2015

8 min readJan 4, 2016

The New Story co-founders in Haiti (March 2015)

First I need to say, “thank you, thank you, thank you” to a bunch of people. Without them, there would be nothing.

My parents. I literally can’t put into words what they do for me. Amazing.

Family. For the unbelievable support and continual love.

New Story Co-founders: Mike, Allie, and Brett. Again I’m speechless at the hustle, hard work, and passion from these people. They inspire me continually.

Friends: Geez, too many to name. Fernando, Barrett, Oliver, Hill Hall Hustlerz (best friends since freshman year at UGA), Atlanta Dinner Club (a dinner party that turned into best friends), too many awesome people. I’m sorry I can’t list everyone… if you’re reading this you’re probably one of them.

Mentors: For pushing me to work harder, think differently, and go bigger.

And to everyone else and for every random, small act… thank you!

I am extremely grateful.

Why do this?

This is my first ever year-end review. It makes so much sense. I’m not sure why I haven’t done one before. My main motivations are so I can see what went well, what wasn’t so hot, what I created, and the stories and places I went. Major inspiration and a big thank you to Nathan Barry for leading by example.

How do you know you’re better today compared to three years ago? You don’t unless you’re keeping track. –The Five-Minute Journal

What Didn’t Go So Well

Fitness. Building deeper relationships. Personal goals. Spiritual. Morning routine. Discipline. I need to improve in these areas, but to get better we first need to ask the question, “Why?” What caused a lackluster performance? After thinking for some time, they can all be traced to one principal: not having a system in place.

I struggled because I had no goal, no plan, and no system. The car metaphor works best. Your goal is your destination/where you want to go. It needs to be specific. You don’t have a destination of Atlanta, GA, you specifically want to go to Antico Pizza at 1093 Hemphill Ave NW, Atlanta, GA 30318 (because it’s the best pizza in the USofA). The plan is Google Maps/the directions to follow and your system is the road that keeps you on track. You are the car. With no goal, you are at the whim of the traffic and it’s flow — where you end up no one knows. And with no system, you will struggle to stay on course.

An example: Let’s say you want to set a goal this year of writing five hand written cards each month. Maybe you want to write to a long lost friend or to thank your Aunt for that nice gift. So, your goal is to write five cards per month. Your plan is to order a nice pen and enough stationary, envelopes, and stamps for 60 letters (12*5). This ensures you remove any barrier to writing. Your system, the most critical part, will keep you on track to hit your goal. So you create an Evernote/iOS Notes called, ‘Monthly Gratitude’ and each time you’re given something, remember someone special, or for any random reason, you add that person to the list. Then you add a monthly recurring calendar event for a time that works for you to sit down for 30 minutes (maybe the last Sunday of the month). As an extra layer to your system, you could tell a friend your plan and ask them to keep you accountable (highly recommended). If you set this system in place, you’ll greatly increase the chance of actually accomplishing your goal instead of just saying or thinking about it. Just know this takes a lot more time and deliberate thought.

What Did Go Well

New Story

What started as a side project with a couple friends in December of 2014 has grown into a global charity. Maybe global is strong — we’re working in Haiti and El Salvador. I could write an entire post just on New Story, but thank goodness Brett already has here (a short read). Just a couple highlights: 200 homes built for families, 1,000 people whose lives are changing, $1,200,000 raised in donations, Y Combinator S15 (the story behind that), completely funded a new community in Leveque, Haiti,started work in El Salvador, rang the NASDAQ stock exchange bell, and funded 100 homes in 100 days. Whew… a blessed year! Thank you to everyone

Travel

I love to travel, who doesn’t? Amazing people. Delicious food. Gorgeous nature. This year was beyond awesome. Here are some the places I got to visit: Smithgall Woods, GA, Blood Mountain hike, mastermind retreat in Bryson City, NC, Haiti (3 times), Las Vegas, Augusta, GA for Masters Tournament, San Francisco (where I’m currently live as well), New York City, Muir Woods and Oakland Redwood Regional Park hike, Sonoma county, Yosemite, Athens, GA for UGA football, and El Salvador (twice!). PS: I got to surf in El Salvador #epic

Healthy Food

During the fall, I read The Blue Zones Solution by Dan Buettner (highly recommended). It’s an easy-to-read book about a study that identified the world’s healthiest and happiest people. It’s great because the researchers identified 9 traits that each of these places shares. One of the traits is eating with a plant slant. I don’t want to completely remove meat from my diet, just to reduce the % I eat. My favorite vegetable dishes: roasted brussel sprouts, black beans, pan cooked asparagus, roasted sweet potatoes, lentils, and sauteed kale/mushrooms with garlic.

