This article is partly a review of 2020 and also an explanation of what has happened to Mount Gambier Website Design and the rise of KISS WP Websites.
It's difficult to split up from yourself in your own company, when you're the only person in it. That is what I've done with myself.
Last night I was doing a review of 2020.
It really has felt like a regeneration, if you'll allow the Doctor Who geek in me time to come out.
It started back in February 2020, which seems like such a long time ago now. Kylie Martin of Kylie Martin creative and myself presented a workshop on branding using Keep It Simple Sweetheart methods. It was about branding and WordPress websites at the Thriving Women's conference 2020.
I'd wanted Kylie to do the presentation, at least that was the initial idea. She said she would do it if I did it with her, so we would both do it. We both bring different aspects of an effective website together in a workshop.
As nervous as we both were it was an amazing experience. I have never co-presented with anybody before. We received a lot of really good feedback and we helped a lot of business women in the room that day.
We stayed on in that room for the next workshop. It was Five Ways to Think About the Future by Dr Krstin Alford of the Museum of Discovery. During her presentation she mentioned this preposterous dream of how to generate possibility.
I'm one of those people that if I create a big hairy audacious goal, it'll scare the hell out of me. I won't want to do it, even if I created it. I will become overwhelmed to the point of paralysis. I will procrastinate by doing every other mindless job, I can find to do in my business other than actually working towards that goal.
Dr Alford was suggesting creating such a preposterous dream that you knew it was silly, you knew that it could never in a million zillion years ever, ever come true. Then you could work out how to do it. This is my interpretation of what she said - what I heard so I apologise if that's not what she actually said or meant.
It's not scary because you come at it from a different point of view. Even when we dream big we're usually starting from what's probable. This is starting from what's preposterous, something really, really silly, and working out how could we actually do this. Someone suggested that we couldn't grow mangoes nearby and that started a discussion. We started planning how to could be done, what would be needed. We put aside whether or not is would be profitable, just thought about what would be needed.
At some stage around that time of the year I think I decided that enough was enough. I wasn't happy in some areas of my life and they needed to change. This was while the C word (COVID) was still thought of as a mild flu going around a few countries.
I took the title of this article from the lyrics of My Generation by The Who. Yes, I've paraphrased their song title.
Townsend was asked about why they wrote it. He reportedly told Rolling Stone magazine in 1985, that it was about trying to find a place in society.
I think 2020 for me was trying to find my place in my own business, in my own world.
My next big thing in 2020, which may sound incredibly strange to some of you was buying myself a new to me car. I love classic Mercedes, and I can't afford the expensive ones, not yet anyway. My old Mercedes, which I call Smoky is a 1985 Mercedes 230E. It has a number of eccentricities about it, which others may call faults. I am originally British, or at least half British, and the British love eccentric cars. It's a very weird British trait.
In Smoky every so often the heating would turn itself on at full blast, no matter what time of the year. I could be driving along in 30 degree heat, by the way the air con didn't work, when the heating would decide to burn my legs. I never wore a dress or skirt in that car, just in case the heating came on.
Enough was enough.
In March 2020, while looking online I saw a red Mercedes coupe. I love red cars. Henry Ford said that people could have any car as long as it was black. For me I can love any car as long as it's red. I haven't had a red car since I've moved to Australia and I feel in love with this two door coupe Mercedes.
Long story, shortish, I had the car tested, drove with my husband 440 kms to Adelaide, bought the car and drove it back home. I love this car. It's called Ruby for two reasons. One is that it's a Ruby colour, and the other is that is the Discworld books by Terry Pratchett (yes, I'm sharing my geek side again) there is a troll called Ruby. She's large, troll-like and she wants to be treated with respect, valued and she sets boundaries. I like her a lot.
As I look back at my review of the year I can see these changes happening. In 2019, I conducted some interviews with my ideal clients, business women who into my ideas of what my ideal client would be. What I found surprising. A lot of them had websites that didn't serve them. They had websites that made them feel dumb - one of them actually said that to me. Some of the male designers or developers that were working on their website, had made them feel dumb as well.
It really didn't sit well with me. I could hear that mantra enough is enough.
