It began with a steady pair of surgeon hands severing off my corroded hip joint and infusing a fresh titanium rod into my left femur. I had just finished my final hike in the Angels National Forest on two biological hips with Herschel and then I was back to the operating room for a hip replacement. It was only a few days earlier than that when we were ringing in the new year in a classic house party fashion, the type that would have warranted an LAWDP shutoff had it been just four months later during COVID. There I am though, three days later, recovering in a hospital bed with a new hip, finally addressing the chronic pain I’d felt every step I took for the last five years. I was a new man now and ready to conquer the world. Thankful for my fiance Laurelle, my mother and my healing dog Kuna for helping me through the post-op. Little did I, or anyone else, know that this year would be the most unique year of our lives. I seem to say that every year but I think this one will be insurmountable. Let’s dig in.
I acknowledge how lucky I am to go into 2020 in good health, living in Los Angeles, with no children, a gorgeous fiance and a job that can be achieved with nothing but an internet connection. My goals for the year were to get back to full health, establish LPC Ventures and build my team, launch a passion project, get married and generally figure out my life (the never ending quest). While I achieved a few of the concrete goals, and failed on a few others, the constant pursuit of contentment felt even more unobtainable.
Tom Hanks, EU flight restrictions and a cancelled NBA season
In early February, it became clear that our hopes of a Tuscan wedding were blight. The visuals of ICUs in northern Italy were horrifying and so Laurelle and I made the call to cancel the wedding. Thus ensued a long battle amongst ourselves, family and friends about what we should do. We’ll touch on this in a bit. As COVID-19 started to permeate through the world, it still didn’t quite feel real until early March. I took my final business trip on Tuesday, March 11th to Portland, little did I know that the next day would mark the true beginning of the national quarantine madness. The pictures coming out of New York were apocalyptic and yet somehow the sunny west coast felt insulated from it all. Soon enough it hit home and Laurelle and I made ourselves cozy in our apartment to kick off the new roommate, co-worker, lover dynamic. I set my early intentions on building good habits (youtube workouts), learning new skills (Learning Python on Codeacademy), getting 10,000 steps/day in by taking work calls while walking the neighborhood and hanging with those in our “social pod.” As the year waned on, we got more and more comfortable with taking calculated leaps to get out and live our life. We were not going to let the pandemic be an excuse for not living to the fullest.
Redefining the definition of success + The Lincoln way
I spent much of the year battling myself to get “there” faster. We all know its the journey, not the destination, but yet it still didn’t feel like “it” was happening fast enough. I leaned on our executive coach and some virtual psychologist (Talkspace) to really help reframe this mindset and be comfortable with where I was in my career. The Lincoln way is to be like water, it’s to go with the flow and continue to bend, shape-shift and explore until you find the opening and then you ATTACK. Its this business mindset instilled by our leadership that I fell in love with and why I joined the company. This year more than ever, it became evident. If I look back at the year, what I deem to be successful were the deep symbiotic relationships that I forged with my own team (will never forget the incredible home-made dinner we had in Seattle at JP’s house) and the relationships with founders and entrepreneurs like Zander, James, Mike, Andrew, Steven, Thomas, Camilla, Quinn and many more with which we partnered to build the future of real estate. Most notably from the year, I hired my associate Nick on at the beginning of the year and we spent the entire year twisting and turning to find our chances and shots on goal. I love having Nick on the team and getting a chance to teach and mentor him as he grows in the company. We even had some fun along the way with our pandemic off-site in Austin, a virtual team meditation and our pre-pandemic tour of the Museum of Ice cream.
I’m also really proud of some of the bets and initiatives we made this year and the actions we took to stand behind them. LPC Ventures made forays into electric vehicle charging software, construction worker hiring and engagement software, occupancy sensors to keep people safe and distanced, no-touch food delivery systems, mobile access and remote worker sentiment analysis. We also learned a few things this year the hard way. We saw one of our companies shut their doors due to COVID and learned a very valuable lesson around trust and business execution. It was also an incredible learning year for our firm as we navigated the ramifications of the pandemic on commercial office space. My team was front and center in the conversation to try to navigate these new unprecedented (word of the year) times.
My 30s
Heading into my 30s, I hit the nostalgic button and went back and read the blog that I started when I began my 20s, looking into the decade that lie ahead.
I ended my 20s with a tweetstorm for the 30 days leading up to my 30th. Little did I know that the pandemic would strike in that home stretch - sending my 30th birthday into a martinis and hillstone zoomtopia with my best friend and birthday twin Benji. Laurelle gifted me her late grandfather’s “guide me safely” pendant necklace - I’d say that was fitting for this year of tumult. Heading into my 30s, I started a daily morning stretch and rode 30 miles for 30 years old to make sure I still had it. Still got it.
