Embracing Lifelong Learning in the World of Tech

Sophia:
Hey guys. Welcome back to the Next Generation with Sophia DeRosia and Allison Dye. Today our special guest is Bud Kraus. Bud, do you want to say hi?

Bud:
Hello everybody, and thank you for having me on.

Allison:
We were just talking with Bud, who was wondering why our first guest is him because, as he said himself, “I am the oldest person there is for the Next Gen podcast. Why me?” Sophia and I talked about how everyone was young once and everyone was in a similar position to what we are in now. Every generation has its differences. We may have different-looking obstacles than the ones you faced, but in the end, we face similar challenges. As you have gotten older, you’re facing similar challenges again in a way. We all face ageism in the workplace: “Oh, you’re too young,” or “Oh, you’re too old.” In tech, there seems to be this idea that you have to be this perfect ever-young age, but not too young. Do you want to talk a little bit about that experience and maybe compare it to when you were younger and older? Do you see similarities with those two periods of your life?

Bud:
Well, you call to my mind that when I was your age, I didn’t have any idea what I wanted to do. All of this technology, the internet, the web, all that was not around, of course. It was very hard to find my way in the world. In fact, I worked in a totally different industry for 17 years waiting for all of this to begin. Once it did begin, I said, “That’s where I want to go.” But you’re right. You’re either too old or too young, and maybe you’re just right for a couple of years when you think about it.

Sophia:
So what made you change from that career of 17 years to doing something entirely different?

Bud:
This is really important because, as people will see over a period of time, they will change their careers multiple times whether they want to or not. The world being what it is will force you to. I think part of my story is to take charge of that and not let events and changes take charge of you. It’s easier said than done, I understand that, but that’s something that you should keep in mind. I was actually an insurance broker in New York City, and my clients were in the entertainment industry, so that was all good. Over time, I just grew to hate the insurance industry.

When I first saw the web in 1994, I said, “How do they do that?” This was at a time when websites were gray backgrounds, black text, blue links, and maybe a few gifs, and that was about it. I was fascinated by what I was looking at. I think I was looking at a Hungarian library website or something, and I just said, “I want to do that.” Of course, I didn’t know what “that” was. It took me quite a while to figure out what that was. In the beginning, it was just making websites. If you went to somebody and said, “I can make a website for you,” they either said, “Great,” or “What’s a website?”

That’s how I got started. Then I realized shortly thereafter that I was not really much of a designer. I had no experience. So what do you do if you can’t do anything? You start teaching, right? I found myself teaching in businesses and at Pratt Institute and FIT in New York City. I was teaching HTML and CSS and then eventually WordPress. That was really my first love. Well, my wife is, and then teaching, and then my kids. Alright, let’s get the family out of the way.

But education is really the first thing that I really like to do, and I’m always learning new things myself. I think that’s really important for anybody at any stage: to keep your mind open to the possibilities of growing and learning. We’re all going to be lifelong learners. You want to make that very much a part of your life. The idea that you’re going to be learning the rest of your life, you’re going to want to and embrace it. Embrace that challenge of learning all your life. If you look at the WordPress community, the people there really embrace the idea of lifelong learning from a very young age to well, whatever.

I once talked to a president of a college in New Hampshire, and we were talking about the idea of changing careers. She said, “It’s not that you’re going to switch jobs 20 times in your life. You’re going to switch careers 20 times in your life.” But you see, here’s the beauty of that kind of thing. You might think that there’s no connection between being an insurance broker and working in web design. Oh, wrong. You couldn’t be more hopelessly wrong because the skills I learned in business—negotiating contracts, insurance, accounting—whatever I learned, I could bring that all into my new world, and I did. Those 17 years, while they weren’t my happiest years, certainly taught me a lot to bring forward into what I do today.

