Thank you all for being here with me tonight. It's certainly an honor to be standing up here on stage.

I think I'd like to start with a toast to none other than my friend and mentor, 2024.

Where are you? 2024? Ah, there you are. In the back. Stand up.

Well, let me tell you all about 2024. It's been a wild one.

2024 is rolling his eyes back there. You and I, we've seen some things. But where to begin?

I suppose it makes sense to start with the winters.

For a year that's only 365 days long, we sure had a few, right? A lot of closing away and reinventing. Been certainly something that's occurred in the past, but I think the magnitude

and scale here is significant.

We're both disciples, 2024 and I, of Greg McKeown's essentialism, and have been for about seven years now.

And so I try and make that my North Star, strength through simplicity and clarity.

And man, that's just, it's not always as easy as it sounds.

In fact, it's often torturous.

So for example, I closed the door on two businesses last year,

not because they weren't successful or didn't have potential,

but because they did not in any capacity light me up, because they weren't the art and creation that makes me feel alive.

And while letting go of those things

certainly generates some relief,

there's also this feeling of what have I done?

Right?

It's like, I hope you know what you're doing, dude.

But 2024, you were essential time and time again and reminding me that the barren wasteland

I often found myself navigating was in fact essential.

...