24 Lessons I’ve Learned So Far This Year

On life, relationships, fitness, and business

Greetings from sunny Miami Beach!

On the last Sunday of every month, I get off the grid to reflect on everything I learned over the prior 30 days.

This time is especially important at the end of January, as the beginning of the year is when I tend to “do the most.”

All of this motion creates quite a few opportunities to distill, reflect, and iterate.

And this is exactly how I spent my last 36 hours as I bounced between the ocean, my journal, and my keyboard.

🧠Here’s the full list I came up with:

1. I am officially done going out on New Years Eve

2. My best writing sessions last 90 minutes and I outline exactly what I’m going to write the night before

3. Social accountability >>> relying on personal discipline

4. Be fully working or fully present — don’t use your phone to work when you’re with other people

5. 3 things I schedule too late: haircuts, physical therapy sessions, and vitamin IVs. The solution is to bulk purchase & schedule these in advance rather than when you realize you need one

6. Everything suck when you’re sick or injured—“feeling good” has to be the priority of your training

7. It’s better to make slow progress on something to keep momentum than to make a big leap of progress only to deal with a period of stagnation

8. The weather has a *significant* impact on my mood—important to be aware when it’s not ideal

9. My most effective calendar operates with a meeting barbell — either the entire morning is full of meetings and I have a free afternoon, or the entire afternoon is meetings and I have a free morning

10. Reading & listening to biographies is the cure to shiny object syndrome

11. If you want to improve something, invest 20% of your time identifying the bottleneck, then redirect all of your attention to removing it

12. My ideal morning is waking up 30 minutes before sunrise and immediately getting in the ocean for a swim, walk, and breath work. Impossible to have a bad day after that

13. The best training lens is “becoming harder to kill” — and pure bodybuilding does not accomplish that. The ability to run, move, sprint, jump, and have healthy joints >>> putting on muscle for the sake of it

14. I am in my most creative flow when I have zero “input” the first ~2 hours of the day. No music, no phone, just a keyboard or pen to process the ideas in my head

15. The foundation of all good content is self-reflection. Trying things, sharing what happened, and bringing people along on the journey of your personal progress

16. The frustrating feeling of boredom when improving something is a signal you are on the right track and should keep going

17. The best way to move faster is to pay for 1:1 time with someone who has the “ideal scene” of what you’re looking for

18. If you have to ask if someone is an A-player, they are not an A-player

19. Meeting cadence is directly tied to the speed of iteration for each business area. If you want to improve a division, meet on it weekly. If you really want to improve a division, meet on it daily

20. The single best product lens is “build until they tell” — focus on improving your product until every user refers someone else

21. You can only accelerate one area of your business at a time—and the entire team should be clear on which area you are accelerating

22. “Variable rewards” are the most underappreciated way to build a long-term habit

23. The biggest open loop you can create is during the process of hiring someone new. It takes 3x more effort & mental bandwidth than you think

24. Any time you feel like you need more than one caffeinated beverage in day, it’s time to take a step and evaluate your daily routine

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Boom, that’s it. Off to a strong start to the year, the best January I’ve had in ages.

I’m going to spend the month ahead expanding on some of these lessons so I can drill them into my brain.

If you have any questions on one of these lessons or you’d be interested in learning more about specific ones, please hit reply and let me know. I read and reply to every one of them.

If you prefer to read on X/Twitter, you can find the full post here:

Also, I plan on writing this newsletter on a monthly basis in 2024. But I’m publishing something every day on Twitter/LinkedIn, so be sure to follow me there for more frequent updates.

Now onto the…

📝Monthly writing recap

These were my post popular pieces of writing from the month:

• My 3-minute evening “brain dump” habit that leads to my best writing sessions. A bit “woo-woo” but works well for me.

• 9 lessons on airports & flying after my busiest travel year ever. This one even found its way to Business Insider. Massive high-school hall monitor energy from them.

• The “calendar mining” system I’m using to generate 10+ content ideas per day. The best part about this: anyone can do it.

• The Tony Robins “priming” routine I’m following for 10 minutes every morning. This has been a massive upgrade to my gratitude practice.

• The money advice I would give to my 22-year-old self. Lots of hot takes in this one.

I’m also committed to writing for 60 minutes every morning this year. But rather than rely on my own discipline, I’m posting about it every day as a way to unlock social accountability. Working well so far.

🎧 The tunes that powered this writing session

Lately I’ve been blasting music from my friend Tyler Denk’s Big Desk Energy playlist. Highly recommend saving his one. Pure flow state is inevitable.

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That’s all for this month

See y’all back at the end of February, which I’m spending in Medellin, Colombia. If you have any recommendations for my time there, hit reply to let me know 🇨🇴🇨🇴🇨🇴🇨🇴

- Dickie

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