Episode 50: Nadia Williams

Hallway Chats

Introducing Nadia Williams

Nadia Williams is a Jane of all trades. An educator by profession, she has always enjoyed technology tools, stumbling into the world of ed tech and WordPress around the same time. Nadia is a teacher, a polyglot, a yogi, a travel addict, and a lifelong learner.

Show Notes

Website | MsWillipedia
Instagram | MsWillipedia
Twitter | @mswillipedia

Episode Transcript

Liam: This is Hallway Chats, where we talk with some of the unique people in and around WordPress.

Tara: Together, we meet and chat with folks you may not know about in our community.

Liam: With our guests, we’ll explore stories of living – and of making a living with WordPress.

Tara: And now the conversation begins. This is Episode 50.

Tara: Welcome to Hallway Chats. I’m Tara Claeys.

Liam: And I’m Liam Dempsey. Today, we’re joined by Nadia Williams. Nadia is a Jane of all trades. An educator by profession, she has always enjoyed technology tools, stumbling into the world of ed tech and WordPress around the same time. Nadia is a teacher, a polyglot, a yogi, a travel addict, and a lifelong learner. Hi, Nadia, welcome.

Nadia: Hi, guys. How are you doing?

Tara: Hey, Nadia, welcome. So glad to meet you and welcome to Hallway Chats. Can you please tell us a little bit more about yourself?

Nadia: Sure. Well, Liam, thank you for that awesome introduction. As he mentioned, I am an educator by trade and I spent seven years as a classroom teacher, I taught middle school English. Yes, middle school teachers are a little on the quirky side so I apologize in advance for any random pop culture references or things that might suggested that I have an arrested development because middle school. But I loved it dearly, I had a wonderful time, the kids were one of my favorite parts of the job because I always had great stories to tell at dinner parties. But in that process of being a teacher, it was really fascinating that I kind of came into the field non-traditionally. I actually was originally thinking of going into corporate law and then didn’t get into my first-choice school so that kind of threw me off-track a little bit and I was like, “Well, but I really want to be like Oprah, she seems awesome.” So I went into broadcast journalism as my major in undergrad, came back, decided I didn’t want to do that. I swear I’m not wishy-washy but what happened was I spent a year abroad and had some amazing professors who were actual in-field journalists, and they, unfortunately, did not look like they really liked their lives. As awesome as they were as professors, I came back, kind of had a personal, as they say, come to Jesus moment, realized that with a four-year degree starting pay and that level of dissatisfaction, I saw some people who were actually in the field. I thought I look for other options and one day by the pool, one of my friends said, “Hey, why don’t you think about teaching?” I thought, “Surely, you jest.” But it kind of weighed on me and it really steeped into my brain and I just couldn’t shake it because when I stopped and pulled back, I realized I’ve been teaching people all along. I was teaching people at my college job where I was working for Aveda doing makeup and showing people how to use right makeup products and right skin-care products to keep their skin at a nice condition, or the right hair products for what they wanted to do. I found that I was teaching people– teaching kids, actually. I was teaching color guard flag line for a local high school and I’ve been doing that throughout my college years, and realized, “You know what? I’ve actually been doing this.” I looked into it and was able to get in on traditionally, thanks to my communications degree. And that’s how I ended up teaching English. Yeah, it took me a little bit longer to get into education than most people so I was like a year or two older than most people that came straight in out of college but it’s been quite a wild ride.

Tara: And was middle school your first choice age to teach?

