A quick online conversation about the 10-year anniversary of HeroPress led to a live interview and I am so thankful for my time with Topher. Part of what I love about Podcasting in a free-form way is not knowing where it will go. I had no idea that we would be able to have a conversation about Faith, Religion, WordPress and Diversity in one short chat. HeroPress is a cool project that cold use your attention if you aren’t already plugged in. Join us and learn more.

Links:

https://topher1kenobe.com

https://heropress.com

Spotify

https://youtu.be/pgGeZUHW4Io

Kurt

Hey, Manana, no mass listeners and viewers. I’m coming to you with episode one zero one. We finally broke the 100 mark. Uh, today I’m coming. To you with an acquaintance I’ve met at WordCamp. Uh, and I remember the guy’s last name. It was William Bay. So, uh, Tofer was standing next to William Bay. We were talking about motorcycles.

Tofer got into the conversation and that’s when I first met Tofer and not for nothing. Uh, some of you have already heard me say this before. If you’re a new listener and follower, this new information for you. But that was the first community social event I ever did with WordPress. And that was at San Diego about three years ago.

Since then I’ve grown to attend other word camps. I host. The wordpress meet up in Hutchinson, Kansas, and it has just been such a fulfilling adventure to grow beyond the agency ranks and be able to get involved in the community and add value and all those things. Now, with that said, um, some of the things that Topher brings to the table, I find incredibly interesting.

If being transparent, I’ll tell you. I kind of fall out of, out of cadence sometimes. And then I see him post something brilliant again, and I go back and I look at his content again. So I just want to iterate Topher. I think what you do is brilliant. The hero press initiative is phenomenal. Um, and I really want to put the spotlight on that today.

So if you would, Topher, introduce yourself to the new listeners and followers that are with us and tell us a little bit about what you do.

Topher

Sure. Yeah. Uh, Topher is the second half of Christopher for those unaware. Um, Google thinks there are millions of us and there probably are. Um, I live in the Northern part of the lower peninsula of Michigan.

We just moved up here a couple of weeks ago. Place is still full of boxes. Um, yeah. And I had to get Starlink, which I got the other day and is amazing now.

Kurt

Yeah. I hear great things about Starlink.

Topher

Yeah. Starlink is pretty great. Um, I’ve been a web developer for 30 years. Um, I was there for a lot of things being invented.

Like HTML 2. 0, PHP, CSS, uh, flash. I was there for the death of flash too.

Yeah. Um, I made some really great flash websites.

Topher

Did you? Oh yeah. Yeah. That was, I love that plane and that, and then all of a sudden it was gone. It was gone.

Um, yeah, I’m married, have two kids that are all grown up. Uh, a couple of years ago, our daughters came to us and said it was time for us to go.

So we moved out and they’re still in the house and we live wherever we want and they’re stuck with the house paying rent on something my own.

Kurt

Well, there you go. There you go. Yeah. Um, such an interesting thing. My family just moved. So it seems, it seems to come up in conversation a lot. You said you had just moved.

We literally, after renting for nearly two decades, uh, finally bought a house out here in Kansas and we escaped California, uh, just over a year ago. Uh, swimming in debt, struggling with the California economy and trying to keep up with the Joneses and not doing a very good job of it. And, uh, it’s amazing.

We moved to Kansas and within 11 months, we paid off all of our debt and bought a house. That’s awesome. Uh, it’s, it’s amazing what a change in environment can do for your outlook and for your productivity and for all of those things.

Topher

Yeah, we were in Grand Rapids, Michigan for more than 20 years and this spring we moved out to the lakeshore to a little town and we didn’t really like it that much.

And so a couple weeks ago, we moved up here. Um, I’m on my wife’s family farm for the last many, many years and so now we’re. Five miles from a town of 100, uh, we’re 20 minutes from the grocery store. There’s a forest on one side of me and fields on the other and dead quiet at night. I could see all the stars.

Kurt

That sounds a little bit like a dream.

Topher

Yeah.

Kurt

Sounds a little bit like a dream. So we did this in short notice today, folks, you know, transparency, uh, Topher reached out and said, Hey, could you help me promote the 10th anniversary of hero press? And I thought, well, what better way to do that than get them on an interview and let’s talk about hero press and how it was founded and what its mission is and what it does and why you love it so much.

