2023-2024 Mind Map (full writeup in

the following pages)

 2023 Review and 2024 Planning
2023 was another successful year. I’m alive, my family is healthy, and I learned a lot
which, as I learned this year might just be the entire purpose of life…
I’m going to break down my journey this year through 4 key categories, whereas my
goal moving forward is to analyze my goals through these categories to keep them
clear and prioritized.
It’s funny, because if I had written this 5-10 years ago, I would have had only 1 group
of goals: business. But now, I realize that anything related to business is simply a
mechanism to feed the true priorities of my life: Faith, Family, Fitness, Finances
Here goes…

Faith
Faith is a funny thing. Even though I’ve always been a Christian, the skeptic and
analytical brain in me has always been curious about questions like “what else is out
there?”, and “how do I prove this stuff?”, and “What’s my true purpose?”
Towards the end of the year I went on one of the more impactful spiritual journies I can
remember when I discovered Near Death Experience stories.
After watching a couple, I was hooked.
All of the stories were unique, but held so many common threads throughout that gave
me perspective and insight as to what’s possibly waiting for us on the other side when
we pass.
The common thread that I kept hearing over and over again throughout so many of the
stories can be summarized in one word: Love.
I have a lot of room for improvement when it comes to judgment towards others.
I know I’m not unique. But too many NDE experiences reported that they experienced
what true, unconditional love felt like during their experience.
And more reported back that the primary lesson they learned during their journey on
Earth was to do the same.
Could life be so simple? Maybe. And when I listened to many of those stories, it seems
it really can be.
The other lesson I heard from many of the NDE’s focused on how we are here on Earth
to learn. Period. Our souls are here to experience, learn, and grow. Specifically, we are
meant to be moving forward at all times. Which kinda sounds like the saying of “if
you’re not growing, you’re dying” that I’ve heard over the years throughout personal
development.
Anyways. I’m not throwing all my eggs in the NDE basket. But after reading and
listening to a few dozen NDE experiences, seeing some that felt a bit fraudulent, and
many that had enough parallels to remove doubt in my mind, it certainly excited me
and opened my eyes of what’s possibly waiting for us after we pass on from this
planet.

Family
In 2023, Family remained a top priority as I focus on building a strong core nucleus for
my kids so they have as many positive experiences growing up as possible.
This year was the first year that really hit home for me that time spent with our kids
literally flies by. Dominic is already 7 years old, which means in another 11 years he’ll
be out of the house. I’m almost halfway through my time with him. That is freaking
bonkers.
On the flip sides, I’m very proud of what we’ve accomplished with him and our Family
goals up to this point.
We’ve put a lot of time and effort into helping him develop, explore new things,
experience as many activities and sports as possible, so that he can now start to focus
on the things that really excite him.
He’s taken a major interest in football and the NFL - particularly with the Bills and the
Chiefs. And even with small things like figuring out which team to root for, I find
immense gratitude that I have a partner in Maryjo to experience parenthood and learn
from.
Because I have so much to learn, and I know without a shadow of a doubt my kid’s
childhoods are infinitely more positive with both of us together.
For example, something as simple as picking a team to root for… I found myself at one
point trying to influence Dominic to root for the Bills. But he and his friends liked
watching Patrick Mahomes and Travis Kelce, so they were drawn to being Chiefs fans.
I wasn’t having that. So, I kept trying to influence and guilt him to become a Bills fan.
Maryjo stepped in and showed me what was going on and how it felt from his shoes,
and the importance of letting him make his own decisions.
Had someone else not stepped in, I likely would have kept guiting him to be a Bills fan
which who knows where that would have gone.
Instead, now, he naturally chose to be both a Chiefs fan and a Bills fan. But most
importantly, he understands that it’s his decision.
2023 was also the first time that Dominic was able to see me speak on stage which
was incredible, and Maryjo even got a picture of Dominic standing in the event room
while I was speaking on stage, which is now framed in my office :-)
Leah is growing up to be such a beautiful young girl. Her personality is starting to really
develop and shine, and I’ll never get sick of watching her dance to the music we have
playing in the house.
She’s definitely a Daddy’s girl who loves cuddling all the time, and I’m not about to put
an end to that anytime soon because I know it’s going to be short lived.
She started Dance lessons this year, and loves playing with her dolls, babies, and new
Barbie dream house.
Personally, I enjoy taking my family on trips and experiences, which we have started
planning for 2024. There are 3 types of trips we like to take each year:
 1. Educational / historical trip where the kids can experience somewhere that has
historical significance, like the Liberty Bell in Philadelphia, or Washington D.C.
2. Fun - where we take a trip that’s meant to exclusively have a good time, like
Legoland, or Great Wolf Lodge.
3. Luxury - where we take a trip together that is exactly how it sounds: pure luxury.
Experiences are one of my top personal values. And I want to show my kids
what’s possible when you add value to the world. These include trips like to
Necker Island, or staying at 4-star hotels like the Ritz-Carlton, Fairmont, or Four
Seasons, etc…
Maryjo enjoys spending resources on home improvement projects, which we are in the
midst of our largest one yet, replacing our roof, siding, windows, and entire facade.
Knowing this, we’ve planned to do more trips and home improvement projects this
year which is exciting to look forward to.

