2023 in Review: Family, Wellbeing, Fun, Work

A waterfall in a forest valley by Tayven Victoria

Another year, another opportunity to slay. This post is a look back on some of the highlights and lowlights of my 2023.

I wrote my first look back in 2014 and ten years later, I’m happy that I did. In fact, I found it fun to review a decade later and reminisce on what I accomplished. This reflection reminded me why writing, whether public or in my journal, is important.

I organized it into the following categories: family, wellbeing, fun, and work. Let’s dive in.

Family

Highlights

• Zora. We welcomed Zora in July, our third kid. Tamara has always wanted a bigger family and luckily, I went along with it. Zora’s smile. Her eyes. Her everything makes our family complete. I’m glad she’s joined us.

• Thanksgiving. Our family of five traveled by electric car for the first time. We left for Lincoln, Nebraska from Denver and then to Kansas City. It was pretty epic. Besides stuffing our faces, we saw the Chiefs at Arrowhead, got to see friends, and spent time waiting for the vehicle to charge – together.

• New Years. We’ve made it a trend to travel between Christmas and New Years. However, in 2023 we stayed at home and invited some of our favorite people over. It was great. The staycation also meant that we didn't have to chauffeur kids around the airport.

• Coin System. We started a coin system to reward our kids for behaviors we want to influence like dining etiquette, studying, etc. It’s been surprisingly effective and we’re iterating to make it better week by week. I’ll write about it at some point.

• Learning & teaching. We’ve always been curious about teacher to kid ratios at schools. After COVID, we realized that parents are teachers too whether we like it or not. As parent-teachers, we have a one to one teacher to kid ratio. So, instead of only relying on school and tutors for our kids to learn subjects like math and reading, we decided to supplement their learning. It’s been a hit. We’ve gotten to know our kids better and learn how they learn. Plus, it puts us more in the driver seat come parent-teacher conferences.

Lowlights

• Postpartum. I have to be honest. We’ve had some tough times with postpartum in every child birth, which has made me less interested in having kids. After Zora was born, Tamara had a near life or death situation. Fortunately, we reacted swiftly and the doctors were a class act. I can’t thank them enough and thank Tamara for being the powerhouse that she is.

• Zone Defense. I remember running zone defense in high school basketball. Let me tell you, it was a lot easier zoning highschool players than defending three kids. This new normal has been tough. But with any startup, growth solves most problems. I’ll be low-key excited when our littlest ones get older.

• House Husband. The last few months of 2023 I was a ~house husband~, while Tamara resumed her consulting work. Honestly, I’m not cut out for it. I love my house and managing our household, but there’s something about building a piece of software and growing a business that I can’t get enough of. More of the latter in 2024 and beyond.

Wellbeing

Highlights

• Emotional. 2023 was the first time I realized that anxiety is a thing I experience. This prompted me to start a daily deep abdominal breathing routine, express appreciation often, and adopt a “reverse lens” and “long lens” mindset to mitigate negative emotions. It’s been great. These exercises have made me a better human as well as a better leader.

• Mental. Focus gets harder with two kids under 4 and an 8 year old. This is amplified when they’re at home while you’re trying to get work done. Because of this, I knew that I had to complete tasks with a small window (typically 90 minutes). Plus, I had to do a good job of avoiding noise like social media and e-mail to get shit done. This has been a strength for me pre-kids but kids at home have made it especially difficult to choose between work time and family time. I’m glad I was able to manage better than expected.

Lowlights

• Physical. Consistent cardio and resistance training in 2023 was probably the best I’ve experienced post-kids. I completed 38 personal boxing training sessions and roughly 50 workouts. Here’s the problem though. The results showed differently. My withings tracker shows that I gained more fat than muscle in 2023. So, going forward healthing smarter is key.

• Financial. In 2023, we took home well over $400k in net income and managed to overspend $18k more than what we earned. This is bad, really bad. The good news is that I know how we overspent. It was our trips to Paris, London, and Amsterdam. The bad news is that we are experiencing lifestyle creep. We’re going to fix that going forward. Instead of us budgeting the typical way (i.e., Net Income - Expenses = Savings), we’re figuring out how much we want to save (i.e., Net Income - Savings = Expenses) and then started to plan for and cut our expenses accordingly. Sounds difficult, but we still have frugal bones.

• Spiritual. Unlike my religious friends and family, spiritual to me means identifying my sweet spot activities. These are things that give me feelings of effectiveness, effortless absorption, fulfillment, and living my core values. Unfortunately, I felt very low in this department in 2023. Explaining why would be a blog within itself. I note here as a reminder to continue to make changes and to follow my curiosity.

Fun

Highlights

• Travel. We went to some cool places in 2023. Tayven and Isaac experienced their second international trips to Paris and London. I made a guys trip to Amsterdam with my cousin and long-time college friend.

• Game Nights. We have a bi-weekly game night and this year we diversified our games by a bunch. I’m excited to increase our consistency in having game night and inviting friends over to join in.

• Denver Python Meetup. I picked up Denver Python Meetup to get back to my roots and support a community that I’ve been a part of. Being an organizer takes time, but my hope is to get this meetup going and find someone to keep the group alive.

Lowlights

• Date night. We didn’t do any of our date nights last year. Enough said. We’re going to do better and find a time that works for us and kid care.
• Travel Spend. I mentioned this earlier but we overspent on travel, which put us in the hole last year.

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Work

Highlight

• Roots. What continues to be my prestige is my ability to build software products while understanding the business equation. The end of 2023 was all about doubling down on my roots and the momentum is refreshing.

• Frontend Development. I picked up new tools by using Remix as my backend for frontend choice for my next product. I built a product in React back when React was hot off the press. It’s been a pleasure to use mature frontend tooling on the next thing.

Lowlight

• December 1st. The last day as Tilt’s CTO. I’m proud of what I accomplished and the team I built and worked alongside. It was the best professional development program I opted-in. The good news is that the work worked on me more than I worked on it. But sometimes the bet isn't worth the hand.

Overall, 2023 was more great than good. 

• 2023