I have spent most of my career in tech, and my day-to-day work is focused on ecommerce. I am remote. I sit at a computer and work with people who sit at computers. I spend my time thinking about the website, the customer experience, conversion, retention, and all the things happening on a screen. When that is the part of the company you see every day, it is easy for it to become your frame of reference for the whole business. Walking through the factory completely reset mine. The website matters, but behind it is this enormous physical operation making packets, solving manufacturing problems, moving product, and keeping the whole machine running.

There was something humbling about seeing that. We all experience a company, a job, and probably most of life from wherever we happen to be standing. The work in front of us feels central because it is what we can see. Then every once in a while you get close enough to another part of the system to realize how narrow your view has been. I left Phoenix thinking less about factories and more about perspective. Sometimes seeing the whole thing changes how you understand your own small part of it.

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It’s something that has been on the horizon for a while, and I’m proud to see her finally start. Since Lettie was born, Andrea has given me an incredible amount of room to pursue side projects, take on extra work, chase ideas, and spend nights trying to build things. I could not have done any of it without her.

So there is something especially meaningful about sitting here tonight and watching her begin something that is hers. She has spent so much time supporting the things I wanted to pursue, and now I get to watch her put that same energy into something of her own. I’m proud of her. Stay tuned.

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We ran the numbers. We have two kids, and based on the way our finances work today, we don’t have the cash flow to comfortably absorb the monthly cost forever without changing something. We decided we were willing to put 10% down, leave room for renovations, and use a defined amount of savings to carry the house while we work to increase our income. It isn’t a financial cliff. It’s simply the amount of capital we’re willing to commit before we expect our cash flow to catch up.

There is another version of this where we wait. We keep saving until the monthly cost feels insignificant, the risk is smaller, and the whole thing feels perfectly affordable. But I’m increasingly convinced that you can spend a very long time waiting for the life you want to feel perfectly affordable. At some point, you have to decide whether you believe you can grow into it.

Last night, we had a feeling we might get the house, and the effect was immediate. It was my first day back at work, Andrea started spinning up new side gigs, and I kept pushing on the projects I’ve been building outside of my day job. The ambition existed before, but suddenly it had a target attached to it. This year needs to be an inflection point for us.

One of the principles I’ve learned through work is that commitment creates focus. You can analyze something forever from the sidelines, or you can decide what you believe, take the shot, and organize yourself around making it work. Don’t live in fear. Take the shot. Make the commitment. Then hit the target. And if we’re wrong, we can sell the house. It isn’t irreversible, but it is real, and that matters.

So now the work is to increase our income, make the side projects real, and build the financial life that can support the family life we want.

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As I return to work and to my desk, I’ve been thinking about what I want to write about over the next year and what maxOS is actually becoming.

It isn’t a memoir. It is a form of storytelling, a place for me to exercise creativity and, through repetition and effort, become a better writer. I am still very much a work in progress, but I think that is part of what makes the practice meaningful. Like any creative craft, getting good takes a long time. You make things, figure out what works, make more things, develop your own voice, and slowly become better at something you once had no idea how to do.

When I started my Substack, my intention was not to become a writer or to immerse myself in writing. I had a different goal entirely, and writing consistently was simply the mechanism I chose to help me get there, so I committed to it and did it.

Somewhere along the way, the goal changed. I started to really enjoy the practice itself.

There is something different about putting an idea into writing instead of simply saying it out loud or letting it bounce around in your head. Writing forces you to spend time with an idea. You have to figure out what you actually mean, find the words for it, and sometimes discover that what you thought you believed isn’t quite what you believe at all.

I think that is part of why this practice has become so important to me. As I continue to pursue different things in my life, I want writing to remain a way of processing them and telling stories about them, and I want to keep getting better at it.

It has also taught me something about intention. Intention matters, but action matters more. We spend so much time thinking about who we are, who we want to become, and what we intend to do, but ultimately what we repeatedly do has a funny way of deciding those things for us.

I started writing because I wanted to accomplish a goal. By writing, I became a writer, even if, to this day, I still don’t intend to be one.

Last week, I wrote about how much I’ve fallen in love with the North Fork and what it has meant to spend this part of my leave here with Andrea and the kids. This week, Andrea and I have decided we’re going to buy a home here.

A little unconventionally, we’re going to buy a second home before we buy a primary one.

That is partly just the strange reality of living in New York City. For our budget, we can rent a much nicer place than we could afford to own. Between property taxes, HOA fees, and the cost of buying an apartment, we would have to spend significantly more every month to own something comparable to the home we rent today. We love where we live, and buying simply for the sake of saying that we own our primary home doesn’t feel particularly important to us.

