Annual Goals: 2023

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2023 Goals

Life goals.

I started taking the concept of setting “life goals” seriously in 2011. I was 19, and I had just sort of started to realize I was going to have to figure out what I wanted to do with my life for myself — most of my concepts of what other people wanted for me had started to loosen in my head, and for the first time in my life I felt like I seriously had a chance at having a say in how I spent the majority of my time. The end of college / homework was on the horizon, and I was just starting to imagine what the freedom adult life might provide would allow me to do. I wanted a better view of where my interests would take me.

I set some pretty ambitious yet somehow quite average and boring goals back then. Own a lambo, etc.

One really stood out to me: Make $60k/month. I did that for the first time in 2020. I’ve done it 6-10 months or so since then. I think this year will be the year I unlock that level of personal income every month ongoing. Finally.

Anyway, from setting those goals I noticed a couple things early on. By 2015 I had read enough & listened to enough podcasts and interviews to have picked up on some good habits & techniques for making these goals work even better for me. I’d started analyzing which goals would have the biggest impact on the world with the help of a framework from Peter Diamandis. I had begun to evaluate which goals to do when and started some rudimentary time-boxing with the help of James Clear and his write— ups about Eisenhower Boxes. So that year I wrote my first REALLY truly long term goals, my first 100 year goals, and I thought about publishing them.

I really didn’t have a community back then. I didn’t know anyone who cared about designing their lifestyle, or traveling or making their own living as a business owner. I didn’t know how to find those people. I wanted to change the world and I felt really alone.

In 2015 and 2016 I went to a BUNCH of conferences, I traveled and stayed with as many friends as I could convince to have me all over the country, and made 1000 videos and practiced storytelling. I found my people.

In 2017 I published my 1000 year goals and I got voluntold to run TEDxCOS. That was the year I finally started just being openly myself and the people I wanted around me waltzed into my life.

For several years until the pandemic I got to host some amazing events, work with awesome clients, and now post-pandemic in 2022 I’ve been a part of the same business community in downtown Colorado Springs for an entire decade (since my time-lapse was published and went viral in 2012, which is the first thing most locals remember of my work), and I’ve really felt like I got the life I wanted the last couple years.

I don’t think it’s accidental that these goals helped me get there, and I think it’s been important as well that since 2020 I’ve been turning my 1000-year goals into daily habits in these posts as well.

Last year however I got so caught up in re-writing and perfecting my goals that I didn’t publish them at all!

In 2021 I write mora.co/cassandra about my 1000 year goals, in an attempt to inspire people who were older than I was and felt like making 100 year goals was kind of silly — to inspire them to try anyway, even if the timelines are unrealistic. I ended up just writing a post that was way too long, and so in 2022 I tried to make a much shorter post.

If I am to speak ten minutes, I need a week for preparation; if fifteen minutes, three days; if half an hour, two days; if an hour, I am ready now. — Mark Twain

Anyway, this year’s post is going to be whatever length it is when I’m done writing, and I’m going to hit publish. It’s 7pm, Sunday, January 15th. Here’s the original Notion doc I wrote this in. I’m home in Rockrimmon in Colorado Springs, CO. Let’s get into it.

One thousand years from now — 3023

As always, the main events from 1023 for a dose of perspective:

2023 started on a Sunday, which was nice. 1023 started on a Tuesday. The Caliphate of Cordoba disintegrates, the Abbadid Dynasty begins. Nice work Abbad. He would live until 1042, and his caliphate would fall 50 years later. I have never heard of this event in Spain.

In Kyoto, there is a pandemic in April/May that is so swift it leaves dead bodies laying in the streets.

Dom church burns down, gets rebuilt in stone. A note for the people of the far future — if you like it, built it in stone the first time.

St. Martin’s Cathedral, Utrecht – Wikipedia

4 notable people are born (most dying between 1050 and 1080)

12 notable people die.

So in general, no one will remember me now unless I pull off some really spectacular goals between now and then. 1000 years from now will be Tuesday, January 15th, 3023, at 7:03:07 PM MST. Billions (maybe trillions by then?) of people will have no clue who I am. Delightful.

