From UX designer to furniture maker, meet Ryan Kelly in Englewood, Colorado.
In this episode of the "Career Flipper" podcast, host Jenny Dempsey interviews Ryan Kelly, who transitioned from a decade-long career in tech to founding Humm Furniture. Ryan shares his journey of creating thoughtful, human-centered furniture and discusses the challenges of this career shift, including time management and overcoming analysis paralysis. He emphasizes the importance of taking action and leveraging his user experience design background. The conversation also highlights the significance of a support system and practical strategies like outsourcing tasks and tracking time to optimize efficiency. Ryan’s story serves as an inspiring example for those considering a career change.
Episode Takeaways
Connect with Ryan
It can be paralyzing, I think, to overanalyze or think a ton about every decision you make or, or even, even the big ones, because you're never gonna get it perfect. Right? So you could spend days and days analyzing, or years. Mm-hmm. Uh, sometimes in my case, what you should do, and sometimes you just have to.
Do it. Welcome to the Career Flipper, the podcast where we get into the nitty gritty of career changes, the good, the bad, and everything in between. Every week I sit down with incredible people from all sorts of industries around the world to explore how they make the leap from one career to another, and how they handle all the bumps along the way.
I'm your host, Jenny Dims. After getting laid off and unexpectedly flipping my own career from tech to furniture flipping, I couldn't help but wonder how do people actually do this and make these big changes? How do they stay motivated when things get really tough? That curiosity sparked this podcast, and I'm so happy you're here with us.
If you love hearing stories of career changes or. Maybe you're thinking about making your own. Be sure to hit that subscribe button. New episodes drop every Thursday. Okay. Have you ever looked at a piece of furniture and thought, who made this? And what's the story behind it? Today's guest, Ryan Kelly, is turning that curiosity into a business.
Ryan's story takes him from over a decade in the tech world to creating thoughtful human-centered furniture at his business. Hum. Furniture based in Inglewood, Colorado. He's using his background and user experience design to craft pieces that really connect with people, and the best part, he loves what he does, and it feels like the right move for him.
You can definitely tell this by the way he talks about his work. Ryan gets into the challenges he faces on a regular basis as he's trying to figure it all out. Everything from time management to outsourcing different parts of the job to how he will expand his operations one day. Plus, he shares how a solid support system, especially from a sister, helped validate his decision to take the leap.
Let's jump into Ryan's story now. My flashback to my tech world was just hearing that recording is progress. We're to do that. We're, yes, five times a day in all my Zoom calls. I haven't heard in a while. Sorry, you were doing your intro. No, I think that's a better intro. Welcome back to the tech world where Zoom calls are recorded and probably transcribed so we could all not read them later.
Yeah. Or we watch them later. So we get AI to read things for us and then AI to tell us what to do exactly. And then what? Then we'll never have to do anything. It's great. Yeah, exactly. Tech. Love it. Yeah. You, you came from the tech world. You had what, like 18 how many years in the tech world? 18 years, 20 years?
Um, man, I guess I look older than I am. No, I think it was about a decade in the tech world. Okay. And then I had, I had career before that, um, or I guess, yeah, a focus before that. Although the whole world was kind of in tech, which is something that's been interesting for me after moving out of it. I'm kind of almost, you know, I was very disillusioned with the tech world and now I'm, I'm using technology to do things that I care about and I'm like, oh, it's not so bad.
It just, I just didn't really like being in the belly of the beast every day. Uh, that's what I didn't love, but, you know, there tech's a huge part of our lives and it's super valuable, especially Yeah. When, when it is created and managed responsibly. Which isn't everywhere. Yeah. Agree. Absolutely agree. Well tell everybody who you are, where you are and what you do now.
Yeah. I'm Ryan, uh, I'm here in my living room a few feet away from my dog, Roscoe, who is very bored with this conversation. He only knows like 10 English words, so it's not us, I'm sure. Uh, I live in Denver, Colorado. We're just outside Denver in Inglewood, Colorado, which is a little suburb. And, uh, I make custom made to order furniture that I believe is thoughtfully interactive.
Um, which means that I put a lot of thought and a lot of time into, um, not just the aesthetics of the things that I use, but making sure that. When someone uses them, they can become a part of their lives and you can kind of extend it with the way that you use it. Whether that's something simple like, you know, I make you a dining room table and you're having Thanksgiving and your Christmas dinner at it, or some of the more interactive things I do, like the lighting or the um, the audio consoles that I make and you're putting on records, but not wanting that to be like, you know, I guess.
