Podcasts about liquid web

Nextech3D.ai CEO Evan Gappelberg joined Steve Darling from Proactive to announce the company's successful cloud migration from Liquid Web to Amazon Web Services (AWS). This strategic move is aimed at enhancing platform performance, enabling faster feature development, and strengthening the company's position in the global AI-driven event technology market. Gappelberg highlighted that the migration of the company's flagship MAP Dynamics event management platform to AWS will significantly improve platform reliability, enable global scalability, and allow Nextech3D.ai to serve larger, more complex events. The enhanced infrastructure will support the integration of advanced technologies such as machine learning and predictive analytics. With AWS, MAP Dynamics is set to offer features like intelligent booth recommendations, automated attendee matchmaking, and behavior insights, helping to deliver a superior customer experience and remain competitive with leading digital event management providers worldwide. #nextech3d.al #otcqx #nexcf #cse #ntar #EvanGappelberg #ARway #AugmentedReality #SpatialMapping #IndoorNavigation #MapDynamics #EventTech #TradeShowSolutions #TechStocks #ARRevenueGrowth #3DTechnology #ProactiveInvestors #aws #amazonwebservice

Note: At the bottom of this article you'll get several FREE tutorial videos that will show you practical uses for AI that you can start using today. This is just a taste of what you'll learn in the full course. * How to use AI to create a poem for your grandson* How to use AI to review a lease for you or your family member* How to use AI to create a logo for your business or side project * How to use AI to plan a vacation customized to your interests* How to use AI to code your own version of Tetris! (Seriously!) I was recently at a dinner with several of my moms cousins. They are all successful business executives who have retired and they were discussing how they wanted to get started with Artificial Intelligence but didn't know where to begin. I mentioned some of the things that I take for granted about using AI and their minds were pretty blown. I mentioned this to some of my friends and they all said that they were interested in learning more about AI too. So, to solve this problem, I have teamed up with my good friend and AI expert, Joe Dearman to offer a 3 hour hands-on in person AI training. It is Saturday, April 5 · 1 - 4pm EDT. We are still nailing down the location but it will be in the greater lansing area. We are limiting the first class to 30 attendees. 7 spots are already gone. This training is for beginners and intermediate AI users. You do NOT need to have experience with AI to attend. But you do have to be relatively computer and smartphone savvy. Which just means you need to be able to download apps onto your phone and work with them easily. This class is designed for my family members that are interested in learning about AI but they don't want to wade through the vast number of Youtube videos and how-to Google searches. If you are looking for a hands-on in-person session to have your mind blown about the practical ways you can use AI today - this is your class! WHAT YOU'LL LEARN:* What is AI? (Hint: It's not magic, but it sure feels like it.)* How to use AI in your daily life (Save time, make better decisions, automate tasks.)* How to set up and install AI tools (No technical background required.)* How to prompt AI to get exactly what you need (Stop getting bad answers—get precision.)* How to use AI for work (Automate emails, reports, research—work smarter, not harder.)* How to use AI to generate images (Create stunning visuals with a few words.)* How to process long documents & summarize key points (Turn hours of reading into minutes.)* How to use AI for learning & education (AI tutors? Yes, they exist—and they're amazing.)* How to use Voice AI (AI that talks back intelligently.)* How to do deep research with AI (Find the truth, cut through the noise.)* How to verify news stories with AI (Detect misinformation like a pro.)* How to use ChatGPT, Grok, and other top AI tools (Which AI tool does what best?)WHO IS THIS FOR?* Anyone who has heard of AI but doesn't know where to start.* Professionals who want to work smarter, not harder.* People who don't want to get left behind in the AI revolution.* Business owners who want a competitive edge.WHO'S TEACHING THIS?Travis Stoliker – That's me! Serial entrepreneur (Liquid Web, TechSmith, Saddleback BBQ, Social Ops, Gyroaster (The World's Best Marshmallow Roaster!), Growth Factory). Scaled companies, built tech products, and now showing you how to leverage AI.Joseph Dearman – Product designer of award-winning tools (Coach's Eye, Camtasia). Using AI to build professional AI-powered products, games, and passionate about maximizing impact with AI.So seriously, what is so cool about AI? Why should I do this? Check this out…Tutorial: How to create a logo for my business or side project in less than a minute. Tutorial: How to write a beautiful poem for my grandson's birthdayTutorial: Use AI to plan your vacation trip itinerary personalized to your preferences Tutorial: How to use AI to review a lease, summarize it, point out problem areas, and negotiate for a better lease on your behalf. Save thousands of dollars on legal fees! Now for an Advanced Tutorial! How you can use AI to Create your own Games & Applications! Code your own Tetris in a few minutes. Register Now for: Artificial Intelligence Training & Learn AI in 3 Hours.* Sat, Apr 5, 2025, 1pm to 4:00pm* Special offer for Year Of The Opposite Subscribers! Get $100 off the registration fee if you use the Promo Code: YOTO at checkout! Year Of The Opposite - Travis Stoliker's Substack is a reader-supported publication. To receive new posts and support my work, consider becoming a free or paid subscriber. Get full access to Year Of The Opposite - Travis Stoliker's Substack at www.yearoftheopposite.com/subscribe

In this episode of the "Get Hired" podcast, host  Nicky Bulmer and co-host Michelle Frechette interview Tatiane, an experienced WordPress developer. Tatiane shares her journey in WordPress development, emphasizing her skills in creating and customizing themes and plugins. The discussion covers Tatiane's approach to handling feedback, collaborating with teams, and optimizing WordPress sites. Nicky and Michelle provide Tatiane with resume and interview tips, highlighting the importance of clear communication and showcasing both technical and soft skills. The episode concludes with practical advice for job seekers, reinforcing the podcast's mission to enhance job application materials and interview skills.Top Takeaways:Cover Letters Should Be Concise & Tailored – A strong cover letter shouldn't just repeat the resume. Instead, it should highlight why your skills and experience are a great fit for the specific role and company. Less is often more—focusing on one key project or skill that directly relates to the job can make a stronger impact than listing everything.Confidence & Clarity Matter in Interviews – Candidates should confidently communicate their skills, especially when discussing technical expertise. Using specific language, such as naming programming languages or frameworks, helps interviewers understand the depth of knowledge. Additionally, if an interviewer has an accent or uses unfamiliar words, repeating for clarification or asking them to rephrase is a good strategy.Continuous Improvement & Adaptability Lead to Success – Surrounding yourself with the language, culture, and best practices of your industry (as Tatiane did with English) makes growth easier. Being open to feedback, refining application materials, and improving communication skills over time can significantly increase job prospects.Mentioned In The Show:The Events Calendar Liquid WebDungeons and DragonsGitHub WPIncludes.me

In this episode of the Post Status Happiness Hour, host Michelle Frechette interviews Stephanie Hudson from StellarWP about Stellar Pay, a new payment gateway plugin for WordPress users. Stephanie, the Product Marketing Manager, discusses her background in web development and marketing. They explore Stellar Pay's features, including its integration with Stripe, subscription management, and no additional fees for essential features. They also address e-commerce challenges like shipping and taxes and future plans for Stellar Pay, including potential PayPal integration. Additionally, Stephanie teases the upcoming launch of Stellar Sites, a new website solution combining the best features of popular platforms with WordPress's power.Top Takeaways:Stellar Pay Simplifies E-Commerce: Stellar Pay is designed for those who either actively run e-commerce businesses or avoid it because they find it difficult. The tool aims to make the process easier and more accessible.Free and Easy to Get Started: Users can download Stellar Pay for free from the website. Signing up directly on the site comes with added benefits like onboarding tips and extra resources to help users get started.Stellar Pay Provides E-Commerce Tips: The team behind Stellar Pay offers a newsletter that provides useful insights and strategies for running an online store successfully. Michelle encouraged users to subscribe for ongoing guidance.Mentioned In The Show:StellarWPStellar PayLiquid WebGive WPThe Event CalendarSolidWPLearndashRestrict Content ProDevin WalkerStripeJoel ButlerPayPalPoodle PressBen Ritner WP Accessibility DaySolid AcademyJono Alderson

In this episode of the "Get Hired" podcast, Nicky Bulmer and Misty Combs interview Corey Maass, a WordPress developer, discuss the hiring process for WordPress developers. Corey shares his extensive experience in WordPress development, emphasizing the importance of community, communication, and continuous improvement. The conversation covers optimizing WordPress sites, handling client feedback, and the significance of authenticity in interviews. Nicky and Misty provide feedback on Corey's resume and portfolio, highlighting the need for clarity and measurable achievements. The episode offers valuable insights into job seeking, negotiation, and presenting oneself effectively in the tech industry.Top Takeaways:The Importance of Staying True to Yourself in Job Searches: The panel emphasizes that not every job or company is a good fit for everyone. It's more important to be authentic and align with roles that reflect your values and personality rather than trying to conform to something you're not. However, desperation during challenging times can complicate this, making it harder to prioritize alignment over necessity.Every Job is a Learning Experience: Even if you accept a role that isn't ideal, you can use it as a stepping stone. Challenging or mismatched experiences still offer valuable lessons about what to look for (or avoid) in the future, help grow your skillset, and shape your career trajectory.Shifting Hiring Trends and Perceptions: The job market's expectations are constantly changing. For example, job-hopping is more accepted in tech compared to other industries, and long tenures at one company are sometimes viewed as stagnation. Different generations and industries value different qualities, making it crucial to stay adaptable and aware of trends in your field.Mentioned In The Show:Liquid WebOmnisendCorey Maass' Portfolio

*This is my personal account of Bill Hamilton from my own personal memory. I'm sure that I have some of the details and facts wrong. I apologize for any errorsOn December 15th, 2024, Bill Hamilton, the Founder of TechSmith died from a heart attack at the age of 77. Bill Hamilton was the greatest entrepreneur of the Lansing area in this century. Arguably more. He was a husband, a father, a veteran, a computer programmer, a Spartan, an amateur ham radio enthusiast, a competitive shooter, an avid reader, a history expert, a philanthropist, and to me personally - he was my second father, a mentor and one of the greatest people I've ever known. Bill Hamilton is the reason I finished college, the reason I love to read, the reason I'm an entrepreneur, the reason I love software & tech, the reason I am skeptical, the reason I got on my first airplane, and so much more. I can't begin to imagine the hole that has been left in the heart of his family, especially his loving wife Susan and his daughter Wendy, whom I have come to know best. My love and support go out to them and his entire family.Bill co-founded TechSmith all the way back in 1987. It was a software consulting company, and one of the products they developed to serve their clients was, I believe, the first-ever “screen capture” tool.At the time, TechSmith was mainly doing consulting work for clients, but Bill had ambitions to become a software product company. They had the brilliant idea to give away Snagit for free on a “shareware” site that allowed users to download free applications. Remember, this was pretty revolutionary at the time. At this time, mostly the way you would buy software was to walk into a brick and mortar retail store and buy packaged software off a shelf like a book. Downloads of Snagit exploded so they decided to start offering customers the option to donate money to the company. And they did! All the sudden, TechSmith was a software company. The company built visual communication software. Snagit for taking pictures of the Screen. Then Camtasia Studio for recording videos of the screen. Camtasia was the product that I helped grow under the leadership of Troy Stein. Bill was built different and he built TechSmith unlike any other company that I had ever seen. When I joined TechSmith in 2003, I believe there were about 50 employees. TechSmith was like paradise to me. There was an employee lounge with free pop, snacks, and every Friday the company catered meals for “Free food friday” where they would select the best restaurants from around the area and even sometimes - the best ice cream. But it wasn't the perk of getting to eat for free - Bill did it because he wanted his employees to sit together and get to know one another. It was all to build trust and community amongst his employees. This was something I directly emulated (Ahem, Stole) at Liquid Web. Everything Bill did in the company was to build a culture where the employee was supported, mentored, taught, and grown into a better person. Bill encouraged dissent. He encouraged people to always have one thing in mind: What is best for the customer? When I joined the company I was 22 years old. I was a young punk kid that knew nothing about software, the internet, business, - or anything - really. At the time I was applying for the job, I was nearly bankrupt after starting a company that failed and taking a loan out from my generous parents that I was at risk of not being able to repay. I was bitter from my previous experience at Millenium Digital Media and felt that I had been treated unfairly, so I had a big chip on my shoulder. I came into TechSmith with the attitude of literally - “Fuc& it. I'm going to speak my mind, they are going to fire me anyway.”Bill had another incredible gift. He believed in complete transparency and honesty. Almost anyone in the company could run sales reports and see detailed financial information about the products and the company itself. In most companies, only the elite top of the company has the privilege of seeing this “sensitive” information. But Bill believed that the best ideas can come from anywhere within the organization and that we should all work from the same set of facts. He also encouraged people to sit in on meetings, even on topics that they were not the expert. I want to take a minute to go back to a post that I wrote just 4 short months ago. I am SO glad that I wrote this and took the time to honor the man I admired: “Bill Hamilton at TechSmith will always be like a second father to me.I didn't really know what software was when I was hired, and I certainly had no idea what it meant to invent a software application, do the coding to develop it, market it to customers, to become a multimillion-dollar product. TechSmith was one of the most beautiful companies I've ever worked for, comprised of some of the smartest people I've ever met in the world.Being around those people made me smarter, no question—from Brooks Andrus who taught me all things “product”, to Betsy Weber on marketing, Michael Malinak, Paul Middlin, and Dean Craven on software development, Jim Hidlay on Sales, the Gardener twins, (Marty and Murphy) on insanely fast development, Daniel Park, Tony Lambert, Matt Ayo, Paul Wright, Jeff Kohler, Renee Badra, Amy Walsh, Carla Wardin, Tony Dunkle, and my all time favorite: Troy Stein: Troy taught me almost everything. (I know I missed many!!! SORRY!)But the reason this all happened and the thing that brought us all together was Bill Hamilton.Bill and his wife Susan created a culture where anyone could have any idea, and the status of the individual presenting the idea did not matter at all. The only thing that mattered was the correctness of the idea and how convincingly you could persuade others to your way of thinking.I remember being a young punk kid, maybe 21 or 22, essentially doing customer service for sales calls. Even with my low level position, at TechSmith I was encouraged to sit in on some of the development and product marketing meetings for a software application that I knew nothing about. I had no expertise that qualified me to participate in those meetings. Yet, there I was.I remember one meeting specifically a week or two into my employment that was about the Camtasia Studio's non-destructive video editor. There were probably 10 brilliant people in the meeting — and me.As the discussion went around the room and they discussed the product, I had a realization: I knew a little bit about the application because of my experience working at NBC Channel 10. I knew a little -- but not much —just enough to be dangerous.I also had a chip on my shoulder from being fired from my previous job and after some prodding from Bill Hamilton, I got the courage to speak up.“Do you guys realize this doesn't function like any of the other video editing software on the market?” There was an audible gasp in the room as the youngest stupidest person at the table essentially disagreed with every decision that they had previously made.The person who had hired me into TechSmith tried to get me to stop, but luckily Bill Hamilton was in the room. He embraced me, leaned in, and argued with me passionately. I argued back. I was certain I was going to be fired, but to my surprise, Bill Hamilton took me into the hallway afterward and continued the conversation.He told me that he appreciated the feedback and welcomed it, and that I should continue to do it and sit in on more meetings. It was truly amazing.Honestly, I don't even know if I was right about what I was saying. Looking back, I'm sure I probably wasn't, but that taught me the most important lesson of my life.Surround yourself with smart people who want to hear your opinion regardless of your status, and people who judge you solely based on the content of your character and the quality of your thinking.TechSmith taught me many things, but the main things it taught me were how to think, how to build companies, how to be skeptical of my own brain, it taught me strategies to disregard status in the search for truth, and taught me the importance of building high-quality teams of the smartest people in the world.I am incredibly lucky that Bill Hamilton chose to keep TechSmith Corporation in the Lansing, Michigan, area. If it wasn't for that, I truly don't believe I would be the person I am today. That is not to say I am a perfect person. Far from it. But I'd certainly be a much shittier person if it wasn't for Techsmith!And this is precisely my point: because of my time at TechSmith, I know that perfection isn't an end state; it is a constant pursuit. The only way you can ever possibly get close to achieving it, which of course is never possible, is by surrounding yourself with smart people and continuing to push and challenge yourself every single day.So, this concludes another love letter to Bill Hamilton, the founder of TechSmith Corporation.”As I sit here crying and missing my friend and mentor, I regret a lot. I regret that I never recorded the podcast with him that I had planned to do. I regret that I didn't join TechSmith after we sold Liquid Web like Bill had hoped I would. On Monday when my friend Joe Dearman called to give me the news of Bill's passing I was running at the MAC. Literally the very next thing on my To-Do list was to call Bill and invite him to Lunch with Brooks and Joe the following day. When Joe told me of the passing of Bill, he mentioned that Bill was just in the office on Wednesday and he was sharp as ever. He also mentioned that on his way out of the meeting Bill said, “Tell Travis I said Hi”. I cannot believe he is gone. He was healthy and sharp. About 1/5 of you reading this will die of a heart attack. Of that, about 50% of you will be seemingly healthy and have no prior warning or signs. As most of you know, Matt Hill founder of Liquid Web, my best friend since 2 year old - also died of a heart attack. This again is my plea to please spend the ~$200 to get a CT Calcium Score of your heart. It is quick, painless, doesn't require any dye or injections. Just a quick trip to see if you have a ticking time bomb in your chest. (I am not a doctor.)Bill was my mentor. He was like a second father to me. The man I am today, for better or for worse, has been influenced mostly by my incredible parents and just after that… Bill Hamilton. Bill and I would try to get lunch or breakfast about once a quarter. When I was walking out of a meeting we had around the time of Matt's death I remember turning to him and saying: “I love you”. I think it startled him and I felt really weird when he didn't say it back — but sitting here, I know he loved me and I am so fu$&ing thankful I delivered him that message while he was still here with us. I love you Bill. Thank you. Year Of The Opposite - Travis Stoliker's Substack is a reader-supported publication. To receive new posts and support my work, consider becoming a free or paid subscriber. Get full access to Year Of The Opposite - Travis Stoliker's Substack at www.yearoftheopposite.com/subscribe