Nadia: Not entirely. My friend who suggested that I teach, she was really passionate about elementary school and I thought, “Oh my gosh, elementary looks like so much fun, the kids, they’re super adorable, some of them might still be eating their boogers, we can work on that.” But I thought, “Oh my gosh, this is going to be so much fun.” Well, what ended up happening was – I’m in Georgia and one of the non-traditional paths to certification offered a chart that illustrated whatever undergraduate degree you had, what that could pair up with, subject matter-wise. And communication paired up very easily with middle grades English language arts. So I went to the necessary process, took the test, passed the test for certification. And then upon being awarded a job, I was able to get provisional certification for five years. Kind of worked out that way. As a sidebar, I realized I didn’t even say what I’m doing now. What I’m doing now is actually work at the central office level. I started off as a digital transformation coach so I like to say I was Disneyworld for teachers, helping them make their dream lessons come true. And that was a lot of fun, I did that for two years. Then this past year, I got a bit of an upgrade to digital learning coordinator which is where I am working with several of our content areas to help assist them on the rollout of their digital content. I also serve as a piece of the team that is developing our digital learning platform. Let’s see what else? Like Liam said, Jane of all trades. I’ve done some graphic design work and social media management for my department and various other things, too. It’s kind of being like a slash this, slash this, slash this. We kind of have a joke in education, or at least in my district of the last item on everyone’s job description is, all other duties as assigned. That is definitely in what I do on day-to-day basis.

Liam: Yeah, I loved that. All other duties as assigned as of 3:00 PM this afternoon, yeah.

Nadia: Right, exactly. “When’s the deadline?”, “4:30.”, “Oh sure, yeah, got it.”

Liam: Nadia, that’s really interesting. I loved the circuitous way you came to where you’re at now or at least got into education. It sounds like once you’re in education, your flow from the classroom into the district-wide role that you have coordinating and leading within technology was a little bit more, maybe not direct, but circuitous than your landing in education. Tell us a little bit about it, if you would. Where WordPress kind of started fitting into that and how you used it over the years?

Nadia: Sure, what’s interesting is I can’t specifically remember when WordPress came on my radar but I think I know when. We’ve had these– I think it actually was before the first Edcamp we had in my district, but sometime around maybe a year or two before the first Edcamp I went to. Edcamp is essentially like an educational unconference where everyone shows up and then creates the sessions right then and there.

Liam: Sure, and is that for teachers primarily?

Nadia: Yeah, it’s for teachers primarily, but I think its origins come from something that lawyers and doctors had been doing, of getting together and having this spur of the moment symposium.

Liam: Okay. Yeah, there’s a well-known BarCamp similar, in Philly.

Nadia: Yes, it comes from the BarCamp concept, exactly. But prior to that, probably about a year, I found myself wanting to create a classroom blog for my students to be able to gather resources, see what we did in class. And also to provide a little bit more transparency with what’s going on at classroom. It helped a ton doing so, having my blog as that one-stop shop. I ended up stumbling upon WordPress. From there, I started geeking out a little bit more. This is the WordPress.com site, and after I geeked out on that to a certain level, I did a faithful Google search, found myself finding Edcamp Atlanta, about two months out, bought a ticket to Edcamp Atlanta, and then promptly migrated my site to a self-hosted site thereafter. The geekery has continued.

Liam: “The geekery has continued.” That is awesome. You talked about this Edcamp and then you moved on and that kind of was the basis for a lot of different things. Nadia, let me direct your attention to one of our more regular questions here and ask you about success. What is your definition of success? Be it personal, professional, or a combination thereof?

Nadia: Wow, way to pull out these Oprah-level questions here, Liam.

Liam: Well, you did want to be Oprah.

Nadia: I know, I’m ready for this. I’m ready. I was born ready.

Liam: I knew you would be.

Nadia: [laughs] I think success is a sliding scale, but I think, most importantly, it is something that one must determine for himself or herself. And however large or small that may appear to others, it’s really inconsequential if within yourself, you feel successful. In my work, one of the things I aim to do is to help my colleagues feel as though they are more successful with whatever it is that they’re doing and whatever it is that they’re wanting to accomplish. But also that they are able to cultivate a space of continued growth. And in that, I grow as well. In essence, yeah, I think success is being able to look at yourself in the mirror each day knowing that you either are living your dreams or your goals, or are actively working towards that and that you are able to maintain a sense of contentment with wherever you are on your personal journey.