Not, not wanting that to be kind of difficult or distracting from the thing that you really care about, which is enjoying the moment that you're in. Mm-hmm. So that's what I'm, that's what I'm doing for now until my next career. Flip all the flips. All the flips. And what is the name of your company? Brian Company is Hum Furniture.
HUM. Um, which means all sorts of different things to me, but, um, hum. Like you hum. Along to a song for the audio consoles or Hum. Like human hum for Humble, which is where it started. Um, when I was taking my, uh, my first design class, my first, um, kind of physical object furniture design class. Which was, I guess, four or five years ago now, um, I had this amazing teacher named Sean Gillespie, who brought us through this exercise, the whole class of writing an artist statement, which I had never done before.
In fact, the idea of calling myself an artist was terrifying because it just. I don't know why, I couldn't tell you exactly why, but it just feels like if you call yourself an artist, then you have to be a Leonardo da Vinci or Picasso or whatever who, uh, and you have to be amazing. But, uh, taking that that leaf was, was a big deal.
But he took us through this process of trying to understand what, why do we wanna make things? What's important, what's unique about it, which was really cool. Um, and one of the big things that was important to me in my life at that time was. Uh, being humble and, and exploring also like what humility really means.
Um, which I think I'm always gonna keep figuring that out, but I guess I realized that humility isn't just putting yourself or it's not at all putting yourself down and saying, oh, I'm just, you know, I'm nothing. Oh, it's not, and I'm nothing special. Well, I don't know about that, et cetera, but it's more like recognizing that and trying to take a look at how.
You fit into the world and into the relationship you have and into society and recognizing that you are not everything, but also you're a part of everything and everything part of you. And I know I'm getting kind of like super crunchy and airy fairy when I say that, but it was like a big thing to me was, and I hope this shines through in the work that I create, which is recognizing that like I'm going to make physical objects for people to use, but like.
The object is not the thing, like people using them is the thing and how they extend them and how they get warm and how maybe one day they get flipped by you or someone like you down the road and get a new life and that's pretty, that's pretty awesome. That's the long answer to the question. What's the name of your company?
That's, that's incredible. I can tell that you put, so there's so much intentional thought into. Everything from the name to the work that you do, and I'm really curious, Ryan, how. Like where did your career begin and how did you learn to be so intentional and thoughtful with the human experience and the things that you contribute to within that?
Hmm. Yeah, that's a great question. You're great at questions. I'm not surprised you professional podcaster. It makes sense. Well, professional is a very light use of the word. Let's, let's carry just like talk. Well, you're very professional. You got a good zoom background. Thank you. How did, yeah, how did I, that's a good question.
I think that I've always been maybe to a fault, like super analytical and introspective, probably more than I, than I should be. And I'm sure there's a lot of things, bad things that have come outta that. Uh, I think it slows me down in decision making a lot, being super thoughtful or intentional about everything I do.
It can be paralyzing, I think, to, to overanalyze or think a ton about every decision you make or, or even, even the big ones because. You're never gonna get it perfect. Right? Right. So you could spend days and days analyzing, or years. Mm-hmm. Uh, sometimes in my case, what you should do, and sometimes you just have to do it.
Right. Yeah. So in some ways I've been, try, I've been spending a lot of my life trying to kind of overcome that, um, analysis paralysis and just do things. Mm-hmm. You know? Yeah. Uh, I have on, on my workshop, which I'm pointing to it over there, which is just my garage. Um, I have giant letters on the wall, uh, the word act with an ellipsis after it, which is just like a constant reminder to me that you have to take action.
Yeah. And you just have to do stuff and figure out. What, what goes right or what goes wrong later, but you're, you're never gonna really know until you do it, so you just have to take action. Yeah. Um, that's been a big mantra for me. Uh, but anyway, to answer, answer your question about how did I, I guess, get so focused on kind of like interacting.
A lot of it comes from my last career, which was in tech. Uh, I was a user experience designer and then eventually a middle manager, which I don't recommend to anyone, even though there's a lot of great things about it. There's a lot of, and, um, not the fun ones like this one, but the user experience design profession for people that maybe are not familiar with it, it's a somewhat non-technical role in a, in a tech world.
So you work a lot with software engineers who do coding all day. Um, but you don't typically code yourself. Your job on the team that's creating a software product is essentially to deeply understand the people that are going to use the piece of software that you're all trying to create to understand what, not even what their needs are necessarily, because there's maybe some other people that focus on that, but how they're going to interact with things and.
