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It's too late to say Happy New Year as we are many days past the 7th of Jan. The new year offers a good time to not only reflect, but also see friends and family. I was very fortunate to get to do that over the festive break. And I hope you did too if you celebrated it. 🤓 What I've been doing • Visited Tallinn and Helsinki, and unsurprisingly they were both pretty cold. The first few days I spent in Tallinn, a quiet city with picturesque castle fortifications around the Old Town's centre. And then I hopped on a ferry and went to Helsinki, for the third time. Helsinki is one of my favourite cities and quickly reminded me why: it's clean (it's difficult to find litter), there's seemingly no crime, there's no homeless people and everyone looks happy and healthy. It might just be a utopia. • Finishing off the beta for Here, I'm now tweaking with APNS (iOS's notification system) to get push notifications working. I'm using AWS Lambda and a Python library called PyAPNs2 to send the notifications. But I'm now fighting some certificate issues. • Learning Elixir, it's one of Stack Overflow's most-loved language and the Phoenix web framework (SO's most loved framework) uses it. From what I've read it's got what I need to support the back-end for Here, which currently is some miscellaneous JavaScript (which I hate) and Python (which I love, but I question its scalability) functions. I've bought a small course and I'm having a blast with it. Switching mindsets from object-oriented programming to functional programming has been a challenge though. • Participating in Dry January, after reflecting more on the past year, something I'd been thinking about is energy. And it made me realise what energises me - exercise, work, friends and sleep. So as I thought of what gets in the way of that, alcohol was front of mind. Dry January is an opportunity and excuse to be sober for a month and remind myself how good it is.  📚 What I've been reading • The Hard Thing About Hard Things, Ben Horowitz: A book by a former tech CEO and now founding partner of Andreessen Horowitz. There are excellent lessons throughout the book about starting a company and scaling it up. But what I took most away from it was how unsure Ben was of himself at times. We see tech CEOs from the outside-in and think they've got it together. In reality, they don't. Often they're just getting by day-to-day, and ensuring there is a next day is the main focus of the early-stage startup CEO. • Thinking in Bets, Annie Duke: On the Friday of the week I'm publishing this, I'm at a poker night. I have very little idea how to play poker, besides reading The Biggest Bluff by Maria Konnikova a couple of years ago. So now I'm reading all kinds of material about poker and decision-making. There's a lot to learn from this book about how to think, and although it uses poker as an analogy many times, you can apply many of its lessons to your personal and professional life. 🔮 What's coming up • It's my birthday in the first few days of February, and I'll be spending it in Nottingham at a friend's house with many other friends • Monk Mode, January is a good time to get my head down and work on my projects

I missed writing this in November. But admittedly there hasn't been much going on in my life (am I boring?!). I'm visiting friends and family back in the West Midlands, where I grew up and will be here until the 27th. Coming home for Christmas is a special feeling, but it's the only time where I can see myself being here for any extended period of time. 🤓 What I've been doing (and haven't) • Continuing to build Here, it's a challenge switching between writing Java code (my day job) to Swift (for Here). I enjoy writing Swift, but realize that I'm still out of my depth. • Visited 🇬🇷, a few friends and I spent a week in Crete. My two highlights from the trip was driving on dodgy unofficial roads to get to a secluded beach and sampling Cretan wine at a vineyard with a breathtaking view of Crete's mountains. • Didn't see Kendrick 😭, Trains strikes meant I couldn't make it to the concert. • Visited 🇺🇸, I hopped on a plane and went to Audacy music festival in Fort Lauderdale. Knowing I'll be visiting the States often, I've signed up for Global Entry. Having TSA precheck meant airport security was a breeze, it's a no-brainer to get it and I'm not a U.S. Citizen! • Fell completely off with weight-lifting, while I'd still go to Barry's often, I had no consistency in lifting heavy stones. 📚 What I've been reading • Three-Body Problem, Cixin Liu - The first in a trilogy of books by Chinese author, Cixin Liu. This was recommended by a friend who is a big sci-fi fan and I had a great time with it! Because the book is set in China and has a revolutionary element to it, I learnt more about the Cultural Revolution and 'Struggle Sessions' that occurred during it.  • Unfinished Business, David Goggins - David Goggins saying David Goggins stuff. It feels like a sequel to Can't Hurt Me rather than a standalone book in its own right. 🔮 What's coming up • I'll be visiting 🇪🇪 and 🇫🇮 just after Christmas. It seemed like a good idea at the time when I booked it, but I'm unsure I'm ready for how cold it'll be! • Writing my 2022 review. I don't often publish reviews, but I will this year. It's fun to look back on previous reviews and see how different or similar the years have been.