Liam: That’s an interesting definition and I like the individuality of it and the ability to step away from measuring as the world does, but really measure as our own center and our own standards and more guide us to do so. We hear definition then, Nadia, what is the single most important thing you do every day to either achieve and/or work towards that success, if you don’t feel in the moment, in the day in the mirror that you are successful?

Nadia: Wow. I recently took on the habit of bullet journaling. Are either of you familiar with that process?

Tara: Oh yes.

Liam: I know the name, I don’t know the process. Can you give us the thumbnail sketch of it?

Nadia: Sure, sure. Bullet Journal was created by this guy, I think it’s Ryder Carroll, a designer I believe. It’s an analog system for documenting what goes on in your day. The highest points of it are that you start with an empty notebook and you basically create sections within that notebook to help you map out your months, your entire year, and also your weeks. Sometimes people also do a daily log as well. What I started doing with my Bullet Journal, one, it’s provided an outlet for me. I’ve always liked drawing and artwork and whatnot. I get really crazy– I don’t have it right by me.

Tara: Oh, I want to see it. I was just going to ask you that.

Nadia: I mean, I can grab it. It’s not too far away, just not within arm’s reach. I love to draw in mine and that provides a space for me to elaborate upon my own creativity and keep that muscle going. But what I also love is that it helps my Type A Brain which by having tasks, I have a key for my tasks and can check them off as I go through. I can also migrate them to the next day. That’s one of the things that helps me feel more successful on a day-to-day basis because if I get around to something, great, that is obviously the goal. But if I don’t, I can have a conversation with myself as to whether or not that task or that thing that I want to do is really still valid or if still necessary for my greater goals. I also put weekly and monthly goals in there, too. I like to have random dance parties. That’s another thing that helps me be successful is finding a new song and just jamming out, because why not, and also, easy cardio.

Tara: Awesome. What’s your current favorite?

Nadia: Oh. It’s a toss between two songs right now. One is by Dua Lipa and Sean Paul, it’s called No Lie. It’s just got this nice reggaeish.

Tara: I know it, yeah.

Nadia: Love that song. Then, I’m also– I was a little surprised but I’m kind of– Oh, oh, oh. Three, three. Other song is by Axwell and Ingrosso called More Than You Know. That is my in-office jamout song. If I’m doing some mind-numbing work and then I need a break– I was working on a template for a document and then I was going to do a screencast of something, I stopped, I popped on YouTube, I had a little five-minute dance party to More Than You Know, it was great. Then I think a couple of days ago, I just discovered this new song by Marshmello and Juicy J, and there was one other person on the track, too. It’s called, You Can Cry, and it’s slower and more mellow but the bassline is nuts. I can just sit there bobbing my head like, “Yeah.” [laughs]

Liam: Are those headphones at work dance parties or are your colleagues getting involved in the party, too?

Nadia: [laughs] Luckily, they have me locked away in a little closet elsewhere. Not to say that I’m like the Harry Potter of my department, I’m not under the stairs. It’s like my office is in Alaska and the rest of my team is on the mainland. I’m close enough that I can just walk over and ask the question, but I’m also far enough away that an email doesn’t seem rude.

Liam: I want to go back to your Bullet Journal because I used to do that kind of thing and I never called it that. I was not aware of that. But I wanted to ask you about when– and I can’t remember what you said, how long have you been doing Bullet Journal, but this idea of writing goals and different types of goals, be it daily, weekly, monthly, yearly. Those sorts of systems, I find in my own life, are very valuable but at some point, I just fall off the wagon, if you will, and stop doing it. Sometimes because things are going well, and other times because maybe they’re not going well. I wonder if you have encountered that in your own life. I’m asking because what I want to know is if you have, how did you work your way back to it? What was the thought process? What made you pick up the notebook and the pen again? How did you do that?

Nadia: Well, very simply with this particular process, I think, was helped me maintain some model of success with keeping it because I’m not the best at maintaining just a writing journal, at all. But this, I think because it provides me with a sense of daily accountability without any more judgment that I put on myself. It’s been wildly cathartic because I get a chance to draw and doodle in it, but it also helps lessen anxiety of not being certain which digital calendar has which info, because I keep a separate calendar from my work calendar and the Bullet Journal allows me to synthetize the two without receiving any sort of annoying notifications from either or both.

