2024 Annual Review

 

2024 Wrapped

In 2024, I mostly did the same trips as I did in 2023. I started off 2024 in Niseko, Japan, quenching my snow powder addiction, only to have too much snow so the lifts shut down. I came back to the US and went straight to Salt Lake City for a month, doubling down on snowboarding and community, highlighted by getting a concussion :(

In March, we headed to Chamonix, France, where we learned how to split board. Then, we went to Tomorrowland Winter, the festival where we skied the longest black run in the world (16 km) while bobbing our heads to house music on the beautiful alps summit.

As winter came to a close, I trained for six weeks for the Brooklyn half-marathon. I improved my half-marathon time by 13 minutes, PRing with a 1:39. It was probably the best training cycle I’ve ever had.

With summer fast approaching, surfing became the focus. I went to El Salvador for a 3rd time, to surf 10-foot waves. I also took my girlfriend to Honolulu, Hawaii, where I proudly took her on her best surf session ever. I wanted her to meet my grandma, but unfortunately, she passed away in May :(

I went to Mexico City for Lawrence’s bachelor party, where we were hungover with no water for a full day and then I got covid. I returned to NYC and moved in with my girlfriend. 

We settled into our new apartment and finished a 5-day water fast. Then for thanksgiving, we went to Punta Mita, Mexico to surf where my girlfriend caught 10 waves in a session!! (I think I’m more excited when she catches waves than me).

We closed the year by heading to Guangzhou to visit my family's grave, where I had the best dim sum I’ve ever had. We then headed to Hainan to surf and closed the year in Xi’an, visiting my girlfriend's parents.

Career

  • Netflix: I’ve settled into Netflix and feel confident in my position at the company. I make good money, have a lot of freedom, and can work remotely. I get great perks and my colleagues are super smart (PhD math level smart). Netflix is a great “default” option in tech and really the only company I can see being a step up is OpenAI.

  • Entrepreneurship: In 2022/2023, I spent a lot of time on entrepreneurial pursuits. In 2024, I didn’t spend any. I launched an ML course and I built yourmove.ai. Long term, I have an eye toward becoming an entrepreneur. In 2025, it’s time to start building skills and side projects again.

Overall Score: 8.5/10

Relationships

  • I got into a new relationship (partner): A big win in 2024 was getting into a new relationship. The first year was defined by fun. We traveled to Europe, Asia and Central America together. The adventures built a really solid foundation for our relationship. While the honeymoon phase has faded, we’re going to the next phase where my girlfriend is considering a career pivot and we’ll probably move out of NYC.

  • Building a community around a hobby is key (friends): The formula I’ve found to leave me feeling fulfilled is building a community around the sports I love, whether it’s surfing, snowboarding, or running, anytime I’ve built a community around it, I’ve left feeling really fulfilled. 

  • Family: Family tbh has been an underinvested area in 2024. While living in NYC, I get to see my parents maybe twice a year. Luckily, Netflix will fly me back home quite often. This will change when I move back to California.

Overall Score: 9/10

Fitness/Health

  • Running, Surfing, Snowboarding, Hyrox: These four sports have been my core sports. I started the year snowboarding, ran a half-marathon and then sprinkled surf trips throughout the year. The challenge is its difficult to progress in surfing and snowboarding with the way my years are structured. Running, much, much easier since you can do it anywhere.

  • Nutrition: Nutrition is something I didn’t really think about this year. I pretty much ate everything, ordered DoorDash quite a bit. While I don’t think I eat super poorly as my default, I’m realizing I can’t expect to “stay shredded” if I don’t watch my diet. The biggest alarm bell I had was when I tested my a1c score through a blood test, reading a 5.5%, which is high for someone who exercises so much.

  • Injuries: Along with poor nutrition, I’m noticing myself get injured A LOT more. In my 20’s, I never got hurt. This year, I started the year with a concussion from snowboarding. I strained my back in July from wakeboarding. I strained my hamstring from overtraining. And then ended the year getting a nasty flu, which caused vertigo.

Overall Score: 7/10

Finances

  • Net Worth: The market’s been doing really well so I saw my net worth go up significantly. I’m able to stash a solid amount of my paycheck due to the high cash upfront at Netflix.

  • Income Streams: Right now, I only have two income streams: my main job and my ML course (which is still making money). The capital I’m earning from big tech should enable me to purchase larger investments like real estate. It’s less about the capital and more about allocating the time to do this.

Score: 8/10

Fun/Novelty

  • Ski Trips: I spent close to 30 days skiing on the mountains in 2024. I snowboarded in Japan, Salt Lake City, Lake Tahoe, Europe. Reflecting on this, it’s an epic list of places I went to in 2024.

