reach out.

And remember… Together we can #PressForward

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

The reason for two guests is because time was short when we recorded.

First up is Maja Benke. She’s been using WordPress for a long time and has really embraced the WordPress community. We talk about her involvement with that community and how she’s made a place for herself in it.

Next, we’ve got Amir Helzer. He’s the founder of OnTheGoSystems, the company behind the successful translation plugin WPML as well as Toolset, a plugin to help you get more from WordPress with less code writing.

We talk about his company and how they manage a team of 90 + employees; what techniques they use to keep the team updated and productive.

We also talk about how the company recently updated their pricing to a subscription service and how that’s gone.

Finally we touch upon how the Gutenberg editor has become a focus for their plugins, how they are refactoring the plugin architecture to fit into the new editing experience, and hopefully offer their users a future proof solution…

Useful links:

#DoSummitGood schedule

#DoSummitGood registration page

Toolset

WPML

Interviewed by Nathan Wrigley.

We hope you enjoy the show, please do subscribe on Apple Podcasts or Spotify. We’re always looking for feedback, if you have any thoughts or comments, please do reach out.

And remember… Together we can #PressForward

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

We talk about how she started to use WordPress to build her client websites, and how this kindled a desire in her to meet other people doing the same work as her. She was a little nervous about her level of knowledge, but after her first WordPress event she came to understand that the community was very welcoming.

Fast forward just a little while, and Barbara has become a linchpin of WordCamp London. She explains about what it takes to put on one of the largest WordCamps, how much organisation is required, and how people can get involved themselves, should they wish to.

Towards the end of the podcast we talk about her involvement with WP and UP. She’s writing content about the WP and UP mission… helpful content which I would urge you to consume. She’s deeply passionate about the work that WP and UP is doing, but is also realistic about the need to raise money to keep it going.

Useful links:

https://make.wordpress.org/community/

https://make.wordpress.org/chat/ and join the ‘#community-events’ channel

Interviewed by Nathan Wrigley.

We hope you enjoy the show, please do subscribe on Apple Podcasts or Spotify. We’re always looking for feedback, if you have any thoughts or comments, please do reach out.

And remember… Together we can #PressForward

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Mark Maunder is the founder of Wordfence, the WordPress security solution that I’m sure you’ve heard of. I met him at an evening security event at WordCamp Europe, and we spoke for a couple of minutes.

The next day, I was recording interviews and as I finished one, he happened to be walking by. As you will discover, Mark likes his tech and he was interested in the recording desk that we were using. So I started to show him how it worked and before too long we had located the record button, pushed it, and this short interview is what resulted.

To start with we talk about how Mark and the team at Wordfence have started to take a real and active interest in events like WordCamps. They see this as a way to interact with the community, but also to get to know their customers in a way that no online system can match. Seeing them face to face and talking through what they need from Wordfence has proven to be the best way to know where the product should be heading.

Speaking of community, the conversation then takes a somewhat unexpected turn. Mark quietly drops into the conversation that he’s been working with a talented team of filmmakers to produce a WordPress documentary, a film about the WordPress community.

Mark talks about how he’s been bitten by the film bug and how the creation of the film has been a project that he’s been inspired by, but also how he’s tried to ‘let go’ of it… allowing the filmmakers to have full ownership of it instead. He’s clearly proud of the results and well might he be.

If you watched Matt Mullenweg’s ‘State of the Word‘ address at WordCamp US in 2019, then you’ll have seen that film. It took up about 25% of his entire address!

I have to agree with Mark, it’s a great film and shows the WordPress community (something that we at this podcast know) in the best of lights.

We then change directions again and talk about Wordfence. Another wonderful story. Mark talks about how Wordfence was a product that came about after a series of other projects which simply did not get the traction that he’d hoped. This is a story of not giving up.

We learn that Mark and his family had reached the very end of their savings and had moved in with his relatives. In effect, Wordfence was a last chance at creating a product that was profitable… and it worked!

From an interesting start as a black hat hacker, Mark brought his years of experience to bear and created a product that is now the security solution for many thousands of WordPress websites.

So this podcast has so much synchronicity. I release a podcast recorded months ago and by coincidence Mark’s film get’s premiered just a couple of days before.

The story that Mark tells reeks of ‘staying the course’, keeping going in the hope that that little light at the end of the tunnel will grow bigger and brighter. All this in the same month that WP and UP have the Never Give UP campaign in full swing!

Somehow I think that this podcast was meant to be aired on this exact week, but I have no idea how it ended up being so very well timed.

Interviewed by Nathan Wrigley.

We hope you enjoy the show, please do subscribe on Apple Podcasts or Spotify. We’re always looking for feedback, if you have any thoughts or comments, please do reach out.

And remember… Together we can #PressForward

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

We go right back to the beginning and learn about his childhood fascination with technology. How this meant that he spent quite long periods of time by himself, playing with his gadgets. We also talk about how his parents divorse affected him, both in the past and now.

We then jump forward and get into a discussion about how he has coped with episodes of depression and how he has been able to get support from himself and his close family.

So this is a trigger warning that in this episode we discuss depression and divorce.

Interviewed by Nathan Wrigley.

We hope you enjoy the show, please do subscribe on Apple Podcasts or Spotify. We’re always looking for feedback, if you have any thoughts or comments, please do reach out.

And remember… Together we can #PressForward

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

We’d love for you to get involved with WP and UP and that that can be done in many ways:

• You could talk about this podcast on social media, or talk about it on your own website
• You could rate it on Apple podcasts
• Or you you can subscribe to us on your favourite podcast player, which can be done by going by going to wpandup.org/podcast-feed

We’re also running an awareness campaign throughout October 2019 called #NeverGiveUp. The services that WP and UP provides are incredibly valuable. They are helping and supporting many people. We know that our community needs the support that we provide, but these services come at a cost. Thanks to the likes of Green Geeks and WPMU Dev, we’ve been able to get to where we are now, but if WP and UP is to continue, we need your help to finance it. You can head to wpandup.org/nevergiveup – to find out more about exactly what an organisation like WP and UP costs to maintain.

