Inspired by Austin Kleon’s list (who’s name, not-coincidentally pops up a couple times in this list), here’s my list of 75 things that made my year in 2020.

1. Kicking off the year with New Years fireworks and outdoor concert along the river in Riga, Latvia with my mom and Kelly.
2. Starting a daily writing practice which has turned into one of the most transformative decisions of my life.
3. Losing my wallet on the train from Riga to Tallinn and spending months trying to sort out my credit cards. I still don’t have a new driver’s license a year later, which has been a huge inconvenience, but also a hilarious story when combined with the fact that Kelly also lost her driver’s license a few months later…
4. Walking the eerie Tallinn harbour at night with Kelly beside the crumbling old prison.
5. Going to the gender-segregated nude sauna in Tallinn full of old guys speaking Russian, drinking beer, watching soccer, and beating themselves with vihad, branches used to stimulate blood flow.
6. Being somewhere cold and dark for winter after the previous winter in South American.
7. Morning writing sessions in Björn and Røst, two of my favourite coffee (and baking) spots in Tallinn.
8. Insanely huge margaritas at Taqueria in Tallinn. Also, the time the server ignored(?) us for so long that it was comical.
9. Stumbling upon the old soviet concert hall with Kelly in Tallinn while out for a night walk, each listening to our own podcasts. You can see this concert hall in the movie Tenet, although in the movie it’s in Ukraine.
10. Listening to Seth Godin’s Akimbo podcast on the way to and from work every day in Tallinn.
11. Uulits Burger in Tallinn. Probably the best burger place I’ve ever eaten at. We went here so many times in our month in Tallinn.
12. Our weekend trip to Tartu, where we spent most of it sitting inside this weird but cool high-class food court type place (where we discovered another Uulits…) playing board games and drinking Irish Coffee.
13. House and pet sitting on a farm in Somerset, England. We spent two weeks looking after a goat, two Shetland Ponies, two cats, two dogs, and a bunch of chickens. We were supposed to stay longer but the couple we were sitting for got turned away at the border to South Africa due to a technicality while on a trip to visit their children.
14. Day trip to the Dorset coast. One of those days that you can’t believe how much good stuff you packed into it, including castles, seaside cliffs, and endless, beautiful, English countryside.
15. Creating and releasing my first course, Podcast Audio Academy, a course taking the guesswork out of recording a pro-quality podcast.
16. Getting up early to attend a Creative Mornings event in Bristol. The talk turned out to be pretty bad (the only bad talk I’ve seen at a Creative Mornings event) that basically amounted to, “Here’s how to use Google Calendar…” That said, we had a great day in Bristol, meeting and chatting with a few people at the event, coffee and work session at Full-Court Press, and then walking the riverbank in the sunshine.
17. In January I got my first haircut in 4 years, and only second in the previous 13, as I’d had long dreadlocks for 9 years before the last cut. When I had initially cut off my dreads I had intended to keep my hair short-ish. I even walked into a barbershop in Granada, Spain a few months after cutting off the dreads, but when they didn’t have any availability for a week(!?) I walked out and never looked back. It was time for a change, however, and so I buzzed off my shoulder-length hair.
18. The three weeks in Glasgow where it rained, snowed, hailed, and gusted crazy wind almost every single day we were there. I hadn’t been that impressed with Glasgow during my first visit a few years ago, but after spending 3 weeks there this year–even despite the weather–I have a much better view of it.
19. Weekend breakfast at The Steamie. Amazing french toast, sandwiches, and coffee. The only problem is that it was constantly freezing, despite the 8 space heaters they had scattered around the cafe.
20. Open mic nights at the pub beneath our apartment, listening to traditional Scottish music.
21. Our last weekend in Glasgow we stayed with our friends Caitlin and Scott. We were supposed to go out to the Isle of Arran, but the weather was too poor to take the ferry over so we stayed in the city instead, playing board games, crazy golf, and relaxing.