Welcome to Year Of The Opposite: Travis Stoliker's Newsletter for People That Don't Subscribe to Newsletters. Ex: Saddleback, Liquid Web, & Techsmith.Read Time: 6 minutes. 3 months ago I proposed a crazy challenge: “You'll be happier in 7 days or I'll pay you $500!” I proposed this challenge because I was worried about how many of my friends were telling me that they were depressed. I had an idea that perhaps the strategies that worked to resolve my own depression from grief might help others. I was a little surprised that this offer upset one of my loyal readers and someone I respect. After I mentioned that no one had accepted my challenge, I announced that I was raising the reward from $50 to $500, prompting this response:“There's a reason for that Travis, and it's not the money. Are you really that tone deaf?I read your comments a while ago about how much greater the world is today than in the past because of Elon Musk and his space ship right around the time that I read the horrific stories of the numerous women, young and old in Israel who were gang raped, passed from soldier to soldier, had their breasts cut off and tossed around like footballs, and only after all of that were brutally murdered.Seriously?Just yesterday, I watched the sentencing of the stupid kid from Oxford whose stupid and neglectful parents bought him a hand gun which he then used to execute four of his classmates, and traumatize an entire community.This is the world we are leaving our children and grandchildren. It is NOT better. It is not better than the era when I went to school with my parents or myself not fearing if I would could home at the end of the day.Your privilege is blinding you.”Year Of The Opposite - Travis Stoliker's Substack is a reader-supported publication. To receive new posts and support my work, consider becoming a free or paid subscriber.Ouch. The comment stung me a little bit but I tried to make sure to listen for the truth in it. One of my favorite quotes from Naval is: “If it hurts to hear it, look for the truth in it. If it comforts to hear it, look for the lie in it.”Maybe she was right. Maybe I was delusional that these simple steps might help make people a little happier. Maybe the world is just terrible and getting worse and this explains everyone's sadness. Maybe she was right. Luckily, 6 readers took me up on my challenge, so we were able to see if she was right! Let's take a look… As a reminder, here are the rules for the challenge to make you happier. * Work out for 30 minutes everyday. * Ignore your phone, email, & social media for the first 1 hour of the day and the last 1 hour before you go to bed - every single day. * Keep a private journal everyday. * No alcohol or drugs that aren't prescribed by a doctor for all 7 days.Results: Lets see how those 6 participants did! * Average Happiness Before the Challenge: Participants rated their happiness an average of 5.67 out of 10 before starting the challenge.* Average Happiness After the Challenge: After completing the challenge, the average happiness rating increased to 7.67 out of 10.* Average Tasks Completed: On average, participants completed about 25 out of the 28 tasks, indicating a high level of engagement with the challenge activities.* Average Happiness Increase: The challenge resulted in an average happiness increase of 2 points on the happiness scale.* Maximum Happiness Increase: The largest reported increase in happiness from a participant was 4 points on the scale.* Minimum Happiness Increase: The smallest change recorded was no change in happiness level. But it is worth noting that this individual already had a very high happiness level at 9 out of 10. It stayed constant at 9 out of 10. * Number of Participants Who Reported an Increase or the Same Happiness Level: 6 out of 6 participants!This was A HUGE success! Thank you to all 6 participants. Here is the feedback from each participant: * "It definitely worked, and the motivational texts helped keep me on track. I liked the journaling because it allowed me to ""vent"" to myself in writing and then go to bed with a clear mind. Also no phone/email/etc. for the first and last hour of the day really helped my sleep - much more than I thought it would. Trying to continue that habit! Also working toward no TV for an hour before bed as well - but I watch the news before bed :( Baby steps! Thank you Travis!"* "I thought the challenge had some valuable components. I was really good about shutting my phone off at night, so I was reading instead of doom scrolling. That was an accomplishment all by itself. I haven't been good about sticking with it, but filling out this survey is making it top of mind again. I was also a lot better about journaling when I was doing the challenge. I think the important part of that was that the journal prompts were positive. Since I have had some things going on in my personal life, my journaling has tended to be reliving negatives and trying to make sense of things. I haven't been disciplined about self affirmation. The most valuable piece of all of it was being accountable to someone I perceive as successful and disciplined, and also someone who wasn't my mom or an old friend with whom I would probably get away with (at least in my own head) being slightly less accountable than with a peer in the business community. Thanks for the opportunity!"* “I didn't really participate to increase my happiness. I was interested in starting some habits that are pretty well proven to improve your life. My only feedback for the next rou s of research might be some simple tools to break the inertia. A checklist to check off every day once a task is done. A document with a couple prompt questions for the thankfulness journal. Nothing too advanced and nothing that need to be turned in. Just tools for those who want to use them that might help. Looking forward to hearing more about where you might be going with this line of thinking and informal research. And....we need to set a date to.tour the maker space. I need to get creating again. * "Definetly felt better and slept better when I followed the phone rule. Activity is a bit difficult due to back issues, but I did start a regimen of chair yoga. Continue to do it as I'm able. You continue to be an inspiration! Carry on!"* “I loved the challenge of it. Life is just hard especially with a toddler running around getting sick all the time... It was a great experience” * “It was a great motivator for me and I was determined to succeed (I did). The flexibility of the task timing helped a lot. I have continued on with the tasks, and in particular, the exercise. But being more mindful of screen time was also a great habit to get into. Overall, I feel more mindful, relaxed and happy. Glad I took you up on the challenge!”My thoughts on this data: * This Reinforces The Theme of The Year Of The Opposite: If you are disappointed with your life or sad, change it up and it might have a huge positive impact! What worked for me has now worked for 6 others. * The biggest benefit went to those that are very sad to begin with: Participants who started off with a Low Initial Happiness level experienced a greater increase in happiness, with an average increase of 3.0 points on the happiness scale. In contrast, those with High Initial Happiness levels saw a smaller average increase, at 1.5 points. This suggests that participants who began the challenge with lower levels of happiness had more room for improvement and, as a result, tended to see a more significant positive change through their participation in the challenge.* Too Many Variables: I think I may have introduced too many variables into this challenge by having everyone complete 4 tasks each day. Since there are 4 variables, it's hard to know which action had the highest impact. * Accountability and Community is hugely important to happiness: One of the things that I did for this challenge was that I kept in contact with each of the participants each day. This seemed to make a big impact on the participants. It goes to show how important having an accountability partner and a strong social network are to your happiness. * Ignoring Screen Time Had Huge Impact: Participants reported that ignoring their phone had a massive impact on their happiness. I was surprised at how many people mentioned this in their feedback. My Hypothesis: There is clear scientific research that all 4 of these activities are statistically proven to improve happiness. But I have a hypothesis that I would like to test at some point. I'm starting to think that only one thing matters: Your Reputation With Yourself. When someone sets a goal to accomplish and then they follow through and achieve it, it makes them happy! We all know it. We've all felt it. It was said that “Self esteem is just the reputation you have with yourself.” If you are a person that can set goals for yourself and follow through with them, you're gonna be happier. I know this deep in my bones. If the goal is challenging, it's gonna have an even greater benefit to your mood. I have an idea to launch another challenge. I think that if an individual set themselves a goal to do something positive for themselves every single day and they completed it consistently, I think it would make every person happier. I don't think it was so much the specific tasks that I setup. For instance: If you want to learn the piano and you set a goal to practice everyday for 10 minutes, I bet you'd be happier at the end of a week! If you wanted to learn spanish and you practiced consistently everyday for a week, I bet you'd be happier at the end. The bigger the goal, the more challenging it is to you, and the more important it is to you - I bet it would correlate with the improvement in your mood. The bigger the goal, the greater the improvement in your mood. But this is just a theory I'd like to test. Challenges With The Data: Of course, this is not a scientific study, it's only a few individuals, the data is self reported, and probably the biggest issue with the data is a “selection bias”. Which basically means, the people that selected themselves to participate in my challenge are probably people not fully representative of the human population because they are all people that follow my newsletter and they are people that are willing to challenge themselves to get happier. But even with the challenges in this imperfect study, every single person (including me) improved their mood and one person kept their happy mode consistent. That to me is incredibly awesome! Thank You! Thank you so much to all 6 participants in the challenge. I appreciate you. If anyone would like to take me up on the $500 challenge for themselves, I'm willing to do it again! Just let me know by leaving a comment. Thank you all so much for reading my newsletter, The Year Of The Opposite. Don't forget that all of my articles are available as a podcast too. If you enjoyed this, I would really appreciate if you would share this with a friend. Thank you for reading Year Of The Opposite - Travis Stoliker's Substack. This post is public so feel free to share it. Get full access to Year Of The Opposite - Travis Stoliker's Substack at www.yearoftheopposite.com/subscribe

First: Thank You to all the new subscribers to my Newsletter. I appreciate you. Because we have so many new subscribers, today's newsletter is going to be a bit different. I thought it would be appropriate to provide a bit of background on myself, explain what The Year Of The Opposite is, and let you know what kind of writing you should expect to receive from this newsletter. Reminder: As a reminder, my name is Travis Stoliker and I was one of the Co-Owners of Saddleback BBQ & Slice by Saddleback. I just recently exited and handed off the restaurants to their founder, Matt Gillett. I'm now focused on writing this newsletter. Read this Business Insider article to learn more about the Year Of The Opposite. Who is Travis Stoliker? I'm Travis Stoliker, my journey started at Holt Public Schools, continued through LCC, and culminated at Northwood University. Today, I call Haslett home, enjoying life on Lake Lansing with my wife, Laken, who works for the Edward Lowe Foundation, and our lively 5-year-old son, Lane. I believe deeply in the responsibility of community service. Currently, I serve as a trustee on the Haslett Board of Education and on the board of Ele's Place. My past contributions include the East Lansing Zoning Board of Appeals, East Lansing Info (A citizen journalism non-profit), and the board of the only angel investing organization in the area called the Capital Community Angels. My hobbies include running, pickleball, golf, water skiing, boating, and hockey. My skill in each of these endeavours ranges from decent to downright terrible. Reading and writing are two of my most treasured pastimes. My true passion, however, lies in the business world. Where my friends follow sporting teams, I follow business. “Business is my sport” is a phrase I'm guilty of saying far too often. Business started early for me. When I was about 12 years old, I ran a tiny hockey league and shared a paper route with my best friend, Matt Hill. During Highschool and College I learned a variety of skills by working at D&M Silk Screening, L&L Shoprite, Schneider Sheet Metal, and Big George's Home Appliance Mart. I graduated from LCC with an Associates degree in Applied Sciences, Media Technology (Audio & Video Recording). I worked at WILX as a production assistant where I helped broadcast the 5pm, 6pm and 11pm news. I worked in Master Control and ended up being elected as the UAW Union Steward for my department at WILX. I was told at the time that I was the youngest UAW Union Steward, but I can't confirm if this is true or not. We actually had to strike and successfully got our pay increased to $6.96 per hour. It was at that time that I knew I had to either move to a big city to make more money in this industry, or try a different trade. I decided to try a different trade: Sales. As an aside, I still firmly believe, everyone should have at least one sales job. Sales is a skill that you can use your entire life. I sold refrigerators, dishwashers, and $70,000 42-inch flat screen TV's (Not kidding!) at Big George's Home Appliance Mart and then I learned to sell Television Advertisements at Millenium Digital Media. I won't go into the long details, but I got fired from both positions because one closed and the other got sold. This left me very disillusioned about working for companies. I ended up securing an amazing job at one of the best employers in town, TechSmith. They taught me about everything from marketing to software development. I went from Salesman to Product Manager in a short while. TechSmith provided me a lot of great experiences and memories. My first airplane ride was a flight for TechSmith. The first book that I loved reading, The Tipping Point by Malcolm Gladwell, was for Techsmith. The reason I got a bachelor's degree was because of TechSmith tuition reimbursement. But the biggest thing that TechSmith taught me was the love for learning and growth. When I left the sales team and joined the Camtasia product team, Camtasia was the lowest sales product at TechSmith. In the short time I worked on it with my mentor Troy Stein, Camtasia became the highest sales product in the company that year. Watching that growth was like a drug for me. I loved it. I learned at that moment what I was passionate about. I loved helping companies grow.While at TechSmith, I had an idea for a product called “Project Streamer”. TechSmith didn't want to develop it, so I reached out to my old friend, Matt Hill, who founded Liquid Web. As I recall, around this time, Liquid Web had about 10 employees and maybe a million in revenue. But I could be a bit off on those numbers because it was a long time ago. Liquid Wed ended up developing Project Streamer and this started the professional relationship between me, Matt Hill, and Chris Strandt. Around this same time, I got it into my head that I should grow long hair and a long beard. My appearance got pretty out of control. Bill Hamilton, the founder of TechSmith, didn't like my new look and he asked me to correct my appearance. In an act of youthful arrogance, I refused, and nearly lost my job. To my good fortune, around this same time - Matt Hill was thinking about growing Liquid Web and starting the first sales and marketing efforts at the company. Because of our successful partnership on Project Streamer, Matt asked me if I would join Liquid Web. Liquid Web was quite a bit smaller than TechSmith at the time, and I was nervous about making the change to a smaller less well established company. After serious debate and negotiating my salary over Jager Bomb shots at Harpers, I accepted the position and was excited about the opportunity to grow Liquid Web with Matt and Chris. And I'm sure glad I did. The next ~10 years at Liquid Web were incredible. We were growing revenue every year, building more data centers, and hiring new employees at an insanely fast rate. As I recall, but I could be wrong, I think we were an Inc5000 fastest growing company in America for the next 8 years in a row, which I believe is a pretty rare accomplishment. We grew to 480+ employees, 3 data centers in Lansing, a data center in Amsterdam, one in Arizona, and an office in Ann Arbor. We grew sales to ~$80million in annual recurring revenue and we successfully sold the company to private equity for $224million in 2015. It was an absolutely amazing run and it was incredibly fun. Matt Hill, as the founder and main equity holder, received the vast majority of the money, as he deserved. And I was fortunate because as a phantom equity holder, I received a significant amount of money from the sale. I consider myself very fortunate. In a future post, I will detail how phantom equity works and the advantages/disadvantages. Also in 2015, I was fortunate enough that Matt Gillett asked me to invest capital to help start Saddleback. Many of you already know that story but some of the things I'm most proud of are that we expanded to four profitable locations with presences in Spartan Stadium and the Breslin Center. We launched a line of BBQ Sauces & Rubs that grace the shelves of major retailers. Food Network named Our Rib Sandwich one of the Best Sandwiches in America. Mental Floss Magazine honored us as the Best BBQ in Michigan. We were recognized with awards like the Michigan 50 Companies to Watch, SBDC Small Business of the Year, and the Greater Lansing Business of the Year. But what I'm most proud of is that Saddleback remained profitable for all 8.5 years and our community engagement was a cornerstone of our success. We donated thousands of meals to those in need, cleared student lunch debt at local school districts, assisted during natural disasters, offer a 401k to our employees, and we were among the first companies to try pay transparency.I feel incredibly fortunate to have been a part of some of my favorite organizations in the Lansing area. From School Board, to Ele's Place, from WILX to TechSmith, from to Liquid Web to Saddleback - I feel incredibly blessed to have made small contributions in a diverse set of industries. Life has its interesting moments too. This year to my surprise the local Kiwanis club awarded me their Citizen Of The Year Award. And in 2016, I was humorously named the 2nd best Uber driver in Lansing after completing just one ride. And in 1997, I survived a scary incident when an ice skate cut my throat during a hockey game. (Video Below)This is the bullet point version of who I am focusing mostly on my professional experience. It feels a bit boastful talking about all this and I'm certain that I got some of the dates and details wrong but I made my best effort to be as accurate as possible. I provide this background because I think it's important that you have a greater context about the perspective with which I view the world. Rest assured, this is not the traditional format for these posts. So that leads to the big question: What is The Year Of The Opposite? The Year Of The Opposite was a personal challenge that I set for myself in 2022 to change my life by doing the opposite of what I had done before. In February of 2022, one of my best friends died and two more would die over the next 5 months. It plunged me into a depression that I had never experienced before and one that couldn't seem to escape. So in the spirit of the old quote “The definition of insanity is doing the same thing and expecting different results”. I wanted to try to shake things up, I embarked on a journey of doing the opposite of what I had always done. It was inspired by the Seinfeld episode, The Opposite. If what I was doing wasn't working, doing the opposite should fix it. For example: instead of sleeping in, I'd wake up early and make the bed. I'd start working out, I gave up drinking alcohol, I started playing sports, I grew a mustache - Essentially, I would do the opposite of what I had done before and my hope was that it would reverse my depression. And thankfully, it worked! But it did much more than just cure my depression. The Year Of The Opposite led me to lose 62 pounds, run barefoot for 7 miles, undertake a 14-minute cold plunge in 42-degree water, swim about a mile across a lake, complete a half and full marathon, run 1,000 miles in a year, learn to hold my breath for 2 minutes and 43 seconds, and conquer spicy foods by completing the blazing wings and Hot Ones Challenges. But most importantly, I cured my depression and I reversed several of my health conditions. After about 6 months of doing the opposite, my doctors cleared me to stop taking medications for high blood pressure, cholesterol, and triglycerides. This was a goal that I never thought would be possible. My personal Year Of The Opposite radically and profoundly changed my life in a positive direction. At the conclusion of the first year in March of 2023, I had a decision to make. Should I keep doing the Year Of The Opposite, or should I go back to my old ways? The answer was obvious: On every metric, my life was far better during the Year of The Opposite. I decided that I would keep the opposite going and I needed a new challenge. I decided to launch the Year Of The Opposite Newsletter and Podcast that you are now reading/listening to in hopes that sharing my story might inspire others. I deeply thank you for following, subscribing, listening or reading. It means the world to me. What Should You Expect to Receive in this Newsletter? My writing tends to focus on Technology, Business, Marketing, and interviews with people that I find fascinating. But the biggest thing that I try to focus on is positivity. I try to find good news and positive stories from around the world to share. My goal is to be a living example that it is possible to change your life if you wish to. If you have any suggestions for topics that I should cover, please just comment below or reply back to this email. Here are some of the most popular posts on the Year Of The Opposite so far this year: * Introduction to The Year Of The Opposite - What is The Year Of The Opposite? What have I achieved in my Year Of The Opposite? (Sep 12, 2023)* Podcast Interview with Michelle Rogers - Surviving the Unthinkable: Michelle Rogers on Matthew Terry's Brutality and the Deadly Consequences of His Early Release from prison. My former co-worker, Matthew Terry, stabbed her 7 times yet somehow Michigan let him out of prison after only 3 years. Tragically, within 5 months of his release, he killed his new girlfriend.* The Claude McCollum Wrongful Conviction with Judge Hugh Clarke Jr.The murder of an LCC professor in 2005 sends the wrong man to jail. The uncaught murderer goes on to kill 5 more while the wrong man is in prison. My interview with Judge Hugh Clarke Jr. * Clearing Up The Rumors: The Real Story of How Matthew Hill from Liquid Web Died (Jul 13, 2023)* Using Artificial Intelligence to Generate Your New Year's Resolutions, Complete a 360 Review, & Change Your Life - A Step By Step Guide (Dec 18, 2023)* Ozempic & Wegovy Side Effects. Miracle Weight Loss Drugs, but be Very Careful (Dec 13, 2023)* I'm Increasing My Offer - You'll be happier in 7 days or I'll pay you $500 (Dec 9, 2023)* How I Lost 62 lbs & built a habit of working out everyday. (April 14, 2023)How to Follow ‘Year Of The Opposite' on Social Media.* Year Of The Opposite & Travis Stoliker @Tstoliker on Twitter: https://twitter.com/tstoliker* Year Of The Opposite Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/yearoftheopposite* Year Of The Opposite Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/@Year-Of-The-Opposite* Year Of The Opposite Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/yearoftheopposite* Substack Email: yearoftheopposite@substack.com* Year Of The Opposite Spotify Link:* Year Of The Opposite on Apple Podcast:* Year Of The Opposite RSS Feed: https://api.substack.com/feed/podcast/1323351.rssYear Of The Opposite - Travis Stoliker's Substack is a reader-supported publication. To receive new posts and support my work, consider becoming a free or paid subscriber. Get full access to Year Of The Opposite - Travis Stoliker's Substack at www.yearoftheopposite.com/subscribe