But we do want to invest the money we’ve saved, and when we think about what we actually want that money to do for our lives, we keep coming back to this. We want to invest in a place that helps us make incredible memories together, a place for summers where the kids know the beaches, have their favorite restaurants, and where routines slowly turn into traditions without us even noticing. A place that, over enough years, becomes part of the story of our family.

So now we’re looking.

It is incredibly exciting, but it is also scary. Getting a mortgage and taking on another major financial responsibility has a way of making the future feel much more concrete. There is now something we want badly enough that we are willing to stretch for it, and that comes with the reality that we need to make more money.

Over the next six to twelve months, things are going to have to move up a notch. The life we want is going to require more from me than what I’m doing today. I need to become better at my work, keep building things of my own, keep writing, and keep pushing on the parts of my life that I believe can become something more.

In a way, it feels like the appropriate place to end Twelve Wishes.

Over the last year, I’ve written about what I want from my life across family, ambition, presence, work, childhood, creativity, and the person I hope to become. If you’ve been following along, you’ve seen a lot of what motivates me and the life I’m trying to create.

I think the next year is about seeing how much of it I can actually build.

I’m heading back to work. We’re going to try to find our summer home. I’m going to keep writing and building and pursuing the things that matter to me. There will be more responsibility, more pressure, and probably plenty of moments when I wonder why I decided to make life harder when things were already pretty good.

But that is also what makes me excited about what comes next. There is a life Andrea and I can see for our family, and instead of just talking about it, we’re going to try to make it real.

It feels fitting that Twelve Wishes ends there, because eventually you have to stop wishing and start doing.

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Being here with our two kids, just the four of us, has already been one of the most meaningful moments of my life.

We all remember pieces of our childhood that stay with us forever. The places, the routines, the traditions. They shape who we become.

For a long time, Andrea and I knew we wanted to create a summer tradition for our family. We dreamed about going annually to some of our favorite places like the Big Island of Hawaii and Kennebunkport, Maine, but living in New York, the North Fork felt like the right place to begin. It has so much of what we love: the feeling of being far away, the ocean, seafood, boats, cozy restaurants, and serene beaches. At only a couple of hours from home, it also makes sense with two little kids.

More than anything, we didn’t want to wait. We wanted to start building the life we imagined now instead of telling ourselves we’d do it someday.

Every day here has felt like a gift. Slow breakfasts together. Calm mornings at the bay where Lettie can splash without worrying about waves. One-on-one time with Emmett after his sister goes to bed. Grilling dinner in the backyard while Bear runs around. It has been wholesome family time that is absolutely priceless.

I hope these are the kinds of memories our kids carry with them. And someday, when they have families of their own, I hope they don’t put off creating the traditions they’ve always wanted. The best time to start building the life you imagine is usually much sooner than you think.

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As I’ve published them over the past few months, I’ve connected with some far more than others. A few weren’t my best work. But I published them anyway because I’d made a commitment. I’ve been writing here every week for more than a year, and even while on leave I wanted to see these scheduled posts through.

Now I’ve reached the end. The last few aren’t good enough, and I’m not going to send them just to keep the streak alive.

Instead, I’m writing this in the five minutes I have while Andrea feeds Emmett. I’m sitting on the floor of his nursery, waiting for us to eat dinner together while he plays in his little tent before bedtime.

I hope my kids grow up with the strength to keep their commitments, especially when it’s inconvenient or difficult. Trust is hard to earn, and in the end your word is one of the few things that’s truly yours.

Stand by it.

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Somewhere along the way, life became a constant reach for what was next, and the years started moving faster.

I want my kids to have childhoods that feel the way mine did. And I want to be present enough to experience it with them.

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The fear became part of the thrill. I got off wanting to ride again.

I’ve carried that lesson with me. Many of the best things I’ve done first felt like rides I wasn’t sure I could handle: the job, the hard decision, putting my writing into the world.

So, Lettie and Emmett: fear doesn’t always mean turn back. Sometimes it means you’re standing at the entrance to something worth doing.

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But sneaking out is just letting the fear of a five-second awkward conversation make your choices for you. We care way too much about what people might think if we say no, so we say nothing at all.

Own your decisions. If you have to back out of a commitment, say it directly. If you need to dip out of an event early, don’t sneak out the back door. Find the host, look them in the eye, and say goodbye.

Integrity isn’t always about staying. Sometimes it’s just about having the spine to announce you’re leaving.