Tara: Yeah, I think there’s something gratifying, too, about handwriting it versus using– probably Google Calendar, many of us would be completely lost without that thing but when it comes to actually tasking out your day or your week, having it handwritten, there’s some great feeling of satisfaction. And I’ve looked at bullet journaling and the whole crossing off and little arrows, and moving it over to the next day, it’s almost like a digital process that you’re doing by hand in a way. I think that sticks in your brain a little bit better. But they are beautiful, I’ve seen– if you go on Pinterest or Instagram or just google Bullet Journals, people really go beautifully crazy with it. Does that distract from your productivity when you keep drawing? I’ve always wondered what.

Nadia: No. For me, luckily, it doesn’t. I’m so grateful that with my current work that I afforded quite a bit of autonomy with setting up my schedule. What’s beautiful about that, is I blocked off certain times and even days where I try not to schedule any meetings outside of my office so that I can hit any outstanding tasks. Mondays I just time block some time to just let the world fade away and to get to doodling. I don’t know, throughout the week, I find it to be really inspiring getting back to it. For example, I run, it’s one of the many things that I like to do for fun.

Liam: Hear, hear.

Nadia: Oh, you’re running, too?

Liam: As is Tara.

Nadia: Oh, cool. Even better. So I ran and I talked my mom into running, doing Disney’s coast to coast challenge last year. I know, it’s kind of nuts.

Tara: What is that?

Nadia: Oh. Okay. Disney has the runDisney races and they have all sorts of random challenges you can have if you run certain races in various combinations. It just continues to gamify the experience. “Ooh, I can get more bling.” And if you give me some time, I can also pull out my race medals and show you because I have those nearby, too. But the coast to coast challenge was where you ran a race both at Disneyland in California and Disneyworld in Portland.

Tara: Oh, got you.

Nadia: The reason that I even brought that up was that in my Bullet Journal, I did a drawing of a race medal, prior to my mom and I going and running the Tinkerbell half-marathon about a year ago, because it was the last Mother’s Day weekend. It was so much fun looking at that because I sat there and I was anticipating the trip, but I could also put in place a to-do list of all the things I need to do in advance of travel to make sure that all of my ducks are in a row before I departed.

Tara: That’s cool. Thanks for explaining that. I was imagining that you ran coast to coast when you sad that.

Nadia: Oh, no, no. No, mam.

Tara: At least we’re impressed by that. I’m still super-impressed, I must say, running that stuff with your mom, that’s really awesome.

Nadia: I think she loves me a lot because she, like I said, she hasn’t ran in ages and she didn’t finish the first race and she did finish the second race. Did she? Or she came very, very close to finishing. I think she made it 10 miles in the second race.

Tara: Awesome.

Liam: That’s no small distance.

Nadia: It is not. But they give you a third medal for having ran coast to coast.

Tara: Very cool. We could keep talking about running or we could come back to WordPress and technology and talk a little bit more about that. In your current role, are you working with kids? I’m sorry if I wasn’t clear on–

Nadia: That’s quite alright. I’m actually working moreso with aduluts than I am with kids, but I do get, as we like to call, my kid fix every so often. Last week, I got a chance to go help judge an invention convention at a local elementary school and that was so inspirational. Just seeing what the kids have created and what problems they were solving. I didn’t know that vacuuming up nerf bullets was a problem because vacuums tend to mess up the nerf bullets. But this little boy told me about that and he created an invention to solve that problem and it was awesome.

Liam: I want to follow up with you after this show about that because totally, vacuums are destroying nerf bullets. [laughter]

Nadia: Will do. So I do get a chance to go into school and I get a chance to interact with students, but my purpose now, my function now is moreso either working with teachers or administrators. Honestly, the majority of my work is working with district-level personnel and content supervisors, other people at the district level, and supporting them in the ways in which they support teachers. But I do still do direct-to-teacher professional learning presentations and stuff of that nature. I intermittently maintain my blog, so I’m putting in my Bullet Journal that I will update that sooner than later.