22. Weekend trip to one of my favourite places, the Isle of Skye with Kelly, the weekend before the world locked down for COVID. In particular, getting absolutely drenched exploring The Cuillin and Neist Point in insane wind and rain.
23. More morning writing sessions at Fortitude, Cairngorm Coffee, and Brewlab before COVID shut things down.
24. Getting stuck for five months in Edinburgh during COVID, already one of my favourite cities in the world beforehand and even more so now.
25. So much walking. Daily walks to and from work over the Salisbury Crags, weekly trips up Arthur’s Seat, and exploring pretty much every street and avenue in the city on foot, almost always finding something new and interesting. I’m pretty sure my feet know Edinburgh better than any other city I’ve lived or visited in.
26. Taking The Story Skills Workshop from Seth Godin and Bernadette Jiwa. I learned a lot about storytelling as well as being turned onto Hiut Denim, one of my new favourite companies via one of the links in the course.
27. Laying in The Meadows with Kelly, reading Austin Kleon’s books, drinking coffee, watching birds and the clouds go by.
28. Watching the seasons change in the same place. The prickly Gorse blooming in vibrant yellow and then fading to brown.
29. Walking to Leith with Kelly in the rain, stopping in at the most charming little deli and coffee shop, and chatting with the owner for half an hour.
30. Pre-selling my second course, Podcast Marketing Academy to the Founding Cohort of 18 people and taking them through the 3-month curriculum. This was one of the most valuable experiences of my life and I’ll never not presell a product again.
31. Discovering 12 Triangles, the best bread shop and bakery I think I’ve ever visited and waiting in the line around the block every Saturday to pick up bread and chat with the really sweet guys running the place.
32. Stumbling upon The Birchwood–the first coffee shop to reopen after the first COVID lockdown–on the way home from a long, Saturday morning walk. I stood across the street for 5 minutes debating whether to go get a coffee before deciding instead to race home, get Kelly, and come back together. Right decision. She was ecstatic to have good coffee again after weeks without. Going there became a Saturday morning tradition, and we got to know the owner a little bit during our weekly visits.
33. Working my way through more stress than I’ve felt before, amidst COVID, running my agency, while also pre-selling and creating Podcast Marketing Academy. I discovered new ways to cope with stress and anxiety and feel much better equipped going forward.
34. Slowing down and rediscovering lazy weekends filled with walks, naps, board games, writing, and binging TV series.
35. Speaking of TV series, we watched some great ones, including Hannibal, Fargo, The Mandalorian, and Long Way Up, as well as re-watching How I Met Your Mother, and now starting on Modern Family.
36. Discovering some incredible newsletters, in particular from Jay Clouse, Khe Hy, Josh Spector, and Ann Handley.
37. Starting my own weekly newsletter which has become one of my most favourite things I do on a weekly basis.
38. Spending one of our last weekends in Scotland with our friends Caitlin and Scott in Crieff, a charming town with great hiking, and which happens to be the hometown of Ewan McGregor. Also, our Airbnb was maybe the cutest I’ve stayed in yet.
39. Finally starting a podcast, Build A Better Wellness Biz, after years of hemming and hawing. I also documented the development and launch process on a YouTube series, Podcast Launch Diaries.
40. Making it into Portugal after our visa ended in the UK. We weren’t sure we would be allowed in since Kelly is American and it was a relief to pass through immigration in Lisbon.
41. The first meal on a patio in Portugal with fish, tapas, and Super Bock, which brought back so many of my favourite memories of one of my favourite countries. This restaurant in particular was run by two septuagenarian men who were just the sweetest, and we went back many times over our three months in Lisbon.
42. Making friends in Lisbon. We’ve spent the past 4 years spending typically no more than a month in each place we travel to, and as such have had a hard time building in-person community. We tapped into a great network through our coworking space in Lisbon and were able to meet a ton of great people.
43. Stumbling on the many miradors overlooking the city in Lisbon. Particularly for sunrises and sunsets, maybe accompanied by a pastel de nata, beer, or both.