  • Surf Trips: In addition to ski trips, I went on three distinct surf trips: to El Salvador, Hawaii, and Mexico. Surfing is definitely my favorite sport so it’s something I want to continue.

  • Weddings: In 2024, I had four weddings, taking me to Mexico, California, Canada. For 2025, I actually have fewer weddings as this wave of friends finished getting married.

Score: 9/10

Learnings/Observations

Relationships grew. Everything else stayed stagnant.

In many of my past annual reviews, the biggest thing I found lacking was romantic relationships. I never felt fully satisfied in this area. I had a lot of experience dating but never found the right fit.

At the end of 2023, through a series of odd events, I was finally in a relationship. I met someone who not only shared my hobbies but also my lifestyle, way of thinking, and life vision. 2024 was important for building the foundation of the relationship: communication habits, shared experiences, and adapting our lifestyle.

In 2023, if I knew that the only thing I would grow in for 2024 was relationships, I’d consider that a massive success. But to level up, how do I continue growing in my relationships while still moving other areas forward?

My career didn’t move forward significantly. I didn’t get significantly healthier, though I did become a better runner. The key in 2025 will be to continue building our relationship, but enable more growth in other areas as well.

Traveling has become more of a hindrance to my growth.

Studying abroad was the most important experience I’ve ever had for my personal growth. It was the first time I could hear my inner voice. It put me in uncomfortable situations and exposed my mind to things completely outside my reality.

But with each trip, the novelty of travel wears off. Big cities blur together. Beach towns blur together. Getting drunk with a bunch of 21 year olds in a hostel transformed from an epic night to one of the last things i want to do.

Now, travel has gotten in the way of mastery. Every time I come back from a trip, it takes a couple weeks to rebuild my routine. And then once I rebuild the routine, I have another trip that resets it.

While Ill still keep traveling, I want to be really thoughtful on how the trips interrupt my growth in other areas.

Life loses its novelty as you get older.

When you’re a kid, going to the grocery store is an adventure. Crossing the bridge into another city? It’s a completely new world.

But as we get older, the number of completely novel experiences dwindles down. Going to London for the first time is incredible. But after visiting Hong Kong, New York, Shanghai, London begins to feel like “another big city.”

As years pass, we can’t passively assume life is going to give us novelty. We need to deliberately inject novelty into our lives.

I’ve been very scattered, and its preventing me from achieving mastery.

It’s a pattern I’ve noticed over multiple years. Too many interests results in me getting pulled in multiple directions. And when I try to pursue everything, I fail to get good at anything. In the past, I was working on two side projects, starting a new job and trying to get good at BJJ.

I’ve culled them, but I still think I’m not focused enough.

New York is the wrong city for me.

Since I moved to NYC, I spent every winter outside of NYC. I’d spend a month in SLC. I’d spend weeks in Hawaii, El Salvador, Mexico. While living in NYC, I’d leave all the time. I used to think it’s because I couldn’t sit still. But really, the lifestyle and activities I’m drawn to aren’t in NYC.

The core benefits of living in NYC is the social life, going out, plays/theatre and the arts. I love the social life in NYC. But I love spending my time outside, grinding on sports. Main conclusion, NYC is a great city, but it doesn’t really fit me. It’s not where I thrive.

Framework for Juggling Too Many Interests

My performance coach taught me a framework on how to approach juggling too many interests. It’s called the “tiered leveling system”:

Tier 1: These are activities where you can leave no stone unturned. You grind on these activities and master every detail of the skill. Your core focus is progression and have a very specific, high level of performance you want to achieve. This phase is intense and ideally, you commit at least one year to the activity.

Tier 2: These are activities you’d like to progress in. However, if you miss a few days or plateau for a bit, it’s OK. You may just do the activity for fun mixed in with some progression. Tier 2 activities are activities you’d consider pursuing intensively, but not yet.

Tier 3: These are activities you try just for fun and exploration. There is no commitment for you to continue to pursue them intensively, but you’re trying it out to see if you like it.

Maintenance: These are activities you want to maintain but you are not necessarily putting in a lot of effort into growing.

When thinking about these tiers, we look at activities across different buckets of life: career, finances, health, fitness and relationships. We can only fit a maximum of two activities in Tier 1, ideally in disparate buckets of our life. It’s easier to be a startup founder and grind on pickleball (i have a friend doing this). The two activities don’t compete for the same time and energy slot, so it’s doable. But if I wanted to be a high-level BJJ competitor and an elite swimmer, it’s gonna be difficult to do both.

All activities typically progress through these tiers. They start at Tier 3, and as your interest grows, they can eventually progress to Tier 1.

