James Barry

My 2023 Year In Review

by | Jan 1, 2024 | Time Allocation

This is my 4th Year in Review. This page is an effort to put into the words the progress I have made in life over the past 365 days. Areas where I succeeded, areas where I did not, and overall what I am working towards next year.

This review is 100% for me. I share it to encourage others to do something similar, while also increasing my own personal accountability.

I will be asking myself the same three questions I asked last year:

  • What went well this year?
  • What didn’t go well this year?
  • What am I working toward?

What Went Well This Year?

Game Development: I built and launched my first game on the app store. It’s a bit unbelievable when I think about how much I’ve accomplished in one year and frankly, I have built and created an amazing game, especially for my first title. If you’re interested in playing it, just search “Idle Brewery: Beer Tycoon” on either the Google Play or Apple App Store.

Problem Solving: One primary benefit of learning to program is you learn how to solve problems. I have solved thousands of problems this year in game development. Some large, some small, but all were important. I have worked this specific muscle in my brain to the point of exhaustion every week for the past year, and because of this it has continued to get stronger and stronger. It’s a skill that nobody can ever take from me.

Fitness: I moved to Boston in September of 2023 I joined a climbing gym with 4 locations within biking distance from the house I am renting. I have been climbing nonstop whenever I can which has allowed me to complete some fairly difficult climbs (many V4s climbs and a few V5s) which is the upper range of what an intermediate climber is able to do. I’ve been climbing for over 10 years at this point so part of my internal voice says I should be further along in my climbing, but it is just a hobby for me. I’m not training, I’m just climbing as much as I can and I know that if I continue to put time in I’ll slowly get past these difficulty plateaus.

Relationships: The older I get, the more value I place on my relationships. This is even more true these days now that I spend the majority of my workday alone. Each year I push myself to go more and more out of my way to stay connected with everybody that I used to know.

What didn’t go well this year?

Business & Finances: I dipped into my savings this year as I did not have a large amount of income coming in. While my business is profitable, I’m still working on getting it to the level where it can fully sustain me and that will be my top priority for the next year. If I’m being totally honest, part of me is disappointed that I am not further along.

Expectations: In my mind, this was my “Hell or High Water Year” to make my living as a solo game developer. While I made enormous amounts of progress towards that goal, including have a fully published game and a profitable business, I did not fully reach my goal of making a living from game development and for me that is crushing. It put a bit of a damper on the entire end of my year and I’m realizing that there are some underlying issues with how I approach my life. My expectations for myself can often be too high, and I also tend to be too hard on myself.

Mental Health & Mindfulness: The downside of building an online business is the same as the upside. You can constantly monitor it from anywhere, and it’s incredibly tempting to do so every single day. I got into a bad habit of checking in on my different social channels and looking at my app analytics daily, especially right when I woke up. I plan to break this habit in 2024 and live my life in a less reactionary state.

What am I working toward?

Caring Less: This is such a weird goal to type out, but I care way too much about what others think and my work. It got to the point where I became overly obsessive and was working constantly 24/7 which led me to my current state of burnout.

Financial Stability: Same goal as last year. While it’s a bit lackluster to just say “I’m going to continue trying to make a living doing what I’m doing”, it’s the main thing that I am focused on and there’s not many other major goals I feel I can focus on unit I achieve this one.

Mindfulness. My dad recently describes life as “Room A” vs “Room B”. Room A is a room full of salesmen who are only making outgoing calls. Room B is also a group of salesmen making outgoing calls, but also have to deal with incoming requests. Apparently, the people in Room A are much more happier in life because they get to live on and set their own schedules. My brain is HARDWIRED to live in Room B, but I specifically chose a career Room A because I knew it would better for my mental health. I want to embrace that more this year, as well as generally being more mindful of my life in general. As the great Ferriss Bueller once said “Life moves pretty fast. If you don’t stop and look around once in a while, you could miss it.”.

My 2022 Year In Review

by | Jan 2, 2023 | Time Allocation

This is my 3rd Year in Review. This page is an effort to put into the words the progress I have made in life over the past 365 days. Areas where I succeeded, areas where I did not, and overall what I am working towards next year.

