January to March
Foundation
The year is won here. Systems, training, structure, personal-brand foundation.
Duality
Life
Creative expression and physical exertion are regulatory systems, not hobbies. Any version of life that removes either will fail regardless of the success metrics.
Seasonal cycle
April to May
Renewal
Travel, perspective, creative rejuvenation.
June to August
Expression
Community, visibility, leadership, events, outward energy.
September to November
Harvest
Revenue focus, delivery excellence, completion. Guardrails. No new initiatives.
December
Landing the plane
Closure, reflection, deload, gratitude, reset. Seasons are not supposed to bleed.
Non-negotiables
Movement
Meaning regulation through effort. Duration may shorten. Frequency never disappears. Movement precedes work. Without it: volatility and eroded patience.
Stillness
Prayer, reflection, journaling, or silence. Follows movement. Protected during pressure rather than dropped.
Service
Lead the team. Show up for community. Mentorship and presence.
Jax
Time with the dog is part of the life being built, not a reward after the inbox is empty.
The Becoming
Creative time for the personal archive must stop being the thing that only happens if all client work is finished.
The body
Phase I, now through mid-30s: consistency and earning. Marathons, 50K to 100 mile ultras, injury avoidance, long training arcs, Austin, bike integration, the road toward Boston and the 100.
The 100-mile race is a symbolic rite, attempted only when fully earned. 2026 is the year of earning the right, not the year of completion.
- Marathon chip 2:52:00 at 6:34 per mile, third in men's 25 to 29. Most current verified marathon in the file. Earlier times 3:21 and 3:25.
- 30K in 2:14.
- 50 miles at a 12-hour event.
- Hixon / RUD 100 discussed, not treated as a 2026 finish goal.
Rooted mobility
La Crosse is the foundation. House, BVM, gallery, run club, local relationships. Rooted mobility, not abandonment.
October trip, then winter proximity to the dental market. St. Petersburg discussed at $2,200 per month furnished, January 9 to May 9, unconfirmed as locked. Jax can come. Return to La Crosse spring 2027 as currently framed.
Build BVM to run without daily physical presence before any major geographic change. Test with 3 to 4 weeks, not a vacation.
Canggu identified as the most practical first international relocation test. Bringing Jax to Bali for a short trip was determined extremely difficult.
Pearl Street Gallery
StalledFoster free thinking, discovery, and emotional connection through art, rooted in place, people, and purpose.
- Retail: open editions as the accessible entry, limited editions, large-format statement pieces, occasional objects.
- B2B installs: the Print Saturation Strategy. PSG work in every meaningful regional space. Sale, lease-to-own, rotating, licensing, bulk.
- Culture: openings, talks, listening sessions, run club crossovers, Pearl Street Jams. Sessions as an intimate filmed archive.
Limited SKUs. Simple fulfillment. Minimal inventory. Anything that complicates fulfillment or story gets removed. BVM funds PSG growth. PSG strengthens BVM credibility. Symbiotic, never blurred.
Momentum has stalled. Elsa and Carie both managing. Bailey wants more of his own focus there over the next few months. That desire collides with Harvest (no new initiatives) unless the focus is completion of what is already open: inventory, calendar, Jams, role clarity.
Pearl Street Run Club
Consistency over paceHumilityQuiet effortInclusionPlace
2 to 3 times a week. Recent mix of 3, 4, and 5 mile events. Pearl Street, La Crosse Center, Pettibone, Nature Place, Hixon.
La Crosse is the blueprint. Because a Pearl Street exists in cities across the country, chapters can scale by resonance, not recruitment. A chapter needs 1 to 2 weekly runs, a fixed location and time, an optional post-run ritual.
Not the center. The steady presence.
Earlier rule: no membership fees. Current vision includes monetization. Coherent read: core experience stays open, optional revenue from events, collaborations, products, sponsors. Never a brand that only exists to sell merch. Collection 01 and sponsor packet are near-term, and they are new initiatives in Harvest.
The Becoming
Document, do not perform. Live first, reflect second, share third. Honest over polished.
He does not want to spend a whole life documenting everyone else while failing to document himself. He wishes he had documented the beginning better.
The BuilderThe BecomingThe Body
Spine. Biweekly 30 to 45 minutes planned. Dust, Forge, Gold. Foundation Series: The Alchemist, Absence as Architecture, The Wisdom of the Road, The 100-Mile Arc, The Creative Lens, The Last Nelson.
YouTube: Archive. One long-form per month as previously planned. Shorts: Signal. 8 to 15 per month harvested from real life, never invented. Unlimited silence allowed.
Launch planned February 2026 with trailer and first episodes. As of June it had not launched. Current status unknown. This slides because it has no external deadline and no one waiting. That is exactly why it needs a protected block.
Do not create when: dysregulated, exhausted, seeking validation, unclear on the lesson.
Founder Log
This week
Ten to twenty minutes. Honest. Dust, then forge, then gold. Live first.
What he loves
- Running and the long arc toward Boston and the 100.
- Walking Jax.
- Run club as the steady presence, not the center.
- The sauna.
- Travel. SE Asia as the formative one.
- Shooting. The creative eye regulates meaning the way training regulates the body.
- The gallery, putting beautiful things into physical places.
- Long-form conversation, which is why the podcast is the medium.
- Building systems that reduce chaos for other people.
- Festivals. Directing commercial work. Selected dental photo editing.
What he does not want
- Most of life in admin.
- Chasing invoices.
- Wedding leads sitting because follow-up is manual.
- Every project requiring him to remember what happens next.
- A team that waits to be assigned.
- Finance that exists only in his head.
- Video editing as a permanent founder job.
- Backlog as a normal condition.
- Growth that destroys customer service.
- A premium brand with slow delivery.
- A local business that prevents mobility.
- PSG as exhausting retail.
- PSRC as a performative fitness brand.
- The Becoming as fake guru content.
- Reaching the end of this chapter and realizing he never documented it.