A Year in review

This year has been a year like no other.  I wanted to write a look back at the year because there is so much that I don’t want to forget about as it feels like for us as a family we have learnt and grown together and I’m sure many others have felt the same way.

To start the year, as every year, we set our goals and my wife and I posted this on Instagram as we both felt this was an exciting year to come. 

Little did we know what 2020 had in store for us. I’m guilty of usually thinking about goals for the coming year without reflecting on what was achieved, so here are the key things that happened:

We bought a house off the internet. Site unseen.

In January/February we kicked off the year as it was destined to continue.  By buying a house off the internet in a country 5000 miles away.  That alone is a long story so where to begin?  I guess with our goals as a family.  Since more than 10 years we’ve been setting goals and always found it to be a great way to take ourselves out of the day to day and focus on where we are going.  In those goals, it’s always been on my list to have a place by the beach.  Not sure where, not sure how its always felt like a much more distant goal, one which to be honest I wondered if would just sit on that list every year and ever come to fruition. California always felt too expensive, Oregon coast was beautiful and France is always amazing but never seemed to find what we wanted.

A couple of years ago we did a road trip from France in a van with the kids (Lilly was only 6 months old) down across Spain to Portugal.  It was a beautiful trip and the kids loved camping in that van.  We ended up down in Portugal as Henry, Mark & Greg are living in Portugal now. We ended up going back again in 2019 and towards the end of the holiday we saw a house for sale so made some enquiries but turns out that it had been sold.  To be honest, its one of those enquiries you make on holiday, kind of pie in the sky thinking without much thought about the reality attached so we didn’t think much more of it but we did keep in touch with the realtor we met.

So fast forwards a couple months, we are driving to the Dirksen Derby.  We stop for gas and I check my phone quickly whilst refilling and see an email pop up from the realtor.  

“Hey Jon, we have this house for sale by a Swedish couple, we likely won’t list it but wondered if you were interested”.

It was beautiful.  Absolutely stunning, close to the beaches, between two of my best friends from the last two decades and ready to go. It’s so funny how vividly I seem to remember this as I just thought to myself if I show Mareike this listing I just know what’s going to happen.  So we start driving and I casually mention it and show her the phone.  Within seconds 

“Oh my gosh it’s beautiful, it’s my dream house, it’s heaven, we have to try and get it” she said in between pretty much being in tears.  I’d guessed right, showing her the listing put in place such a chain of events I never thought possible. 

So we get home and I reach out to the realtor, we chat through it, express interest.  Next step, we call a bank in Portugal, who help me get my NiF number - simple enough.  I then ask for a mortgage.  Also, simple enough.  I’m thinking, this might actually happen.  So after some back and forth and appropriate papers they confirm they will set me up with a mortgage.  2.3% fixed for 30 years.  This is happening?!?!?!?

So then here comes the time to go see the house.  Except we are 5,281 miles away and between work, kids and me not really still knowing if we are serious about this thing we ask a friend who is a builder by trade Bram, to go and see this house.  He comes back with a glowing reference and is hyped on it.  So then we then get the lawyers involved, we make an offer and after an easy enough negotiation we settle on a price.  This is definitely now happening?!?!?!  

We’ve had an offer accepted on a house that we haven’t actually seen ourselves yet.  Easily the biggest purchase of my life.  It felt like being in one of those rides at a theme park when you’re just being carried along.  You´re stoked but it all seems to be happening faster than you would imagine.  I mean I usually do more due diligence on buying a new TV or surfboard than this house.   So by March we have a house by the beach.  But no real plan for it.

Got a new job

The way that 2020 continued we then had a reorg at Nike which meant I moved to a category that I had always wanted to work on, Football.  Literally my dream since I started working at the company.  Amazing team, great leaders, sharing an office with someone I love working with.  The dream!

