Near the end of 2023, 2024 was planned to be a foundational year towards the goal of returning to the health science sector while combining my creative skills and experience. This was achieved by reading, listening and travelling to health and business focused events that would help me in my key objective.
Books and Media
One significant focus of my 2024 was diving into reading, needle moving books, around health and personal improvement. This was to blow the dust off the knowledge of my degrees and bring my health science expertise back up-to-date. Reading started with Outlive from Peter Attia, this continued with Dr Greger for nutritional knowledge, then cellular and immune focused therapies courtesy of Tony Robbins et al, then I brought it home with technical diagnostic and metabolism texts – not forgetting a simple book on mental health. Additionally while in the USA I bought Forever Strong by Dr Lyons and Young Forever from longevity expert Mark Hyman MD. Health focused reading was a big part of the year but I also had core texts from three key stoics. I also read two popular books: Atomic Habits and Man’s Search for Meaning (giving the first to my local library and leaving the second for someone else in Austin Airport). I also read a sales book that was shared with me and a marketing book that had been hanging around for a while. While travelling, being out and about or at the gym I enjoyed curated health focused podcasts from: Peter Attia, Andrew Huberman and Mike Thurston to gain further insights into the ever advancing health science world as quality information is everywhere and AirPods are amazing.
Nutraceutical & Pharmaceutical Exhibitions
I attended VitaFoods in Geneva to speak to key venders to discuss ingredients and product development. There were also informative presentations to learn from: two specifically around sports & performance nutrition. Furthermore I took time to visit the FarmaForum in Madrid to refresh my instrumental analysis knowledge and enjoyed a detailed chat with the technical manager from Waters. Interestingly I caught an insightful talk by eurecat from Barcelona about their efforts in and around human health.
DSM Madrid
With an eye on creating an e-commerce platform and maximising my design and marketing skills I spent a Saturday rubbing shoulders with the key marketing professionals and influencers from in and around Madrid. Key take aways were the use of digital twins and best use of AI systems. I have lots of information to review, and actionable processes to implement.
Home Visit to Scotland
I took the time to see the folks in September taking my daughter to Scotland for her to further experience the old country. We visited Edinburgh zoo with my Dad, which my she really enjoyed. We also drove around Loch Earn with a pub lunch in Callandar, then we were feeding highland cows.
Photoshoot for Complementary Fitness
While in Scotland I arranged a photo & video shoot for Susan at Complementary Fitness. Her website and marketing materials needed immersive media to help relay what she provides. I took my equipment to capture one of her classes in Dreghorn and the final assets, especially the homepage video, were a significant improvement to the user experience of her website, and provided content for her marketing for some time to come.
Site moved to Elementor
After updating Susan’s I updated my own website with a structural change for future plans and to incorporate Elementor, moving away from WordPress themes. Elementor was used to craft this personal website, and my studio site. Elementor is a key tool for my client website design solutions.
Austin Trip
With a new personal website established and before the end of the year I wanted to see my brother where he lives in Austin Texas. I had a great time in the most up and coming city in the USA. Being in the US I wanted to see how they operate and learn about innovation; I was at a MeetUp event for people interested in Shopify, frequented local businesses, saw Optimus in a TESLA store and even saw my first self driving car courtesy of WayMo.
Being focused on health I was keen to get a treatment and chose to be stretched at StretchLab. This was more expensive than I thought it should be, but it was an investment and a new experience. I don’t know why there aren’t more of these in the UK or EU as it’s a surprisingly easy business to start from the outside as all you need is some tables and a retail front end.
With an interest in nutrition and supplements I was keen to research the local stores of CVS and WholeFoods to see what they offer and I wasn’t disappointed in breath and depth of choice. The US is more free when it comes to regulation so it was nice to see kava kava on a label again in WholeFoods, but it’s not so nice to see gummy products with lemon balm for kids. Crazily I saw those plastic gift vouchers in the CVS pharmacy, but some of them were for McDonald and Dominos Pizza, which for a supposed health related environment was significantly incongruent.
Personal Health
My own health is paramount and underpins my life and what I can do. My energy and fitness stems from my efforts in the gym. After my reading this year I added Zone 2 training and got serious about upper and lower stretching sessions. I completed 149 gym sessions while dialling in my diet with the removal of Coke Zero and the introduction of creatine, legumes and tumeric into my already holistic daily routine. And these efforts are going to be expanded in 2025, with a focus on my hormonal profile, biannual blood analysis, mindset training and more continued below.
Plan for 2025
I am stepping up my health efforts with a target of completing 300 health events throughout the year; these are going be: lifting, zone 2, stretching, temperature exposure and key specific treatments. The book smarts will continue but I’ll be doubling down on audible books using Audible (might need to get Masterclass too) for health, science, business and self-improvement to keep my finger on the pulse of new ideas and technologies. My goal of launching my health platform will become real in Q2 then subsequently driven to market for the rest of the year. Then the reminder of the year is peppered with trips to the Middle East, Scotland and Gijon to explore Asturias which is long overdue for a Scottish person in Spain, as I’m told it has strong celtic vibes – onwards and upwards and a great 2025 to you too.