You may have already seen the news that I have sold all of my shares in Saddleback BBQ, Slice By Saddleback, all of our properties, and the LLC's to Co-Owner, Matt Gillett. It's been a long process and I have a lot of mixed feelings about the sale that I'm still trying to process. On one hand, I'm super proud of what we have achieved and that the businesses are in a place where they can be fully handed off to Matt. On the other hand, I will miss regularly interacting with all of our customers and colleagues. Even though this process has been a long time in the making and it's a very amicable separation, I still feel a bit of stress and anxiety about the transition. A lot of my identity was wrapped up in being the owner of a local small business that people cared about. I feel a bit like I did after the sale of Liquid Web. The business just keeps moving forward without me. Never missing a beat. I suppose that makes me feel a bit of joy and a bit of sadness. But the only thing constant in life is change and change is what stimulates growth. Change is a necessary part of improving and getting better. In the next few weeks, I'll have a lot more to share about my experience owning profitable restaurants for 8+ years. But for now, here is my full letter announcing the sale to customers. Year Of The Opposite - Travis Stoliker's Substack is a reader-supported publication. To receive new posts and support my work, consider becoming a free or paid subscriber.My Letter: Matt Gillett is now the sole owner of Saddleback & Slice!Hi from Travis, The only thing crazier than starting a restaurant may be investing in one. And my investment in Saddleback only happened because of incredible timing.Saddleback was my first investment after selling LiquidWeb. Because of that sale, I had a non-compete that somewhat limited my ability to work for a year. So with that time, I wanted to see if I could provide a little help to the local economy by investing in small businesses that traditionally had trouble getting financed.At this time I was also engaged to be married and my fiance Laken suggested that we hire our long time friend, Matt Gillett's, new catering company for our wedding. It made perfect sense.As a part of that discussion with Matt, he mentioned that his dream was bigger than the catering company and that he wished to open a restaurant. Since I was looking for investments, the timing was incredible… But I told him a few things:* This is a bad idea. Restaurants are too hard and don't make money.* I know nothing about food or restaurants and I never want to be in the food business.* I have 3 rules of investing: No restaurants, no bars, & nothing you don't understand.So of course, we decided to break all the rules and make the investment.I explained my rationale for breaking all my investment rules to Matt. We are making this investment in YOU. We want to give you a little push of support to help you chase your dream. I made it clear: we have no interest in owning a restaurant longterm. Success for the Stoliker family was defined as: Matt Gillett being a successful entrepreneur with a growing and thriving business that provides for his family, provides for the growth of his employees, and positively serves the community.Matt Gillett has achieved all of those goals beyond my wildest dreams and that is why it is time for Matt to fully take the reins.Saddleback's success wasn't due to luck, or hope, or even my investment and help. No, Matt Gillett made his own luck. He willed the success to happen. Simply put, he worked harder than anyone.I got to see Matt work 12 hour days 14 days in a row. I saw him cover an overnight smoker shift when employees called in sick after he had already worked a 12 hour shift! I saw him drive across town in the middle of the night to bail employees out of jail. Seen him leave his own family on holidays to personally make and deliver holiday meals for other families in the community. I saw him film a promo video for Saddleback from the hospital just a moment after his 3rd child was born!I'm not saying all of this to “glamorize hustle culture” or imply that other people don't also make sacrifices. I'm saying it because it's true and I witnessed it first hand. Matt lived by the motto: This will not fail. I won't let it.Matt and I are still close friends and the business brought us closer. We have been through incredibly difficult lows together, both personally and professionally, and we have been through the highest of highs. It's been an incredible journey together.Highlights for me include: Being profitable every year in existence in a notoriously unprofitable industry. Winning Best BBQ in Michigan, Small Business of the Year, & Michigan 50 Companies to watch. But Saddleback became more than just a restaurant. We were able to use it as a platform to help other local small businesses, serve people in need, educate the community, demonstrate alternative transparent pay systems, be an example for how restaurants can provide employee retirement programs, and an occasional funny post. Those were some of my personal favorites!For the past year or more, Matt and I have built an exceptional management team and they have already taken over all of my (Travis) responsibilities. For 6 months or more, the team has done my (Travis) job better than I could have done it myself. They are the best of the best and I thank them. Our customers & employees will remain in good hands.I want to make it clear: while I will no longer be an owner of Saddleback & Slice, my commitment to Matt Gillett, our team, and their success remains steadfast. I'm stepping back not to distance myself, but to see these ventures thrive further. This is a planned evolution. I'm always here for Matt and our team, ready to assist whenever needed.To all small business owners: my mission is to support entrepreneurs tirelessly. You're not alone; I'm just a call or email away, always ready to lend a hand. I will continue to invest in and help any local small business owners that need help. Please reach out if you need anything.So what is next for me?Last year I started a newsletter and podcast called “The Year Of The Opposite” and it's completely free.I hope you will subscribe to my newsletter. This week I plan to share some of my favorite stories about the Saddleback journey, business lessons, how to succeed in the restaurant business, and why most restaurants fail. I'll also be sharing my personal Thank You's to all of you that helped make Saddleback a success. There were too many to list here.Please consider subscribing for free to “The Year Of The Opposite Newsletter & Podcast.”The goal of my newsletter/podcast is to share my personal stories and experiences in hopes that I might make readers a little happier and maybe even a little richer.I know, lofty goals Mr. Stoliker!Well, no one ever said that I lacked confidence. ;)Sincerely, Travis StolikerFormer Co-Owner of SaddlebackOwner of “Year Of The Opposite”— Letter from Matt Gillett —In July of 2014, I went through the process of founding Saddleback Barbecue. Early spring of 2015, I brought on Travis Stoliker as my business partner and we opened one the best restaurants in the Lansing Area, Saddleback Barbecue. I am mixed with emotion to bring the news that as of 12/27/2023, I will be Sole owner of Saddleback Barbecue and Slice by Saddleback.Travis has taught me so much and supported me through this journey and for that I can never thank him enough. Together we have started four restaurants, two concession stands at the Breslin Center and Spartan Stadium, have a successful retail product line, and one of the best catering companies in the area. Our web presence is unmatched and because of it we have grown to be a household brand in the Lansing Area. Both of which I would credit Travis. Words such as, systems, processes, scale and communication are constantly brought up at Saddleback. Travis is the one who really showed the importance of those in a small business.As we move forward Saddleback will continue to focus on being a leader in the industry. Our Mission is to strive for culinary excellence by embracing hard work, teamwork and a relentless commitment to improve. We want to push the boundaries of food and service where others won't. I am very excited for this next step and can't wait to show everyone what is to come.I want to thank Travis for all of his time, dedication and hard work that he has shown Saddleback. I don't think there is a piece of the company that he has not impacted positively in some way.From all present and past Saddleback personnel, Thank You Travis! Saddleback wouldn't be what it is today without you.~Matt Gillett Get full access to Year Of The Opposite - Travis Stoliker's Substack at www.yearoftheopposite.com/subscribe

As most of you know, I am the Co-Owner of two BBQ restaurants and two Pizza places in the Lansing, Michigan area. We also offer two BBQ sauces and two spice rubs in our restaurants and retailers around Michigan and online. But this isn't a sales pitch for them… I'm mentioning this because I want to give you a FREE bottle of Sauce as a Thank You for being a subscriber to this newsletter! All you need to do is reply to this email and I will send you a coupon code so that you can get a free bottle. That's it. No strings attached. I just can't thank you enough for supporting me on this journey of creating content and improving my health. Your support helped lift me out of a very dark place and I want to pay it back in a small way. Thank you again. Please reply to this email so that I can send you your own bottle. This week I had the pleasure of being a guest on the Rising Above Podcast with David Hess. David is a local guy that overcame a childhood of abuse and neglect suffered at the hands of his foster parents. He started this podcast as a way to share the stories of others that have overcame adversity to rise above. It was a great conversation. We talk about my background at Liquid Web, the Year Of The Opposite, his history of abuse, how my ownership of Liquid Web was structured, the joys of running, and much more. I hope that you enjoy this podcast as much as I did. Weight AchievementThis week I am happy to report that I achieved my target body weight goal and the lowest weight of my adult life, 173lbs! It was pretty cool because it was also at the end of a 10 mile run that I topped off with a 3 minute cold plunge. Check out this video. Bonus Tip & Life Hack - The Best iPhone Feature Ever - Silence Unknown CallersAre you sick of spam calls? I (used to) get at least 10 a day. Not anymore! You can Silence Unknown Callers. If the phone number isn't in your address book the call doesn't ring and it gets sent to voicemail. The call will still show up in your recent calls list. The caller doesn't know any different. It's amazing. It puts you in control of your phone again. To turn it on, go to Settings > Phone, then > Silence Unknown Callers, and turn on the feature. Or go to Settings, pull down to access Search, type “Silence Unknown Callers” and turn it on that way. Calls from unknown numbers are silenced and sent to your voicemail, and appear in your recent calls list.Today's newsletter is a short one because I really want to hear from you. I'm hoping that this will be a two way conversation. So please, even if you don't want the bottle of sauce, reply to this email and let me know you're out there. You can let me know what you like about the newsletter, your suggestions for improvement, what is going on in your life, or anything else that comes to mind. I look forward to hearing from you! * TravYear Of The Opposite - Travis Stoliker's Substack is a reader-supported publication. To receive new posts and support my work, consider becoming a free or paid subscriber. Get full access to Year Of The Opposite - Travis Stoliker's Substack at www.yearoftheopposite.com/subscribe

This is your starting guide to The Year Of The Opposite. Let's start with some links that will help you learn more about this project/newsletter and dive into the content:* Why did I start my Year Of The Opposite? * How to start your own Year Of The Opposite: A step by step guide to start your own year of the opposite & the results from my first Year Of The Opposite.* How I cured my depression in 5 months by living a Year Of The Opposite.* Why you should start journaling nightly and how to be more grateful.* How I lost 62lbs & built a habit of working out everyday by living a Year of The Opposite.* Going from not being able to run a half mile, to running 1,000 miles in 1 year! * Clearing Up The Rumors: The Real Story of How Matthew Hill from Liquid Web Died.What Is the Year Of The Opposite? The Year of the Opposite is a blog and podcast where I share my personal journey of transformation in the face of overwhelming grief and depression. At the age of 41, I lost three close friends within just five months, which sent me spiraling into a deep depression. Despite my somewhat successful career and seemingly great life, I struggled to find purpose and happiness.Inspired by Admiral William H. McRaven's commencement speech and the Seinfeld episode, "The Opposite," I decided to make small changes in my life, starting with waking up early and making my bed every day. This small change snowballed into my decision to embrace a "year of the opposite," challenging myself to step out of my comfort zone and do the opposite of what I had done before. I started with the simple act of waking up early and making my bed, but I enjoyed it so much I kept challenging myself with new interesting challenges that were the opposite of what I had traditionally done in my life. The results were astounding and they happened very quickly. Through this journey, I overcame depression, became a better father & husband, transformed my health, fixed all my lifestyle induced ailments, and discovered newfound confidence and purpose. On this newsletter & podcast I share how I did it and provide resources so that you can too. Why should you subscribe to Year Of The Opposite? * It's free and you'll put a huge smile on my face. :)* You'll get practical tips that are simple to improve your life, lose weight, live longer, and be happier. * I'll share positive stories about the world that the news/media ignores. “If you pay attention to the news you'd think the world is getting worse. If you study history, you know the world is getting better.”* If you enjoy it, I hope you'll support my endeavor by voluntarily becoming a paid subscriber. It means the world to me and it keeps me going. Travis Stoliker's Year Of The Opposite Achievements * Improve my health: After the sale of Liquid Web, my poor lifestyle choices resulted in my health to deteriorate. I vowed to Resolve all my medical conditions in my Year Of The Opposite (YOTO). * Lost 62lbs (37lbs since start of YOTO) - Updated 9/11/2023* Got off all medications!* Cured Hyperlipidemia (high cholesterol) * Cured Hypertriglyceridemia (high triglycerides) * Cured Impaired fasting glucose* Cured Rosacea * Raise my VO2 Max to Above Average. * Cut my ASCVD risk of having a heart attack in 10 years from 16% to 2%. * Mental Clarity & Discipline: After the sale of Liquid Web and a substantial financial windfall, I became undisciplined and neglected my health. I ballooned to nearly 270lbs and acquired a bunch of diseases caused by my lifestyle. * No Alcohol* No weed* No news* Ignore politics* Meditate* Rate my satisfaction with Life, Work, & Family every day* Keep a daily journal every night.* Wake up early (Used to sleep in until noon)* Cured* my grief related depression. (* as much as it can be “cured”)* Exercise & Challenge my Body: Exercise is the best medicine for physical health, mental health, & longevity in my book. I set out to become a healthy person.* 14 minutes in 41 degree cold plunge (July 2023)* I became a runner. I Ran 1,000 miles in 365 days* Ran a mile in under 7 minutes* Ran 15 miles nonstop* Ran 7 miles barefoot* Run 1 mile backwards* Compete in competitive races for first time (8K & 5K)* Learned how to hold my breath for 2:46. * Swam ~1 mile across a lake* Regular sauna use* 5 Pull Ups Unassisted* 20 mile bike ride * Repair neglected physical image: After the sale of Liquid Web I adopted a slovenly image refusing to shave, comb my hair, and I regularly wore sweatsuits. In my YOTO, I improved my image. * Lost 62lbs* Dress better & do hair. * Wear a mustache* Resolved Rosacea * Take up new hobbies: For most of my life I neglected hobbies and focused too much on work. In my year of the opposite, I changed that. * Get a concealed carry pistol permit* Slalom Water Skiing* Pickleball* Antiquing * Golf* Archery* Track a deer and recover it. * Target practice * Foil surf (still not good!)* Catch 2 Wall Eye Fish * Nutrition: My diet was horrendous and I was a very picky eater. I would regularly consume 50oz of soda, ice cream, and beer. In my YOTO, I fixed my diet and broadened my horizons to try any food I was offered. I also had a very low tolerance for spicy food, so I set out to change that. * No pop (Soda)* 3 day water only fast* Eat everything. Tomatoes, Mushrooms, yogurt, etc* Spice Training - Improve my tolerance of hot spices. * Completed the Blazin Wing Challenge* Completed the Hot One Challenge* Be more social & be more active in community: The only thing I hated more than meetings was “networking”. So in my YOTO, I decided to be more social and active in the community. * Ride Along with the Lansing Police Department* Join the Lansing Rotary and become a Rotarian* Join Ele's Place Board* Joined a Monthly CEO Peer Group* Attended 3-day meditation retreats* Scheduled meetings every week* Went to our family cabin more frequently* Made a rule to “Say YES” to almost all invitations* Started a Newsletter & Podcast. Write and publish every week. * Donated thousands of dollars to help the community through my business Saddleback BBQ. * Provided thousands of Free Meals to students during the pandemic. * Paid off the student lunch debt and library debt at multiple school districts. * Help the victims of fires, tornadoes, and floods. * Rescued local businesses that were in jeopardy of going out of business during the pandemic. * Spiritual Exploration: I was raised Catholic but became an atheist around the age of 12. As a part of my YOTO I explored religion and began attending church. * Attended church (almost) weekly * Read the stoic philosophers.* Attended a Jewish SynagogueBefore & After Pictures & VideosPodcasts & Video InterviewsThe Year Of The Opposite also contains video & audio interviews with people that I find fascinating. Here are some of the interviews on the podcast. * The Claude McCollum Wrongful Conviction with Judge Hugh Clarke Jr.The murder of an LCC professor in 2005 sends the wrong man to jail. The uncaught murderer goes on to kill 5 more while the wrong man is in prison. My interview with Judge Hugh Clarke Jr.* Podcast Interview with Michelle Rogers - Surviving the Unthinkable: Michelle Rogers on Matthew Terry's Brutality and the Deadly Consequences of His Early Release. My former co-worker, Matthew Terry, stabbed her 7 times yet somehow Michigan let him out of prison after only 3 years. Tragically, within 5 months of his release, he killed his new girlfriend.Where to find The Year Of The Opposite & How to Subscribe. * Year of The Opposite Twitter: https://twitter.com/tstoliker* Year of The Opposite Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/yearoftheopposite* Year of The Opposite Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/@Year-Of-The-Opposite* Year of The Opposite RSS Feed: https://api.substack.com/feed/podcast/1323351.rss* Year of The Opposite Email: yearoftheopposite@substack.com* Year of The Opposite on Spotify. * Year of The Opposite on Apple Podcast. Get full access to Year Of The Opposite - Travis Stoliker's Substack at www.yearoftheopposite.com/subscribe

After we sold Liquid Web, I spent short but very rewarding time as the Entrepreneur In Residence at Michigan State University. I remember one moment so vividly it hurts sometimes. As I remember it, my co-worker suggested we walk across campus to explore a new technology developed by PhD researchers, which we believed had potential for commercialization into a product. We strolled through the picturesque MSU campus on a beautiful Michigan summer day, with temperatures around 80 degrees.Within about 10 minutes of a walking, my sweating started. Sweat was beading up on my face, under my arms, and on top of my head. The sweat was starting to show through my shirt and this caused me to get self conscious that people were looking at me in disgust. The anxiety about my sweating only made matters worse and led to more sweating. A problem that seemed to compound on itself. This was around the time when I was my most overweight. I was about 262 lbs and I was extremely out of shape. As evidenced by the fact that a simple walk in 80 degree heat made me sweat so badly I almost soaked through my shirt. It was horribly embarrassing. I kept wondering what my co-workers were thinking. I'm sure they didn't care but I was pretty disgusted with myself. Not that I was ashamed of my weight. It was that I was ashamed of how badly I had treated my body. Simple tasks left me drained. In a warm room, I'd sweat profusely. I knew I had to change, but I didn't have the discipline or will power to do it. What was even more frustrating was that I knew exactly what I needed to do! It wasn't complicated. Move more, eat less/better, and drink fewer of my calories. It wasn't rocket science. But I just couldn't do it. At that time, I literally couldn't run around my small neighborhood block without stopping. I was in the worst shape of my life. Today, as I write this at 42 years old, I can pretty confidently say that I'm in the best shape of my life. I can run further, lift heavier weights, and my cardio fitness is the highest I've ever recorded. Over the last week, I celebrated two significant milestones in my running journey. Firstly, I completed 1,003 miles in 365 days. Secondly, I broke the 7-minute mile mark, finishing a mile in 6:58.What makes these achievements even more special to me is that I capped off the 1,000 miles with a half marathon, recording my third-best time for the distance. Moreover, my sub-7-minute mile wasn't just a standalone sprint; it was part of a 5k run.As I've stated before, my goal is simple: To live a long time and die quickly. Improving my cardio fitness and increasing my strength are two of the most critical components of achieving that mission. How did I do it? By adopting the identity of someone that could do it. The book Atomic Habit talks about having an “Identity Shift”. Instead of starting with a goal in mind, for example, the goal to run 1,000 miles in 365 days, which can seem like an impossible task and a monumental undertaking, you want to adopt the behaviors and habits that align with that goal. “We are what we repeatedly do.” I did not start out with the goal to run 1,000 miles in a year or complete a mile in under 7 minutes. That would have scared the s**t out of me. Instead, I adopted the identity of someone that could do it. I wasn't “trying to run 1,000 miles in a year”, I simply adopted the identity: I am a runner! It can seem like a semantic game I'm playing. But it is actually very powerful. Think about what a runner does… They set aside time for running, they have running shoes, they put on their shoes, and most importantly - they run. But it goes deeper than that. Runners that plan to go on a run in the morning probably don't get s**t faced the night before. They probably eat healthy. They eat a lot of protein. They take care of their knees. This is the identity of a runner. All of those things are much easier to do everyday than running 1,000 miles in a year. These are habits that you can form. And guess what, all of those habits when put together end up leading you to run 1,000 miles in a year! The identity shift is so important. It also helped in my journey to escape alcohol. Think about this example. In a social situation, when offered a drink at a party, if you were to say "I can't drink tonight," or “I'm not drinking for October”, your friends might respond with a bit of friendly peer pressure to try to entice you to have just one drink. But what if instead you said: "I don't drink." The latter is a statement of identity, which is more powerful and less likely to be met with peer pressure. You have adopted the identity of someone that doesn't drink. But back to my original story about the walk across MSU campus. When I was out of shape, I was constantly hot and sweat all the time. Today, it's more likely that I am comfortable or cold. My body heat regulation problem is completely solved and I have a lot less anxiety about it. Now I'm more likely to pack a sweat shirt than 5 extra undershirts to absorb all the excess sweat. This has made me a lot less anxious in social situations. I want to thank each and every one of you for reading this and supporting my journey. Please remember that you can respond to this email and it goes directly to me and I read and reply to every single email. Also know that you can comment below. If you found this interesting, I would really appreciate if you would share it with a friend and or become a paid subscriber if you haven't already done so. It means the world to me and it inspires me to keep writing and sharing this journey. Honestly, Thank You! Get full access to Year Of The Opposite - Travis Stoliker's Substack at www.yearoftheopposite.com/subscribe