BLM ✊🏿 Social Unrest and The Polarization of America
While the world felt like it was burning, I was trying to control what I could control and spent more time listening than opining. Living with my in-laws for the two most socially disruptive months of quarantine was interesting. They have first hand experiences in South Africa that shape their political opinions of America and I was exposed to a way of thinking that is very different. It was interesting to contrast this experience from my own family in Philadelphia who are incredibly politically charged, working for the Biden campaign and actively litigating the Trump party on the mail in ballot issue. I constantly felt like puddy. My opinions stayed flexible and malleable to the new information I was consuming (although I refuse to acknowledge anything I hear on Fox News as truth). During the height of BLM, I had quite the notable interaction with a black UPS post-man who was dropping off a package at my house in Philadelphia. I was shooting hoops and I invited this black gentleman to come shoot hoops and talk. We ended up conversing for 45 minutes about race and the notion of being black in America. His views are crystalized in my mind and align well with mine. Be a good person, treat everyone fairly no matter their skin color and good things come with hard work and sacrifice. He believed he was a walking testament to these ideals. On the political front, I also tried to remain open minded and listen to both sides.
Judaism & My mission statement:
"To lead by example, constantly be learning, instill Jewish wisdom into myself, my family and life, and experience the world to build empathy and understanding to share with others.”
I am proudly Jewish. I wear a kippah on Friday nights whether I’m in my home or on the streets of Texas. I believe that if I don’t exercise the Jewish muscles, I’ll lose the flame; just like anything worthwhile in life, you have to work for it. This year, spirituality felt “harder.” So much of spirituality for me is around communal experience and gatherings, a sense of oneness. I miss the days of Venice beach shabbats and learning with my rabbi Jack (who now lives in Miami). This year I found my fix in a few different ways. I learned under the Sukkah with a rabbi in Austin, attended a socially distanced Yom Kippur services in Hancock Park, continued my Jewish big brothers program over zoom with my little brother, and Laurelle and I took it upon ourselves to organize Shabbat’s on the Beach in LA. We invited friends out to Will Rogers beach and had about a half-dozen shabbat dinners out there while the sun was cresting over the Santa Monica mountains.
Amidst the Change, The Constants Remain
Despite the pandemic, I flew back to Philly to see my family and friends in mid June. Life at home is always a bit slower and simpler. I saw my brother, his wife, my nephew Asher and my newest nephew, Hunter, at their house. I visited my Grandma and we sat outside apart from one another with our respective masks. I visited Stevie in center city for a block party for Michelle's birthday. We dumped water on a sleeping Scott on the Margate beach (happens every year!) although sadly we didn’t get our annual stair pic. We finally broke ground on our little housing project we’re building in South Philly, an impressive feat getting through the arduous city permitting processes in a year strewn with distractions for the municipality. All of these experiences are symbolic reminders that we seek change in our lives but use our “hometown” as a constant in an experiment littered with variables.
The Wedding
After months of speculation and deliberating what to do, Laurelle and I finally cancelled the Italian wedding on March 16th and was thrown into a state of limbo. I felt terrible after all the work she had put into the wedding arrangements in Italy. We were left with the timing questions; Do we reschedule in 2021? Do we do a small wedding in LA? Philly? Dallas? Mexico? Florida, aka COVID’s bedpan? It needs to be outside. It needs to be within driving distance. This state has quarantine rules. That place just had a spike. We can’t do it for that reason. The considerations were endless, it was like playing a game of minesweeper!! After months of getting asked the same question “What are you going to do?” we finally said FUCK IT, we’re doing it in 2020! After a summer trip to Beaver Creek, CO we drove to the Broadmoor in Colorado Springs and fell in love with it. We found an incredible Rabbi, R’Sherwood, who agreed to marry us and we booked it on the spot and were tasked with planning a wedding in 23 days - thus ensued the scramble.
After much deliberation (and pleading) for certain people to come to the wedding, we ultimately had to accept the realities of the situation and push through despite many key people’s unwillingness to come. In their absense, they gave endearing zoom speeches and we were able to zoom the entire ceremony for those watching at home. In the end we had the most stunning wedding imaginable in a safe outdoor environment at the foothills of the Rocky Mountains under a perfect summer night sky with 50 of our close friends and family.
My gorgeous wife Laurelle looked stunning in her wedding gown and I was brought to tears watching her walk down the aisle with her parents at her side. We delivered our vows under a beautiful chuppah and then we had a killer reception followed by an epic silent disco until the final hours of the night. The whole experience resembled something of storybook magic and just like that, it was over in a flash. We laughed and looked at each other the whole time thinking, “I can’t believe we pulled this off, we’re going to have a story to tell one day!” My mother, who is generally hard to please and had a lot of reservations about a COVID wedding, even remarked that this was the greatest day of her life. We all needed something uplifting to pull us out of a tough year.