And so now that I’ve just peppered you with six questions about your own thing, um, Tell us about it. Like, like how, what was the inspiration for hero press? How did it start and where does your passion come from to keep it going? Sure. First, let me ask you, what do you know? So I signed into the hero press page and I see inspirational stories about people in the community of WordPress from all over the globe.

And that’s, that’s what I know that that’s all I really know about here. And what kind of takes me. The reason I like it, the reason I think it’s brilliant is too often we get stuck in these little microcosms of our own little existences. So like when you go to a, when you go to a WordPress meetup, you see people from your town, your community, you do one that’s online, it’s like.

Maybe see people from all over the country online. But like when I do my local WordPress meetup, I get some local business owners and a couple of students and some people coming in, but it’s local. When I go to a word camp, like WordCamp Phoenix, that’s a big one, right? That that’s a pretty popular WordCamp.

When I go to WordCamp Phoenix, I see people from a region like in the, and like, that’s where I met, like the girl from, uh, the Ukraine came in and spoke there. Right. And I thought she was super interesting, but I was like, still it’s, it’s more regional. And then when you go to WordCamp, like San Diego or Maryland, I didn’t go to the one in Portland, but when you go to these bigger WordCamps, well then you’re seeing people from more of a national and semi international scale.

When I go to HeroPress, I’m seeing stories from all over the globe, and I’m seeing like, the benefits, or the, the, almost like the paying it forward goodwill nature that WordPress can offer. And that to me is cool because you realize you’re, you’re just. You’re just a molecule in this giant thing. Um, yeah, yeah.

It, it, so to me, that’s the inspiration I get from it, but I’m sure that you’re going to tell me something different.

Topher

Uh, not too different. Uh, I’ll tell you how it started, uh, 10 years ago, right before Thanksgiving, about a week before Thanksgiving, uh, us Thanksgiving, for those who wonder, um, I was working for XWP, which is a, um, WordPress agency, VIP agency.

And the owner’s name was Dave, but he wasn’t really involved in the company. He hired managers and they were doing their thing and he was doing something else. And one morning I woke up and he had sent me an email that says, you’re not working for XWP anymore. I want you to do something special for WordPress.

And that was it. That’s all he said. Okay. So I wrote back and I said, uh, what is it? And he said, that’s your journey to discover, which is both the curse and a blessing. Uh, I, I had the freedom to fail.

Kurt

Yeah. A little bit of a dream space there.

Topher

Yeah. So, uh, he hired an Indian web development team and put them at my disposal and said, if you need to build anything, go here.

And, uh, I don’t know if you saw the blog posts the other day I did. Uh, he sent me a photo of, um, a little kid in India, standing in an alley, getting, uh, rinsed off from a bath by his mom. Yep. And he said, I don’t care what you do or what you come up with, but whatever it is, I want you to help this kid. And, uh, it’s a stock photo.

We don’t know who that kid is, but the idea was, um, anybody in that position. So I had that in mind and, uh, I got talking with the, uh, Uh, representative from the development company. And at first he was very formal and then we got to be friends and, you know, he started talking and one evening he got, he got kind of frustrated and he let loose and he said that, uh, the company was actually a group of freelancers that got together to see if they could do better together.

And it wasn’t working and nobody knew what to do. And he asked me, how can we get good, big contracts from the West? And I didn’t know, I’m not a businessman. Uh, I am not Indian. I don’t know the international stuff. And, uh, and he said, okay, but I, I, I couldn’t let it go. Um, neither could my wife. She’s like, we got to help this guy.

And so I thought, well, who, who would know this answer? And I asked around and somebody said, we’re can’t Mumbai just happened. And all the organizers are successful wordpressers. So I connected them and they helped him and it felt really, really good. And I thought, wow, what if I could have other people around the world in similar situations, people who are not in Europe or the U S or Australia, who are trying to break into our giant economy over here and, and get some dollars headed their way.

But I didn’t, I didn’t want to be the one to tell them how to do that. I couldn’t, I couldn’t tell this other guy, I don’t know, what do I know? Um, so then I thought, well, what if I found people who are already successful in various parts of the world and had them speak to their peers, whatever they think is important, like, I don’t even know what’s important.