I’m going to take a cyberpunk gameplay break before writing any more.

Okay. I’m back two hours later after saving some guy from an imaginary futuristic television station where he was holed up to hide from the mafia. Very fun. Google Stadia shuts down in 3 days so I’ve tried to spend a little time cyberpunking lately, I have gamed so little in the last 6 months, I missed it.

So back to 1000 years in the future — farther than anyone is talking about right now. I doubt anyone in 1023 took much time to think about 2023, and if they had, they certainly could not have imagined how things would be different.

Same applies here. But strangely, some things are the same. Countries, businesses, families. Bars, restaurants, churches. Cities. Universities. Religions. A lot of these elements of our daily lives haven’t changed too much except perhaps the addition of some technology and payment processing.

So in 1000 years I’d like to think that part of what I do now is still around somehow. There are Italian families still making church bells 1000 years after starting their company. This should be doable.

How The World’s Oldest Bell Foundry Stayed In Business For Nearly 1,000 Years | Still Standing

In 1000 years I’d just like at least one or two of our main lines of business at Lander to still be around, still having some continuous positive impact from the work we started back in the 2020s.

The daily practice I need to implement this year to make this a reality is simple: I need to hold regular syncs with my team until they have written, documented processes in Notion for hiring & training the right kind of staff to grow & operate at least 1 or 2 lines of our business.

Once other people who are not me start doing that sort of thing on their own in Lander I’ll be more confident we’re even capable working toward 1000 year goals. Right now we’re lucky if we can keep a team together around a 3 year goal. But I think most privately owned small businesses struggle with processes until they don’t. lol.

500 years from now — 2523

In 500 years I’d like Lander to receive an award for “Top 10 oldest businesses in the solar system.” Up there with Apple & Barclays. I suspect my planet-buying fund from last year’s (or 2021s?) goals will have been deployed in some interesting ways by now, though I haven’t set that up yet, there’s no rush is there?

I would like 2523 to be another average year. I do think this is the year we should begin planning the 2525 party though, that’s gonna be a cool year. Maybe we do a fundraiser or an interstellar trip or something. At least a small kickback.

The daily practice here is to begin each day posting a piece of content or updating something on the website until we have a well-documented and permanently hosted web-presence just like I do in my personal life, per the goals I set in 2020. Check out Moraco.eth for the permanently blockchain-hosted version of my 2021 goals. Cool right?

One lifetime from now — 2123

Okay, back to the goals I might reasonably be alive for (more than a 1% chance at least…). In 2123 I’d like to be happily retired. Maybe I’ll get back into work between 2150 and 2200, but for a few decades as I ease into old age, I’d like to spend time with family, go travel, and read a LOT. I’d like to spend lots of time in this year relaxing in beautiful places with people I’ve shared much of my life with. i’d also like to do this between 40 and 50 years old, for the record. But also between 120 and 140 years old, too.

What do I want in 50 years — 2073

In 50 years I want to just be wrapping up the stuff I’m working on now. I’ll be 81, and I know a few 81 year olds now who have a daily routine not too different from my own. In that spirit I’d like to have a routine in 50 years that’s identical to my current routine:

1 — Wake up and meditate, relax, shower, post, and write for an hour. Whatever I feel like doing.

2 — Get some work done before everyone else is up.

3 — Make breakfast for the household.

4 — Work a few more hours, responding to messages & catching up on replies.

5 — Go for a walk, have a slow conversation over coffee or lunch with family or friends.

6 — Have a meeting or two, wrap up my day.

7 — Sushi or other dinner out, bowling with friends, VR games, travel, or read and go to bed early.

That’d be the perfect day in 2073. And maybe play a little more Cyberpunk 2077 since roughly 50 years from now is the year the game is set in!