“I don't expect myself to live forever but I think that the memory or whatever I build could be so arranged that the thought would go on forever. The only way that I can do it is by developing a foundation so the land and the property out here that I have will be dedicated to the foundation that they can help people and it will go on forever.” - Edward Lowe - Inventor of Kitty Litter. Edward Lowe invented Kitty Litter right here in Michigan. He literally and figuratively was responsible for bringing the cat indoors. Not only did he create a new product that solved a real problem, he invented a new industry worth billions today. He eventually sold his company for ~$200 million which is nearly $500 million today. Mr. Lowe grew up so poor his family burned corn cobs for heat and had no indoor toilet. But after the sale, me spent lavishly, acquiring 22 homes, a 72-foot yacht, a stable of quarter horses, a private railroad and an entire Michigan town.Mr. Lowe was a serial entrepreneur who secured 32 patents, 115 trademarks and 36 copyrights. But it was one of his last inventions, the Edward Lowe Foundation, that had a huge impact on my life. During his lifetime, Mr. Lowe noticed that there was ample support available for startup companies, as well as a wealth of resources for large, established corporations. However, he identified a significant gap in resources for what are now referred to as "Second Stage Entrepreneurs." These are companies that have successfully navigated the startup phase and possess both the capability and desire to continue growing. Typically, Second Stage companies employ between 10 and 99 people and generate annual revenues ranging from $1 million to $50 million.Importantly, Second Stage Entrepreneurs play a crucial role in job creation. For example, between 2005 and 2015, while second-stage companies made up only 17 percent of all U.S. businesses, they were responsible for generating over 37 percent of jobs and 36 percent of sales.The Edward Lowe Foundation was established in 1985 dedicated to two primary missions.* Supporting Entrepreneurship: The foundation aims to foster entrepreneurship by providing resources, education, and support to entrepreneurs, particularly those in the second-stage of business development. The foundation recognizes the importance of these businesses in driving economic growth and job creation.* Land Stewardship: The foundation is also dedicated to land stewardship and conservation. Edward Lowe and his wife, Darlene, were passionate about preserving natural habitats and wildlife. The foundation manages the land that was once the Lowes' residence, known as Big Rock Valley, as a natural preserve and uses it as a venue for leadership retreats and educational programs.Big Rock Valley (BRV), the Edward Lowe Foundation's property near Cassopolis, Michigan, spans over 2,000 acres and is some of the most beautiful property I have ever seen. The property features diverse ecosystems, including wetlands, forests, prairies, and lakes, which support a rich array of plant and animal life. With its unique architectural elements and recreational opportunities, BRV offers a remarkable blend of natural splendor and conservation efforts.I am connected to the Edward Lowe Foundation in a couple ways. The first is that my wife Laken works there. Second is that I am a Second Stage Entrepreneur myself. Michigan Celebrates Small Business (MCSB) is the most prestigious small business awards program in the state of Michigan. The “50 Companies To Watch” award recognizes that 50 up and coming businesses in Michigan. I have been blessed to win this award twice. Once in 2005 with Liquid Web and again in 2023 with Saddleback BBQ. Winning this award granted me the great privilege to be invited to spend 3 days learning and growing at the Edward Lowe Foundation property. I'm embarrassed to admit that when we were invited in 2005 my exact words were “I'm not going to that hippy dippy s**t”. Wow, was I wrong. I'm so disappointed in myself that I didn't avail myself of the opportunity to attend the retreat in 2005. However, I was fortunate enough to be reinvited when in 2018 Saddleback BBQ won the Small Business Development Center award for Small Business of the year. But, once again, I was an idiot and refused the invitation! But it was the Year Of The Opposite, and my wife Laken, that helped me smarten up and finally visit the property. After Joe died in February, I was struggling with my depression and I was willing to try anything. This is when I started the Year Of The Opposite and one of the things I tried to do was say YES to everything that I had said NO to before. Fortunately for me, there was a cancellation and I was invited to go to the foundation for the Entrepreneur In Residence program. It is not an exaggeration to say it was a life changing experience. It was the first time in a decade that I completely turned off all social media, I didn't check email, I turned off my cell phone, I didn't answer any phone calls or text messages. I went to the property and I was truly present. I meditated for the first time. I explored the wilderness for hours and hours. I want to share two experiences that deeply moved me. * Ed's Cabin is a beautiful house that overlooks 3 gorgeous ponds. Somehow I was fortunate enough to be housed in this beautiful home by myself for 3 days. I remember sitting in a rocking chair for 3 hours meditating and staring out at the ponds. It was my first time ever meditating and it was incredible. * I've been an atheist for most of my life, but I was raised catholic. Ed was a catholic and the foundation features the most incredible and exquisite metal sculptures and recreation of the Stations Of The Cross showing Jesus's last day and his subsequent resurrection. At the end of the stations of the cross is where Mr. Lowe is buried. Walking the stations and sitting in Mr. Lowe's tomb was enough to make this atheist start attending church again. It was incredibly powerful. So after turning down invitations to the foundation multiple times between 2005 and 2021, I have now become a “frequent flier.” In less than 2 years I have been fortunate enough to attend 7 different events on the beautiful grounds and I anxiously await my next opportunity to visit. If you yourself are invited to go, I encourage you, no, I plead with you to be smarter than I was and take the time away from your company to go. I guarantee you it will be worth it. Following my 6th visit, I was inspired to write Darlene Lowe the following letter that I think encapsulates what the Edward Lowe Foundation means to me. My Letter to Darlene Lowe thanking her for the Edward Lowe Foundation. Dear Mrs. Lowe,I wanted to take a brief moment to thank you and Mr. Lowe. I didn't know what “Legacy” meant until I visited the Edward Lowe Foundation.I am now leaving the Edward Lowe Foundation for my second Entrepreneur In Residence program and I have now visited the property six times in less than two years. I can confidently say, I am eager to return again anytime I am offered the opportunity.When I first visited the Edward Lowe Foundation, it was during a time of deep personal hardship. I had recently lost three of my friends, all passing away tragically young between the ages of 41 and 45, and I found myself grappling with depression for the first time. My life was at a low point. It was during this difficult period that I visited the Edward Lowe Foundation. It offered a beacon of hope and positivity. Its profound influence on me helped to alleviate some of my depression, bolstered my business, and set me on a transformative journey towards better health and well-being. Influenced by my time at ELF, I've managed to lose 40 pounds, rectify my high blood pressure, resolve my high triglyceride levels, and get my high cholesterol under control.During my inaugural visit, I had the privilege of staying in the cabin that you and Mr. Lowe so warmly offer to guests. Within the comforting confines of this cabin, I found solace in a delicate rocking chair, where I spent three uninterrupted hours in meditative contemplation, all the while observing the abundant wildlife right outside the window. This tranquil interlude remains one of the most profound and moving experiences of my life. My exploration didn't stop within the cabin's walls; I had the opportunity to walk the breadth of your stunning property. I devoted hours to discover the natural wonders so meticulously preserved and graciously shared by you and Mr. Lowe, immersing myself in the serene beauty that your efforts have nurtured.Mrs. Lowe, your remarkable taste for design and aesthetics leaves an indelible impression. With each visit, whether I stay in any of the meticulously appointed buildings or stroll through the exquisitely landscaped grounds, I am left utterly spellbound. From your carefully chosen books to the evocatively hung pictures, the seamless flow of the rooms, and the thoughtfully incorporated relics of American industrial history, your attention to detail reaches perfection.For the longest time, I thought that the idea of having a legacy was a pointless endeavor that only served to fulfill one's ego. You and Mr. Lowe have shown me that I was completely wrong. More than two decades after Mr. Lowe‘s passing, I can positively and undeniably guarantee that you and Mr. Lowe have a legacy that has positively impacted many lives. I didn't know what “Legacy” meant until I visited the Edward Lowe Foundation.Every single entrepreneur that I meet on one of these retreats shares with me stories of how the Edward Lowe Foundation has had a tremendously positive impact on their life in very personal and spiritual ways. We truly think of the Edward Lowe Foundation, its staff, the grounds, the other entrepreneurs that we meet here, and you and Mr. Lowe – as Family.The stories that are shared between the entrepreneurs at these retreats are some of the most powerful and moving stories that I have ever heard in my life, and they are deeply deeply personal. They are the kind of stories that someone would only reluctantly even share with their own priest. But somehow the environment that you have created with Mr. Lowe gives us the comfort and security and safety to feel truly vulnerable and share in ways that we would never share outside of this place.Your staff and your family are truly one of a kind. I cannot say enough positive things about Dan Wyant. I have been so fortunate to get to know him through my experiences at the Edward Lowe Foundation, where he has taught me about the conservation efforts, told me the history and stories about Mr. Lowe and yourself, but also I have had the great pleasure of getting to know him on a personal level. I am truly in awe of Dan. But it doesn't just stop there from Colleen, Rhonda, Dino, Rita, Robin, Jose, and every single other person that I have met through the Edward Lowe Foundation has been one-of-a-kind.My family feels so fortunate to have met you through my time as an entrepreneur at the Edward Lowe Foundation but also through Laken‘s employment with this incredible foundation. I just wanted to take a moment to tell you how incredibly grateful I am to you and to Mr. Lowe. You truly have a legacy and you have impacted me and many others, in profoundly positive ways that I cannot even begin to express adequately.Thank you,Travis StolikerOn Mr. Lowe's Headstone it reads: “He lived his life for America. Hail Entrepreneur!” I think it is just perfect. Just perfect. Thank you, Mr. Lowe. Get full access to Year Of The Opposite - Travis Stoliker's Substack at www.yearoftheopposite.com/subscribe

The Podcast Interview is attached to this Substack or you can listen to Year Of The Opposite on Spotify. Here is the full video interview on Youtube. For nearly a decade, Matthew Terry and I were colleagues at Liquid Web. After the company was sold in 2015, I chose to pursue other opportunities, while Matthew continued his tenure there. During this period, he crossed paths with Michelle Rogers, and they soon embarked on a romantic relationship. By 2016, they welcomed a child into their lives.However, their story took a dark turn on St. Patrick's Day of 2017. In a horrifying incident, Matthew assaulted Michelle in their shared home, with their newborn present. He inflicted seven stab wounds on her, targeting her throat and upper body, and even bit her face. The brutal attack left Michelle so severely injured that her vision was obscured by the blood filling her contact lenses.Against all odds, Michelle survived this terrifying ordeal, but her nightmare was far from over. Matthew was sentenced to a mere three years in prison for his heinous act. Michelle made desperate appeals to the parole board, the judge, and the prosecutors, imploring them not to release Matthew. She warned them, and anyone who would listen, that if he were set free, he would undoubtedly harm someone else.In a proactive move, Michelle even reached out to Kay Baker, Matthew's new girlfriend, cautioning her that she could be his next victim. Despite Michelle's dire warnings, Matthew relocated to Florida to live with Kay and her two children after his release.Tragically, within five months of his parole, Matthew murdered Kay, nearly decapitating her and stabbing her multiple times. Michelle's chilling prediction had come true with horrifying precision.Today, I have the opportunity to speak with Michelle Rogers, giving her a platform to share her harrowing story. Get full access to Year Of The Opposite - Travis Stoliker's Substack at www.yearoftheopposite.com/subscribe

I had the honor of being interviewed on the Cold Oatmeal Podcast last week and it was a great experience. Their show is about Public Relations. Please make sure to give them a Subscribe. With their permission, in today's podcast / newsletter I am sharing the full interview and clips from the discussion. I hope you enjoy. For the full interview, please click Play above. Or listen/subscribe to the podcast on Spotify or Apple Podcast.  Apple Podcast: For your convenience, I have also provided clips below if you would like to jump to specific topics or sections. Topics Discussed Include: * "What did you do after selling Liquid Web for $224,000,000?"* "Do you lose friends when you stop drinking? What has the reaction been to living a Year Of The Opposite?"* "What is Liquid Web and how did you market it to get to $80,000,000 in Annual Recurring Revenue?"* "What is MyVilla?"* "Why does Saddleback do so much giving and charity?"* "How do you start to love running? How did Matt Hill's tragic death inspire your love of running?"* "The paradox of giving: People want to support businesses that do good in the community, but some people also think it's gross to talk about charity and giving. Why does Saddleback talk about their charity so much? Isn't that gross?"* "What is your secret to marketing Liquid Web and Saddleback BBQ?"* "Why I love the book Atomic Habit."* "What is The Year Of The Opposite?"Topics / Sections: * What did you do after selling Liquid Web for $224,000,000? * Do you lose friends when you stop drinking? What has the reaction been to living a Year Of The Opposite?* What is Liquid Web and how did you market it to get to $80,000,000 in Annual Recurring Revenue? * What is MyVilla? * Why does Saddleback do so much giving and charity? * How do you start to love running? How did Matt Hill dying inspire your love of running? * The paradox of giving. People want to support businesses that do good in the community. But some people also think it's gross to talk about charity and giving. Why does Saddleback talk about their charity so much? Isn't that gross? * What is your secret to marketing Liquid Web and Saddleback BBQ? * Why I love the book Atomic Habit. * What is The Year Of The Opposite? Year Of The Opposite - Travis Stoliker's Substack is a reader-supported publication. To receive new posts and support my work, consider becoming a free or paid subscriber. Get full access to Year Of The Opposite - Travis Stoliker's Substack at www.yearoftheopposite.com/subscribe

Let's clear something up... 1 year ago today, my oldest friend, Matt Hill died. It was incredibly painful for many of us and something that compounded the pain was that at the time the medical examiners in Los Angeles were taking 5-6 months to complete autopsies. This meant that for several months after Matt's tragic death, none of his loved ones knew the true cause of his death. For 5 months we were left with unanswered questions about why he died at the age of 41. A particularly hard part was the fact that online "news" outlets were profiting off of the traffic they received from the public's curiosity surrounding Matt's death. These sites, along with some individuals on Facebook, circulated speculation and rumors about his cause of death. Unverified stories that I heard ranged from car accidents, and boating incidents, - to a prevalent myth of a drug overdose.It was difficult to watch all these rumors and not be able to respond because the honest truth was none of us knew the real reason why he died at the time. We were forced to listen to people repeat damaging rumors and innuendo as if they were truth. They were in fact _not_ the truth. Let me clear it up right now: Matt Hill died from an 80% blockage in his left anterior descending coronary artery. This is also known as a Widow Maker Heart Attack. This is the "Cause A" on his official autopsy that we waited over 5 months to receive. There was no cause B, C, or D. In addition to that, he had no illegal drugs in his system. This is from his official toxicology report. On the anniversary of his death, I simply ask that we lay to rest the incorrect rumors about his death. The passing of Matt, only five months after the devastating loss of Joe St. Clair, and then a mere ten days later, the tragic death of Tyler, plunged me into my first encounter with depression. It was very tough. But I'm fortunate because the experience also led me to reclaiming my health and becoming a better father and husband. I'm now sharing my experience on my Substack for two reasons. 1. Because writing about things that hurt us helps us heal and recover from them. 2. I hope that my story can help others that wish to improve their lives or recover from depression. I miss Matt everyday. But the sadness has been replaced by an appreciation for the time that we had together and the amazing truly incredible things that he accomplished. He was a larger than life personality. Matt's death was the force that helped push me to start the year of the opposite. When I swam across the lake for the first time I remember climbing onto Matt Gillett's back porch waiting for him to be able to drive me back to my house. As I sat there I felt the grief from Matt's death wash over me and I knew that I was going to begin to cry. I didn't want Gillet's children to see me cry but I was feeling a bit trapped because I didn't have shoes since I had just completed a swim. I thought back to growing up with Matt in the Huntley Square neighborhood. In the summer, Matt Hill rarely wore shoes. His feet were like stones. Even when we would play hockey on the concrete, Matt would be shoeless. His feet getting frequently hit by hockey sticks didn't seem to bother him. So I decided that I would run the 2 miles home to my house barefoot while softly crying for the loss of my brother. It was painful but cathartic. It was one of the most profound experiences with grief that I have ever felt. That experience is what started my love for running. He didn't know it, but Matt was giving me another gift even after his passing. The gift of a love for running. Thank you again Matt.Year Of The Opposite - Travis Stoliker's Substack is a reader-supported publication. To receive new posts and support my work, consider becoming a free or paid subscriber. Get full access to Year Of The Opposite - Travis Stoliker's Substack at www.yearoftheopposite.com/subscribe

Meet Michelle Frechette, a trailblazer in the WordPress community who is bridging gaps and building connections in ways you wouldn't imagine. Michelle, the Director of Community Engagement for StellarWP at Liquid Web, takes us on a journey from her first encounter with WordPress to her current role as a community leader. She shares her insights on the power of inclusivity, the thrill of her first WordCamp, and the delicate art of fostering diversity without tokenism. If you've ever wondered about the behind-the-scenes dynamics of the WordPress community or how to make a real impact in your own circles, this episode is a must-listen. Get ready for a conversation that will challenge your perspectives and inspire you to action. Full show notes: https://trailblazer.fm/bridging-gaps-building-community/

