In this post, I’m going to look back at 2023

Why? Because I find myself looking forward in anticipation A LOT, and having a hard time appreciating how far I’ve come over a short period of time.

Blogging this all and sharing it publicly may seem weird. That’s fine. I’m a little weird, so it makes sense then that I would do something like this.

But it’ll be awesome to look back at this in 5-10 years. Plus it’s therapeutic. Cute, isn’t it?

I’m going to look back focusing on the four F’s:

• Finance

• Fitness

• Family

• Fun

Finance

Highlights

• Business. I started my business and opened my own LLC. Seems small but once you open it up you kinda just force yourself to then start figuring out ways to make money.

• Career Flip. Completed my first full year as a Product Manager at Dexcom. I got to learn a ton about how large businesses research, project, kill, start, and build businesses within their own. I switched over from engineering. That’s what I was doing for the past 10+ years. It was a complete 180 from learning how to design a single (life-saving) medical product, to how to build an entire business around it. It was tough but shoutout to my team that took a chance on me to help me grow into it.

• Moving This best belongs in Finance because of the “why” I did this. I decided to uproot my entire life and move to San Francisco to chase the dream of building (and helping build) a company. I realized in September that I had finally outgrown San Diego. It’s an amazing place, but it was a city of Chillers. At this time I wanted to surround myself with Killers. No not homeless people, we had those in SD too. I wanted to surround myself with the people I wanted to be like. High achievers, builders, ambition people, people with an appetite for risk and a humbling level of intelligence. So I did the opposite of what any sane person in San Diego would do. I blew up my entire life to move to San Francisco. Proximity is Power. Stay tuned on that…

Lowlights

• Media Company I shut down my media business at the beginning of 2023. I was on track to make almost $2k/month by the time we entered 2023. I got really good at shooting live music events, doing professional headshots, flying drones, and developing video editing capabilities. I shot for some big-time musicians and did some high class profiles with even bigger inbound opportunities. But I was quickly falling out of love with what was a passion project turned business. The business I was going into was not something I was willing to devote all my time into, it didn’t align to with my priorities. So I shut it down. I’m starting to get back into it again as a passion project. But the business is done

• Real Estate I was 3 days away from closing on an investment property in Cleveland, OH. And turning it into a STR. I backed out once the inspection came back on our third property under contract that had concerningly terrible remodeling work done to it. That saved me $20K, a personal loan against my name, and a realization that I did not want to start in real estate.

• Scammed I got antsy for the “next project” and wanted to start something. I decided to spend $4k on a 2-month accelerator program that showed me how to do drop shipping via Amazon FBA. It was a completely sh*t product. To draw a metaphor: they basically had you pay them to tell you how to find water in the desert, because they found a ton. So in exchange, they’ll show you how to also find water in said desert. Except, they won’t tell you where it is… and won’t tell you what do to once you get caught in a sand pit. What did I learn? FBA drop shipping is not how I wanted to get wealthy. Also, always be cautious of someone selling you a course. They’re not all bad. But there’s a ton of garbage out there.

• Net Worth A majority of my NW was invested in the stock market. So, like the stock market this year, I watched my net worth get cut in half and then return to what it was. My NW did not grow despite me starting my LLC.

Fitness

Highlights

• Yoga I got super into yoga this year, attending over 100 hot yoga classes. It helped prevent a ton of injury and maintain some flexibility. I fell (further) in love with it. I will probably do this consistently for the rest of my life.

• Handstands I became friends with someone who is starting a business centered around teaching people how to do handstands. Sounds weird. But I f*cking loved it. I typically spend time running around, skiing, hiking mountains, or sitting on my butt. So learning how to flip things up and stand on my hands for 5-10 seconds was a fun challenge. If you want to learn how to do handstands he has online programs too. I get nothing from slinging this, but it’s just sick and he’s a genuine awesome and goofy dude. (IG: @Alekslighthouse)

• Running Over the summer I started running about 15 miles a week. My friend recommended me Nick Bare’s fitness program. He’s jacked and he runs a ton. That’s basically what I wanted to look like. Ok, I was sold. I loved the programs he built out because they incorporated strength training and long-distance running. Which worked for my goals and the fact that I still played club soccer. I got to a point over the summer where I was hitting 15-20 miles a week. Consistently hitting an 8-minute mile.

• Alcohol I have essentially cut out consuming alcohol. This was a personal choice. I fortunately did not have any problems with it. I realized it didn’t need it for 99% of the setting I found myself in. Raves, social gatherings, dates, networking events, business dinners. I have not completely cut it out, I can probably count on two hands how many times I’ve drank this year. But I feel extremely happy and comfortable with my decision. Plus you save a sh*t ton of money. Times when I did decide to drink casually was tequila tasting in Mexico City, tasting imported fine wine, at a music festival, and at a Comedy show. It’s still something I’m working on navigating socially but it’s getting way easier. From my perspective, It’s not about whether you consume alcohol or not, it’s about the quality of the relationships you build that ultimately contribute to a quality life.

Lowlights

• Muscle mass did not change much. Most of my friends told me I looked like I was losing muscle. That kind of sucked to hear. It may have been because of all the running I was doing. I didn’t care, I felt great, and I liked the way I looked.

