Public Commitment 2024

Theme: Lucidity

“Life is a game and you are the player. As you master the game, so you also create it.” – Jay Woodman

There is no ultimate truth, no one thing we can say with 100% certainty. One way to interpret this is to be nihilistic and announce defeat, to live a life full of vice and regret. I choose to accept the challenge and try to get as close as possible to living a lucid life as possible.

This doesn’t mean I will become a full-time meditator or that I will rescind my worldly belongings. No, it signifies a focus on getting to the bottom of things, not taking lazy explanations for an answer, and challenging assumptions.

In a way, it’s also challenging my status quo of getting outside the current habits and replacing them with even more helpful ones (or conversely stopping some habits). Like last year’s theme, ‘expansion’, becoming more lucid also means pruning what doesn’t serve me.

Throughout the different life areas, I aim to reflect the theme in its various aspects (heck, this framework is a thing that provides me with clarity every month/quarter/year). The objective is the overarching direction for the life area. The key results are the concrete outcomes I hope to achieve in the next quarter (unless otherwise indicated).

House

Objective (O): Make the garden unambiguously green and lively

Key Result (KR1): Rework section between house and cabin

KR2: Build a compost heap

KR3: Add more hens

The house is pretty much finished. On the inside, I’ve built most of the things I want to build, and further improvements will likely not come in 2024. On the outside, some painting needs to be done, which might be in Q1 or, more likely, in Q2, which leaves our attention on the garden.

Here, we want to transform the already green garden to be even more lively (a bit wild) and with a lot of space for gardening (in the greenhouse and vegetable garden boxes). We will start with the area between the house and the cabin and work from there. This includes removing more tiles, probably adding garden boxes, etc.

For a few months, we have had chickens; alas, there are only three and two of them are roosters. So we will have to do some reorganising and finding more hens.

Finances

O: Earn twice as much as I’m spending

KR1: Keep track of finances every week

KR2: Earn as much from Blossom as from Queal

KR3: Lotte earns as much from FLO as from her regular job

During the last few months, I’ve been very diligent in tracking my expenses and have had the good fortune of being able to work more on consulting projects for Blossom that have brought in additional income.

I expect the work and income to expand in the coming months, and I aim to earn twice as much as I’m spending on regular expenses (e.g. this doesn’t include costs for the wedding). One underlying (but not Q1) goal is to pay 10% of the mortgage yearly.

I’ve also put Lotte here, as I want to help her achieve freedom from her day job and will devote a part of my time towards the promotion of FLO coaching (to get clients for her).

Flotte

O: Continue unblurring who the other person is

KR1: Have one day in the week for each other

KR2: Become business partners

KR3: Prep all big things for the wedding

We were away for full weekends when we first moved into the new house. We have toned this back to one day in the weekend, so we have time to continue building our relationship (and work in the garden).

Another part of the relationship, which is relatively underdeveloped, is our working together as business partners. Although I like to believe that I’m lucid in my communications, I also know that I can be terse and push for my way (or the highway). Lotte is a great therapist (and coach) but lacks the nearly decade of business experience I have. So, it will also be a good challenge to work – and learn – together as business partners.

Relationships

O: Maintain quality relationships

KR1: See friends at least every two weeks

KR2: Message with friends during morning cardio

Unlike last year, I feel less need to meet new people in my areas of interest (although I continue to do this via work). I’m also very happy with our neighbours in Anna Paulowna (AP) and see this as a great addition to my social life (as you also hang out more with people older/younger than your normal bubble).

I made a goal of calling friends when walking Max but living in AP there is just too much wind to do this reasonably. So, my experiment for Q1 is to message a few friends each time I’m doing (morning) cardio.

FW.com / Brand

O: Build a personal brand

KR1: Publish a piece of content for every day (average)

KR2: Publish one piece of significant original work each week (>1000 words or equivalent)

KR3: Publish a transformative piece of work every quarter (e.g. interactive site or course)

A recurring theme on a business podcast I listen to is the power of brand. It’s the difference between why someone would pay $5 or $500 for a t-shirt. In a world of commodification, brand is the thing that enables the gap between costs and price.

