2024 - When Life Begins
(Prior Year in Reviews, 2023, 2022, 2021, 2020, 2019, 2018, 2017, 2016)
“There are years that ask questions, years that answer them” said Zora Neale Hurston. While all the platitudes of having a child are true, nothing ever sinks in until you’ve experienced it. “Savor it, it goes by quickly…Kids change everything, especially your perspective and priorities…Your life will never be the same.” Noted. Heard. Acknowledged. Understood.
We welcomed Owen Charlie Roseman at the tail end of 2023 and things got really real, really quickly. We became enraptured in the newborn responsibilities - the endless diaper changes, the sleepless nights, the frustration of not knowing what to do to calm down a crying baby and more. Nothing prepares you for the newborn phase, despite overconfidently sharing publicly that I was “ready.” Mistake!
Learning to adapt was not easy. As Laurelle recovered and tended to every feed, I picked up the cooking and cleaning responsibilities. Evolutionary biology conditions new moms like Laurelle to spring into action; nature takes over. For me, paternal responsibilities were a willful effort as my biological intuition was to click ‘snooze’ and resist. Laurelle had always handled the homemaking and made it look so effortless. I used my paternity leave time to lean into the kitchen, whipping up fajitas, lamb gyros, fresh fish and all the rest.
I fell out of any semblance of a pre-baby routine in the first months with Owen. Sleep became a more rarefied commodity than ever before and the concept of exercising felt as foreign as a Siberian fire ceremony. With all those bleary eyed moments, those 2am and 5am wake ups, when the world is still, remain the universes special times for the caregiving bond to build. The lack of sleep really tested our patience as we went through the baby sleep regressions. Tirelessly trying to calm a crying baby, attempting every gimmick and living with the bags under our eyes felt like it would last a lifetime. At 6 months, he started to regress again, finding separation anxiety as his soup du jour. It was a test of our wits amongst Laurelle and I but we found a way to get through it, like everyone does. Another example of finding mutual respect for your partner as the only way to solve challenges together.
Going back to work, I felt dumb and brain dead from the lack of sleep. Stringing together sentences felt like an arduous task and I felt like I was once an A player now subverted to a B player. My attention span was shot, my health was subpar and I just didn’t feel like I was performing at my best. I felt inferior and all I was asking for was empathetic reaffirmation and a good night’s sleep. Michael Lewis’s Home Game provided the perfect twisted irony of fatherhood. Look no further than the front cover to know what I mean.
“Sometimes you will never know the value of a moment until it becomes a memory.” -Dr. Seuss
As the months went on and Owen started to grow up, hit milestones and become a little personality with limbs, I kept coming back to the feeling and advice of every parent ahead of me. It goes by fast so don’t wish it away. It hit me hardest one spring day at the Dallas Arboretum on March 1st - perfect day - a picnic with Laurelle and Owen enjoying the fruits of life.
I yearned to put life in a bowl of molasses and repeat Billy Joel’s Vienna:
Slow down, you crazy child
you're so ambitious for a juvenile
But then if you're so smart, tell me
Why are you still so afraid?
Everyone says nothing can prepare you and I’m here to validate, nothing can prepare you! Your sense of “free time’” doesn’t exist unless you’re ruthless about becoming efficient and maximizing the barbells of the day, pre (baby) wake and post sleep. It’s amazing what you learn to accomplish with one hand as you hold your baby in the other. It may be trite but it’s true, having a child teaches you patience. Trying to get 5 oz into the child and you’re late for dinner: patience and acceptance. Trying to get out of the house but it takes you 3x as long as you thought to pack up the carrier and everything else: patience and acceptance.
Laurelle and I always talk about how children give your life meaning. Before them, you’re racing towards an unidentified hedonistic finish line. After them, you feel frantic and irritated until you see their cheeky smile and then you know its all worth it, the way your parents feel about you.
“Success is measured in bath times, not money.”