Essentially translating that into some direction that you can give to the other people on your team that are building the actual thing on. Sometimes small, sometimes big decisions about how it should be made. So you have responsibility from everything from like designing a color palette. To that makes sense, not only aesthetically and is beautiful, but also has the right contrast level so that people who maybe are a little bit vision impaired can like, see the thing clearly.
Um, and then you also make decisions about where should that button go on the screen and what should the button say, which like are things that hopefully most people that are listening to this podcast never had to think a ton about. But if you, if you, if you have, it was probably a bad thing. Um, there's this, there's this famous book in the UX design world called, don't Make Me Think by Steve.
I think it's Krug, although I've never heard it said out loud. KRUG. And that's, that's a big thing that everybody says in the UX design world is like, you don't wanna make people think, or at least you don't wanna make people think about things that they shouldn't be thinking about. Yeah. So if you've ever like been on a website and looked at a button and said, oh, it says post.
But am I really posting something and where am I posting it to and what does that mean? I thought I was just sending a message, why does it say post? Mm-hmm. That's just one little example of something that a user experience designer would spend. A silly amount of time thinking about to get to the point where you don't have to think about it and you can just kind of move forward and take advantage of the technology.
The level of detail with that is whew. Is a lot. Yeah, it's a lot. You can, it's, it's super meta and you can get kind of like buried in these time decisions. Yeah. Which is such a contrast to what I'm doing now. I think. You know, I'm a sole proprietor essentially now. Mm-hmm. I think maybe I'm an LLC technically if the IRS is listening, but I, uh, I do all sorts of things every day and coming from a, a world where I was just a, a really small piece of a, of a giant moving thing mm-hmm.
Is incredibly different. You know, you spend so much time when you're an employee focusing on your specific thing and like. That level of detail. Right? Yeah. And now that I run my own business, I guess a big thing that I have to do is figure out what are the things that, that actually deserve that level of attention in detail.
Right? And I think that's one of the, one of the biggest challenges is I've got so many hours in a day and where should I be spending them? Is, is probably my, my biggest challenge. Day to day running the business, I think is figuring out not only what needs to be focused on and what's important right now and, and for the next few weeks, but also am I good at it?
Mm-hmm. I think I find myself asking that a lot. Like, um, I. I'm gonna start outsourcing a little bit of my furniture creation, specifically making panels, which is just combining a few boards, so it looks like a tabletop, uh, which is something that I know how to do, but I'm not great at it. And there's people that are really great at it.
You can do it really efficiently that are in my local community. So that's one thing that I'm like, Hey, you know what? Uh, that's the decision that I'm making that that's not where I add most value. So let me just get some, somebody to partner with me. To do that because then I can go focus on the things that I'm really great at and we'll see how it goes.
But yeah, hopefully that's the right decision. We'll find out. I'm gonna act and we'll see. Yeah. Yeah. You don't know until you try and it sounds like working smarter, you know, like working that, that whole. Kind of, there's an acronym for that, but like, I feel like, uh, at some point as a sole proprietor or LLC, like you said, if the IRSs is listening, um, really trying to, you know, juggle your time.
I don't know, like I struggle with that too. I am working on the computer with podcast and other little thing, make sure my website's up, responding to emails, but then I'm in the garage and I gotta change into my overalls and I gotta like. Get my safety gear on and like get everything set up to paint or saw or sand or whatever.
And so juggling the two worlds, I'm like trying to figure out the timing of each is like, do I spend more time on this versus the other things? How do I set priorities is very different. Um, then just when you are an employee and you have your task list and you check things off and your boss sees that it's done, and then you can kind of go on your your way.
And it's obviously not as simple as that, but like, in a way it, it feels like that, it feels a little, time management feels a little more complicated when you're juggling very different types of projects. But, um, yeah, it's just trying to, yeah, our projects are pretty similar. Yeah. Like that, that flipping into, yeah.
Workshop mode or, you know, putting on all your PPE and everything. I'm curious, how do you, how do you approach those different segments of your day? Are they all interwoven where you might be sanding and then you just, you know, your phone beeps and you've got an email and you jump to it? Or do you segment things a little bit more where you're like.
I've got my, you know, computer time and then I've got my work time, and then I've got this. How do you approach that? Good question. Well, for, I've just really had to do trial and error I've done where I've been very rigid with my scheduling of where mornings or computer and afternoons are for furniture and I am able to kind of segment an hour between that to eat lunch and walk the dog and, and kind of break up my day.
