Why I Love Being a Pluralsight Author

Pluralsight was in the news today for a couple of reasons.  First, Lynda.com, a competitor was bought by Linked In.  Second, Pluralsight announced they had raised some additional capital.  The combination of the two stories led to inevitable talk about company valuations.  I think this is bound to happen when 1) there is M&A activity going on in the broader market and 2) you are private company who has seen spectacular growth over your lifespan.

Consequently, financial measures were in the headlines today.  And when people find out you are an author, they usually associate being an author with a lot of financial success and large royalty payments.  There is no doubt, being part of a company that has been as successful from a financial standpoint as Pluralsight is great.  And while I am not a top royalty earning author, the income I earn from my Pluralsight courses is a nice stream of extra income.   In our society, we tend to associate financial success with overall personal success and satisfaction.  That is a simplistic view though that often is simply not true.

What I love about being a Pluralsight author, what I really love has nothing to do with money.  It is that in some way, I'm helping hundreds, maybe thousands of people realize their career dreams, to be better at their jobs and to achieve their goals.  Those of us who have been in technology know that it is hard.  It is hard to learn new things and it is hard when you just can't figure out why something doesn't work.  If the courses I do help someone get over that hurdle, get through that rough patch, then I have made a difference for someone, and that is the most valuable reward that I can ever ask for.

Six weeks ago, I attended the Pluralsight Author's Summit in Salt Lake City, and what I found was that I am not alone in feeling that.  Every author I talked to took real interest in wanting to help whoever would click play on their course be a better developer, a better IT Pro, a better creative professional.  You could describe it as a passion, yes, but that word gets a little overused these days.  A better way to describe it might be that embedded in all of us who are associated with Pluralsight, there is a deep sense of purpose to help our colleagues throughout the industry grow and learn and most importantly, realize their dreams.

Financial success is such an easy yardstick to use that sometimes, it becomes the only measuring stick we use to measure the value both of companies and individuals.  Much harder to measure is the little differences someone has made to all of the people who have watched a course and become a better person from what they learned in that course.  Maybe that means someone gets a raise at their job or gets assigned to a project that they really wanted to be on.  Maybe someone who watched a course I or someone else did has more confidence at work tomorrow or has a deeper satisfaction about the project they created.

Those measures matter.  The fact that I get to touch the lives of others all around the world and help them be better at what they do might not ever make headlines, but it means the world to me, and it is what I think about every day.  And I think anyone associated with Pluralsight would tell you the same thing.

That is what I love about having the opportunity to be a Pluralsight author.