Síguenos en: Siempre decimos en que uno de los puntos fuertes de un hosting tiene que ser el soporte, pero hay semanas que por (malas) experiencias no tenemos más remedio que insistir más en ello. ¿Qué tal la semana? Semana esther Plugin Starter Templates Astra: error versión que no permite actualizar CF7 + Contact Form 7 Multi-Step Forms: problema caché y cookies Lentitud y errores de recursos insuficientes. ¿Casualidad? ¿Servidor? Bluehost: casi una semana para reactivar sitio Ojo pie de email con imagen en servidor borrada Semana Nahuai Poniéndose al día en la medida de lo posible. Mirando las características de Payment Element de Stripe. Soporte fantástico de Factura Directa para automatizar el envío de facturas solo cuando el cliente tenga el NIF completado. Petición de añadir la categoría de Community a los plugins de OsomPress. Reunión del equipo de sostenibilidad de WordPress en Slack. Espectacular el efecto de habernos convertido en equipo oficial y haber tenido visibilidad de en la WordCamp Europe. Además de seguir trabajando en el documento para hacer eventos de WordPress más sostenibles creamos un nuevo con un brainstorm/roadmap del equipo. Contenido Nahuai 2 nuevos tutoriales en Código Genesis: Limitar los colores a los que tiene acceso un usuario en un tema de WordPress Personalizar la tipografía de los campos de pago de Easy Digital Downloads Novedades: https://make.wordpress.org/latest/ https://wptavern.com/wordpress-org-enables-commercial-and-community-filters-on-plugin-and-theme-directories https://joost.blog/cms-market-share/ • WordPress has 43.2% market share, a 0.2% increase since July 2022. • Shopify is the second most popular CMS with 3.8% market share, down from 0.4% 11 months ago. • Wix's growth has slowed compared to previous years and holds 2.5% market share. • Prestashop grew by 0.3% in the past 11 months, overtaking Google Systems to become the eighth most popular CMS. One Equity Partners adquirió Liquid Web en abril de 2023. group.one Acquires Rank Math Ojo que Elliot Condon vuelve: https://twitter.com/elliotcondon/status/1667470204425871360 Menciones Follow-up episodio métodos de pago Conti: ¿Conoceis el funcionamiento de mi plugin de Redsys? Porque todas las incomodidades que habéis comentado de Redsys no existen con mi plugin. Puedes tener el formulario en el sitio como Stripe (mediante InSite), o si prefieres redirección, tampoco abandonas el sitio, se te abre en un modal. Podeis ver como funciona aquí t.co/ilw2jmq68y Javier Carazo: Muchas gracias @esther_sola_ por la mención a @codection y los plugins para WordPress y WooCommerce en el podcast con @nahuaibadiola Por cierto, las comisiones son menores que 0,8. Lo normal es entorno a 0,4 sin coste fijo. Jordi nos pregunta sobre el cambio de Card Element a Payment Elements

Síguenos en: Siempre decimos en que uno de los puntos fuertes de un hosting tiene que ser el soporte, pero hay semanas que por (malas) experiencias no tenemos más remedio que insistir más en ello. ¿Qué tal la semana? Semana esther Plugin Starter Templates Astra: error versión que no permite actualizar CF7 + Contact Form 7 Multi-Step Forms: problema caché y cookies Lentitud y errores de recursos insuficientes. ¿Casualidad? ¿Servidor? Bluehost: casi una semana para reactivar sitio Ojo pie de email con imagen en servidor borrada Semana Nahuai Poniéndose al día en la medida de lo posible. Mirando las características de Payment Element de Stripe. Soporte fantástico de Factura Directa para automatizar el envío de facturas solo cuando el cliente tenga el NIF completado. Petición de añadir la categoría de Community a los plugins de OsomPress. Reunión del equipo de sostenibilidad de WordPress en Slack. Espectacular el efecto de habernos convertido en equipo oficial y haber tenido visibilidad de en la WordCamp Europe. Además de seguir trabajando en el documento para hacer eventos de WordPress más sostenibles creamos un nuevo con un brainstorm/roadmap del equipo. Contenido Nahuai 2 nuevos tutoriales en Código Genesis: Limitar los colores a los que tiene acceso un usuario en un tema de WordPress Personalizar la tipografía de los campos de pago de Easy Digital Downloads Novedades: https://make.wordpress.org/latest/ https://wptavern.com/wordpress-org-enables-commercial-and-community-filters-on-plugin-and-theme-directories https://joost.blog/cms-market-share/ • WordPress has 43.2% market share, a 0.2% increase since July 2022. • Shopify is the second most popular CMS with 3.8% market share, down from 0.4% 11 months ago. • Wix's growth has slowed compared to previous years and holds 2.5% market share. • Prestashop grew by 0.3% in the past 11 months, overtaking Google Systems to become the eighth most popular CMS. One Equity Partners adquirió Liquid Web en abril de 2023. group.one Acquires Rank Math Ojo que Elliot Condon vuelve: https://twitter.com/elliotcondon/status/1667470204425871360 Menciones Follow-up episodio métodos de pago Conti: ¿Conoceis el funcionamiento de mi plugin de Redsys? Porque todas las incomodidades que habéis comentado de Redsys no existen con mi plugin. Puedes tener el formulario en el sitio como Stripe (mediante InSite), o si prefieres redirección, tampoco abandonas el sitio, se te abre en un modal. Podeis ver como funciona aquí t.co/ilw2jmq68y Javier Carazo: Muchas gracias @esther_sola_ por la mención a @codection y los plugins para WordPress y WooCommerce en el podcast con @nahuaibadiola Por cierto, las comisiones son menores que 0,8. Lo normal es entorno a 0,4 sin coste fijo. Jordi nos pregunta sobre el cambio de Card Element a Payment Elements

Apple Journals & Day One | Matt MullenwegImportant Takeaways:Apple announced its own Journal app at WWDC, which competes with Automattic's product, Day One.Day One has a few advantages over Apple's Journal app. One of them is the upcoming feature of Shared Journals, which allows fully end-to-end encrypted shared private journals with friends and family.Another advantage of Day One is its cross-platform availability. Unlike Apple's Journal app, which is limited to Apple devices, Day One works on all Apple devices, Android devices, and the web.Link: Original ArticleA Place of One's Own, in Noho – Automattic DesignImportant Takeaways:Automattic has a unique office space in Noho, New York, which is described as a “magic space” with unobstructed views of lower Manhattan.The office design is inspired by the aesthetics of jazz clubs and features collections of mid-century vintage furniture, art and design books, and original art pieces.The office is designed to be a practical and elastic canvas for diverse uses, and it reflects the rich aesthetics of Automattic's multiple creative tools.The office space is not just for work; it also serves as a socializing and connecting space for Automattic employees.Link: Original ArticleLinking to Supporting Orgs – Make WordPress.orgImportant Takeaways:The post discusses the need for a dedicated page on WordPress.org to link to independent organizations that support WordPress's mission of democratizing publishing.These organizations are not officially part of WordPress but offer valuable resources and opportunities to get involved.The proposed structure for such a page includes an introduction, organization categories, organization listings, updates and announcements, and contact information.The organizations should align with the mission of WordPress, adhere to a code of conduct, and actively contribute to the WordPress community or the broader mission of democratizing publishing.A vetting process is suggested for adding organizations to this page, including initial screening, detailed review, contacting the organization, decision to list, and periodic review.Link: Original ArticleWordPress Accessibility Day Gains Nonprofit Status Through Partnership with Knowbility – WordPress Accessibility DayImportant Takeaways:WordPress Accessibility Day, a virtual 24-hour conference focused on accessibility best practices for WordPress websites, has gained 501(c)(3) nonprofit status through a partnership with Knowbility.The event was initially started in 2020 by the WordPress core Accessibility Team and was revived in 2022 by Amber Hinds and Joe Dolson as an independent event.The 2022 event was a success, with 11 organizers, 1604 attendees, and 20 volunteers from 52 countries. After all event expenses were paid, WordPress Accessibility Day donated $2,000 to Knowbility.The partnership with Knowbility allows WordPress Accessibility Day to gain nonprofit status, making donations tax-deductible in the United States. It also provides access to Knowbility's accessible online event planning resources.The 2023 event will be held from 10:00 AM CDT (3:00 PM UTC) on Wednesday, September 27th, until 10:00 AM CDT (3:00 PM UTC) on Thursday, September 28th. The event will be live captioned and have sign language interpreters.Link: Original ArticleOne Equity Partners acquires cloud services provider Liquid Web and forms new holding company, CloudOne DigitalImportant Takeaways:One Equity Partners (OEP) has completed the acquisition of Liquid Web, a provider of managed cloud services, forming a new platform known as CloudOne Digital.The senior leadership team of Liquid Web will transition to expanded roles in the new, larger CloudOne platform with Jim Geiger as CEO, Carrie Wheeler as COO, and Joe Oesterling as CTO.Liquid Web, founded in 1997, operates 10 global data centers with more than 500,000 sites under management. With its brand acquisitions, CloudOne Digital will serve over 187,000 clients worldwide.CloudOne Digital will offer a broad portfolio of cloud products that meet the needs of web-dependent small and mid-sized businesses, cloud servers for developers and businesses with highly persistent, compute-intensive workloads, and managed private cloud for mid-market businesses that require enterprise-grade infrastructure and solutions.OEP plans an aggressive expansion strategy for CloudOne Digital, aiming to combine and integrate complementary businesses in the multi-cloud infrastructure segment.Link: Original ArticleWordCampers Demand Changes to Q&A Format – WP TavernImportant Takeaways:WordCamp attendees are calling for changes to the Q&A format at live events, citing issues with attendees abusing the format for self-promotion or not asking relevant questions.WordPress Core Committer Felix Arntz suggested that questions taking longer than a minute should be asked informally at a later opportunity.Arntz proposed several ideas to improve the Q&A format, including submitting questions to a central platform for upvoting, discarding lengthy questions, and providing mandatory training for emcees on handling problematic Q&A situations.He also suggested making Q&A optional, depending on the speaker's preference, to create a more inclusive environment for speakers.The feedback received on Arntz's Twitter thread was largely positive, with other attendees offering their own suggestions for improving the Q&A format.Link: Original ArticleNew Filter Controls: Discover “Commercial” and “Community” in the Theme and Plugin Directory – Make WordPress.orgImportant Takeaways:New categorizations were introduced in the Theme and Plugin Directory in late 2022 to enhance the browsing experience. These filters categorize plugins/themes as “Commercial” and “Community.”The “Commercial” filter allows users to discover themes and plugins developed by professional companies and individuals who offer their products for a fee. These premium options often come with dedicated support, advanced features, and customization options.The “Community” filter showcases themes and plugins created by the WordPress community. These products are often developed by passionate individuals who share their work for free or follow an open-source philosophy.The introduction of these filter controls is part of an ongoing effort to improve the browsing experience and refine the visual aspects of the Theme and Plugin Directory as part of the site redesign.Users are encouraged to provide feedback on these updates and try out the new filter controls.Link: Original ArticleThe Power of Community: A WordCamp Europe Sponsorship StoryImportant Takeaways:Barn2 Plugins sponsored WordCamp Europe (WCEU) for the first time in June 2023. The experience was described as a great opportunity for networking, brand exposure, and team bonding.The company spent a total of €13,256 on the event, including sponsorship costs, travel and accommodation, team t-shirts, WordCamp tickets, and other related expenses.The sponsorship booth was a key part of their presence at the event. They created a quiz for attendees, with winners receiving premium swag items. The quiz was a success, with 145 participants.The team also produced a video showcasing some of their most popular plugins, which was displayed at their booth.The author, Katie Keith, highlighted the difficulty in calculating the return on investment (ROI) for sponsoring a WordCamp. However, she emphasized the intangible benefits, such as increased brand awareness, networking opportunities, and team building.Link: Original ArticleSustainability Team • Supporting Organizations • Commercial & Community Themes & Plugins • Pattern Curation – Post StatusImportant Takeaways:The WordPress Sustainability Team has been established with the main objective of embedding sustainable practices into the WordPress community and its processes, focusing on ensuring longevity socially, economically, and environmentally.Several organizations exist to support the work of WordPress, such as The WP Community Collective and HeroPress. A proposal has been made to display such supporting organizations.Filters have been introduced for Themes and Plugins to distinguish between Commercial and Community efforts. The Patterns Directory is considering using filters for displaying all patterns associated with a theme.The post also includes a roundup of other WordPress news, including updates on WordPress 6.3 and 6.4, WP-CLI releases, community events, core updates, design updates, and more.Link: Original Article ★ Support this podcast ★

I've been pondering over the approach I should take for this newsletter. Should I pen it down from a personal viewpoint, narrating my story in first person? Or would it be better to focus less on me and more on the practical steps and tools others can incorporate into their lives? I'd truly appreciate your thoughts on this matter, so feel free to email me (just hit reply) or leave a comment with your suggestions.For the time being, I've chosen to blend both approaches when appropriate. Initially, I believe it's essential for me to share my personal journey with the Year of the Opposite and the outcomes I experienced. But when possible, I'll shift the focus towards being more general and actionable, since that's the kind of content I personally enjoy reading.During my peer mentoring sessions, I picked up an invaluable lesson: "Speak from experience. Don't give advice." I feel this insight is particularly relevant here.In my previous post, I talked about how, after Joe's passing, I was unable to shake off my depression, becoming quite the burden for my loved ones. I knew I needed to change something, so I embarked on the "Year of the Opposite."I believe it's crucial to begin by disclosing the extent of the deterioration in my health, to provide you with some context. Since selling Liquid Web in 2015, I had been plagued by Essential hypertension (high blood pressure), Hyperlipidemia (high cholesterol), Hypertriglyceridemia (high triglycerides), Impaired fasting glucose, Rosacea, below-average cardiac fitness (Vo2Max), occasional bouts of gout, and at one point, my weight had soared to a staggering 246 lbs.I feel quite self-conscious sharing that photo, and it's challenging to put it out there. My discomfort stems not only from vanity, although I admit that plays a role, but also from the fact that this period of my life, when I was at my heaviest, coincided with the birth of my first and (currently) only child. The best parenting advice I've ever received is: "Give them a good example to look up to."Unfortunately, I was setting a terrible example for my son. Worse still, at this period in my life, according to the American College of Cardiology ASCVD Risk Estimator, I faced a 16% chance of dying from a cardiac event within the next decade.My original goal was not to improve my health or lose weight, but to cure my depression. However, having already committed to tackling my depression through the Year of the Opposite, I decided that some of my initial "opposites" would focus on my health. At the beginning stages of my journey, I wasn't yet aware of the extensive scientific evidence supporting the significant impact of exercise, diet, and sleep on an individual's happiness and mental well-being. The research is very compelling that physical activity is 1.5 times more effective than counseling or the leading medications.Step 1 of the Year of the Opposite: Select a new "simple" habit that is an alteration in your daily routine that you can consistently commit to performing every single day. * The alteration you introduce shouldn't be an insurmountable task. Instead, it should be achievable, beneficial, straightforward, and distinct from your typical routine, ensuring that you can consistently incorporate it into your daily life.* Good Ideas for First Steps:* Wake Up Early & Make The Bed (What I choose)* Take a walk* Write a journal for 5 minutes* Floss your teeth * Read for 5 minutes* Call a friend* Bad Ideas For First Steps* Go to the gym everyday (Too easy to break, it's hard to get to the gym every single day)* Eat healthy (Again, too easy to break. Too Vague & no one eats healthy every day)* Stop using Social Media/Tech/Etc (Too many things require it. Too hard to maintain. It's good to cut back, but hard to completely eliminate.)* Bike ride instead of use a car (Too hard. Especially if you have snow)* Give up drinking, smoking, drugs, etc (Great goal. But too hard to start. You want a simple win on this first goal)The first step's goal is to achieve a small success that you can build on. You should choose something that is simple, but not necessarily easy. Remember, "simple" and "easy" are different."Easy" means you can do something without trying hard, while "simple" means it's not complicated and is easy to understand, but you still need to put in effort.Once you've picked your first habit, try to do it every day! It might sound tough, but believe in yourself – you can do it!Step 2: Track Your Progress, Celebrate Your Wins, & Repeat Every Single DayAs I embarked on this journey, I came across an exceptional book that became an instant favorite. "Atomic Habits" by James Clear provides invaluable insights into cultivating positive habits and dismantling negative ones. I wholeheartedly recommend this book. Below are the key takeaways I gathered from "Atomic Habits":* The 1% Rule: Focus on making tiny, 1% improvements each day, which will compound over time and lead to significant growth.* Habit Stacking: Combine new habits with existing ones by using the formula "After [current habit], I will [new habit]." This helps to integrate new habits seamlessly into your daily routine.* Environment Design: Set up your environment to make good habits easy to follow and bad habits difficult to maintain. This includes minimizing distractions and making desired behaviors more accessible.* The Two-Minute Rule: Break down new habits into small actions that can be completed in under two minutes, making it easier to get started and maintain momentum.* The Four Laws of Behavior Change: To create a new habit, follow these four steps – make it obvious, make it attractive, make it easy, and make it satisfying.* The Inversion of the Four Laws: To break a bad habit, do the opposite of the Four Laws – make it invisible, make it unattractive, make it difficult, and make it unsatisfying.* Habit Tracking: Monitor your habits using a habit tracker to maintain awareness of your progress and maintain motivation.* The Goldilocks Rule: Engage in habits that challenge you just enough to stay in the zone of optimal difficulty, keeping you motivated and engaged.* Identity-Based Habits: Focus on adopting the identity of the person you want to become, rather than solely concentrating on the outcomes you want to achieve.* Temptation Bundling: Pair an activity you need to do (but may not enjoy) with an activity you love, making it more appealing to complete the less enjoyable task.At the time, I didn't recognize it, but my Step 2 closely aligned with the principles from "Atomic Habits." I employed several of its strategies, with Habit Tracking and Habit Stacking likely being the most significant.* Habit Tracking: Securing early successes is crucial, and you can't improve something without monitoring it. That's why tracking your performance is essential. I use an app called "Way of Life" for habit tracking. However, the tool itself isn't as important as the process. Don't let tools hinder your progress. You can utilize a notepad, calendar, Google Sheet, Habit Journal, or anything else that works for you. The key is to track your progress daily.* Consistency is crucial: However, don't let the pursuit of perfection undermine your progress. The age-old saying holds true—nobody is perfect. It's likely that you'll miss a day or make a mistake, and that's alright. The important thing is to acknowledge it, confront the lapse, and then resume your efforts without delay. This is why it's essential to choose a first habit that is simple to achieve.* Take It Slow: If you're like me, you'll begin to experience immediate benefits once you consistently achieve a goal. It's quite remarkable, actually. It may seem odd that a straightforward task like making your bed every day could provide a sense of satisfaction, but it did for me. It demonstrated that I was capable of change. Keep in mind that, in my entire 40 years of living, I had never consistently made my bed, so this was a significant shift, despite its simplicity. The key is not to let this initial accomplishment convince you that you can conquer the world. For now, focus on simplicity, consistency, and progress tracking. Just because you've made one small change for a few days doesn't mean the habit is firmly established. The most crucial aspect is to complete this one simple habit every single day.Your aim in Step 2 is to create what "Atomic Habits" calls "Identity-Based Habits." Focus on adopting the identity of the person you want to become, rather than just concentrating on the outcomes you want to achieve.If your habit is to walk every day, you want to be a walker. If your habit is to wake up and make the bed, you want to be an early riser. If your habit is to read a passage every day, you want to be a reader. If your habit is to journal every day, you want to be a writer.Identity-based habits involve taking on a new self-image to encourage lasting change. For example, if someone wants to change from staying up late to waking up early, they should adopt the identity of an "early riser."To practice this identity-based approach, the person should start with small, consistent actions that match their new self-image. In my example, I slowly adjusted my bedtime and wake-up time, set an alarm to wake up, and made a new rule that if I woke up early naturally, I would get out of bed and start my day instead of trying to go back to sleep. These actions supported my new identity as an early riser.Additionally, I thought about any limiting beliefs, like the idea that I wasn't a "morning person," and replaced them with empowering beliefs that lined up with my desired identity. I wasn't a “night owl that woke up early today”. I was “an early riser”. It seems like a small change, but eliminating that limiting belief is surprisingly powerful. Limiting beliefs are negative thoughts or assumptions about yourself, others, or the world that stop you from reaching your full potential. These beliefs often come from past experiences, society's influence, or learned behaviors, and they can create a mental barrier that keeps you from growing and achieving.Limiting beliefs can show up in different ways, such as doubts about your abilities, fears of failure, or beliefs that some goals are impossible. They can slow down progress by affecting your mindset, actions, and overall view of life. By finding and challenging these beliefs, you can replace them with more empowering thoughts, which can help unlock your potential and enable you to go after your goals more effectively.The goal here is to identify your limiting beliefs and face them. Sadly, you may find that some of your friends and family hold limiting beliefs about you and they may try to enforce that old image onto you. It's important to remember that for many people, your changes don't inspire them, they confront them. People may not like that you are changing because it exposes the fact that they are not. Ignore those people. Don't let others place limiting beliefs on you. This isn't that big of an issue with a change like ‘waking up early'. But when we get to changes like running barefoot… or giving up alcohol if you choose to… you'll see this behavior come up a lot from friends and family. Once you feel pretty confident that you've become the person with this new habit, and it's not just a goal you're trying to achieve, you can move on to step number three. This could take you a week, or it could take you all year, but don't move on to step 3 until you've developed an identity-based habit.You don't have to be perfect, but once you can confidently say, "I'm a walker," "I'm an early riser," or "I'm a reader" - and your significant other won't laugh at you! - then you're ready to move on to step 3. Don't rush it.Step 3: Habit Stacking Next you're going to Habit Stack. Habit stacking is a technique where you build a new habit by linking it to an existing one. This approach makes it easier to incorporate new habits into your daily routine, as you're using the established habit as a trigger for the new behavior.In my case, I had successfully established the habit of waking up early and making my bed each morning. Once I felt confident that this habit was firmly in place, I decided to stack another habit on top of it - flossing my teeth daily. This was an area I had struggled with my entire life, and I dreaded admitting my shortcomings to my hygienist twice a year. Despite my genuine desire and promises to her that I would floss, I just couldn't stick with it. By employing habit stacking, I was able to overcome this issue once and for all.To do this, I took advantage of the momentum and structure provided by my existing habit of making the bed.Every morning, after making the bed, I would go straight to the bathroom and floss my teeth. By associating the new habit with the existing one, I created a natural, seamless transition between the two activities. Over time, the act of making my bed automatically triggered the thought of flossing my teeth, making it much easier to maintain both habits consistently.In this way, habit stacking allowed me to build upon my success with waking up early and making the bed, leading to the successful integration of flossing my teeth daily into my routine.I'm aware that everything I've mentioned may come across as remarkably simple, right? To be honest, I can't help but feel a tad embarrassed discussing it. As others are constructing spaceships bound for Mars, founding multi-billion-dollar enterprises, or mastering the ability to walk once more, I find myself sharing thoughts on making my bed and flossing my teeth. I realize it appears ludicrous. Nevertheless, for reasons unknown, this method has been successful for me, and it seems to resonate with others too.And remember: ‘Simple' doesn't mean ‘Easy'. Everything here is very simple. But that doesn't make it easy. Employing this straightforward method enabled me to establish lasting habits and genuinely transform my life. It's not an exaggeration to say that these changes might have saved my life.So let's talk about the results. Remember that when I started this journey in March of 2022, according to the American College of Cardiology ASCVD Risk Estimator, I faced a 16% chance of dying from a cardiac event within the next decade.Just 6 months later on September 19, 2022 I had a doctors appointment and was given some of the best news of my entire life. My ASCVD Risk Estimator, the risk of me dying from a cardiac event in 10 years, went from 16% to 2%! My doctors officially cleared me! I was able to stop taking all of my medications and all of my medical conditions had been resolved. My Health Conditions resolved: * Essential hypertension (high blood pressure)* Hyperlipidemia (high cholesterol) * Hypertriglyceridemia (high triglycerides) * Impaired fasting glucose* Rosacea* below average cardiac fitness (Vo2Max) While I wasn't able to cover every step that led me to where I am today, I promise to share more in my upcoming article. This article was getting kinda long and I didn't want to bore you. In the next installment, I'll delve deeper into my personal journey, provide insight on my blood work results and biomarkers, and continue to try to offer actionable steps for those who wish to embark on their own journey of self-improvement.Thank you for taking the time to read my article. Your support means everything to me. If you found this helpful, would you kindly let me know by replying to this email? I value your feedback and appreciate any thoughts or comments you may have.The usual disclaimers: I want to acknowledge that none of the accomplishments I've shared with you are particularly remarkable or profound. I recognize that I am not the first person to use the methods and strategies that have worked for me, and I have likely been influenced by others without realizing it and without properly crediting them. For that oversight, I apologize.I am sharing my story not because I think it's amazing or unique, but because it is a testament to the power of simplicity and consistency. By adopting small, manageable habits and sticking to them every day, I was able to transform my life in just one year.It's often said that people overestimate what they can accomplish in a year and underestimate what they can achieve in a decade. While I believe that's true, I also learned that I am capable of more than I ever imagined in just 365 days. And I know you are too. I want to be your biggest cheerleader. * Travis Stoliker | The Year Of The Opposite. Uplift Weekly - Humans Are AwesomeIn this week's Uplight Weekly, we have an incredible news story from Devon, United Kingdom, that I find particularly interesting given my past experience with Liquid Web and its energy consumption. I've always been troubled by the amount of energy our data centers used, especially knowing that most of the power was wasted in cooling off the machines. The story we're featuring today highlights a practical, community-oriented solution that tackles this very issue and has even allowed some swimming pools to reopen.Data centers house numerous computers and servers that perform complex tasks, such as storing and processing vast amounts of information. These tasks require a significant amount of electrical power, and as the computers work, they generate heat. To prevent overheating and ensure the systems continue to function properly, data centers have to invest in cooling systems that consume even more energy. Unfortunately, this often results in a considerable amount of power being wasted, as much of it is used just to cool off the machines.In the United Kingdom, energy prices have increased substantially and this has caused some public pools to be forced to close due to financial issues. A washing-machine-sized data center in Devon has found a clever way to make use of its excess heat generation by using it to heat a public swimming pool. The data center, provided by startup Deep Green, is surrounded by oil to capture the heat, which is then used to heat the pool to about 30°C 60% of the time, saving Exmouth Leisure Centre thousands of pounds. This partnership has really helped the leisure center reduce its astronomical energy and gas costs over the last 12 months.The concept, developed over five years, is relatively straightforward: hot oil is pumped into a heat exchanger to warm the water in the pool. Deep Green, which specializes in providing computing power for artificial intelligence and machine learning, also refunds the leisure center's electricity costs for running the "digital boiler." Seven other swimming pools in England have already signed up for the scheme. As energy prices soar, this innovative solution helps cut costs and prevent pool closures due to financial constraints. In fact, since 2019, 65 swimming pools had closed, with rising energy costs cited as a significant reason, and this solution has allowed some of them to reopen.In the future, this could inspire other creative ways to repurpose excess heat generated by data centers, reducing their environmental impact and benefiting communities. For instance, similar solutions could be employed to heat schools, hospitals, or even residential buildings, making it a sustainable and community-oriented approach to energy consumption. This story exemplifies the power of innovation and the potential for technology to positively impact society.This technology could also be used for cryptocurrency mining operations, as they share similarities with data centers in terms of heat generation and energy consumption. Crypto mining involves the use of powerful computers to solve complex mathematical problems, which in turn validate transactions on the blockchain network. This process requires substantial computational power and consequently generates a significant amount of heat.Applying the same concept as the Devon data center, excess heat from cryptocurrency mining operations could be captured and repurposed for heating purposes, such as warming swimming pools, buildings, or other facilities. This would not only make the crypto mining process more energy-efficient and environmentally friendly but also contribute to local communities by reducing their heating costs and dependence on traditional energy sources. Get full access to Year Of The Opposite - Travis Stoliker's Substack at www.yearoftheopposite.com/subscribe