2025 Goals

Career

O: Build skills to increase my income, and scope to set myself up to be an entrepreneur.

Goal: Find and involve myself in a project that enables me to grow my skillset [already done]

  1. The key is to find a project at work that enables me to do this. This way, I get the double benefit of getting paid to learn the skill. Criteria is:

    • Impactful for Netflix

    • Interesting

    • Potentially Monetizable

    As of 2/27, this goal is accomplished. I built out an initial proposal to build out a scaleable Forecasting Platform, sold it on my team members and manager, and we’re now working on it! There are many forecasting platforms on the market and we’re going to build one in-house. This will enable me to learn ML Engineering, a bit of causal inference and more forecasting principles.

Exploration: Integrate and begin building with AI [Tier 2]

This is intentionally left ambiguous and less concrete as a goal. The initial phase with AI will be exploration. This might include:

  • Building my own AI tech stack.

  • Playing with the different tools out there to understand the value and jobs to be done.

  • Begin building fun, useful tools with AI.

The key is less about whether it’s a big idea or not and more about getting more reps using the tools.

Relationships

O: Set our relationship up for long-term success and happiness [Tier 1]

Goal: Build a concrete plan/vision and recipe for success.

The long term goal is a fulfilling, happy marriage and family. To get there, we need to build the right habits, have the important conversations now, especially considering specific timelines:

  1. Build the framework to have the conversations about the most important life questions.

  2. Have the important conversations to understand where we are and are not aligned. There’s always going to be misalignment, but it’s really about if that misalignment is a dealbreaker or not.

The key is to have these conversations, build out a plan so we have a clear path into the future.

O: Invest in relationships for the long term. Divest from the wrong relationships.

Goal: Double down on the friendships I want to invest in in the long run, through ski trips/surf trips/hosting[maintenance].

    • This will be in maintenance mode since we’re considering moving. But we have ski trips already planned, and we’ll naturally target a few surf trips in H2.

Fitness/Health

O: Maximize my athletic performance in my 30’s

Goal: Build my fitness/body to effectively Climb Chamonix Mt. Blanc at the end of June [Tier 1]

I want a challenge that can build my aerobic base for climbing Chamonix, is challenging, and is conducive to being more effective in climbing Chamonix. Having a separate challenge will be important, in case the Chamonix summit is closed. Options:

    • Run Half-Marathon

    • Ruck a Half-Marathon

    • Trail Running Half-Marathon

Unfortunately, I tore my achilles :(

O: Stay metabolically healthy and optimize for longevity

  • Lower my a1c score to <5.2% while maintaining <15% body fat (health) [Tier 2]. The main thing for me here is to reduce my sugar intake. I’m at 5.5% right now, which is not pre-diabetic, but it’ll trend there if I continue the same habits. The key will be to figure out how to replenish myself with enough carbs for sports, while not increasing my A1C, and maintaining a low body fat %. 

    • Aim to cook at least one meal per week. I’d want to start with simple dishes I enjoy, such as grilled meats and soups. I have multiple motivations here, I’ll be healthier AND I’ll be able to cook for my girlfriend.

Finances

O: Achieve Financial Freedom and be able to retire my family

  • Maintain my current savings rate to build up cash reserve [Maintenance]: Right now, I’m saving cash, investing it and letting it sit. There are other considerations of doing Real Estate, but that’s not a priority right now.

Fun/Novelty

  • Aspen Snowboard Trip

  • Chamonix Trip

Habits

  • Keep the House Tidy [Growth]

  • Meditate Daily [Maintenance]


I didn't eat for five days. Here's what happened.....

 

For five full days, I didn’t eat a single piece of food; I consumed only water, coffee, and electrolytes. I don’t do intermittent fasting, nor have I ever done a 24-hour fast. Here’s the story.

Every year, I do a “Misogi.” A misogi is a challenge that pushes the limits of what you believe is possible. It’s a challenge that pushes the edge of your potential. It’s hard. It’s a grind. It’s pure suffering. But you ultimately come out at the end a stronger, more resilient person.

I’ve been practicing misogi for years. I went on a 10-day silent meditation retreat. I completed Month to Master where I mastered 12 skills in 12 months. I also biked 500 miles from SF to LA. I started my own business.

The Call

In 2017, I read Nat Eliason’s blog post on 5-day water fasting. Not eating for one day was unfathomable, so not eating for five days felt completely impossible. But that blog post planted the idea and sat inside my brain, taking years to eventually sprout.

Fast forward to 2024, I began dating my current girlfriend. She was the first person to not writhe in horror when I told her about my misogi challenges. In fact, she attempted to do a 7-day juice fast before, but had to break it at 5 days since she began getting cold shivers.

