Public Commitment 2024 – Update 2

Theme: Lucidity

Now, six months into the year, the year of lucidity is 50% through. I feel that, in some respects, I’m falling behind, yet I also now have the ‘space’ to work on the neglected goals.

The wedding was a blast and a pure joy to have experienced and look back upon. A lot of effort went into organising it, leaving less time to focus on my body and the business together with Lotte.

So, next quarter, I will focus more on those aspects.

Living in Anna Paulowna, in a house with a large garden, is still amazing. Moments like this reflection make me take a step back and appreciate how blessed I am to live the dream life.

Now, let’s look back at Q2 and forward to Q3.

House

Objective (O): Make the garden unambiguously green and lively

Key Result (KR) 7: Clear out the front garden and prepare it for flowers

KR8: Process the tree branches and store them to dry

KR9: Place the fence between the gardens

KR10 (Q4): Paint the garden sheds

KR11 (Q4): Remodel the workspace (upstairs and/or garden office)

V: Plant and grow a lot of veggies

V/X: Paint just about everything outside

V: Remodel the bathroom downstairs

V: Rework section between house and cabin

V: Build a compost heap

V: Add more hens (done, Jan 29th)

The garden is exploding with life.

We just returned from our mini-honeymoon and spent most of yesterday trimming down plants and harvesting carrots, greens, and peas. The vegetable garden is going strong, and although we’re not that organised yet (i.e. planting in phases), we’re enjoying eating out of the garden and continuing to grow in our vegetable boxes and the greenhouse.

The painters did a great job on the outside of the house. Instead of an entirely white house, we now have lime-green wood panelling and I’ve christened the house ‘Primrose Hill’ (where I proposed to Lotte a year ago).

We remodelled the toilet, which is now bright orange and much better-looking than before. For now, we’re happy with the house. In the fall, I might remodel the office/rooms upstairs or work on a garden office (next to the home gym).

In the coming months, we will focus on maintaining the garden, and I will prepare the front garden for the flowers we will plant when the time is right. This means I will remove the grass currently there and start planning where we want to put the different flowers (a small pond and a tree).

In the back of the garden, I’m still processing the wood that once was the rotting tree that stood there. We will also place a fence with the neighbours so the gardens are not connected anymore, and the dogs can roam free (and not trash their garden).

It has been fun working in the garden, as both a relaxing form of exercise for the body and mind(fullness).

Finances

O: Earn twice as much as we’re spending (H1 done)

KR1: Keep track of finances every week (H1 done)

KR2: Earn as much from psychedelic work as from Queal (H1 done)

KR3: Lotte earns as much from FLO as from her regular job (H1 fail)

Tracking spending and earning (more than) enough has gone well in both Q1 and Q2 (together = H1).

Alas, the wedding and the work for Queal and Delphi have prevented me from focussing more energy on FLO. So, Lotte hasn’t been earning much from doing psychedelic coaching.

The goals remain the same, but – as stated at the top – I will focus more on FLO so that Lotte feels secure in earning a stable living after she stops working at the GP.

Since we’re married now, our finances have also merged (more than before), so I will involve Lotte more in tracking the finances to keep her informed of where we stand in this aspect of our life together.

Flotte

O: Continue unblurring who the other person is

KR1: Have one day in the week for each other (H1 done)

KR4: Spend at least eight hours per week working together (Q2 fail)

V: Get married

V: Become business partners (Q1 half)

V: Prep all big things for the wedding

Woehoe, we’re married now. The day was an epic celebration of our love and that of our lovely friends and family who joined us at the wedding. The week before the wedding, we built the tents, got drinks in Germany, had some delicious meals from my dad’s garden, and got everything ready relatively stress-free.

The day started with final preparations, such as putting on our wedding clothes (Lotte looked terrific), me ‘stealing the bride’, and then having lunch with a small group of friends and family. A few hours later, with our bellies filled and rain still pouring, the official wedding ceremony commenced.

The wedding officiant did a great job leading the ceremony. We had three excellent speeches from Rens (who reminded everyone of the existence of this series), Mariëlle, and Martijn. Martijn (Lotte’s brother) also guided us in a hand-fasting ceremony (a Nordic ritual that matched the day—midsummer), all under the beautiful music (on a ‘hang’) by a colleague of Lotte. We recited our vows, and then we were married.