And I've found that's kind of the best. Balance because before I was doing it where I'd be on the computer for a bit, run into the garage, do something, hop on my phone, record some content, get back on social media, and then I'm like, I feel like my brain is gonna explode. Like this is not like I wasn't setting good boundaries and I was kind of trying to do everything for everyone.
And I realized I had to be very. Going back to the word intentional about segmenting my day where I can do my best work. And I find, I mean I working from our garages, like here in the North Park area, I mean, you know, you used to live in this area, it's very close. So if I'm standing at 8:00 AM people are not gonna be very happy.
Like the neighbors are gonna hear, like I have to be a little bit more intentional. Sanding is from one to 4:00 PM a little bit later in the summer when the days are longer, but I have to. Just think about little things like that. I don't know what is, what is it like for you? How have you been kind of segmenting your days?
I think that I, I've found similarly that like separating those tasks is important and not letting your mind kind of be mm-hmm. Hopping around to everything. Mm-hmm. Because that's just a recipe for going in circles and, and feeling like you've never gotten anything done. Yeah. So I definitely segment as well.
Uh, I don't, not as regimented about like the times of day that I do things, I think that's a little bit more fluid. But one thing that I have been really diligent about ever since I. I made the leap to do this full time. Is tracking all of the time. Uh, that I spend on things to understand it so that I can look back and, and do analysis.
You know, then this year or in 2025, I'm doing my planning for the, for the year, and my plan is to move into a commercial, commercial shop and hire one to two employees. And when I get to that point, I need to have the answers about things like how much time should we spend on design versus construction and all of the pieces of construction.
And also how do we make a timeline that makes sense? Because a lot of the things that I do have, like these. Wait times built in. So I'll build something and then I glue it together, and then I gotta wait for it to stop to be cured, you know? Mm-hmm. And then the same thing happens with finish and all of that.
So there's a lot of operational things that I need to have. A good handle on before I make that next step. So one thing that's been incredibly helpful to me is I use, uh, an app to track all my time. The one that I use is called Toggle Track. It's T-O-G-G-L with no E. Okay. Because of course we have to spell things weird 'cause everything's Word has been used now, right?
Um, it's a purple app. It's on my, uh, on my iPhone. And it, for me, it's been incredibly simple because I just type in what I'm doing or select from a list and I hit start and it just records. And then I hit stop. And then it's done and I can look back and export to Excel or look at reports and things like that.
That's excellent. I'm taking, so I look, I, I, I also look back, you know, after I've finished a project and kind of do a brief analysis of that, which is really, I do like a little profit loss. I look at, am I getting faster at this or that, or I talked before about outsourcing, creating panels or gluing up boards that be flat.
That came from my. Time tracking. I looked at it and I was like, wow, it's taking me that long to do it. That's not how long that should take. I should find a panel shop that can do it much faster and still do a good job and I can trust them and kind of put my name on it. Mm-hmm. Yeah, that makes, that makes a lot of sense.
I, yeah, that's. Definitely something we're still figuring out too. Every project that I take on is very different because it came from a curb or a trash or whatever it is, and I don't know what I'm getting myself into. I don't know what's under that first shitty line of paints. Like I have no idea. And so I have to kind of like, you know, set expectations that this might take longer than.
I expect, and it can get a little tricky, but I really like the app. I think that's actually really helpful. I'm gonna download that after this. But Ryan, I wanna take a step back here for a second, because you've become very, like the operational part. You're, you've really, you're thriving in this, you're figuring it out, you're acting on it, you're doing it.
But how did you, like, how did you get from tech? To this point where you're at now, how did you, when did you leave? Like how did you leave? What did you, what changed? What, what happened? How'd you flip? Yeah, great question. I think that I, I keep asking myself that, how did I end up here? It feels like the red place though, so I'm, I'm glad for it.
That's, yeah. Um, I'm old enough now to look back on my career, my career and my life and, and kind of take a little bit of stock of it. And one thing that I've noticed is that I seem. To get bored. Uh, I wouldn't say easily, but with my career every like five to seven years. So I'm probably on my third, maybe fourth, depending on how you, you look at it, uh, career.
And oftentimes it just comes out of a little bit of disillusionment or disinterest with what I'm doing. Whether that's means that I'm not challenged intellectually or maybe I'm not crazy about the impact I'm having on the world or think I could have more. Mm-hmm. Uh, and that always pushes me to kind of like.
