🇳🇵New Year Notes from Nepal

Hey Friends,

Happy Jan 23rd. Just like that, there’s only 7 days left of Janurary.

Welcome back to Stay Curious — a newsletter I write once(ish) per month to riff on a few things keeping me curious. I talk about startups, tech and other random things catching my eye in day-to-day life.

My wife Jen and I just got back from a trip to Nepal. It was a memory maker and a half. The tea. The people. The mountains. The colours. Happy to share more for anyone interested in going.

Now, let’s get to some Janurary talk.

Here’s some of my goals for 2025. Reply and tell me 1 of yours:

1. Cook a deluxe 3-course meal for 6 friends

2. Be in the top 1% of my weight lifting zone for bench/deadlift

3. Hot air balloon ride

4. Place top 3 in backyard ultra race this March

5. $50K in Airbnb revenue

6. Write 1 physical card per week to someone

Some non-negotiables I try to do each year:

• 1-2 misogi goals that scare me (this one will be trying to place top 3 in the BYU (back yard ultra run that finishes when there’s 1 last person standing)

• 1-2 fun ones (hot air balloon ride / card writing skill)

• 1-2 system changes (daily weight lifting and stronger cooking skills vs eating out)

I’ve found that I have a 90% hit rate on my goals best when I have:

• social group chat built in around them

• a key event that requires a daily habit work back schedule

• and something on the line (ie if I suck at cooking in front of my 6 friends I’ll make a fool of myself) so now I have to get good at cooking

Rumour is: 99% of people drop their goals Feb 1st. Don’t be in that crew. Build a system that works for you.

• Bet someone $100/week if you don’t follow through.

• Build a group chat

• build an anti-failure structure

Insanity is expecting different outputs with the same inputs.

Here’s some other things keeping me curious this month:

• Nepal’s radical hospitality: One of the biggest things that punched me in the face when I was in Nepal was the radical hospitality of the locals. When we visited a home, school or cafe, we felt like the most important thing in the room. In North America, you rarely feel that. Rarely would I sacrifice time or energy to go above and beyond to make someone feel welcome. That’s something I want to change.

• Work that enables vs hinders travel: something I’d tell my younger self is to over-index on finding work that enables you to see the world. I came back to work and my team was like “would love to hear about your trip to Nepal, looked like an epic time”. It made me realize wow, that response to come back to is a gift.

• The highest show of character is how you leave a job: You have nothing to gain by helping the next person yet it shines the biggest spotlight on your motives. If you interview people, I belive the most revealing question you could ask someone is “if I was to call the last 2-3 who took over for you when you left your last couple roles, what would they say about your character and how you set them up for success?” if they blush, likely not a good hire.

• Wanna build a startup this year? Apply to Labs Batch 14 founder cohort. My team at LOI is recruiting for our next batch of founders. If you are:

  • under 30 years old

  • have a couple free hours per week

  • and want to join a group of 1600 alumni that’ve built $1B+ of enterprise value, hit apply. It’s free and you’ll see me in a few calls

• Good music helps me write my first draft 10x quicker: try it if you haven’t already

• Workouts during the day make me 10x more productive in my workday: try it if you’re 7 am or 6pm gym group is too busy

• Healthy snacks in the fridge are the biggest fitness hack: my go-to snacks have been trail mix, apples, bananas, greek yogurt, and peppers

• Unsubscribe more: from ideas, accounts, newsletters or anything that doesn’t align with your dream time allocation.

• The Power of Mini Adventures by Jesse Itzler: if you wanna spruce some adventure into your year, Jesse plans one adventure weekend every 2 months. In one year, you’ll have 6, in ten years, you’ll have 60 and in thirty years you’ll have 180. It’s a great way to mix excitement into your year.

• My new 75-year-old bestie, Doris: In Nepal, I got to know a new friend named Doris. She was the most adventurous, outgoing and curious 75-year-old I’d ever met. Since both sets of my grandparents have passed, it made me remember how special those older more experienced friends in our life can be.

• Sun changes your vibe: every start of the year, I try to visit a spot that has sunshine. Vancouver is dark as heck this time of year (but snowy if you go high enough in the mountains) an everytime I leave, I find the sun has a dramatic effect on my vision casting and creativity output.

Those are my hot takes of the month. Which one did you like the most?

Hit reply and let me know what one of your big goals is this year.

Liked today’s deep dive? Forward it to a friend.

Stay curious,

Joel

p.s. If you wanna join LOI’s 2025 spring founder cohort apply here

You can hit me up on Twitter or LinkedIn 

But the true newsletter besties hit me up on Strava and IG

Forwarded this email? Sign up here