Posted on Jul 7 • Originally published at Medium

Why I Disappeared for 2 Days (And What's Coming Next)

🎬 Why I Disappeared for 2 Days (And What's Coming Next)

Okay, so I need to come clean about something. If you've been following my Medium articles and noticed I've been a bit... absent lately, there's a reason. For the past two days, I've been locked in my room like some kind of hermit, learning video editing and figuring out something that's been brewing in my mind for months.

I'm launching a YouTube channel. There, I said it.

📱 Meet Swift Pal - My New Teaching Adventure

Look, I've been an iOS developer for 12 years now. Twelve. Years. That's a lot of Swift code, a lot of late nights debugging constraints, and honestly, a lot of knowledge that's just been sitting in my head. And here's the thing that's been bugging me – I love teaching. I mean, I really love it.

Every time someone comments on my Medium articles or reaches out with questions, I get this little spark of excitement. It's like, "Yes! I can help you avoid the same mistakes I made!" But Medium, as much as I love it (and trust me, the love you all show with claps and follows means the world), it's just one piece of the puzzle.

🤔 The "Why Now" Moment

So why YouTube? Why now? Well, here's where it gets interesting...

I've been thinking about this for months, actually. Every time I write an article about iOS development, I think about how much easier it would be to just show the code in action. You know what I mean? Like, reading about animations is one thing, but seeing them built from scratch? That's where the magic happens.

But honestly? There's something bigger at play here. I'm tired of looking for jobs. I'm tired of the whole corporate dance. I want to do what I love – teaching iOS development – on my own terms, at my own pace.

💭 What This Means for Medium (Don't Panic!)

Now, before you think I'm abandoning Medium – hold up. I'm not going anywhere. The love and support here has been incredible, and I'm not about to throw that away. But here's what's changing...

I'm approaching teaching as a full-time thing now. That means I'll be writing articles AND creating YouTube content. It's going to be intense, not gonna lie. Actually, let me rephrase that – it's going to be exhausting. But the good kind of exhausting, you know?

I want to learn more stuff while I'm teaching. Flutter is definitely on my radar (yeah, I know, I know – an iOS dev looking at Flutter), and maybe Android development down the line. But my main focus? Making people better iOS engineers. That's always been the goal.

☕ A Quick Thank You (This Made My Week!)

Actually, before I continue, I need to pause and say something. Yesterday, someone from the Medium community bought me the most expensive coffee on my Buy Me a Coffee page. I'm not going to name them (unless they want me to), but seriously – that gesture meant more than you know.

Here I am, taking this leap of faith, betting everything on teaching and creating content, and then someone shows up with this incredible support. It's moments like these that remind me why I love this community so much. So thank you, you amazing human. That coffee is literally fueling these late-night video editing sessions!

🎯 The Bigger Picture

Here's the thing – I want to stop looking for jobs. I want to build something that's mine, where I can share my experience without worrying about corporate politics or someone else's timeline. But that also means having no free time for... well, a long time.

Writing articles and creating YouTube videos is going to take everything I've got. But once I'm where I want to be? It'll be so much more flexible. I'll have built something sustainable, something that lets me teach at scale.

🎙️ The Honest Truth About My Speaking Journey

Okay, here's something I haven't told anyone yet. One of my biggest concerns? Public speaking. Or should I say, camera anxiety – that's the proper term for what I'm dealing with. I can write code for 12 hours straight, but put me in front of a camera and suddenly I'm stumbling over words I've been using for years.

So here's my plan, and I'm being completely transparent here. I'm starting faceless. Yep, no handsome face (yet) – just screen recordings, code, and my voice trying not to sound like a nervous wreck. I'm going to begin with a mix of beginner tutorials because, honestly, they're easier to explain and they'll help me get my speaking rhythm down.

Think of it as my training ground. I need to become public speaker friendly, and the only way to do that is to actually... well, speak publicly. Even if it's just to a screen recording software at first.

Once I think I'm at least not completely camera-shy anymore, then maybe you'll get to see this handsome face I keep talking about. But for now, it's all about getting comfortable with teaching through video without the added pressure of worrying about how I look on camera.

🚀 Join Me on This Journey

Look, I'm not asking you to follow me blindly into this adventure. But if you're interested in iOS development, if you want to learn from someone who's been in the trenches for over a decade, then maybe stick around?

I want people to join me in this journey. Learn from me, sure, but also teach me. Some of the best insights I've had come from questions in the comments, from developers who see things differently than I do.

🔮 What's Coming Next

So what can you expect from Swift Pal on YouTube? Real iOS development. Not the sanitized, perfect tutorials you see everywhere, but the messy, real-world stuff. The kind of development where you spend three hours debugging something that turns out to be a missing comma.

I want to share those 12 years of experience – the good, the bad, and the "why did I think that was a good idea?" moments. I want to prepare people for their journey ahead, because let's be honest, iOS development is challenging enough without having to figure everything out from scratch.

💪 The Reality Check

Am I scared? Yeah, a little. This is a big pivot. Going from stable employment to betting on myself and my ability to teach? It's terrifying. But you know what's more terrifying? Looking back in five years and wondering "what if."

So here's to the journey ahead. Here's to late nights editing videos, to learning new things while teaching, to getting over camera anxiety one tutorial at a time, and to building something that matters.

Are you ready to join me?

If you want to be part of this journey, you can find me on: