2019: A Year Full of Everything

I’ve been reflecting on last year (2019) and thinking about what all happened during that year, so I thought I would put up a quick post about it here. So many of you have been reading and following my journey and what I make for quite some time, and I really do appreciate that.

CAREER CHANGES:

2019 marked my fourteenth year in banking. I never really intended to be in banking, but just kind of fell into it years ago and stuck with it. In July of last year, I said goodbye to banking and struck out on a few new career tracks.

One day early in 2019, my 9 year old asked my wife one time, “Mommy, when is daddy going to get another job?” She answered, “Why do you say that?” Alan replied, “He’s just always irritated and upset. I want him to get a new job so he can be happy.”

Even my 9 year old was picking up on the fact that I was miserable and ready to move on to something else. And apparently, I was much more irritable than I even thought, even though I was aware I was being affected.

I had to make a change.

So I did. I left banking. I left at the beginning of July and focused on what was going to be happening in the future, not the pile of years I had at a “safe” career. I would be lying if I told you I didn’t think about it. It was all I had known for almost a decade and a half, but I’m glad I made the decision.

Making this decision has had a lot of impact on our household in all kinds of ways, some we expected but some we did not.

First, I promptly lost about 10 lbs after leaving a desk job. Some of this was due to the stress of all of the new adventures, but much of it was that I was not just sitting at a desk all day, and I was eating better.

I GOT LICENSED TO SELL REAL ESTATE:

In mid-June, I passed the Mississippi real estate exam and became a licensed agent. I had already talked to a broker that would hold my license, and was ready to get going. I had my real estate license back in 2008, but that was not a great year to be in residential real estate, if you know what I mean.

I ended up joining a real estate team to get going fast, and I have already closed two real estate deals from late July through the end of the year. I’m proud of that!

I SETUP TWO LLCS:

When I left the bank, I didn’t have a single career that was replacing it. Rather, it was more a series of income streams that would be the new normal. I had been working on many of these as side hustles in the past, but now I was going to pursue them even more heavily as part of my full-time income.

I setup an LLC for my maker stuff which would encompass listing photography, selling woodworking items, custom woodworking jobs, and anything related to content creation. My real estate LLC is totally separate so I can keep track of the real estate income apart from the other avenues.

SIDE HUSTLES BECOME FULL-TIME HUSTLES:

Many of these things mentioned above were about to their max as side hustles. I had been wondering how I would grow them even more, but with more time to pursue each of them now, I have seen some growth.

Making physical woodworking items continues to prevail, and I plan to ramp up production on cutting boards and other commissioned pieces this year. I’m looking at ways to be more efficient with my time while making cutting boards including buying different material that will need less milling and require less time during the glue-up process. It’s kind of fun to tweak things to get them just right.

THE WE BUILT A THING PODCAST:

My podcast, We Built A Thing, made some great strides in 2019 and is still going strong. We continue to grow the audience and have so many great connections and interactions daily with people because of the show.

Last year was when the podcast got in the black and started actually making a little money, rather than just costing us. We all enjoy doing it, but it is also nice to have some support to encourage us to keep recording.

In 2019, we secured our first sponsor for the show, and we are looking for ways to provide value for our audience and connect with other sponsors going forward.

By the end of 2019, we were getting almost 4,000 downloads per month, which I think is fantastic! If you’re not already listening, go check it out and let me know what you think!

TRAVELING AND COLLABORATIONS:

I did a decent amount of traveling last year, most of which was to collaborate with other makers. In February, I traveled to Atlanta for the 2nd annual Workbench Conference, a conference focused on makers and DIY content creators. It was there that the We Built A Thing guys all got to hang out in person for the first time, which was fantastic.

A few weeks after Workbench Conference, I was contacted by the organizers to be a speaker at Workbench Conference 2020 this upcoming February. I’m pretty pumped about that!

In June before our world really changed, we took a family vacation to Gulf Shores, Alabama. It was a fun, relaxing time and we all really enjoyed that.

In September, I flew up to Richmond, Kentucky to collaborate on some projects with my friend, Jeremy Meadows. If you’ve seen some of the bourbon barrel project I’ve made videos and posts about in the past few weeks, you’ve already seen me talk about Jeremy. That trip was a lot of fun, and I even made some new friends with the Lakeside Woodworks folks. I came away from that trip with a total of 5 videos (1 of which was a different style for me…more like a documentary about what they’re doing there at Lakeside Woodworks. Go watch that if you haven’t seen it yet), I welded for the first time and grew my knowledge base even more, which is always a goal of mine. I’m going back to Kentucky toward the end of this month to be the videographer for their Kentucky Maker Meetup at Jeremy’s shop. I’m excited to be able to see a lot of those folks again and I’ve got some plans to do a few more collaborations and ideas for videos that will go on my channel while I’m up there.

In early December, I flew out to Powell, Wyoming to collaborate with my two podcast partners, Drew and Mark. Mark sold his house and he and his family are moving across the country to Minnesota, so there were some projects he needed to finish for the sale of that house. It was a great time with friends, working and accomplishing a lot and really helping Mark out. I call that a good trip. (It was pretty cold for this southern boy though…December in Wyoming…what was I thinking?!)

CREATING CONTENT:

I’m continuing to create content in the DIY and maker space. I’m about to release my 73rd video on YouTube and I’ll hit my 3 year YouTube-iversary on January 22. I can’t believe I’ve been at that for 3 years already!

I should surpass 7,000 subscribers on my YouTube channel probably early next month, and my channel is currently getting about 25,000 views daily. Thanks to everyone who watches the stuff I create!

Instagram has been a fun medium for me, allowing me to connect with people on a different level than anywhere else. The community there is really strong, and it’s part of how we all keep in touch between conferences and meetups where we can hang out in person.

CHANGES IN EQUIPMENT:

Equipment is always changing, so I won’t go into every detail of what has changed with my machines I used to make stuff. However, there are a few notable changes that I thought I would touch on.

I finally bought a truck in 2019. For years, I’ve just made lumber hauls in my wife’s van or by borrowing a neighbor’s truck or my dad’s. None of that was ideal, so early last year, I purchased a used Ford F150. It is a nice truck, but it doesn’t have all of the bells and whistles. It is enough for me and keeps me kind of grounded.

Last year saw an incredible gain in the Glowforge’s usage and my skill in using it. I really put it through its paces since going full-time self-employed, and it has been fun customizing projects for customers and for our home.

I purchased a CNC router a few months ago, but have not had the time to set it up yet. It is in pieces, and I will hopefully get time to dig into that soon. I’m not even quite sure what all I will use it for, but I knew it was something I would like to have and this was a great deal, so I snagged it.

A TIGHT-KNIT FAMILY:

All of these changes throughout the year have been opportunities to either put a strain on our family or to strengthen it. I won’t say we’ve had no strain, but overall, we have used all of these changes to strengthen our family and how we all rely on each other.

When I quit the bank and became self-employed, we really clamped down on expenses and reevaluated many things we were spending money on. We are not frivolous spenders anyway, but this was a reason for us to be ever more careful.

We still have the goal in front of us to pay off our mortgage. That’s the next big one that we are tackling. At that point, we will be completely debt free, house and all.

Oh, and I turned 40 a few weeks ago. I want to say it was a big deal and felt weird, but it really didn’t. I just took it in stride and I’m looking forward to a new decade of challenges and living purposefully!

That’s a pretty good summary of 2019. Thanks so much for reading along and following what I’m doing. It means a ton!