Last updated: December 6, 2024
I had a good month! Some speaking gigs, fun travel, cool events, and lots of friends.
The highlight was being the Master of Ceremonies for a conference with 1,500+ attendees. I also visited the Sphere in Las Vegas, met Bryan Johnson, and visited a new St. Regis hotel.
Missed my September Life Recap? Read it here. Or see more of my past monthly recaps here.
Favorite Photos
Each month I take hundreds of photos and videos. These were a few of my favorites. I’ve also added 25 more photos below throughout the article.
BPCON 2024
I helped host a huge conference in Cancun, Mexico for the real estate company BiggerPockets.
It was the biggest event I’ve supported with over 1500 attendees.
BiggerPockets hired me for these things as their Master of Ceremonies:
- Introduce the keynote speakers including my friend Codie Sanchez
- Raise the energy in the room between sessions
- Facilitate a large networking group
- Train their team of facilitators for networking sessions, and
- Host a 1-hour conversation with the closing keynote speaker and facilitate Q&A
Here’s what I learned:
- All inclusive resorts are neat. It’s like a land cruise.
- 1500 people is a lot! But from a speaking perspective it isn’t so much different speaking to 400 vs 1500 people.
- Logistics are super complicated and the BiggerPockets team did such a great job managing everything.
My favorite part was the fireside chat that I hosted with their closing keynote speaker on the last day. I added a lot of energy and humor, plus I personally learned a lot.
The BiggerPockets staff was so happy with my work that they’ve already invited me back to work the event again next year. Hooray!
St. Regis Kanai at Riviera Maya
After the conference I spent a night at the brand new St. Regis Kanai Resort. I loved all of it: the architecture, the brand new lobby, the beautiful rooms, and the breakfast buffet. Unfortunately the beach wasn’t good and the ocean wasn’t nice (think: grassy sandy muddy bottom) but still. Great hotel.
They had a beautiful lobby, I know I said that already, but it was so cool. And it was only about 45 minutes south of Cancun.
Watch the video tour that I filmed of the hotel here on my YouTube:
NBAA Trade Show 2024
Almost every October for the past 20 years I have attended the National Business Aviation Association (NBAA) trade show with my father.
Imagine hundreds of companies all focused on one thing: making business jets better. From cabin technology to engine parts, if it flies privately, it’s represented here. It’s a fascinating niche industry that most people never see.
It all started with our family business, Flight Display Systems. I spent so many years in my 20s stressing about this show. The booth design, posters, brochures, and press releases.
This year I was attending to help my father as an exhibitor for his new companies, Send Aerospace and AirText. I also filmed some content for their sales team.
But mostly I think it was like a little family vacation. My sister and her husband came, along with their baby Grayson. It is funny or strange to do a family vacation at a trade show, but that’s the life of an entrepreneurial family.
One of my favorite memories was walking around the trade show floor with my father to see different companies on display, from tiny startups to industry giants. I liked hearing all of his ideas and bouncing thoughts back and forth about how to make their trade show display booth even better next year. My father is an unstoppable force in aviation entrepreneurship. He’s one of those old school entrepreneurs who just keeps going and never gives up. It’s pretty cool.
Sphere Las Vegas
After the show, I went to see the movie Postcard from Earth by Darren Aronofsky at the Sphere in Las Vegas.
I filmed my whole experience, plus I gave some useful tips and tricks in an article about it here.
Was it awesome?
Yes.
Would I recommend it to others?
Yes.
Was it worth it?
Hmm. More on that in my full review of Postcard from Earth at the Sphere here.
Los Angeles
Next, I flew to LA to attend Bryan Johnson’s Don’t Die Dinner. Ben Wilson, the host of the podcast How to Take Over the World, invited me as his guest.
I also got to see my friends Dan Lerman, Jonathan Wegener, and Rachel Feinberg.
Other Stuff
I did more stuff in October 2024, too! Including lots of fun events and more.
- Zach Ware invited me out to wake surf on Lake Travis one day. This was so much fun and I wish I had done it more this past summer.
- I saw a movie called Saturday Night. It was based on a true story of what happened behind the scenes in the 90 minutes leading up to the first broadcast of Saturday Night Live. It was fun, and I enjoyed it. Thank you to Fons PR for inviting me.
- I spoke at Hyde Park Storytelling. My 5-minute story was based on my most amazing church experience, which you can read here. I worked hard on my story! And I’m pretty sure it was the best one all night. People loved it. Email me if you’d like to listen to the story that I told. I have it saved as a private YouTube video that’s only 6 minutes long.
- I hosted another book launch with my friend Baron Ryan for his book Comedy of Nobodies. I wrote about it on my blog too. Plus I made a video of it here.
- Austin City Limits was once again hosted in my neighborhood. I noticed that scalpers were charging much more for weekend one tickets than weekend two. Next year I plan to buy several tickets for me and my friends for weekend one and knowing that we can just resell them to scalpers if we don’t use them.
- The Austin Salon hosts good talks in Austin. I enjoy their events.
- Julia Lipton hosted a health and wellness discussion with Justin Mares. It was neat! And very generous of them.
- I attended my first break fast for Yom Kippur. I love the Jewish culture.
- I attended a secret conference hosted by my friend Ben Casnocha. This is one of my favorite events of the year. I’m not allowed to talk about it, for privacy purposes, but it was cool.
Conclusion
October 2024 was fun. It’s wild how much I get done in a month.
I’m always amazed when I type these up, even though sometimes it doesn’t feel like I’m making much progress.
And am I actually making progress? Or am I just… doing stuff?
Here are some lessons that I think I learned, or re-learned:
- Capture the content. I’m proud of the videos that I made during my trips to Cancun, Las Vegas, and Los Angeles.
- Family first. Going to a trade show probably wouldn’t be anyone’s pick for how to spend their week. But it was with my family, we all got to live together in a condo, and I enjoyed it.
- You can do it. I was stressed two major times: with my huge conference, and then telling my story for the storytelling event. But I practiced, and I was prepared, and then I crushed it. So remember: you have to practice. But you can do it.
That’s all for now. See you next month.