If I went to somebody and said, you’re a business person who was successful. What do you say to this other person to, to mirror what you’re doing? And who knows what it is? Um, so, uh, Dave was originally thinking that it would be a product and this was going to be a show, a service. And, uh, but he said, okay, we’ll go for it.

It was going to be, I don’t know if I said this was going to be video like Ted, and we were going to travel around the world with a video crew and record people doing their thing. In high def, you know, beautiful audio and video and make it really professional and nice and, um, we’d probably turn out two or three a year.

And he said, uh, as a test, we’re going to do a Kickstarter and we’re looking for 60, 000 Australian dollars because he’s Australian. Okay. Which is probably 40k US. And I learned later, he didn’t actually need the money. What he wanted was 60, 001 donations. He wanted 60, 000 people in the WordPress community to say, I believe in hearing press worth a dollar, at least at the time they knew they’d never heard of it.

They didn’t know what it was. Um, well, what happened was in the first three or four days, we got three donations for 5, 000. And over the next several weeks, we got 40 or so donations for 20 bucks. And, uh, I don’t know if you knew this about Kickstarter, but if you don’t make it, you can never try again. But if you cancel it.

You can regroup and start it again. So we cancel it a few weeks, uh, about days before it ended. Um, but that was it. That was the end of it. Part of the deal was that if this doesn’t work, everybody walks away. I didn’t have a job. The project was dead. It’s just over. Yeah. Um, so, you know, I had some long talks with my wife about work and all of that.

And what are we going to do? And, um, she had been a little wary of the whole thing anyway. Yeah. Probably wiser than I, um, but, uh, people can start coming to me and say, you can’t let this go. You can’t let this die. It’s, it’s too good of an idea. And I thought, well, still unemployed. I’m not traveling the world with, you know, with the video team that I’m, that I’m employing.

Yeah. Um, so I thought, well, how can, how can we do this? And so I thought, what if we did it in text? The, uh, the creation time drops from months to an afternoon.

Kurt

Yep.

Topher

The editing editing is almost zero. I don’t edit the stories. I mean, I read through them and I’ll fix the occasional spelling error, but I don’t fix broken English.

I don’t fix ideas. I don’t fix anything. It’s, it’s your thing. Um, and then, uh, bandwidth, we were, we were catering to people. In Central Asia, in Africa, um, uh, 5g is not, was not the hot thing 10 years ago. Yeah. Um, I had a coworker who worked every single day on his 3g phone. Um, and text just works better that way.

So I went to, uh, uh, Andre Sochenko, uh, Rarst, he was one of the first ones who was going to do video and asked him to write, and he did. And it was amazing. It took right off. Everybody loved it. So I thought, Oh no, I got to get another one for next week. And I did that every week for about five weeks where I thought, Hey, let’s, let’s get ahead, let’s get ahead, but there it went.

Uh, so I wrote to Dave and I said, do you care if I do this? Cause he owned the company. It was a, it was a real registered company in Australia and he went right back. So I just kept doing it. And then, uh, some months after that, he wrote back and said, I like what you’re doing, keep it up. Uh, so we kept going and, uh, yeah.

Well, a few months after that, the organizers of WordCamp Pune in India asked me to come speak. Um, Indians have always loved Heropress. Uh, there’s a unique place for India in Heropress. And, uh, so I, I said, you know, that’s cool, but still unemployed. So I did a GoFundMe and I got all the money I needed in 24 hours to go speak.

And, uh, to this day. People walk up to me and say, I met you at Pune for the first time. And, uh, of course I don’t remember them. I was only, I was only on the ground for about 48 hours and it was 16 hour flights at either end. I was not sleeping well.

Kurt

So is it okay if I, is it okay if I ask some personal questions then related to this, because I’m just going to call it the way I see it. I mean, the first word in your description on your ex profile says, Christian is, do you consider this part of your outward mission?

Topher

You are the first person to ever ask me that on TV. And I’m going to tell you about it because I think it’s significant. Um, I didn’t see how it fit at first. I mean, I could see I was helping people, but if you get right down to it, I was a missionary who traveled to India to tell people how WordPress would save them.

