In April I discovered the code my son had written for our Terra Cotta Pendants website had become outdated and major action would be required to save our site. This hit me hard, again bringing home the fact that Alex was gone. Alex had always been our webmaster.  It it made me feel so alone and so sad. It seemed an insurmountable problem to face yet I had no choice but to face it; the site is our livelihood. I reached out for support and thus began a stimulating and empowering opportunity for growth.

I assembled a team comprised of Ashvini, as adviser, Beke, theme designer and developer, and Nishant our host. Where once all of my team was beneath the roof of my home, it now stretched to India and Romania and often saw me communicating with team members simultaneously via Yahoo Messenger and Facebook Chat.

When Alex built the original website ten years ago I had no idea how amazing it was that he could do it. He didn’t buy a theme or plugins; he wrote all the code himself. I only really came to appreciate the enormity of what he’d done when I faced the mammoth task of finding replacement parts for what he’d created and piecing them all together seamlessly to make a brand new website.

In order to do this I had to:

1. Buy a theme
2. Have the theme’s function modified
3. Buy a shopping cart
4. Modify the shopping cart
5. Find a plugin for a newsletter
6. Buy a plugin for an affiliate program
7. Enlist the services of three tech experts:

Ashvini, who kept a cool head throughout the project. He would remind me that we had already solved a lot of problems and we would continue to solve the new ones we encountered.

Beke, who helped me to change the function of his theme so it suited our E-commerce website. He accepted and mastered every challenge I give him without hesitation.

Nishant, who studied one of our biggest problems – speed or lack thereof, discovered the cause and offered not only the solution but the best customer support I’ve ever experienced.

Gradually I came to recognize a pattern; not only was my Dream Team solving problems but I was too; finding simple solutions to huge  problems. This was the most empowering part of all. Day after day this problem-cum-opportunity was honing me into someone who could handle the worst and make the best out of it.

I am happy now to introduce our beautiful new Terra Cotta Pendants website!

Have you ever confused problems with opportunities? Tell us about a time in your life when what seemed to be a huge problem proved to be an equally large opportunity.