Let me first introduce myself. My name is Wes. I’m the Director of Technology at Barrel, a digital creative and marketing agency based in New York City. The year 2020 was a tumultuous one, full of exciting, scary, and surprising changes. 

On the business end at Barrel, we had to make some shifts in how we operate due to COVID-19—we’re now a remote-first team; we’ve rolled out employee programs for retirement and 401K matching; we created an employee profit share program; and we started summer Friday’s (half work days) that we extended indefinitely. 

I’m personally in a bit of a transition into a new phase of my life as well—I’ve been married for the last three years; I’m looking forward to the birth of my first child; it’s both my wife’s and my first pregnancy; I closed on a new home in Atlanta, GA; and I’m moving to this whole other city after having called NYC my home for 16 years. That’s a lot, and most of these things happened in a span of under six months.

With all of these changes, I started to think about my future daughter and how I can help document things for her future edification and consumption. I’m sure, or somewhat hopeful at least, that some of what I write about will also be useful to someone else. I’m going to start chronicling my life by interlacing several series each ranging from key events, business and/or life lessons, and histories from my life. Beyond the visceral feelings of having an expectant wife, I also was inspired to write by one of the partners at my agency—two actually. 

One of the partners and cofounder, Peter Kang, has had a couple of newsletters over the years, and I know he’s blogged plenty with articles on his current blog going back to 2013. Kudos! He also has a newsletter where he shares what content he’s consumed and those he’s created. I know he doesn’t put his Twitter stream consumption in there, and I wonder if there’s a few guilty Netflix pleasures he omits. However, I love this format because it really puts a spotlight on the things going into your mind and hones in on what’s really important to your personal growth. Another partner at the agency, Lucas Ballasy, is also no stranger to creating content. He is a musician/singer/songwriter (kudos!) and now writer who’s recently started publishing to his blog. Time to put the blinders on and focus!

What I’ve realized is the value that I will get by investing my time in recording my history and thoughts is immeasurrable. It’s the practice of reflecting and writing that will ulitmately pay off in spades.

I’m committing to one article per month. It will either be an autobiographical account, a history, opinion, or lesson.