2023 Annual Letter
An honest review of what went right and wrong for Bread Crumbs in 2023
Sup Dudes & Dudettes,
If you’re new around here, welcome to this odd little corner of the internet. I’m your host, Paul Clancy. If you are interested in sticking around for a bit, here’s the magic sign-up link.
During my stay in Naples (the old-person capital of North America) the other weekend, I was struck by two things: (1) The pizza tastes nothing like the stuff from Naples, Italy; and (2) this place had the healthiest and most vibrant senior citizens I’ve ever seen. Why do 70-year-olds in Naples appear significantly healthier than those in Chicago?
If you’ve got any ideas, let me know. They seem to be doing something right down there (just not in the pizza department).
In other news, I’ve finally finished the Annual Letter. For the new folks around here, I’ve committed to writing an annual letter to readers each year. Why?
Well, great public company CEOs send an annual letter to their shareholders. The letter summarizes the past year's wins (and losses), outlines strategies for future growth, and reiterates the company’s long-term goals and operating philosophy.
Although Bread Crumbs is a passion project, I hold it to as high a standard as I would any professional endeavor (and you should too). While you don’t invest your cash in Bread Crumbs, you do give me something just as valuable: your time.
That's why I believe you deserve the same respect as any major shareholder in a public company.
P.S. Apologies for this letter coming a little later than expected 😉
2023 Annual Letter
Quality, Part 1
You don’t regret seeing a concert at Red Rocks, playing golf at Augusta National, or staying at The Four Seasons. You do the opposite. You tell the uninitiated: “You have to go!”
Why? Because you’re proud to be associated with such a wonderful product.
Email newsletters have the opposite reputation. They’re like a rushed session coitus, leaving the receiver unsatisfied and the sender embarrassed. Lucky for you, Bread Crumbs isn’t like other email newsletters. It’s made to rock your world with quality. That’s why, in 2023, I shifted the Bread Crumbs publishing schedule from weekly to monthly. Reducing quantity allowed me to double down on quality. Like fine wine, the research, writing, and analysis get better with time.
To ensure Bread Crumbs maintains a high standard of quality forever, I’ve started to ask myself two questions - (1) Did I love writing this piece? (2) Will this content be valuable in 100 years?
I found the first question while writing the “Money Games” series. I wrote this series for myself. It was an exploration into questions I wanted answered. As it turned out, many of you had similar questions. I received several texts from readers saying how much they enjoyed this series. I don’t think that’s a coincidence. If I love writing a piece; you’ll probably love reading it.
The second question was inspired by Warren Buffett and Seneca. The advice contained in Buffett’s shareholder letters from the 1970s is still relevant today. The same goes for Seneca’s 2,000-year-old Letters from a Stoic. It reads like a modern advice column. Things with long half-lives, like Buffett and Seneca’s letters, tend to be more valuable.
If a thing is beloved by its user and lasts for centuries, it’s a high-quality piece of work. In 100 years, people will say that about Bread Crumbs (I hope).
Quality, Part 2
To create pieces of writing that check both boxes, I need to change my strategy. I need to narrow my scope to the ideas I’m most obsessed with. Throughout history, there seems to be a correlation between the obsession of a creator and the quality of her creation. I’ve got three current obsessions (besides Kate): finance, philosophy, and spirituality. Each category stems from my ultimate obsession: figuring out how humans can make themselves more resilient.
The major disasters a person is likely to experience in life lead to a loss of resources, knowledge, or purpose. A deep understanding of finance, philosophy, and spirituality make one better equipped to handle these disasters. Finance teaches individuals how to acquire, protect, and allocate resources. Philosophy provides instruction on how to gain, use, and disseminate knowledge. Spirituality illuminates how to find, cultivate, and impart meaning. To represent this renewed focus, I’ve updated Bread Crumbs’ tagline: Practical wisdom from the worlds of finance, philosophy, and spirituality, delivered monthly(ish), for free.
The plan for 2024 is to rotate between these three topics. I’ll take a big idea from one, distill it down to the useful bits, and package those bits into a fun and informative little essay.
Experiments
“When there's no experimenting, there's no progress. Stop experimenting and you go backward. If anything goes wrong, experiment until you get to the very bottom of the trouble."