Last year, at the age of 41, I faced the heart-wrenching loss of three close friends within a mere five-month span. They were all between the ages of 41 and 44. The overwhelming grief I experienced plunged me into a profound depression for the first time in my life.Many of you are my friends, while others have yet to make my acquaintance. So it's probably a good idea if I start with a brief introduction. I'm a tech and marketing professional who helped build a web hosting company, LiquidWeb, alongside my friends Matt, Chris, Jer, and Gregg. Together, we grew the company to employ 480 employees on two continents and achieve $70 million in Annual Recurring Revenue (ARR). In 2015, we successfully sold the company to a private equity firm for a staggering $224 million.I've seldom mentioned this, as it may come across as boastful, but I became a multi-millionaire before reaching the age of 35. The wealth I amassed at such a young age exceeded my wildest expectations. This early financial success led me to believe that I had achieved life's ultimate goal, which I dubbed my "fake retirement." I didn't have a boss, so I indulged in late-night routines, sleeping until 2 pm and staying awake until 4 am. I often wore black t-shirts and sweatpants, projecting a slovenly image and demeanor. I ate whatever I pleased, avoided exercising, and generally shied away from physical activities. I even sported a shirt that mockingly read "SPORTS!" as an ironic statement.Before long, my unhealthy lifestyle began to take its toll. I gained over 60 pounds and developed a myriad of health issues, including high blood pressure, elevated triglycerides, high cholesterol, rosacea, and poor cardiac fitness. Simple tasks like climbing stairs left me sweating profusely, as I found myself in abysmal physical condition.My well-intentioned and caring doctors were quick to prescribe medications to address the various health issues resulting from my lifestyle. They prescribed fish oil for cholesterol management, Prednisone and Colchicine to combat gout, Valsartan to lower high blood pressure, and Fenofibrate to reduce elevated triglycerides.In no time, I found myself taking four pills daily. They appeared to be effective, at least initially, as my levels decreased. However, as I failed to make any lifestyle changes, my levels gradually began to rise again. Consequently, my dosages increased, putting me on an unsustainable and potentially harmful trajectory.Despite my poor health, life had its bright spots. I married an incredible woman who, I felt, was truly out of my league. Together, we had a son. I fulfilled my dreams of owning a lake house and a boat, and even drove a Tesla, allowing me to feel somewhat environmentally conscious amid my luxurious lifestyle. Additionally, I invested in companies that piqued my interest and became an active member of local boards that aligned with my passions.But suddenly, everything changed in February of 2022. My close friend Joe died of a heart attack due in part to alcohol abuse. Remarkably, throughout my 41 years of life, I had been fortunate enough to avoid experiencing the sudden loss of anyone close to me. Joe's passing deeply affected me, and I struggled to cope with the intense grief I encountered for the first time in my life.In July 2022, just a short while later, I faced the devastating loss of my best friend since age 2, Matt Hill, the founder of Liquidweb, who passed away at 41. Tragedy struck again merely 10 days later when my wife's cousin, a friend, and the officiant at our wedding, was fatally injured by a door in a bizarre accident. Despite my life appearing perfect by most standards, the overwhelming grief and confluence of these events plunged me into clinical depression. I would awaken feeling despondent and retire to bed with the same heavy sadness, struggling to find a sense of purpose.Rationally, I understood that my experiences paled in comparison to the hardships faced by others. This realization brought about feelings of guilt, making me question my right to feel depressed when I seemingly had it all. Yet, I found myself unable to break free from the grip of this profound sadness, even though logic told me it was unwarranted.My attempts to cope with the sadness proved unhelpful as well. Discussing my feelings with friends only seemed to dampen their spirits. Similarly, I unfairly burdened my wife with the expectation that she could miraculously heal my emotional pain. My frustration with her inability to do so put a strain on our marriage, and my demeanor became increasingly difficult to tolerate. I was truly insufferable to be around.I knew something had to change…“If every instinct you have is wrong, the opposite would have to be right.” Is a line Jerry Seinfeld says to George Costanza in the Seinfeld episode The Opposite.  I kept thinking of that quote. It was then that I revisited Admiral William H. McRaven's commencement speech, titled "Just Make Your Bed." In his address, he emphasizes the significance of waking up early and making your bed, as it provides an initial sense of accomplishment to start your day, setting off a chain reaction of positive transformations.“If you want to change the world, start by making your bed”. I decided this is where I would start!  Everyday I would wake up before 8am and make my bed.  This might seem like a small task, but for someone that was never a morning person, it was a challenge. This seemingly minor change of waking up early and making my bed had an unexpectedly profound impact on my life. It instilled in me a newfound confidence, nudged me towards an earlier bedtime, allowed me to enjoy breakfast with my 3-year-old, made me think twice about drinking alcohol the night before, and enhanced my productivity at work.It was a small change, but with a massive influence. Waking up early and making the bed was the antithesis of my behavior during depression. This got me thinking, what if I made more changes? Could they have an even greater impact? And so, I decided to embrace a "year of the opposite."My plan was simple: I would do the opposite of what I had done before. It didn't have to be radical, like speaking Spanish instead of English or biking instead of driving. It just had to challenge me and push me out of my comfort zone. For instance, since I never liked mustaches, I decided to grow one. And since I had never played golf, I decided to become a golfer. At the start of my Year of the Opposite, I didn't overwhelm myself with a long list of changes to make. Instead, I took it one challenge at a time. As I conquered each challenge, I gained more confidence and momentum.As my friends and family became aware of my Year of the Opposite, they started to offer their own suggestions for what I should tackle next. Before I knew it, the list of changes had grown longer and longer throughout the year.But because I was making the changes gradually and incrementally, the list didn't intimidate me. Instead, the longer the list grew the more confidence I gained to keep going, to keep pushing myself, and to keep discovering new things about myself along the way.In the following months, I made several significant changes: I quit drinking alcohol, stopped smoking weed, completed a half marathon, ran 7 miles barefooted, held my breath for 2 minutes and 45 seconds, ran a mile backward, briefly piloted an airplane, learned archery, swam about a mile across my lake, practiced shooting a pistol, won the Blazin Wing Challenge, and took a 9-minute cold plunge in a 35-degree lake, among other things.The transformation didn't occur instantaneously, but it certainly felt swift! Within two weeks, I experienced a daily surge of energy, as if I were on Adderall. Within a month, my depression had vanished. And within six months, all of my lifestyle-induced ailments were "cured." My high blood pressure, elevated triglycerides, rosacea, and high cholesterol were all resolved.In this newsletter, "The Year of the Opposite," I'll share the insights I gained and the outcomes I achieved. I'll discuss both the highs and the lows, as well as my blood work, test results, and the research and science behind what worked and what didn't.I want to be absolutely clear from the outset: none of my accomplishments over the past year were extraordinary or record-breaking. But that's precisely what makes them so remarkable! The changes I made are ones that anyone could implement if they desired to transform their life. If you're grappling with weight issues, sadness, anxiety, or depression, perhaps you could also adopt this approach and find it beneficial.Thank you so much for subscribing.  Next week I plan to share the results from my blood work, the changes in my cardiac fitness (VO2 Max), my weight change, and my blood pressure measurements.Uplift Weekly - Humans Are Awesome! Several years ago, I began sharing hard to find uplifting and positive stories on my Facebook page, summarizing them to the best of my ability. People seemed to really enjoy it. It's no secret that news outlets and social media often prioritize negative stories, as outrage tends to generate more clicks than happiness. Consequently, we find ourselves inundated with sensational, distressing stories from around the globe. This phenomenon not only contributes to societal polarization but also takes a toll on our mental well-being, as numerous studies have shown.With this newsletter, I hope to include a portion that I call "Uplift Weekly," I aim to counterbalance negativity by highlighting the remarkable achievements of humanity. I'll be focusing on technological advancements, scientific breakthroughs, and any news that instills a sense of hope and pride in our world and its people. Here's to hoping that the steady stream of human ingenuity provides ample content for our weekly dose of positivity! :)Without further ado, here is your Uplift Weekly* Scientists have made a breakthrough in creating a superconductor that works at room temperature, according to a recent publication in the journal Nature.* About 10-15% of our electricity on the electrical grid is lost just in the transmission of getting the energy to your house. When it comes to batteries, about 10-30% of the energy is lost. What if there were a type of material that electricity could flow through without any resistance and you didn't lose any of the power? That's what a SuperConductor is! Typically, superconductors only work at extremely low temperatures, which limits their practical applications. However, if a superconductor could work at room temperature, it could transform almost any technology that uses electric energy, from smartphones to maglev trains and even fusion power plants. The latest research, which still faces skepticism due to previous controversy around the scientists involved, could represent the first step towards this goal.* The Lives of Girls Around The World Are Getting Better. This article from Unicef highlights 6 amazing changes. * From 2012 to 2020, more girls completed secondary school - lower secondary school completion rose from 69% to 77% and upper secondary school completion rose from 49% to 59%.* The global adolescent birth rate has decreased from 51 to 42 births per 1,000 girls aged 15-19 since 2012.* New HIV infections among adolescent girls is down by 33% in a decade, but girls still account for most new infections among adolescents. * There are fewer child marriages. In the last 10 years the proportion of young women marriages has fallen from 23% to 19%. However, millions of girls still at risk of marrying young. * Female genital mutilation declined in the last decade, in the 31 countries where it is practiced it has decreased from 41% to 34%. Sadly it still affects the lives of millions of girls. Thank you for reading the first issue of The Year Of the Opposite Newsletter. Your support and encouragement mean a lot to me. If you're a paying subscriber, I'd be delighted to hear from you. Feel free to send me an email at travisstoliker@gmail.com or leave a comment below.If you found this newsletter valuable, please consider sharing it with someone who might enjoy it. Your help in spreading the word would be greatly appreciated. Get full access to Year Of The Opposite - Travis Stoliker's Substack at www.yearoftheopposite.com/subscribe

Discussion rolls on within the WordPress community regarding the removal of active install growth data from the WordPress.org plugin repository - but still no firm resolution is in sight. As we reported last week, WordPress co-founder Matt Mullenweg said that adding some form of stats for plugin developers is “doable”. We'll have to wait and see where the discussion goes from here. Meanwhile, The WP Minute's Eric Karkovack wrote about what plugin developers should realistically expect from the WordPress project and its leadership. It might be that the project simply isn't there to help developers make money. Instead, their focus is likely trained on providing us with a platform to build upon. How a developer monetizes their product is ultimately up to them. And Alex Denning of Ellipsis argues that WordPress.org is an ineffective place to distribute plugins. He provides some key data to back up this point. On the other side of the coin, Liquid Web's Matt Cromwell respectfully disagrees. Next up (listen to the podcast for more): Matt Cromwell discusses distributing plugins via WordPress.org Links You Shouldn't Miss Security is the focus of WordPress 6.0.3, which was released on October 17. Be sure to update your websites, as this release patches several vulnerabilities. If you'd like a rundown of the vulnerabilities involved in WordPress 6.0.3, Patchstack offers a full analysis. Users of the Shortcodes Ultimate plugin will also want to update to the latest version. Sarah Gooding of WP Tavern reports that a fix for an undisclosed security issue was recently added. Registration is now open for WordPress Accessibility Day. The 24-hour virtual event will take place from November 2-3 and will feature a bevy of presentations that aim to demystify the subject. From the Grab Bag Now it's time to take a look at some other interesting topics shared by our contributors. WordPress 6.1 Release Candidate 2 is now available for testing.Designer and software engineer Mike McAlister announced his new project, Ollie - an educational hub for WordPress creators.Development agency 10up has published a guide to Gutenberg Best Practices.Sarah Gooding provides details on the new Plugin Dependencies feature plugin that is available for testing. It's an effort to help developers specify plugin dependencies via WordPress core.Devin Walker introduces himself as the new General Manager of iThemes, and hints at some changes coming to the longtime WordPress development company.Jetpack Social has added a

Mike Rosenfeld of Web Connection joins Nestor to discuss the crash of Baltimore Positive website and aftermath

Kevin Ohashi from Review Signal and Ryan MacDonald from Liquid Web discuss the value of benchmarking and testing for hosting services.