I had a lot of very good mentors in those days. If you’re a younger person, you want to find mentors to take you under their wing and help you navigate the world. In your early twenties, you’re still kind of raw. Sorry, you’re not a finished product. I guess I am a finished product. Of course, I change, but I pretty much am who I am. When you’re in your early twenties, you want to take the advice of somebody who’s been around, who knows how to deal with people, who knows what to say, and who understands what you do and don’t do. I was very fortunate in the insurance business to have about two and a half tremendous mentors. The lessons I learned from them I practice today. So if I’m 25 or 30, I’m definitely looking for somebody who will, in a certain way, have my back and look after me.

Sophia:
That is something that I found as well. The start of my career has been absolutely left and right, zigzag. Nothing has been what I thought it would be, but I have learned an incredible amount that will last me. Not even just about jobs, but about life things. I’ve learned a lot from coworkers and employers and all these things that I definitely never thought I would learn from where I’m at, but I’m very grateful for it.

Allison:
Absolutely. We were just talking about this the other day, Sophia, about how I worked as a nanny for a long time, and then I ended up in sales. I was like, “Oh, everyone, no matter the age, can have a tantrum.” You learn these skills along the way, and even though they may not seem connected at the time, they do connect at some point. They do feed into what you’re doing next, regardless of if they’re related or not. So I think that’s a really important thing to keep in mind no matter what age we are. It’s maybe only in movies where you start on one career path and stay on the same path the entire time.

Sophia:
Something that we have yet to see is people retiring from internet or WordPress jobs. We’re jumping into this world with really no expectation of what it’s supposed to look like or what it’s going to look like.

Bud:
Well, that’s a ways for you guys to go. The whole concept of retirement is changing and will be radically different in 40 years. You can be sure of that. It might be radically different in the next four minutes. Who knows? But Allison, I have a question about sales. Are you in sales now? What do you sell?

Allison:
No, I was in sales for a time at a WordPress agency selling WordPress services. It was interesting to see the skills that I didn’t quite expect to come in handy when they did.

Bud:
My point is that I think everybody along the line should or probably will take some kind of position in sales because I think sales is the number one of all the things that we do in the business world. If there are no sales, there’s nothing else. To me, it’s the most important job. They are all important, but sales make the world go round. Without commerce, which is sales, we don’t really have much for business. So no matter what we do in life, we are going to be selling ourselves, a service, or something else. That’s really important. I always felt most people get to the point in sales when they’re not selling, that’s when they’re the best.

Allison:
Yeah.

Bud:
When they’re not sitting around going, “I got to sell this.” There are all kinds of techniques. I’ve seen all kinds of different salespeople. I’ve been exposed to some tremendous salespeople, which I don’t claim to be. I’m sort of average. But the people I’ve been exposed to were tremendous. That’s the kind of thing you want to learn from as many people as you can. I was very fortunate to see a lot of really great salespeople.

Sophia:
Well, and sales isn’t even just commerce or money. It’s learning how to sell yourself, how to present yourself.

Bud:
Well, it’s convincing.

Sophia:
Yeah, it’s communicating.

Bud:
Exactly.

Sophia:
And that can take you very, very far.

Bud:
Yeah. I always saw one of the common threads of people who are really good salespeople is that you, as the buyer, want to do business with them. They’re fun, they’re interesting, they’re exciting, they’re silly, they’re whatever, and they’re knowledgeable. You can’t be just a joke; you have to know your product and service. But what makes it different, one from another, is maybe the price, whatever. It’s just, I would say, “Oh, I love that guy. I want to work with him. I want to do business with him.” To me

, that was always a huge advantage if you had that personality. A lot of salespeople do have that A-type personality. I have an F-type personality, whatever. They don’t even have a scale for that.

Allison:
I would love to know what similarities you see having been really young in the tech space versus now.