This review is 100% for me. I share it to encourage others to do something similar, while also increasing my own personal accountability.

I will be asking myself the same three questions I asked last year:

  • What went well this year?
  • What didn’t go well this year?
  • What am I working toward?

What Went Well?

Life Direction: For the first time in my life, I feel that I am no longer searching for a direction. If you’re lucky, most of your 20s are spent searching for something. What will naturally drive, inspire and motivation each day. At 28, I think I finally discovered what motivates me is programming, specifically for Game Development. I think this is true for two reasons. 1st, programming is motivating because at its core, it is the daily exercise of problem solving which I love. A more complex form of Sudoku and other logic problems. This makes everyday a mental challenge, and leaves me feeling like I’ve used my day well. 2 – Game Development is one of the most multi-discipline industries out there, especially when you’re doing it alone. Yes, it’s a competitive industry, but it also keeps me engaged every single day and there is always something to work on that interests me. It feeds my desire to “be productive all the time”, which in turn makes me feel happy and fulfilled.

Programming: To do a deep dive into the above, this year I made the jump from “learning how to program” to being a true developer. I am confident that there are many things I can build, big and small, and the real question is just how long it will take and what do I want to work on. For now, my focus is on improving how I learn and approach problem solving and building my programming knowledge base.

Building a Product: I released a beta version of my game, Idle Brewery, right before the holidays on both the Apple Store and the Android Store. It worked with only a few bugs, and overall the reception from my family and friends was positive! There is definitely still some major work to do on that front, but it is work that I am excited to take on.

Relationships: This year my oldest brother asked me to be the Godfather of his son. I celebrated my 7-year anniversary with my girlfriend, and spent a ton of time with my close friends and family.

Sailing: My team won Match Race US Nationals this year, which is the first national event that I have ever won. I’m incredibly proud of this achievement.

What Didn’t Go Well?

Mental Health: Whenever I do not actively focus on mental health, it starts to slip backwards and I fall into old, well-worn grooves of prioritizing short-term stimuli over the long-term care of my mind. The biggest way I can combat this is to stick to my routines, specifically my morning routine of journaling and meditation. This is easy when I’m at home in my own element, but whenever I travel or am somewhere new I feel myself quickly.

Career and Stability: This was a personal choice and for 3rd time in my career, I am starting over completely from scratch. I doubled down on this decision because rather than focusing on finding a new job immediately, I took the path of building something for myself. While this comes with risks, I knew my own project would motivate me more than working on somebody else’s business. The risk here is that I may not be able to build something that will allow me to support myself, but that is a risk I’m willing to take. The truth is, you can only take these risks so many times in your life, and since this is the second time I’ve attempted to take this one I’m determined to put in the maximum effort to make it work.

Giving Back: This was a year that I spent focusing 100% on myself, which is not a bad thing. There are many times throughout your life when you need to prioritize yourself over others. That said, giving back and helping others is a core part of a life well-lived and in future years I plan to make this a larger focus of my goals.

What Am I Working Towards?

One Thing. Making A Living Off My Games: Hell or high water, this is what I am singlehandedly working towards. My primary public goal last year was to become a developer. I accomplished that. My private goal was to earn $1000 from an online game. That is a goal that missed, primarily because the scope for my game was too large.

I’m not sure how I will make it into a career, but the one thing I’m sure about is the best thing I can do is to keep putting one foot in front of the other. I just launched the beta version of Idle Brewery and hopefully I’ll be able to publish it to the app store in the next month or so. After that, my focus will become split around marketing, updating that game, and starting work on my next game.

Anyway, that is it. It’s a solo-goal year and I look forward to seeing how far I get over the next 365 days.

As Always…

My life is a work in progress. If you’re reading this, you’re witnessing the two-year mark of me deliberately building a life that I want to live. Even more so than last year, I am astounded by the progress one can make in 12-months, and I hope my example can inspire you to make a positive change in your own life.

My 2021 Year In Review

by | Dec 31, 2021 | Annual Review

This is my 2nd Year in Review. This page is an effort to put into the words the progress I have made in life over the past 365 days. Areas where I succeeded, areas where I did not, and overall what I am working towards next year.