She was the final push I needed, and we both decided to take on this challenge together. I’d do a five-day water fast, and she'd do a five-day juice cleanse. 

The Rules

The rules of a five-day water fast are simple: don’t eat anything for 120 hours. I can only consume zero-calorie liquids (usually water). Some practitioners don’t recommend consuming black coffee. Some say it’s fine. I’m a coffee addict and needed to be productive at work, so I allowed myself to drink black coffee. My girlfriend only drank only home-squeezed juices.

Aightt, before we dive into this, this is the part where I tell you that I’m not a healthcare professional. If you want to do this, do your own research and if you have doubts, talk to a professional.

The Benefits

Fasting has a ton of health benefits.

Of course, there are a lot of studies showing fasting could also harm you such as increased inflammation and higher cardiovascular death risk for some specific types of people, so it’s important to also think about your personal situation.

Preparation

Fasting literature recommends following a ketogenic diet five to seven days before the fast. This way, your body gets used to fewer carbs, preventing a blood glucose crash. 

Like the good student I am, I did none of that and ate ramen with a few friends for my final meal. But I did purchase a blood prick, glucose/ketone testing monitor: 

When doing a water fast, you want to measure two things: blood glucose and ketone levels. The blood glucose measurement is important for making sure your blood sugar doesn’t drop too low, as you could pass out. Diabetics are typically at risk. The best way to measure this is through a Continuous Glucose Monitor (CGM) as you’d get constant readings

The purpose of ketone testing is to monitor how deep into ketosis you are. When you’re eating carbs, your body will first use the carbs you ate for energy, before using fat stores. But during a fast, you’re not eating, so you’re body will directly use fat stores to energize your body. This state is called “Ketosis.”

Day 1

When I woke up on Day 1, I felt…….. normal. My girlfriend was on a work trip, so we’d have to start our fast separately. I decided to work from home the rest of the week since my office would have too many tempting snacks. Day 1 figured to be the easiest day. 

My ketone levels were at 0.1 mmol/L. I need at least 0.5 mmol/L for mild ketosis and 2.0 mmol/Lto be firmly in ketosis. My glucose level was 69mg/dL, which is a bit low, but I felt fine. Ideal range is 70 to 120mg/dL. I made a cup of black coffee, drank a cup of electrolyte water, and began grinding away at work.

By 11 to 12 noon, I started feeling pangs of hunger in my stomach. I drank a bit of water, ignored the hunger pangs, and continued grinding on work.

My girlfriend was arriving home from a work trip at Penn Station at around 4pm. So at 4pm, I walked to the train station to pick her up. I noticed myself feeling lightheaded and the stimulation from the NYC streets was overwhelming. The combination of the gridlocked, Penn Station traffic, and the aroma of the halal street carts, overwhelmed my senses. Breathe. I felt like I was smelling in high definition.

After getting home, I worked for a few more hours. For dinner, I had a five-course serving of water and electrolytes. The nice part was that I had another two hours of free time since I didn’t need to spend the time eating. By this point, electrolytes were the only thing stimulating my taste buds, so I loved drinking electrolyte water. 

When you’re fasting, your liver begins secreting more sodium as it works to supply glucose to your body. To make the fast easier, supplementing with zero-calorie electrolytes helps replenish sodium deficiency.

I noticed that despite hunger pangs, I was in a really good flow state the whole day. I didn’t have my usual post-lunch carb crash, so my focus never waned in the afternoon. I felt clear-headed and a slight pinch of euphoria. But it’s only day one?

I tested my ketone levels: 0.6 mmol/L. I was in “mild” ketosis. Didn’t expect to reach ketosis so fast. My guess, it was because I worked a lot and had burned through all my energy stores. 

Day 2

When I woke up on Day 2, I didn’t feel too hungry. I walked gingerly out of bed feeling OK, but whenever I picked something up or did something remotely strenuous, I’d feel lightheaded. The cure was to drink electrolyte water. I felt some brain fog, but the coffee washed it all away.

My girlfriend and I meditated and then we started work. Ketone Level: 0.8 mmol/L. I had an important presentation to give on Friday, so I was locked in. I felt locked in. The combination of an urgent deadline with ketosis easily tipped me into a flow state. I felt clear-headed, productive with a twinge of euphoria.

The hours raced by. I felt like I was playing life on 1.5X speed. I crushed through my analysis and by the end of the day, I actually didn’t feel hungry. I felt amazing. My girlfriend and I decided to take a night walk, which caused me to feel lightheaded again. Chugged another electrolyte and then felt fine.

Before sleeping, I took another ketone reading: 2.5 mmol/L. Holy shit, I’m in ketosis. It made sense since I was feeling so good. My girlfriend was reading a 0.6 mL/L which meant she was in baby ketosis. But overall, I reached ketosis pretty quickly and I was feeling incredible. 

