2017 has been a year filled with new opportunities, new challenges, new clients, and many lessons learned. While the year is not quite over yet, I almost feel as if I have done what I hoped to do with the time given me.

I have done better as a freelance Simultaneous Interpretation Audio Technician. Better as in more work, better work, and I am entering new realms of approach and accomplishment that can mean even greater things for 2018.

Beta|Read had its soft open and while it hasn’t “taken off” that is actually a good thing. We wouldn’t be ready for a huge rush yet. That’s the interesting thing about new companies that I have come to understand. Some measure the success of their venture by the amount of money it generates and how quickly it can generate that money. For me, I have come to see businesses almost as I would a student. In some ways, a business may have a life all their own and it’s own identity. However, I am the teacher and I hope to see that business grow and learn how to be better in an organic way. One day it will be time for that business to graduate and move on to its own life and that is when I move on, I sell.

That isn’t because I can’t or don’t want to run a company that long, but because I know that there are ways for more people to enjoy my creation than for me to run it all by myself.

Podcasting has been interesting. It really peaked this year in the sense that I have done some great work, but it has slowed with both LDS Perspectives and Book of Mormon Central. I’m good with that because podcasting has been this sort of fun distraction from other pursuits, and a way for me to find expression of my faith to a large audience. But it can also be very time-consuming. So, while I plan on continuing that effort into 2018, I see it as taking the place that is healthiest within the ebbs and flows of my other economic pursuits.

Our D&C 4 book finally came out. It seemed as if that book was never going to see the light of day. But it arrived, and it has sold…some. Again, I tend to have to re-evaluate why I do some of the projects that I endeavor to enter. Some are more for money than other considerations, this one was primarily because years ago I felt inspired to make it happen. It has hit the market and I will put it in the Lord’s hands from here.

I still have a cruise in front of me, and a trip to Puerto Vallarta, which is as perfect a way to end my Interpretation Audio and Podcast season and prepare for a mellow holiday season, a time spent preparing and further laying the ground work for the full launch of Beta|Read in 2018.