We’re excited to introduce you to the always interesting and insightful Daniel Near. We hope you’ll enjoy our conversation with Daniel below.
Daniel, we’re so excited for our community to get to know you and learn from your journey and the wisdom you’ve acquired over time. Let’s kick things off with a discussion on self-confidence and self-esteem. How did you develop yours?
Growing up, I was really awkward and lacked self confidence. When I entered into a new crowd, I felt like I needed to be invited in and welcomed before I could speak or participate. Which rarely happens unless there’s a curious extrovert in that group. I picked up the friends I needed and lived a decent but somewhat isolated childhood. I frequently found that when I was in my social groups, we would come upon a challenge that my friends couldn’t solve, but I could “see” the solution. I just learned to jump in and take charge, and solve the challenge. When I entered the workforce, I started out in a factory position, where I only needed to interact with coworkers to get the job done. But quickly found again that my ability to troubleshoot issues with our products was far more valuable and moved into a position where I had to interact with customers directly. Having to put myself in front of a small crowd of new people every few days to give a presentation and training showed me that I was far more capable than I was letting myself feel I was, and every time I solved a new challenging problem that others left stumped on showed me that being able to see things from a different perspective was more positive than I believed internally. I still have periods where I feel less inspired, but I surprise myself every time I ignore that internal voice and reach towards the next challenge.
Appreciate the insights and wisdom. Before we dig deeper and ask you about the skills that matter and more, maybe you can tell our readers about yourself?
Growing up, I loved following my dad and uncles around the garage. Watching them fix cars, plumbing and machining parts from scratch. There wasn’t anything my extended family couldn’t accomplish when they put their heads together. I wanted to absorb and be a part of that process, and grew up loving to tear apart things that had broken or gone past their useful life. It was a fun way to learn how things worked and about the repair and reassembly process. There was very limited opportunities in my area to further develop this in our public school system, and I wasn’t able to take part of those outside the home. Things have changed a lot and 10 years ago, I was invited to help start Tampa Hackerspace from the ground up. It proved very successful, but was a long drive from home, so I helped start a second one in St. Petersburg. Shortly after that, I moved to Birmingham and joined Red Mountain Makers, a 10-year old nonprofit Makerspace that I’ve been a member of for around 9 years now. I love having a very diverse skillset; Being a generalist who can reach across the board and pull different systems, people and pieces together to make a project work. Every time we’re able to get access to a new tool, I make sure I’m inline to learn how to use it as well as be involved in making that accessible to others. I helped spur the regrowth of our space by running classes before switching to the Treasurer to ensure we were well-funded to grow and improve. Our most active workshops are in Blacksmithing, Welding and Wood-shop, but we’re always trying to expand by offering new options. Our most recent addition is a 10Kg forge for doing small castings and we’re actively acquiring the tools and supplies needed to offer bronze and copper casting, which we hope to start up in January.
Looking back, what do you think were the three qualities, skills, or areas of knowledge that were most impactful in your journey? What advice do you have for folks who are early in their journey in terms of how they can best develop or improve on these?
I think the three most important qualities I have are curiosity, tenacity and the ability to look past small imperfections. Curiosity is important, because it’s important to grow beyond our roots. Find out the whys and hows of the things around us and not simply accept that things are unchangeable. Tenacity is important because nothing comes out right the first time or two through. We have to be methodical and think through the process, measure and re-measure, then cut and check a third time until it’s right. Being able to look past small imperfections is also key. Everything around us has small flaws. We usually just look right past them, except when it’s a thing we made ourselves. We tend to be the most critical of our own results. But often, it still works and does what its purpose is despite small flaws. And sometimes, we take the lessons we learn about those and remake it better the next go around! So, having and applying those three qualities allows us to grow and improve. And usually to have some really cool things that we made.
Any advice for folks feeling overwhelmed?
Usually, when I’m overwhelmed, it’s because I’m thinking of the totality of a project or day. The best strategy to deal with this is to make a list of the objectives and focus on one thing at a time.
Contact Info:
- Website: https://redmountainmakers.wildapricot.org/
- Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/redmountainmakers/
- Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/daniel-near-35a2061a/
Image Credits
Zach Froehlich, Matt Behling, Jacques O’Quinn, Kenneth Spivey, Sean Lytle, Daniel DuBose, Jesse Coker