Day 3

I woke up on Day 3 feeling like complete ass. My lips felt like shriveled grapes. My dry taste buds on my tongue felt like sandpaper. I noticed that my stomach kept growling all night. My digestive tract was doing a ton of work. Oh, and I no longer needed to shit on Day 2.

As I crawled out of bed, working a full day felt insurmountable. I hobbled to the kitchen and poured myself a cup of water. I chugged the water like a lost desert scavenger. Like magic, I instantly felt like a new person. The water revitalized every muscle in my body. I guess I was dehydrated but found it crazy how much of a difference a single glass made.

I tested my ketone level again 3.1mmol/L. A range of 3.0 to 5.0 meant you were in deep ketosis. It’s still safe but you’re body is an accelerated fat burning state. I drank another coffee and was ready to crush the day.

I whipped open my laptop and fell back into a flow state. Though I felt ass in the morning, I again felt extremely focused and locked in for work. If I didn’t feel like ass, my mind felt clear. We crushed the presentation. We had expected our stakeholders to push back and request more work, but they agreed to our proposal, which meant we hit our Q4 goal two months early.

Mixing ketosis with the euphoria of accomplishment made me feel on top of the world. I spent the rest of the night chilling, watching TV, and giggling to myself about my win at work. 

Each time I felt shitty, I downed another electrolyte drink. But I was getting sick of drinking these damn electrolytes. And gradually through the night, the stomache rumbles grew louder and louder. WTF

Probably TMI but I do it for the story. I went to the bathroom and needed to shit? It was liquid-y, but I realized that I had been drinking too many electrolytes. My body was rejecting it and it was coming out the other way. Oops.

Day 4

I woke up in the middle of the night feeling even more ass than Day 3. This time, I had a glass of water on the nightstand, so I chugged it and immediately felt better. 

When I woke up in the morning, I felt the worst out of all the days. My muscles felt drained of energy and I felt lightheaded. And since this was a Saturday, I didn’t have work. I took another ketosis reading: 2.6 mL/L. Work was great for distracting my mind from hunger but it also required me to expend energy, allowing more ketones to be created. When I didn’t have work, it was easy for my mind to revert to feeling hungry. 

The takeaway, is during a fast, it’s important to engage your mind in something. For the past few days, whenever I felt hungry, I redirected my focus to work. But with nothing to engage my mind, I missed the sensation of flavors like a child misses his mommy.

I began counting down the hours until we could eat: 36 hours. To engage our minds, my girlfriend and I began planning our November trip to Mexico. We furiously clicked and typed away, scurrying through hotels. Anything to avoid the thought of hunger. Two hours flew by. We hung out on the rooftop of our building, basking in the sun, just talking about life.

Oh look, it’s time for lunch again. Time to have… more water. 

At night, we made plans to watch “The Conclave” with friends. Mentally, it felt like a massive effort to get out of the house, but we had to do something to occupy our minds.

At around 6pm, we put on our coats and stepped out of our home and gingerly walked to the subway. We scurried through the human traffic jam aka Time Square. 

We stepped into the theatre, where a wave of warm, buttery popcorn flavors flowed into nostrils. Drops of saliva flowed down our tongue’s but we quickly snapped out of it. During the fast, we started making a list of all the food we wanted to eat after the fast. Making a list for myself actually made me less hungry. I jotted down a mental note to eat buttery popcorn.

When our friends came, I felt a surge of energy. I don’t know whether it was distraction or if it was interacting with other humans, but it gave us energy. I focused on the conversations, not on our hunger. We ignored the popcorn aroma and watched the movie in peace.

Day 5

Day 5. 12 hours left. Ketone Level: 5.1 mmol/L. I’ve surpassed “deep ketosis.” According to ChatGPT, “it may be a sign my body is in unusual metabolic stress.” But apparently, it’s still safe. Above 8 you put yourself at risk of ketoacidosis. This is when your body is creating too many ketones to where your blood becomes acidic.

 
 



Day 4 was our toughest day. Day 5 was a celebration. We felt like we were about to hit the finish line. At this level of ketosis, apparently you shouldn’t have as much of an appetite, but i was so damn excited to eat.

I drank another glass of water. It was also the day of the NYC marathon. I don’t usually get FOMO, but I definitely had FOMO. I wanted to be out there to celebrate my friends' running and be a part of the celebration in the city. But alas, I need to finish this. I opened up my laptop to track my friends times. 8 hours left.

Since it was football Sunday, the fear of losing in fantasy football completely distracted me from my hunger. 5 hours left. I kept refreshing the Sleeper fantasy football app. Touchdown Chuba Hubbard. Touchdown Terry McLaurin. Let’s gooo!!!!!

