Little Drops of Motivation
In this episode, Kathy and Michelle talk about the little drops of happiness that can keep you motivated and make your whole day better.
Episode Transcript
Speaker 0 00:00:02 Hi, Kathy. Happy Friday.
Speaker 1 00:00:04 Happy Friday, Michelle. We made it through another week.
Speaker 0 00:00:08 . We did. Happy Monday. To anybody who’s listening, as you probably have heard in the past, we record on Friday, we published in the We Hours of the Morning on or Late
Speaker 1 00:00:18 Know How you do it,
Speaker 0 00:00:19 . I actually last, so last week I got in bed Sunday night I got in bed. I, I I, I’ll have to tell you all about my new mattress cover cuz it makes me happy and we’re all about the happy here. But I get in bed, I’m all toasty and cozy and all of a sudden my eyes shot up and I was like, I so jumped out bed. I was sitting, I, I set up my laptop on the vanity in my bedroom and I’m like, did you publishing the episode? Yeah. . So it’s funny, I’m like, oh shoot. And it’s not like Kathy’s gonna kill me if it doesn’t get done once I had to, I forgot about it, did it Monday morning, but I try to publish it before I go to bed Sunday night so that people who are in, um, in Asia, in Europe, you know, they’re getting it on their Monday morning, afternoon time as opposed to waiting until the next day to hear from us. So then I, and then I, I um, I tweeted out then, as you know, cuz you, I tag you and me in every week. Yeah. And then, um, and then I’ll republish it to Twitter again, you know, when I’m awake on Monday. And so, so everybody can see it. But yeah, it’s so funny that, um, that it, I like literally like jumped out of bed. Like, I’m not gonna forget this week.
Speaker 1 00:01:31 . Well I appreciate the fact that you handle all of that stuff. I’m always here if you need me to do that, but
Speaker 0 00:01:37 I appreciate it.
Speaker 1 00:01:38 You just get it done and I’m just, I’m surprised every Monday morning well,
Speaker 0 00:01:43
Speaker 1 00:01:44 As it, it’s my one bright spot on Monday morning. I’m like, oh right. We did that on Friday. That was cool. And I’m happy that it goes out because usually on Mondays it’s just like, how did this happen so fast? like, what happened Saturday and Sunday? It just,
Speaker 0 00:01:58 The whole weekend gone was gone so fast. It sure does. It sure does. Yeah. And I, I like, I use my own photography cuz like, what am I gonna use as a cover photo? So I just use some whatever just strikes me out of my own photography. It’s just one way I can use what I’ve created. And I’m always like, I wonder what Kathy thinks of this picture this week.
Speaker 1 00:02:17 . Yeah. Yeah. It’s always good. I love your photography. I love your nature photography and just the shots that you get. It’s incredible. So thanks.
Speaker 0 00:02:25 Yeah. Not so much fun. I really appreciate it. So, so you had some ideas of motivational stuff to talk about this week?
Speaker 1 00:02:32 Yeah. Well, okay. So we do a podcast for Cadence. Right? It’s called the Cadence Beat. You came up with that name
Speaker 0 00:02:39 . I do remember that now. I was like, I did. She’s like, you did? Yes,
Speaker 1 00:02:44 You totally did. Because I was like, I wanna do a podcast because I think it’ll work really well for, for this brand. I think it’s just, it just works well for, for Ben, who’s the lead developer for Cadence, he’s extremely well spoken. Um, and, you know, people wanna hear from the, the leads of, of the software products that they are using and purchasing from. Um, and I wanted to give him, give him a voice that was super easy that all he had to do was show up and have a good conversation. And I would handle the rest and it would be good for the brand. So we started this like a year, almost a year ago, and we’re on episode 21 and we’ve been having guests on lately. We just to change things up a little bit. And this last episode is one of my favorites and it’s the one where I was like, you know what?
Speaker 1 00:03:29 You guys do this without me . So, and they did so well. They, it was such an amazing conversation. And our guest was this guy Jake Full, who’s done a ton of cool stuff with Cadence. He really has also taken, he really has, he took the Link Tree idea that you had and then I wrote a blog post about, and he took it and built out a whole bunch of link trees where people could just like go and, and basically get into his design library and, and download one of his designs. And it comes in because of the way Cadence works, it comes in and inherits from the brand colors of that site. I’m like, let’s talk to Jake, this will be great. And it’s was really meaningful. It was meaningful for everybody who participated. Um, it was a video podcast. I had to edit it, but I, I was just so proud of it.