From there you might like to head over to wpandup.org/donate and donate something yourself. It really does not need to be a lot, just a few dollars will help us provide phone support or keep our online support community open.

So today is another episode which was recorded live in the halls of the Estrel Hotel in Berlin. This was the location of WordCamp Europe in 2019. You’re going to be hearing some background noise, as I found it nye on impossible to keep 3,000 WordPressers quiet!

Today I talk with Justin Busa. Justin is one of the founders of the Beaver Builder plugin. I’m sure that you’ve heard of it, but if you haven’t it’s a drag and drop interface for building out posts and pages quickly.

I’ve met Justin several times before and so the conversation flowed freely. We talked quite a lot about the plugin, but also about his company, how it’s grown, how it’s moved from an office to a distributed model recently, and how that actually works.

We also chat about Justin’s thoughts on the WordPress community and how he feels he fits into that, and the role that WP and UP is playing to keep that community healthy.

Interviewed by Nathan Wrigley.

We hope you enjoy the show, please do subscribe on Apple Podcasts or Spotify. We’re always looking for feedback, if you have any thoughts or comments, please do reach out.

And remember… Together we can #PressForward

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

The #PressForward podcast is created by WP and UP. We’re a non-profit working in the WordPress space to help you, your colleagues, in fact anyone. The work is just beginning, and today I want to ask you for your help.

We’re running a new campaign called #NeverGiveUp. You see, the services that WP and UP provides are incredibly valuable. They help and support many people but they come at a cost. We know that our community needs the support that we provide because it’s being requested frequently. But it cannot be done for free. Thanks to the likes of Green Geeks and WPMU Dev, we’ve been able to get to where we are, but if WP and UP is to continue offering support, we need more financial help. You can head to wpandup.org/ngu - short for Never Give Up to find out more about exactly what an organisation like WP and UP costs to maintain.

From there you might like to head over to wpandup.org/donate and donate something yourself. It does not need to be a lot, just a few dollars will help us provide phone support or keep our online support community open.

So please help us, so that we can continue to support the WordPress community. Thank you.

Today we hear from Sujay Pawar. He’s a WordPress business owner based in India. You might well have heard of some of his companies products because Brain Storm Force are the folks behind the Astra theme and Schema Pro, Ultimate Addons for Elementor and many more.

We have a wide ranging chat, covering subjects such as how he got started with WordPress and how he managed to grow his company and keep his team happy.

Sujay lives in India and the conversation also covers how businesses in India do things differently from other parts of the world, and it’s really fascinating.

Interviewed by Nathan Wrigley.

We hope you enjoy the show, please do subscribe on Apple Podcasts or Spotify. We're always looking for feedback, if you have any thoughts or comments, please do reach out.

And remember... Together we can #PressForward

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

It’s a constant battle in which the bad guys make a move and you have to react. After doing this for a while Oliver decided that their internal tools could be used just as easily by others, and so the company WebARX was born.

They have made WordPress an important part of WebARX, monitoring plugins and offering updates and so that’s why Oliver was at WordCamp Europe – to meet the people who use his product.

We have a wide ranging conversation touching upon internet security, how to secure your site, what kind of things can go wrong, who is behind all the mischief that we hear about online as well as how Oliver has embraced the WordPress community.

Interviewed by Nathan Wrigley.

We hope you enjoy the show, please do subscribe on Apple Podcasts or Spotify. We’re always looking for feedback, if you have any thoughts or comments, please do reach out.

And remember… Together we can #PressForward

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

It’s a fascinating discussion from my point of view as it tackles a subject that not all that familiar with… meditation.

Before that though we chat about Marius’ background working in the technology space and how he’s been all around the houses when it comes to programming languages.

So Marius is very keen on meditation and has been using it in his life for many years.

We talk about how he discovered it and what benefits he feels that it brings to his life. It can all be summed up in one word… equanimity. The ability to have a greater perspective when things are not going so well, but also when things are!

We then get into a chat about how you actually perform the meditations that he does. What you concentrate upon, what sensations it encourages.

There’s also a little time spent discussing how you might get started on your own journey of meditation. You don’t need to possess anything, and you could get started immediately. That said, Marius does recommend that those who are serious about meditation try to get on a seven or ten day retreat, as these extended exposures to a meditative environment reaps rewards in the long run.

Very interesting chat, and I hope that you enjoy listening to it!

Interviewed by Nathan Wrigley.

We hope you enjoy the show, please do subscribe on Apple Podcasts or Spotify. We’re always looking for feedback, if you have any thoughts or comments, please do reach out.

And remember… Together we can #PressForward

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Gary has been working with WordPress for a long time and his many contributions have really shaped the way that WordPress has developed. He’s an employee of Automattic, but is seconded back to the Open Source project on a full time basis.

It’s one of the episodes that was recorded in the corridor at WordCamp Europe in Berlin this year and so the sound has a little background noise.

We talk about how he got started with WordPress, what he’s been involved in and where he hopes the project goes in the future. Having been the project lead for multiple releases, we talk about what that responsibility feels like, being the person to push the commit button and update hundreds of thousands of sites.

We get into his love of the community and how he regards it as somewhat special; a place in which he’s made real friends over the years.

He’s a very knowledgeable WordPress contributor and much of his work will have, no doubt, been used by you at some point. He’s also a very calming figure and someone that I warmed to very much, being very amiable in our short time together. 

Interviewed by Nathan Wrigley.

We hope you enjoy the show, please do subscribe on Apple Podcasts or Spotify. We’re always looking for feedback, if you have any thoughts or comments, please do reach out.

And remember… Together we can #PressForward

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

To begin with we chat about his involvement with WordPress and his passion for the project. We then begin a discussion about why Richard has chosen to keep his agency small.

Some of this was accidental, but much of it was very deliberate. You see Richard takes the approach that whilst work is an important component of life, it’s certainly not the component. Richard wants to make sure that he has adequate time to do the things that he really loves, like spending time with his family.

We talk about the pressures to grown your agency and how this is often presumed to be the only model. Grow and then grow some more. After that’s done, grow a little more. There is no end it, unless you never go down that route.