My girlfriend flipped on cooking shows and surprisingly, watching cooking shows didn’t bother us. 3 hours left. 

We actually felt less hungry than Day 4. And as the clock ticked away, it finally struck 6pm: time to eat. 

How to Refeed

Refeeding is the process of steadily introducing food back to your body. The key is to have easily digestible foods that don’t spike your blood sugar. Typically, people will break their fast with bone broth, then move to unsaturated fats and then protein. Supposed to avoid vegetables for a few hours as it’s more difficult to digest and avoid carbohydrates (especially sugar) as it’s going to spike blood sugar.

I’m a good boy, I followed the rules right? Nope. We ordered chicken soup but the congee came first, so we had congee for our first bite. Immediately after having a few slurps of congee, the carbs spiked our blood sugar. It felt as if we were on a natural “high.” Like an overworked computer, our bodies were on overdrive. We needed to give our bodies a break every few sips.

 

Photo of us eating our first bite of congee!

 

When we scanned through the menu, we couldn’t resist. We ordered roast duck and fried shrimp. The roast duck bite was one of the best bites I ever had. Roast duck is fatty, high in protein, and has a lower glycemic index, so we felt like we could keep eating it without overworking our bodies and it was significantly more flavorful than the other dishes we had.

After eating, we felt full. I no longer felt light headed, hungry. That night, I no longer woke up in the middle of the night dehydrated. My sleep went back to normal. Everything went back to normal…..

Reflection

I get the same question: did you feel lasting health benefits from the fast? Many people who’ve done this say they felt incredible.I felt incredible during ketosis.  I lost 11 pounds, but I felt the same as I did before the fast.

But mentally, I felt unbreakable. The health benefits were nice, but the biggest change for me was the impact on my confidence.

Growing up, many of us dealt with feeling “not good enough.” I definitely did. On my first day at USC, I was surrounded by peers who scored 2300+ on the SAT, compared to my meager 1860. When I took my first data science class, everyone had degrees in Math, Statistics or Engineering, compared to my business degree. When I first broke into tech, I was surrounded by colleagues with Ivy League or PhD pedigrees. Even now at Netflix, I’m the only Data Scientist in the company, with no Master’s or PhD.

At each stage of my life, there was a reason to feel like I wasn’t good enough, that I was an imposter, that I didn’t belong. But the counterintuitive solution is to run toward the challenge, not away from it. While sure, there were health benefits from the fast, more importantly, it further reinforced the belief that I could take on any challenge in front of me. 

Seven years ago, not eating for five days was completely outside my reality. It’s now an infinity stone, tattooed into my arm, that I keep for life. Now the question is, what’s next?

Q4 Goals - What should I do with my life?

 

What do I want to be when I grow up? When we hear this question as kids, we say things like "become an astronaut," "become a pro athlete," "become a firefighter," etc…

When I hear this question as an adult, I realize that it’s not binary. It’s a question I have to keep asking myself. It’s not a question of becoming but of reinvention. 

I’ve become a Scientist. Now, what do I want to be next year? In five years? Ten years? Even kids who achieved their dreams of becoming a pro athlete. What’s next? 

During the past quarter, I toyed with many options, such as starting my own consulting company, building my own product, getting promoted, going back to school, or becoming an athlete. 

There are pros/cons to all of them:

  • Starting a consulting company would give me full control over my work. But I’d be basically doing the same thing as my job, but with less pay and more hustle.

  • Getting promoted would give me a big boost in pay and responsibilities. Getting promoted faster would require more effort.

  • Building my own product is the most fun. But I’d have to be okay with less pay.

  • Becoming a high-level athlete also seems fun. But would it be at the cost of career growth?

Tradeoffs matter. Starting a company would mean I’d have to give up my athletic pursuits, and pursuing athletics may mean my career won’t grow as fast. It’s possible to do both, but just not at the same time.

If I made infinite money, what would I do? If I had infinite money, I’d spend the money to enable the activities that fulfill me: surfing, snowboarding, long treks, coaching others, and learning languages. I want to be able to do this until I’m old.

I’m lucky. I have a great job at Netflix that pays well. I can work from home from (almost) any location. I enjoy my work. Netflix’s culture gives me a ton of freedom. My job can support all the activities that fulfill me. 

The Path Forward

The path forward is two-pronged:

  1. Continue to grow at Netflix: I’m motivated by progression. I can’t rest and vest. If my skills aren’t growing, I disengage. I’m confident that continuing to grow my skills will open the door for future promotions and $$$ increases.