Try something new, but I've never tried something that's totally new, at least not from a career perspective. It's always been like, I'm not sure if parlay is the right word. 'cause I'm not sure I even know what that word means, but I hear people saying it a lot. It's, it's kind of like taking a piece of me Yeah.
And a piece of my old career and, and turning that into something new. That's always been what happened. So I, I got, I studied market research in college and. I thought that was interesting for whatever reason, probably. 'cause I had a cool market research professor and I was like, I wanna be like you. Uh, I did that for a while and then after a while I was like, oh man, this is like intellectually challenging, but I'm not crazy about the impact I have on the world.
Not that I'm hurting anybody, but I'm really just, I was essentially doing a great job. Or a good enough job to be paid of, of helping companies convince people to buy the things that they were making. Yeah. Which was close to what I wanted to do, which was help people have things that they love, but it was like maybe a little bit more on the convincing than mm-hmm.
The helping side. So I got disillusioned with that and then I was like, well, how do I, what can I do and what do I know? And so, uh, I had some friends that worked in user experience design. And they were like, well, it sounds like you're doing a lot of like research and understanding people that's kind of related to what we do.
I was like, okay, how much money do you get paid? And they told me and I was like, that's more sounds great. So I took some classes and uh, actually was part of the inaugural, uh, user experience design program at UCSD extension. Went back when I lived down in San Diego. So that was wild and kind of bumpy. Uh, but I was able to kind of take, learn a few new skills, but take a lot of things that I was good at and get into a new career.
So that was back in 2014, I think. Uh, and then I did user experience design for a while and then moved into management and maybe a year or so ago. I started having a lot of the same feelings that I had during my first career flip, which was, uh, I'm not really excited about going into work today. Uh, I guess I'm kind of doing the same thing.
I'm repeating the steps, you know, that, that I've done a million times to get this project done or whatnot, and maybe I'm not super crazy about the output of it at the end of the day. So what can I do and what can I, you know, kind of like. Transition into that would be a little bit more mm-hmm. Uh, fulfilling for me.
And so that transition was actually very similar. Yeah. Uh, it started, I guess three or four years ago, but I started taking classes about, I, I knew I, I knew, I knew how to design things well, and I was good at being a designer, but I was designing screens and I wanted to get more in the physical world. So I took a furniture design class at a local community college, and I, that's where I met Sean Gillespie, the professor I talked about before.
And it was actually at that furniture design class that. People in class and the teacher kept mentioning the workshop. And I was like, huh, they must be all going to some workshop somewhere. And it, it wasn't until like the third or fourth week of class that I realized that there was a workshop downstairs from the classroom that I was in.
And it was a, it wasn't just a furniture design class that it, I was in, it was an entire program that was a fine, we're working program and everyone else in my class. I was just taking it 'cause I kind of was interested in furniture and thought it was cool. Everyone else was like studying to become professional fine woodworkers.
Wow. And I was like, oh, that's interesting. So I like took a tour of the workshop and I went downstairs and I like, oh man, this is great. So then I took another class and next semester and then I just kept pursuing it as a hobby. And then I found that. I was daydreaming about building furniture when I was, you know, designing software.
And I was just so much more interested in that, that it, at some point there was like this groundswell where I was like, it's, it's pretty silly, Ryan, that you, that you're not doing this professionally. Like you just need to go do it because you love this. Mm-hmm. And you, you know, it's gonna be scary, but you'll figure it out, you know?
Yeah. You can make it happen. Yeah. And then you made it happen. Did you put in a notice to your job? Um, did you, yeah. What was that like? Yeah, I, uh, so I quit my job, uh, like the day after Labor Day, technically. Okay. Which was really nice at that moment when I put in, or when I told them I was gonna leave, but.
The HR person and, and my boss were like, well, maybe, you know, we got the holiday coming up and if you just put your day after Labor Day, you'll get another month of health insurance and you know, you can take some paychecks. And I was like, wow. That's great. Thank you. I really appreciate how I, you're being about that.
Um, so yeah, I was back, I was Labor Day of this year, 2024. Um, and so. I've, yeah, I've been at it for a while here that that was an important thing for me. I don't know if this is true for everybody else, because there's lots of people that have a side hustle and they turn that into a career, or don't even, and just, it's just a, you know mm-hmm.
A passive income stream, and this is what a lot of like the, I think the influencers and entrepreneurial influencers, because online would tell you is like, you know, don't quit your day job. Do it on the side, prove it, all that stuff. But for me, it was the total opposite. I had to let go of my job to do this.