Tara: Alright. What’s your involvement with the WordPress community? Are you in Atlanta?

Nadia: I am in Atlanta.

Tara: do you go to meetups there? What’s your connection with the WordPress community there?

Nadia: I did go to meetups as often as my schedule would allow. We had a WordPress meetup here in the Marietta area for longest. But that has since moved from being in the evenings to being in the middle of the day. Unfortunately, I’m at work and it’s not necessarily justifiable for me to go to a WordPress meetup in the middle of the day, because it’s not– it’s not not something that could relate to my work but it doesn’t entirely directly relate to my work. But we do have a website that hosted on WordPress but that’s not within my direct purview. I try to get to them whenever on a school break and I go to the WordCamps. Man, I stay connected on the WordCamp Atl Slack channel as often as I can.

Liam: Nadia, you and I met at WordCamp Atlanta and we chatted briefly and I enjoyed that. But now I’m wondering, were you there on your own, were you there with other teachers? Did you bring some of your work colleagues along? I didn’t meet anyone that you were with that day so I wonder.

Nadia: I actually came with my own volition. I don’t know if that may be the best word here but I came on my own. Let me back up. Starting over. I came from my own personal interests and my own personal lifelong learning geekery. My plus one was actually my mom this year. She thanks to me has gotten– See, once again. I think she loves me a little because she has gotten interested in WordPress blogging herself and has been wanting to maintain a record of some sort on the interwebs so she came along. This is actually her second WordCamp. One time, she came without me. Just kind of cool to experience it with her because I’ve been once or twice by myself, she’s been once by herself. This time we were able to hang out together. And we did like a little debrief afterward, too. It was pretty nice, nice and formal.

Liam: You’re geeking out with your mom about WordPress?

Nadia: Totally geeking out with my mom about WordPress. It was a lot of fun. I know.

Tara: You run with your mom, you WordPress with your mom. [laughter] As a mom, I’m totally jealous because that would be my dream, to run and to WordPress with my daughter! Wow. Have you inspired your mom for that? You got her into WordPress?

Nadia: How old is your daughter?

Tara: She’s 19.

Nadia: Okay. It’s always possible that that could happen.

Tara: You never know. Did you get your mom into WordPress? Not vice versa?

Nadia: I did. I was her gateway developer since it wouldn’t–

Tara: Maybe your mom will have to come on Hallway Chats sometime.

Nadia: Yeah, you guys would love her. She’s adorable.

Liam: That would be fantastic, I would like that. But for now, I’m going to change it up a little bit and take us to one of our more signature questions. Nadia, can you share with us the single most or one of the most valuable pieces of advice that you’ve ever been given, it can be either personal or professional or maybe both, that you’ve received and incorporated it into your life?

Nadia: Probably a couple. The one that I always return back to is, trust the process. We don’t always understand why things happen or should things happen. But if you trust and you actually are working towards things being on the right path for you, then just trust and believe that it will work out. Don’t just sit there and not do anything and go, “Oh, I’m trusting and believing it’s all going to work out.” No, you actually have to put some effort into it, but probably that. Then, it’s not really direct advice but I’m a huge fan of tenets of the book The Four Agreements. I don’t know if either of you are familiar with it?

Liam: Yes, but go ahead. Explain it.

Nadia: Yeah, it’s based off of the Toltec tradition in Mexico. And ultimately, there are these four agreements or rules or suggestions that one should live by in order to have the most fruitful and honestly, stress-free life. Those agreements are to be impeccable with your words, so to mean what you say and say what you mean. To not take anything personally, to not make assumptions, and then lastly, to always do your best. I found that when I’ve been the most stressed, overwhelmed, or detached from my purpose or whatever I’m working on my goals, I come back to those and remember that there are a lot of things I can fill in and a lot of things I can get upset about for no reason. But if I’m doing my best and not making assumptions, we should be good to go.