Admittedly, at 6 months it started to get more fun. Owen got used to the pool and really seemed comfortable in the water as we swam throughout the summer. He was sitting up, eating solids, and building the neurons in his brain to connect the dots to the world around him. He was becoming a smart and aware little boy. At 7 months he was adorably slurping his milk from a straw. At 8 months, he was starting to crawl and find anything six inches off the ground to grab onto. At 9 months he started doing Indian tribal noise with the back of his hand in his mouth and making sounds to call his fellow Apache tribesmen. Like Mike Tyson, he had an oral fixation and took to biting and giving us love marks on our arms, shoulders and collarbones. At 10 months he was pulling up on everything and trying to stand, vrooming around the living room in his walking car. At 11 months he was combing his hair and repeating the word “ball.” Finally at 1 Year he was taking steps like a drunkard after a bender while ghoulishly beaming with pride.
A child personifies the notion that it’s the journey, not the destination.
If you look externally for validation, you’ll come up short. As Gene Wilder notably sings in Willy Wonka, “If you want to view paradise, simply look around and view it…”
Laurelle, The Super mom:
How the hell do working moms do it! I have no idea but no one performs the duality better than my wife who takes it on gracefully. She’s a hands on mom with Owen and yet continues to thrive professionally. She runs our household, never misses a party or event with Owen, and makes sure he’s happy, well dressed, fed and content. Meanwhile, she’s slinging digital infrastructure while she’s got one hand on the diaper pail.
Despite a year that should have been a quiet one for her, 2024 greeted Laurelle with an incredible career opportunity that she couldn’t pass up. Since 2021, she had grown her name and reputation in the cloud infrastructure space with Vultr and had become the Global Director of Channel Sales, building their partnership program from scratch.
In September, the international AI market woke up and realized Laurelle as a top talent in the industry. One day she got a call from the largest AI native cloud infrastructure company in Europe, Nebius AI, and recruited Laurelle to become their VP of US Partnerships and Alliances preceding a $700mm fundraise and relisting on the Nasdaq. This was a ‘major league’ opportunity and she jumped in head first and started working alongside some of the brightest minds in the industry and building something special.
She ignored all the naysayers who tried to hold her back and stayed focus on delivering value to her clients and partners. I’m so proud of how far she’s come and I’m in awe of her ability to build relationships and trust with international technology companies in this booming AI & cloud computing industry. I always tell her that we’ll look back on these years and realize she was on the ground floor, providing shoots and ladders, to the dominant AI companies defining the next technology revolution.
On the personal front, we celebrated 4 years of marriage anchored on mutual respect and a true partnership to build a life together. We’re always each other’s first person to proofread an important email. We tag team the baby responsibilities like a military platoon and we hold each other accountable to make sure we get out and golf even on a 104 degree, yet beautiful, day in Scottsdale, Arizona.
Building a Home:
We made the best decision of our lives in Feb 2022 when we moved to Dallas. “Many hands make life easy” and “raising a child takes a village” are both cliches that I can attest as truth!
I have no regrets about the stage and decisions we’ve made about our life. We often yearn for our younger years and vibrant city days but Laurelle and I are both grateful we had a chance to ‘grow up’ before we met each other and started a family.
‘You want to get to a city while you're young, 'cause once you start collecting dogs and kids it gets very hard to stay in the city.’ - Professor Scott Galloway
Our home went from an extremely organized home for adults to something only Boyle’s Law can explain: the baby stuff will find a way to fill up the entire container for which its housed. We turned every vacant space into some kind of play area as if we had different sound stages or movie sets for different parts of Owen’s day.
We continued to invest in our home and revel in its offerings. My backyard remains my little slice of heavenly oasis, despite the mosquitos emanating from the creek. Every time I sit out back, listen to the bird chirps and hear the water flowing, I’m at total ease.
I also finally heeded the green-thumb resolution and put the idle planter to good use in the back yard as we planted sweet cherry purple tomatoes. I proved to myself that I’m not utterly worthless in the garden.