• Injury This is likely going to come as no surprise. But all that running led to a chronic foot injury that I’m still battling with today. It’s either tendonitis or capsulitis in my second metatarsal. It sucks. The way to help reduce the inflammation is rest. Which I clearly am not doing enough of. At one point it flared up and my roommate had to carry me up the stairs of our apartment. It’s getting better with a rehab routine I created with the help of chatGPT. Plus actual rest. But it sucks that I had to miss out on soccer games and hold back on certain things because of it.

Family

Highlights

• Family Vacation My family took a vacation to Charleston, SC. We spent 5 days together doing absolutely nothing. I went a little nuts, but honestly, it was still worth it to spend some real quality time together with them.

• Uncle My sister gave birth to her first daughter right after Christmas. So I’m now a back-to-back uncle. Keep up the great work, Amanda.

• Brother My brother and I haven’t really done a lot together since we turned 18 years old. So we decided to a trip together to NYC. I learned we’re not that great at traveling together because I’m stubborn and don’t like to compromise often on my decisive decisions. Oh, and I needed to do 90% of the planning. Still worth getting together for even 3 short days.

Lowlights

• Relationship I mutually ended an almost 2-year relationship with someone where nothing was explicitly wrong. Which is was probably made it so hard to do. We realized we were going in two completely different directions in our life. We needed to let each other go in the other direction. Wish her the best, she’s a beautiful person.

• Death This year I dealt with a significant amount of death. My grandfather and grandmother (both of my dad’s parents) passed away, within the span of 8 days of each other. That was tough. Especially as they we deteriorating over the last 6 months of their life. It became hard to even talk to them on the phone. For my dad’s birthday, I compiled all the voicemails my granddad ever left me, dug them up, fed them into a generative AI voice model, and sent him a generated birthday voice message from my grandad. I used ElevenLabs.io

Fun

Highlights

• Parties I read a book written by Nick Gray called “The Two Hour Cocktail Party.” It lit a fire inside of me. I loved meeting interesting people but was struggling to find these people in San Diego. Especially business builders. Instead of complaining about it, I decided to find the people I wanted to surround myself with and create my own crowd. I started hosting parties where I brought brilliant people doing cool sh*t together to all just hang out and meet each other. It blew up. I ended up throwing cool parties in some real intimate places in San Diego. It got attention from local media and grew to a total of 6 parties in 5 months (June-November). It brought together founders, business owners, investors, tech workers, marines, and even professional athletes. Over 200 people came to these. I got so much energy from doing this. I learned it’s a ton of work to do this monthly, especially if I’m doing it alone. For free. But people loved the framework and experience I was curating. I am going to do something like this in SF, but on a quarterly basis.

• Skiing I’ve become obsessed with skiing over the past 3 years. This year’s record snowfall in California sent me over the edge. I got almost 20 days of skiing in. That is a lot for someone based in San Diego. But I ruined all future skiing trips with the trip of a lifetime. I skied in Japan. This year I skied: Mammoth Lakes, Snowbird/SLC, Copper Mountain (Denver), and Niseko United (Japan). I already am planning to go back to Japan for the 2025 ski season. Japow 2025 BABY!

• International Travel Including Japan, I traveled internationally 3 times. A nice perk of living in San Diego is you can walk across the border to Tijuana to fly cheap through Central America. I went to Japan, Mexico City, and Guatemala. All trips were amazing, but dang it I loved Japan. I visited the Central American version of Lake Como meets Tahoe: Lake Atitlan. Then I hiked an active volcano in Antigua: El Fuego. Seeing a volcano erupt at night spewing out glowing red lava was NUTS.

• Club Sweat I did not think I would be a washed-up DJ DJing workout classes for core power, but I started a non-profit partnership doing exactly that. I DJed HIIT workout classes with some crazy fitness instructors. I got to play upbeat house music and enjoyed this WAY more than I expected. It got so popular that every single class got booked full, days in advance. I met some super cool people doing this. It got so successful I almost pulled an OpenAI and turned this non-profit into a for-profit business. I opted out of it and decided to keep this passion project as a passion project

• DJing Club Sweat allowed me to scratch my DJ itch but I ultimately ended up DJing in San Diego at a Bar and Club before I left for San Francisco. It was fun to get back to playing in front of large crowds. I was promptly reminded that the industry is pretty slimy and why I decided to step back from pursuing a DJ career. I’ll keep doing it, but I’m just super picky about where and when I’ll play.

Lowlights

• Hiking In July my friends and I attempted to summit Mt Russel. A 14k ft mountain right next to Mt Whitney. This was our first hike of the season, due to the record-breaking snowfall this year. At 13k ft we realized we were running out of water and altitude sickness was hitting us. We did not want to scale thousand-foot cliffs with a lack of clarity so we decided to turn around and live to summit another day. I did not get to do as many backpacking and hiking trips this year as I wanted to. This is what made this extra sour, being that I was not able to summit one of my big treks of the year.

That’s It

Sometimes I look back and think I have barely done anything this year. Then I write all this down and become proud of all the growth, people I met, and decisions I made throughout 2023.

Life is So Rich

Photo Dump of 2023: