Joe Casabona [00:00:00]:
Hey everybody, real quick before we get started, this is the last episode of the year. It's episode 247 and it's a little bit different. I'm going to tell you my favorite Christmas story and then how that relates to moving into 2022 for this show. So if you have been enjoying this show, head over to How I built it/247. I'll have an opt in there for a free resource for airtable to help create more easily which is going to be my goal in 2022. But there also be links to rate and review the show wherever it is that you listen. So I want to just quick, before we get into the story, I want to say thank you for being here in 2021. It was a great year for the show and I'm excited for what 2022 brings as well.
Joe Casabona [00:00:59]:
So without further ado, let's get into my favorite Christmas story. I knew from a young age I wanted to play the drums. I got my first small kit when I was 5 and when my friends and I started a band, Heavy Quotes, I played paint buckets when I was 15 years old, I knew I needed a real kit. So 21 years ago to the day that this episode comes out December 20, my dad took me to Alto Music, a local music store in my hometown of Middletown, New York. We looked around at the sets, but they were all too expensive. My dad didn't say it explicitly, but we'd be hard pressed to get a drum set within our budget. Now, I was not the smartest kid. I wasn't good at reading people's faces.
Joe Casabona [00:01:59]:
But it was apparently written all over my dad's face because a kind man named Alan came over to us. Alan was probably around the same age that I am now, maybe a little bit younger. He told us that he was in the store looking for an electric drum kit. See, Alan and his wife just became new parents to a baby girl and he couldn't play his acoustic set anymore. He wouldn't be able to for a number of years. He said he saw the look on my dad's face as we were checking out the prices and made a decision that he would sell his acoustic set to us for cheap. How cheap? Well, it was a black five piece Yamaha that he could have easily sold secondhand for $800. But that wasn't all because he was getting an electric set.
Joe Casabona [00:03:03]:
He was also looking to offload his cymbals and he had five zilligian a custom cymbals. If you don't Play the drums. These are high quality cymbals. He had hi hats, naturally. A crash, a ride, a crash ride and a splash. The ride alone was at least $300 all in. It was probably a $1,500 set. And he sold it to us for $300.
Joe Casabona [00:03:35]:
Now I thought it was 500. And I called my dad to confirm some of the aspects of this story and he and my mom insisted that it was $300. I couldn't believe my own dumb luck. But my dad, who was much smarter than I was, couldn't believe this man's honest to God generosity. So Alan gave us his address. My dad still remembers how to get there today, 21 years later. And we picked it up three days later on December 23rd. I was the proud owner of my first real drum set.
Joe Casabona [00:04:15]:
And I remember the first song I tried to learn was anything by Blink 182. Literally any song by Blink 182. The first song I actually learned was probably Hanging by a Moment by Lifehouse. And this story around this time got me thinking about generous acts. I was recently on the Chirp podcast by Pigeon Loans. It's a podcast about money and relationships. And one of the questions was about a time of financial strife for me or someone I know. While I've been a combination of blessed enough and prepared enough to not suffer true financial strife, I got to talk about a couple of my own principles for generosity.
Joe Casabona [00:05:04]:
Helping those in need, treating others as I want to be treated. Part of what shaped those principles is Alan, the drum set, and a total stranger's incredible generosity. Thank you, Alan. I had no idea what happened to Alan after that. We never kept in touch. It was a pretty random act of kindness. A guy in a music store saw a kid and his dad in a music store and wanted to help them. Maybe Alan saw himself in me, a kid who just really wanted to play the drums.
Joe Casabona [00:05:44]:
Maybe it was because it was Christmas and he wanted to do something nice. He was a new dad after all. Maybe he knew that he would feel that same feeling that my dad had at that moment. What I do know is that his generosity has stuck with me for 21 years. My dad has always done his best to make sure we, me and my three younger brothers do the right thing for strangers. Give up our seat on the subway to somebody who needs it more, hold the door open for anybody behind us or maybe in front of us, and help carry things for people when their hands are full. My dad has certainly set a very good example for us. But being the recipient of such a generous act from a total stranger when I was 15 years old, I was a teenager full of hubris, thinking I knew everything that hit different.
Joe Casabona [00:06:58]:
I sold that set in college to a friend of mine who was still in high school. I regret it today, but I've since picked up an electric set as well now that I have kids of my own. On the day I bought that electric set, I thought of Alan again and life's little cycles. His daughter is around 21 years old now. I hope he was able to pick up a new acoustic set. And Alan, if you happen to be listening to this, you should know that playing the drums was not a passing fad for me, that your generous act did not go in vain or unnoticed. I love playing the drums. It's my primary way of blowing off steam.
Joe Casabona [00:07:47]:
And now my kids do too. They sit at my drum set and they bang on the pads. They dance along when I play. So thank you Alan. Your generous act of kindness has really affected my life in a very positive way. I hope you enjoyed that story. It's it's easy, Especially these days, especially as we're going on a pandemic or an epidemic that's gone on a lot longer than we expected it to. It's easy to become jaded and pessimistic.
Joe Casabona [00:08:30]:
I try not to be pessimistic. I'm optimistic on the side of realist, I guess. But these acts of kindness are not isolated incidents. They happen all the time. But it feels like people prefer to tell the negative stories, the ones that are going to get a big reaction out of people. So as we go into the holiday season and the new year, I would encourage you to think about a random act of kindness that you experienced or a random act of kindness that you executed. For someone, I certainly try to be generous with my time and my money when I can be. Last week on the WP Review, I talked about cura personalis care of the whole person and the philosophy that you can't truly help others or you can't truly take care of others until you can take care of yourself.
Joe Casabona [00:09:38]:
And I'm lucky to be in a position where I can take care of myself. So what does all of that have to do with 2022 and the direction of this show? Well, I've spent a lot of this year figuring out exactly who I want to serve and finding the right niche and what I want to teach people. And after several years of creating content consistently, I thought about how I do that and how much I like teaching and how much. I want to enable people to take care of themselves so they can help take care of others. And so in 2022, how I built it is really going to focus on that, helping creators and small business owners create consistently so they can make money doing that. Because when you get your business into a position where you're not always feeling like you're underwater, that's when you can enact real change. My friend Maddie Osmond of the Blogsmith makes a donation to charity every month because her business is doing well enough. I generally donate my time to people who want to start their own podcast or I offer to do some website work to people who need it or for people who need it.
Joe Casabona [00:11:08]:
And so when you get to that point again, you can help people. And I want to focus on creating content because that is another way of helping people. You can teach people what you know, you can learn in public. These are things that have served me very well, and I think they can serve you well in the future too. So this will be the last episode of 2021. I want to thank you for listening again. If you want to get the show notes, there'll be a a article version of this episode that I wrote out and there'll be some other resources and you can sign up for my newsletter if you want to get notified when these episodes come out or other things I'm working on. That's all at How I built it 247.
Joe Casabona [00:11:57]:
So I want to thank you for generously giving me your time to listen to this show throughout the year. I want to thank the sponsors who have generously given their dollars this year to make this happen. And I want to thank the members of the creator crew who have generously given their dollars to personally support this show so that I've been able to grow it to a place that I'm very happy with as we round out 2021. Thanks so much for listening and for the last time in 2021, get out there and build something.