Richard works with local clients and is happy that way. He knows them and they know him and that works well. He knows how many clients is too much and sticks to this limit.

We also get into the difficult subject of grief as Richard talks very openly about the loss of his brother.

Richard and his brother were very close, more like father and son and so his passing was a really difficult time. We talk about how Richard coped and how it affected him.

It’s a very honest conversation and present some different perspectives.

Interviewed by Nathan Wrigley.

We hope you enjoy the show, please do subscribe on Apple Podcasts or Spotify. We’re always looking for feedback, if you have any thoughts or comments, please do reach out.

And remember… Together we can #PressForward

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Carole gets a special mention today because she’s come on board the WP and UP team. She’s going to be the Crew Chief of the HeadToWCEU project. I mentioned this a couple of weeks ago, but it’s well worth further discussion.

Some of the WP and UP team are doing an extended bike ride next May… It’s departing from from Berlin and arriving roughly a month later in Portugal. The locations of the previous and next WordCamp Europes to be specific.

The intention is to show that little changes can have a big impact over time. We’re not athletes, and are getting on with our lives whilst adapting them slightly to accommodate the time needed to train for this 3,000 ride.

A project of this magnitude needs a fair amount of organising and so Carole has kindly offered to assist us with that. So you might hear me mentioning her name around here in the future. By the way, if you want to find out more about the ride you can go to our dedicated website - headto.org

Before that was even the kernel of an idea I met up with her during WordCamp Europe in Berlin this year.

We had a lovely chat with Barbara Saul from WP and UP about Carole’s WordPress journey.

She came to WordPress from the most unusual of places. Having zero interest or knowledge in WordPress, she attended a WordCamp with her husband, curious to see what it was all about…. She fell in love.

This started a frenzied journey as Carole became deeply involved with WordPress and within a matter of months she was hosting events and MC’ing at WordCamp Europe.

It all happened so fast – she became a fixture and was easily recognised because of her distinctive purple hat.

New horizons were opened and new careers paths forged, and then her WordPress honeymoon came to an end.

She decided to step away from WordPress for a while… to regroup and find out more about herself and her personal motivations.

This journey included depression, anxiety, injury, meditation, yoga, exercise, a different approach to her diet – in short, she completely reimagined herself.

She’s now tentatively putting her toes in the water to see what’s next. Although this is still shrouded in mystery, two things are for sure – her future will contain bikes and dogs!

So go take a listen to the podcast to hear it directly from her…

Interviewed by Nathan Wrigley.

We hope you enjoy the show, please do subscribe on Apple Podcasts or Spotify. We’re always looking for feedback, if you have any thoughts or comments, please do reach out.

And remember… Together we can #PressForward

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

We recorded this at WordCamp Europe 2019 in Berlin, and the location that we chose was the main thoroughfare corridor! This means that we were really well placed to be found, but also that it means that there was a fair amount of noise in the background. But… it’s the noise of 3,000 WordPressers having a great time, and so I’m sure that you can ignore it!

We talk about how Human Made got started, how they have managed their growth to a count of 70 employees currently and how they manage their distributed working model.

We also talk about Petya’s relationship with WordPress. She started in 2007 and quickly became deeply interesting in the project; working with translating WordPress with the Polyglots team.

Then we have a chat about WordCamps and how they can open doors to all sorts of possibilities. This might be business opportunities or the chance to make real and lasting friendships.

WordCamp Europe is very close to Petya’s heart, having lead the team for many years as well as being a regular speaker. She gives an insight into how the increasing popularity of WordCamp Europe has meant that they teams have to work pretty much all year around to make sure that the event can happen. Lots of people, lots of teams, lots of hours dedicated by all the volunteers.

Petya thinks that volunteers is a great way to get yourself involved with the WordPress community if you’re looking for a way in. You meet new people and being to understand the mechanics of all the things that need to go into WordCamp’s organisation. You get to work on common tasks for a common goal.

Petya also has a real interest in helping the younger generation become involved with WordPress, and as such she has been running sessions specifically designed for children.

Now there have been many of these sessions in locations all over the world and many, many children have had a chance to get a feel for owning their own space on the internet. It’s such a great project.

It’s a lovely, wide ranging chat and I hope that you enjoy it.

Interviewed by Nathan Wrigley.

We hope you enjoy the show, please do subscribe on Apple Podcasts or Spotify. We’re always looking for feedback, if you have any thoughts or comments, please do reach out.

And remember… Together we can #PressForward

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

The thing is that no two people are leading the same lives and no two people experience difficulty in the same way. What might be a simple thing for you, could be a major obstacle for someone else.

Our best-loved stories are all full of difficulties that the characters are trying to overcome. Humans seem to have a very deep interest in listening to stories about overcoming difficulties, and I hope that you enjoy listening to Alex tell you about his life.

He’s been through a lot, but has been able to find a way to manage in difficult circumstances.

Family, friends, professional support and the WordPress community have all been there at times to offer guidance and allow Alex to find a way to focus upon a bright future.

Please remember to visit headto.org and have a look around…

We hope you enjoy the show, please do subscribe on Apple Podcasts or Spotify. We’re always looking for feedback, if you have any thoughts or comments, please do reach out.

And remember… Together we can #PressForward

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She’s fairly new to the CEO role, having recently taken the helm from her husband Joost who started the company many years ago, but she’s got some big ideas.

The conversation is wide ranging… we talk about the history of Yoast SEO and how it was that she came to be CEO. We also chat about what she wants the company to do in the near term; changes that she’d like to make.

We also discuss some of the areas that WP and UP is interested in and she shares some of the things that they do at Yoast to ensure that their employees are happy at their work.

Conversely, we also get into the subject of how Marieke makes sure that she is able to cope with over 100 people who depend upon her and the decisions that she makes.

It’s a lovely chat and I hope that you enjoy it!

We hope you enjoy the show, please do subscribe on Apple Podcasts or Spotify. We’re always looking for feedback, if you have any thoughts or comments, please do reach out.