44. Going to a socially distanced, outdoor, freezing cold opera performance of Tosca for Kelly’s birthday. A couple of our friends bailed halfway through due to the cold, and there were no subtitles to translate as there would normally be, but it was a memorable experience for my first opera.
45. Taking Friday afternoons off to go surfing in Caparica. After surfing a handful of times previously in Morocco and Peru, it finally clicked for me during these surf sessions in Lisbon. Two of the most memorable days were one Saturday surfing giant waves that were way too big for my skill level that I somehow managed to catch a couple of before exhausting myself trying to paddle past the break. And then my final day out, the last Sunday in Portugal with two hours of perfect wave after perfect wave. Blissful.
46. Walking the first leg of the Camino Portugues from Lisbon to Vila Franca de Xira on my birthday with Kelly. I walked the Camino from Porto to Santiago de Compostela with some friends in 2017 and have been itching to do more ever since. This particular one-day leg was supposed to be ~25km and ended up being around 40… It was a long, hard day, with some beautiful stretches, as well as a good share of suburban, industrial stretches. On the whole, a truly fantastic day of Type-2 fun.
47. Poker nights with the boys in Lisbon. The knowledge of the rules was questionable at best but the food was always good, and it was good to play poker again for the first time in probably ten years.
48. My relationship with one of my best friends, Hayley. We have similarly structured businesses that we started at the same time, and are working on a lot of the same things. We’re also both highly competitive, which creates this great dynamic that is both motivating and challenging, as well as supportive. This year was a big one for both of us, and there’s no way I’d be where I am without her.
49. Weekend trip to Évora, Portugal with our friends Will and James. We had possibly one of the best meals we had in Portugal and spent a wonderful couple of days wandering the quaint town and relaxing.
50. Long weekend trip to Porto with Kelly. Porto is one of my all-time favourite places, a city that has a lot of significance for me personally, and one which I’ve visited 3 times now. I had been wanting to take Kelly there as she had never been but was also worried that I’d built up the hype too much. Turns out, I hadn’t and this 5-day trip was another magical chapter in my relationship with the city.
51. Day trip to Sintra with Kelly on our last weekend in Portugal. Another place that I was worried the hype would ruin for us. Almost everyone we met during our 3 months in Portugal raved about Sintra, but when we went for ourselves, we were blown away. The lack of tourists due to COVID surely helped, but this was probably one of the best day trips of my life.
52. Signing up for Bonfire With Soul, a course from Duke Stump and The DO Lectures. Low on actionable, high on philosophical, this was one of the best business courses I’ve taken.
53. Fostering our dog, Paola, for 3 weeks in Split before she went off to her forever home in Germany. A 7-month old puppy, she gave us the full puppy experience: Accidents in the house, chewing on absolutely everything, demanding constant attention, even (or should I say especially) while we were on work calls… For all the frustration, she was adorable and we miss having her around.
54. Swimming in the ocean in Croatia. One of the most serene swimming experiences of my life with crystal clear, absolutely calm water, sunshine, and dramatic mountains stretching into the distance.
55. Thanksgiving weekend in Šibenik with Kelly. Getting away from the city to unplug and relax, explore fortresses, and slow down.
56. Taking The DO Lectures course, How To Build A Great Brand With Very Little Money. Another one of the best courses I’ve ever taken. I spent well over a month working through the course content and journaling on how it applies to my work. So much still to dig into and flesh out but this course has moved me significantly closer to creating the brand I want.
57. Weekend trip to Plitvice Lakes National Park with our friends Rhys and Haya. Stayed in a great (and freezing) log cabin with wood-burning stove and spent a cold, densely foggy, and underwhelming Saturday exploring the park before returning for a much clearer, awe-inspiring experience Sunday. Also, the drive to and from the park was unreal, especially stopping and getting out of the car halfway up a serpentine mountainside road in the moonlight and hearing only the sound of the wind and the sheep’s bells clanging somewhere below us.
