Month of Jan 2024

Brotherhood and Damp January

Theme of the Month - Brotherhood and Damp January

The questions that led me to the posts for Jan 2024 were:

• What’s your cheap dopamine hit and how can you map out the harder efforts that attain grander rewards?

• How do you write a GPT Agent and deploy to the GPT Store?

• What do I do on the 2nd and 3rd act of life? Can I flip it?

Dry January started strong. Lost 8 lbs, but at what cost? My mini alcohol retro is a series of 3-part realizations.

The 3-part realization of joy:

1. That first sip of a refreshing drink indicating the end of the day and the start of a fun night (or Wednesday lunch beer)

2. The cheers with friends

3. The flow of stories coming from relaxation into a comfort zone

The 3-part realization of despair:

1. Snoring and interrupted sleep

2. Next day hangover and body aching

3. IPAs are like 1000 calories

Thereby leading to my 3-part realization of moderation:

1. If you’re going to drink, make it a good one with friends. We’re too old to drink bad alcohol.

2. Hydration routine absolutely necessary so double fist with a glass of water

3. Diversify my vices

Anyway, it’s more of a damp January now. Angus and Kayla came to visit and we haven’t seen each other since COVID started. It was good to just hang out, cook some yummy food, and tease Angus’ skiing capabilities. Can’t wait for more time with the fam in Switzerland.

The blogposts I’ve published this month were:

• 30 Levels of Dopamine - From endlessly scrolling through shorts to building a new application, I try to ground my tasks to the bigger dopamine hit after accomplishing things that take work to achieve.

• “Lists of 30 Writer” GPT Agent - Ever wanted to write your own list of 30 or GPT agent? This post gives you all the custom instructions.

• 3 Acts of Life - If 0-30 is for foundation, 30-60 for purpose/growth, and 60-90 for legacy then we can reframe our view of “retirement” as a non-goal. We still want to balance the triangle of time, money, and energy and just live our best life.

Some ideas for Q1 2024? I’ll keep building more GPTs, working on my 40-under-40, and continue writing the monthly AI post. I’ve completed recording a Generative AI 4-hour course that I’ll publish to Udemy, so I’ll do some additional marketing on this. There’s also tons of marketing and fun things I will do for “Our Life in Lists of 30” to get more distribution in the next month. It’s harder to do the marketing than it is to write the book.

• “Our Life in Lists of 30” Official Book Launch - Since the book is done, it’s now more about building subscribers and getting pre-sales. This all seems so familiar to a token launch. Community is everything.

• Bootstrapping Web3 and Generative AI Course - Created the curriculum and material across the course and ready to launch on Udemy in Feb.

• 30 AI Buzzwords - I’ve loved writing buzzwords for Blockchain, DeFi, Consensys, NFTs, Token Gating, and DAOs so of course I’m plugged into a new series of flash trends.

• 30 Tips from Beat Bobby Flay - An output of love and drool from watching Beat Bobby Flay episodes on (HBO) Max.

• 30 New AI Careers - Rethinking our post-labor economic jobs. Let’s all switch to the gig economy.

• Reflecting on 10 years of writing lists of 30 - I still love writing lists of 30! It’ll define my whole life.

• 30 Future Decade Goals - We split the next 30 years into goals per decade as mapped out by Evie’s age. This was a great activity in long term planning for her ages 6-16, 16-26, and 26-36.

• 30 Ways to Stretch Time - Wealth doesn’t mean money, but time. It’s our only limited resource.

• 30 Things I do for Self Care - We all need to figure out what restores our energy and keeps us sane.

• Kicking off “Her Life in Lists of 30” - I think I have enough material from my monthly lists of 30s to cover this and launch it in 2024. Maybe I’ll find a publisher for this book? I think I’ll be happy with more substack subscribers than a single book defining a decade. If it’s popular, maybe I’ll do a book tour!

Thank you for reading and I hope everyone stays safe!

Please suggest a list of 30 and I’ll write it! I’ve written 250+ lists of 30 and only publish ones that I think other people would enjoy. It’s my fun brainstorming routine.