My Top 5 Moments of 2024

Many people choose to reflect on the year as they approach New Year’s. It is a great way to celebrate the wins and learn from the losses. It is especially useful in planning towards the following year – you can build on the momentum of some of the things that went well and learn from some of the things that did not go as well.

2024 was a year of a lot of change for me. A lot of great things happened and a lot of not-so-great things happened. All in all though, it was a very positive year for me. I decided to memorialize five of the biggest events of the year and in a subsequent blog I will do some planning around goals for 2025.

But first, a great Honorable Mention. My wife, Julianne, turned 35 years old in April. We just had our first child, Josephine, in November of 2023, so I felt like she deserved a weekend with some of her closest friends to let off some steam. She really had not had a moment to herself or some semblance of normalcy for about a year and a half by the time her birthday rolled around due to being pregnant and then having a newborn to take care of. I successfully organized a surprise birthday party weekend for her involving many of her closest friends, some of whom traveled for the affair. Seeing how much this meant for her and how much everyone seemed to enjoy it was something I felt great about.

Now, on to the top 5!

5. Starting a new job

Leading up to the birth of our daughter Josie last November, I was laid off as my company was preparing for an acquisition. The timing of this was stressful for obvious reasons but as they say, “Everything happens for a reason.”

I endeavored on a pretty rigorous job search and ultimately wound up with a few offers to choose from. Ultimately, I decided to move forward with a VP Sales role at allwhere, which at the time was a seed stage startup in the IT asset lifecycle management space.

The journey at allwhere has been fun and rewarding. It has presented a slew of challenges as the sales cycles, industry, and personas are all somewhat foreign to me. But the company has raised a Series A during my tenure there and experienced tremendous growth. It will be very fun and interesting to see what 2025 has in store.

4. Running the Chicago Marathon

I was offered an opportunity to fundraise for the Finish Strong Foundation at the Chicago Marathon late in Q1 and did not hesitate to accept. I had run three Boston Marathons and I knew that Chicago was infamous for being a flat course where I might be able to get a new Personal Record.

The training for the Chicago Marathon was very challenging because I suffered a herniated disc prior to the beginning of the training. I actually tried to defer the race to the following year but unfortunately this was denied by the event organizers. I decided to suck it up and do my best.

The training had various ups and downs and unlike past races where I had a lot of “supporting cast” around me (since those races were in Boston), I went out to Chicago alone. I was proud of the way that I handled being alone and staring a really challenging event in the eyes. There were moments where I wanted to give up, but the thought of FaceTiming Julianne and Josie towards the finish line kept me going. Although I did not have a PR and ultimately felt a little bit of a letdown for not meeting my goal of 3’30”, I still did it in about 3’49” which is a very respectable time in most circles.

If I have one regret, it might be not waiting to do this later on. Having a baby at home and spending hours every week doing the training is really hard. Fortunately my wife Julianne picked up the slack and supported me throughout the process, and for that I am quite grateful.

3. Writing second book

Writing has always been a passion of mine, and after writing my first book about sales, I wanted to foray into publishing fiction. I had written a senior thesis at Princeton titled “How Boys Learn” and I decided to go back and run some edits on the stories for publication. After about a year of work and a lot of peer review, I was able to get the book out into the wild in early 2024. Overall, the book has received pretty good reviews and I hope that it might pave the way for future writing projects.

2. Buying a new house

My wife and I were about a year into owning a new condo in Charlestown – a residential area in Boston – when we decided to pull the trigger on a house in Wellesley, about 25 minutes outside of Boston. This was not really a planned event, per se. What happened was we had learned about a plot of land in a nearby town and went to check it out with the thinking that it would give us time to build something we wanted to build and we would move when we were ready. We ended up passing on that plot, but it got us sucked into the vortex of being sent other real estate listings nearby. And Voila, that is what led us to our new home.

Living in the city for most of our adult lives, having a place with a lot more space is very refreshing, especially with two pets and a baby. While it has created a lot of changes in both of our lives, I would say overall that they are positive. We are fortunate to be close to both of our families, there is a park nearby for Josie, and I even wrote a blog about my “new life.”

1. Josie’s First Birthday

When Josie entered the world a little over a year ago, I wrote her a letter about my love for her. I continued to write her letters every month all the way up to her first birthday. I think now we might be on a quarterly writer-letting plan, but we’ll see how it goes.

In any event, Josie’s first birthday was a huge milestone event. For one thing, it was a big celebration for me and my wife to commemorate a year of being her parents. Being a new parent is not easy! It has completely run our lives, but I would not change it for a single thing.

Obviously, the bigger and more important piece of this was seeing Josie reach the one year milestone. In a mere matter of months, she went from being a little blob that cried, ate, slept, and pooped to running around and starting to talk and smiling and laughing and being curious about all sorts of things. With each passing day I experienced something new and wonderful with her. 

For her first birthday party, Julianne planned a great Princess-themed event where all of our closest friends and family attended. Naturally, Josie was the center of attention and she reveled in being in that role (as she always does). It is an awesome memory and one that I will cherish forever.