#687 WP-Tonic This Week in WordPress & SaaS With Guest Michelle Frechette The Importance of Community in WordPress in 2022? With Special Guest Michelle Frechette Director of Community Engagement for StellarWP at Liquid Web In addition to her work at StellarWP, Michelle is the Podcast Barista at WPCoffeeTalk.com, cofounder of underrepresentedintech.com, creator of wpcareerpages.com, the president of the board for BigOrangeHeart.org, Director of Community Relations and contributor at PostStatus.com, author, business coach, and a frequent organizer and speaker at WordPress events. Michelle lives outside of Rochester, NY where she’s an avid nature photographer. You can learn more about Michelle at meet Michelle. online. https://twitter.com/michelleameshttps://www.linkedin.com/in/michellefrechetteames/https://www.facebook.com/michellemariefrechettehttps://www.instagram.com/michelleames/https://profiles.wordpress.org/michelleames/ #687 WP-Tonic This Week in WordPress & Startups Michelle Frechette Director of Community Engagement for StellarWP at Liquid Web This Weeks Main Questions #1 - Michelle how did you get into the crazy world of WordPress? #2 - Can you explain some of the key things you do connect to being the director of community engagement for StellarWP at Liquid Web? #3 - What do you see as some of the key challenges and opportunities that WordPress faces in the next 12 to 18 months connected to building up the community? #4 - Community seems to have become a semi buzzword in the world of SaaS and platforms like WordPress, would you agree with this statement, and what do you think "community in 2022" really means when it comes to WordPress and similar online platforms? #5 - In the world of semi post-COVID-19 people are speculating on how the real physical and the online worlds will work together and I feel you can clearly see this in the WordPress community what treads do you see building momentum connected to this question? #6 - What are some of the biggest mistakes you see people making on semi-regular basics connected to failing to build real community?

In this Nomad Futurist podcast, Jeff Uphues, CEO of DC BLOX shares his enthusiasm for serving locally and connecting globally with Phil and Nabeel. Over the last thirty years, Uphues has been involved with all facets of the communications industry from fiber to hosted applications to data centers and networks. All his experience in finance and in communications led him to where he is today, providing a network of data centers to previously underserved areas in the Southeastern US. Uphues speaks with obvious delight about his experience doing business in the South. He shares how a typical business meeting entails fifty minutes of talk about college football, food, and the weather, leading to a final ten minutes in which the nuts and bolts of the deal can finally be discussed. Uphues is passionate about bringing connectivity and functionality to smaller thriving cities. “When we look at markets, we really try to pick markets that are a million people or more in the greater metropolitan service area—cities like Greenville in South Carolina, and Huntsville in Alabama.” Uphues discusses how the pandemic has generated additional demand for data centers and how his firm has been able to serve in local markets providing services for local enterprises, government, hospital systems and banking as well as for national firms like Netflix. “It's all about serving locally and connecting globally on behalf of underserved communities…and when you're serving locally and using local contractors, it really means something.” Uphues weighs in on the importance of data centers. “Everything in communications, the communications infrastructure that is out there is all hosted…the cloud has four walls and it's called a data center.”  Uphues is optimistic about the future of the industry. He sees that with more broadband services being rolled out, there will be an ever-increasing need for interactive communication and for hosting applications close to where they will be consumed. His advice to young people getting started in the industry: “Well, number one, don't be afraid to make mistakes and get your hands dirty.” His parting words: “It all comes down to people. If you're willing to learn, willing to listen, and willing to embrace how customers are trying to solve problems, you'll have a long, beneficial and financially rewarding career.” Jeff Uphues has been leading DC BLOX as its CEO and board member since late 2016. DC BLOX is a leading provider of interconnected, multi-tenant, tier III data centers that deliver the infrastructure and connectivity essential to power today's digital business. He is responsible for the company's strategy and execution in supporting underserved growing markets in the Southeastern US.  Prior to DC BLOX, Jeff has a 25-year track record in the communications, cloud, and data center industries, having held numerous C-suite leadership positions across sales, marketing and operations for Liquid Web, Cbeyond, Bandwidth, ACSI Network Technologies and MCI. Jeff serves as an active board member in several technology firms. He is a graduate of the Harvard Business School (AMP), Rice University's Jones School of Business Executive Education Program in Finance and Accounting, and the University of Texas at Arlington. Jeff lives in Alpharetta, GA with his wife and two girls. When not working he is an active road cyclist or at a lacrosse field watching his youngest daughter play around the country.

“The only folks able to do a free plugin are ones that are supported by a big corporation...” — Matt Cromwell"They suck" might be one way to describe the state of WordPress admin notices as a whole, but that doesn't help us very much, does it? David Bisset is joined by Matt Cromwell, Jon Bossenger, Aurooba Ahmed, and several guests to discuss the current pain points and possible technical solutions. Why do developers overdo admin notices in the first place? Learn about WP Notify, how it approaches the problem, and how the WordPress community can help make this the core solution.Post Status Comments

On this week's episode of Backup Central's Restore it All, Mr. Backup himself becomes the guest, while Prasanna Malaiyandi takes over as host. W. Curtis Preston explains the backup configuration of the website behind the Restore it All podcast, and how bit rot caused him to have to restore part of it. We talk about bit rot, the 3-2-1 rule, off-site backups, backups stored in S3 and Google Drive, and what it's like to restore part of a MySQL database. Luckily, the folks at LiquidWeb were very helpful. Watch Curtis explain how practices what he preaches over at BackupCentral.com. If you want to watch the video version of this episode, it's here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=I3285etiYBs

Tips this week include: • 2022 and Beyond Livestream replay is available • Last chance on BlogAid Course Discounts • DIY SEO Quick Checks start this week • DIY SEO Workshops start on Jan 20th • The steps I'm taking to ensure I find right-fit clients • The changes in focus I'm making for tutorials and support • The 2022 Site Success Goals live session is this week for BB Hub members • A huge thank you to WP Tavern, Team Yoast, and Andrea Whitmer • The WP 5.9 RC1 is out and what I'll be doing with it • Why we're not ready to switch to Full Site Editing yet • LiquidWeb acquires LearnDash and who is heading it up • Eye-opening video marketing stats for 2022 • 2022 predictions for the underlying infrastructure of Web 3.0 you'll want to know about

Tips this week include: • BlogAid Holiday Deals are here with big discounts on all courses • Update on the Ecomm Coalition and our new meeting space • Update on what's happening with the WP Performance team • Update on Code Name Ida and the fantastic progress we're making • Update with the ongoing UpdraftPlus issues and a possible fix • Issues with Web Stories and Caching and a possible fix • Why the WordPress 5.9 release has been delayed and when we can expect it • LiquidWeb acquired Modern Tribe and what all these buyouts mean for our future • The new Full Site Editing theme.json file explained • A new block based theme builder plugin • Kadence releases the Conversions plugin for building your own optins and pop ups

This week's WordPress news for the week commencing Monday 15th November 2021

In today's episode, we get to listen again to Joe's chat with Chris Lema, Liquid Web's Vice President of Products and General Manager at LearnDash. He is a well-known blogger and public speaker, and leads the product teams to develop and launch Managed WordPress and Managed WooCommerce product lines.   Chris enthusiastically talks about the concept behind BeachPress and CaboPress, and what can potentially happen in these meetings. He also tackled the growth of e-commerce, how WooCommerce as an open platform creates more opportunities for a lot of businesses, and providing customers hassle-free access to plugin updates on their sites.   Episode Resources: Chris Lema is on Twitter and YouTube Leaders Blog Liquid Web Leave an Apple podcast review or binge-watch past episodes Visit the WPMRR Community   What to Listen For: 00:00 Intro 01:48 What is BeachPress? 05:06 Be in a conversation with people in your circle 07:21 The CaboPress 12:31 Bringing SaaS people to CaboPress 14:47 SaaS platforms that do e-commerce 19:49 Looking at period over period growth 22:45 Partnership with Glue 27:01 The building blocks of a great storytelling 33:16 Fun stuff and new pricing at Liquid Web 35:18 Having e-commerce played out on open platforms 38:33 The ability to update plugins automatically 39:55 Find Chris online

This episode is sponsored by Ninja Forms About Hazel Quimpo: Hazel is the Head of Marketing for StellarWP, Liquid Web’s umbrella for all things WordPress. She’s worn many hats in her days, from catering to events to marketing to writing and beyond. Working with marketing in the world of WordPress has allowed her to embrace […]

"Remember to put people before software and community before code."In this episode of Post Status Excerpt, David and Cory recover from an overwhelming week of acquisition news in the WordPress space. Four well-known WordPress companies announced acquisitions almost back-to-back. Next, Cory notes Michelle Frechette's article on Post Status about the challenging and difficult choices some employees of newly acquired companies may have to make.Also covered in this episode: David shares what has (and hasn't) changed in the WordPress space in terms of business and opportunities. Then he considers the possible ways developers can look at acquisitions as a whole.Browse past episodes from all our podcasts, and don't forget to subscribe to them on your favorite players. Post Status' Draft, Comments, and Excerpt podcasts are on Spotify, Amazon Music, Google Podcasts, iTunes, Castro, YouTube, Stitcher, Player.fm, Pocket Casts, and Simplecast. (RSS)

It's the WP Minute! This is Kathy Zant and I'm filling in for Matt. This episode is brought to you by Easy Support Videos. Support your WordPress users by embedding videos and screencasts right inside the WordPress admin. Learn more at EasySupportVideos.com! You know the drill, everything I mention here will be linked up in the newsletter and the blog post. Check out thewpminute.com for the links. News time! If you thought the WordPress acquisition train was safely tucked away at the station, think again, it's full-steam ahead! Breaking news announced earlier this morning, AwesomeMotive has acquired one of the — if not the most — highly regarded brands in WordPress: SandHills Development, widely known for Easy Digital Downloads. Pippin Williamson penned an excellent summary of the events sharing what led him to the decision. Every business owner knows (or will eventually learn) that there are three possible fates for their business:1. It will one day be passed on to someone else, perhaps through family inheritance2. It will slowly or rapidly decline and at some point be shut down entirely3. It will be sold to a new owner for one reason or another. If you're a business owner, his post is absolutely worth the time. Liquid Web announces another top-tier brand is being added to their stack, one of the most popular LMS plugins for WordPress: LearnDash. LearnDash will join the Liquid Web Family under the StellarWP brand, which is the umbrella for our premium WordPress software solutions and includes well-known and respected WordPress leaders such as iThemes, The Events Calendar, GiveWP, Restrict Content Pro, Iconic, and Kadence WP.” You can learn more about how the acquisition went down in our interview with Justin Ferriman and Chris Lema. Highlights include: How long the process tookWhat you should do if you want to get acquiredSpeculation on WooCommerce and the ecommerce space Speaking of WooCommerce, they've announced the acquisition of extension maker SomewhereWarm who currently has seven products available in the marketplace. “This is a huge opportunity for us to help shape the future of WooCommerce, having a clearer view of the path ahead, more resources than ever before, and the support of like-minded people.” DeliciousBrains did a stealth acquisition of the ACF Blocks plugin, picking it up from the folks at Extendify. Extendify acquired EditorsKit earlier this year and the Redux framework last year. The fantasy league of WordPress We're thinking about starting a fantasy league of WordPress business & All-Star communi

About this episode. So on the podcast today we have Cory Miller. Cory is likely well known to many of you, he's been a big part of the WordPress community for many years. He founded, grew and sold iThemes and is now the owner of Post Status, which is a community dedicated to informing WordPress professionals and enthusiasts about the industry. So the topic of the podcast today is the WordPress Mergers and Acquisitions Landscape, and it's the perfect subject for Cory. He's been on both sides of the equation having sold iThemes to Liquid Web in 2018 and then buying Post Status earlier in 2021. When we talk about Mergers and Acquisitions in WordPress, it really seems to polarise opinions. Companies are being bought and sold on an almost weekly basis at present. There are those who worry that we're at a point where larger companies have bought, and continue to buy up, smaller businesses. They see this as a cause for concern; a concern that we're in danger of straying into a future where a few big brands own ‘all-the-things'. On the other hand there are people who see this as a sign of the maturation of the WordPress ecosystem. It's a consequence of the success of the WordPress economy that smaller teams have a pathway to profitability, one in which the possibility of being acquired is an attractive option. There's a great deal to discuss here, some of it unexpected, and I'm sure that you'll have your own opinions. We try to tackle the subject by going through a list of the ‘good' and the ‘bad' of WordPress Mergers and Acquisitions. We don't attempt to cover every single angle, but we do try to look at it from both sides. It's great to get Cory's take on the topic.

Adam Williams is the Chief Revenue Officer of Liquid Web and Nexcess. Liquid Web is a hosting company totally devoted to web and cloud professionals, providing managed hosting products and services to over 45,000+ customers, spanning 150 countries. At Liquid Web, it has always been about people. It has always been personal. They are growing – fast. As Liquid Web's Chief Revenue Officer, Adam oversees revenue operations for the Liquid Web and Nexcess brands. He joined the team in 2020. Prior to his current position, Adam worked at Rackspace, a managed cloud company specializing in managing apps, data, security, and multiple clouds. Having worked his way up to Vice President & Strategic Alliance Executive, he previously served as a Senior Director of Sales & Marketing and as the Director of Strategic Partnerships, having spent over 11 years at the company. Prior, he served as the Founder & leader of 440Web.com, designing and hosting simple yet effective websites for small businesses.

It’s been an action-packed couple of weeks in the WordPress space! Just this week, 2 more acquisitions were announced. One from Delicious Brains, and one from Liquid Web. We’ll get into all the news, as well as answer the big question: what do all of these acquisitions mean for the WordPress ecosystem? (more…)

Liquid Web continues to expand it's nexus of acquisitions with it's latest grab of GiveWP. From GiveWP's own blog post: The future of GiveWP remains a top priority.Every team member is critical to our success.Leadership of the team and product are staying the same. You can check out our own interview with the GiveWP's leadership team, Devin Walker and Matt Cromwell at thewpminute.com and friend of the show Joe Casabona featured a chat on the How I Built it podcast. Can't get enough audio/video? How about over 2+ hours on the future of WordPress?! The WP Cafe podcast sat down with Josepha Haden Chomphosy & Matt Mullenweg to highlight the project's future as of May 10th 2021. As you'd imagine most things point to Gutenberg, Full-site editing, but one particular discussion I thought was interesting was the term Universal Themes. Give this show a listen to learn more about that or attention a scheduled Universal Themes Hallway hangout on Friday May 14th at 14UTC WP Builds hosted a discussion as part of their Page Builder Summit event with 3 employees from Automattic titled “Preparing for the future of WordPress” This time a much more technical and tactical illustration of the project. Tune in to listen to Marjorie Asturias Director of Growth R&D, Anne McCarthy Developer Relations Wrangler, and Donna Cavalier a Technical Content Writer. With the future comes the…past? Tonya Mork and Andrew Ozz collaborated on a plugin that halts the block-based widget functionality for those of us needing to opt-out of that potentially critical component of a WordPress site. The plugin notes that support will carry through 2022. WordPress Tavern reports that Jetpack has made more features available without connecting to WordPress.com. But not to be outdone by it's own updates, learn why the .com connection is important over at Jetpack.com. It also serves as a great resource for the features you can use without the connection. From the grab bag! Freemius has taken their massive library of WordPress business content and compressed it all into a nice cheat sheet for you.And I launched version 2.0 of my plugin, Easy Support Videos, make supporting WordPress clients fun using video inside the WordPress admin. ★ Support this podcast ★

GiveWP, makers of the extremely popular WordPress donation plugin has been acquired by Liquid Web. I got to interview the founders and co-authors, Matt Cromwell and Devin Walker. We cover questions like how the acquisition came about, what this means for current customers and nonprofits, plans for the future, and even some sage advice regarding the acquisition process. (more…)