At the start of last year, I revamped this site and laid the groundwork for building my brand. But this site (which will see more activity than before) is not the only thing that defines my brand. My brand is me showing up to work, delivering results, spreading information, etc. It’s the culmination of all that I do, and it’s something I can share in a more thoughtful (you might even say, ‘lucid’) way.

The different key results here reflect my ambition to communicate with some volume (every day, something on average) and also to build towards more substantive pieces of content that I can uniquely make. About every quarter, I hope to bring everything together into something more significant (e.g. a map of where psychedelic research occurs).

Blossom

O: Provide clarity for all stakeholders in the ‘psychedelics as medicines’ field

KR1: Launch a course for novel psychonauts (for real this time)

KR2: Publish one piece of original content for members only (to increase Blossom’s revenue)

KR3: Share one content piece each workday

KR4: Have 5k subscribers to The Bloom (now at 2.7k)

Starting with the third, I want to share something from Blossom daily, but this could also be older, relevant content. I’ve been slacking somewhat in spreading the word (by being busy updating the database, for instance), but I can’t influence the field without readership.

The course technically is a separate site, but it will closely track the information I’ve gathered for Blossom over the last few years. It will be a big project (also considering the various other things going on, but the ‘knowledge’ is here; it’s now my task to communicate that clearly).

Queal

O: Continue providing sound nutrition

KR1: Launch QQ offer each quarter

As last year, I keep enjoying our products, and as a company, we see people returning over a long time horizon. We don’t expect to make drastic changes, but we might consider infrastructure upgrades to take place later in the year.

FLO Coaching

O: Build a meaningful practice with weekly facilitated sessions

KR1: Experiment with the four different promotional methods (1-1/1-many x (un)known)

KR2: Get Lotte one client each week

It’s interesting to see the goal for last year being a hesitant yes to continuing with FLO. This year, it’s a total yes and a big focus for Lotte, too. How we will get the clients to come is a challenge that I’m ready to take on.

Sports

O: Improve on my fitness level of 2023

KR1: Do sports 6 out of 7 days

KR2: Incorporate stretching routine at the end of workouts

After the kidney operation, getting back into a good rhythm with sports took quite a while. When I returned to regularly going to the gym, I packed up my things to move to AP. Now that I’ve been here for over half a year, the rhythm is back, and the sports cabin has the tools to get going. So, I see myself doing more sports than in 2023 without the excuses from last year.

Health

O: Improve health through metrics

KR1: Measure 3+ health metrics

KR2: Build a place to store the (health) metrics

KR3: Improve VO2 Max

A place to start with health is the book Outlive by Peter Attia. It’s a longevity-focused book grounded in today’s science (not mice experiments). I plan to implement some of the lessons from the book, and I see quite a bit of overlap between the health and sports areas (who knows, they will someday merge).

Mindfulness

O: Brighten my cone of consciousness

KR1: Take psychedelics every month

KR2: Write a substantive post on the Jhanas

The goal of the post above is not to write something but to use this as a forcing function for myself to gain clarity on the Jhanas and the path towards experiencing them.

I’ve also written down to take psychedelics as a specific goal so as not to forget to experience them and not only write about their effects as a detached observer.

The Perfect Day

7 wake up

8-12 deep work

12-14 sport

14-18 communicate/work

18-22 relax/write/work/game

Notes

One discrepancy between what is presented here and how I partly judge myself is that there is still much ‘f*cking around’ happening in my day-to-day life. I read Twitter in bed, watch a lot of ‘edutainment’ on YouTube, and sometimes take days to check off a relatively simple task on my to-do list.

As the different goals become more lucid, I also hope to see a positive trend towards (even) more engagement with the activities that I’m undertaking. Every day, there is a time that I’m fully engaged with what I’m doing (e.g. making a presentation, leg pressing more than my body weight, enjoying the sunset whilst walking the dogs), and having more of those moments is an implicit goal underlying the various life areas presented here.

If we know each other and you’ve come so far, please send your feedback (or even your goals/plans).