You know, a lot, a lot of that came from just looking at who I am and knowing myself a little bit, and I was like, and when I do stuff and when I'm, if I'm ever successful at it, I do it all the way and the, the things that I haven't been successful at, the big theme for me has always been, I wasn't all the way in on it.
So it was scary. I took that leap, but. Now I'm all in. And it feels great. It's, that's incredible because it is scary. It's really scary to go from that, I mean, from this kind of stable day-to-day thing and then leap into something that you're unsure of, like as far as like what's next and how you're gonna build it and all the things.
And did anyone around you, like what, what was the, your support network? Like, what did people say when you told them that you're, you're changing your path. Well, I mean, everyone was supportive. Um, and I think that. You know, it's funny, you can tell when people are like super excited about something and or when they're, they love you and they're just being nice about it, right?
Yeah. Like, I think that, which is great, and we all do that. Mm-hmm. Because we wanna support the, and you need that. Mm-hmm. Kind of support from, from the people that are close to you. So I think, um. Some people that were like, wow, that's, that's great. I'm so proud of you. But you could tell in their mind they were like, you're a little bit crazy.
That's nuts. You had a good, safe thing going on here. Mm-hmm. But then there are other people that I think the people that knew me best and were really close enough, closest to me were the ones who were like, yeah, this is what you should be doing. Obviously, you know? Mm-hmm. My sister Jennifer is, um, definitely my biggest fan in the world and one of the most important people in my life.
I remember vividly, um, when I told her I was gonna do it full time, she was here at my house in Denver and we were sitting on the porch right there. And I told her all the reasons why and my whole plan and everything kind of almost like I was pitching her on the idea. Yeah. Because I thought she was going to be skeptical and I thought she was gonna be not, not in a bad way, but she was gonna, you know, she cares about me.
Right. Being successful and, you know. Having, you know, food on the table and whatnot. And I, I, I got through this whole thing telling her, 'cause I was so nervous to tell her, which is crazy 'cause she'll love me no matter what. And then I was expecting her to tell me all the things that I hadn't thought about yet.
But she just looked at me and she was like, yeah, you'll, you can do it. You'll be, you'll be fine. I know for sure you'll be fine. Yeah. Yeah. And it was, it meant so much to me because even though she would be supportive of me, you know, 'cause she's my family like. I could just tell by looking in her eyes, she was, she believed it and she believed in me and that's one of the things that I've looked back on.
When things are tough, I like, I think about that exact conversation and I'm like, yeah, well, you know, if anybody knows me, it's her so I can do it. Yeah, yeah. No, that makes sense. That makes sense. To have your biggest supporter believing in you so firmly and. That gives you so much energy and positive momentum moving forward.
I mean, that's, that's a gift to have that, and, and when it comes to the stability of like money stuff, I mean, switching careers like that and going from things from something, you know, the traditional safe bet to. Something that's brand new. Um, how did, I mean, whatever you're comfortable sharing, how did that work for you?
Because I know that's something that holds a lot of people back. They're like, I would love to start this business, but I don't got the money. And it's like, but is that really the reason or is there more? But how did the money thing work for you as far as changing the course? So I was, that's one of the great things about my last career is that I was able to save up some money from it.
Um, and. While, while, like a year or two ago when I was starting to think about maybe just getting out of my, my job, I saved up as much money as I could because I knew I wanted to do something. And actually I got really close to doing something wildly different, which was opening an ice cream shop in downtown Inglewood.
I went to an ice cream. Like ice cream shop conference, which is a crazy thing to say, but I went to Vegas for like five days. This is delicious. And network with all these suppliers and Wow. Trying to understand the business. And I was like, I had a whole business plan for that. And I was like, this is what I'm gonna do for, because I think it's a cool business and it brings people to together and all the reasons why blah, blah, blah.
And I actually ended up getting super close to doing that. And I don't even remember who I was talking to, but somebody was like. That's great, but it doesn't seem like you really love ice cream, which is true. I don't love ice cream, which is silly, but other people love ice cream, so that's, that was the idea.
Mm-hmm. Um, but they're like, if you're gonna put all of yourself into this, you probably should do something that you really, really love. Which is, which is why I switched into what I'm doing. Mm-hmm. Now, but to get to your financial question, I had a good chunk of money saved up. So I was able to like, say goodbye to my job and have a run away of.
