The parts that don't fit on a résumé.
I get asked what I do outside of work and I never know how to answer, because the line isn't where people expect it. Training, travel, reading, dinners, dancing badly at other people's weddings — none of it is a break from the rest of my life. It's most of the reason the rest of it is worth doing.
I have never been particularly interested in doing one thing. Payments by day, nightclubs by night, a long dinner table somewhere in between. People keep asking which one is the real job. All of them, most weeks.
The ordinary stuff
Training
Early, unglamorous, six days a week when travel allows. It's less about fitness than about starting the day having already done something hard.
Food & the table
I'd rather host eight people badly than book somewhere impressive for two. The food matters less than how long people stay.
Dancing
Badly, without apology. If you play records for people and won't dance yourself, something has gone wrong.
Wellness
Sleep, sunlight, water, and not drinking every night I'm out. Deeply boring, works better than anything I've bought.
Friends
A small number of people I've kept for a long time, plus a wide circle I'd happily put in a room together. Both take maintenance.
Learning
One subject at a time, chased until it either stops being interesting or turns useful. Right now it is production — actually finishing tracks rather than starting them.
Things I'm Curious About
Open loops, not projects. Some of these will go nowhere.
- 01
Why some cities produce scenes and others, with more money, never do.
- 02
How much of great taste is exposure versus temperament.
- 03
What AI actually changes about small businesses, once the hype clears.Ideas: Technology
- 04
Whether it's too late to learn an instrument properly rather than by ear.
- 05
The economics of restaurants, which everyone says is a terrible business and everyone keeps entering.
- 06
Whatever I fell down a hole reading about at 1am — lately, how much of a city's nightlife is planning and how much is one stubborn promoter.
Things I'm Working On
Personal, not professional. The business version lives elsewhere.
- 01
Sleeping properly on show weeks instead of pretending I've solved it.Now
- 02
Finishing books instead of collecting them at 60%.
- 03
Producing more of my own material rather than only playing other people's.Music
- 04
Being genuinely present at dinner — phone in another room, not face-down on the table.
- 05
Saying no earlier, and more plainly, so I don't say yes resentfully.
- 06
Answering messages the day they arrive instead of in a guilty batch on Sunday.
Books That Changed How I Think
Not a recommended reading list. These are the ones that rearranged something.
- 01
The business book I actually reread rather than recommend.Title going here once I stop changing my mind about it.
- 02
Something on faith I argue with more than I agree with. Arguing with it is the point.
- 03
A biography that made an unusual life look navigable instead of lucky.
- 04
A novel, because a diet of non-fiction makes people boring at dinner.
- 05
The one I was assigned far too young and understood about a decade later.
Places and Experiences
Where I've been changed by something, not where I've been.
- 01
Living in Israel. Everything I think about pressure, and most of what I think about community, starts there.The story so far
- 02
Tel Aviv, for the version of nightlife where the sun comes up on the water.
- 03
Peru, for the trip that made my ordinary problems look small.
- 04
A long table in Italy, which was really about the people at it rather than the food.
- 05
Austin, which I keep choosing on purpose rather than by default.
Fitness
Training is the only part of the day nobody can move
I am not a fitness person in the way that word usually gets used. I lift because the discipline leaks into everything else, and because starting the day having already done something hard makes the rest of it easier to argue with.
Strength
Barbell work, mostly. Boring, repeatable, six days a week when travel allows. Progress measured in years rather than weeks.
Mobility
The part I ignored for a decade and now do first. Hips, shoulders, ankles — the tax you pay for sitting and standing behind decks.
On the road
Show weeks wreck routines. The goal on tour is not progress, it is not going backwards: sleep, water, and something every morning even if it is twenty minutes.
Discipline in one place tends to leak into the others.
- 01
Consistency beats intensity, and it is not close.
- 02
The days I least want to go are the days it does the most.
- 03
Nobody is watching, which is the entire point of the habit.
- 04
Recovery is training. Took me years and one bad back to accept that.
People
Dating, friendship, and the things I am still working out
I spend most of my life putting people in rooms together, which does not make me an expert on any of this — it mostly means I have watched a lot of it up close.
What I have landed on so far is unremarkable and hard to do: be clear about what you want, be kind about it, and stop auditioning. The people worth keeping are usually the ones who saw an unedited version early and stayed anyway.
Most of the best things in my life started because I said yes to something inconvenient. Almost none of them started because I had a strategy.
- 01
Friendship takes maintenance nobody warns you about in your twenties.
- 02
Being interesting is mostly being interested.
- 03
You cannot host your way out of a conversation you should be having directly.
Around the world
Life Beyond the Map
Most of the best things in my life started because I said yes to a flight. Twenty-odd countries so far — some for music, some for family, most for no better reason than wanting to see it.
Tap a country
Middle East
Israel
Tel Aviv · Jerusalem
Not a trip. I lived there.
Volunteering, teaching, training as a medic, and DJing at Shalvata on the water in Tel Aviv. Everything about how I handle pressure comes from those years.
North America
South America
Europe
Middle East
Still exploring. The list is mostly a record of saying yes — and most of what stuck came from the weeks that weren't planned.
The gallery, by destination
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Things I'm Still Bad At
Ongoing. No end date.
A running list, kept honest
- 01
Patience with slow processes I can't control — airports, regulators, group chats deciding on a restaurant.
- 02
Cooking anything that requires more than one pan.
- 03
Golf, enthusiastically and repeatedly.
- 04
Stopping at one more email before bed.
- 05
Small talk with an agenda. I'd rather ask you something strange.
- 06
Remembering names within ten seconds of hearing them, despite building a life around meeting people.
- 07
Leaving a night early. I have never once done it and not been glad afterwards.
None of this is a hobby section. It's most of the reason the work is worth doing.