the last 3 months

Hey team,

Where have I been? Good question.

The past week? Lots of basketball.

War eagle to my wife and in-laws, boiler up to Sam Rolley, woo pig to everyone else.

But in other news, I wanted to give you an update. Maybe not quite as fun as the basketball you may be watching, but important nonetheless.

This year has been the wildest year of my life FOR SURE. I’ll give you a super brief breakdown, then give you a picture of where this year is headed (subject to change of course bc I like to be flexible).

January

So Grace (wife) and I lost our home in the Palisades fire that ripped across Malibu on January 7th.

I debated putting a picture of our place on here, but it’s not sitting well with me reminding myself and others of the pain. Can’t help but stare though it’s tragic. It’s a weird feeling.

Though devastating and truly an event of trauma that we’re both working through, we’ve seen the outpouring of love and generosity from our family, friends, and community.

But yes, lost everything — we packed a bag to share thinking our evacuation would last a couple nights, but that the fire would never get to our place.

Imagine having only one pair of shoes. Literally one pair. A 2 year old pair of running shoes that couldn’t have been good for me to still be wearing. Quite humbling.

Humbling also was the receiving aspect. It’s humbling to receive because while we wanted to say “no seriously, we’re fine, we don’t need anything,” we were deeply in need of help. Realizing that was a strange, unfamiliar, and difficult realization.

We spent some time in Alabama with family before heading back out to CA to a guest house we’d never seen before outside of a video.

Turns out it’s beautiful, and I see Sean McVay walking with his family every once in awhile (go rams).

February

I don’t even remember February hahaha.

Golfed once or twice, I was applying to jobs to NO avail.

One Monday in early February, we went to our church community group, and I was prayed over intentionally — asking God to provide a miracle in the area of employment.

The NEXT DAY, Will Severns and Alex Demczak send me an email with a job offer, job description built for me specifically, and I hadn’t even done an interview with these guys.

We’d had a couple conversations, but nothing seemed to be CLOSE to an offer — maybe some side work here and there.

The Lord has provided for me in my career time and time again. I’ve seen it with every single job I’ve had.

Praise God.

I’ll say it again, praise God.

March

First week of work as a content strategist for Streamline books.

I mean the work we’re doing is so cool — helping people with a story share their story. Simple as that.

So many people dream of writing a book or sharing their message on stage, and Streamline makes it happen.

I get to work with authors on the back end to build out a social strategy — posting for them on social media, building out an email newsletter, and overall building a content engine that gives them more opportunities to share their story.

More book sales, more speaking engagements, more opportunities to impact the lives they set out to impact.

COOL STUFF.

my friend phil came to town as well. had some yummy ice cream at salt n straw

What’s next?

You know, I’m not sure.

I’ve been writing very consistently on LinkedIn, and it’s been relatively easy for me - not taking as much time as it used to.

Part of me wants to turn this newsletter into something more valuable than it is now, potentially narrowing down on a more niche audience.

What I love about the work I get to do with Streamline is that I get to turn these thought leaders and authors into little content machines. Build ecosystems that invite people into their knowledge, their wisdom, the value they can provide.

Maybe I want to turn over joe into an outlet for people to learn how to do that through content, through the sharing of stories.

I know for many of you, you’re like “show me the funny stuff.”

How many times do I have to tell you… more funny stuff is yet to come.

But I think for me to grow in my career, and in an area that I think I excel in (writing, content, media strategy), I’d like to approach this in the same way.

It might not change at all, but if it does, it won’t be some boring how-to become famous online.

It’ll be more about being yourself, building an audience that you enjoy, that you don’t feel like you have to perform for, but that you feel like inspires your work.

ANYWAY

Gosh that was a lot.

If you’re still here, send me a quick comment on who you think goes all the way this March. Prolly won’t be the hogs, but wouldn’t that be something?

CHEERS.