As I sit at my computer, ready to write my first blog post in over 10 years, the “Aw shit, here we go again” meme keeps playing in my head. I’ve decided to challenge myself to a year of blogging, putting myself out there in a way that feels both exciting and terrifying.
My name is Brooks Clifford, I’m 37 years old, and I live and play in the great state of Minnesota, USA.
I can’t even begin to express how stressful the idea of personal blogging is to me. For those wondering (which I doubt anyone even is), I decided a few weeks ago that I’d do a 1-year challenge of blogging, putting myself out there in the world, and pushing myself beyond a comfort zone, which for me, is remaining pseudo-anonymous online. In the early days of social media, I had no problem sharing my life with the world. Facebook pictures of my weekend, telling everyone what I was up to. But as I got older, and big tech got bigger, I started to share less and less with the world, aiming to maximize my privacy.
So here I am, and for the next year, I’m going to be putting as much of myself out there for the world to see as I can. I can’t promise that I’ll be posting every day, or even every week, but my target is to make a post every other day for the entire year.
Whether you know me from school, life in Minnesota, work, or crypto, you probably have some idea of who I am—though most don’t know the full story these days. So, I’ll take a few minutes to catch everyone up…
As I said, I’m 37 years old, I’ve pretty much been living in Minnesota my entire life, and most people that know me, know me either as “the bitcoin guy” or now, more recently, “the AI guy.” It’s crazy to think I’m approaching 20+ years since my days of high school, but even back then, I was pretty much known as “the computer guy” and in some circles, “the poker guy.” As much as I’ve changed since those early days in 2000, in many ways, I’m still that exact same person.
I have two kids. A daughter who is 9, and a son who is 7. Although I am divorced, and have been for almost 5 years now, having kids has always been the single greatest accomplishment of my life. I’m sure in another post down the road I’ll get more into the world of being divorced with kids, but I have split custody with my ex-wife, so I have my kids roughly 50% of the time. Both myself and their mother are still very active in our kids’ lives, so while we split 50/50 custody, we both see our kids more than that. We more or less do week on/week off, but even the weeks that my kids are with their mother, I come to activities, I coach sports, and I visit them at school. It’s pretty rare that more than 1-2 days ever go by without me seeing my kids.
My kids mean the world to me, and they are, without a doubt, my #1 priority in life. I feel like most parents say that, but it’s hard to actually make that true. Work/life/relationships all can get in the way of being a great parent. For better or worse, I have seemed to sacrifice many of those other areas to give my kids as much of my attention as possible.
What I love most about having my two kids is that each of them seems to represent such a core aspect of who I am as a person. On one side, my son, he’s 7, and he is EXACTLY like me in so many ways. He loves math, science, computers. Recently, he downloaded an app on his school iPad to show him how the stock market is doing throughout the day. Now, he loves telling me, first thing after school when I pick him up, how the markets performed during the day. If he were to self-describe himself in one word to you, it would be: electronics.
On the other side, my daughter, who’s 9, is all about animals. She’s so kind, caring, and loving—it reminds me of my own childhood dream of owning a pet store. One of my first passions in life was animals, and that has stuck with me to this day. As it stands today, my daughter wants to be a veterinarian when she grows up. Whether she stays on that path or not, one thing I know for sure is her love of animals will remain a lifelong passion as well. If I were to describe my daughter in one word, I’d say: goofy.
One thing that gives me great peace is knowing both of my kids have instilled my passion for always remaining curious. They question everything. They’ve both also inherited my love for nature. Camping, fishing, and walks in the forest are all things the three of us greatly enjoy doing together.
Brooks and Sky, 2011
So, I have my kids, and they are both great. Other than my kids, I’ve spent the last year making my health a top priority. I’m on the recovering end of what I’d call some slight depression. Knowing how bad depression can be for some, I’ll use the word lightly. But after coming out of a divorce 5 years ago, and in the same year losing my dog of almost 15 years, as well as my house, and my business… I really went down a path of a lot of shitty eating, little to no exercise, and very little self-care. It’s been a journey to get back to a place where I feel healthier—both mentally and physically. I’m still working on it daily, but I’ve made big strides in fitness, eating right, and prioritizing my wellness, like getting a good night’s sleep as often as possible.
Outside of kids and health, I’m still a crazy sports fanatic. What’s interesting to me is, as I’ve gotten older, I’ve come to find sports can really be a hindrance or distraction in life. For example, it’s 1 pm on Sunday right now as I write this, and there was a point in time, for many years, I would never be doing anything other than watching football on Sundays. The amount of time I seem to have wasted watching or listening to a baseball or hockey game seems endless.
In the last couple of years, I’ve replaced this “filler time” with more productive activities—like listening to as many Lex Friedman podcasts as I possibly can (sometimes I’ll watch a good episode 2 or 3 times on repeat). I’ve definitely done a much better job of cutting out watching sports in my life, but as much as I try to escape, I feel like too many years as a child prioritizing sports has indoctrinated me into always coming back for more. I still play softball 2-3 nights a week in the summer, and I’ve been coaching youth baseball for the better part of 15 years. I bowl in the winter, quite competitively, and I also manage to squeeze in a couple of rounds of golf every Summer as well.
Lastly (for now), I’ve been a lifelong entrepreneur. I love the world of business and finance, and I always believe the American dream is still very much alive and well (don’t let people tell you otherwise). My focus with entrepreneurship has always been around technology. I will get into that a bit more another day, but I’ve spent the last 2 years of my life working on my AI consulting business, Purple AI.
AI is a recurring theme that I’m sure will come up again and again over the next year. It captivates me—and worries me more than I’d like to admit. As much as I try to stay positive, AI is the one thing that keeps me up at night. I’ve always been optimistic, but when it comes to AI… let’s just say it’s hard for me to find the silver lining. Well… I’ll save that conversation for another day.
In the meantime, for those who made it to the end, thanks for sticking with me through my first post back in over a decade. It’s been a long time, but I’m excited to take on this year of blogging, diving into topics that fascinate me: AI, finance, parenting, and everything else that keeps life interesting. I hope you’ll join me for the ride.
– Brooks
