2015: The year of new beginnings

I can’t believe that this year is almost over. It’s been a blur!

This will be the last you hear from me this year; I’d like to enjoy the last couple of days of the year focusing on my family.

I hope you do too.

If you’re reading this, thank you so much. I greatly appreciate it!

With all there is on the Internet competing for your attention and your time, you chose to read what I have to say.

How cool is that?!

A lot of awesome things happened to me in 2015:

  • I finally graduated college with a Bachelor’s Degree in Finance after starting my quest 8 years ago.
  • I started this blog. This was the first post.
  • I realized I was an introvert.
  • I got married to my best friend.
  • I got this dog: bine
  • I wrote a guest post on Budgets are Sexy.
  • I was featured on Rockstar Finance twice.
  • I was nominated as one of the “Best New Finance Blogs” by Rockstar Finance.
  • I met lots of cool people like Steve, Maggie, Living AFI, Our Next Life, Mr. and Mrs. SSC, and Adam Chudy.
  • I’ve talked to tons of my awesome readers.
  • I figured out what the point of this blog was.
  • I’m almost ready to started a couple of businesses.

A couple of not-so-awesome things also happened to me:

  • I almost did a “lucrative” internship.
  • I quit my job but ended up going back due to being unprepared and running out of options.
  • I ended up in the Emergency Room. (But I think this was a blessing in disguise.)

And here are some of the most popular blog posts on the Self Employed Movement for 2015:

  1. You Chose This Life
  2. 58 Ways to Keep Yourself Miserable
  3. The “Top 10” bullshit excuses that are keeping me at my dead-end job
  4. 25 Things I’d Tell My 18 Year-Old Self
  5. I’m Not Shit if You Don’t Know Me

Ladies and gentlemen, that’s a wrap for 2015.

I hope that the year has treated you well.

I hope that I’ve inspired you to at least try or have motivated you to change. I hope that you didn’t give up hope because of me.

I hope that my struggles made you feel like you’re not alone. I hope you’re more grateful for all that you have and you don’t worry as much about the things you don’t.

I hope that you’re better off because of something that I’ve written.

May you end 2015 on a high note and may 2016 the best year of your life.

Thank you for being a part of the Self Employed Movement. Thank you for allowing me to create something that’s bigger than myself. Thank you for allowing to make an impact in your lives.

Thank you for all of your comments, likes, messages, and reblogs. Thank you for reaching out to me.

It all means so much to me.

Thank you for being along for the ride while I figure out this crazy shit called life.

Thank you for making me feel like I’m not alone.

Thank you for making me not feel like I’m crazy to try to change.

Thank you for inspiring me to keep on going.

If I improve your life, you improve mine. We all win.

We can all reach convergence where every part of our lives are totally awesome.

It won’t be easy but hopefully you can see that it’ll be worth it.

I’m excited to look back and see where I’ve come from. I’m excited for the future to see where my hard work and taking action will take me.

That wasn’t always the case.

Thank you for inspiring me and motivating me to change my life.

Of course, I couldn’t have gotten this far without the help of my wife who is my editor and my greatest source of support. She tells it how it is and calls me out on my shit.

There’s also my mom who has always done whatever she could so I had as many opportunities available to me growing up. She also has become quite the entrepreneur herself lately and I couldn’t be more proud of her.

Then there’s my dad who was the first one to show me that there’s others ways to make money than by working for the man. He’s the only one whose crazy ideas rival mine.

Let’s all make 2016 the best year of our lives so far. Let’s get self-employed.