Michael Gillihan is the After Party and Print Wrangler for this year’s WordCamp DFW.
My WordPress story? I don’t have one, but I can tell you a bit of my story and how I came to work with WordPress.
After my first daughter was born, I joined the U.S. Army and spent several years in the service. It was during my second 15 month deployment that I decided it was time to hang up my spurs, so to speak. My daughters had given too much for as young as they were and deserved to have their father be a larger part of their life than a garbled video chat could provide.
I came home to Fort Worth in 2008 as the markets collapsed. I found my job prospects had quickly dried up. A strong will to stay in my home town and a fruitless job search found me looking for other means of making an income. Having built a few websites in 90’s, I began digging into the web and looking for opportunities.
My renewed interest in tech combined with a lifelong love for the outdoors led me to create an outdoor product ecommerce shop. I spent roughly a year working on it only to realize how much I dislike running ecommerce shops. However, while I quickly grew to dislike the actual business, I fell in love with development and found myself pouring through books and learning more and more about Yahoo’s weird RTML.
This was also the time when I found WordPress. I added a blog to my shop and it was so dang easy to customize compared to Yahoo. Eventually, I abandoned Yahoo, moving to PrestaShop and then to WooCommerce.
“And suddenly you know: It’s time to start something new and trust the magic of beginnings.” ~ Meister Eckhart
Sometime in late 2009, I was asked to create a new website for a local church’s Child Development Center. This was the first site I completed that was 100% WordPress and it sure lit the fire. After that site, I got a referral for a paid gig and then another. It started becoming clear that I could make decent money doing something that I enjoyed.
I dug in and spent the next several years freelancing and learning CSS, HTML, PHP, JS, etc. I sat through about a billion courses on Treehouse and other sites, obsessed on all things CSS-Tricks and eventually ventured out to our local WP meetup where Carrie Dils was giving a talk and let us know her current rate. I was blown away. I went home that night and mentally doubled my rates.
October 2014 rolled around and with it came my first WordCamp. I was hooked. Compelled by Cory Miller to “Click Publish”, admonished by Paul Clark to yet again raise my rates, and inspired by my wife, Sheryle Gillihan, as folks got to share in a little bit of how awesome she is during her Project Scoping talk. My cup was full.
In the 3 years since, I’ve continued growing my business and pivoted to focus my work on doing some good in this world. I’ve developed platforms that serve continents while promoting civil society, launched national initiatives that help our youth become financially literate, and played a part, however small, in helping children who have lost loved ones cope with their grief. I have attended WordCamps all over the place and other WordPress related conferences like PressNomics and CaboPress. I’ve even crashed other meetups like the New Orleans WordPress Meetup where they gave me Wapuu pins, too cool. Almost every person I have met has made a positive impression upon me.
The WordPress community can be addicting. It fills you up and when you need more it’s there welcoming you back.
If someone were to ask me why they should attend WordCamp DFW, I wouldn’t tell them to come learn how to build a blog or that they can discuss REST API’s to their heart’s content. I wouldn’t say that they will leave rejuvenated and full of ideas about their next project. I would simply say “To fill your cup.”
This November, you should come visit and break bread with like-minded people in your community. You should share your own story and knowledge so that you might empower others and you should allow them to empower you!
I’ll be at WordCamp DFW this year. Come find me and let’s have a chat!
Tickets are now on sale for this year’s WordCamp DFW held on Nov. 11-12. There are also plenty of opportunities to sponsor the event, speak at the event or help run it. We hope to see you there!