Obligatory year in review post, commence! I love publishing this blog: writing clarifies my thoughts and each post lets me send a life update to my family and friends. My favorite aspect of blogging, though, is building an archive of my thoughts from years past. Before I sat down to write this post, I read my three previous reflections on 2022, 2021, and 2020 (my first blog post 3 years ago!). I have some great news – my life aspirations today are the same as they were last year. After spending my 20s franticly pondering the question, “how should I spend my time?”, I’m finally starting to define clear life directions.
Last year I wrote:
Looking forward to 2023, my life aspirations have not changed. It turns out I’m a very simple man. I seek:
- Deep relationships – familial, personal, business, and romantic (I’m back in the market if you know someone…)
- Superb health – including sleep, nutrition, and fitness as well as doing all of the outdoor activities that I love
- To build a startup – this time I’m doing it the correct way: working with co-founders, focused on a market where I have domain expertise, and selling a product to businesses, not consumers
- Continued learning – Both in the classroom as well as from books, podcasts, youtube, new people, events, etc. Also via practicing new skills (writing, programming, etc)
I concocted a crude slogan for my aspirations: relationships, ripped, rich, growth, and giving. My 2024 priorities are relationships, ripped, and rich, so I will focus on these 3 buckets for the remainder of this post.
Relationships
Most of you probably agree that relationships are a critical ingredient to life satisfaction, so I’ll consolidate this section to a couple of reasons why I think strong interpersonal relationships are critical:
Shared experiences >> solo experiences
I solo backpacked around Europe for a month in the summer of 2022. I hiked in the swiss alps, ate my way through Paris, and surfed in the Arctic circle…all incredible experiences. By the end of the trip, though, I realized that a huge component of an awesome experience is the ability to rehash it with loved ones.
Time spent with others (in-person) increases happiness. Inverted: Too much time spent alone is depressing.
Last semester I didn’t have class on Thursdays. I spent some of those days working alone in my apartment. On isolated days I felt noticeably more negative than on days when I met up with people. I have witnessed the same phenomenon during previous bouts of isolation. I’m somewhat introverted, so this realization surprised me. Solitude is valuable, especially after a period of intense socializing, but I’ve found that I need to be with people at least every 24 hours or I start to feel shitty.
Positive relationships amplify life
Working on a project with a friend is more fun than working solo. Chatting with a romantic partner at day’s end is more satisfying than ruminating alone*. Running a race is more fun when you collapse into your friends at the finish line. The highs are higher and the lows are softened. Happiness studies and deathbed interviews have confirmed what personal experience demonstrates: deep interpersonal relationships are critical to living a meaningful life.
*I’m single…again, but I think I have a much better sense for what I need in a romantic partner: physical attraction, flowing conversation, and mental health.
Ripped
I assume that maintaining superb health improves every other part of my life: energy, focus, mood, stress, confidence, etc. Furthermore, my ego requires feeling good about how I look. And I’m single, so it can’t hurt.
I don’t want to beat a dead horse, so I will spare you most of my thoughts on diet (high protein paleo) and exercise (strength, cardio, mobility 5 – 8x/week). The following are some new protocols that I’m adding to my health routine.
- I’ve started taking Magnesium every night, and vitamin D and AG1 every morning.
- On nights when I don’t have a social engagement, I usually skip dinner. Those days look like: large breakfast, large lunch, protein shake around 3pm. This approach dramatically improves my sleep.
- I’ve renewed my focus on consuming 150 – 200g of protein daily.
- I experimented with fasting this past summer, and plan to resume 24 – 30hr fasts ~1x/week.
- I’ve been doing hot yoga once per week. Years ago hot yoga fixed my lower back pain.
- I gave up alcohol last April. Read more for further thoughts on this decision.
Rich
The title of this bucket is a bit misleading. My goal is not to build wealth for the sake of it, my goal is to obtain absolute financial freedom as well as career satisfaction. Translated into numbers, this hypothetically looks like: Target lifestyle annual expenses * 50 = Wealth Goal. This equation isn’t literal, but my point is that I never want money to own my decision making. Applying this formula, one could EITHER live cheaply OR make a lot of money. To me, being rich means 2 things: flying business class on long flights and choosing what to work on (i.e. never feeling beholden to a given job). I need to build wealth to achieve my version of financial freedom.
Brief Reflections on 2023
The first 3 semesters at Sloan have given me fantastic friendships, a valuable entrepreneurial network, and resources to help me push Xpanse Data forward.
I had 2 goals for my time at Sloan: Develop meaningful relationships and build a business. The former is not complete, but I feel good about the friendships and connections that I’ve made at school. The latter is my top priority. My goals for Xpanse next semester are threefold: acquire a paid pilot customer, raise seed funding, and find a co-founder (or 1st employee).
I spent 6 months of 2023 in a romantic relationship. Unfortunately it did not work out, but at least I learned more about what I need from a romantic partner. I identified 3 deal breakers: physical attraction, flowing conversation, and mental health.
On to alcohol. I first tried to tackle the question of when to drink and how much to consume 3 years ago! That exercise did not result in an effective solution. Fast forward to Spring 2023 – one of my closest Sloan friends gave up alcohol during his marathon training. On April 16th 2023 (dated for posterity), I decided to join him in his sobriety experiment. During the first month, there were several moments when I almost broke. After that initial challenge, sobriety became an effortless habit. 9 months later, I have some reflections on my sobriety:
- Sobriety is clearly beneficial to 2 out of my 3 aspirations: ripped and rich. It’s probably neutral when it comes to relationships.
- I don’t think sobriety is necessary, but it does make my life a lot simpler. I no longer have to confront the frequent decision (and social pressure) of when/how much to drink.
- I don’t regret the drinking years of my life – I have a lot of great relationships that began over a couple (or more) beers.
2024
So what’s on tap for 2024?
Find a romantic partner. Build a business. Complete the Pemigewasset Loop in a single day*.
Keep it simple, stupid**.
I hope everyone has an incredible 2024!
*I haven’t set specific fitness goals in a long time, but this year I am. My goal is to trail run/hike the 30 mile Pemi-Loop in a single day. However, my Sloan friends and I are debating signing up for a half ironman in June, in which case this would become my fitness challenge for the year.
**Further notes on 2024:
- Most mornings I open up Notion and jot down random thoughts and my priorities for the day. I plan to move this process to a journal so that it does not require opening my computer.
- Post-graduation I am going to work full-time on Xpanse Data. The plan is to live in either NYC or Boston.
- I spend more time on my phone than I should. I want to cut that down. I removed the Lichess and Instragram apps, but will take more drastic action if necessary.
Noah's (Life) Ark 