And. As a christian that makes me squirm a little because wordpress isn’t what saves people jesus saves people people That that’s what they teach us at sunday school. At least that is that’s what they do. Um, WordPress did not die on any cross for you. Um, but then uh right after pune a guy that I Had seen but did not meet at camp.

It’s from sri lanka Sent me an email and all it said was I really like what you’re doing for god and I said well What do you mean tell me more about this? You And he said that, um, so back up a little bit, I, I had made a ton of friends in India and we talked all the time on Slack and stuff, but everything, culture, religion, all of it.

And, and I learned that a lot of Indians these days are atheists because they’re just tired of tired of all of this religious stuff. And so, you know, we talked about that and, and they asked me about my beliefs and I asked them about their beliefs and all that. And it was just. Just people talking. And he said, a lot of those people are so sick and tired of religion that they don’t want to talk about it with anyone.

Kurt

Yeah.

So just the mere fact that you showed up and were willing to have a conversation rather than preach at them was a big deal. And, um, in the years since I’ve done my best to do something that Jesus said we should do, which is be him to other people. Love people, be kind, compassion, caring, all of that.

Topher

And I have seen the fruits of that. People tell me all the time, you’re a really kind, compassionate person. And I’m like, thank you very much. That’s what I’m going for. And so your original question was, do I look at it as, as a ministry? Yes and no, I’m not out there preaching Jesus at people to get them to become Christians.

I’m out there in front of people being Jesus as much as I can. And this is the way he wants me to do it. And so here I am.

Kurt

That is, you know, remarkable to hear just, just the, the, the transparency of the heart come through because, you know, uh, Jesus himself said his yoke was easy and his burden was light and all those things.

Topher

And when we oppress people with our ideologies or our rules or our, you know, works over, you know, You know, works over faith kind of mentalities. It can drive people crazy. Like people don’t want to hear about religion or what you believe in necessarily. But when you can step out and through example, interaction, relationship, openness, friendliness, uh, I got this weird vibe, Topher.

Kurt

It’s a, it’s a really weird vibe. And maybe you identify with this, but my wife works at a grocery store. I walk into the grocery store. And as I walk in, I’m literally like, I just walk in. I’m just. I don’t consider myself to be like this, like strange person, but I, people are coming out and I go, Hey, afternoon, good to see you.

You know? And I see the security guard and I say, Hey, what’s going on, Chris? You know, and, and, and everyone goes, Hey Kurt, how you doing man? And then I get up to the cashier and, and she’s so used to saying, hi, my name is Renee, and, but you know, would you like stamps or whatever? Yeah. So when I walk up, I go, I go, I go, Renee, don’t tell me your name.

And then she goes, hi, I’m Renee . I go, I knew you were growing up. And I just joke with everybody, you know? Yeah. And, uh, she tells me, she says, when you come to the store and then you leave the store, you can tell that you’ve been there. Like every, everybody’s lighter, everybody’s, you know, operating at a higher level because just a piece of light came through, you know, just a piece of optimism and.

I’ve, I’ve been like that since I’ve been a teenager. I don’t know where it came from. It certainly didn’t come from my upbringing, but I’ve been like that since I’ve been a teenager, where I just thought if you got to interact with people, if you got to be face to face with people, you might as well be positive about it.

Sure. Yeah.

Um, my daughter’s Jeep, I bought her a Jeep. It’s not her Jeep yet. I didn’t give it to her yet, but I bought her a Jeep, got a great deal on it, but the check engine light was on. So I took it to the shop. They sold me a bunch of work and I’m from the car industry. So I know. I know what I paid for and then I took it home and it wasn’t right.

So I took it back to the shop and I knew they’re going to sell me more work and because it probably needed more work. But I looked at the guy when I took it back, the owner of the shop came out and he’s looking at me kind of funny. And I said, Brian, don’t worry, I’m not angry. You know, like, like everybody can relax.

Nobody’s going to yell or scream or throw anything. It’s just a broken truck. We’ll figure it out. And he was like, man, you are so nice to deal with, you know, but it’s, that’s, I wouldn’t necessarily, like you said, I wouldn’t call that a mission field. It’s a, it’s a behavior and maybe an internal culture that we project because our faith leads our interactions.