Speaker 1 00:04:18 And then I’m watching this and I’ll, everybody’s saying congratulations to, to, to Jake. Like he was just on The Tonight Show . I was just laughing. I’m like, does that make Ben like Jimmy Fallon laughing to myself like Ben is the Jimmy Fallon of WordPress and just like laughing to myself about it. But I love it. I, I took a step back from it and I’m like, this is just my work. Right. It’s kind of a little thing, but it’s meaningful. Mm-hmm. and I, I thought about like you, because you, and I just think I tweeted about that this week. Cause I was thinking about how you came up with the cadence beat. It was like, you didn’t like spend hours thinking of it. You just like, came up with it almost like on the spot in a call. Um, the link tree thing. You came up with that and and ran with it.
Speaker 1 00:05:03 And it just, it has these ripple effects. And I started thinking about you and me and all the stuff that we do and how we do like some things that are like really big and take a lot of hercule Oh, sure. Efforts. Yeah. Like, like making a movie Kathy, like making a whole movie making movies on location. We do a lot of big things, but we also do a lot of little things that have really huge effects. And you never know when a little thing is, is gonna be huge. Mm-hmm. . And so I’ve got this like, you know, I’ve got an Instagram account and I’ve got a puppy. And so I did, the puppy in the Cat we’re fighting and I was like, oh, funny taking a video. And I’m like, oh, this will be funny on Instagram. I’m just gonna share it. And this thing went like crazy viral.
Speaker 1 00:05:45 And then I’m like, Ooh, I could go viral on Instagram. This will be fun. I post other stuff and it’s just like w you know, , like, it’s not like you never know what’s gonna hit, what’s gonna, I’m like, I don’t understand dog cat viral, but it’s like, I’m not gonna try to figure all that out. But little thing, you never know what little thing is gonna have like a massive impact. Yeah. And so for sure, where do these things come from? Inspiration. Just a, an idea. And you run with it. And, and sometimes, you know, like not every idea’s gonna like be huge, but sometimes these little things you do have huge impacts. So I’ve been thinking about that all week and I’m like, woo, I’m all cool inspired. I have so many ideas of like cool things I wanna do next and just, I just need a clone or three ,
Speaker 0 00:06:32 . Sometimes I think, you know, you put a lot of thought energy into something and creating the perfect, like coming up with a name for something, for example. And it’s like, yes, that is so cool. And other times it’s just like dumb luck like, oh, what about this? And everybody goes, Ooh, I like that. And sometimes you go, oh, what about this? And people look at you like you have three heads, right? So like, you don’t know what’s gonna land and what isn’t depending on the audience and everything else. But yeah, it, it is fun when those things, whether you’ve worked really hard on them or it was serendipitous, take hold and make a difference. Yeah, absolutely. I love that. Yeah. Great observations. Yeah,
Speaker 1 00:07:11 It’s, it’s just been, I don’t know, it’s, you know, I’ve been, it’s been a busy week. We’ve got some big stuff coming up next week, but, uh, yeah, I’ve just been thinking about all of this stuff and it’s just like I finally am starting to figure out, okay, I know what makes me happy and it’s like doing these like little things and then, you know, just doing the things I know that are like the right things to do. And then just seeing how it has this impact that like a wider impact where somebody else gets uplifted, which is why, you know, we’re here WP Motivate. Mm-hmm. , it’s just a conversation we have every week. But our goal here is that even one thing that we say gets somebody else to go mm-hmm. , you know, that pebble in the pond with ripples and Yeah. Who knows where it’s gonna go.
Speaker 0 00:07:54 Yeah, exactly. So I love it. I mean, we’re not Zig Zigler, we’re not, you know, coming up with the quotes that people are putting all over the internet and um, well maybe you are .
Speaker 1 00:08:06 That’s my joke.
Speaker 0 00:08:09 . I love it. Um, but, but yeah, you’re right. It’s like hopefully, you know, people will listen and I don’t know who’s listening every week. I don’t. Um, we don’t know who you are out there. It’s, it’s like talking to each other and the great unknown kind of thing. Yeah. Um, yeah. But then somebody will tell me, I’ll get a DM from somebody saying, oh, I heard you talk about X, Y, Z on the podcast. And I’m like, you did. Oh, that’s so cool. somebody’s listening, you know? And I love it. It makes me happy. Absolutely. Yeah.
