Dec 31

Dec 31 2020 Goals

Healthcare Policy

Particularly interested in nationalized healthcare, digging into what economists say about healthcare, and whether we should listen to them. Also interested in how technology may improve healthcare.

Relationships: I’m going to join the Premera PAC, try to host a policy discussion at my house, and spend some time trying to make friends with people living in countries with socialized healthcare that want to talk about their healthcare, and also try to make new friends and connections with those working in public health and health start-ups in the PNW.

Learning: I’m going to read some books, I’ve signed up for the NYT thread on Healthcare policy, I’m reading through the MPH curriculum for UW and I’m looking at auditing a class at UW on healthcare policy.

Win: New friends, new colleagues, and new knowledge.If I’m going to work in healthcare strategy, I better understand healthcare policy!

Spanish

This is likely the most challenging goal on my list because it’s only tenously tied to other goals and objectives. I’m going to Spain in September and I really would like to be multilingual someday. I think I’ve found a groove for slow language development, but realistically, this one requires more substantial time investment to get real benefit. I’m going to set the bar low here and say that I’d like to see improvement in my Spanish skills across 4 vectors of speaking, reading, writing, and listening. I’m hoping I can do basic Spanish communication in Spain, and I’m going to heavily focus on everyday vocabulary and directions so that I can be the guy who helps get us where we need to go. (Should I practice this ahead of time? What would entering Spain with 10 repetitions of reading and giving directions only in Spanish be useful?)

Relationships: I need to find a couple people to create accountability loops for around this goal and I need to find a few study buddies, and most likely, I need to find a couple fluent Spanish speakers to work on my speaking and listening with.

Win: Able to ask and understand directions, order food, and other simple interactions while in Spain.

Jiu Jitsu

2019 was a disruptive year for my jiu jitsu journey. I had a couple gnarly injuries and dealing with the move to MLT disrupted my ability to train at the gym I’ve been training at for the last 5 years. In 2020, I want to get back into jiu jitsu regularly. I need to do a little searching here and be honest about why I’m training and what how deep I am willing to dig in order to keep up a solid training program. I feel like I dodged the bullet that tends to tank most early blue belts, but I’m seeing now why people end up not getting their black belts. I want my black belt, so I need to devote the space in my life to making that a reality. I’d like to train 3 days a week and compete a couple times next year. I’d like to reach for my purple belt and really tighten up some parts of my game that are repetitive and sloppy, and get more aggressive. I want to focus on fundamentals around passing, sweeping, and finishing.

Relationships: I’m going to make an effort to make new jiu jitsu friends, and also make an effort to invite people over for training at my place.

Win: Improvements in my fundamentals, regular attendance, and new friends.

Mobility/Stretching

I’m noticing more and more that if I don’t warm up my muscles and joints before exercise, I pay for it. I’m also noticing that cooling down and stretching post exercise is extremely helpful. The hard part here is I know some stretches, but I don’t have a routine for stretching. I plan to solve this in two ways. First, I’m going to sign up for and complete several of the lessons of Yoga for BJJ. Second, I’m also going to do at least 20 live classes of yoga.

Learning: A pattern for stretching and an easy to build on series.

Relationships: Luke also has a mobility goal, so I will likely set some ad hoc times to do this with him.

Win: A pattern I can pick up easily and, hopefully, a more flexible, healthy body.

Climbing

I’m new to climbing and I’m not very serious about it (yet), but it’s good to set goals. I’d like to climb about once a week next year, either rope or bouldering. There’s a lot of techniques to practice and I don’t feel remotely competent even on the routes I’ve climbed.

Relationships: I’m gonna climb a ton with Luke.

Learning: There is so much to learn here! It’s wonderful to be a novice!

Win: Improve my climbing, stop being so reliant on strength, and understand the ranking system.

Meditation

I meditated close to 300 days in 2019, did a meditation retreat, and took a class on meditation. I’d like to improve my investment here even further. I’d like to do a 2-day meditation retreat, and at least 1 half-day solo sit. I plan to sit for 30 minutes at least once a week, and want to push my regular morning meditation to 20 minutes. I want to improve my knowledge around Buddhist practices and theories of mind. I will also find a few different books or programs to work through to try different practices. I had a very good introduction via the Waking Up app, but I’m ready to explore other territory.

Relationships: I’m going to attend another couple of classes on this, and do a meditation retreat. I’d also like to put some effort into finding a few more experienced meditation practioners to talk with.

Learning: Buddhist theories of mind, terminology, other schools and disciplines of meditation

Win: Retreats, regular practice, better understanding of my own mind and frameworks to think about it, and a mentor/friend to discuss

Finance and Strategy

Working on the strategy team and working closely with Accenture the past few months has made me realize that there is so, so much to learn and engage with in the business space. Many of the arguments I could make for business value can be rooted down in financial arguments, and the better I am at understanding that, the better I will be at my job.

Relationship: There are several really cool finance people at Premera, and a team of strategy folks that I now work with that are probably willing to nerd out occasionally with me about this. I know that others are thinking of MBA’s and upgrading their skills, so there could be space for something more formal, too.

Learning: I’m working slowly through a corporate finance textbook, I’m taking a ton of notes in my day job about finance terms and concepts I don’t understand, and I’m reading Visual MBA to get a sense of how I could explain this to others simply.

Win: Understanding of IRR, NPV, and the ability to deploy new finance skills on every project I’m engaged in. Deeper win here would be having some level of mastery over all the engagements and spend that Premera is doing from a finance perspective. Today, I get the strategic motivations, but more and more, it seems like finance is base language and strategy is a translation.

Self-love

One of the biggest weaknesses I have in my life is how hard I am on myself and how high I keep the bar for myself versus for others. Ambition, discipline, and drive are all distinct things from being able to love myself and properly appreciate who I am and who I am becoming. Towards that end, I’m going to invest more in this space in two ways. First, I’m going to include a few minutes of Metta practice in my days, focused specifically on loving kindness toward myself. Second, I’m going to make space in the evenings to ask myself and write about things I’m doing well. There is plenty of time in my life for critique, but I am going to make explicit time for positive thinking toward myself.

Relationship: I’m cheating, but I’m improving my relationship with myself. (Gross.)

Learning: I don’t know what I’ll learn here, but I expect I will know more about myself than I do today.

Win: Regular metta practice and better positive self-regard.

Salons

I want to have more discussions going in my life, specifically with people who either mostly agree, or with people who have diverse opinions on a topic. The idea here is to set a formal discussion for the first half of the meeting, then go to an informal social thing after. I probably can leverage MeetUp to hit this target. Setting the bar low, I’d like to host one of these, but I imagine a quarterly salon being possible, too.

Relationship: The real goal is to meet new people, so it’s explicitly pointed toward relationships.

Learning: Running events like this is always a learning event, but I’m particularly excited to be exposed to new ideas and to meet new people.

Win:Hosting 1 salon, and making 1 new friend as a result.

Incorporate Good Tech

Luke and I have been throwing around the Good Tech idea for the last year or so and I’m consistently excited about it. I’d like to make progress and find a project to work on with Good Tech this year. Incorporating allows us to take donations and potentially to use matching programs to level up quicker.

Relationships: We will need a board, and need to host events and programs that create interactions with other people. This will lead to stronger relationships with folks that we invite in and make opportunities to meet new people as well.

Learning: Will learn about the incorporation process.

Win: Actually incorporate and complete a project with Good Tech