  2. Pursue High-Level Athletics: Outside of work, I pursue athletics at a high level. I’m 32. My athletic prime is closing and I’m not going to get it back.

When picking the path forward, it’s just as important to identify what I’m giving up:

  • I’m giving up my entrepreneurial goals for now. Entrepreneurship isn’t age-dependent.

  • I’m choosing income over status. I could join an earlier-stage startup to get a better-sounding title, or I could go back to Spotify to get a higher-up role. However, I’m choosing to get paid more rather than have a cooler-sounding title.

Netflix Growth

There are explicit and implicit expectations for getting promoted at any company. If you directly ask your manager, “What do I need to do to get promoted?”, he will tell you the explicit expectations. In most tech roles, it’s basically “make more impact, with more scope, without my help.”

I call this the skillset loop. First, you need to execute well (technical skills). This builds trust. You then spend some of the trust to influence your stakeholders and team (influence). This opens up new opportunities (more scope). Repeat.

At junior levels, all you need to focus on is executing this loop well. At more senior levels, you’re also required to execute this loop well…..but opportunities are finite. This means, there could be three very qualified candidates for a single role. Or the org doesn’t have the scope to support that position.

So despite meeting the explicit expectation, there’s the implicit expectation that you need to shine in some way, relative to the rest of the team/org. And on top of that, the opportunity needs to be there.

If your technical skills are levels above your team, it’s going to be easier to get promoted. If you know the business better than anyone on your team or org, it’s going to be easier to get promoted. Luckily, Netflix doesn’t have a competitive culture. You’re valued for being helpful to others. The stronger your skillset, the more you can be helpful, which is how you shine.

Netflix hires the best in the industry, so it’s much harder to stand out. To grow in position and salary, it’s a given that I must execute the skillset loop well…..but I need to clearly shine in some sort of way. And even then, promotion isn’t guaranteed.

The highest-leverage items will be to execute the skill loop as effectively as possible. 

  1. Influencing via Written and Verbal Communication: Netflix has a heavy written communication culture via memos and messaging. Well-written memos are how people influence at scale. A well-written memo for a data scientist requires three skills: strong writing, business acumen, and technical ability.

  2. Advanced Forecasting Skillset: My core area of focus is forecasting. While other topics such as optimization or causal inference are important, I’ll want to double down on forecasting before venturing into a new area. At some point in the future, I’ll want to solidify my expertise by teaching a class on forecasting.

Focusing on these two topics could take at least another six months. But for this next quarter, I’ll be taking two courses that focus on each area. Once I finish these courses, I’ll focus on applying them to my skillset. 

For written communication, the form of deliberate practice will involve providing feedback and rewriting past pieces of communication using what I’ve learned. This can be a Slack message, memo, email, or discussion topic.

The amount of time I can dedicate to skill development will depend on the skill I focus on. It will also vary depending on how much work I have and whether I can spend work hours on skill development.

Athletic Pursuits

If I want to continue growing in my career AND performing as a high-level athlete, I need to work on a sport that requires very little willpower. 

The sports I enjoy the most tend to have most, if not all of these qualities:

  • High Cardio or minimum Zone 2 cardio

  • Adrenaline

  • Suffering

  • Social/Community

  • Adventure/Outdoors

  • Progression

  • Little intellectual effort

  • Competition

  • Easy to do

Potential sports that fit (while I’m in NYC):

  • Hyrox

  • Running/Trail Running

  • Road biking

  • Ski Touring/Splitboarding (limited accessibility)

  • Surfing  (limited accessibility)

Surfing hits all five buckets for me. It’s great cardio. I get an adrenaline rush. I can do it socially. I get to explore new places around the world. I never have to force myself to surf. However, surfing isn’t regularly accessible living in NYC.

I love snowboarding, but I’m questioning whether it’s worth it to pursue park progression. I’m not looking to become a pro and hitting my head against comes with long-term risks. 

This winter, I signed up to become a Level 1 AIASSA Snowboard Instructor. This gives me a great, concrete goal to strive for this winter without needing to grind on park. When I live in a location that enables me to surf, I’ll also aim to get my Level 1 Surf Instructor certification.

Given my current living situation in NYC, my top two options are:

  • Hyrox: I loved BJJ for the competition and workout intensity. The problem is it required too much mental commitment. It required me to study complex movements. And me leaving every winter to snowboard would throw a wrench in my training. Hyrox gives me a similar level of workout intensity, without the mental effort.

  • Road Biking: Cycling seems like a great complement to surfing. It primarily focuses on legs, it’s excellent zone 2 cardio and can be great v02 max workouts. It’s also an adventure, allowing me to see a lot more of my area and it should fit seamlessly into the longevity workout program. There is adrenaline on the downhill.