Depending on how you look at it, like about a year, where before I'd have to like get, really, get concerned about maybe going back to work. Mm-hmm. Yeah. Um, so that was really nice for me. But the more I've been thinking about it, the more I think that, I don't know that that would've been ne necessary. I don't think I, I needed to have that runway.
Mm-hmm. I think that you need a little bit, even if that little bit is like Yeah. Credit cards or small business loan or something like that, but yeah. Um. You know, really if you, if it's something that you care about deeply and you're willing to do what it takes to make it successful, you can figure out how to do that without like the.
I guess safety blanket that I had. Mm-hmm. I don't know. It's easy, it's easy to say with that safety blanket, but that, that's what I believe. Yeah. No, I, I agree and I hear from a lot of other career flippers too, this idea of a calculated risk where it's kind of, you have one foot in the, the safe world, one foot in, you know, the Let's leap and just do it.
That can sometimes give people a little more, I guess, um, fuel to just go leap when there's a little bit there. It may not be a lot, it may not. Be what we were making in our whatever role that we had before. But that little bit sometimes can add a little bit of, I don't know if it's confidence or false sense of stability that just is enough to, to get out there.
But hearing you say that, yeah, you hadn't saved up, but looking back, you probably didn't even need it. And I think that that can be a good lesson for a lot of future career flippers or people listening or thinking about it because sometimes we think we need all these things and. We may not really need them all.
We might just need to really believe in ourselves and what we wanna do. And sometimes as cheesy as that, Simone's, that can kind of be enough. Um. Because then we just keep, I think it absolutely can, and it depends so much on the person. Yeah. Mm-hmm. Like, I, I've always been terrified of running outta money and have, you know, maybe it just comes from not having a ton of money growing up and mm-hmm.
Just knowing what that's like. But, uh, I've, I've spent way too much in my life worrying about like, oh boy, what if I don't, what if I just lose my job and then I never get another job ever again, and then I run outta money, and then I'm just having to like. Scrounge outside for food, which is like a crazy thing to say out loud.
Not that that doesn't happen to people, but like I wouldn't let that happen. Right. But I still was scared of it. Mm-hmm. So I think, I think knowing yourself, which is hard to do, but like looking, looking really at yourself and saying like, am I the person that's gonna be okay with just maybe being in debt for a little bit?
Or is that gonna weigh on me and take away from. Me really being successful, or, or maybe it's, you're the kind of person that needs that little kick in the butt and you need the pressure. Like, it's not a one size fits all answer. Like, maybe you, maybe you need that pressure or maybe you can't live with that pressure.
Mm-hmm. But take a look at who you are and, and figure out what's right for you because it's, yeah. It's no one size fits all. Yeah. Yeah. So true. So true. I, I always thought like. My corporate world, I always thought I never made enough money. I always just like, oh, I gotta get that next promotion. I gotta keep striving, I gotta do this.
I gotta climb the corporate ladder. You know? I never felt like I had enough, but then it wasn't until got laid off and had. Like nothing. Like I literally was making nothing. And I literally had rejections in my inbox and was like, alright, what, what are we gonna do here? Um, that it wasn't until that moment that I was like, oh, I need to reevaluate one, what success means, but also, uh, this mindset around, I don't know, money and how much you really need.
And um, once I kind of like worked through some things, I was like, oh, I actually feel. As crazy as the, as it as is, but like wealthier now than making less than I did when I was making, you know, my six figure corporate job. And I think that that's mind-boggling to me. I know money is like, it's, I don't know.
I see it as like this energy. Like it, it really can fund a dream. It can fuel things. It's not a bad thing, but like the wealth shift or just like the thought around money just really shifted to me when I suddenly had nothing. And um, I had to really reevaluate. And I think that's something that comes up.
I get a lot of messages from, uh, people who are, you know, thinking about flipping their career. So I wish I could do that, but I need this paycheck and I'm like. I can't, I can't speak to anyone else's experience, but I know for myself, I used to think that way too. And I know it's not true, but I can never tell, you can't just tell like someone has to experience that themself.
Right? Like, I don't know, it just, it's a kind of a bit of a evolution for each of our personalities, but I don't know. Yeah, it's, it's interesting you phrased it around like what is wealth, which is a really cool way to think about it. I think I had a similar kind of thought process around like what's valuable to me, I guess, and one thing that was really.
The worst about where I was personally in my last career was that I just wasn't happy with what I was doing day to day. Mm-hmm. And it was like amplified by the fact that I was sitting in front of a computer for eight hours a day. So it was very real that I was like, oh, this is not where I wanna be.
