All of us have met one of those people that complains about everything. They're no fun to be around. Even if I'm chipper and excited about the day I'll be drained after talking with them for just a few minutes. I don't know about you but I have no desire to spend time with people who bring me down. I want to be around people that inspire me and encourage me to more! I get energized by meeting people who are passionate, people who do instead talk, and people who are unapologetically themselves.

Inspiration at WooThemes

This is actually one of the great things about working for WooThemes. We aren't just developers that punch in at 8am and punch out at 5pm. All of us really care about our product and customers.

Walking the Walk

One of the qualities that I really value is having the courage and drive to walk the walk instead of just talk the talk. It's really easy to say “I can make a better theme than WooThemes” but once you get into the nitty gritty can you push past all of the criticism and do it? Often times there's additional hurdles that you discover mid way through the race. Not everything is perfectly clear in the beginning.

One of my colleagues who really inspires me in the way is Daniel Espinoza. He's the guy behind this Blogging for Benjamin competition and he's always motivating us to execute on our ideas.

Closing the Deal

Similar to walking the walk is the ability to see things through to completion. But it's not just doing it's completing. I think the difference here is that there are some people who will put all other unnecessary things aside until they figure out a problem. So instead of working on 30 different projects they'll have a primary project and they will make this project pristine in both documentation, organization, planning, and implementation.

I can think of no one else other than Brent Shepherd. He's one of our extension developers for WooCommerce. He made the insanely popular Subscriptions extension for WooCommerce and even though it's one of the most complex products we carry I don't mind a little extra digging if I can work with someone who's willing to go all the way to fix a problem. If you don't think he does a lot of work maintaining this project checkout the 60 question FAQ or the other dozen documents he's released for this one product.

Giving Feedback

One of the things that often gets overlooked in any sort of professional setting are basic communication skills. In a remote team this skill is even more important. And while communication is a very important skill I want to look a little deeper. Specifically I like to work with people who are good with feedback. It doesn't even matter what the feedback is, whether it be good or bad, it just matter that it's there. That I'm a human being and you're acknowledging me.

One of the best examples of this is Michael Krapf. He leads the support team at WooThemes and he does an incredible job keeping things together. He might not be able to solve a problem in my code but he can communicate with me and point me to someone who can which is just as important or more important.

Inspiration Engine

I absolutely love working with everyone at WooThemes and I think everyone on the team is inspiring in their own way. Because I'm running with such high performing individuals I want to perform just as well and I think we all inspire each other to do amazing work. When you think about WooThemes sells a ridiculous amount of product and has an incredible reputation for a team of 30.

Photo Credit: Steve Gray via Compfight cc