 When I was in high school my friends needed a new bass player for their band and I'd never played bass But I thought that'd be really cool. I could play in a rock band and my dad actually played bass So I thought I'll just go home and learn a few notes two weeks later. I was on stage with them playing bass I'm not saying that I was the next flea, but you know, I knew enough to kind of strum along and And I realized that Mediocrity has become kind of a theme of my life And so I was thinking what if mediocrity wasn't something that we had to kind of be ashamed of or to overcome and What if instead we could actually be proud of it and embrace it? Historically mediocrity has gotten a pretty bad rap Quotes like this one from the dancer Martha Graham that the only sin is mediocrity When you do a Google search for mediocrity quotes You just get a whole load of these and they're usually from people who are really well respected usually artists And they're like just need to be an expert. Everything else is crap. Just be an expert. It's all you need But actually the original definition of mediocrity. It just meant in the middle Neither good or bad and there was no value judgment attached to it so I think it would be really cool if we kind of move beyond this idea of feeling inferior and Instead we just embrace the idea that we're good enough So in my business, I'm WP super geek the superhero and This is the alter ego. I guess me so I was thinking every superhero needs an origin story and This is mine So growing up. I always dreamed of being an actor. That was what I wanted to do I performed in school plays and I got accepted into a theater degree at university Several graduations later. I was a little bit disillusioned by academia So I sort of got out of that realm and I started working in television Actually this slide is a little bit misleading because it kind of makes it seem like I was this fabulous star of the stage and screen No, I actually watched television all day. I Worked for a TV network doing quality control wasn't quite the dream I took a sidestep then I worked in Apple retail and I helped people you learn how to use their computers and Then I started WP super geek So I helped small businesses to take control of their were their websites with WordPress So as you can see I've been a little bit of a jack of all trades What's not mentioned here is that I'm also a photographer and a voice over actor but Just because my I'm up here, and I'm the one with the microphone. It doesn't mean that my story is any better than yours You might have a similar trajectory or your story might be a lot more linear than this You probably know a lot more about HTML and CSS and JavaScript and PHP than I do and So we're all different and we shouldn't let our perceived lack of knowledge hold us back is what I feel So I want to encourage everyone to embrace this feeling of mediocrity You might feel overwhelmed by all of the techie stuff that's happening at WordCamp, but it's okay not to know at all If this idea seems sort of familiar to you, you might be familiar with the concept of the imposter syndrome Where you join a group such as this and you feel like I'm not really meant to be here and I'm belong Everybody here knows way more than I do And in fact when I was writing this talk I had the imposter syndrome because I was like I'm onto this really cool idea And then I searched and all these people had talked about it before me. So Working with WordPress for over nine years, I still definitely don't know everything But I have a business where I use WordPress So how is this possible? And I think it's because I have embraced that feeling of mediocrity But you're probably wondering like why embrace mediocrity like shouldn't we be trying to be the best? But I sort of feel like it's good to have imperfections because it sort of makes us more human and I really like this the Japanese concept of Wabi Sabi which is Kind of an example of it is if you break a vase and then they repair a vase But the the glue that holds the vase back together is like gold or something really Amazing that stands out and the belief in Wabi Sabi is that the actual broken vase that's mended It's more beautiful because it is imperfect So I'm kind of running with that idea and I feel like if you fear imperfection that it stops you from Realizing your potential I Think we should see being good enough as an opportunity rather than as a hindrance As I said before I'm a jack-of-all-trades and I was lamenting about that one day to my cousin and saying I don't know what I will do with my life and She said well the thing that you're good at is that you can do lots of things And I thought that's kind of cool. So I'm happy to brand myself that and I kind of have a superhero secret identity and I'm ready to reveal it to you today Are you ready? Okay, I don't know everything about wordpress actually that felt kind of good Yeah, that felt sort of liberating, but I feel like we can make it like a bigger statement. I Don't know everything about wordpress Whoo, yeah, that that felt good So with that in mind Kind of come up with a few strategies three strategies That you can use in your own lives to help you to embrace that feeling of mediocrity So the first one is to be authentic I'm being pretty authentic with you guys right now And there's there's always going to be somebody who's better than you at the tech stuff But the client is going to hire you for you not necessarily for what you know As Leonard Cohen saying there's a crack in everything. That's how the light gets in So I sort of feel like if you have cracks in your technical knowledge you can fill those with the light of your personality So, you know, I see myself as a wordpress superhero, which might seem to you like, you know, I'm Pretty happy with myself, but I sort of to me. It's just like a bit fun and tongue-in-cheek, which is just me It's just my personality So if you bring your personality to the table, it's great to be good enough Because then you've got extra room for your personality So the second strategy is working together and when you're not focused on being like an expert on the top of your field You're a bit more open to opportunities that you have to work together with other people I am at my best when I'm collaborating with other designers or developers or content writers or things like that You get that real spark of working together I work in solitary confinement in a home office I'm sure some of you might be familiar with that Maybe all of you and it can be really hard to get out and meet people But that's why we have things like WordCamp and Facebook groups and Everything else that you can use to meet people even if it is meeting virtually You can contribute to the WordPress project through make.wordpress.org even if you feel like you don't really know anything you probably have some skills that you can use and The last way that you can embrace your mediocrity is through helping others and You might feel like if you Are teaching people something that you need to be an expert, but that's not true You can teach people things even if you only know one more thing than they do I Have worked with clients like yoga teachers who are in the studio all day doing yoga and They don't have the time or even the mental headspace to sit down at the end of the day and figure out how to use WordPress so Maybe also builders that I've worked with They are on the building site all day and they really only know how to do their email So these people these non-technical people and I've have seen them literally in tears Because they feel stupid that they don't know how to use WordPress The five-minute installation is not a five-minute installation for everybody and it may surprise some of us who work with it every Day that people really struggle with it Even though we might see it as user-friendly and non-technical people have been made to feel inadequate their whole lives And we can really help those people Because what we feel might be mediocre knowledge to them is an expert and We can really help them out so you can go into the word press word press dog forums And you can help people answer questions on there that you might have only just figured out yourself last week You can help as I have people in Facebook small business groups or my next-door neighbor who runs a business or I've worked with some nonprofits as well So don't wait until you know everything to fully share it with people Mediocrity is a feature not a bug You don't need a special medal or a special certificate to say that you're good enough to go out there and help people But okay, if you really need that if you really need that special certificate, I will give it to you I hereby deem you all good enough Repeat after me. I am good enough There you go, so actually I've made up some buttons buttons are a feature of word camp as I have noticed You can come up and get one after the talk, but I've made up these buttons that say good enough So you can proudly wear one of those buttons and you can tell everybody that you are good enough So this is me I have a good enough slack channel that you can access by my website as well and the slides from this talk are also on my website Thank you