I am 41-years old and I am pretty sure I am a few weeks into a mid-life crisis. I have no idea what the future holds for me and it’s scary.
How the hell did this happen? In my early 20’s, I already had the next 60 years of my life figured out. Everything was set, all I had to do now was turn on the auto-pilot, sit back and relax, and it was all going to be puppy dogs, cupcakes, and boat drinks.
I was married with my first child on the way and I was certain we would never get divorced. The divorce rate in the U.S. was growing faster than America’s waistline but that clearly wasn’t going to happen to us...we were in our early 20’s and knew all the answers.
I was working for an established company that I knew if I worked hard and did what I was asked that in 40 years I would get a gold watch, a cake, and an auditorium full of people telling me how much I meant to them and the company.
My young family had just moved into our first “home”. There would be Christmas mornings, children’s birthday parties, graduations, anniversaries, and retirement golf.
Then like most of us, life began kicking me in my man parts over and over and over.
I am now a member of the first wives (or in my case husbands) club. I have spent Christmas mornings in an empty house eating my Christmas Hot Pocket. And now I know what it feels like to spend 19 years working for one company only to be handed an envelope and an empty cardboard box as my parting gifts.
So I dub myself the professional hippie. I am dedicated to growing After 2 Beers into a profitable company but not at the expense of others. I have made mistakes along the way and I am certain more are to come but we have also had a lot of positive moments as well. Our number of listens are up, our number of followers grow each day, but our financial bottom line is not.
And that brings me to this blog. I am going to take you all along on my journey. How did we get After 2 Beers to this point? How do you start your own podcast? How do you grow your social media presence? And hopefully, how do you make your own small business profitable?
I ENCOURAGE open discussion. I am not a business or marketing major so I don’t pretend to have all the answers that you will find in a book or that was taught in a college course. What I do have is experience over the last two decades in sales & marketing and to this point starting a podcast.
The goal is that we all learn together. What worked for you and what didn’t work? How much do things cost? How long will it take? And much, much, more.
So I welcome you all to my blog.
Be Kind But Take No Shit
Dutch Daulton