I had the chance to sit down with Devon Walker and Matt Cromwell of GiveWP to talk about their sale to Liquid Web. GiveWP has been the dominant WordPress donation plugin over the last few years. This move makes sense for Liquid Web as they continue to round out a complete managed WordPress solution for their customers. Liquid Web acquisitions have been on a steady increase lately, with their most recent large acquisition of the Events Calendar plugin. I hope you enjoy today's episode with Devon and Matt. Transcript Liquidweb acquires GiveWP [00:00:00] Matt Medeiros: [00:00:00] We were just chatting before we hit record. Devon, you were mentioning that things were getting wrapped up started to get almost wrapped up last week. [00:00:06] I'm sure this has been a process. When did this start? What does the timeline look like for some kind of acquisition this size?  [00:00:15]Devin Walker: [00:00:15] We've known Chris Lema for a while now. I've known him probably 10 years almost.  Around November of last year, I received an email from him that said, Hey, would you be interested in talking about how potentially we could work together, more liquid web? And what does this look like? And throughout the rest of 2020, we kind of went back and forth , “Hey, what does this look like?” [00:00:36] What it, what does it potentially mean for you? What does it mean for us? And then come the new year we landed on. Okay. Potential acquisition could be in the cards. And then a lot more negotiation around that into the LOI phase. And eventually we settled on something that made sense for the both of us  our company and liquid web, but our entire team. [00:00:59] And [00:01:00] then once we went through that, we got into more of the due diligence process, which was a very interesting and. A good learning process for everybody involved and then eventually closed on April 30th of last month.  [00:01:12]Matt Medeiros: [00:01:12] Same brand new parent company, more resources to the customers. [00:01:17] As people listen to this today, not much is going to change. Matt, Devin turns to you and says, “Hey, we're thinking about getting acquired by liquid web from a CEO's perspective, where do you start going to dot the I's cross? [00:01:27] The T's? What was that whole process like as somebody who kind of sees every oversees, everything?” [00:01:32]Matt Cromwell: [00:01:32] Don't mess with my tools. I got stuff going here. The biggest thing Devin and I always have been on the lookout for is more resources. The ability to, to inject more energy into the stuff that we're doing. [00:01:43]One of the most important resources we have all the time as our team. So that was definitely my very first thing is do they want the whole team? And the immediate question answer to that was, yeah. They understand. And they see that the team makes the product.  [00:01:57]Most folks, I think listening here know what it's [00:02:00] like to, to run their companies on their own and bootstrapping all their resources as best as they can. And it, stretches everybody thin, but we're always trying to look for the best way to support our people. [00:02:11] And I do feel like this is a win-win across the board for all of our team members. [00:02:16] Matt Medeiros: [00:02:16] Devin when you first start to have these conversations with Chris and you say, Hey, it's great to add more resources, but man, this is my baby. I mean, you and I, you were a guest co-host of the Matt Report for a little while years ago, when you started giving WP, we've obviously met up at word camps and certain sort of senior journey highlighted your journey. [00:02:35]How do you start putting up the mental guardrails to say. Okay. This is, this is for the greater good of everyone. [00:02:41] I'm sort of giving this up. This, this passion, this dream, how do you do that?  [00:02:47] Devin Walker: [00:02:47] Yeah. Well, one, one major thing was they want the leadership to come along with the product. And so. Matt and myself, Matt C CommonWell here, and me are not going anywhere. We are still fully in charge [00:03:00] of the destiny of our product, and of course we'll have lots of good advice and good, good mentoring that now we don't have to pay for  [00:03:08] Matt Medeiros: [00:03:08] using Chris's clarity line. [00:03:10] Devin Walker: [00:03:10] That was, that was painful to pay that bill every month. But no, we, we Yeah, you're right. Like my ownership and mats ownership. We, we no longer have that any more, but we have great incentives in place to meet certain goals that they've set and we've sat and and a lot more resources to do that. [00:03:28] So, while w it was sad to see kind of my ownership go away in the product. It was, at least gratifying to know. We're we still have. The ability to pull the levers that we've always  [00:03:39] Matt Cromwell: [00:03:39] had. Yeah. It's a really good question though, because I feel like folks who build things that grow and scale and get larger. [00:03:50] At some point you do start to recognize that this actually is. Larger than me. And one thing that, I already mentioned, one thing we're super proud of is our [00:04:00] team. We start to recognize that our team really is the people that have built this over time. And, and no product that has this much success is, is, is just on the back of one person anymore. [00:04:11] So, But the ability to just say, okay, I'll just do this different with our business. We don't have that ability anymore, but give in itself really gets to continue and and go strong and probably stronger than we could have done it on her own. So, yeah.  [00:04:26]Matt Medeiros: [00:04:26] We've the three of us have chatted personally about the business and some of the clients you've had, I won't say the names here, but I'm sure they're on your website and you can feel free to say some of your notable clients, active WP, but you have some. [00:04:37] Really notable clients, some really big brands use your product and something like this, like you said, this is, this is bigger than us. There's no longer can we just play with some of these not plays, not also, not a great word to use, but we can't just focus on, on, maybe even doing things the WordPress way anymore. [00:04:55] Maybe we have to broaden our horizons, open up the different technologies and in [00:05:00] a place like liquid web is going to have. Some real broad reaching technologies. Cause they don't just do WordPress. They do all kinds of things. So, yeah. You start to really sit back and look at this and say, yeah, if we're going to turn this into a air quotes, serious business, we need some serious support, whether that's other minds of the brains pumping into this machine or dollars, right. [00:05:21] To help support and grow this infrastructure. No real question there, but just sort of phrasing that. I don't know if you have any  [00:05:28] Matt Cromwell: [00:05:28] thoughts around that. I mean, for sure, like in many ways A struggle that a lot of WordPress folks, WordPress products have is that we are, we get inserted into a giant stack that you don't have control over. [00:05:41] And anybody who's been watching liquid web for a while knows that they're really attack. They're really tackling, managed, hosting in a serious way. And honestly, that's something that. That we are really excited to keep talking about and see if there's a way that we can make sure that there's a kind of managed nonprofit stack that we could be talking about. [00:05:59]Th [00:06:00] that give isn't just one of the plugins, but it's basically the engine behind the whole entire stack, and it's a lot more predictable. It's a lot more manageable that would ease the pain of a lot of. Folks, a lot of our customers that we've had over the years. And that is the kind of thing that's really hard to accomplish just on your own. [00:06:18] That liquid web really is primed to already do. .  [00:06:21]Matt Medeiros: [00:06:21] Everything sounds great. So far but Devin, from a product builders perspective, what have been the big challenges for you over the last couple of years to even entertain something like this and say, you know what? [00:06:32] Yeah, I do want to have that, that conversation as something in the market, something in the WordPress market. Anything in, in technology or, or donations at large that are, that make this a challenging space, if any,  [00:06:45]Devin Walker: [00:06:45] One of the challenges that we've been trying to overcome is providing a solution for those folks outside of the WordPress space and trying to learn about SAS and, and what our market fit is there. [00:06:59] And really bringing a [00:07:00] solution that doesn't compete with, give it up a, but compliments it. And and we think we know what the answer is now with the help of liquid web. Now we really feel strongly that we could provide a real good solution in that space. It's going to be something that we're not used to, but having people on our side that have done it before and done it successfully will definitely help us. [00:07:20]Get over there the Hill on that one, I'd say that was probably one of the main challenges, but also, growing and scaling the development team and recruiting and all these things yet at the point where we hit around 25 total team members Matt, Matt was going crazy playing the HR game. [00:07:39] And we had to do everything under the sun as partners to keep things rolling. And it's really hard at that point to continue growing when you're bootstrapped.  [00:07:47]Matt Medeiros: [00:07:47] As soon as you add somebody else, it's scaling that. Very difficult to find out why. I think a lot of people just overlook because they don't know, they don't know, like they just get over the hump of I finally optimize my Google ads. I've just got [00:08:00] a marketing machine running and now I have to manage people and figure out pods and stuff like that. [00:08:05] Pods, like in, from a human resources perspective, very challenging. Speaking of the team, how did you present it to the team and what was their reaction?  [00:08:13] Devin Walker: [00:08:13] Yeah. So I'll answer the first part. Matt, you can kind of jump in after. So we, we thought a lot about this because we have a lot of team members. [00:08:21] We don't want to rub them the wrong way. If we told them at the very last minute, some companies you show up. One morning and they said, Hey, we've been acquired, sign your new employment paper right now. It's, they don't give you any chance. But we have a couple of key leaders on our team. [00:08:34] Our head of support had a customer success, lead developer. We pulled them in and told them weeks in advance and made sure they were in the know plan accordingly with the team members. And then we let the team know the same week, a couple of days before the entire team, explain our reasoning there. [00:08:51] And. Yeah, I think it went over really well.  [00:08:53] Matt Cromwell: [00:08:53] Yeah, for sure. I mean, anybody who's employed and either as an employee or as a [00:09:00] contractor at their employment is, is important to them. And learning that essentially. Well, I mean, literally what happens for the folks who don't know is that you, you let all of these people go and they get hired by the other company. [00:09:13] And that is a jarring experience, no matter who you are. And so being able to talk to that and be really upfront about it, that LiquidWeb has guaranteed that every single one of you are coming on board, whether you're an employee or a contractor or not, that was really important to us. But it's still something that they have to wrestle with. [00:09:29] So it was really. Good and fortunate that we were able to basically give the news on a Friday essentially. And give them time to, to, to, to at least think about it just a little bit. I think they appreciated that some of them didn't realize that like when Devin said that. That it literally could, like some folks really do give you like an hour to make sure decisions. [00:09:48]And we're giving them a whole weekend. It doesn't sound like a lot, but it, it, it does make a big difference. So, I mean, the contractor experience is different than the employee experience. Everyone had their own [00:10:00] concerns, but the best thing was essentially that, that I really. Worked hard to bring the HR team from like web into the picture and for them to get to know them and to really work with them directly. [00:10:12]Misty in particular was just awesome, really helping out a ton. Once they saw the effort that we were all going to, to really. Kind of help them in the transition. It really, really ease things up quite a lot. So, by and large, I think 92, 93% of everybody was, was basically like, yeah, I'll sign that. [00:10:30] No problem. There's others that had questions and concerns. But we were really happy in the end that we got them all addressed and all onboarded.   [00:10:37]Matt Medeiros: [00:10:37] Who do you turn to in these moments? I know Chris is such a, a mentor for a lot of WordPress companies. [00:10:44] Your mentor is essentially buying you, which mentor  did you turn to to say we're making the right decision here.  [00:10:48]Devin Walker: [00:10:48] So we have a long-term mentor that has been with us for many years, that we we consulted with quite a bit on this, but also our, our attorney for a long time as well helped us start the [00:11:00] business years and years ago, then using a member since, and those two have really helped quite a bit, get the deal done, evaluate the deal, figure out if it was a good thing, work  [00:11:09] Matt Cromwell: [00:11:09] through it. [00:11:09] [00:11:09] Matt Medeiros: [00:11:09] I heard some folks in some other podcasts say that their attorneys have felt like they've become their best friends. I'm like, yeah. Well, if I was paying my best friends, tens of thousands of dollars, maybe pick up the phone every time I call too. [00:11:19]Final question here, payments or, or the donations In WordPress, where do you think it's going? As there's so much competition, I feel, and I'll throw out everyone's favorite,  jet pack, woo commerce automatic owned entities, I feel like there's always just a new payment thing coming out, whether it's for donations or for simple, I'm throwing my air quotes against simple. [00:11:39] E-commerce where do you think this is all going in terms of making it easier for the customer? Are we just going to see. Easier integrations into PayPal. Stripe is, is web. We're going to launch their own sort of one click checkout thing. Like this world is so crazy moving so fast. Where do you see this all going for the [00:12:00] end user? [00:12:00]Devin Walker: [00:12:00] With the pandemic hitting last year, it's never been more important to be online, whether you're doing e-commerce fundraising membership sites. E-learning what have you. So people are going to build around that and simplify it and try to get more of that market. So you're going to see major players like automatic, bring more of that into whether it's Jetpack or a new product or acquire stuff. [00:12:21] You're going to see large families of brands like liquid web. Continue to invest into products like us so we can continue innovating and growing our already substantial market share. But then I wouldn't be surprised to see a lot of the new products coming out and I'm trying to capture some more of that. [00:12:37] So, Stripe and PayPal lead the way Stripe being, every developer's favorite. And then I would see a lot more popularity with that. A lot more solutions come out for that.  [00:12:47]Matt Cromwell: [00:12:47] In general, like a lot of folks, we really are imagining that there we're going to have a one button solution for, for payments in general. [00:12:53] I don't know if they always think about what it takes to make that happen and what it takes is sharing a lot of private data in order [00:13:00] for that to happen. And so at the same time that we want things to be a one button thing. Everybody also has a lot of privacy concerns right now, too. So how do you have your cake and eat it too? [00:13:09] Well, just making a really streamlined, simple form because. If you enter in the information yourself, then you know, that it's that it's information that you provided and not just gleaned from your phone or gleaned from your account or anything like that, like that. So being able to continue to do the best forms possible is really right now in the immediate, I think still the most optimal path that, that everybody's going to still continue to need. [00:13:33]The day when we all just can show our phone and just be like, here, I'll give you money. Is the day when honestly there's sources that have all of our private information about everything we're doing. So, it's a mixed bag. It's a careful balance trying to try to have our cake and eat it too in that  [00:13:47] Matt Medeiros: [00:13:47] scenario. [00:13:48]At least try to take some of that cake back from Apple, Google. Facebook and all these other places that have our information in our payment sources, Devin Walker, Matt Cromwell… Well, give wp.com. We can still go to give [00:14:00] wp.com. Right.  [00:14:03] Matt Cromwell: [00:14:03] Please do  [00:14:04] Matt Medeiros: [00:14:04] forwarding to liquid web signup page gentlemen, thanks for taking the time to hang out. [00:14:09] Tell us all about your wonderful news being acquired by liquid web. Congratulations. It's been a long time coming to see the success of you guys and your team. Is, is quite phenomenal. And I'm happy for you guys anywhere else that folks can go to say, thanks.  [00:14:23]Devin Walker: [00:14:23] Well, we have a town hall coming up on Tuesday, May 18th. [00:14:26] At what time again, Matt 11:00 AM Pacific time. So if you want to join us, ask us any questions. It'll be a great format. Come on over.  [00:14:35]Matt Medeiros: [00:14:35] Thanks for listening to everybody. The WP minute.com. Sign up for the newsletter and the podcast. See in the next episode.  ★ Support this podcast ★

Over the last few years, I think one of the most important lessons we've learned is that our community can go beyond WordPress. From the tools and the code, to the neighboring software's we use to get the job done. Whatever that “job” is for you. It could be publishing a simple blog or helping a university with a multi-site solution for an intranet — WordPress is powerful, but the solution can be expansive. Our stack is moving well beyond plugins, and that's a good thing. One person leading the charge to expand our knowledge in this space is Christie Chirinos, former product manager at LiquidWeb and now host and creator of the Open Source Economist podcast. If you're selling an open source product (or any product for that matter), Christie is someone you want on your team. I'm excited to learn more about the open source space through her new podcast. Okay, don't forget to subscribe at MattReport.com/subscribe, let's get into the show! ★ Support this podcast ★

We discuss the acquisition of Restrict Content Pro by iThemes, the ecosystems being built by WP Engine, GoDaddy, and Liquid Web, and our sense that no one is doing it well - yet.

Customers don't want to be sold to. However, they do want to hear from business owners who can offer solutions to their problems. So how can you craft your marketing and sales messages in a way that resonates with your prospective clients and gets them to take action? Through storytelling! I'm joined by Chris Lema, leader, speaker, and Vice President of Products and Innovation at Liquid Web. Chris is a master storyteller with a story for every scenario. He shares a few of his powerful storytelling techniques in this episode.   Contact Information: Twitter: https://twitter.com/chrislema www.chrislema.com  Chris's Leadership Blog A huge thank you goes to our show sponsor: Abby Connect, the live receptionist service loved by small businesses.  Get your 2-week free trial and $95 off your first month at http://abbyconnect.com/genwhy Thanks for Listening! If you enjoyed this episode, please share it with a friend who could benefit from listening to this particular episode. I appreciate it! If you haven't already, please don't forget to subscribe to the GYL Podcast in Apple Podcasts, Stitcher Radio, or Spotify. That way, every time I prepare a new episode for you, it'll automatically show up in your phone.

Friend of the show Cory Miller returns after recently joining us last season, to talk about starting again.  I've always enjoyed Cory's outlook on life and business so hearing how he's approaching the new journey just a short year after joining Liquid Web was a reminder that you should never let go of the fundamentals. Jobs, careers, products — they're just chapters in our lives. Often times, you can feel overwhelmed that your business or your career defines you as a person inside and out. While that's fine when things are skyrocketing to new heights, it's a critical challenge for those not blessed with such luck. I'm excited to see what Cory does next and he's looking for a little help along the way. Head over to his website and drop him a line or two about what you think he should pursue. Have a killer idea and looking for a partner? Maybe Cory is your guy. Enjoy today's episode. Listen now Matt Report - A WordPress podcast for digital business owners Starting again; Founder of iThemes Cory Miller on leaving Liquid Web Play Episode Pause Episode Mute/Unmute Episode Rewind 10 Seconds 1x Fast Forward 30 seconds 00:00 / 00:44:41 Subscribe Share RSS Feed Share Link Embed Download file | Play in new window | Duration: 00:44:41 ★ Support this podcast ★

In this episode, Matt Medeiros interviews  Cory Miller from iThemes and jokes with him as being his most interviewed guest on the Matt Report. The big news for 2018 is that Cory's business (IThemes) was recently purchased by Liquidweb. Matt and Cory talk about the climate around WordPress, how they are working for different hosting companies, and what the future holds for Cory and his team with Liquidweb. Cory remains the general manager for iThemes, a business that he created over ten years ago with  WordPress themes, Backup Buddy, iThemes security and iTheme sync.   Listen to this episode: Matt Report - A WordPress podcast for digital business owners What does it feel like to sell your decade-old business? Cory Miller explains. Play Episode Pause Episode Mute/Unmute Episode Rewind 10 Seconds 1x Fast Forward 30 seconds 00:00 / 00:44:28 Subscribe Share RSS Feed Share Link Embed Download file | Play in new window | Duration: 00:44:28 What you will learn from this Episode: Profitable Plugin Businesses: Cory talks about how plugin businesses are viewed as good investments for hosting companies. (4:13) It makes sense for hosting companies to look at the plugin and backup businesses for expansion beyond hosting. (4:51) Hosting companies have the power and money for current WordPress onboarding. (6:23) iThemes built a passionate customer community centered around the brand which Liquidweb can benefit from. (7:37) Cory built a compelling company that customers would miss if the company was not around anymore. (8:15) WordPress and Hosting: The trend right now with hosting companies competing in this environment is they are purchasing plugin businesses. (9:29) Many developers became WordPress entrepreneurs and quickly built a business. (10:34) Merging with Liquidweb allowed the team to have a home. (20:05) Selling a business can impact your identity.  The sale of a business can allow it continue to grow and be valuable for everyone. (22:43) WordPress is changing and the plugin space may be challenging in the future. (24:54) The WordPress story continues to be written. You need to be adapting, adjusting and growing personally. (36:08) It is great to learn with a new team and can be eye-opening to serve a new customer. (38:00) If the technology changes the WordPress community will not. There are special people all over the WordPress world. (40:48) Advice on Self-Promotion: Cory built his business by being transparent, vulnerable and honest with who he is. (11:32) Use everything at your disposal to be who you are. (12:38) Listen to other people and your customers. It can lead you to purposeful profit where you can help other people with making their dreams come true. (13:20) The slow road to success builds great relationships with people. (14:54) Bitterness, jealousy or envy can consume you early and distract you from your business. Take time to build your quality business. (15:37) There is value in knowing who you are.  (17:04) Owning your own business is woven into the fabric of your life.  (17:47) Fear and uncertainty can impact business decisions but you need to recognize the bigger vision and future. (18:30) A failure is an investment in learning and growth. (the product Exchange)(27:49) Episode Resources: LiquidWeb iThemes Pagely Cory Miller's blog To Stay in Touch with Cory: Cory Miller's blog Cory on Twitter To stay connected with the Matt Report, head on over to mattreport.com/subscribe. If you like the show, please leave a 5 Star review over on the Matt Report on iTunes. Be sure to check out Matt's new offering at UserFeedbackVideos.com. It is like having a co-founder for $59.00.   ★ Support this podcast ★

AJ Morris, Product Manager at Liquid Web, shares the lessons he learned from running his own boutique agency before joining the web hosting company. There's a lot of little lessons threaded throughout our conversation, but there's one stand out point, every WordPress business owner should be thinking about. Interview with AJ Morris of Liquid web Matt Report - A WordPress podcast for digital business owners S4 E6: AJ Morris on small agency ownership Play Episode Pause Episode Mute/Unmute Episode Rewind 10 Seconds 1x Fast Forward 30 seconds 00:00 / Subscribe Share RSS Feed Share Link Embed Download file | Play in new window Know your limits Limits in terms of customers you want to serve, and customers you can serve. I run into a lot of freelancers, or boutique agency owners, that don't have a clear understanding of their own limits. Here's an example, a local colleague reached out and asked me if I knew of anyone that “did Visual Basic coding.” I don't. He explained that it was how they managed their website internally, and they needed to make changes. Some convoluted system that someone built in-house, which hasn't been touched in years, now needs repairs. The original creator? Not there anymore. I briefly explained that it's time to sell them on moving off of that platform, for obvious reasons. He said just wanted to get it fixed for them and move on, by either trying to get someone on his team to figure it out or hire someone. If the problems aren't obvious by now, I'll highlight a few scenarios: He's about to make promises, and get paid on them, of which he doesn't have the slightest clue on how to deliver or support. If he doesn't explain a better, more open, solution for the customer, he's doing them a long-term disservice. If you find yourself in this situation, I highly suggest that you know your limit, and don't take a project like this. At the very least, don't try and put your brand in front of it, and represent the work being done. Be transparent with your customer, and advise them that you're probably not the best fit for this job. Focus on your core competencies, and be great at them. I hope you enjoy today's episode with AJ Morris, and always, thank our sponsors, Pagely & Valet!   ★ Support this podcast ★

The month of December means different things to different people. So, in this session of The DancePreneuring Studio, I give this festive month a different focus that can easily apply to any month of the year. These segments are brought to you in part by Liquid Web. This is what I use to host my… The post http://annettbone.com/047-december-alternative-podcast/ (#047: The December Alternative [Podcast]) appeared first on http://annettbone.com (Annett Bone).