The latter part of the day consisted of eating lots of cake and vegetarian Italian food, singing ‘Lay All Your Love on Me’ (ABBA) with everyone, and dancing into the night with a silent disco. It’s a day never to forget (heck, we even recorded a ‘podcast’ a few days later so we can go back and remember the day).

Stepping back from the wedding, I feel confident we are more connected than ever. Now comes the time to deepen our working relationship and make FLO a success story. More on that in a moment.

Relationships

O: Maintain quality relationships

KR4: Thank friends for the wedding gifts and visit everyone in the coming year

X: Visit friends independently three times

X: Message with friends during morning cardio (medium, not enough time cardio b/c cold, same, low cardio rate but all good w/ contact)

V: See friends at least every two weeks (H1 done)

I’ve updated the goal of seeing friends every two weeks to start messaging them individually for the gifts they gave us and for visiting them. Among the gifts were many flowers for the garden and tips for hikes (of which 90% were in the areas around them, so we will visit them and do the hikes together).

I still feel content with the amount of time I spend seeing friends, though I think I only went to see them once last quarter without Lotte.

FW.com / Brand

O: Build a personal brand

KR1: Publish a piece of content for every day (average) (H1 meh)

KR4: Take half a day to operationalize the personal branding/content strategy further

X: Publish one piece of significant original work each week (>1000 words or equivalent) (H1 half)

X: Publish a transformative piece of work every quarter (H1 fail)

I’m not where I want to be with this aspect of my life. In a way, I want to build out a brand by sharing what I’ve been thinking about, but at the same time, I’m not allocating time actually to make this explicit.

For now, I’m not adding anything new to this but keeping the half-day to operationalise it further. Part of this is me getting ‘lucidity’ on how the different projects all fall together. Is there a way for me to share my thinking (or ‘brand’) that covers Blossom, FLO, Queal, Delphi – all of it?

Blossom / Delphi

O: Provide clarity for all stakeholders in the ‘psychedelics as medicines’ field

KR1: Launch a course for novel psychonauts (H1 fail)

KR3: Share one content piece each workday (Q1 done, Q2 meh)

KR4: Have 5k subscribers to The Bloom (now at 3.2k, not made big strides with this)

KR5: Get paid help for improving the content and consistency of promotion for Blossom

KR6: Continue the consultancy work for Delphi

X: Publish or update one piece of original content for members only (to increase Blossom’s revenue) (Only Jan)

There is still not much progress on adding new initiatives to Blossom. Yes, I’ve updated the trials database with the help of my VA and have kept track of the research. However, I haven’t been working on updating the reports or adding other features/reports.

The ‘unlock’ here (from my brief thinking on this) could be a combination of 1) doing some work that is both for Delphi and Blossom (which involves making public the psychedelic ecosystem map that we’ve developed internally) and 2) becoming more ‘lucid’ about which few projects I want to take on and then hiring help to realise these pages.

For the second (but maybe also first) point, I want to flag a tool for myself: ‘write book,’ a free tool by the team at Basecamp that could help design ‘books’ (or, in my case, reports – which I’ve now installed).

Again, I feel somewhat in limbo here, as I also want to focus more of my time on FLO.

Queal

O: Continue providing sound nutrition

KR1: Launch QQ offer each quarter (done)

KR2: Do a mega overhaul of our webshop (Q2 good, launch July)

KR3: Introduce new Queal products

Behind the scenes, we’ve updated the whole Queal website and improved things along the way. After deliberating on switching platforms, we’re still using relatively the same tools, but we will switch hosting and the front end. The path so far has been smooth, and we hope that the transition (i.e. going live with the changes) will be a good experience, too.

In addition to the online changes, we’re also considering Queal’s product line-up and will have some updates soon.

FLO Coaching

O: Build a meaningful practice with weekly facilitated sessions

KR1: Experiment with the four different promotional methods (1-1/1-many x (un)known)

KR2: Get Lotte one client each week (still not there)

The ebook has been revamped and is now part of the marketing mix. However, time-wise, there hasn’t been enough investment to make FLO happen significantly. So, this quarter I will devote a larger share of my attention on doing the promotion of FLO (e.g. videos, blogs, personal reach outs, etc.).

Lotte and I will also have more meetings to discuss what we’re up to and how we can divide our time strategically to make people aware of how we can help them with the coaching. Initially, the focus will be on getting Lotte clients. Though time permitting, I would love to guide more people again.