58. The Reboot 2020 Wrap Up Workshop. This workshop, and tapping into the community behind it was the perfect cap on a tumultuous, rewarding, exciting, terrifying year, and has me primed to move into 2021 with more clarity and purpose.
59. Brand exploration with Kelly. Kelly’s been building on her existing design expertise in 2020 by diving deep into brand strategy, and we’ve spent the final couple weeks of 2020 doing a brand strategy exploration for Counterweight Creative. It’s been a challenging, at times frustrating, and invaluable process, and I feel like it’s coming at exactly the right time. Super excited about the clarity this is providing me and where this will all lead.
60. Discovering new music, in particular from Can’t Swim, Hayden Calnin, Driveways, Nightly, Henry Jamison, MAALA, Bjéar, Jeremy Zucker, and Fjord. Check out my 2020 Spotify playlist for the highlights of what I listened to here.
61. New albums from old favourites including Donovan Woods, Novo Amor, Misery Signals, Movements, Hailaker, and Ed Patrick. Again, check out the 2020 playlist.
62. Discovering (and subsequently binging) the On Being Podcast with Krista Tippett. One of my new favourite shows and biggest sources of information. I know this is going to be a trusted companion of mine for a long time.
63. Discovering and feeling confident in my personal style for the first time in my life. I owe a lot in this regard to two of my new favourite brands that I discovered this year, Hiut Denim and Finisterre, both of whom I love not just for their products but for how they operate their businesses and use storytelling.
64. Hitting the 50lb weight loss milestone. I started my weight loss journey in August 2019 at 213lbs, and in April 2020 was down to 163lbs. If you want to know my secret, it’s all that walking previously mentioned. And soup. Noom helped as well.
65. Hiring an Online Business Manager, Lindsey to help out on the Operations side of things with my business. I was blown away by how big a difference Lindsey made and within 2-3 months of her being onboarded we had completed some major upgrades and projects.
66. Partnering with my friend and collaborator Andréa to expand our service offering to include social media content creation and management services. This was a big, scary step, but I’m so grateful that I pushed through the discomfort to create and offer this package.
67. Adding Arie, our video editor to the team. I’ve had clients asking about video editing for years, but never had a dedicated video editor. Really excited to be able to confidently offer video editing as a service now.
68. The Dark Side Of The Lens. This short film has resonated with and moved me like almost nothing else has. It’s one of those pieces of art that feels as though it contains some part of you, expressing something deep and internal that you can’t express yourself. I’ve watched it dozens of times since discovering it, and will likely watch it dozens (if not hundreds more).
69. Client successes, particularly the podcast launches for Just Being and Life Coaching For Women Physicians.
70. My coach, Jaime who has pushed and supported me through both the challenges and opportunities this year has presented. I wouldn’t have accomplished most of what I did this year without her.
71. Reading. The pandemic reintroduced me to reading physical books in addition to audiobooks. Some of my favourites from both categories include The Icarus Deception, This Is Marketing, The Dip, and The Practice by Seth Godin (yes, I’m a super fan), Ask by Ryan Levesque, White Fragility by Robin Diangelo, Walking by Erling Kagge, Little Fires Everywhere by Celeste Ng, and the abovementioned Austin Kleon trilogy.
72. Binging some really amazing Star Wars fan films to fill the Star Wars void… It’s pretty amazing to see what indie filmmakers on a budget can create nowadays.
73. David Whyte’s incredible TED talk. Another video I’ve watched multiple times and will surely watch many more.
74. A truly amazing year with Kelly. Relationships can certainly be challenging, but 2020 with Kelly was pretty much pure fun. Life is good when you’ve got someone who aligns with you on so many levels from work to humour to perspective to worldview to interests and more.
75. Getting clearer on how my perspective, knowledge, skills, and experiences combine to offer something unique to the world through my work. It’s not fully formed yet, but there’s a thread to tug on.