A Better Cofounder

I think as a team, the co-founders at New Story all have been much better founders. The mentorship and advice during Y Combinator were invaluable and 100% the catalyst behind our transformation. Just one principal, that’s now a value of ours is: Think big, break down, execute. In other words: set big measurable goals, formulate a plan for the month, week, and day, then execute the plan with relentless focus. It’s simple but extremely effective in pushing something forward.

Documenting Things

I started keeping a journal, but not a traditional one. The Five-Minute Journal only takes five minutes (3 in the morning and 2 at night). The objective is to easily allow you to document what you’re grateful for, what would make today great, a daily affirmation, reflect on amazing things that happened, and how you could have made the day better. It’s like a snapshot history of your thoughts. HIGHLY recommended.

Another example of this: As the year went along I documented stories (big and small) so I would remember them at the end of the year, next year, and when I’m 80. See the full list below. Without this, the year can seem like a blur. The best short filmmaker in the world, Casey Neistat, does this with his daily vlog. It’s amazing. See his 2015 recap (worth the 5 mins).

Focus

I recently looked back at a book I read in the spring and in it I listed out what, at the time, where my current projects/work/responsibilities. They were as follows:

Personal freelance work
UX contract work with the wonderful and extremely talented Sophia Voychehovski at RewiredUX
New Story
Global Shapers — Atlanta Hub
10–4 Social Entrepreneurship meetup

What? How in the world was I suppose to do a great job at any of these with five things pulling at my focus? Here’s what my current projects/work/responsibilities looks like:

New Story

Focus.

However, I do believe it’s healthy to have one side project (ideally something physical like learning to cook or training for a marathon).

Random

Books read (all recommended):

Moneyball by Michael Lewis
Cat’s Cradle by Kurt Vonnegut
And Then There Were None by Agatha Christie
Never the Hope Itself by Gerry Hadden
The Racketeer by John Grisham
The Alchemist by Pablo Coelho
Confessions of an Economic Hit Man by John Perkins
Killing Patton by Bill O’Reilly
Good to Great by Jim Collins
Read this Before Our next meeting by Al Pamtapalli
How to Win Friends and Influence People by Dale Carnegie
Zero to One by Peter Thiel (audio book)
The Boys in the Boat by Daniel James Brown
The Hard Things About Hard Things by Ben Horowitz
The Blue Zones Solution by Dan Buettner
Leaving Microsoft to Change the World by John Wood (for the 2nd time because it’s so dang good)

Web things created:

Some stories from the year:

NYE at Casa Augusta
4 Hour dinners with Fernando and Barrett
Gatlinburg, Tennessee with Atlanta Dinner Club
Bryson City, NC mastermind w/ Barrett Brooks, Nathan Berry, Caleb Wojcik, and James Clear
Orpheus brewery and then Varuni Napoli in the Spring with Atlanta Dinner Club
Amazing trip to Haiti
Home Brew night at Casa Augusta
Masters 2015
Ben Hoffer wedding
YC interview
Muir Woods trail hike
Haiti Vision Trip in late May
Hiked Matt Davis trail with New Story team + epic picnic
Met Joe Montana, Ron Conway, and the founders of airbnb
Hiked Redwood Regional Park with YC group
Enjoyed the Famers Market on Saturdays in SF
Case Study Interview w/ Webflow
Reality SF every Sunday
Late nights at 1 Sutter office w/ the New Story gang
YC Demo Day Practice Week
YC Demo Day Pitch (video)
Dim Sum in Richmond w/ YC gang
Land’s End hike w/ Allie and Pranshu
New Story Launch Party
The best dinner of my LIFE @ Lolinda (Argentine) to celebrate Brett’s bday
SF trip with my parents: the city, Muir Woods, Wine country, and Yosemite
NASDAQ bell ringing in NYC
Epic dinner at Lupa (Italian) in NYC
Amazing Japanese NYC dinner with Mary Kate and Ross — Ootoya
UGA vs South Carolina football game
Birthday dinner for my mom. I cooked Swordfish Agrodolce and a tofu chocolate dessert.
Morgan’s birthday + MJQ with Ross, Sarah, Will and Morgan
Moving full time to San Francisco
Allie’s birthday dinner at Chapeau! (French) Top 10 meals of my life. So frickin good.
Fleet Week in SF watching the Blue Angels
October Haiti Vision Trip
1st YC S15 Unofficial Dinner
Epic El Salvador trip
UGA vs Georgia Southern game with Bowen, Ryan, Aunt Kathy and my mom
Thanksgiving 2015 in Macon and Milledgeville
Long Munchery Dinner with Allie, Oliver, Brett at 2843 Folsom St.
El Salvador December trip and surfing in El Salvador
Warm and Rainy Christmas in Eatonton