2020: Putting the Porcelain Back Together.
A few weeks ago, I moved onto my friend Orion’s ranch, perched on a hilltop above Zipolite, Oaxaca and the Pacific Coast of Mexico. We’re off grid, channeling energy from solar panels into a Tesla battery that he smuggled across the border. I’m a seven min ATV ride from the beach, and I end most days with a run on the sand, grateful to watch the sun descend, and excited for it to reappear tomorrow.
I am still somewhat shocked to be here, and if April 2020 Dan learned where December 2020 Dan had landed, his jaw would have dropped in disbelief.
Here’s how my 2020 played out.
In the beginning of March, after six years of searching, for the first time in forever the various pieces of my life were coming together. I lived in a beautiful apartment in a city I loved, surrounded by a close community of great friends. After months of negotiation, I’d just returned from a week in Los Angeles with a signed term sheet for a $500,000 investment in the business of my dreams, that (on paper) made me a millionaire, after years of being broke. I was in the best shape of my life, eating right and working out 4–5x a week. Things were looking up.
Then, suddenly, in what seemed like moments, the world descended into crisis. I’d cheered China for building a hospital in 10 days in February, never once contemplating it would completely upend my life in March.
On March 5th at 11a CT, that $500k vanished into thin air, in the body of a five sentence email from the same investors I’d just spent three days whiteboarding ourbrand refresh with in a WeWork in Manhattan Beach. That was the start of it.
I soon sunk into the work of getting people home from Bolt trips in Patagonia and Panama, and I increasingly realized the travel business would be put on hold for the foreseeable future. I left my home in Mexico for what I thought would be a few weeks, only to see that extended for months and months.
My community, my home, my work — my life, as I knew it — all gone.
These past nine months have been about rebuilding, leaning on the support of my family, while coming to realize that all these things happen for a reason, even if the bad things are permanent, and the good things are temporary.
The long months between everything becoming real in mid-March and June were the hardest of my life. I took hours-long walks, catatonic. I spent a lot of time alone in the woods. I cried some. I spent two months in Georgia, living safely and comfortably in a house my brother Jon had purchased just days before I arrived. Then I went north — my sister’s real estate agent let me live in his bare, unfurnished apartment in Richmond, Virginia “paid for” only by painting the bathroom. I didn’t do a very good job.
Towards the end of that stay in late June, I started to dig myself out.
The first step: I merged my startup Bolt with another company, and in the months since we’ve sold an exciting new product to some of the largest companies in the world (more on that to come soon). It helps people be healthier and happier and more productive in this new remote world, and it’s exciting to help them in that way.
I miraculously met a lovely, intelligent, beautiful woman in Richmond, and we spent a few months finding comfort in each other’s company, great memories even though she ended it just as I thought it could turn into something more substantial.
I spent precious time with my mom, sister, brother-in-law, and kids — moments that never would have happened in an alternate 2020 without the Coronavirus. I enjoyed those six months with my family, which I appreciated at the time, and cherish now.
And in this moment, I’m back in Mexico, in one of the places on Earth I love the most, working hard every day, growing as a human being, eating simply and well, and generally looking to what comes next with a mix of mostly excitement and still a bit of trepidation.
Lots more to say, but I’ll end this update here. This year has been an incredible reminder — and one that I’ve had before, in this topsy-turvy life of mine, though not so acutely — that nothing lasts, and that impermanence means we should enjoy the present.
I’ve always thought about contrasts — darkness and light, cold and heat, sadness and happiness, hate and love. This has been a year full of ’em, and while it’s been hard, it’s also been filled with learning and growth.
I’ll be here well into 2021 — and then we’ll see. This wild year has taught me that adaptability and acceptance of the unknown is a bridge to resilience, and resilience is something to be appreciated, cultivated, and embraced.
I hope this Thanksgiving weekend finds you and yours well, in good spirits, and hopeful for 2021. While we don’t know what it will bring, I welcome it with open arms and renewed perspective.