Speaker 1 00:08:37 It makes me really happy too. Um, because I really do feel like it’s not just, you know, like, Ooh, I did something cool. It’s like somebody else did something cool and I uplifted them so that they could like really see that they’re doing something cool and yeah. They then get inspired to do more and then they inspire someone else. And it’s just this like interconnection of all of humanity of all that is that this interconnection where, where we all just kind of uplift each other and empower each other to, to do more and it, it compounds. Right. And yes, I don’t know, gives me faith in humanity that things, no matter how bad things might seem, things are getting better because w and the internet’s doing this Right. Because I wouldn’t have any contact with any of these people if I was like, I don’t know, working in an office doing something, you know, if the internet didn’t exist. Yeah. And so like the technology that’s bringing us all together where I can inspire somebody el maybe never meet in real life
Speaker 0 00:09:37 Mm-hmm. , it’s, um, I can, I can say this publicly now because it was finally announced, but I’m speaking at Word Camp Asia and it got announced that I know, I’m so excited. It’s in Thailand. I have never been to Europe, I’ve never been to South America. I mean I’ve been to North America, I’ve been to the Caribbean and I’ve been to Hawaii. Like I literally have never been anyplace else. And so, um, you know, at 54 years old, I get to go to Thailand in February. That is so cool. Which reminds me so cool. I have to get my passport done soon. Um, but what’s super cool is, uh, since it was announced, I’ve had two or three people reach out to me and say, oh my God, I get to meet you in person. And it’s like, I think to myself, I’ve known this person for five or six years Yeah. And think of them as a friend and like, it didn’t occur to me that I ha Oh yeah, I haven’t ever met you in person before because those connections are real, even if they aren’t Right. Sitting across the same table. Right. Yeah. Um, the number of times you and I have literally been in the same place together is
Speaker 1 00:10:39 Handful.
Speaker 0 00:10:40 Yeah. If that right? Like yeah. A couple of times we didn’t know each other yet. Like ,
Speaker 1 00:10:46 Here’s, here’s
Speaker 0 00:10:47 A picture, uh, um, on Bird camp Us I don’t remember which year it was, um, in Nashville. And I’m like, oh, that’s Kathy, that’s me. We’re standing next to each other. We didn’t know each other yet. , we chatted it, we gotta know each other. Yeah.
Speaker 1 00:11:01 Yeah. It was my first word camp us and, and our table was right next to the gift table and you were there. And, and so we were just kind of like, and it was so busy. Right. It was crazy because cuz Yeah. But we were there and so it’s like I kind of knew who you were and I knew I, well I knew who Taylor and um, Cromwell and some of the other teammates from Give were because I was previously out on the West Coast and mm-hmm. We were bumping each other at, um, at West Coast Word Camp. But I never met you so I didn’t really know who you were. But then, you know, here we are,
Speaker 0 00:11:34 said each other, love over the air, over the air waves all the time. . Oh, I love it. Yes.
Speaker 1 00:11:41 Watching out for each other.
Speaker 0 00:11:42 Right. But it’s those little and that those are those little gems and those little, um, drops as if you will. And you know, when you were, we were talking a little bit before we started recording about those little serendipitous moments and whatever. Yeah. It’s made me think about like a bucket of water or the ocean. Like it’s all made up of tiny droplets, but they all come together to make something amazing. Right, right. And that’s, that’s kind of what WordPress is really. I mean like my whole town is not filled with WordPress people maybe, I mean there’s probably more than I think there is who have a site or a blog or something. But like if I walk down the street, I could walk down five streets and never meet a person who’s heard of WordPress. Right, right. But we’re all connected so much that it feels like, I mean, it isn’t a global community obviously, that it feels like there’s people sitting next to me who are working in the, in the project as well. And so yeah. Super fun. Super, super fun.
Speaker 1 00:12:37 Yeah, definitely. Yeah. Um, it’s uh, the community of WordPress, I never, you know, I started using WordPress so long ago and I was always like, not really as well as younger kids and stuff. And I was like, yeah, well this is just what I use and stuff. And it wasn’t until it, it took a long time for me to really get involved with the community. And then once I was there, Jennifer born actually at Word Camp Sacramento, I was driving through Sacramento and I was like, I wonder if there are meetups, like these meetup things. .
Speaker 0 00:13:06 Yeah. These meetup
Speaker 1 00:13:07 Things. And she’s like, she’s like, you know, there’s a bunch of us that go to Word camps all over the place and we go to all like, we travel to go to Word camps. And I’m like mm-hmm. really?
Speaker 0 00:13:16 What? Why would everybody do that?
