2013 Goals

While I'm on the topic of accomplishments from yesterday's post, here's my list of goals for 2013. (Note: I drafted this a few weeks ago in my logbook, so some milestones are already met.)

Personal

• Ride the Whistler Gran Fondo. All the tri training last year made me forego a good few bike rides in the name of swimming or running. By the end of the summer I was in great cycling shape because .. I just love to ride. Having a terrifying cycling milestone at the end of the summer sounds like exactly what I need!
• Ride to Portland. Steph and I have been talking about a week-long trip down the pacific coast. Who's in?
• Ride 3000 km. Which works out to less than 10 km per day. It's mid January and I'm at 150, so this is looking good. I'll be tracking it using Strava.
• Own the necessary equipment to bike across Canada. Those last few are leading up to a goal for one of the next couple of years. I had wanted to do this before I turned 30, but I didn't take any steps toward it until I was 29 (and a half). This is me taking the proper steps. 
• Live carbon neutral. I was pretty close last year. Trans-continental flights destroy all day-to-day best practices however. Offsets will do for those.
• Own fewer possessions. I have too much "stuff". I'm always downsizing, but I need a good purge. Anyone in the market for hockey equipment? Old computer parts maybe?
• Beat my sprint triathlon PB. That's a sub 80 minute race. The swim and the run need the most work by far.
• Beat my Sun Run PB. Aiming to crack 50 minutes. I know the route well now, just need to put in the miles.
• Visit Victoria properly. There aren't many lofty travel goals this year because I have no idea how my financial situation is going to pan out. In the meantime, Victoria is beautiful and close, and I haven't taken advantage.

Professional

• Open Common Ground. This is well underway, partnerships are forming, paperwork is being filed, and momentum is building. It's going to be an exciting year for freelancers and entrepreneurs in St. John's!
• Grow Funl 50x. That'll be 5000 users by January 1, 2013.
• Earn revenue from Funl. Supporting 5000 users is not free. It has to pay for itself.
• Earn freelance revenue. Already accomplished! Now I need a more agressive target...
• Earn freelance revenue every month. I like side-projects. It's nice when they also pay!
• Learn a programming language or framework. Probably some new-school Javascript thing that all the kids are raving about.
• Become cash flow positive. One of the downsides of my self-employment adventure is the initial trough of relative poverty. Many of the above goals aim to rectify that. Oh the forecast spreadsheets I've made...
• Create a portfolio. I've worked on a few cool projects over the last few years and I need a good way to showcase them for posterity. Suggestions welcome.
• Give a presentation or pitch once a quarter. Because I need the practice, and I kind of enjoy making myself uncomfortable.
• Hire someone. Because it's fun to choose who you work with. And outsourcing-guy inspired me.

Above all else

• Enjoy myself. If any of the previous goals gets in the way of this one, then it's cut. Things change. I'll stay flexible.

2012 Recap

2012 was a significant year for me. Here are some of the reasons:

Professional

• Built and released a web app. Releasing a product is scary, but it felt good. It's still scary actually. And good.

Sufficiently embarrassing initial launch page

• Became my own boss. I wrote another post about that. You can find it here. Five months later, self-employment still has ups and downs.
• Created my first business cards. I had Future Shop ones back in the day, but I didn't get to invent them.

By Greg at Engravable Designs

• Built a personal website. Hopefully this one stands the test of time; I feel better equipped than my last attempt in grade 6.
• Pitched a startup. That was intimidating, but went alright. I learned that pitching is not so much presenting, but more selling. And usually selling someone else on the possibility of making money from your work.

Always have a moustache to ensure maximum seriousness.

• Started coworking. I tested out a few spaces around Vancouver and loved the idea of being immersed in productivity. Working from home is not all it's cracked up to be. Launch Academy won out by the way.
• Started bringing coworking to St. John's. With the awesome guys behind Common Ground. You'll be hearing about it soon.
• Attended Startup Weekend UBC. Met some great and talented people. Built a cool receipt-scanning company. Failed fast and learned a ton!

Bio (far left) is a code machine!

• Bought some stocks. Lost money. Sold stocks. Closed account. Too high-maintenance for me right now.

Personal

• Snowboarded 30 days. That'll be a record for a while. Awesome winter! Mountains included Cypress, Grouse, Whistler, and Baker.
• Biked to Victoria. With Steph and support from our friend Joel who carried our camping gear in his car. A++ trip, would ride again.

There's a trail from Swartz Bay all the way to Victoria

• Rode Whistler Bike Park. Which was insane and amazing! 10 year old Shawn was out to play that weekend. It also really drove home the incredible variety in bike sports.
• Had to call bike park paramedics. Related to the previous point. Not for me fortunately, but a stark reminder that I'm actually not 10 years old.
• Ran a Sun Run PB. 53:07. Nothing spectacular, but it makes the list.
• North Shore Sprint Triathlon. My first triathlon ever. Steph's too! It was incredibly fun and our dedicated fans/amazing friends Sarah and Andrew showed up to cheer us on!