What do I want in 20 years — 2043

In 20 years I want to be DONE done with all the goals currently in view, even the long term ones. I suspect I can knock these out in 10 years, but I want to be conservative on my timelines here since there’s a lot of stuff here I’ve never done:

  1. Low cost high-traffic public/private Infrastructure & transit fund or construction company. Founded or acquired and actively doing $1T of projects annually on earth & elsewhere.
  2. Luxury futuristic experience/media based hotel & resort brand. The start of this is AntlersCenter.com — Last year I bought a sunglasses brand and I learned that the smart thing to do in situations like this is buy 3 businesses and combine them to save on operating costs. So that’s the plan. We’ll see how it comes together!
  3. All lines of business for Lander complete with talented executive staff to handle acquisitions & growth, and I’m maybe just chair of the board. This includes Lander Systems (AI Tools), Lander Academy (Learning & coaching), Lander Media (Video & Social), Lander Gallery (white label digital & stock asset management), and Lander Brands (our little LVHM) as well, the holding company that includes TEDxCOS, Space Prints, OS Sunglasses, Lander Tools (notion templates) etc. etc.

What do I want in 10 years — 2033

I have no idea what I want in 10 years. I’ll come back to write ten years, have to do 3 and 5 first. Too excited by the 10 year goals I just wrote.

Okay, I’m back. In 10 years I’d like to have personally built high speed, low cost goods & people transit throughout the US that’s carbon neutral. That’s it. I imagine this will be at Physical.Capital if I manage to get the domain back since I let it expire…

What do I want in 5 years — 2028

In 5 years I want construction to have begun on Antlers Center. Really I want this in 2 years, but I’ve learned I’m too optimistic on construction timelines.

The Antlers Center

What do I want in 3 years — 2026

So I always underestimate what I can do in 3 years, and overestimate what I can do in 1.

In 3 years I’d like to have $400m in free cash flow every year from Lander Gallery, on ~$1B in revenue. It’d also be nice to still own 100% of all of our lines of business, but not sure that’s possible.

This is equivalent to 15,000 customers at our current average customer life time value. Salesforce has 10x that many customers right now (150k), so I see this as incredibly achievable.

Also worth noting is that I think we can bring our annual customer value up from ~$60k on average now to north of $1m/year per customer. In that case we’d only need 1000 customers.

So somewhere between 1000 and 15,000 customers in 3 years, $1b in revenue, 40%+ margins. I think we can beat all of those metrics 2x, so that’s my conservative goal.

I think I know how to get there from here, and I’m excited for what I’ll learn and be wrong about along the way.

What do I want in one year — 2024

This year I want to hit all the revenue & savings goals I set in 2021. I knocked goal #3 out of the park, we’ve paid everyone up front and had far fewer late invoices since 2021, thought not perfect. And my girlfriend just replaced her full time job income with a shopify store last week, we’ll see if that sticks. Good stuff. That’s what’s so fun about setting crazy goals like this, manny of them come true — and often sooner than I expected!

Anyway, the 1-year goals #1 & #2 I shared with Kevin back in Jan 2021 remain unfinished. At least we got renders done for the Antlers project this last winter!

Back then when I wrote these goals, I had *no clue* how to achieve them, and while we doubled revenue, we also tripled expenses and had to fire some clients along the way. However, now I know exactly what needs to be done going forward to hit those goals, so that’s an improvement. I’ll continue to hit my 1-year goals 3 years later, so no new 1-year goals this year. Instead, here’s what this year’s daily routine looks like:

  1. Wake up
  2. Check ads
  3. Talk to 5 customers, make 5 new ads.
  4. Write or produce some kind of content for one of the businesses.
  5. Reply to everyone on Notion
  6. 1x a week I make time in the middle of the day to do one of these: Water plants, empty inbox, have a day of meetings, wash the car.
  7. Then I go on a walk, I order dinner, and I make my plan for going to bed early. Simple & sweet.

Conclusion

2022 was about keeping my head down, focusing and getting the work done. 2023 is going to be another one of those years, but years like this allow goals like those I set in 2021 to come true. Let’s go!

This year’s goals are mostly work goals. I hope to do a review post of last year’s goals I never posted or finished writing, as they are more personal-goals-focused. Either way, big things ahead. Now back to work! Hope you enjoyed and took some inspiration from this!

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