Hello; Happy January! I hope you spent the holidays with a community of people that are important to you and lived experiences that nourished your soul. In honor of the new year, I am, at the very least, going to kick off a new tradition to see if it is helpful. As always, I reserve the right to abandon anything if it no longer serves its purpose; launch fast + learn + iterate 😉.

At work, every month I draft an investor update about the happenings of our company: a status report on the state of the business. I thought it would be fun to try the same thing but for myself, with the goals being to bring clarity to my commitments and to move the pendulum a bit more toward intentionality and slightly less away from reactive chaos.

Who am I again? I am Brett Bejcek. I live by my top values of Exploration, Iteration, and Connection. Exploration is what I do; I do it through iteration; and I do it for the purpose of creating more connection. I spend a lot of time working on a startup, Limitless, these days. It is my main priority. Outside of work, I am prioritizing physical health and (re)building community (it was an interesting year where a bulk of my closest friends left the city and for the first time in my life, I was the one to stay…normally I am the one to go).

An ask for you. If you know of anyone building cool things in NYC, let me know! Part of my 2025 goal is to surround myself with more builders. I feel most alive when I am with people who are creating for the sake of creating.

Fun Metrics

New cat friend in Guatemala

Some nephew time :0

Some niece time 🙂

Highlights of December:

• I spent the end of the year in Guatemala with my best friend Leah. We kayaked on Lake Atitlan, explored the old streets of Antigua, and made a bunch of new friends along the way. My favorite part of the whole trip was speaking Spanish again. It quite literally felt like I was dusting off a part of my brain I had forgotten about. Sure, at first it was slow and awkward, but it was so rewarding to be able to reach for a word and have it be there. Here’s to more Spanish in 2025.
• Before heading to Guatemala, I swung by Ohio (where I grew up) to spend some time with the family. I love seeing the world through the eyes of my nieces and nephews (now 5 of them). It forces me to prioritize play. I always come back from hanging out with them thinking: I need more play in my life, how do I get it? Maybe if everyone had a Lightning McQueen RC car the world would be a little happier place. This next year, I want to commit to doing more than bringing fun lil gifs into presentations and to actually prioritize more play in my life.
• December afforded me the chance to get back to the parts of job that fuel me: user research + data science + product. It’s been a blast designing systems of feedback on the hardware product we are building and is one of those things where I just find myself losing track of time because it is so enthralling.

Lowlights of December:

• While in Guatemala, I had the worst food poisoning of my life. I was out at an eco-hotel (where the nearest bathrooms were a few hundred feet away and happened to be composting only…no flush, only sawdust). It hit at midnight, and I must’ve stumbled to the restroom over 30 times that night, flashlight in hand. The real kicker was that I wasn’t the only one in the bathroom: two scorpions leapt on me as I opened the door, but luckily emerged sans sting. All in all, there was not an ounce of liquid left in body and I spent the new year in bed recovering from dehydration. While I was sad to miss the party in the center with all the fireworks, there was something fitting about ringing in the new year from bed, listening to my body. I hope this is a year I prioritize listening to my body more.
• Being away for NYC for the majority of December was hard - especially because my goals suffer: building community, actually dating, finding a steady volunteer opportunity are all nearly impossible when I am away. I do love all the excitement that new adventures bring, but am looking forward to at most being away 1 week a month for the next few months.
• In general, the months leading up to December left me feeling pretty burned out. It had been awhile since I had taken a break and I just kept going, a little past my limits. I found myself forgetting to eat until the end of the day, not making it outside for multiple days in a row, and spending time after work in bed as my only refuge for recharging. I read a book on burnout that I really resonated with and really appreciated it’s holistic approach to dealing with burnout. I am proud to say after a lot of self work, I feel really strong coming into January 🙂.

What am I prioritizing for this month?

Often when you get back from a trip, you use that high from the trip to try and change your entire life. Far too often I have made the mistake of trying to change way too much at once, resulting in me degrading back into a lifestyle that was actually worse than what I started with. My goals for this month are to:

And that’s all. I am trying to keep things simple. I hope your January brings you what you want it to bring you.

Thanks for being part of my journey,