Yeah. My body doesn't wanna be sitting here, but like. Just spending a day doing things that, that you love is so incredibly valuable, you know? Mm-hmm. It's, it's just different. Like, now that I've been doing this for a few months, I, every day I'm like, that was great. I loved what I was doing. Mm-hmm. You know, it doesn't, it's, I've never once, which sounds crazy, but it's true.
I've been discouraged. Sure. But I've never looked back on it day and been like, Ugh. I can't believe I spent so much time designing furniture that I love or talking to people about things that they, that they want, or like, you know, making a business plan, which is intellectually, you know mm-hmm.
Gratifying. Mm-hmm. You know, and then figure out the business part of it. But yeah, like the wealth I guess, that I have in my personal. Day-to-day life is, is much greater for sure. Like you were saying. Yeah. Yeah. That's interesting. It's interesting how it shifts when that happens. And, and you know, a lot of people listening, Brian are kind of in that point where they are thinking about something else.
Maybe, you know, they have this idea in their mind like, I wish I could go do this. Or they're telling themselves No, or they're just about ready to leap off the cliff. And I'm, I'm curious if you kind of have any. Kinda like final advice because this has been such a great conversation. A lot of the things that you have been saying really resonate with me personally, but I know people listening are going to feel that as well.
But any final kind of pieces of advice to that person who might be listening and who is sitting, dreaming, wishing of doing something different and is just scared. Get used to being scared 'cause you're gonna keep being scared of my first piece of advice. Yeah. And maybe figure out how to be comfortable with that.
Mm-hmm. But one practical piece of advice that has really helped me through a lot of transitions is, um, making lists as simple as that sounds. Uh, I didn't talk about it in detail when I talked about the shifts, but my very first career shift, I actually like wrote down. All of the things that I loved about my job and all the things I hated about my job.
I had this awesome boss, Jana, at my first job, and that made it hard to leave, but she. She would talk about energizers and drainers, which I think comes from some book. But the idea like, what are you energized about during the day? What are you drained about? Um, and being a great manager, she used that to, to force me to do the drainers early in the day so that I would get them outta the way, which is a, another good advice.
But I, I took that and I just wrote down and literally on a piece of paper with two columns, pros and cons or energized to the drainers, and then. My current job and then I looked at the energizers part and I kind of tried to find a new thing that fit all those things and didn't have the drainers in it, and that led me to like my next career flip.
But once I did that. It was so incredibly clear when I had it in black and white right in front of me. Yeah. Yeah. And I, and so I've, I've done that with all sorts of things, whether it's figuring out what you want to do or whether it's talking about the realities of like, the finances for your career flip or whatever it is.
Mm-hmm. Like, just make it real. Get out of your head. And stop freaking yourself out and just write it down. And maybe it is really bad and she shouldn't do it, and that's fine. But at least you know, now at least you can look at the piece of paper and and you can say, yeah, this is the reality of the situation.
Now let me make an informed decision. I think most of the time you'll figure out about that. It's not gonna be that bad. Well said. But also you should do it. That's my other thing. Whatever you're thinking about, do it. Do it. And like you said, do it, do it. Do it. Act. Yes. Act get used to being scared because yeah, that doesn't go away.
That doesn't go away. Ryan, thank you so much for being here and sharing your story. Selfishly, it was great to reconnect. I just am floored with the furniture that you create. I have loved seeing these pieces, and I am really excited to continue to see more. But how can others find you? Where can they find you?
How can they buy furniture from you and support your business? First of all, next time I'm in San Diego, I, I wanna see your workspace and some of the stuff you're working on, because I think I just from like an actual furniture perspective and a nerdy perspective on that. So I think that'd be super fun.
And if you're out here, you've gotta come workshop done. Done. But you can find me. Yeah, you can find me@humpfurniture.com. H-U-M-F-U-R-N, you know, furniture.com or on Instagram at hum. H-U-M-F-U-R-N. Uh, just look up my name on LinkedIn if you wanna talk to me on there. I don't go on there too much 'cause it's still a little bit, uh, reminds me of my past life.
But yeah, that's it. Um, Instagram and my website and then if you're an eng, would stop by the workshop. Awesome. We'll make something together. Yes. Love that. Thank you so much, Ryan. Yeah, thank you Jenny. See ya. Thanks for tuning in to this episode of the Career Flipper podcast. Be sure to connect with Ryan using the links in the show notes.
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