Speaker 1 00:13:19 had no idea. So she was like pretty much my first introduction to what word camps were all about and everything. And I was like, okay, well this is cool. I wanna go to them . Like I got to, I’ve, I’ve been to mm-hmm , I got to go to Word Camp Europe in Berlin. That was so much fun. Oh, amazing. I’ve gotten to go to Word Camp Kansas City, like I think that was the tiniest one I went to, but it was still tons of fun. And
Speaker 0 00:13:44 Then Word Camp Rochester might have been one of the smaller ones you’ve been to. Also .
Speaker 1 00:13:48 Yeah. Yeah. But it’s so much fun. Just
Speaker 0 00:13:52 We had a blast. Absolutely. Yeah. So fun. So fun. Well, um, next week is state of the word I’m Yes. I wish you could be there with me. I really do. I’m flying in super early Wednesday. I think my flight lands in New York around 7:30 AM and I fly out super late on Thursday night around 10:00 PM is I send 10:30 PM as my flight out. So I’m gonna be there, you know, just for the two days cuz I have a full day on Friday that I have to be, you know, attentive at my desk for. Um, and so I am so excited to see the people who are gonna be there. I have something exciting that I wish I’ll tell you after we’re off the air that I’m working, that I’m working on, um, that I can’t, sometimes I tip my hand here like about, you know, the Halloween ju just as Nathan Wrigley thing. This one I can’t tip my hand for. You’re gonna have to tune in next week to find out what it was that I did or, you know, didn’t work at a state of the word that is so exciting to me. So this is your cliffhanger, you’re just gonna have to come back next week. Da dun dun dun next. Come back next week and learn all about it. Cause honestly, like I can hardly contain myself. I’m so giddy about this thing doing. I’m excited
Speaker 1 00:15:07 .
Speaker 0 00:15:07 That’s so cool. I’ll definitely, yeah, I’ll definitely share it with everybody, um, next week with pictures and everything else. But, um, awesome. Sometimes you come up with ideas that just, even if the other person goes, oh okay, thanks, that’s awesome. You’re still going like, oh my God, it was so fun. Right? Like, it doesn’t matter.
Speaker 1 00:15:23 I can’t wait now because the Nathan rig because you as Nathan Wrigley on Halloween was still is one of my favorite WordPress moments of the year. Cuz that is that I just hope that joke goes on forever and the way Nathan plays with it,
Speaker 0 00:15:37 Oh my God,
Speaker 1 00:15:38 It’s just the best. It’s the best.
Speaker 0 00:15:40 Did did you see the um, the image I made, the cap image I made and posted on Twitter, like I choose the authentic Nathan Wrigleys and then it was pictures of me as him and pictures of him as him. I, I just, yeah, I cracked myself up. If y’all think that that’s a little too self-aggrandizing, I’m sorry, but I cracked myself up .
Speaker 1 00:16:01 I love it. I think that was the one where I commented, please never let this joke. Right.
Speaker 0 00:16:05 Yes. , I think it was. Yes.
Speaker 1 00:16:07 Let’s go on forever. So much
Speaker 0 00:16:08 Fun. So much fun. Yeah. Oh my gosh, I love it. Gosh. So,
Speaker 1 00:16:12 So I, I I’m sure the next idea is going to be, uh, as
Speaker 0 00:16:16 I know, I dunno about Halloween next year. I’m not sure how you top that one, but we’ll see. .
Speaker 1 00:16:21 Yeah. Seriously.
Speaker 0 00:16:22 I got time to, I got time to think about it.
Speaker 1 00:16:24 You do. Yeah. But the bar’s pretty high, so
Speaker 0 00:16:29 It’s like, do I just retire? Do I go out that high? I dunno. . Nope.
Speaker 1 00:16:35 I think the, I think the cool thing though, I mean with all of the ideas that you get and that I get to you is like, when you, when you act upon those ideas, it’s kind of almost like, all right, getting a little woohoo here. But it’s almost like this idea drops in magically from the other side. Yes. And you run with it and then it’s almost like the energy of the universe notices, Hey they, they ran with this. All right, well here’s another one. And it’s like, as long as you like act upon those inspirations, the inspirations keep going. Keep coming. Yeah. And it’s like this fountain of great ideas, once is all you have to do is act on them. Because I think, I don’t know, spirit is kind of like, if you don’t act on it, it’s just gonna go find someone who will. Right. Like it’s just looking for like this flow of, of energy, of ideas, of creative, universal whatever is just looking for a way to be actualized. And if you run with it, more comes.