This review is 100% for me. I share it to encourage others to do something similar, while also increasing my own personal accountability.

I will be asking myself the same three questions I asked last year:

  • What went well this year?
  • What didn’t go well this year?
  • What am I working toward?

What Went Well?

My Career: I moved from being a contract employee to full-time, and then subsequently received two promotions. Just writing this seems surreal to me, and while it may sound impressive there is some background. I started my job mid-Covid at a startup which was only able to hire me as a contract employee (benefits are expensive). The company then grew to the point where they were able to bring me on full time, and then it grew some more (hence the two promotions). I made a commitment early on to stay with them during 2020, and I was rewarded.

Writing: WOW, I wrote so much this year. Like an absolutely crazy amount. I made a New Years resolution to write 52 articles on this blog (LFG!!) along with many, MANY posts on LinkedIn. The funny thing I’ve realized is that while I enjoy writing, I do not like the aspect of being measured by social engagement. I just like doing it for myself.

Learning to Program: I learned how to code in C# and Python this year. I built a Jumble Bot for our work Slack channel that scrambles words you need to guess. Then in December I decided to learn C# (a programming language) and Unity (a game engine), which are the tools basics required for making a game you can distribute across multiple platform.

My Relationships: I naturally foster and build relationships, and this year was no different. I spent a lot of time with my close group of friends, my family, and my coworkers and developed a large amount of trust within these groups. Also, I built an Instagram account just for fun with a close buddy. I may double down on my relationships in 2022.

Mental Health: This year was a big step forward in my mental health. I saw a therapist for a long time, started meditating and journaling more frequently, and overall started to confront my fears. Like most men (according to what I’ve read on Reddit), I’m always been worried about not being good enough. This year I took on a big challenge (I wrote 52 articles), completed the challenge, and am now walking away from it to take on something new. That feels good man.

What Didn’t Go Well?

Moderation: One of the biggest things I need to work on is moderation. The Podcast Reply All had a great quote “Playing 1 hour of videogames is fun, playing 9 hours isn’t”, which really hit home for me. Due to my nature of wanting to do everything 110%, I am not big on moderation, and this year was no different. However, being able to moderate is a big part of maturing, and it’s something I plan to put significant work into in 2022.

Giving Back: I did not give back nearly as much as I would like to. It’s not only just from my time, but from a financial aspect as well. I can and should do more, and I will make more of an effort next year to do so.

Managing Emotions: I have traditionally not been great at managing my emotions, specifically anger. I’m not alone and my family definitely has a… pattern of anger. That is even more of a reason to continue working on it.

What Am I Working Towards?

Becoming a Developer: Technically, I already am one. I launched one program this year that is used on nearly a daily basis by my company. That’s just scratching the surface though on what’s possible. There are many reasons behind this goal, but foremost is I want to be able to bring ideas I have to life. Also, understanding how to code is one of the best ways to future proof your career, life, and income. There will never be a surplus of people who know how to interact with technology at a granular level.

Focus: I turn 28 this year. I’m starting to get closer and closer towards turning 30 and while that is just a number, I want my path in life to be a bit more clear when I hit that milestone age. To get there, I need to start focusing on more specific goals of who I want to become, and trying to achieve goals that are further out than just one year. That’s why my goal of becoming a developer is so important to me.

Maturing: This is a funny catch-22 goal, because the more mature you become, the more immature you realize you are. This year I want to take a major step in the next phase of my maturity, which will mean taking on more responsibility and living with fewer regrets in life. I’m excited.

Giving Back: This is a goal that I failed this past year. While I did give back some, it is not as much as I would have liked. I can do more next year.

As Always…

My life is a work in progress. If you’re reading this, you’re witnessing the one-year mark of me deliberately building a life that I want to live. I’m frankly astounded by the progress that can be made in one year, and I hope my example can inspire you to make a positive change in your own life.

Should You Go First or Last?

by | Dec 31, 2021 | Random Musings

In Squid Games (SPOILERS AHEAD), the penultimate competition starts with a room full of jerseys numbered one through sixteen. The contestants have absolutely no clue what they mean.

Do they want the low numbers?

The high number?