3 days later we get the first “work from home” email and we head home for 2 weeks, which became a month which became all year.  Getting used to a new team whilst on zoom calls etc and figure out a new role proved to be tricky but with our team we had some amazing resources and things like family lunch on a Thursday to chat through things it made it easier.  Working from home meant that our kids were home which made it more challenging at first but we soon got into a groove and being able to have breakfast and lunch together everyday was an opportunity I will be forever thankful for. I felt bad for single people without family close who were stuck in an apartment who must have had such a tough time without much contact to the world.

Those 3 days in the office will live long in the memory though as we had champions league on TV, take out for lunch with an epic crew. I have been so lucky with every move at Nike, with every team mate and I am so thankful for every day at the company.

Wrote a book “The Anti Blueprint Project”

One of the most positive things of the year came out of one of the worst moments as I got sick a few weeks in to the whole lockdown and felt like the world was ending.  I tested for Covid but came back negative however whatever I had meant I couldn’t get out of bed, slept 16 hours a day and lost so much strength it was crazy.  After a week of that I started feeling somewhat normal again but not strong enough to work or do much else so I started thinking about projects and one that sparked my interest was writing.  I wrote back in the day for a snowboard magazine whitelines and really enjoy it but never really gave myself the chance to make much of it.  So I started thinking through inspiring people I know with interesting paths and thought there was something in it to show people you don’t need to follow the traditional path.  It kind of inspired me to put one foot in front of the other and get moving on the book.  I’ve long wanted to work on something tangible and this felt like the thing I had been longing for.  A project rooted in something I care about (helping people realise there are multiple routes to happiness) for people I really want to help (teenagers and people at a crossroads in their lives) with people I like (Sani and Bugs my design team, Nick my editor and Moritz my digital marketing lead).  This is easily one of the proudest projects I have worked on and couldn’t be more stoked about the reaction.

The thing I loved was as many people who work at big companies find, sometimes you can question your own abilities because everyone has an opinion on everything you do whereas this was something i could drive end to end. It really energised me and showed me that I can achieve whatever I sent my mind too. Of course to round out the project full circle when i was flying to Austria to the printer i tested positive for Covid (thankfully no symptoms) but that just feels like how 2020 was destined.

Got comfortable being uncomfortable.

On the back of the book, one thing that a lot of people asked me about was the chapter on goals that I wrote.  It seems to have struck a chord with a lot of people.  So quite out of my comfort zone I set up a goals retreat, starting with one for friends and then doing one for people who had bought the books and it pretty quickly dawned on me that this could be a ´thing´.  I don’t know exactly what but I enjoy it and people seem to engage well.  I’m trying to think which other workshops I could hold next. Its funny, for the book one thing that Matt Barr always said is “the thing with any creative endeavour is you just have to not care what anyone thinks” which rings true for me both on the book and also with these workshops.

Cheered on my wife as she built her business, Oylala Kids.

Through 2020 my wife Mareike’s business, Oylala Kids, went from strength to strength. We were initially unsure when the pandemic hit but she began having her most successful months and so she had to spend a lot of weekends sourcing more product, working on the the website and building her social following.  It’s been amazing to watch as she has taken something from a nugget of an idea to a successful business that is giving her drive and passion every single day. Between fulfilment centres, facebook ads, instagram communities and wholesale partners she has learnt so much and really built a successful business. All those weekends she worked where worth it!

Moved across the world with kids on 2 days notice.

We LOVED living in Portland.  It’s the best city in the US for a growing family I would say.  Especially if you love the outdoors, football and good food and coffee.  However this year it felt like it all came to a head.

There were nightly peaceful protests in the aftermath of the George Floyd murder which  unfortunately then led to violence against property which before long meant that federal troops were on the streets. Armed with tear gas, rubber bullets and orders to break up anything flaring up.  Talk about throwing gas on a fire.  It seemed to be such a volatile situation just being inflamed by insensitivity on the part of the government to the issue at hand.  So that was happening downtown, homelessness rising and a growing gap between rich and poor combined with rising covid numbers it felt like things were getting out of control. If you watch the news or listen to podcasts the news cycle can get quite over whelming

At the end of June with European countries threatening to close borders to US residents and us now having a house in Portugal, we took the step to leave one Saturday over breakfast.  Like right away.  We called delta that Saturday and got flights on the Monday morning out of Seattle to Lisbon so we packed up what we needed in 48 hours and left.  Haven’t been back since.

