2023 Mega Recap

Duane Rollins -

Have you ever seen the circus master who is riding a unicycle, balancing spinning plates, and juggling at the same time? You may not understand how he's managing it, but one thing you can be certain of is that if he continues, something is inevitably going to get dropped.

That was 2023.

It was improbable and always on the precipe of disaster.

But we made it.

You may not win in the way you think at times but sometimes surviving is enough. And surviving keeps the opportunity for a future win alive.

Onwards to 2024, but first, a look back...

Personal

  • Time away. I took a bit of a sabbatical this year to reset. Life is soooooooo much better because I took this time. Sometimes you need to create space to fall in love with you again. I'll write about it more in 2024 because I won't do it justice in a few sentences.
  • 2023 Goals: Big goals were losing 30 lbs and writing a book. I claim complete defeat in that regard. In spite of that, I somehow still crushed this year. I've made tremendous progress on the book and am down 15 lbs as of this writing. I owe this community a few chapters of the book so I'll be posting more about that throughout January. I also got into Broadway investing and have a new venture coming in 2024. Exciting times ahead.
  • 2024 Goals: I'm pursuing something fantastic next year and I will share more about it as time goes on. It's part of my 100-year plan to transform the world for the better and I'm going to build this thing brick by brick. The time away gave me space to pursue something non-obvious to me but extremely aligned.
  • 2024 Theme: EXTREME Follow Up. Last year I was pursuing the goal of becoming unstoppable and this year I'm focused on extreme follow-up. Mainly, the focus is on speed to closing the loop and mastering asynchronous tasks. I've been good at doing things in the moment, but if I need to sit it down and tackle it in, say, 48 hrs, it's a good chance that I'll forget about it until 3 months later. Not in 2024. New year, new me and no threads will be left open (note: I'm going to fail, stumble, and bumble around this goal but any improvement is an improvement).

Lessons Learned in 2023

  • Optimism is a moral obligation. - David Deutsch. Being optimistic is the belief that we can create new solutions to the problems we are facing today. Therefore it is a moral obligation to remain optimistic in spite of the circumstances.
  • Direction, not intention, determines our destination. - Andy Stanley. We must align ourselves properly first to get the desired outcomes we seek. You can't just want to do it bad enough, you have also be headed in the right direction. To quote J. Cole - Love Yourz, "The good news is you came a long way, the bad news is you went the wrong way." Ensuring you're running in the right direction is such an underrated part of success.
  • Systems, not goals. - Scott Adams. Goals are what you hope to achieve in the future. Systems are the things you do consistently to get there. Goals are intentions, systems are direction (see above).
  • There's a difference between a decision-maker and a leader. Both leaders and decision-makers focus on the what and the how. Leaders also have to focus on the who and the why. Leadership is a responsibility, whereas decision-making is a role. As a leader, you are empowered by those who you are leading. As a decision-maker, you are empowered by the structure you are in. Leaders are chosen every day by the people they are leading. Decision makers were chosen by others.
  • It's not what you can do, but what you can repeat. The willingness to do things again and again and again over increasingly longer periods of time is what separates a life well lived from a lived life. In the words of Morgan Housel, it's better to have average returns over an above-average period of time than to try to optimize for short-term gains.
  • There exist only four true boundaries in life: imagination, belief, curiosity, and commitment. These are the sole factors that truly have the power to limit you. Imagination pertains to your capacity to envision a future that isn't yet a tangible reality in your present surroundings. Belief is the trust you place in your own abilities, utilizing the knowledge, skills, and resources at your disposal to bring an idea into existence. Curiosity is your eagerness to engage with and explore new experiences and concepts. Commitment is your dedication to persevere and bring tasks or projects to their fruition. These four elements are the only things that you can use to limit yourself, and when you broaden any one of these, your entire world expands exponentially.

News That Mattered (to me at least)

  1. A Scary Scene in the NFL. Damar Hamlin of the Buffalo Bills and his near-death-on-the-field injury kicked off the year. His subsequent return to action this season is sort of a summation of all that 2023 has been.
  2. Submersibles. All of us learned so much more about deep sea exploration than we ever thought we would. I feel terrible about the life lost in what was an avoidable tragedy.
  3. Kevin McCarthy ousted as House Speaker. America's politics are stupid right now. We have to figure out why we are consistently making these unforced errors and what we can do to avoid it. But hey, at least it was entertaining.
  4. War. Russia and Ukraine. Israel and Hamas. What does it mean to struggle for freedom? Who gets supported in their struggle? Is anyone ever right? At what cost?
  5. Trump indicted. I missed the days when politics was CSPAN instead of Bravo/VH1/TMZ. Sigh.
  6. Science. Room temperature superconductors and nuclear fusion. Neither works right now at scale but they are going to be game-changing for humanity when we figure them out.
  7. Elon was forced to buy Twitter. Changed it to X, but we still call it Twitter. Across the board, we need to replace righteousness with pragmatism.
  8. Jonathan Majors. His fall from grace was swift. As they say, be careful about how you treat people on the way up. You may run across them again on the way down.
  9. Drake v. Joe Budden Beef. Joe Budden offered an honest critique of Drake's album in a tone that Drake didn't like. Drake threw a tantrum and then released more songs that made the album better based on Joe Budden's critique. FIN.
  10. SVB Collapse. It could have been worse, but it was an intense weekend.
  11. Sam Altman/OpenAI. It could have been worse, but it was an intense weekend.