Bud:
Well, I wasn’t really young. I was in my early forties when I decided no more insurance. I wanted to be in the industry of my time. Now, I didn’t think that then, but I think that’s what makes what we do, or being in the WordPress community, so special. We are in the industry of our time. If it was 1940, we’d be making cars. It’s just more exciting. It’s more relevant and important to people’s lives. I just found that to be… What was your question? You’re lucky if you can be that way. Going back to what Sophia said, you can expect, especially in the early years, that your career will zigzag. Unless you’re like my son who knew when he was 10 years old what he wanted to do, that’s a blessing. It really is. My wife is that way too. But it doesn’t mean that we’re cursed if we don’t know. It just means that our path is going to be a little different, maybe a little rockier, but in some ways more adventurous and unpredictable. That can definitely be unsettling.

Allison:
Builds character.

Bud:
But also rewarding. Only through time can you look back and say, “Oh,” and make some kind of observation.

Allison:
Tell us about your kids a little bit.

Bud:
I have two children, a son who’s older than you guys and a daughter who’s older than you guys. Fortunately, they were raised by my wife. That’s not to say I wasn’t around, but I did too many wrong things as a dad, quite frankly. She did all the right things. Fortunately, they turned out more like her than like me. But that’s okay. They’re not WordPress or tech people per se, although we’re all in tech in one way or another. Just because you’re not in WordPress doesn’t mean you’re not in tech.

But what is really special right now is my grandboys. Today I’m wearing a hat that they gave me for Father’s Day, which says “Papa Buddy.” I have a grandson who’s three and a half, and another one who’s 14 months. They’re just like medicine. My mother said grandchildren are the dessert of life. Well, I’m getting overstuffed on dessert. In fact, my oldest grandson went to his mother the other day and said, “Papa acts like a baby.” And she told me. So I go back to my grandson and say, “I heard you think I act like a baby.”

We were talking earlier before we started recording about transitioning. There’s this guy named Bob Dunn. I don’t know if you’ve heard of Bob. Maybe not. Most people…not sure. Most people don’t know who he is. I remember I met him at a WordCamp Philadelphia. It was prearranged, like a prearranged marriage. That’s a whole other story that I don’t want to get into. We had a really long talk, and one of the things Bob said really impressed me. He said, “If you’re doing something and it doesn’t work, then do something else. Don’t keep trying to fix something that probably isn’t worth fixing.” If you look at Bob’s trajectory, he’s really the embodiment of that, and I am too, becoming an embodiment of that.

So if I was doing something in my work, like web design, and eventually I came to understand, it’s not that I don’t like it. I love the craft, but I hated dealing with waiting for clients to make a decision or send me deliverables. I realized I had to sort of retarget. I wasn’t conscious of this, but a few years ago, I started saying, “I have all these connections in the WordPress community, but they’re not really doing me any good.” By that, I meant I couldn’t make any money off of these guys. It’s really nice to know all these people, but I just can’t make a dollar from them.

Then one thing led to the next, and Vikas from InstaWP said, “Why don’t you make a video for me?” And that’s how it started. I realized, “Oh, I could create content for WordPress businesses and leverage my connections with the WordPress community and web hosts.” That’s where I am today and where I will be now until the end, because I love doing it. It is the right thing for me to do. The only web projects I do now are if they beg me and it has to be a perfect fit. It’s not going to be a startup. It’s not doing any of that stuff. You have to have an ongoing business that needs work.

I was recently begged to get involved with something, literally, because I don’t want to go through the working-on-the-website journey anymore unless it fits my needs. Now I’m in a position where I can do that. If I’m 25 years old, I may not be in a position to do that. You’re going to take jobs and gigs and do stuff that you’re going to look back on and go, “Oh God, I did that for money.” But that’s okay because even though you did it for money and it might have been a sort of waste of time or a painful experience, only over time will you see that maybe it wasn’t so bad. Maybe it was pretty good because it led you to think, “Oh, I don’t want to do that again.”

You are absolutely going to take work that you have to take, and it’s okay to do that. But hopefully, when you reach the grand old age of… you can say, “I’m only going to do what I want to do.” At my age, if you’re working, you hopefully don’t want to do stuff you don’t want to do.