When this competition popped up, I had a deep feeling in my gut the protagonist needed to pick a high number. Unless you know exactly what the competition entails, it’s usually not a good choice to go first.

When the game is revealed a few minutes later, it becomes clear I was right.

The challenge is straightforward: cross a bridge, but with one big catch: not every panel supports your weight. At each stage there are two distinct panels, one of tempered glass that can hold human weight and one of… normal glass (which cannot support human weight).

If you choose on the wrong panel, you die. Therefore, the people with low numbers who had to go first were doomed.

Squid Games is not reality. It does have a lot of similarities though.

This game is one of them, where a massive advantage is given to those that go last.

As the youngest of five children, I can directly attest to this. Whenever I do anything in life, I’m usually the last one to do it.

I got more leniency from my parents. (My siblings already pushed them to their limits growing up).

My brothers and sisters make big life decisions before I do, like having kids or getting married.

I can see how everything plays out before I ever need to do it, and learn from the mistakes of those that went first.

In business, a similar advantage plays out. There is what is known as the “First-Mover Myth”: which falsely states that if you are the first to market with a new product, you will likely to gain the most market share. According to Forbes, 50% of first movers fail and only 11% dominated their space.

Apple for example, has rarely had the first-mover advantage.

Think of an iPad, iPod, or Apple Watch. All of these pieces of hardware existed before Apple launched their product. Apple just designed significantly superior versions.

Even the iPhone was preceded by the Blackberry, which was even preceded by General Magic, a 90s venture to build a smartphone that failed even with an incredible group of designers and engineers. The public was just not ready for their product.

When you move first you have one big thing working against you: You don’t benefit from anybody else’s experience.

In fact, you are the one who is creating experience at an incredibly high personal cost to you. The lessons you learn and trailblaze may help you eventually make a better decision, but if you can learn those lessons from other people’s hard won experience that is even better.

Going last does come with its disadvantages. You may not get the recognition for being the first to do something, but even so the benefits usually outweigh any drawbacks.

But First, Your Foundation

by | Dec 29, 2021 | Mindset, Time Allocation

Foundation(Noun): The lowest load-bearing part of a building, typically below ground level.

When you create a building, you start with the foundation.

This choice is due to a lot of things, but most importantly gravity.

You can’t build the penthouse first.

You can’t build the second floor without a first floor.

You can’t build that first floor without a solid foundation.

Everything you build sits on that foundation. A strong one will support a massive structure, while a weak one will support… much, much less.

In society, the educational system along with our parents builds our foundation.

The foundation most education systems provide are a “one-size” fits all approach.

Some math here, some history there, and of course many, many English classes. (You need to know how to speak and read after all).

While you might be able to make a few independent choices, the foundation school gives you is pretty similar to everybody else.

Then the foundation that your parents provide you is 100% unique.

It is based off their own experiences, what their parents taught them, and what they think will best set you up for success.

If you received both of these foundations: a good education and supportive family, you are lucky. Not everybody gets that in life.

Regardless, once you graduate high school and leave your house, you enter the blue ocean of the world.

An infinite pool of possibilities. You can pursue anything you want. Be whoever you want to be.

The foundations you have though, may not support that new version of you.

In fact, they likely don’t.

When I was in my mid-20s I wanted to be an entrepreneur. I still do (kind of).

Looking back on it though, I didn’t have the discipline or approach required to be successful.

My ego wanted to immediately jump from 0 to 100 in life, while skipping important steps along the way.

I had never led a team, had no experience building product, or running marketing campaigns. Really, I lacked most of the foundational requirements needed to succeed as an entrepreneur.

WHICH IS FINE!

Failure is a part of life.

Today though, when I decide what to do in my free time, I focus on what will help me succeed if I do start a business again. My foundation.

I currently working in a sales / marketing role (critical for building any business).

In my free time, I am learning how to code and build things.

In my spare time, I write. A lot.

When I first tried to do something new, my foundation was not strong enough.

Nobody teaches you to be an entrepreneur in high school. So I failed.

When I try the next time, I may very well fail again. (Hopefully not).

This time though, I know my foundation will at least be stronger.

Build for whatever you want to be in the future. You never know when it may come in handy.