And remember… Together we can #PressForward 

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Zoe E Breen is developing her own mental health and mood app and so started upon a journey of investigating what apps are already out there and what it is that they do. She was surprised that there were so many!

It’s really interesting to talk about the benefits of mobile phones, because we’re often fixated upon the negative impact that they might have; the amount of time that we spend in front of our little screens and the way that it disconnects us from the world around us.

It turns out that there are apps for just about every possible thing that you could imagine… so we cannot talk about them all, and so we focus upon the ones that Zoe has found to the the most useful, or most intriguing.

We talk about the ways in which these apps might be able to positively impact your mental health or mood as well as the ways in which they are limited.

The discussion also gets into the future of apps such as these with developments in A.I. and how machine learning is being used to work out more about us as individuals and what we might need at any given time.

Given that these apps are using a lot of data, we also have a brief chat about the importance of thinking about privacy, and ways that Zoe has been able to categorise apps so that she feels like she is able to trust them.

Not being experienced with apps such as these I wanted to know exactly what kind of things they actually do. It’s all very well downloading them, but what do they give back to you and in what form. Some of the apps require quite a lot of manual input and push notifications to your device, so it might be worth thinking about whether or not this is going to be a benefit for you, or just another distraction in an already busy day. I suppose that the proof will be in the pudding.

Although this list might not cover all the apps that we mention, it covers most of them:

• orcha.co.uk
• psyberguide.org
• Producthunt
• Talkspace
• Woebot
• Calm
• Headspace
• Realifex
• Replika
• AiMei
• 
  

Remember that these apps are not intended to be a replacement support.

We hope you enjoy the show, please do subscribe on Apple Podcasts or Spotify. We’re always looking for feedback, if you have any thoughts or comments, please do reach out.

And remember… Together we can #PressForward

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We’re back in the corridor, surrounded by approximately 3,000 WordPressers, so you’re going to have to cope with the background noise… and children!

Josepha has such a broad overview of the entire ecosystem, as it’s one of her roles to make sure that the WordPress Project has what it needs to flourish. That might be connecting with team leads and contributors to understand what they need, or making sure that funding moves where it needs to go for events such as WordCamps.

We speak about how she got started with WordPress; and interesting story in which her mother was the key influence, as well as how WordPress has changed as it has grown over the last 15 years.

We then chat about what it is that continues to attract Josepha to WordPress, which it turns out is teaching people of all ages how it can be used to bring their ideas to life.

We discuss current initiatives that she is interested in such as the increased focus upon diversity and bringing children into contact with WordPress.

It’s a great conversation, and a little window into the past and future of WordPress, brought to you in under three quarters of an hour!

We hope you enjoy the show, please do subscribe on Apple Podcasts or Spotify. We’re always looking for feedback, if you have any thoughts or comments, please do reach out.

And remember… Together we can #PressForward

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Today we hear from Phil Morrow. He was our guest in episode number two, but today he’s talking about a different subject. You see, over the last year or so Phil has seen growth in his WooCommerce agency Happy Kite. They’ve taken on some new members of staff and have been working with clients who have larger budgets.

When we think about the trajectory of a business, this seems like it’s exactly what you want. Bigger budgets, more staff – everything must be fine right?

Well for Phil, not everything about this growth was fine, and that is what we talk about today on the #PressForward podcast.

Not having experience of growing an agency before, Phil was not too sure how to proceed. Who should he hire? What kinds of skills should they have? Turns out that you can hire people who do the exact same work that you love, the work that makes you want to get up in the morning. If people that you’ve hired are doing that work, where does that leave you? You’ve become a business manager when you never intended that for yourself. You’ve cut out the aspects of work that you like and handed them over to others to do instead.

We talk about how Phil might have grown his agency differently were he able to roll back the clock and start all over. We also talk about the journey that Phil has had in this time of growth with his own mental health. In what ways did it manifest itself and how he’s been managing it?

Family has been important; Phil’s wife was able to offer support at just the right time and allow Phil to concentrate upon himself and have time away from the business. Time that he needed to reflect about how he wanted to work in the future.

Phil see’s the need for family support, but also for the kind of support that WP&UP can provide. The kind of support that can help you work on and not in your business. He’s excited about the possibilities that WP&UP offers, especially regarding how it can be useful for his employees now and into the future.

Towards the end we explore briefly how Phil has been working on his physical health, getting regular exercise and getting himself out of the house; key components for his own happiness.

Join Phil on this very honest and informative journey with WP&UP.

Interviewed by Nathan Wrigley.

We hope you enjoy the show, please do subscribe on Apple Podcasts or Spotify. We’re always looking for feedback, if you have any thoughts or comments, please do reach out.

And remember… Together we can #PressForward 

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It’s with Robby McCullough from the popular Beaver Builder Page Builder plugin.

As is the case with all the WordCamp interviews they are are off the cuff, non-scripted discussions in which the conversation flows freely and there’s no specific objective. I really like this format and I hope that you do too.

We get into quite a few topic with Robby; we discuss the purpose of WordCamps for product owners. Are events like this approached with a ‘show up and see’ mentality, or is there a more organised and methodical list of tasks to accomplish whilst in attendance?

We also get into whether or not Page Builders have a future in the era of Gutenberg. Robby addresses the fact that Page Builders and Beaver Builder in particular offer a host of features not currently in (or ever wanted in) the default WordPress editor. In short, Robby is bullish about Page Builders in the future of WordPress.

We chat about the social side of WordPress. How you can make real and meaningful friendships from events like WordCamp.

Finally, we talk about Robby’s decision last year to make travel a real focus of his life. He’s working with a distributed team and so he thought that it would be fun to explore the flexibility that this offered him. He’s been hopping all over the globe for a year and, as you’ll hear, thinks it’s one of the best decisions that he’s ever made. He knows that it’s remarkable that this is possible and that it’s all down to the possibilities that WordPress creates.

I hope that you enjoy this episode as much as I enjoyed recording it!

Interviewed by Nathan Wrigley.

We hope you enjoy the show, please do subscribe on Apple Podcasts or Spotify. We’re always looking for feedback, if you have any thoughts or comments, please do reach out.