We still own our house in Portland, two cars and all our stuff but at the time, that felt like the best move for our family.  Arriving back to Europe has meant that we had a lot of good friends, family visiting, staying with us which has been amazing. I have found it mentally quite good being able to escape the news cycle too.

Learnt new things

One thing the pandemic I think taught me and a lot of others was the ability to slow down and cherish what we have rather than the constant desire to always strive for something new.  The day before lockdown started in the US we went and bought guitars for my son and I before getting down to it with a great app called Simply Guitar where you can learn all the chords and strings to many great songs.  Super good.

Biggest takeaways of the year:

Stop comparing myself to others.

I think I have struggled with comparing myself to others quite often and this year between writing the book, taking steps in terms of moving to a new country has helped me a lot. It’s shown me that I should believe in myself and be confident in my abilities and not worrying about what others are doing. 

Just Do It

I know. Ironic since i have spent 10 years at Nike but it is true. Sometimes you just have to start. Even if you have no clue where the finish line is or how warm the water is. Just jump in. We trusted our gut by buying a house unseen but i suppose in my very basic analysis i was thinking “i’m not a builder i wouldn’t be able to spot any issues anyways”. I started writing the book with no real plan to actually make a book it just kind of went from step to step from writing to designing to kickstarter to printing to finding a fulfilment centre. There is so much to learn along the way. There is a great quote in Seth Godins book “The Practice, Shipping Creative work” where he says “If it fails, is it worth the journey? Do you trust yourself enough to commit to engaging with a project regardless of chance of success? The first step is to separate the process from the outcome. Not because we don´t care about the outcome, but because we do”.

I love bringing people together

The book project reminded me a lot of making a snowboard film, Hungerpain. I sometimes can have the vision but not the ability to bring it to life but I LOVE bringing talented people together to work on a fun project. It`s a feeling that I really like as i suppose i see myself as the classic jack of all trades master of none and know plenty of amazing people who can fill in the gaps. For some reason though its taken me a while to get comfortable again with assuming this role.

The need for community

One thing that also stood out for me this year was despite our nomadic existence over the last 20 years having lived in the UK, France, Austria, the US and now Portugal, is the need for community.  The need for friends around who will just come and give you a hand, come look after the kids for a minute or drop in unexpectedly for a coffee.  I think the moment I realised this was this summer when I decided I wanted to build a treehouse one morning and by lunchtime we had wood ordered, 5 of us digging the hole for foundations and a local Aussie popping over with tools in hand going “I heard there was a build on so i wanted to come and help”.   That summed it up for me.

Along with that on a local level I also spent a lot of this year making time for catch ups with friends and Mentors over the phone or zoom. There are people i really made an effort to call, check in with, have conversations about life, work, parenting, business, goals. Its taken me a while to realise that this is something that needs work and cultivating but is one of the most important things to me as we move into 2021 having a close group of friends no matter how far away they are that i can always check in with and I think for a few years I maybe lost that.

Since this hopefully also shed some light onto who i am behind the scenes with this book if you wanted to learn more I also managed to do a couple of podcasts including Looking Sideways with longtime friend Matt Barr and the Inside Source from Chase Garret if you wanted more sports marketing related focus.

How will we remember 2020?

I personally hope we remember it for the sense of community that developed in March. For the reconnection many of us found to our passions. A moment where we knew we were limited in travel and so we had better get creative with where we were in life. One thing i did love was that with sport being cancelled and so much daily distraction taken away, it felt like we all had way more time. A commodity that has seemingly been sucked away by modern society and our need to be always on.

Thanks for reading, wishing everyone a successful and happy 2021. I’d love to hear either what was your highpoint of 2020 or your goals for 2021.