In the past few months, I’ve reached the best shape I’ve ever been in. And I’ve still got plenty left to go. As I reach my late late 20s, (I’m officially over 27.5 years old now) I’ve become more thoughtful about my health. There have been many times when I’ve been told, “just wait until you turn 30”, which has been plaguing my mind recently. But you know what? Fuck them. When I’m 30, I will be even healthier than before. So what have I been doing? And how am I improving? To start, I’ve been avoiding seed oils where I can. Seed oil is high in omega-6 and having an imbalance between omega-3 and omega-6 levels is shown to cause inflammation. It’s no surprise that the rise in seed oils in our diets correlates with the rise in heart, kidney, liver and many more diseases. The problem is that seed oils are in almost everything. Whatever you eat, it likely contains sunflower oil, rapeseed oil or one of the many sinister seed oils there are out there. By paying attention to these nefarious oils, I’ve become conscious of the ingredients in my food. Rather than looking at the nutritional contents, I read the ingredients and asked myself, “should this have this many ingredients?” And by doing that, I’ve cut out most processed foods from my diet. As a Brit, I’m exposed to alcohol everywhere. It’s part of our culture, and I used to be a fiend with it by often drinking a couple of pints a few nights a week. But now, I drink much less, and I’m on the road to cutting it out completely. The benefits are crazy. Not least the fact you save a lot of money here in London, but you also get better sleep, skin, concentration and more. The turning point was listening to a podcast with James Smith, an online PT, who said that he cut out alcohol because he enjoyed what he’d do in the mornings. Mornings he’d otherwise not get had he drank the night before. I have felt smug waking up, after sipping on lime and soda the previous evening, feeling fresh in the morning. It’s nice not having to drink poison to have a good time. In July, I started doing Barry’s Bootcamp, a HIIT class that combines strength and treadmill training. At first, I could barely last on the treadmill. I’d often have to go on the slowest speeds, but slowly my cardio performance got much better. And now I notice my resting heart rate is lower (a measure of athleticism). I combine classes with gym training, with the gym accounting for most of my exercise. It’ll take a lot of convincing to believe cardio exercise is better than strength training, but it’s certainly better than no cardio. None of these habits are ones I plan to drop anytime soon. I like the idea of doing health experiments, so here are a few I’m looking at: - Daily ten-minute meditation to improve mindfulness and heart-rate variability - Cold water swimming for conditioning and blood circulation - Jiu-jitsu for mindfulness, cardio and self-defence - Probiotics for gut health, we know so little about the gut apart from that it’s super important for our health - Cutting caffeine so that my energy levels aren’t dependent on if I’ve had coffee or not I’m unsure how these experiments will pan out. Meditation is something I’ve tried before and have struggled with. But that’s the beauty of experiments. Some work, and some don’t. If they make me feel even the slightest bit better, it’ll be worth it.

We may be halfway into the month, but the idea sprung into my head and I since I haven't written in a while, I thought why not get it done? So here's the first of my monthly life updates. 🤓 What I've been doing (and haven't) • Building Here, an ambient messaging app, with Jon. In-app messaging and location discovery is working, so now it's various design and performance tweaks before the beta kicks off in London. • Reallocated my investment portfolio and sadly stopped making angel investments for the time being. Now I balance my portfolio between bonds, medium risk ETFs, dividend-paying stocks, and cheap high-risk bets (ie crypto) • Still yet to find form with weight-training in the gym. Instead I've been doing a lot of Barry's Bootcamp, and I've seen my cardio performance increase significantly. I'm in the process of changing gyms to reduce the friction of going. • Continuing my break from dating. Too time-consuming, draining and the risk of getting hurt is high. It's sad that several of my friends feel the same way. 📚 What I've Been Reading Admittedly my reading habit has slowed down recently but I am currently making my way through a few books currently.  • Discipline is Destiny, Ryan Holiday - This book is filled with examples of how living a disciplined life and staying on track is what leads to the outcomes we want. Sometimes it's easy to give in, but reminding ourselves of where we can go if we stick with it and not give in to temptation is the key to growth. An important read in a world of short-term dopamine. • No One Is Talking About This, Patricia Lockwood - A poetic book that starts in a non-narrative style which paints a portrait of the always-on world in which we now live, but later explores grief through tragedy. Beautifully written and at times, very witty. • Breakfast London - I asked a work colleague for brunch place recommendations in Soho. So she gave me the literal book on brunch spots in all of London. Slowly working my way through both the book and the spots. 🔮 What's Coming Up • I leave to go to Greece for a week in a few days. I haven't had proper time off in a long time, on my trip in Lisbon in May I spent a lot of time working. Although, I'll probably do some work in Greece. • When I get back from Greece, I can work off the pounds I'll no doubt gain during Barry's Hell Week. Seven classes, seven days. • During the week of Hell Week, I'll also be seeing Kendrick Lamar, which'll be my first time seeing him live ever. Excited isn't the word. • Writing a follow up piece on Why I Love the Internet. There's plenty more for me to expand on from the past year. Speak next month! “"We must master ourselves unless we’d prefer to be mastered by someone or something else." - Ryan Holiday, Discipline is Destiny”