And remember… Together we can #PressForward 

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Over the next few weeks you’re going to get something a little different. You see towards the end of June 2019, five members of the WP&UP team flew out to Berlin. Those people were Dan Maby, Giles Hales-Tooke, Barbara Saul, Paul Smart and myself, Nathan Wrigley.

My task was to find a place to record interviews with some of the 3,000 attendees. The chats were impromptu and recorded in one take. Some of them were long, others short. Some were in groups, many of them 1-2-1. Some of the names might be familiar and others you might be hearing from for the first time. But all of them were fun to record and I’m thankful to all in our community who took time out of their schedule to talk to me.

There were no pre-arranged talking points and everything was off the cuff which led us in some unexpected directions. The order that I’m putting them out is not the order that they were recorded.

We made all of the recordings in one of the main thoroughfares at the event, and at times there were hundreds of people milling about in the background. So you’re going to hear our guests as well as the hum of the interactions taking place around us. Personally, I like this, it makes it seem more real in some way.

So today is the first of our WordCamp Europe interviews. It’s with Andrew Palmer the co-founder of Elegant marketplace. We talk about a whole range of subjects… his work creating products for the WordPress, we also talk about the WordPress community and what events like WordCamp mean and how he’s going to be contributing to WP&UP.

At various points we do mention #depression and so this is a trigger warning.

So without further delay, I bring you Andrew Palmer…

We hope you enjoy the show, please do subscribe on Apple Podcasts or Spotify. We’re always looking for feedback, if you have any thoughts or comments, please do reach out.

And remember… Together we can #PressForward

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Nearly 3,000 people travelled from all over the world to gather together in the largest WordCamp to date.

There were dozens of talks on just about every subject that you could imagine. There were social events and people hanging out in the hallway. It was thousands of interactions all brought together for three days under one roof.

To say that I was impressed does not do it justice; it was amazingly well organised.

There are several things that you could describe as a common thread running through each WordCamp Europe – speakers, WordPress and Remkus de Vries! You see Remkus was there at the start, and in many ways, he and a few of his friends were the start. They got the idea that uniting Europe in a single place once a year would be a good idea.

Eventually the idea took off and the wonderful event that just happened is, thus far, the culmination of that effort.

So today Remkus talks about his relationship with WordPress. How he likes to attend and organise WordPress meetups and WordCamps, as well as what he does to ensure that WordPress does not completely run his life!

It’s a story of what you can achieve if you are prepared to invest the time and effort into the community, and how that community can repay you over the years.

This kind of commitment is not going to be the goal of everyone, but it’s lovely to hear a story about someone who was able to expand the WordPress community in ways that has touched literally thousands upon thousands of people.

We hope you enjoy the show, please do subscribe on Apple Podcasts or Spotify. We’re always looking for feedback, if you have any thoughts or comments, please do reach out.

And remember… Together we can #PressForward 

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We’ve tried to bring you stories from a whole variety of WordPressers. Some of them have been funny, others, thought provoking, but the message has always been the same… attending WordCamps can be a great way to meet new people and reconnect with others. Sure, you could view WordCamp as an event about WordPress, the code, the plugins and the themes, but it’s so much more than that. At its heart WordPress is about people and the interactions that they have. Often those interactions are distributed, carried out in emails or Slack, and WordCamp is a chance for you to meet those people in person, face to face, to get to know them and see the whole of them, as they truly are, in real life.

So today we hear the wonderful story of Marcel Bootsman. It’s not like any other that we’ve featured thus far.

A while ago Marcel decided to walk to WordCamp, which on the face of it seems like a reasonable thing to do. Until you learn that Marcel does not live all that close. He’s not even in the same country! Marcel’s journey is long, very long… 500 miles long.

We hear how he came up with the idea of doing this, of how he’s raising money for DonateWC, a charity that could have been invented for this walk. DonateWC is helping get people to WordCamp, people who might no otherwise be able to attend.

We hear also about how Marcel has been committed to WordPress and WordCamp over the years as well as some of the highlights of his journey so far.

If you’re going to be attending WordCamp Europe in June 2019, make sure to seek out Marcel and head over to his Walk to WordCamp Europewebsite and donate to show your appreciation!

I hope that you got something useful out of this podcast mini-series. It’s been a great experience bringing the episodes to you.

We hope you enjoy the show, please do subscribe on Apple Podcasts or Spotify. We’re always looking for feedback, if you have any thoughts or comments, please do reach out.

And remember… Together we can #PressForward

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Sabrina was getting a little frustrated with the fact that there was nobody in her location who understood her passion for WordPress. She’d heard about a WordPress community, but where she was that didn’t seem too real.

She decided to take some affirmative action and if the community wasn’t going to come to her, she was going to go to it! So she set her sights on a WordCamp as the best way to do this. WordCamp London to be specific.

What makes this story more remarkable though is the fact that Sabrina is from Kiev, and so there was going to be a little bit of a language barrier. So, I guess the best way to cope with that is to show up and hope that not too many people talk to you so that you can acclimatise? Not Sabrina!

She decided that the best way to get started with the WordPress community would be by applying to talk at WordCamp London, which she did and of course, she was accepted.

The story develops from there. New friends were made. People who she never met made remarkable gestures of kindness towards her.

The experience was so great that Sabrina decided to attend more WordCamps and the friendships strengthened and flourished.

It’s a great story about doing something new, attending a WordCamp and seeing what comes of it.

We hope you enjoy the show, please do subscribe on Apple Podcasts or Spotify. We’re always looking for feedback, if you have any thoughts or comments, please do reach out.

And remember… Together we can #PressForward 

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Today, Micah is with Felicia, who a co-worker at WPMU Dev. She’s not normally that keen to be in large groups of people, so it was a little out of her comfort zone to attend a WordCamp. But the desire to meet other people from WPMU Dev was too much of a pull and so she decided to give it a try.

She’s got a couple of great memories from WordCamp. The first is a time when realised that you don’t need to know people to get the most out of a WordCamp. Sure it’s great if you know people, but it’s also possible to make new friends. Felicia suddenly found herself alone and Amina stepped right in to fill the void. The two had never met before but they hit it off right away and taught Felicia that you can be your true self and connect with new people.