Sophia:
I think there’s a lot of value in learning what not to do as well. There are a lot of things that you learn in your twenties, like “Oh, I never want to be like that manager,” or “I really don’t like doing this.” It is just a lot of trial and error to figure out what those things are.

Bud:
Absolutely. Especially at your age, keep your mind open to learning new things and new directions. If you’re going to work in the WordPress space, you already have the connections, the experience, and the exposure to move forward if that’s the direction you want to go in. I never had a network like I have now in the WordPress space when I was in the insurance industry. Things were different then. We didn’t have the ability to connect like we do today.

Sophia:
You had to send carrier pigeons to each other across town.

Bud:
You got it. I mean, that’s about what it was. Imagine a world that didn’t have fax machines. Forget about email and computers. We couldn’t even send a fax to somebody.

Sophia:
That’s wild.

Bud:
Everything moved at a much slower pace. For some people, that’s good. I think today things work too fast. My daughter, who’s a little older than you guys, is very fearful of the rapid change we go through all the time. Things that would take 10 years to change now take six months. It’s very hard for people to adapt. Even young people, I think, if I’m 25, what am I going to do with AI? How am I going to work with AI? How am I going to get better at working with AI than anybody else? Because that’s your challenge. How do I work with it? It’s only going to grow in importance in our lives.

Even though I am my age, I look at things as if I were 25. Maybe that’s why I am the first guest that you had, because why would they choose me? Come on. But I try to see things as a younger person would see and adapt. I’m learning new things, and that’s the whole key: not just to settle and say, “There’s no reason for me to learn how to create a custom block. I’m not a developer. I’m not going to be one. Why should I learn?” The answer is, I’m trying to learn because I want to know more about the process. What do developers go through? Maybe I could actually do something. I’m not going to relearn stuff I already know. I’m going to push myself to learn more. Even if you say, “That doesn’t mean anything to me now,” you don’t know that in 5, 6, 7 years, the thing you’re learning today may be the reason why you get that job. Learning is really number one.

God, I wish I had known all this stuff when I was 25. I say that all the time. Boy, I wish I was, but I wasn’t. Only through life… I would say things like, “If I was 25, I’d ask her out on a date.” When I was 25, I don’t think I had kissed anybody. You just change. If you’re lucky like me to have lived as long as I have, you get to my stage, and you hopefully say, “This is the best time of my life.” A lot of people say, “When you’re old, you’re going to die.” Okay, I get it. But why not make this time the best time of your life? Quite frankly, the roughest times are the earliest times.

That’s why your show is important because you have the opportunity to help others understand that, hey, you’re not alone. We’re here, and these are the things that we think we can help you with. I’m speaking on your behalf, obviously, which I do a lot. But you really have that opportunity to help not just the younger generation but any generation move forward. Maybe they’re looking for inspiration, looking for ways to better themselves, improve their career prospects, things like that

.

Allison:
What I really admire about you is that you are surrounded by younger people, whether they be toddlers or your kids. I think that does help give you a different perspective on things. I love that.

Bud:
When you’re my age, almost everybody is younger, but that’s not the point. I am so fortunate to have you guys in my life and people like you. Whereas I talk to people my age and their circle of friends and influence gets smaller and smaller, mine keeps going the other way. It’s not supposed to be that way. Well, why not? Why can’t I grow? Why can’t I meet new people? I’m not ready for a nursing home where I’m going to see the same 10 gray hairs all day long. I have a lot of friends who are my age and older who just watch TV, play golf, and read books. Nothing wrong with that, but if that’s all you do…

Allison:
You get tired of it.