Luckily, both of these slot naturally in the longevity workout structure.

  • 5 hours of Zone 2 Cardio (3 hours minimum) ~ Road Biking/Running

  • 3 to 4x strength 

  • 1 to 2x V02 Max Workout ~ Hyrox, Road Biking

  • 10 to 20 minutes of mobility before each workout.

Since surfing will be my long-term sport, a sport that works on opposing muscles or introduces a different type of cardio will be an excellent complement.

Goals for Q4

The last few pages really helped me clarify the goals for Q4:

  1. Implementation of learnings from the Communications Course & Forecasting Course

  2. Explore Hyrox and Cycling as potential long-term sports. There are races for both which adds some level of progression.

  3. Build a plan for my relationship future.

Grandma's Death, Crushing the Half Marathon, Q3 Goals

In January 2024, I went snowboarding in Niseko, Japan. Flying back to NYC was a looonnggg flight, so it 100% made sense to make a pit stop: Honolulu, Hawaii. More importantly, I got to spend time with my grandmother.

She was 98. We couldn’t do much, but we did the simple things. We ate chinese food. We watched TV. We had simple conversations. When I left to head back to NYC, I gave her a kiss on the cheek and she’d say in chinese: “such a good boy.”

In May 2024, she had a heart attack one day after mother’s day. I miss you Grandma.

Q2 Review

Become as clean as my girlfriend.

I’ve noticed myself adopting small habits, such as putting my clothes away right away, wiping the tables when Ie’m finished. I still think there’s room for me to improve my cleanliness, but it’s trending in the right direction. And when I do leave things out, she’ll remind me. 

Build an initial draft of a financial/investment plan for my dream life (Shaping).

Here were the results of the initial financial plan I set up for myself. I’d target a $2.5 million in net worth as minimum net worth for “retiring” myself. $5 million is the target for myself and spouse. $10 million minimum for an entire family and two kids. If we wanted to live large (fat fire), we’d likely need more than that.

Of course this is dependent on inflation, the period of time and a number of other factors. However, this gives me a good proxy to aim for, which is all I need. I’ve outlined three paths to retiring early:

  1. Earn at least $1 million per year through job promotion. This would likely take another 5 to 7 years.

  2. Earn at least $10 million through a one-time liquidity event. This would likely take 7 to 10 years to accomplish.

  3. Earn at least $400 to $500k in net income on minimal working hours through a lifestyle business. Looking at others, this took them ranging from 3 years to 10 years.

The takeaway here is that it’d be a good idea to do some research into the different paths, their pros and cons, and what’s required to get there.

[Career]—Build an initial development plan for myself (Shaping). There are too many goals, so this one is slotted for this quarter as the financial/investment plan is a good context for my personal development plan.

[Health] - Brooklyn Half-Marathon Prep - Run an 8:00 minute mile. I crushed this goal as I paced at 7:30 for the half-marathon, totaling a time of 1:39. This project was a massive success and I can attribute it to a few things.

  • Pre-Determined, Doable Schedule: I use intervals.icu to track my workout performance. And my coach basically added my workouts into this app. Each workout was scheduled for the week so I wasted no time “deciding” whether I should workout or not.

  • Progression: Seeing myself progress is a self-reinforcing motivation loop. The great thing about running as a sport, is its clear whether you’re improving or not.

  • Performance: Since I had actually signed up for a half-marathon, there was a “final performance.” I basically had to perform on a larger stage, which pushed me to execute my plan effectively.

Q3 Goals

Find a new place to live in NYC. This is the most important as any new apartment I move to is going to dictate my lifestyle in NYC. A new apartment is going to subconsciously influence how I behave, my habits and my schedule. I also didn’t renew my lease, so I’ll be homeless if I don’t get this done.

Career Decisioning Research Post. Given the paths I outlined, I’ll need to research the different paths, read through examples, the pros and cons, and evaluate my own strengths/weaknesses. If I spend more time thinking about this upfront, I can go into the decision with full conviction that it’s the right one. Especially if some of these paths will take multiple years, it’s probably worth the three month investment to think through whether it’s the right path for me.

Reset my habits by beginning daily meditation. Whenever I meditate consistently, I scroll on my phone less, more conscious of what I eat, more present with others. Meditation is an anchor habit that makes me more aware of my behavior throughout the day. 

Moving to a new environment is also an opportunity to reset habits. So it makes sense to focus on meditating consistently, as it will improve everything else.


Complete Eight Dates. I’ve finished four out of eight dates with my girlfriend. This book has been great for prompting us to talk about important issues and for helping us learn more about each other. It’ll be key for us to talk through these important issues sooner, rather than later, to help move our relationship forward.