We caved, we got a Pandemic Puppy
If you would have asked me back in May when we came to Austin for Memorial Day weekend that we’d be back in Austin, married with a dog, I would say you’re absolutely nuts! We initially tried to adopt but COVID was the best thing that ever happened to shelter dogs as there were none to be found. Laurelle spent countless hours looking and conversing with other dog crazed prospectors before ultimately finding our ONE. We picked up Brody Babo Roseman the golden doodle from a breeder in Dallas and welcomed the adorable tasmanian devil into our home. We got him acclimated in Dallas for a few nights before we drove to Austin for our two month test run…
(Also, hot business idea: the Equinox of doggy day cares in West LA. When people go back to work, someone is going to have to watch these pups! Laurelle and I bought DoodleDayCare.com in the hopes of one day opening up a location)
Austin - The Texadus
The Texadus is real. We had heard for years now about the momentum Austin was picking up from the coastal crunchies who had made the jump. We had heard about the alluring no-state income tax and the general life arbitrage of Austin (incredible outdoor lifestyle and amazing cultural scene but with a lower cost of living). Laurelle went to college there and we knew how much it had grown into an intellectual capital city and we were both excited to get to know the city in a new way. We were lucky enough to have two friends who had just left SF and started a company in Austin. They had rented a massive 4,000 sqft mansion equipped with a full workspace, pool, jacuzzi and yard, to use as their headquarters for the company. They got a call to go to Alabama for a Techstars program for the fall and in their benevolence they left us their house for two months. So Laurelle, myself and our new pup Brody went down to Austin and made the most out of it. We already had incredible friends living in Austin like Alex, Eddie & Courtney, but we made it a point to get to know more people, understand the Jewish community and explore the outdoors. We went on a number of blind couples dates with people that we had mutual friends. We somehow found our way into the Libertarian crowd of San Francisco defectors spawned from Joe Lonsdale’s arrival to town. We hiked and biked through the Austin hill country, hit as many taco spots and breweries we could find and of course, got acquainted with the BBQ of the County line. We ended our stint in Austin by playing adults and hosting Thanksgiving for my in-laws at the house. Overall, we gave Austin a 10/10 score.
Take That Trip:
While most years in recent memory we had international boondoggles and excursions, this year was exclusively a domestic one. This year we hit Austin (2x), Dallas (2x), Beaver Creek (1x), Aspen (1x), Portland (1x), Seattle (1x), Big Sur/SF (1x), Philly (1x). While the first quarter had a number of business trips, the remainder of the year had a bit more purpose-built travel. We spent memorial day weekend in Austin, staying in the Proper hotel when the world thought we were insane to travel. Oh well. Then, what was intended to be our wedding weekend, Laurelle and I drove up the coast to hike and look at the stunning ocean cliffs in Big Sur before heading to Napa Valley to meet up with Rijon & Dan for a three day tour-de-force of the vineyards. The highlight was getting a private tasting at a South African family owned vineyard (Ellman Family Vineyard). That trip was a perfect way to commiserate our dashed hopes and dreams of a Tuscan wedding. We also rented a house in Beaver Creek over the summer where we golfed, hiked and got some quality family time in. After our actual wedding we did a mini-moon in Aspen. It was the perfect sequel to the wedding insanity and we totally fell in love with Aspen. We went fly fishing, biking, hiking, ate incredibly well and explored the quaint town. While this year was certainly more grounded than previous years, we vowed to ourselves to travel as much as we can next year (and 2022) to take advantage of the final years before kids.
Find your Passion (project)
I’ve always loved building things. I loved the process of building legos as a kid, I find the idea of putting together furniture rather therapeutic and I’ve always loved that feeling of completing a project. As a lifelong learner and aspiring life hacker, I’ve always used journaling as an outlet to concretize my thoughts and work through various things in my life. I took these two areas of my life and decided to build a project that is near and dear to my heart. I wanted to build some piece of software that would enable me to eat my own dog food. I wanted to solve my own problem first as entrepreneurial wisdom tends to allude to. I truly didn’t feel like there was the right dedicated, well-designed, safe space for journaling online. Numerous other groups have built products to tackle this issue like 750words, reflection.app, journey, Day One, Jour and others but something was missing in my eyes from those products. While I’m not a software developer or engineer I decided to use my resources to hire international designers and engineers to build out the project - Emote. While I’m still improving the product and will one day charge a subscription fee for the service, I’m having a ton of fun on this project with my friend Erick. We’ve learned a lot and been exposed to a ton. At one point we were #70 globally in the Pioneer competition. A few takeaways from this experience thus far: 1) If you can change one persons life, its worth it: My good friend Sam had a really rough year and has been a power user on Emote ever since launch. He told me that Emote has really helped him clarify some thoughts around the immense change he’s experienced in his life. 2) The knowledge economy truly is global: by utilizing Upwork, I was able to hire a phenomenal designer in Bangalore, an incredible website developer in Patalia, India, and a strong web developer in Warsaw, Poland. 3) Building software is hard and everyone has their own opinion: We interviewed dozens of users, designers, product folks, academics, psychologists and they all validated the need for the product but they all had very different opinions on how to do it. Now that I’ve built Emote, I feel like I’ve ripped the band-aid off of building basic software and leveraging resources to go from 0 to 1. I’m much more confident in building than I was before.