Liam: Yeah. The four agreements are important. I want to touch on the first one that you mentioned around trusting the process. I’m going to circle that back to your definition of success and just ask you to clarify. When you say trust the process, do you mean that as we as individuals think about success, think about ourselves, our happiness, our role in life, and try to work towards happiness? Then trusting the process is the process of self-evaluation, self-improvement, following four agreements kind of thing. Is that what you mean by trust the process?

Nadia: Sort of. That’s definitely an element of it. What I was mainly getting at was recognizing that you don’t always understand– things may not work in the time frame that you prefer. Sometimes things pop up that are genuine surprises, that’s life. But great– this goes into another quote, a great quote that I absolutely appreciated is something that Steve Jobs once said, which was that our lives make the most sense looking backward. You have to follow the dots looking backward opposed to looking up ahead. I think that that’s definitely true, trusting the process. You might not understand how you’re going to get to where you need to go or even where it is you’re supposed to be going, but when you look backward, from once you are in a space, it makes complete sense. Does that make it a little bit more clear?

Liam: Yeah, it sure does. Thank you for clarifying, it’s a lot about patience and self-control.

Nadia: Yeah, and that delayed gratification but also appreciating the journey. There’s so much to be learned from just being present in the space that you are when you are there.

Tara: Yeah, that’s a combination of two things, being present and then also having faith in what’s to come.

Nadia: Not, I feel like, religious faith necessarily.

Tara: Right. I get you completely. I think I’ve heard of something similar to The Four Agreements, they’re four Ps. Have you heard about that?

Nadia: No, I haven’t.

Tara: Sounded very familiar to me but anyway, yeah, that’s great advice. I’m definitely making a note of that book, thanks for sharing that.

Nadia: I do have more quotes in my Bullet Journal, just to bring it back to that.

Tara: When we’re done recording, you’re going to have to send me a picture.

Nadia: I’m totally going to do that. Screenshot them.

Tara: Actually, yeah, I’ll put it in the show notes. That would be great.

Nadia: Okay.

Tara: If you’re willing?

Nadia: Sure. I might have to redact some things that are highly sensitive.

Tara: we can blur that out, for sure. [laughter]

Liam: We probably should.

Tara: Alright, I believe we’re out of time.

Liam: Speaking of living in the moment, yes, our time has gone. Nadia, thank you so much for joining us this afternoon today. Before we say goodbye to you, I wonder if you can share where people can find you online, please?

Nadia: Sure thing. I am very active on Twitter, my handle is @mswillipedia and I have a blog by the same name, Mswillipedia.com that’s hosted on WordPress, or powered by WordPress naturally. Then I’m also on Instagram, same handle, @mswillipedia. So pretty much, if it exists out there and I’m on it, it’s @mswillipedia.

Tara: That’s a good handle.

Nadia: Yeah, well, last name is Williams and one of my colleagues said to me once, “You’re kind of like a walking encyclopedia.” And I went, I’m going to go with that.

Tara: I love it. Thanks for joining us. It was great talking to you, Nadia. Thank you very much.

Liam: Thanks, Nadia. Bye-bye.

Nadia: Thanks, bye.

Tara: Bye.

Tara: If you like what we’re doing here – meeting new people in our WordPress community – we invite you to tell others about it. We’re on iTunes and at hallwaychats-staging.ulpgsyz6-liquidwebsites.com.

Liam: Better yet, ask your WordPress friends and colleagues to join us on the show. Encourage them to complete the “Be on the show” form on our site, to tell us about themselves.

Tara: If you like what we’re doing here – meeting new people in our WordPress community – we invite you to tell others about it. We’re on iTunes and at hallwaychats-staging.ulpgsyz6-liquidwebsites.com.

Liam: Better yet, ask your WordPress friends and colleagues to join us on the show. Encourage them to complete the “Be on the show” form on our site, to tell us about themselves.