When I was about 13 years old, I had a math teacher called Miss Neville. She was one of those kind of teachers that affected my life (which is why we should pay them more and treat them with respect). She used to say to us that if we didn't understand her teaching, it wasn't our fault. I'll say that again, it wasn't our fault as students. It was her fault. Her job as a teacher was to find a way to communicate with us, to find a way where we would understand what she was teaching us. Her message has stuck with me through the decades.
I realise that some web designers and web developers do not want to teach their clients. It's part of their business model that the clients have to keep coming back to them. I understand that recurring income is very important in any business. I also feel that every client deserves to have a successful website so that for me includes training and support. They also should have a choice of whether to do something on their own or to come back to a business.
It had never dawned on me before that there were these business women, smart business women, who were avoiding their websites, who were not getting their voices out there. It's like paying an employee who's doing nothing because that's what a website is like. A website is an employee that works 24 / 7 for your business.
Their websites were out of date, both with content and technically. It was costing them so much money to have their website sorted out. In some cases, it was just easier to scrap their existing website to start again.
There are web designers who are very artistic, Kylie who I mentioned earlier is one of those. She's now a professional artist. Her mandala's are amazing if you haven't seen them yet. I am more of a programming type of web designer, I'm more technical, I'm a problem solver.
During this year of 2020 with all its changes, it's dawned on me that design was not my first love it. I guess I had always known it. I realised that my love is training and support. I love training people. I love helping them understand stuff. I've loved that ever since I was a kid when I used to line up my dolls and pretend to be a teacher at the front of the class.
I'm a problem solver. I'm a recovering control freak and perfectionist. If websites should be working a certain way and if they're not, I'm going to find out why.
This is why my business, and myself are regenerating. Allowing my geek out again when the Doctor (Doctor Who) regenerates they keep their past memories and experiences. They also become an entirely new person. They look different, they act different, they dress different, but they are not starting from scratch because their experiences are still there from their past.
This is kind of what's been happening with me this year.
In June, I read about the possibility of vaccines being developed for COVID. At around the same time I read that they know that flu vaccinations are only 50% effective in obese people. It made me think that once a vaccine was developed maybe it needed the best chance of being able to work. It also fit in with my enough is enough where my weight is concerned.
It also fitted in with my losing control of the world around me. I was fed up with being obese, clothes not fitting me and my lack of energy. In July I went on the fast 800 way of eating. As I write this in December 2020, I have lost 20 kilos.
I think this has all been part of my regeneration year. I look different. I'm still getting used to how my own body looks now. I'm getting used to a different way of dressing because I could go into more shops than I used to. I can wear dresses because my legs don't get burnt in my car.
Now I have a business that I'm excited about. I'm scared as well, don't get me wrong. I am leaving Mount Gambier Website Design behind me. I'm not closing it down. There is some good information on the website.
Design is not my first love. Training and help is what I want to do. My preposterous dream is to have a global company (run from here in regional Australia) to supply support WordPress training and help. I an the founder of KISS WP websites. KISS is Keep It Simple Sweetheart, because all small business owners are sweethearts. It's making WordPress websites simple for small business owners. It's giving them one to one training if that's what they want. It's giving them one to one help. It's giving them training courses that will start from the basics and grow from there. The first course will be out in February. (You can sign up for the Basic WordPress Maintenance Course waiting list now.)
This has been my year of regeneration. I'm different from how I was at the beginning of the year. I know that in so many ways this year has been horrendous for so many people. I've had family friends die. Luckily my family and my close friends are still safe, no matter where they are in the world. I know that others have not been as fortunate.
This year has been a year of great change. I don't know what the normal will be next year. I know that some are looking forward to next year, 2021, thinking that everything will bounce back in like an elastic band. Sometimes when you stretch an elastic band too far it's just never the same again. I think that's something we need to prepare for.
This long winded article is trying to explain the change to you and also to myself. As I was going through the regeneration process I didn't notice all of it going it. It's looking back when I see how it's built on what came before.
Enough is enough.
Those words I think sum up 2020 for me. Enough is enough. changes needed to be made to deal with what was going on in the world. I've made them in my small world.
What happening in your world where you can say enough is enough and create a preposterous dream or goal?
If it involves a WordPress website training or help you know who to call.
That's talking 'bout my (re)generation.
Notes with links: Annual review performed using free yearcompass.
Doctor Who image from the BBC.
Past exhibitions from Museum of Discovery
Women ToGether Learning - the team behind Thriving Women Conferences
Kylie Martin Creative - amazing mandalas
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