Podcasts To Listen To

Shows

These are my go-to shows that I recommend you add to your list (I'll wait).

All are high quality, thoughtful, and fun. You don't always have to agree with them, but they make you think a little bit deeper.

  • Acquired. Business breakdowns.
  • Founders. Founder biography recaps.
  • Nightcap - Unc and Ocho. Sportsball, but often goes off the rails into life.
  • Lex Friedman. Interesting people that do interesting things (usually science or tech related).
  • Joe Budden. Black culture news. Love or hate Joe, the team touches on the topics relevant to Black culture.
  • The Tim Ferris Show. An inside look at high performers. Explores how they do it, what makes them tick, and the things they are interested in.
  • The Right Time with Bomani Jones. More sportsball with very smart Black cultural commentary. Doesn't go off the rails as much as others.
  • Invest Like the Best. A dive into how the professionals think about money and investing (not the same thing) plus the various thoughts they have on it (and around it).

Individual Episodes to Revisit:

Top Recs:

Other recommendations

  • Nintendo - Acquired
  • Costco - Acquired
  • Yuval Noah Harari - Human Nature, Intelligence, Power, and Conspiracies - Lex Fridman Podcast
  • Stephen Wolfram: ChatGPT and the Nature of Truth, Reality, and Computation
  • Jeremy Giffon - Special Situations in Private Markets: Invest Like the Best with Patrick O'Shaughnessy
  • Sam Zemurrary (The Fish That Ate the Whale) - Founders Podcast
  • Christoper Nolan - Founders Podcast
  • James Cameron - Founders Podcast
  • Bruno Cucinelli - Founders Podcast
  • Marshawn Lunch Part 1 and Part 2 - Club Shay Shay
  • Nick Cannon: How I Accidentally Built a $1.3 Billion Business - Diary of a CEO
  • Rey Flemmings: A Different Definition of Success - The Knowledge Project
  • Kevin Kelly: Excellent Advice for Living - The Knowledge Project
  • Surviving the Cosmos, The Future of Artificial Intelligence with David Deutsch - Making Sense Podcast with Sam Harris

Books To Read

Top Recs

  • Unreasonable Hospitality by Will Guidara
  • What Got You Here Won't Get You There by Marshall Goldsmith
  • 10x is Easier than 2x - Dan Sullivan and Dr. Benjamin Hardy
  • How to Write One Song by Jeff Tweedy
  • The Anthology of Balaji by Eric Jorgenson
  • The Earned Life by Marshall Goldsmith
  • The Luxury Strategy by JN Kapferer and V Vastein
  • Born in Blackness by Howard W. French
  • Cry Like a Man by Jason Wilson
  • Poverty, by America by Matthew Desmond
  • Never Finished by David Goggins
  • You Owe You by Eric Thomas
  • Tomorrow I'll Be Brave by Jessica Hische

Articles/Videos To Read/Watch

Top recommendations

Other recommendations

  • How Did Pantone Come To Own Colors? - Phil Edwards via YouTube
  • Men are lost. Here's a map out of the wilderness. - The Washington Post
  • Steve Harvey on Divorces, Showering In Bathrooms, Importance Of Women & Daughter Lori - Club Shay Shay
  • Inside Donald Glover's New Creative Playground - GQ
  • I Saw the Face of God in a Semiconductor Factory - Wired
  • The Techno-Optimist Manifesto - Marc Andresson

Music To Listen To

This year was not the best year for music, but there are still some gems (note: Andre 3000 didn't make my list but it's worth checking out).

Here are the albums worth revisiting

  • nadie sabe lo que va a pasar mañana - Bad Bunny (my #1 pick this year)
  • Michael - Killer Mike
  • Jaguar II - Victor Monet
  • Work of Art - Asake
  • Lahai - Sampha
  • I Left My Heart in Ladera - Alex Isley
  • falling or flying - Jorja Smith
  • Every album Terrance Martin released in 2023 but if you must choose one go with Curly or Ornamental.

Listen here:

Duane's 2023 Playlist: Apple Music | Spotify | Tidal

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That's a wrap on the year of 2023. I leave you with one final question from Ali Abdaal:

Based on your experiences in 2023, what would you like to do differently in 2024?

Leave today better than yesterday ✌🏽. ❤️. 📈. 🤲🏾.