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And I hate to burst your bubble, but your joy isn’t waiting for you at the end of some long, distant pursuit. You have to remember to find it in small ways, right in the middle of the chaos.

For me, it’s listening to music, going for a run, or grabbing sushi. It’s giving a hug, watching a movie, or going on vacation.

Whatever that thing is for you, the thing that lights a small fire when everything else feels cold, do it.

We’re all guilty of saving joy for later, but joy deferred is usually joy lost. Don’t wait for permission to prioritize yourself. Listen to your music, laugh at the dumb things, and let yourself be silly even when life is serious. Life will always be serious. The joy is what makes it all bearable.

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This is the untold truth about toughness: it isn’t a show of force. It’s the solitary endurance of working in a void of validation. I spent years pushing for projects I believed in before anyone listened; the waiting and pushing are invisible from the outside.

Eventually, the right people show up. Your mom has been my constant, giving me the space to work late on unproven passions simply because I care. That is what real support looks like. Still, there are long stretches where you must carry your conviction entirely alone.

I hope you develop the resilience to survive that lonely gap between believing in an idea and the world believing in them. The world eventually catches up. You just have to still be there when it does.

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What looked like a lack of focus was actually curiosity. I wasn’t quitting; I was exploring. Eventually, those disparate interests converged into a multifaceted way of thinking.

True expertise isn’t forced; it is a byproduct of relentless curiosity. When you are genuinely fascinated by something, you naturally dig deeper than others care to. You keep pulling the thread simply because the next layer interests you.

I hope my kids stay fiercely curious about everything. The small, the weird, and the obscure. I hope no one talks them out of an interest just because it lacks immediate utility. Every obsession is productive; it just requires a longer arc to see the return.

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But lying comes with a heavy price. When we’re caught, we lose trust, which is ultimately all we have, and the deceit eats away at us from the inside. I’ve lied many times in my life, both to others and to myself. Only when you learn to face your fears and accept the consequences do you muster the courage to be truly honest. When you live in honesty, you live in alignment, and you remain free. My greatest wish for my children is that they find the bravery to always speak the truth, so they can live a life of genuine freedom.

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They come from everywhere. People who get value from something you built, then disappear. Teams that question and question while you push something forward. Then someone’s last-minute priority changes the plan anyway.

I worked this hard because there was no other path. Every project that became something was the back end of a long stretch of showing up while problems happened.

From the outside it looks like luck. From the inside it looks like an average day. You keep going, because stopping is the only way to lose.

Just keep showing up. That’s the trick.

Lettie, Emmett: when it feels like the problems will never stop coming, that’s not a sign you’re failing. That’s the sign you’re still in it. Keep showing up.

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Go after what you want. Believe you can do great things and then try. Don’t worry if the balancing act is messy.

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For a long time I figured the move was to figure out how to fit. The older I got, the more I just followed my own instincts. I didn’t have another option, and my uniqueness became my identity. What I want my kids to know is that the part of you that feels different is usually the part worth keeping.

So Lettie, and to the (soon to be born) baby, don’t waste your time trying to be the kid everyone else is being. There are plenty of those already. The thing the world doesn’t have, and won’t have unless you decide to give it, is you.

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I’m going to be taking a step back, but at the same time I set out this year with a goal to post every week. I believe in the consistency of showing up on Substack, which is something people talk about a lot, but more importantly I think it’s important to have the discipline. So this is the first time I’ve ever written posts ahead of time. Normally my rhythm is to sit at this desk a night or two before, jam something out that’s top of mind, and send it the next day, which is exactly what I’m doing right now. I love that pace, but I also want to have twelve weeks of posts scheduled when I’m out, so here we are.

What I decided was to come up with twelve things I wish for my kids. One a week, while I’m gone, each one a different wish, the traits I hope Lettie and her brother grow into, the stuff I want them to know about being a person in the world, written down somewhere they can find later. I wanted to write something for them. That’s the whole reason. I’m not going to overthink it.

If you’re new here, welcome. I’m Max, and I usually write about the work of building things and the work of being a person and what it looks like when those two pull in different directions. This series is the same thing from a different angle. The most important thing I’ll ever build is a family, and these twelve posts are me trying to put some words around what that actually means to me right now, while the baby is still on the way and Lettie still calls his room baby brother room.

I’ll see you on the other side.

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At DoorDash there was a company value about holding two opposing truths simultaneously. It sounds abstract initially, but as a leader you are weighing perspectives that are not your own, sometimes ones you disagree with, and still arriving at a decision that is good for the business. It is not about who is right. Both sides can be right. The work is being able to hold a belief you do not possess, understand it on its own terms, and let it sit next to your own without one canceling the other out.

