Better every year. That is my goal. I believe that through focused effort I can keep improving and ensure my best years are still in front of me.

With that in mind, at the start of a new year, I take the time to set my focus for the coming year. By being selective about where I direct my energy, I can achieve results that are exponentially greater than if I split my attention.

More details about the process are in this blog post and you can review the results from past years here.

2024 Theme: Movements

I’ve made a bit of progress here, I had ChatGPT make me a nice list of movements and books about them and have been making my way down the list.

• The Rise and Fall of the Third Reich: A History of Nazi Germany – I started it last year when it popped into my radar as I sorted audible by book length and found this was the longest. It is heavy and serves as a cautionary tale of what can happen to movements, which serves as an interesting juxtaposition with books I plan to read – IN PROGRESS (via audio)
• Evolution of Everything – a book about how bottom-up trends all around us and seemed like a good place to start – IN PROGRESS
• Change: How to Make Big Things Happen – very obviously relevant – IN PROGRESS (via audio)
• “How Change Happens” by Leslie R. Crutchfield
• Made to Stick
• Nudge
• Microtrends
• Diffusion of Innovations
• “Revolutions: A Very Short Introduction” by Jack A. Goldstone
• Contagious: Why Things Catch On
• The Rise of Christianity: How the Obscure, Marginal Jesus Movement Became the Dominant Religious Force in the Western World in a Few Centuries

2024 Challenge: Launch a Free Community Workout

The first part of the challenge is complete – on March 22nd, we officially launched AO Rat City in the White Center neighborhood south of Seattle. We had 18 people in attendance our first day, ranging from 15 years old to 80. I led us in an epic workout that involved group carrying a massive 130lb+ cinder block abomination, doing pull ups and more.

I said that my goal is to get a weekly workout going, grow attendance to a healthy number of locals and hand it off to local leadership to take over and continue running it. A lot of the guys in the picture above aren’t that local, they’re coming from nearby neighborhoods to help me get this location off of the ground, but a few of us live nearby and a few new people from the neighborhood have stopped by. I’d like to see more of that local growth, but am excited to celebrate where we are so far.

Of note, our first workout also involved jogging around the park picking up trash. I want this to be a workout that serves the neighborhood and starting off that way felt very appropriate.

2024 Habit: Invite Someone To Get More Involved in F3

I’m doing pretty good here, 10 of the 13 this year I’ve invited someone to take a step farther into the workout group, either attending for the first time, leading for the first time or stepping into a leadership role.

Along with convincing people to come to my neighborhood mens workout, I’ve been organizing workouts at various other events including some 6:30am co-ed workouts at a recent work summit.

2024 Exemplar: Sojourner Truth

I haven’t started anything here yet, but have a good list ready of some primary and secondary sources.

2024 Bucket List Item: Complete the Murph in <45 Minutes

I’ve gotten off to a good start here, buying a pull up bar and getting into the habit of doing a Murph specific workout once a week. I go into my garage, put on my weight vest, pump to T Swift and set a timer to beep every two minutes – I then do sets of 5 pull-ups, 10 push-ups and 15 squats. I’ve gotten up to doing 10 sets so far and am hoping to progress to the full 20 by mid year.

To get under 45 minutes I’ll need to be able to do the 20 sets in ~30 minutes, so ~1.5 minutes each set. That will give me ~15 minutes for the two runs. I think I can do that part fine given I’ve done a few runs of 2-6 miles with the vest at about that pace. I might even be able to make up a little bit of time if I’m behind from the sets.

I also upgraded my old sand-filled weight vest to a military style body armor. I found the elastic on the other was starting to wear out which made big movements like burpees or hand stand pushups difficult. The new vest is pretty solid – see above pic of my workout with me flexing.