At a later WordCamp, she took this experience and decided to attend a WordCamp where she knew that there would be none of her old friends, but that did not matter, she met knew people and had a great time nonetheless.

The lesson here is that it’s not bad to go to WordCamps alone. Even if you spend some time alone, that’s fine, but perhaps it’ll also provide some additional time to create new bonds with new people; and that would be great!

We hope you enjoy the show, please do subscribe on Apple Podcasts or Spotify. We’re always looking for feedback, if you have any thoughts or comments, please do reach out.

And remember… Together we can #PressForward 

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Rich has been working with the web and WordPress for a few years, but he was yet to discover the WordPress community. In fact, he was not even really aware that there was all that much of a community. Then he discovered WordCamps and all that changed.

But, that’s not the story… the story is about the journey to get to the WordCamp and the fact that Rich was not all that sure that he even wanted to go. On the journey down he found himself doubting that WordCamp would be for him. It would be full of people who would know more than him, those same people would not want to talk to him, it would be easier to turn the car right around and just stay at home because that is easier and less of a cause of anxiety.

Somehow though, Rich made it to his first WordCamp and met some people. They were nice people and they got along together. Before Rich knew it the first hour had passed, and then the morning, and then the first day, and nothing bad had occurred.

That evening Rich began to think about a future that he’s never seen for himself, he got lost in thought and literally lost in the city!

From that moment on his life has been transformed. He’s found new friends, new opportunities, a new environment for his work and new future.

This is a story about stepping out of what’s comfortable and doing something new, and ending up at a place that you had no idea existed.

We hope you enjoy the show, please do subscribe on Apple Podcasts or Spotify. We’re always looking for feedback, if you have any thoughts or comments, please do reach out.

And remember… Together we can #PressForward

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This led her to start attending WordPress meetups and WordCamps; she’s been to three WordCamps thus far.

Today she tells us her story about a time at WordCamp Phoenix this year. She found the Wordfence stall where they were getting people to pick locks. Having done this before, she felt that this would be easy, but it wasn’t (on the first day).

She failed to pick any, but came back the next day to have another go and did it really fast.

But WordCamps are not all about picking locks, and Mika has other memories about talks that she’s attended which inspired her. The talks were about freelancing and blogging as well as distributed working and how to do this without feeling isolated.

This is an important message. You don’t need feel alone if you’re a WordPresser. You can go to WordCamps and get yourself into the community, to get some support, to hang around with people just like you.

We hope you enjoy the show, please do subscribe on Apple Podcasts or Spotify. We’re always looking for feedback, if you have any thoughts or comments, please do reach out.

And remember… Together we can #PressForward 

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He’s not been attending WordCamps for all that long. His friends had been pestering him for ages to attend. In the end his friends got their way and Róbey bought his first ticket.

It became, “the most enjoyable conference that I’ve ever been to,” and opened his eyes to the possibilities of attending a WordCamp.

For the first time ever, Róbey was able to have techie conversations; he grew up in a place where his friends don’t use WordPress or even know what it is.

He was surprised by the diversity of the crowd who were attending, people from all sorts of WordPress backgrounds, plugin and theme developers and freelancers, just like him.

Although Róbey did feel a little like an imposter for a while, this did not last long. He quick realised that WordCamp is a level playing field and that people from all backgrounds mingle very freely.

He also shares a nice story about meeting one of his ‘idols’, Troy Dean. How he met him, how he turned out to be perfectly normal and how he ended up going out for a meal with him and a heap of other WordPressers after the WordCamp was over.

Remember that WordCamp is for all people. No matter what your background, no matter how much you think you know. You just need to buy a ticket and get yourself there.

We hope you enjoy the show, please do subscribe on Apple Podcasts or Spotify. We’re always looking for feedback, if you have any thoughts or comments, please do reach out.

And remember… Together we can #PressForward

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His story is about jumping into the WordPress community even if you think that it’s not.

Arindo was not sure that WordCamp would be for him. He was a little intimidated with the community and did not know if he wanted to engage. But in 2017 he decided that the time was right. Not only did he attend a WordCamp, but he decided that he was going to all-in and speak at that event too!

To his surprise the organisers accepted his proposal and so now he had to go. He was nervous, but could see that the event was really well organised. People kept making sure that he was feeling okay and that reassured him a lot and reduced his anxiety.

He talked about MultiSite and although he feels like the talk that he gave was a little too niche, that did not put him off and he’s now a seasoned WordCamper!

Now he’s involved in getting a WordPress Meetup off the ground in the town where he lives. Already he’s got 35 people attending, which is really great.

We hope you enjoy the show, please do subscribe on Apple Podcasts or Spotify. We’re always looking for feedback, if you have any thoughts or comments, please do reach out.

And remember… Together we can #PressForward

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All of the episodes are released in the run up to WordCamp Europe. My name is Nathan Wrigley, and Micah Dailey (from WPMU Dev) and I have been on the lookout for some WordCamp stories to share with you; stories that have stuck with previous attendees of WordCamps. It’s a chance to pause and remember that WordPress is made up of people, just like you.

Dave talks about a time that he overcame his anxiety and attended WordCamp London. How he arranged to meet up with some of his online friends before he set off, so that there would be things ‘booked’ in – things to do when he arrived.

He wanted to meet people who shared his passion for WordPress, because in his normal day to day life, there are none of them around. This is the perfect reason to attend, but it’s so much more than that.

We hope you enjoy the show, please do subscribe on Apple Podcasts or Spotify. We're always looking for feedback, if you have any thoughts or comments, please do reach out.

And remember... Together we can #PressForward 

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Today we hear from Dave, the guy who Micah mentioned in episode #1. He’s the guy who told Micah that he had to attend the WordPress meetup in their shared hometown.

His first WordCamp was one that he organised, WordCamp Phoenix (Arizona) in 2016! He talks about a time when a sixteen year old amazed him and made him realise that WordCamps are open and available for all.

Dave’s message is clear, there’s a place for each and every one of us at WordCamp.