Fitness
2023 was an up and down year personally for fitness. I hit a major milestone early in
the year by tracking my food and calories for 1,000 days in a row. Only to have that
streak ended just a short time after.
The summer and fall became exceptionally busy with us, as we traveled and planned
our kids’ birthday parties and started school.
This pushed our fitness goals down the priority list, while dealing with some added
stress during these months.
Typically Maryjo and I walk in the morning and at night, trying to get 10,000 steps per
day in. We had been successful for a few years doing that, but slipped this year.
I’ve been able to get momentum back going strong at the start of November with a
new workout program, which has increased my strength substantially. Still struggling
on the nutrition side a bit, even though I am tracking my calories again.
I also started getting regular lab work performed to track my internal biomarkers, as I
had some concern about cardiovascular risk. That has been a positive experience
working with my doctor to learn about certain labs, bloodwork, etc… and tracking that
to ensure I take as best care of myself as possible.
I also purchased a sauna blanket for recovery and to help (potentially) aide in
cardiovascular health. That has been a great addition to the household, and my goal is
to use it 3x per week.

Finances
I’m very proud of what we’ve accomplished with our finances, and I have to give most
credit to Maryjo.
Early on in our relationship, probably 13 years ago now, Maryjo forced us to have a
serious conversation about grouping our finances together. At the time, we were
making about the same amount of money in our respective careers. But she saw me
spending, uh, frivolously and without consideration of our joint finances.
In my mind, if there was money in the bank account we were doing fine.
That conversation was a difficult one to have, but is the sole reason we never have to
work again starting today if we don’t want to.
Since that conversation 13 years ago, we set up automatic deposits into various
savings accounts to happen every single month without question.
It was difficult at first, but eventually I didn’t even realize it was happening.
We now have automatic deposits for savings accounts for each of our children, a
separate account for the health accounts, individual retirement accounts, individual life
insurance accounts, and a home savings account.
Maryjo doesn’t think much of it, but I’m remarkably impressed by the system that
we’ve set up. And it’s all thanks to her making us have that conversation when we were
just starting out.
As for this year, we were able to give ourselves a raise in our paychecks, which is only
for the purpose of adding more to our savings since we already live below our means.
This year we also celebrated our 3rd year of our “Buy A Soldier A Cup Of Coffee” event
here in Lewiston, and it was our biggest yet. We expanded our benefit to include 3
coffee shops / bakeries. Like every year, it was incredible to hear the stories of
gratitude from the military who attended.
My family was recognized by the Village of Lewiston with an award of appreciation,
which was a nice touch. Regardless, I’m extremely grateful that we’re able to give back
something small.

Future
These reflections are a great way to remind me of where I’ve come from.
And give me space to think about where I’m going.
Truth be told, the last 4 years I’ve felt a bit “stuck”.
I hit a level of success that I knew I would hit, and that made me happy. But, truth be
told, I haven’t found much motivation to continue past this current level.
Part of me has a tainted view on the “guru” industry as a whole - particularly the
marketing guru space. I know almost all of them. I’ve seen a lot of their programs, and
quite frankly, it’s not something I pride myself on being associated with.
The past few years, I’ve focused more on selective joint venture opportunities with my
friends to see if anything long term will come from them. While nothing has, they were
a lot of fun.
I also tried “scaling” different parts of my business for the sake of scaling, and that was
awful. Mainly because it forced me into misalignment of my core values, which to me is
Freedom.
Going through the NDE spiritual journey exploration has helped me realize that
patience is key. In fact, this sentmient was echoed in some of the experiences
themselves.
As long as you are moving forward, you are growing. And that’s good.
Because of that, I’ve committed to a theme for 2024 which is “Minimalism”.
- Avoid taking on projects that take away from my freedom - even if that means
missing out on a potentially big pay day.
- Launch projects that get me excited, without any attachment of financial gain
(aside from paying my bills).
- Trust that when the next right opportunity comes along, my intuition will know
exactly how to spot it.
- Be OK with letting go and shedding parts of my old self that don’t serve me any
more. This is tough, because I have a hard time letting go.
Ultimately, this provides me with more “free time” than I’ve ever had.
There are some weeks where I and literally only working 2-3 hours. And the rest is free
time to do whatever I want.
I feel a bit guilty sometimes, because I often spend that time walking, exercising, or
smoking a cigar.
But I’m learning to be OK with it.
A minimalistic life, to me, is doing the least amount of work necessary to keep the
lights on, food on the table, so I can spend the rest of that time learning, exploring, and
patiently looking for the right next thing to work on… and knowing that it will come,
eventually.