Topher

Yeah, absolutely.

Kurt

So I appreciate that. I really do. Um, and not for nothing, you know, some people might listen to this and go, Oh, great. Two Bible banging dudes, you know, um, that’s not what it’s about. It really, really isn’t. I would encourage people. I do this all the time. Uh, I’m not going to force anything down your throat, but if you got questions or you got I’ll just say it right live on the, on the, on the, on the broadcast.

If you have a question, if you have something you want to share with me, send it in the email or direct message, and I’ll hit you with the most direct response I can, because I just believe in being transparent about this stuff. Um, let’s go back to the hero press stuff. I jumped in there and I see stuff from all over the globe where in the map, where do those contacts come to?

Like, how did you, some dude in Michigan, right? She’s your some dude in Michigan. How did you become some dude in Michigan that’s connected to outside of this project? But like how, what’s the mechanism that everybody connects through? Did you, did you pull up the map? I blew up the map. I did.

Topher

Yeah, that’s, that’s a fun map.

I like that map. Um, I like to say there isn’t a country in the world that doesn’t have a couch I could sleep on somewhere.

Kurt

Um, so you

understand how impressive that is, right?

Topher

I do. I am in awe.

There are people. And, and let’s just be real, there’s people in your town, that little small town of yours that have been in business for five years or more, and somebody’s going to walk into their shop tomorrow and go, Oh my goodness, I didn’t even know this was here.

Kurt

Right.

Yeah.

And that’s, that happens in every small town. So here you are in Michigan and you’re known all over the world for this project. Like how does that sphere of influence. There’s going to be a million people that either want to grow a membership program or a course online or something. And they’re going to go, well, how, how do you spread the word?

How do you get people to pay attention? Yeah.

Topher

Um, there’s a variety of ways I, I found most of the, most of the people there’s probably. 10 or 15 that came to me. Um, most people feel like their story is boring. No one cares. No one’s interested. And so part of what I do is show them how interesting their own story is.

Yeah. Um, diversity is very important to me. Um, including, and as many, um, intersections as possible. So geographic diversity was very important to me. And especially early on when I was trying to connect people who were not in the not in. Europe, et cetera. Um, so, uh, I, I’ve always been big on Twitter and I would watch people watch for people who with names with weird spellings and I’d say, huh, I wouldn’t know where that name’s from.

Oh, look, Bhutan. And I’d reach out and say, hi, I see your award presser. I’m working on hero press. Are you interested in talking about it? And, uh, nice. I think there’ve been three, three people ever who’ve convinced me they should not write. Um, otherwise I win . Yeah, there have been times when, uh, I’ve been without, and I’ve been looking and one of the things I do is I look on my map and I look for a country without a pin.

And then I go to Glot Press, the translation project for WordPress. Yeah. And I go look up who is the translation manager for that country or that language. And then I approached them and, and I don’t just say, Hey, will you write for Heropress? I say, look, this is what I’m doing. Do you know anybody that would be good?

And it’s often that person, but sometimes they’re like, Oh no, you should talk to Bob over here. Um, he’s got a great story. Uh, so that’s been really, really helpful. Um, It’s been harder in the last couple of years, maybe because I already have so many people. Um, a lot of the, a lot of the great stories are already written.

Um, I used to be very, very careful about every week, every single week there was an essay. And now I wait for one to come to me. I mean, I talk to people all the time and they’re like, yeah, I’d love to write. Uh, Give me a month and then two months or three months or a year later, I get back to them and they’re like, Oh, I forgot.

Kurt

Well, you, I think you’ve seen my mentality when it comes to this podcasting thing. I used to, used to try to schedule it and say I was going to have a podcast every other Tuesday and publish it at three o’clock. And, and, and what I found was I was manufacturing guests to fill a spot rather than Not having a spot to fill, but waiting for the really great guests to come and have a great conversation with.

Topher

That’s a great way to look at it.

Kurt

And so that’s when you’ll, you’ll notice if you look at the, at the publishing schedule of money on an almost podcast, you’re going to see there’s been some really great gaps of nothing happening. And that’s because I just was waiting for someone to percolate up. And then when someone says, Hey, I’d like to be on your podcast or I got a good subject or I got whatever I go, Hey, let’s do it.