Bud:
For whatever it is, I’m just attracted to new ideas, new thoughts, new people, new everything. A lot of people my age are just done. I think it’s very important. I like to do what I’m doing, let’s just say. If you’re really fortunate, you get to this stage of life, and you’ll say, “These are the best years of my life.” If I was 25 and I heard that, I’d go, “Huh, you’re so old. How could this be the best time of your life?” Well, you can make it. I’ve made it the best time of my life. I worked at it. I thought about what to do to make it the best time of my life. I changed over the last recent years to make it the best time. It wasn’t just a straight trajectory. It got better every year. There are certain things that happened along the way, particularly in the last five or six years, that got me to the point where…

One of the reasons, it’s pretty obvious, is Bob Dunn. He gave me the courage to realize if I was doing something in my work that wasn’t working, then find something else to do. He’s living proof of it. I’m becoming living proof of it too. That’s such good advice for anybody at any stage. Chances are if you’re doing something that is not working, you’re miserable or you’re not as happy as you should be.

Allison:
Absolutely. Absolutely.

Bud:
So I’m a Bob Dunn disciple. Alright. Enough of this. Bob, who is this guy? Who is this guy anyway?

Sophia:
We should start making t-shirts with his face on them. We can all pass them around.

Bud:
He’s liable to want me to be one of his hosts. No, I don’t think so.

Sophia:
Maybe.

Bud:
No, I doubt it. We know that’s not going to happen.

Allison:
No. But I love how you surround yourself with lots of people of different ages. I think it keeps your perspective open to everything. I love your attitude towards life, a continual learning journey. I really admire that. We all need to embrace that.

Bud:
Yeah, it is really, I think, the key to happiness in this world. I think it’s the key to staying relevant, current, useful, productive, whatever. There is no other way to do this. The world is changing so fast that if you don’t grow with it, then you are going to be left behind, and chances are you’re not going to be very happy about that. Isn’t it about being happy? When you think about it, somebody’s always going to have more money, more clothes, more this, more that, whatever. If that’s what you’re chasing, you’re never going to be happy.

Sophia:
I feel like that’s something that, Allison, you and I have learned through our unschooling.

Allison:
Absolutely.

Sophia:
School looked different. Sometimes school looked like going to the library and getting a bunch of shark books, learning about what you enjoyed at the time. Who knows why sharks might be valuable, but you’re going to learn everything there is to know about sharks and have the best time doing it. It teaches you how to learn and encourages you to learn.

Bud:
See, that’s so important, Sophia: how to learn. The fact that you were homeschooled and learned how to learn, well, that’s fabulous. How to learn is really to learn. Maybe that’s a problem with a lot of people: they just don’t know how to do it.

Sophia:
Or even where to start.

Bud:
And everybody learns in a different way. So obviously you have to learn your way, but how to learn is crucial.

Allison:
Yeah, absolutely. It was great talking with you today, Bud. I admire that you surround yourself with people of all ages, that you never stop learning, and that your message for everyone is to make the life you want. You can change it. You can change your career, you can change your job, you can change your routine, you can change what you want to learn. I love that, and I think it’s applicable to everyone of all ages. I really appreciate you sharing that with us today. How can people find you on the internet?

Bud:
You can find me anywhere…well, not anywhere, but first of all, I’m on Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn, and whatever. I have a website. Actually, I have two. One is Joy of WP—not Joy of WordPress. It’s Joyofwp.com. This is my business site where I talk about and demonstrate the things that I do for clients, creating WordPress content for WordPress businesses. Then I have this podcast called Seriously Bud, where I interview a person from the WordPress community each week. It comes out every Friday. I also have a newsletter. If you go to seriouslybud.com, you can see and listen to all the past episodes. Currently, there are 15. It’s just been a joy to do that podcast and continues to be. Sophia DeRosia has appeared on that, as well as Cate DeRosia.

Sophia:
I know.

Bud:
I have the first family of WordPress, and I have this Topher guy. Eventually, I’ll have him on.

Sophia:
Eventually.

Bud:
That’s also been part of my transition and journey: creating that podcast. It’s just been fantastic. SeriouslyBud.com, don’t forget to go.

Allison:
Awesome. Thank you so much, Bud. And thank you, Sophia.

Sophia:
Oh yeah. Thank you, Allison.

Bud:
Thank you, ladies, for letting me do this, and good luck on your journey to do something that’s really important not just for the Next Gen but for all generations.

Allison:
Thank you.