Sports

O: Improve on my fitness level of 2023

KR1: Do sports 6 out of 7 days (Q1 good, Q2 medium)

KR2: Incorporate stretching routine at the end of workouts (H1 fail)

KR3: Cut back weight to 95kg

The wedding (and gardening and work) took up more time than was available to focus more on sports. I also weighed myself near the start of Q2, and my suit was exactly made for that body shape. I stayed around that weight for the remainder of the quarter.

But, my weight is now just below 100kg, which is too much (BMI-wise and for my liking). Don’t get me wrong, I’m pleased with the amount of muscle I have, and standing at 1.94m tall, that weight isn’t terrible. But I can do better.

So, for this quarter, the goal will be to cut back to 95kg and then reassess. This means cardio six times a week, eating three meals (a protein bar or some fruit if I feel hungry), and nearly eliminating snacks.

I still haven’t systematised stretching, but I’m attaching it at the end of the cardio sessions (going ok in the first few days of the quarter).

Health

O: Improve health through metrics

KR1: Measure 3+ health metrics (H1 fail)

KR2: Build a place to store the (health) metrics (H1 fail)

KR3: Improve VO2 Max (H1 fail)

To make a good thing out of bad things, AI technology has gotten better, so building the tracking place for the metrics (which might just be a Google Sheets first) is easier than last quarter.

Also, I’ve just put together this draft for the VO2 Max improvement schedule, which is also my cardio schedule:

Monday - High-Intensity Intervals:
Stationary Bike: 10 min warm-up, 8x(1 min all-out, 2 min recovery), 10 min cool-down

Running/Assault Bike/Cross Trainer: Same structure

Rowing Machine: Same structure, but 45 sec all-out, 2:15 recovery

Tuesday - Tempo Training:
Stationary Bike: 10 min warm-up, 30 min at 80-85% max effort, 10 min cool-down

Running/Assault Bike/Cross Trainer: Same structure

Rowing Machine: 8 min warm-up, 24 min at 80-85% max effort, 8 min cool-down

Wednesday - Pyramid Intervals:
Stationary Bike: 10 min warm-up, 1-2-3-4-3-2-1 min intervals (1 min recovery between each), 10 min cool-down

Running/Assault Bike/Cross Trainer: Same structure

Rowing Machine: Same structure, but reduce each interval by 15 seconds

Thursday - Endurance Ride:
Stationary Bike: 60 min at 70-75% max effort

Running: 50 min at 70-75% max effort

Assault Bike: 50 min at 70-75% max effort

Cross Trainer: 60 min at 70-75% max effort

Rowing Machine: 45 min at 70-75% max effort

Friday - Tabata Training:
Stationary Bike: 10 min warm-up, 8x(20 sec all-out, 10 sec rest), repeat 3 times with 2 min rest between sets, 10 min cool-down

Running/Assault Bike/Cross Trainer: Same structure

Rowing Machine: Same structure, but 15 sec all-out, 15 sec rest

Saturday - Mixed Intensity:
Stationary Bike: 10 min warm-up, 5x(3 min at 85-90% max effort, 2 min at 70-75% max effort), 10 min cool-down

Running/Assault Bike/Cross Trainer: Same structure

Rowing Machine: 8 min warm-up, 4x(3 min at 85-90% max effort, 2 min at 70-75% max effort), 8 min cool-down

Mindfulness

O: Brighten my cone of consciousness

KR1: Take psychedelics every month (4x)

KR3: Meditate each day, building up from 12 minutes (Q2 good)

KR4: Go on a Jhana retreat

X: Write a substantive post on the Jhanas (read some, but paused for now)

The daily meditation has been going well. After each session, we do a short reflection, and it’s been an excellent way to start the day and have some reflection built in.

In a bit over a month, I will go on a Jhana (at-home) retreat that spans two weekends (with self-guided practice in between). If you want to learn more about Jhanas, this blog is a great (short) intro.

The Perfect Day

6:30 wake up (dogs, chickens, coffee)

6:45 meditation

7-9 sport (travel & shower)

9-18 work (and some gardening etc)

18-19 dinner

19-22:30 hobbies/social/work/game

Notes

I look back at one of the most satisfying quarters of my life. Things are where I want them to be, and I’m working on making adjustments where I think they need improvement.

The journey continues, and hopefully, I’ve inspired you to contemplate where your life is driving towards (with you in the proverbial driver’s seat).

Onto the next quarter of ‘the year of lucidity’.