You know, let’s not schedule it for three Thursdays from now let’s, let’s schedule it, get it published, put it out there, but put the spotlight on something now. So you’ve done this 10 years and hero press is having a 10 year anniversary. Is there, is there anything, is there any happening or any event that makes the 10 year special, or is it just a thing in your heart that says, I can’t believe I’ve done this for a decade?

Isn’t that cool?

Topher

Mostly that mostly that I’ve done it for 10 years and it’s cool. Um, we’re doing a fundraiser now, uh, for a couple of reasons. One is I still have that dream of 60, 000 people saying, Hey, let’s do it. Um, another is that, uh, things are kind of thin right now in our, in our household and, uh, support for HeroPress really, really helps.

And so it seemed like an opportune time to do it. Um, there’s a certain amount of celebration that goes along with it. The comments that people leave on the donor form are pretty great. Uh, very, very uplifting and, and I’m really enjoying them.

Kurt

So there’s that it’s good. I’m going to ask you another, uh, Odd question. It might not have been put to you this way in the past. Okay. So it is impossible in the WordPress space in the community to be a middle aged white dude and not hear disadvantaged people, groups, people of color for whether it’s for a speaking event or for a company position or for, you’re always hearing, well, they should give that to a woman.

They should give it to a woman of color. They should give that to, uh, A disadvantaged people group. And then I have the pleasure of having a real conversation with you. You’re interacting with people from all over the planet. Like I would imagine you got people trying to work on a mobile phone with a dirt floor.

Yeah. And trying to figure out how they’re going to do something. Could you give me kind of your take on what constitutes a disadvantaged people group based on your experience? Wow. Yeah. Cause I’m just going to be blunt. Okay. So I’ll be the bad guy. I’ll be the bad guy. Okay. When, when someone says they’re part of a disadvantaged people group and they live in the United States and they’ve been to college or they’ve been to a modern day high school and they have a laptop and connection to the internet.

Yeah. Then to me, to get into WordPress, that’s not a disadvantage at all. If you have a webcam and you’re connected to the internet, you can make, you can make a daily YouTube for a month and become quasi famous in the WordPress space. If you apply yourself, show that you have some knowledge and you put yourself out there, um, You know, so when I hear disadvantaged people groups, I think of people like I have a coworker in India, not India, in Bangladesh, and when all that political uprising stuff was happening, they turned off the internet and people couldn’t work.

And that to me is a disadvantage. Situation. Yeah. Um, I struggle. I struggle with people in the modern age in America thinking the term disadvantaged is applicable when people like you are interacting with people from all over the world in different circumstances.

Topher

Yeah. That’s a good point. Um, because advantage and privilege are entirely relative.

Um, and so on the one hand, that means that one person who feels disadvantaged. Is a thousand times more privileged than someone else. It can also mean that there are a thousand times less privileged than their neighbor or, or anyone else. And so, um, the language for HeroPress has changed at the very beginning.

It was, uh, that it was about people on the fringes of WordPress. And then I, I started to realize how many people are on the fringe of something. And it doesn’t even necessarily mean disadvantaged. Um, I have a friend from Michigan here who did an essay. Uh, he was a 26 year old white dude from Michigan. Um, and I thought, you know, this is a long way from a Brown woman from a third world country, you know?

Kurt

Yeah.

But. The school system he grew up in was wretched. He got a terrible education.

Yep.

Topher

Uh, his part of the world was poor. He didn’t go to college. He didn’t have the money for that. And his options were limited compared to me compared to a lot of America. And he found WordPress and he. He went to town, uh, he used the library computer and build websites and plugins and got a job and, and now he’s happy and successful.

Yeah. Um, and, uh, another, another interesting one is American women. Um, we, we talk all the time about how women make less money than men. Um, they’re looked down on all the time. There’s sexism, all this stuff that you ask any black woman, their opinion of the privilege of white women. And you will just sit there and listen for a long time if they’re willing to open up to you.

Um, so it’s really, really relative and I’ve been open to that. I’ve gone to people, um, who said, well, why are you talking to me? I’m not, I’m not a hero. I, I went to college, got a job and here I am. I’m like, yeah, but. You’re a digital nomad traveling the world. That’s freedom. That is amazing. How many other people, even Americans with great jobs and a house and two cars and a dog and all that, wouldn’t they like that freedom, you know?

