2025 Recap

 In addition to a few trip reports, I also wanted to start pulling together annual recaps of my year. 

🏆Positive Highlights Include:

• Highest High → supporting David Hedges reclaim his Nolan's 14 FKT
• Biggest Win → having Taylor Lehner as my partner for a full 365 days
• Proudest Moment → not drinking for the entirety of the year
• Best New Discovery → I need much less than I think; optimization is overrated
• Plot Twist → having a second chance at life after rockslide on the back of Mt. Princeton
• MVP → Taylor Lehner
• Honorable Mentions:
• Living in Steamboat from end of January to mid-April, skiing more than I ever have in my life!
• Quitting my W2 job, 2025 will be the last year I ever work for somebody else 
• Buying my second business 

Key Takeaways:

Optimization is Overrated: I got this idea largely from a podcast with Anton Krupicka recorded this summer. In the podcast, Anton just begs the question, "Did you get into running to slurp down 150g of carbs/hr? I didn't." That question has left me thinking about my approach to sport & just generally life SO much. We are in such an optimization culture, it is CRAZY! People online constantly talking about 6 hour morning rituals, mushroom coffee, cold plunges, eating sea moss, bicarb, 150g of carbs/hr for every single aerobic activity, these new carbon plated shoes, etc. It's nuts and there is never and "end." Anton's simple articulation went so far to me. No, I did not get into running or cycling to consume an obscene amount of carbs / hour either. I got into it for the movement itself, the associated dopamine that comes with these activities, the adventure, the satisfaction of exercise and doing hard things. This goes so much further than sport, health & wellness though. Just in daily life, do I really need the best of the best in EVERY scenario? 

• Do I really need to go to the grocery store right now to buy exactly what I want for dinner to optimize my experience or will the inventory in my pantry suffice? 
• Do I really need the perfect hard-tail, lightweight mountain bike to do White Rim or will my bulkier mountain bike be fine? 
• Do I need to pay for a ski share to beat traffic on I-70 and get to the mountains an hour faster or can I just go during the week or fill my time with other activity such as rock climbing or mellow backcountry in RMNP?

Everything these days is about optimizing those final few percentage points and these solutions begin their marketing with characterizing your current state as sub-optimal and you absolutely need [solution] to be where you truly deserve to be. To counter, our lives are pretty awesome right now. Sure, I could do a lot of things at the margin but at what time, $, and energy cost? Would investing in [solution] actually increase my level of happiness via performance gains, time savings, etc.? Or would it just be a temporary dopamine hit that quickly fades away. 

Stop Drinking: Not drinking in 2025 has singlehandedly been the best singular decision I have made. Not drinking for an extended period of time just levels you up. I would not have had the confidence to quit my job and bet on myself to figure it out if I were still drinking. I've gotten to the point that I've started wondering if corporations created happy hours and booze-centric events just to keep their employees in a reliant state. I wonder if US politicians & lobbyists want alcohol to continue to be so centric to social status and "fun" in the US to keep folks suppressed? 

From my personal experience, it's not that drinking is SO bad, it's more just that not drinking is SO good. I have never felt more confident in and aligned with my true self myself. I have such a high degree of integrity with myself, I just know that I will do what I say/think I will do.

I am so grateful that we live in such a cool time where every venue now has N/A beers and/or mocktails. I am so grateful that I specifically live in CO where the people I admire most don't drink because it'll impact the epic outdoor adventure they have planned for tomorrow.  

The Importance of a Partner: I really learned this year that having a strong, supportive partner levels you up. We is so much stronger than me. Taylor and I's relationship grew really strong this year, definitely driven by rocky periods, fights, all the normal stuff. I am not going to pretend that our relationship was perfect. But we're both really investing a lot into it. I would seriously say that my relationship with Taylor is the thing I am currently the most proud of. Up until about a year ago, I looked up most to insane athletes and businessmen - those accomplishing the most in sport & business. However, I neglected the insane amount of personal fulfillment derived from a good family. 

I started thinking back to how much I look up to my dad. My dad has never done a huge "race" or been the CEO of a Fortune 500 company, but I'd argue he is literally the best dad walking planet earth. Being a good dad, a good partner, a reliable friend, a contributing member of your community is really overlooked and underappreciated. Everyone wants the quantifiable status - how much money you made last year, your job title, your marathon time. But how about the unquantifiable stuff? Are you excited to go home tonight and make dinner with your partner? When was the last time you performed an unselfish and unexpected act of kindness for your partner?

Accomplishing success in sport and business is not directly linear, but you can visualize it in a linear fashion. Finding the right life partner and having a successful relationship is totally non-linear. There's not a sub-3 hour marathon training plan for finding the woman you want to spend the rest of your life with. Yet I'm really learning that this is the most important.

Having Taylor in my corner and really trying to structure my life goals and plan around her and our future family has really leveled me up. 

Authenticity + Action: I think this one really stands out to me more than ever this year because I tried a lot of things this year out of authentic interest. I let my authenticity guide me this year more than ever before.