He also has some other advice… if you’re not yet ready to take the plunge and book onto one of larger WordCamps, you can always get yourself into a more local, smaller WordCamp, or WordPress meetup.

We hope you enjoy the show, please do subscribe on iTunes or Spotify. We’re always looking for feedback, if you have any thoughts or comments, please do reach out.

And remember… Together we can #PressForward

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It’s been great working with Micah Dailey from WPMU Dev, and getting his ideas about how we can encourage you to get yourself to a WordCamp in the near future.

Today we hear from Tina Todorovic and her story about who she feels is a good fit for a WordCamp. Spoiler alter – it’s everyone!

We talk about the fact that she’s been trying to encourage more women to attend the WordCamps close to where she lives; trying to let them know that it’s not intimidating, but is inclusive.

We also get onto the topic of age and the fact that people of all ages are welcome. She tells the story of an inspirational young man, who she wishes were her son as well as a story about how older people can take part too.

So now that you know that it’s for all people, whoever you are, whatever you do, whatever age you are… what are you waiting for?

We hope you enjoy the show, please do subscribe on iTunes or Spotify. We’re always looking for feedback, if you have any thoughts or comments, please do reach out.

And remember… Together we can #PressForward

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Today we hear a WordCamp story from Tess from Mind Doodle, where she’s a marketing manager.

She is now heavily involved in WordPress and more specifically WordCamps. She’s been helping out as a content writer for WordCamp Bristol, as well as a regular at local meetups. She’s now a member of the WordCamp Europe, leading the communications team.

This year she was a lightening speaker at WordCamp London, giving a talk on a “do action hackathon”.

She speaks about how she’s becoming more and more involved with WordCamps and how it’s creating real connections and friendships. She also talks about the fact that it’s not important what skill you bring to the table, WordCamp has a place for all. Even if you think that your skills are not as ‘valuable’ as others, there are so many ways that you can get involved.

We hope you enjoy the show, please do subscribe on iTunes or Spotify. We’re always looking for feedback, if you have any thoughts or comments, please do reach out.

And remember… Together we can #PressForward 

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The purpose of the PressPause podcast series is to encourage people to attend WordCamps.

To that end we've interviewed people who have had a great WordCamp experience at some point.

Today we hear from Julio Andrade and his journey to WordCamp US. He went not really knowing who he was going to spend his time with. This can be quite an anxious thing. Turning up to a major event with nobody to talk to.

He showed up and made some new friends and did things that he never expected.

It's a great lesson in just taking the plunge and booking a ticket, even if you're not sure who you're going to hang out with.

We hope you enjoy the show, please do subscribe on iTunes or Spotify. We're always looking for feedback, if you have any thoughts or comments, please do reach out.

And remember... Together we can #PressForward 

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Each weekday up until WordCamp Europe in Berlin, we're going to be posting a short podcast episode about people's experiences going to WordCamp around the world.

We're calling it “Press Pause”.

In this series, Micah Dailey from WPMU Dev and I (Nathan Wrigley) collaborate to interview WordCamp goers from around the world to hear their positive, funny, and maybe even emotional stories. It’s an opportunity to stop, slow down, and remember that, at its heart, WordPress is made up of people.

We thought that we'd start with ourselves and so Nathan and Micah go over why they like WordCamp as well as discussing some of their favourite moments.

We hope you enjoy the show, please do subscribe on iTunes or Spotify. We're always looking for feedback, if you have any thoughts or comments, please do reach out.

And remember... Together we can #PressForward 

If you've never been to a WordCamp, then take a listen this series over the coming days and see if we can persuade you that it's a really great experience and one that you should be taking part in.

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Today we talk mostly about his experiences with depression.

Cory has not always had an open attitude to this subject, and like many who encounter it, the past was more about hiding it than sharing about it.

More recently though Cory has seen that there’s value in sharing how depression has manifested itself in his life and how he’s coped with it.

A post that he wrote several years back, called The Iceberg of Life discusses how it’s possible to show a public face of success and positivity, whilst at the same time having a private experience with depression.

In this podcast we talk about Cory’s journey over the last few years and how he has found that sharing his stories of depression has enabled him to be in a better place.

We talk about how it manifest itself at an early age and kept coming back. The conversation moves on to what he does to cope with his depression and who he goes to see to help him when he needs some support.

It’s an amazingly frank and honest discussion shining a light on a subject that is too often pushed into the dark and never spoken about.

Remember that you can reach out to WP&UP if you feel like you would like some support.

We hope you enjoy the show, please do subscribe on iTunes or Spotify. We're always looking for feedback, if you have any thoughts or comments, please do reach out.

And remember… Together we can #PressForward 

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On the face of it, you might think that there’s not all that much to talk about, after all you do it automatically, and what is there to discuss anyway?

Turns out that there’s quite a lot to discuss about sleep. Not just how the lack of it can alter your physical and mental health, but that there are perhaps ‘better’ ways to sleep if you are struggling with a lack of it.

Mike’s been on a journey of his own with his sleep. He was not getting enough and this was leading to problems. So he went looking for some answers and went down a rabbit hole, uncovering unexpected information, some of which might not be what you’re expecting to hear.

We all seem to be obsessed with the amount of sleep that we get, but Mike makes the point that the way that wake up and fall asleep might be of equal importance.

He also talks about things that we can do to enable us to have a more productive sleep routine. Putting down the technology, sticking to a fixed routine so that your body is more likely to understand when it’s time to go to sleep.

We also talk about those things beyond your control that get in the way of sleep; the noisy neighbour, the crying child, and what you can do to minimise their impact.

We’re sleeping for roughly a third of our lives… perhaps this is something that we should take seriously. Stop looking at it as an inconvenience and start giving it the respect it deserves.

We hope you enjoy the show, please do subscribe on iTunes or Spotify. We’re always looking for feedback, if you have any thoughts or comments, please do reach out.

And remember… Together we can #PressForward

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You're probably used to listening to Carrie speaking on her Office Hours podcast, or maybe you've learned from here in one of the many courses that she produces. But today you're going to hear about a completely different Carrie, a more personal one.

