Charles Max Wood left his job to freelance after a layoff, guided by his spouse's support and focus on happiness. He shifted from software development to podcasting, emphasizing the importance of financial runway, a strong network, and straightforward self-promotion. He credits serving others—through scouting, school boards, and church—as the core of his happiness.
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Welcome to the Business Blast Podcast. I'm your host, Tyler Wagner. This episode is brought to you by Authors Unite. Authors Unite makes the process of becoming a published bestselling author as simple as sipping your morning cup of coffee. You can learn more about Authors Unite at authorsunite.com. Now let's jump into the episode. All right everyone, welcome back to another episode of the Business Blast podcast. I'm your host Tyler Wagner. Today I have Charles Max Wood with us. He works hard to liberate developers to build cutting-edge and meaningful software. He achieves this through podcasts and courses that give developers the skills and knowledge to free themselves. You can find the Developer Revolution at devchat.com. .tv. So welcome to the show, man.
Hey, thanks.
Of course, man, grateful to have you here. Um, the first question I have for you, Charles, is what is the best story from your life that has an underlying valuable message?
The best story from my life that has a valuable underlying message? Um, I think honestly it was when I first went freelance. I had gotten laid off. We had a little bit of money in the bank because I got a severance package and We had just finished a death march is what we called it, but it was just a long development slog that anyway, I wound up getting a bonus for completing that. I just looked at my wife who was freaking out at the time and said, "I want to go freelance. I'm tired of working for people." Anyway, I made a deal with her that when the money ran out, I'd get a job. I'd take a job. I never did have to. I wound up finding jobs. Then what happened was about 2 years later, I was talking to my wife and I think we hit a tight spot with money. I looked at her and I said, "Do you want me to get a full-time job?" She emphatically said no. What it turned out was it had nothing to do with the money. It had nothing to do with me being at home to help her with the kids. She just knew I wouldn't be happy there. A lot of times I think we hamstring ourselves in the sense that we— get this idea that it has to be one way or the other. And it turns out that the people that care about us are more interested in us being happy than in them being comfortable. And the underlying message is just that it's, it's, yeah, the people around you care more about your happiness and will do what they need to to help take care of you if you do what you need to to take care of them.
Yeah, I love that, man. Thanks for sharing that with us. Um, the next one I have for you is, what is the most valuable piece of information we should know that's within your expertise or industry?
That's a good question. Within my expertise or industry? So let me explain a little bit of where I'm at. I do podcasts for software developers, and over the last 2 years I've been mostly in the podcast space and less in the programming space. I definitely still write software, but I spend much more of my time doing the other stuff. So honestly, The thing that I've learned most, and this is within my expertise, is just podcasting, just being part of the community and adding to the community in maybe more public ways than you're 100% comfortable with to begin with. And one lesson that I learned out of that is really just to try. I reached out to Greg Pollock, who was the CEO of Code School and a bunch of other things. Initially, he was just a podcast dude that did Ruby on Rails podcast, and he just encouraged me to try, and that was, that was a major thing. And so, you know, don't be a perfectionist. I can definitely help you get a podcast started if that's what you want to do. But yeah, you don't have to be an expert. Just go give it a try, see where you wind up.
And what is your best piece of overall business advice? So not necessarily industry-specific, and maybe you want to gear it towards like freelancing, if somebody's just starting in freelance, like what's one thing you would, you would tell them?
If people are looking to go freelance, generally there are 2 or 3 things that make it easier, like having money in the bank and, you know, having a large network. But that being said, I mean, you can go out and be freelance tomorrow. I mean, by definition, if you have a client, you're a freelancer. So if you want to go full-time freelance, usually people get stuck on, well, I can't sell. But selling is just telling people what you're capable of doing and then putting a price tag on it. And so that's my advice there is just, just go out there, just tell them what you're capable of and tell them what you need to make in order to pay the bills.
And if you could give your younger self one piece of advice, what would that be?
My younger self? Mostly, I don't know. I mean, I kind of learned these lessons the hard way. And I don't know if there was a better way to learn it. So I don't know if I would. But if I had to go back and pick a time and just tell myself one thing, I would just go back and I would tell myself that there are certain molds that I had in my head that I needed to keep track of and live up to. And those are just not things that I necessarily needed to do. I would have been way better off looking at the things that I really cared about doing and really enjoy doing, and then just pursuing those. And to the extent that I did, I was successful. And to the extent that I tried to fit into that box, I caused myself pain.
And I think that leads perfectly into the next one. Uh, in your opinion, what is the key to happiness?
The key to happiness, in my opinion, is serving other people, uh, more than anything else. I mean, I'm involved in Boy Scouts, I'm involved in the school board for my kids' school. I'm involved in a lot of other organizations in my church. And recently I went through a bit of a depression where— it's a long story, but essentially my dad died in April and I just didn't deal well with it for about 4 months. And the things that really pulled me out of it were when I could focus on something that I love and when I could go help somebody else. And it just got me out of that funk and into a place where I could be happy. And it doesn't— you don't have to go out and change the world. It could be serving other people in your family, people that are close to you. But to the extent that I do that, even with the podcasts and all of the other things that I do to help liberate developers so that they can go build cutting-edge software, it's helping people. And that's what I love. I get paid for that, but that doesn't mean that I'm less happy because of it.
Yeah, man. Sorry to hear about your father, and thank you for sharing that with us. The next one I have for you is, what is the best book that you've read and what was the number one thing you learned from that?
I've read so many books, and honestly, the big thing with a lot of that is just keep moving, just keep reading, just stay on top of it. The most recent book that I read is The One Thing. And that has really, at least recently, made a difference because it basically gave me permission to push a lot of stuff to the side and just focus on the thing that was going to make the biggest difference for me. And, you know, I made a commitment to people that I would get this book out. I have a book on finding a job as a programmer that I'm finishing up and just being able to heads down, work on that, not feel bad about all the other stuff that's not getting done was very helpful. And after that, my focus is gonna be on building processes around the podcasts so that I don't have to do as much work to keep them running. And again, I just make that my one thing and I go ahead and it's made an impact here over the last few weeks.
And what is your favorite quote and why?
My favorite quote and why is, oh boy.
It doesn't have to be exact words. It could be like mantra or like a, saying?
Yeah, I'm not a big sayings person. I mean, I read them and I'm like, that's, that was pretty good, and I forget them. One that stuck with me for a long time is Winston Churchill: never, never, never, never, never, never, never. He says never a bunch of times. Give up. And I mean, I guess there are appropriate times to stop what you're doing and do something else, but I can't imagine how many times we get to the point where We're just like, this isn't gonna work, I'm gonna give up. And I wonder how many times when we're at that point and we give up, all we really needed to do was get over that next hump.
Mm, yes, man. Dude, thank you so much for coming on. The last question I have for you before we let you go is, where is the best place for people to find and/or connect with you online?
Probably devchat.tv. That's where all the podcasts live. You can also find me on Twitter. My handle is @cmaxw. Those are really the two best places.
Perfect. Thanks again for jumping on.
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