-Thomas Edison
A lot of experiments went wrong in 2023. I set a goal of hitting 1,000 subscribers by the end of 2023. I finished with 483. I planned to host an end-of-the-year party for subscribers. That didn’t happen. I committed to hosting 4 in-person events. I managed to do 1.
There were a few things that went right. I set a goal of maintaining an average open rate of 60%. I hit 65%. I decided to change the publishing cadence to improve quality. That was a success. I (with Luke’s help) created a free product. It was downloaded 51 times.
The common thread among all the experiments gone wrong was a lack of planning. Dates weren’t marked. Spaces weren’t booked. Sign-ups weren’t sent. I didn’t make these experiments a priority. To ensure I don’t make that same mistake in 2024, I’ll be doing fewer experiments with greater focus. That way, I’ll have no excuse for not prioritizing the ones I pick. I’d rather do a few experiments well than many experiments poorly.
Up Next
Like Jeff Bezos, I believe it makes sense to be flexible on details but stubborn and relentless on vision. My vision for Bread Crumbs, and the whole YM2 brand, is to create digital and physical spaces where ambitious, hard-working people come to find practical wisdom they can use to navigate the inevitable setbacks they’ll face in life. I want to make humans more resilient.
Everything I write, organize, and create is done with that aim in mind. I take an inventor’s perspective on everything I create. The experiments gone wrong are learning opportunities.
I’ve broken the experiments for 2024 into a few categories: writing, events, and community.
Writing
As I mentioned above, the essays in 2024 will be structured as a rotating series. I’ll cover important ideas from the worlds of finance, philosophy, and spirituality. There will be a heavy bias towards ideas with real, practical value. If you can’t use it in your daily life, it’s not worth your time.
Events
In 2024, I’ll continue hosting events but with a twist. I want these conversations to help you (and me) do “adulting” better. There’s no syllabus on how to successfully navigate one’s health, career, and relationships. You probably need a little guidance (I know I do).
That’s where this new event series, Eldertalks, comes in. My idea is to find seasoned professionals (from all different domains) to share their hard-earned wisdom. We’ll cover everything from climbing the corporate ladder to starting a family.
The benefit to you (and me) is real, down-to-earth advice on the art of living. The events will be cozy and full of audience Q&A. I’m planning to host two Eldertalks with the option to do more (if you love them). Tentative dates are May/June and August/September. The location is TBD.
If you have ideas for how you’d like these talks to be structured or the types the people you’d want to speak to, fill out this 30-second Google survey.
Community
In last year's letter, I shared my vision for a tangible space where Bread Crumbs readers could gather to discuss, learn, and explore topics they're passionate about. Imagine several local academies in major cities like Chicago, NYC, SF, and London that host book clubs, skill-sharing sessions, salon dinners, and lively debates.
The importance of face-to-face communities has never been greater. In an age where digital screens dominate our time, the value of personal interaction cannot be overstated: it's essential for our health and a damn good time.
My working blueprint for these gatherings draws inspiration from the Platonic Academy of Ancient Greece and the Enlightenment-era Coffee Houses. Plato's Academy, established in Athens in 387 BC, was a pioneering institution that thrived on civic dialogue, intellectual rigor, and critical thinking. Similarly, Enlightenment coffee houses were the epitome of democratic spaces: places where societal distinctions were set aside, encouraging vibrant debates, intellectual engagement, and the dissemination of new ideas. Both settings championed an ethos of openness, accessibility, and the uninhibited exchange of ideas. Pretty, pretty, pretty, pretty good.
Aiming to foster a modern equivalent, I plan to host intimate community gatherings: think local 10-person dinner parties. Each one, centered around a topic of mutual interest, is designed to spark novel discussions, uncover new perspectives, and nurture ideas. If you’re a curious individual who likes an intellectual challenge or just wants a break from the distractions of social media, these parties are for you. They might even have some whiskey and wine tastings 😉
Closing
2023 was a good year. I solidified the habit of writing, editing, and researching in my free time, I saw firsthand that great ideas mean nothing without great actions, and I discovered questions I want answered.
I’m grateful to you, my readers, for your support and encouragement. I look forward to the challenge of consistently delivering practical wisdom to you on a monthly(ish) basis.
To Infinity & Beyond,
Paul