"But you did meet in a public place, right?" My mum nervously asked when I told her about my two-day trip in June 2021. She was asking because the people I drank, laughed and watched football with, I had never met in person before. I knew them from the internet. Her "stranger danger" alarms were blaring, and I understood why. Meeting people from the internet was something that only recently became more accepted. Before the internet, it would have been difficult for me to find so many people that would say "ooooh" at somebody mentioning they used a niche programming language to build a compiler. Now it's not difficult, provided you go in with positive intent. What is positive intent on the internet? It's about having a mindset that is open, friendly and not aggressive. Instead of bickering with people to prove you're smarter than them, block and move on. And rather than keeping to yourself, speak to people. If you see a tweet you want to expand on, reply constructively. Don't insult or demean. Most importantly, see the avatars on the screen as real people. People you can build relationships with like you would in real life. Back in 2012, I was on a Google+ Hangout (those were the days) with a popular YouTuber. He later left the session, but many of us stayed on. From there, I spoke to a guy called Tom in Pennsylvania. We had similar interests and exchanged Google Talk details so we could continue talking to one another. We watched the Euro together later that year over Skype; we're still friends to this day. Positive intention mixed with luck results in serendipity. Serendipity is a positive event happening by chance. The internet, in the words of David Perell, enables us to create a 'serendipity vehicle'. By that, he means a blog or a YouTube channel that we have to put work into. Although a small one, my newsletter has been the catalyst for a few conversations in Twitter DMs, which I wouldn’t have had otherwise. Later, without needing a vehicle - serendipity happened for me. In early 2021, I took a punt. I read about On Deck, "Stanford for the Internet", and saw their writing fellowship. A few months before, I started a weekly newsletter and wanted to improve my writing. So I took a financial gamble, threw in over a grand and gave the fellowship a go. While on the fellowship, I could have focused solely on the curriculum and not spoke to my peers. But I remembered 'positive intent'. And it was life-changing. I had powerful conversations with people worldwide, such as Manish in Dubai, reminding me that failure is not the end. And George in California telling me the story of building his business (it's like the Shoe Dog of cars!), Josh in New York blowing my mind as we bounce ideas off one another and Tom in Bolton improving my DeFi knowledge. All of these conversations have changed my perspective in one way or another. And for the better. That alone made me feel like I had won a 10/1 with On Deck. Some of those conversations blossomed into the real-life conversations that worried my mum. And hopefully, the others will too when freely travelling around the world is allowed again. The idea of going to cities around the world and meeting people I first spoke with on the internet is a mind-blowing one to me. We live in a remarkable age. There are many people on the internet that are seizing the opportunities before them, they’re building business empires. But more importantly, friendships. And for me, it's inspirational. During the peak of the pandemic, my ex-girlfriend and I broke up. It devastated me. But with it came a new lease on life. Before I was resigned to a life that looking back, I would have ended up miserable. Without much to do and wallowing in sadness, I searched for comfort on the internet. I refined who I followed on Twitter by focusing on people, not brands. From there I talked to people, discovered more interesting people and have a refreshed perspective of social media. My Twitter experience, in tandem with On Deck, flipped my outlook on the road ahead. Never in my life have I felt as happy and optimistic as I do now. And that's thanks to the internet. If you're not already, I highly recommend getting involved on the internet. Tweet, blog, YouTube, whatever. Put yourself out there. You never know what kind of opportunity may come your way.

In May, I spent a a good few weeks in Lisbon with friends. The trip was a co-working trip. I can work remote, so I thought why not go to a sunny country and work from there with my mates? I had an excellent time. Alongside hanging out with friends, I skydived, watched a lot of Portugese football, sunbathed on a beach for the first time in years and ate a lot of good food. But I also drank a lot, slept little, smoked and some of the food I ate wasn't the healthiest. When I arrived back home, that continued. I'd be drinking, eating deep-fried food and sleeping little. Not only that, but very rarely did I exercise. A few weeks after getting back, I was in a shitty state of mind. Worrying about things that didn't need worrying about, feeling nervous, anxious. I wasn't a good person to be around. So I took a step back and thought, "maybe if I put shit into my body, I get shit out". Also known as 'garbage in, garbage out' for software developers. Where if rubbish data is put into a system, its output will be rubbish. I've learnt the same to be true for my body. I took action.  Cutting down on alcohol felt like the simplest thing, because it also meant that I'd sleep better. Two birds, one stone. I started cooking food at home (no seed oil garbage) and took it into work. Diet fixed. Next was exercise, with three gym sessions and a Barry's class per week. After a few weeks of doing this, I was back at the top of my game.  All it took was a couple of weeks of discipline and my mental state has improved dramatically. I'm a better son to my parents, a better friend to my friends and a better teammate to my work colleagues. I've learnt a valuable lesson from this experience, and one that if things do go south again that I can think back to.