• Going for Nolan's 14
• Start: stemmed out of authentic interest in the "next hardest thing" I could think of
• Action: took training very seriously and did everything in my power to set myself up for success, hiring a coach, reaching out to past finishers, studying the route, training appropriately, getting out on the line 
• End: no longer aligned with my authentic interests - not willing to die in the mountains
• Quit W2 Job 
• Start: high degree of self-awareness that corporate M&A is not what I want to do long-term; too many sacrifices in other areas of life 
• Action: began bringing up concerns with boss when things got crazy busy, met by no real mitigation; actually resigned 
• End: actually resigned with the commitment to i) never work a W2 job or ii) trade time for money again; all of my "work" time going fwd is to be focused on building an asset
• Standup AI Agency
• Start: stemmed out of authentic interest in AI, sales, attractive potential financial profile, business model and lifestyle business 
• Action: went all-in, paid >$20k for a DFY program, drove sales, stood up business
• End: realization that I authentically don't enjoy this kind of work, ended venture
• SMB Acquisition
• Start: stemmed out of enabling lifestyle criteria (e.g., passive monthly cash flow); regained interest the more I started poking around again
• Action: dedicated serious time and effort to acquire another business; began networking with others  
• End: acquired business #2 & 3, working on creating a LI presence around this subject

I think the key thing here that I learned is to actually to your gut and authentic interests but doing so with ACTION. You have to dive in and do stuff to understand what you like & don't like. You must test.

Make your hard, HARD: I have been saying this to myself & close circle for the past two years, but largely out of the desire to challenge myself & just do epic things! It was more for the desire to be on my death bed and be able to look back and say to myself, "Yeah, I ran one of the harder 100 mile races in the country." Not "Yeah, I ran a road marathon." (FWIW - not there's anything wrong with that). But the point is that I was saying this out of a place of wanting to push myself. Now I am saying it more out of a realization that your brain responds to the hardest thing in your day as the hardest thing in your day. If you don't do anything hard, the slightest inconvenience becomes the hardest thing in your day. Getting cut off in traffic, a late Amazon delivery, having to cook a meal, etc. It's pathetic. Probably worst of all, I find my mindset going super negative too as these small things start becoming really hard. When easy things start becoming really hard & dreadful, it's very easy for your overall mindset to look at everything in life as hard & dreadful. For me this has become very apparent in the offseason and quitting my W2 job. Training + working a stressful job were each individually and even moreso collectively, hard. Everything else was easy compared to that. My mindset was great, despite all of the stress induced from these two things. Now with more time on my hands and less external stress, I find myself just creating stress. It's like my brain craves stress, so if it's not present externally, it will just create it internally. This feels to be in line with opponents of this generations' mental health crises and I really agree. If you scroll on TikTok in bed all day, hitting a Juul, the SLIGHTEST inconvenience will throw you for a loop. Well...the world is littered with small inconveniences. Even if it wasn't, I'd guarantee that your perception would adjust reality to find them. It's such a weird phenomenon, but I truly think that humans need a baseline level of daily stress. If you don't get it externally, you create it internally. So my learning, create productive stress (e.g., physical training, work, putting myself in uncomfortable situations) where there is a payoff (e.g., meeting performance goals, making more money & solving engaging problems, learning more, making new friends) versus having internal stress & anxiety that is a negative sum game.     

Don't Major in the Minors: I'm not sure who I heard this from, but it seems to be a recurring theme in my life. Personal, financial, business, training, the list goes on. In a world filled with SO MUCH useless garbage, trends, people trying to standout and being unique, it's never been i) harder and ii) more important to stay focused on what matters. 

• Personal: focusing my time on those that really matter to me and never sacrificing moments with them for others that are not long-term, lifelong relationships
• Financial: don't be penny smart, pound stupid...working on focusing on long-time horizons, staying within my means
• Business: simple fundamentals → sales, product market fit, listening to market feedback
• Training: 1x workout, 1x tempo, 1x long run...all the rest EZ. Simple compound lifts performed at sub-maximal weight multiple times a week gets you stronger than anything else.  

What it really comes down too, is just doing the boring non-sexy stuff consistently. Typically I am already aware of the stuff that will be most effective...it's just not that fun or interesting! I want to continue to focus on identifying the MAJORS & shedding everything else. I'd rather be REALLY good at a back squat than a single legged bosu ball weighted calf raise.   

Actual List Out

January

• 11th: A-Basin Full Moon Italian Evening 
• 25th: Move into Steamboat!!!

February

• 1st: Cottonwood Crusher
• 16th: Everest Stairmaster Challenge with Tay

March

• 13-17th: Dad came out to visit
• 28-31st: Ise & Sloan came out to visit

April

• 12th: Move back to Denver!

May 

• 3rd: R2R2R
• MDW: went back to HHI, Taylor met mom for first time, such a great long weekend

June 

• 7th: Vail Go Pro Games
• 8th: Getting out with Alex W on N14 line
• 14th: N14 scare
• 19-22nd: Sam Bachelor Party
• 23rd: Submit my letter of resignation

July 

• 3-5th: Lake City
• 9th: Last day in a W2 job
• 10-12th: Visiting Ise in Boston!
• 12-19th: Maine trip!
• 26-28: 14er weekend with Tay! Yale + Salida Bike, Huron, Sherman

August

• 2nd: Rito Alto 4 Pass Loop w/ David + Elaina + Sam
• 9th: Mt of Holy Cross
• 16/17: Pawnee Buchanan / IPW S Arapahoe
• 22-25th: Bend / Cascades 100
• 30th: Boulder Skyline 

September 

• 1st: Longs
• 5-6th: Shelf Road Camping Trip
• 13-14th: Ouray 50
• 15th: Nolan's 14 FKT
• 19-21st: Weekend w Jack in BV

October

• 24th: White Rim Mountain Bike

 November

• 7-9th: San Francisco Trip! GRiZ + first time seeing Taylor's home
• 15th: Justin 10k for the CURE
• 20-23rd: Chase Wedding in CHS
• 27th: Thanksgiving! First time I have ever brought a girlfriend up

 December

• 28th - Jan 4th: HAWAII!