Xeal - Year 3
Like my purple tomatoes, I had planted a seed and watched it grow into a thriving fruit-bearing plant. Over the last three years I had been in the trenches alongside the executive team at Xeal building the pre-eminent EV charging brand for multi-family and commercial use. As rates continued to stay higher-for-longer, the building community slowed down and the cost of capital rose for discretionary spending for our clients. While I remain bullish on the electric future, the path to getting there seemed longer and more volatile than I originally thought back in late 2021 when I made the jump and published my thesis. We were executing against our playbook but ultimately it wasn’t materializing fast enough.
I often equated it to the chemistry rules of ‘baking bread.’ We all want to bake bread in 90 seconds but if you turn up the heat to 1,000 fahrenheit, all you’re going to get is a burnt outside with unleavened yeast in the middle. So in Q1, as we were miraculously deploying EV chargers at the fastest rate in company history, winning large new clients and expanding with happy existing partners, the business underwent a personnel line-change and I felt my time was coming to an end and needed to make room for the next crop of sales leaders. I remain an energetic and optimistic strategic advisor to the executive team and know that Xeal will have a successful exit one day as it currently sits in a strong position in its category.
I ultimately felt that I was ready for my next full time challenge using the mental framework I’d built when evaluating new opportunities. I ultimately chose the leading company in a more mature industry that could put new emerging technology to use with an extremely high ROIC; Metropolis Technologies.
Metropolis, a new day 1
It’s funny how timing works out! In 2018, I had met a rag-tag bunch of entrepreneurs who wanted to change the face of the parking industry. I liked their enthusiasm, their unwillingness to fit the traditional business model mold and they had the ‘tech company attitude’ of break things and move fast. I lobbied my firm to give them a chance to run the parking on a newly acquired asset in West LA, we launched with great success and then COVID hit. Fun!
In any event, I had gotten to know the management team, flirted with the idea of joining them full time as an early employee in ‘18 and looked at investing into the business after a mentor of mine, Dave E, had seeded the company (I ultimately did 3 years later in the Series B). Fast forward to June of this year, they had just completed an industry-shaking take private of the largest parking company in America and they had asked me to join the company to run the strategic account sales team at Metropolis. On June 10th I joined the company in a whirlwind of post-acquisition integration frenzy where the fish swallowed the whale!
I went to Nashville for the post-close kick off where we dove into the tactical deployment necessary to fulfill the deal thesis of acquiring SP+. I inherited most of the existing national account team and tried to look at the skills and roles of the individuals and start to put people in the best place to succeed while trying to fill in the gaps that would allow us to hit our goals. We had some star position players and as a new coach in the dugout, I was trying to learn from them and offer help where I could. On the client front, I really tapped into my former network from CBRE and Lincoln Property Company where a lot of my relationships were with asset owners and asset managers that have direct decision making impacts for parking and technology decisions. Where I lacked in parking specific knowledge, I made up in real estate ownership decision making know-how.
90 days in I led my team offsite in LA to really start the bond and trust building. I was reminded of the article I wrote about the art and science of sales people as we walked through account plans and tactical sales motions. This team had a healthy mix of both (art & science) with a strong slant toward scientific sellers. As I continued to evaluate what the team needed, I could sense a much deeper need for artful hunters to round out the group and would start to bring in a few more experienced sellers like Sam R.
Six months into the role and I can confidently say that I’m having a ton of fun but we have a lot more to go to fulfill the best version of ourselves. I’ve made countless mistakes thus far but my goal is not to repeat them twice.
Be A Student of the Game
I love coming into a new industry and playing the ‘new guy.’ You’re only new once so you get a handicap to ask basic questions, learn the players, read research reports, study the history of the industry and come to your own fresh conclusions on how the industry ticks. I’m lucky to have a boss, Ryan, who grew up in the industry from the entry rung as a valet all the way through as CEO of a top parking operator and now as CRO of the largest parking technology and operator in the country. I’m also lucky to have some exceptional talent on the team that I’m learning from every single day like Ed and Casey. While I’ve only been in the role for the last six months, I’ve loved reading and learning about the industry nuances and providing a fresh enthusiasm to what many people take for granted as just a concrete place to park cars. As for the learning perch, I’m lucky to be learning at the fastest growing company in the category. It’s amazing to see how fast Metropolis is expanding its user base (surpassed 10MM members in early December as we took over airports like San Antonio or huge medical campuses throughout Texas) and how viral the experience is for people.