Speaker 0 00:17:35 Absolutely. It’s like that one Friday when I said to you, Hey, do you wanna do a podcast? And we published it over the weekend and it was live on Monday and we like, Hey, we have a new podcast, so come on. Yeah. Yeah. That kinda thing. Um,
Speaker 1 00:17:47 Yep. Totally.
Speaker 0 00:17:48 I, I wish I could remember the name of the book. Um, but when I was probably in my early teens, late, I don’t know, 10, 11, 12 something maybe preteen I got for Christmas a book and it was a book of quotations, but it was geared towards children, but, you know, not like infants Right. But torture. And it was these wonderful quotes from different books and things and honest to goodness, I only remember two from that book. I wish I still had the book. I wish I could remember the title of it cuz I would give anything to have it back. But, um, one of them was Mother Goose. Good, better, best, never rest until You’re Good is better and you’re Better at is best. But the other one that’s been ringing through my head all week, which has spurred me to just like do things that I need to do is actually very dark. It’s actually a Joseph Conrad from The Heart of Darkness and it says on the planes of hesitation, bleach the bones of countless millions who at the dawn of victory sat down to wait and in waiting died. Wow. Like, don’t just sit and wait for the victory to come. You gotta get out there and hustle and do it. Right. So it really goes with what you just said, like it just popped in my head again, like, you’re given these ideas, it’s your job to run with it or it’ll die or somebody else will do it.
Speaker 1 00:19:06 Yeah, absolutely. Yeah. Yeah. We time it just, I don’t know, my kid doesn’t believe me, but, you know, and at our age it’s kind of like you really realize how how little time you have Yeah, yeah. On this planet. And, um, you know, with everything that happened with my husband, like my memory, the Facebook memory that came up today, I was just like, oh yeah, I remember that one. And it was, it was like that. It was like, you, you never know what what is, uh, yeah. I’ve every posted it today. So I wrote last a year ago. Today, every minute with your loved ones isn’t enough. Every fight and disagreement will be looked upon with regret. The annoyances of messing up the bathroom are parking too close to your car in the garage will be missed. The dishes that went on top of the dishwasher instead of in it will be minor over the weeks.
Speaker 1 00:19:55 The texts that were at the top of your list end up at the bottom and you’ll regret more. You think you will every minute with your loved ones as they are now broken and annoying and frustrating and irritating will still not be enough. Love them. Anyway. And I wrote that last year in the, in the Heat of just like realizing what I had had just gone through, um mm-hmm. over just a couple of weeks of, of him having that stroke. And just like, every single minute, every single moment is so precious. And if you have an idea, if you have something that you wanna do with your life, do it. The world needs you. Mm-hmm.
Speaker 0 00:20:29 mm-hmm. and the things that you do and the love that you give, those are your real legacy. Right. The the things that you’re able to do for others, the impact that you have on people through the things that you create, whether it’s a website or a foundation or dinner on Tuesday night, like that’s what your, your legacy is, is creating those memories and those experiences with other people and that connection. Yeah, absolutely. Yeah. So everybody go out there and create a really cool legacy, like do
Speaker 1 00:21:00 The thing, it’s gonna happen anyway. You might as well do it now. Yeah,
Speaker 0 00:21:03 Do. But but, but listen to what Kathy said, don’t just wait for the big things. Do the little things too. Yeah. Because those are the things that add up to the big things. Absolutely. And you
Speaker 1 00:21:11 Never know what those little things are gonna lead to. You might think it’s just, oh yeah, you’re just doing this, but it ends up like having a rippling effect and mm-hmm. , you never know.
Speaker 0 00:21:19 Someday I’ll tell you the story of how I ended up at Give WP and it was through a little thing like a handshake. Yeah. Yeah. So we’ll save that for another week. But
Speaker 1 00:21:28 Dun duh, more clip clipper.
Speaker 0 00:21:30 I love Cliff Hagers today. So , a lot of those, I’ve been written in bios everywhere, so it’s not like it’s a big, a big secret, but, um, but it’s a fun story. So we’ll have to, we’ll have to share stories about our, our origin WordPress origin stories pretty soon maybe what the upcoming weeks, but yeah, it looks good. Well, everybody, we thank you for hanging in there with us. We hope that the, um, the fun that we have talking to each other can bring you some joy and that you are inspired to do the things that you think about doing and making those connections too, because we know that that has made a difference for us. And, uh, we want to see you as happy as we’re feeling today. So we wish you well. We’ll see you next week after state of the word . Bye bye.