I struggled with this for a long time. I wanted to win the argument and prove the point. The thing that has changed it for me is respect, and the way I have come to understand it is different from how I used to. I used to think respect was earned. You proved yourself and then it came to you, and the people who had not proven themselves had to wait. That is half of it. The other half is that respect is offered. It is something you decide to give, before anyone has earned anything, because of who you want to be in the room. It is not a verdict on the other person. It is a posture in yourself.

When you hold respect that way, the question of whether you agree stops being the point. The point is whether you can make space for someone to be who they are. That is what lets you sit with a perspective you do not share without needing to defeat it. That is what lets you take feedback without making it about you. The more I have leaned into this, the lighter I feel. The politics feel smaller. The disagreements feel less personal. It is the first thing I bring into the room, not the last thing I give out.

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We are told over and over that the schedule is what saves us, that the regimen is how you stay on top of things, that the disciplined person is the one who gets things done. There is truth in this. When I have a list and a deadline I execute better. There is always something I need to be doing, whether it is the next move on the side hustle or the work someone is waiting on or the post I want to get out this week. Sometimes the urgency is the only thing that gets me to do the thing at all, because if it is not urgent I will get pulled toward whatever is more interesting in the moment.

The other side of it is that when I hop on the computer and start reading an article and follow it somewhere I did not plan to go, that exploration is often where the real work begins. The execution mode keeps things moving and the wandering mode is what lets me see what is worth working on in the first place.

I have not figured out which mode I should be in at any given moment, and I am starting to think the figuring-it-out is not the point. I am not someone who builds a big schedule. I am building something slower, the kind of work that compounds over years rather than weeks, and a life like that does not run on a perfectly clean calendar. Schedules help, because the sooner you knock things out the sooner you are free to explore, but they can also start to feel like a trap, because there is always more work to do and the list never empties.

What I am noticing is that we have built a culture around one of these modes and not the other. Focus gets celebrated. Wandering gets tolerated, at best. But the wandering is doing real work too. When systems can execute faster than I can, executing is not where my leverage is, knowing what to execute on is. That knowing does not come from the schedule. It comes from the wandering, from the article I was not supposed to be reading and the thread I followed because it pulled on me. It comes from the part of you that is still curious about something nobody assigned, the part that has not been fully scheduled yet.

The point is not to pick one. The point is that both modes are doing something necessary and the life worth building holds them together. The spreadsheet keeps the work honest. Curiosity keeps the work worth doing. Focus gets you through this week. Wandering tells you whether the next one is worth showing up for.

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This is the part of the day I have started to romanticize. Showing up when the tank is empty. Pushing through when it would be easier to close the laptop and go to bed. The effort is what I am proud of, because I have spent a career learning that good outcomes come from high effort. The hustle is purer when it costs you something. The post written at 11:30 means more than the one written at noon, because 11:30 is the one that proves you meant it.

I was going to write that essay tonight. It would have landed with the subscribers who are already rooting for that version of me. It also would have been a way to avoid the essay I actually need to write.

The problem is not the 11:30 laptop. That time is mine to spend. The problem is the 6 PM phone, in the window between signing off and dinner, the only protected family time I have during the week. I have been walking across it with my phone in my hand, checking one more thing, finishing one more thread, staying half in the day I just said I was leaving.

Andrea has called me out on it more than once. I have been calling it a bad habit, a small debt I will clean up later. It is not a habit. It is a decision I keep making, and calling it a habit is how I keep making it without having to look at it straight. The phone at 6 PM is not a productivity issue. I am choosing the work over the window I promised, and then telling myself the choice does not count because it is only a few minutes.

A few minutes is the whole trick. A few minutes is how you stay in the identity of the guy who does not let anything slip, while letting the thing that matters most slip. A few minutes is the size of the compromise you can make without ever admitting it.

The hustle essay I almost wrote tonight would have celebrated the effort without naming the window where it does not belong. That is the move I keep making. I take the belief that makes me good at my job and apply it to a part of my life where it is not supposed to win. The discipline that built my career is the same force pulling me across the line at 6 PM, and I have been too proud of it to see what it is costing.

I am writing this at 11:30 because it feels like progress. Naming the pattern on the page is a move I know how to make. It is also easier than the thing I have been avoiding, which is sitting with the fact that I keep choosing the phone, not because I am short on time, but because I am more comfortable closing the loop than closing the laptop.

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