Friends of mine around the country love to text me to tell me that they parked in a Metropolis garage; it makes my day!
Health
If not now, when? Having a child is a constant reminder that you have to be mentally and physically strong if you want longevity. The first few months post-child are really tough and your health takes a backseat to survival mode. The lack of sleep from the newborn phase and the extra demands on your time often lead to shedding exercise in the limited allocation of time resources in lieu of family and work. Once I got through those first few months, I set myself back up to prioritize my health and routines. I tried to get back to the gym as much as possible, used my yoga mat in our living room and backyard for impromptu workouts and tried to walk outside as much as possible to stay active. Nothing tests your flexibility and agility as much as playing on the ground with your kid and the constant abs and lower back workouts of picking them up, changing diapers and then battling sitting at your desk all day.
Explore your backyard, Build your community:
I didn’t have a chance to explore as much this year as I would have liked because of the more sedentary routine with a baby but we tried to escape a bit and get around Dallas. We did a lot of walking! We explored the Nasher Museum and the downtown Jazz walk. We took stroller walks in the Spring Creek Natural Preserve, Frisco Commons and the Dallas Botanical Gardens. We even began the baby activities by hitting the Dallas aquarium in July to show Owen the real fishes he so desperately tries to catch in his bath.
We also were able to escape for some solo time as we played Fields West at the PGA Frisco, tried Uchiko at Legacy West or went to the Granada Theatre to see Guster for the 12th time (Gusterroids assemble)!
While it was harder to get out and socialize this year than years prior, we started building our community of ‘parent friends.’ Laurelle took the lead, enrolling her and Owen into music class and mommy-and-me - meeting new moms that ultimately had dad’s that I could yuck it up with at pool parties and one year old birthday parties.
We’re lucky to have a strong family in Dallas between my in-laws and their cousins as well. Whether it was celebrating a bar mitzvah or attending Ricky’s 40th masquerading as a color war, the feeling that we belong in North Dallas was further solidified. It’s incredible to see Owen grow up around a host of cousins between the ages of 4 - 13 that will show him the way. The kid only says one thing, “ball!” so I think he’ll be in good company with the soccer star cousins.
Amidst The Change, The Constant Remains
I’m lucky to watch all my closest friends journey through similar life stages together. Nearly all of my best friends have kids under two years old and it’s great to watch them evolve into dads and work through life’s’ challenges together. While we all hunker into our daily lives, we pop out once in a while to get together and teleport back to our youth.
This year, the last of my close Day 1 friends got married, Sam! We had a bachelor party and spent the weekend in the Catskills of NY at an 1890’s built manor celebrating the final holdout. We had a great weekend of hanging out, playing games and reverting back to our pre-responsibility ways.
We all put years on our age but at the end of the day, the boys will be boys. Sam’s wedding was one of our last hoorahs and a chance to ditch kids and have a big weekend all together. Everyone seems to be married off with children, dogs, houses and careers and so its great to escape and find time to let loose.
As for my immediate family, it was a tough year back in Philadelphia. My grandma passed away after 10 years of late stage dementia. It was brutally difficult for my mom, but it was her time. My uncle Jon also had open heart surgery and his long battle with health has been grueling on my parents. They have such incredible resolve and I’m inspired by their fortitude when I know they sometimes just want to run away from it all. On a cheerful note, we maintained our summer tradition of going to a Phillies game and bringing the good luck for a Nick Castellanos walk off!
The trips home were also a great chance for my son to meet his great grandma, Marilyn, who turned 95 and continues to remain whip-it smart and aware of what’s happening. We think its her non-judgmental approach to life that continues to let her barrel through the ages.
Take That Trip
We traveled differently this year and rather hastily. Business trips were cut down to minimize fluff time, vacations were accompanied by a lot of check-in luggage and on the whole we cut down our travel time quite considerably.
