Developing a 'Hacker Mindset' to get through the hard times

So, today we’re speaking with Kathy Zant. Kathy has been working with WordPress for many years, in the days before WordPress had plugins. She’s a very active member of the community, attending events and speaking at WordCamps. She currently works for Wordfence, the popular WordPress security platform. Today we have a wide ranging discussion touching on many aspects of Kathy’s life. We talk about her history with WordPress, how she got involved and her relationship with the WordPress community. We also talk about her personal life, some of the decisions that she made which affected her life. One, which we focus upon, is her choice to homeschool her children. This leads to a discussion about how WordCamps are encouraging children to become involved in practical, hands on, Kids Camps. It’s getting a new generation educated in the need for open source web solutions in the face of compelling competition from proprietary platforms. We also talk about a stressful time in Kathy’s life and how this forced her to re-evaluate the way that she approaches her work and life. She calls this a “Hacker Mindset” and it’s about facing the challenges in a manageable way. She’s been using this technique for many years now and it’s quite likely not the way that you approach tasks within your life, so there might be something of benefit here. If you’ve been impacted by any of the issues raised in this podcast, please reach out to us by using the chat on the wpandup.org website. Interviewed by Nathan Wrigley. We hope you enjoy the show, please do subscribe on Apple Podcasts or Spotify. We’re always looking for feedback, if you have any thoughts or comments, please do reach out. And remember… Together we can #PressForward Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.