My New Year's resolution

I had an absolutely awful 2022; I lost nearly the entire year to a series of illnesses, infections, medication mishaps and deprivations and withdrawals, surprise glutenings, a major accident and tragedy, two surgeries, and rocky recovery.

So first and foremost my goal for 2023 is to… not. Not do all that again. Thankfully, though my experiences were horrific, they accidentally revealed that things I never suspected were making me sick, and thus I am able to make changes & feel better than I have in years. It's already working.

But my stupid body is not under my control. So I shan't tempt fate with a health resolution.

My big New Year's Resolution? It's more of a theme.

Leverage.

I've learned a lot from not being able to work at all for a year and a half. The biggest lesson is that the most important thing is to have leverage in my life and business.

What I do spend time and energy on has to be powerful.

It has to create outsized returns.

It has to secure the future, so if anything like the last couple hell years happens again, my business won't slow and fall right along with me.

This is my year to set up my two businesses to grow — and not just grow, again, to regain what we lost, but to grow faster than before, and in a way that will compound.

I want to do things, make things, this year that'll keep paying me for the next decade and beyond, the way that Noko and 30x500 have since 2009 and 2010, respectively.

Things that will get richer over time, rather than stale.

That means trying things I wouldn't have touched before, like LinkedIn.

And skipping the easy but meaningless and cheap dopamine hits, and spending my time on creating things that last instead.

Less scattered tweeting, more focused writing.

Less doom scrolling, more reading.

Less picking of low-hanging fruits, more planting new trees in the orchard. Hell, whole new orchards!

And designing new processes — and buying or even building equipment — to plan, grow, manage, and harvest effectively.

It's time to go beyond simply pruning and shaping and reusing and juicing what I've already made, doing what I've always done. It's time to be bold.

OK, enough with the fruit metaphors.

The best part is: I've already started. You're here, after all, reading it.