This year my itinerary looked like this: Tampa, Nashville (3x), NYC (3x), LA (2x), Philly, Napa, Salt Lake City, Chicago, Vegas, Houston, Austin, Mexico and Naples. Unlike most years, I lost my airlines status for lack of frequency.
Traveling with a kid is an experience. We braved a Naples trip with Owen at 2 months old which was a true awakening to the change to leisure travel. We then positioned ourselves in Vail Colorado as a family for two weeks in a VRBO. This was a bit more reasonable as we had picnics with Owen, showed him the community vegetable garden and went for trail walks as a general reprieve from the Texas summer heat. Laurelle and I got a chance to golf and I escaped a few times to go biking in the crisp Mountain air while the parents held down the fort.
We also went back to Philly in June and introduced Owen to his great grandma, his great aunts, and his nephews. The boys took well to Baby Owen and as my nephew put it succinctly, “when Baby Owen grows up, he’ll simply be Owen.”
As for work travel, Laurelle and I had to trade off weeks of travel as she also had to get on the road to see clients and attend conferences. Considering we both have client facing sales leadership roles, it’s a constant challenge to find the right balance of time away. We both understand the importance of in-person meetings but we also don’t want to miss the early days of parenting and leave the other one holding the bag. More then ever I had to get comfortable missing trips and trusting those on my team to show face and knock it down.
Drink from the Well of Inspiration
Last year I covered what inspired me most, which were my peers that found balance in their parenting and work ambitions. This year, I’m inspired by three (3) main categories:
1) Wise and accomplished men that have built long and steady careers while also ensuring their kin have the right values 2) peers of mine that seem to have endless energy as they pour it into their work and into their families. 3) Mom’s that seem to make the work/child balance look easy as I’ve watched my wife do it gracefully, but I see how taxing it is.
This year I’m inspired by Chad A’s ability to fit in a father of three with a thriving business. I’m inspired by Ryan H’s humility and rise to leadership as a single dad. I’m inspired by David C’s ability to be an engaged father of three and lead his company through another acquisition. I’m inspired by Brett M’s ability to face personal adversity and show up with a smile on his face every day. I’m inspired by Courtney F’s ability to lead an acquisition with an infant on her hip. I’m inspired by Lou B’s relentlessness to maneuver and battle for what he believes in. I’m inspired by Pat B’s faith driven life and routine despite decades of success. I’m inspired by Warren Buffett, Charlie Munger and Charles Koch’s business philosophies in investing. I’m inspired by Rocky B and Beth M who are two engaged moms and still top performers. I’m inspired by Chamath, David F, David S and Jason C for remaining endlessly curious despite their ungodly riches and successes with the eyes of the public arena upon them.
Most notably, I’ve been inspired by Ryan Holiday’s The Daily Dad. I read one page each day and tried to internalize the message. Whether your children are newborns or 25, this book is a daily reminder to focus on what matters.
The World Keeps Spinning and Next Year It Will Spin Faster
While most of my ‘24 predictions were dead wrong, I was somewhat right about Argentina’s austerity plan as a success story…
This year was eventful to say the least and I won’t recount details from the major themes like the presidential election, the war in the middle east or the social unrest of our country, but the challenge in life is to ensure you have a steady umwelt in the broader umgebong.
In 2025, my umwelt will lead me to:
Ask ‘why not?’
Find more joy in the mundane
Not take it personally
Next year I turn 35, the halfway mark in a decade thats’ been an important and meaningful one. Next year, like this year, the demands on my time and attention will only grow. As we get older, the goal is to continually and efficiently focus on what matters and mentally side-channel the things that don’t OR are out of our control. I’m often asked “why don’t you seem to care about X?” My answers are always some form of “It’s not that I don’t care, its that I need to preserve my energy and attention for the things within my control.” That’s my umwelt.
As I look back on the year, I’m proud of what we accomplished despite many days, nights and weeks feeling like it was never going to end. A friend of mine called me in January when our son was three weeks old and said something that I’ll never forget. “Congrats on your baby boy; now is when life begins.”
I loved this update and look into your life! Thanks for writing it, especially since time is tight! Sending good vibes your way!