Kurt

Yes, I would.

Topher

So, so I really started trying to open my mind to what it is. WordPress is bringing to us, to humanity. It is bringing wealth and health and privilege to people who don’t have it in Central Africa and Central Asia, etc. Um, but it’s also bringing freedom, um, freedom, freedom from just about anything.

And then a deep dark secret that I learned, it’s not, it’s not WordPress, it’s remote work.

Kurt

Yeah. Yeah. And, and I find that so amazing. I talk to people from all over the world. So I already gave up the Bangladesh connection, right? But, but there’s Vietnam, Pakistan, Italy, France, Spain, um, Australia, Japan. All these people that work with the Mañana No Mas kind of framework, right?

And then we’ve got some people in America. And I got corrected by somebody here in the States once, and I don’t know if this is true or not true, but I had one of my people in Vietnam do a bunch of work for me, and then they gave me this invoice that I thought was just Pitifully too low, you know, cause I, I tried to get it done in America and it was going to be thousands of dollars.

And then I got an invoice for hundreds of dollars and I said, well, that’s just not right. And so he gave me the invoice and I, and I sent it back to him and I said, do me a favor, rounded up to this next number, you know, and he hesitated. I didn’t get that invoice for like three or four days. And then I got it and I paid it.

And then I had someone in America correct me. And they said, just because it’s easy for you to send that extra money, That’s probably a real culture shock for them and you’re disrupting their, their value system because then you’re overpaying or whatever. And I didn’t quite understand it all. I just knew that I was paying way below market value for something.

Yeah. And I’m not, I’m not a wealthy person, Topher. I think, you know, if I’m going to be super, super honest, I was, you know, raised by a drunk single mom in Philadelphia and I managed to waddle my way across the country, uh, ended up getting married, divorced, married again. Yeah. And now I’m here in Kansas, living my best life at the age of 57, like in the last 10 years, things finally started to come together, right?

The first 40, the first 40 years, absolute trial and tribulation, you know, the last 20 been pretty good. Um, but where does that, where does that go? Like when you’re working with people from other countries and other regions and different economies of scale, You know, if you throw someone an extra 50 bucks in another country, for some people, that’s like a week’s wages.

Kurt

Right. But you just threw them 50 bucks because you thought it was the right thing to do. Is that the right thing to do? Or is that insulting or is what, what do you make of that?

Topher

Um, I am a fan of paying what I would want to make.

Yeah.

Um, here’s a story that is not here for a story per se. I tried to make it one, but, uh, the guy was, uh, Not interested in writing.

Uh, as a guy in Bangladesh lived in a very small village, most of the people in town were his family. Um, and he got married, they had a kid. He was not making enough money to support the family. So he moved to Dhaka alone and sent a check home once a month to feed his family. And, uh, It was not an ideal situation.

And then he got a job with an SEO company whose name rhymes with toast. Um, and they have a policy of everybody makes what they would make if they were in, uh, whatever the hometown of, of Yoast is. I don’t know what it is.

Yeah.

Um, so suddenly he was making middle Dutch wages in a very poor country, uh, relatively poor.

And so he moved home and, uh, he supports his entire extended family with that money.

Yeah.

And so, yes, on the one hand, uh, it disrupts, I don’t know, disrupt, it changes their economy, but suddenly there was money in his village for a new pump and, uh, a doctor and better food at the grocery store and, uh, just stuff.

And I’m happy with that. Yeah.

Kurt

Yeah, I just think in some respects, we have so many ways to pay it forward with the little stuff that we do. Um, I, this whole WordPress experience to me has been very eye opening and has given me a lot of perspectives. That I don’t think I would have gained otherwise, you know, like when I have conversations about disadvantaged people, groups and stuff like that, some people look at the outer shell with me and go, who is he to bring that up?

Well, I’ve I’m in it just like anybody else, you know, I’m doing five hours a week on live zoom calls and stream yards and all that stuff. And then I offer to speak somewhere and I’m told I can’t because they already have too many white dudes. Like, so there’s the other side of that conversation too. And so then you go, well.