You see, last year was a turbulent year; a year of many events. Some of them were amazing, some were not.

Perhaps the most remarkable event of all was a really transformational walk that Carrie undertook with her father. This was no ordinary walk. It was a walk on the other side of the planet. Over 500 miles across the north of Spain on the Camino de Santiago, a pilgrim route used to this day. We follow the journey that Carrie took and the ways in which it altered her life.

I'm sure that we've all had thoughts of going off to the other side of the world and trying something completely alien to us. This is that story.

Could you cope with the lack of connectedness which the modern world requires? Would you enjoy the mile after mile of walking? Would you love the changing landscape? Are you going to be prepared for the return home and the fact that you're a changed person?

Carrie then opens up about the year after the walk. Her relationship with two if her best friends has changed, possibly for good.

But, guess what? The WordPress community, so loved by Carrie, is there to offer he support as the new year arrives. There to make sure that she is ready to face new challenges. Carrie is ready for the future.

We hope you enjoy the show, please do subscribe on iTunes or Spotify. We're always looking for feedback, if you have any thoughts or comments, please do reach out.

And remember... Together we can #PressForward 

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WP&UP provides support grouped into four health hubs, mental health, business health, skills health and physical health.

Working with WordPress is a wonderful challenge; but mostly that's a mental challenge. Many people in our community will spend quite a lot of time sitting in a chair, working on their computer; and it's all too easy for this to become a habit that is rarely broken.

Michelle Schulp works with WordPress, but places her physical health front and centre. She makes sure that she's working hard, whilst providing time to get up and move.

She talks to me about why she thinks your physical health and productivity are interconnected and how you might begin your journey towards being more active if you need to.

There's no right answer to this and we explore the many ways that you can transform a sedentary life into something different. This does not have to mean following the well trodden path of going to the gym multiple times each week; there are many ways that you can improve your physical health, and some of them don't even require you to leave your desk.

Michelle's story might resonate with many of you, and her fascination with being active and healthy was something that she learned in later life, she not was always this way.

It's a great listen for those of you who feel that you might have developed a lifestyle that does not have enough physical movement in it. A testament to how things can change. It's not root and branch and you can make little steps towards a more active life starting today.

We hope you enjoy the show, please do subscribe on iTunes or Spotify. We're always looking for feedback, if you have any thoughts or comments, please do reach out.

And remember... Together we can #PressForward 

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The agency has grown very rapidly, fast becoming one of the larger UK agencies.

Growing an agency so rapidly brings with it some unexpected situations, and that is the focus of the podcast today.

We chat with Tom about the structure of the agency and how they try to make it a place that their staff like to work at.

We also explore how the company has had to tackle issues like allows employees to have extended time off on mental health grounds. This process was a learning curve for all involved.

There's also a discussion about how they are trying to make the office a healthy place to work.

Perhaps the most interesting take away from this is the idea of a 'open source' agency. A central resource of non-competitive resources that all agencies can share in order to promote happier, healthier working environments.

We hope you enjoy the show, please do subscribe on iTunes or Spotify. We're always looking for feedback, if you have any thoughts or comments, please do reach out.

And remember... Together we can #PressForward 

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Laura shares some of her experiences of dealing with mental ill health and how the agency she works for, Pragamatic, supported her. She’ll talk about her experience in dealing with anxiety and panic attacks.

She’ll also share some of the positive, people centric management techniques that have helped her to transition back into a regular working day.

Our second guest on the show, Matt, a member of the Pagely family. Talks about his experiences of being self-employed, the challenges he faced, the highs and the lows. He talks candidly about his thoughts on the WordPress community, WordCamps and what he’d like to see going forward.

Both guests talk about their personally experiences and share advice for those facing challenges with their well-being.

We hope you enjoy the show, please do subscribe on iTunes or Spotify.We’re always looking for feedback, if you have any thoughts or comments, please do reach out.

And remember… Together we can #PressForward 🧡

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Paul is a WordPress agency owner based in the UK.

Over the last couple of years Paul has had issues with taking on too much work and then feeling unable to complete his tasks. In a six month period his family hit a crisis which changed all of their lives.

In that short period one successful business was sold off in order to redress the balance and restore some time into their lives.

It was not as simple as that though as Paul then found it harder to complete his work than ever before.

Paul sought help from this local doctor and this gave him some positive results.

It's a fascinating story which I'm sure many of us can identify with.

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First we hear from Phil. He talks about his recent experiences with panic attacks; how they were often caused by pressures from work and how they came to rule his life.

Phil is the owner of a fast growing agency and was under pressure last year as the agency was growing. He hear about how he managed and how he was able to use the services provided by WP&UP to support himself.

Laura works in the UK for Pragmatic, a large and growing agency. Last year Laura had to take some time off work. This ended up being longer than she’d anticipated.

From Laura’s point of view, this created anxiety about whether or not her employers would still view here in the same way when she returned. She began to think that perhaps they would no longer require her service.

What unfolded was a journey in which both sides, Laura and Pragmatic learned how to best support one another, to respect the situation as it was, and work towards the common goal of getting Laura back at work, which is where she wanted to be.

We hope that you feel able to subscribe on iTunes or whatever podcast player you're using, and we'd certainly encourage you to share this new endeavour wherever you can.

Thanks for your support of 'The #PressForward Podcast'. 

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The idea of the podcast is to support the aims of WP&UP in offering support for members of the WordPress community.

Each week we will have guests on to talk about WordPress related things, but also to address some of the areas that don’t usually get covered, such as mental health.

In this, the first episode, we speak to Dan Maby, the founder and CEO of WP&UP about the aims of the charity and what its purpose is. We discuss at length what support WP&UP is providing and how you might get involved.

We then move on to chat with Giles Hales-Tooke. He talks very candidly about his battle with anxiety. He explains how it manifests itself and how he’s managed to stay on top of it.

We hope that you feel able to subscribe on iTunes or whatever podcast player you’re using, and we’d certainly encourage you to share this new endeavour wherever you can.

Thanks for your support of ‘The #PressForward Podcast’.

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