Exhausted and elated

• Point Grey Sprint Triathlon. A slightly better time, but a harder race. 

Travel

• Coachella - April. Great, but too hot. It was my second time and likely my last. I missed half the acts because the heat was unbearable. Sasquatch 2013 anyone?

• St. John's - May. For work and the inaugural Go Beyond Pixels conference.

From Pippy Park Golf Course

• Penticton - July. No photo, but a great town nestled between two lakes and two mountains. Very laid back.

• Vernon - August. Revisiting the town where I camped with friends for a week on the way to Vancouver. Got to do some wakeboarding and managed to not hurt myself! 

• Hornby - August. A tiny magical island between Vancouver Island and the mainland where deer roam free and the people are ullllltra relaxed!

Tidal VBall

• Maui - September. I was supposed to write another post about this. It was perfect. Just go, stop planning any other vacations until you've been.

• Chicago - October. Our final adventure for the year with Brad and Ariel, after Vernon and Hornby. I had no idea what to expect but we picked Chicago because it's about halfway between St. John's and Vancouver, and I loved the place. Take a boat tour! 

It's crazy that so many of my personal entries are sports related. That about sums me up I guess: software, snowboarding, cycling, and travel.

I'm very ok with that.

Choose My Own Adventure.

September 2012 will be one for my personal history books. I guess this is my history book. I've been explaining my mood as a sine wave oscillating between euphoria and terror, with a period of 48 hours. Nerdy, I know. I even sketched it.

But much less predictable

Seeing this graph, I've convinced myself to start tracking my mood with more structure. A friend created an app for doing so a while ago, time to give it a whirl I guess. It's called Illuum. It's made by Angus. He's great.

That reminds me of a website a couple of people have mentioned in the last couple of days. It's all about measuring various aspects of your life in a structured way. Check out Quantified Self for more. It's on my list of things to investigate.

Anyway... back on track! As I've already demonstrated, my mind is racing all over the place lately.

Here's why:

I left my steady job.

After four years with Verafin I decided it was time for a change. I had started there right out of university and grew up a great deal in that time. For the past two years I had been working remotely from Vancouver. At first that was a fun new challenge; we needed to find new tools for communication, collaboration, and organization. I could write a book about the ups and downs of that process. 

As the company grew and departments became more specific, I found I had less and less responsibility. Perhaps this is an inevitable side-effect of growth, when you have fewer people everyone needs to do more. However, I also felt that working remotely was decreasing my opportunity for promotion and growth in the long run. I wanted more challenge, more control, and more human contact, so a few months ago I decided it was time to move on. I set September 1 as my hard deadline to transition into something new.

Over the years I had built some great working relationships which had evolved into friendships, so saying goodbye was difficult. My last day was emotional as I reconnected with some great people and we exchanged best wishes, but all in all the departure was great. Some of the best conversations were with the founders. Being entrepreneurs themselves they could completely relate with my desire to start something from scratch! My biggest piece of advice if you're changing careers is simply to be open and honest with the people it will impact. They will understand. If they don't then you're right to be moving on! 

So on Tuesday, September 4, 2012....

I started working for myself.

That's scary to write. It means I'm responsible for generating revenue. Those are words I'm not overly familiar with, but I'm learning! It means I no longer have cushy health insurance, but I got my teeth and eyes checked out before that expired. How responsible.

During the last few months of my time at Verafin, my friend Justin and I had started working on a web app called Funl. We wanted to make a tool to help build good personal habits (i.e. going to the gym, reading, volunteering, etc) and track savings toward specific financial goals (a new bike, computer, vacation, etc). There's a lot more detail on the Funl blog.

So that's my new gig. I'm working on finding a way to make money at it. If you have any ideas or feedback I'd love to hear em!

To shake off the cobwebs I've acquired in working from home for so long, I've joined Launch Academy. It's a coworking space aimed at early stage tech startups, so I'm digging it! It's contagious to be around people with big visions, getting shit done. If you're interested in coworking talk to me, I've visited a few in Vancouver and can help you choose. If you like the sound of this, but live in St. John's, you'll want to check out Common Ground.

I showed Mom around Vancouver.

I love being a tour guide! My mother owns a sewing and quilting company in St. John's, and was in town for a week for a sewing conference. 

Some highlights included hiking the Grouse Grind and Whistler Peak. We also took in some Vancouver staples like Stanley Park, Granville Island, Richmond Night Market, and Na'am. The finale was the musical Jersey Boys. It's nice to have family visit. :)

Hawaii

This will be another post... it's too much to cram in here, but it belongs in the list of September 2012 activities. Check back soon.

Finally, Thanks James

He'll likely never notice this, but the title of this post is inspired by this blog post about choosing yourself. James Altucher has been inspirational in the past year or so, as I've mentioned to many people. If you think you're like me at all then scan through the right column of popular and top rated posts on The Altucher Confidential and I guarantee you'll have a half dozen tabs open before you hit the bottom.


First post down, any requests?