Drink from the well of inspiration
The first truly inspirational, albeit devastating moment, was early February when I got the news that Kobe Bryant died. I was so distraught as my family has a personal relationship with the Bryant family back in Philadelphia. It rocked our community back in Lower Merion (Philly) but it had a meaningful message to me. It reminded me to attack my dreams with fervor, to not let anything stand in my way and go after the life I want to live. This year I thank Kobe for his lasting memory of the mamba mentality and perseverance, David & Ginger for leading through unrelenting turbulence and always doing the right thing, Suzette for pushing relentlessly for a wedding, Ed for personifying who I want to be at 82, Dan G for maintaining patience through everything he’s been through, Dan M for living with the breeze blowing him in all directions, Mike for his openness to explore his forgotten roots, Brian & Jessie for manifesting the life they dreamed of, Aaron for being the ultimate mensch and super connector, Howard for starting small and carving his own path, Packy for taking the leap, Alex for seeing his startup through to an exit in the pandemic. This year I also found inspiration and entertainment in the literature I read: Greenlight (Diving into the depths of McConaughey), Be Water my friend (Working on flexibility of mind), Homo Deus (trying to understand how society works), Grit (Working on perseverance), The Force (Police, felt fitting for 2020), Enemy of All Mankind (understanding 1600s terrorism), The Outsiders (Capital efficiency), Adventure Capitalist (arm chair adventure), Lands of Lost Borders (A journey through the Silk Road by Kate Mars), The Stranger in the woods, Endurance (Ed Shackleton’s bet on himself), Travels with Charlie (A sobering view of America and travel), Lifespan (understand aging as a disease), What it Takes (Stephen Schwartzman’s rise), and The Ride of a Lifetime (Bob Iger’s journey).
Looking Ahead - The hard thing about hard things is that they’re hard
Laurelle and I spent much of 2020 constantly working on defining who we were and our sense of worth. We were in the consistent toil of where we're going to live, what will become of our careers (taking very circuitous paths, not at all linear), and where do we want to raise a family. It was a tough year. We are not unique in feeling that. The Coronavirus pandemic was some scary shit and more or less destroyed life as we knew it. We experienced some jarring losses in our lives this year, including our close friend’s mother and a friend of mine in LA, but all the more so, we have to hold this life we have as the most precious gift.
While the year is not quite complete and I expect more things will play out over the next 2.5 weeks like vaccine roll outs, a most unique Christmas time and some Lebron buzzer beaters, this is the time to reflect and begin the self-preservation process for 2021. I have high hopes for the new-normal post-vaccine and hope we as a society capitalize on many of the things that we prioritized during lockdowns.
Going into the new year Laurelle and I have some big plans. While it’s not quite finalized, we hope to start the next chapter of our life in a new place. As I said when I moved to LA, “Shinui makom, shinui mazal” (change your place, change your flow) and thus I found my wife. As we think about where to next, we know we want to be closer to family, surrounded by people that inspire us and our careers and live in a place that we could realistically and affordably raise a family. 2020 certainly accelerated things for us and we’re not about to add friction to the equation.
While I never set concrete goals for the year, I do live by mantras and quotes. Last year I sent myself off with these two quotes: 1) Prove them wrong: “The great pleasure in life is doing what people say you cannot do.” 2) Laugh more: “Laughing will and always will be the best form of therapy.” I think we proved it and we sure as hell laughed while doing it.
This year I send myself off with these three quotes and adjoining messages:
1) “If the path before you is clear, you're probably on someone else's.” Eric stay confident that it will make sense in the end.
2) “Pursue your passion, and everything else will fall into place. This is not being romantic. This is the highest order of pragmatism.” Eric, do what you believe is right and excites you and the the rest will work itself out.
3) “The family is the test of freedom; because the family is the only thing that the free man makes for himself and by himself.” Eric, focus on Laurelle and her needs and the family you two will create will thrive.