The most important thing in my life, at least for the last quarter century,  is and will continue to be my children and family.   For fifteen years I was fortunate to have a job where I could put family first and work second.  Damn I miss those days!!!   I want the lifestyle I enjoyed when my kids were in grade school back.  With that in mind these are the things I want to be able to enjoy over the next few years:

• G-Pops (Grandpa for the rest of the world) I want to be able to help out when and where needed without asking for permission from anybody.  I want to be involved in my grand children’s life far more than my grandparents were involved in mine.  Be it because of death or distance, I want far more involvement than I received!
• Cruzing on the back of an ass-kickin machine.  I can’t begin to explain how much I miss hopping on my Harley and heading out that-a-way!  It would be nice to have a passenger or fellow rider to go with too.  🙂
• Making my home a grand-kid friendly place.  If I’m going to be G-Pops then I want a house where the G-CrumbCrunchers can come, stay, play and remember.  Oh do I have ideas for this house!!!
• A life partner!  I really enjoyed being married… at least for the first dozen years or so.  I need to find a woman who I can trust and trusts me, that I can love and will love me back, and who wants to share her life with me as much as I want to share mine with her.  Based on my personal history and relationships this is a bit of a pipe dream but one can hope right?
• Financial freedom.  I know deep down I can build a successful and profitable business.  There is NOTHING in my professional history that says I can’t, rather everything points to, “Why haven’t you done it yet?”
• Physically fit and active.  I’ve always carried a few extra pounds, but two years ago was the heaviest I’ve ever been and didn’t like it at all. Since then I’ve lost 10% body fat and want to lose another 5% to 8%.  Besides that I can’t be involved with my grand children if I’m dead.

In five years EZInlays will be considered the foremost authority when it comes to crafting with exotic woods and building custom inlays.  We will have multiple classes for teaching how the simple plunge router can be used as a handheld CNC machine.  Our tutorials will encompass everything from the fundamentals of working with wood, to crafting with exotic woods, to designing your own custom inlays.  Of course, we will teach how to build amazing decorative wood inlays too!  These are the EZInlays revenue streams:

• STE(Arts)M kits in schools, we will introduce our kits to 500 schools per year

• Will sell one thousand inlay kits per month
• Will sell five thousand wood inlay material kits per month
• Will be a reselling tools for a company like DeWalt and will average 100 inlay tool kits sold per month (Plunge Router, brass inlay kit, clamps, RO sander, etc…)
• Will have a presence in nationwide stores like Rockler / Woodcraft / Hobby Lobby / etc…  (On-line and/or brick and mortar)

• Will have multiple employees.  I need to pay back my debt to society by replacing the jobs my business applications have eliminated

• Will have franchised the Make-N-Take experience

To achieve my dreams I have to get off my ass and start doing things!  It’s my ship dammit, time to start piloting it again!  I’m going to create a mixture of hands on classes, demonstrations, and social media tutorials.  More specifically I will:

• Hold an average of two Make-n-Take events or demonstrations per month
• Create video and step by step tutorials to build each of my designs
• Establish business relationships with a tool manufacturer, a wood supplier, and a STEM marketer
• Create one new design per month
• Have an active and useful social media presence
• Build a subscribed mailing list by adding 1000 people per year

I’ve known for years that this isn’t a journey I want to take by myself.  Unfortunately, for me at least, very few of the relationships I’ve had in the past ended without some sort of catastrophy.  The dad of the first girl I was intimate with decided he didn’t like me and had me arrested.  The first woman I is was infaturated with loved to hate me.  The first woman I thought I would marry didn’t believe in monogamy.  The woman I did marry, and fiercely loved for a dozen plus years, woke up one day and decided she hated everything about me.

I realize we all have had relationships like this in the past and not all of my relationships ended badly.  I also know not every woman is like some of the disasters I’ve ran into before.  But these past experiences have made it difficult for me to try to extend the trust and love needed to build a relationship.  Still I have no choice.  Not only am I tired of facing life’s daily challenges alone, but I’m also the father of two teenage boys and I need to provide them with an example of how I believe a man should treat his woman and the rewards a loving relationship can provide for both!  So my personal goals for the next three years include:

• Finding a life partner I can unconditionally love and trust
• Be financially stable so I can spend time with the people I love, afford the things I need and occasionally want, and play G-Pops when needed and any time I want to and can!!!
• Maintain my current level of fitness, if not improve on it, so I can enjoy all that life has to offer
• Have an ass kickin ride, I’m thinking Indian Chieftan, so I can hit the open road and head that-a-way!

Compared to the well of depression I was mired in a few years ago I’m in a much better place.  There’s still darkness from time to time, but there is far more light than dark these days.  I know the light will continue to get brighter, but I refuse to forget the darkness that occurred when drowning in the depths of despair.

• Own a home again.  Fucked up home ownership last time, that’s not happening again!
• I’ll be riding again – Need those mental health days!  🙂
• I’ll be dating again or will be involved in a loving and nurturing relationship
• I’ll continue to volunteer time for community events (self gratification)
• I’ll be employed at a place that wants me to contribute and is willing to let me utilize my talents
• I’ll be more organized in my life and drop fewer of the balls I juggle

EZInlays is my golden ticket to life so I need to cash it in.  To do that I’ll meet the following milestones this year:

• Generate $10K in sales
• Secure funding, or the necessary partnerships, needed to grow the business into a nation wide brand
• Will be listed in the top five results on all major search engines when searching for inlays, inlay kits, and inlay templates, crafting with wood, etc…
• Will have 500 people signed up to an opt-in mailing list
• Will have online classes for platforms like Bluprint (Craftsy), LinkedIn, Woodworkers Guild, and other platforms.
• Will have held 10 Make-n-Take events
• Will have demonstrated my STEM kit for 5 schools
• Will have explored a franchise model for Make-n-Take events