Then where do you, and you don’t want to push, I don’t want to be pushy. If, if I have something of value to offer, I’ll offer it. And if they don’t want it, they don’t need it. Um, but it is interesting the way that we go. And when I work internationally with people, I am awestruck at their persistence, their quality of work, their willingness to learn, um, positive attitudes.

More times than not, uh, you know, especially with some of the church work that I’ve done, you, you get into a situation where you’re looking at poverty and you start to feel sorry for people. And then you realize the people you’re helping. Generally are happier than you are. Some of the happiest people I met were in abject poverty.

And it’s like, so, so what, where does that happiness and contentment come from you? And I think we might have a piece of that answer, but for other people, it might be a little bit of a mystery. I see the happiest of people and I go, okay.

Topher

Um, I, I don’t have a problem with being the white man left out because there are too many. Yeah. Um, I, I often, when I apply to speak, say. Listen, if you have a person of color or whatever in line next to me, choose them, even if the talk’s not as good, I don’t care. Uh, representation matters. And, um, for some little kids seeing somebody, somebody who looks like them up on stage.

It’s going to matter. It’s going to be a big deal topic is

Kurt

so I’m not going to disagree with you there because I do somewhat agree in that concept. I just want to ask a question for someone that has the opinion that you just expressed though. How do we get those people to participate more? In the, in the grand scheme and the open community, the, the, the YouTube lives, the, the contributing on, on X.

com to the conversation to joining the agency call on, uh, what is that post status? Um, cause I’m just, I can, I can tell you, cause how do we get them to come out and talk to us?

Topher

Yeah. Um, a lot of other, a lot of times the reluctance is that. They don’t know that it’s a safe space.

Kurt

Yeah.

Topher

They don’t know that they’re not going to have some jerk in the crowd saying whatever, or, or whatever.

Kurt

And so there’s always a jerk in the crowd. You just have to harden up. Well, you know, yes and no. Um, like what’s the crowd for this right now? It’s just you and me. Yeah, that’s true. So a lot of it has to do with you personally. In doing the investment to create safe spaces where people can see that happening and so that they are willing to, to open up to you, to come to your thing.

Topher

Yeah. Um, I have, I have a talk that I’ve never given because nobody’s ever taken me up on it, but it’s about diversity and I’ve had maybe a dozen people, women, black people, Hispanic people say to me, you are probably the only white guy that I would trust to give that talk. And the reason that they trust me is because I’ve been trustworthy in public for a lot of years.

And so, I mean, it is an investment. It’s something you have to build up. It’s not going to happen overnight. You can’t just walk up to somebody and say, Hey. I’m one of the good guys. Why don’t you come on my show? We’re like, ah, take off white man.

Kurt

Yeah. Well, you know, I had a Neil Gupta on the show and that was one of our best shows ever.

He is an absolute genius in the space. Um, you know, and it, and his, you know, collab items and, and the stuff that he does outside of WordPress with his sub stack account, um, it’s all, you know, paying it forward, paying it forward, paying it forward. He’s one of my favorite people.

Topher

He’s a cool guy.

Kurt

So let’s do this. You and I’ve been talking for a long time. Let’s let’s, uh, I want to value that. I want to thank you for coming. I really appreciated the conversation. It actually was deeper. It was deeper than I expected. So, so I’m happy about that. Um, I want to encourage people. If you haven’t been to hero press yet, go to hero press.

There will be a link in the show notes. Uh, We’ll have a link for a donation link as well. So they’re doing the fundraising and all that stuff. If you can support support, if you can’t, you can’t. But if you can, uh, please do. And with that Topher, what’s a good way for people to track you, get in touch with you as a person?

Topher

Uh, I am Topher one Kenobi on nearly every social. That’s a number one in the middle and an E at the end. Um, you can, you can literally find me just about anywhere. Uh, Topher at hero press. com. Would get me on an email. Um, yeah,

Kurt

it’s good. It’s good. Good. Good folks. Uh, it has been an absolute pleasure talking to Topher.

I appreciate you giving us your time here on episode one zero one for the Manana Nomas podcast. And, uh, we will see you when another person of interest, uh, seems like they want to show up and have a talk. We’ll catch you later. Have a good one.