For long-time followers of the personal finance community, change is a constant, but the personal journeys behind the public-facing advice often remain hidden. J.D., the creator and voice behind the prominent financial independence site Get Rich Slowly, has announced a major shift in his personal and professional trajectory. Following a challenging period marked by the passing of his mother two months ago, J.D. has emerged from the emotional fog to declare an intentional pause on strict publishing schedules, pivoting instead toward an inward-looking initiative he calls "2023 — The Year of Me."
The announcement, shared casually with his readership following a personal development exercise, signals a profound reevaluation of priorities. For a creator who built a brand on disciplined habits, systematic wealth-building, and structured life design, putting oneself first does not come easily. However, after months of emotional exhaustion, soul-searching, and placing his own mental and physical well-being at the absolute bottom of his priority list, J.D. has decided to enact a sweeping lifestyle correction.
2023 — The Year of Me
The concept of thematic living is not new to J.D.’s routine. More than a decade ago, he regularly assigned specific themes to his months and years, a practice he recalls as both immensely fun and highly fruitful. Whether he was channeling his energy into physical fitness, expanding his writing portfolio, or navigating the dating world, dedicating concentrated blocks of time to a single core focus consistently yielded positive results.
Over time, however, this deliberate habit fell by the wayside. As life grew busier and external demands multiplied, J.D. found himself sliding down his own priority list—second, third, ninth, or lower. Recognizing that this chronic self-neglect has long interfered with his physical and mental health through a series of persistent excuses, he has drawn a firm line. Starting immediately, his primary focus for the foreseeable future is his own well-being.
Admitting to the endeavor is itself a hurdle. J.D. acknowledges that prioritizing his own needs feels inherently selfish and uncomfortable, conflicting with decades of social conditioning. Yet, he is anchored by a fundamental truth well-known in wellness and self-care philosophies: by truly taking care of oneself, an individual becomes better equipped to show up for others, including his readers, friends, and family.
For the dedicated audience of Get Rich Slowly, J.D. reassures that the core experience of reading his work will remain largely unaltered. The transformation is deeply personal rather than external. By granting himself explicit permission to place his desires at the forefront, he anticipates generating richer, more authentic material for future publication, alongside finally bringing the long-awaited site redesign to completion.
Crucially, this new era comes with a major caveat regarding output. In service of the "Year of Me," J.D. is deliberately abandoning any rigid publishing calendar or production quotas. Moving forward, he intends to write strictly when inspiration strikes, rejecting forced content in favor of a more organic, conversational approach. This philosophy mirrors his latest update, written spontaneously after completing an exercise from Bill Burnett and Dave Evans’s book Designing Your Life while waiting for a scheduled call with a friend.
The Courage to Be Disliked
This inward turn has been supported by recent intellectual explorations. During a Thanksgiving road trip to California to visit family with his partner, Kim, J.D. immersed himself in the audiobook The Courage to Be Disliked by Ichiro Kishimi and Fumitake Koga. The book, which introduces readers to the radical interpersonal psychology of Austrian thinker Alfred Adler—a contemporary of Sigmund Freud—profoundly influenced J.D.’s current worldview.
While the audiobook’s Socratic dialogue format occasionally presented challenges in retaining granular details during transit, the core philosophical takeaways resonated deeply. The text challenges conventional notions of trauma, validation, and social expectation, arguing that individuals possess the agency to shape their own lives independent of past grievances or the desire for external approval. J.D. has noted plans to revisit the book in Kindle format to extract and distill its best passages, hinting that a comprehensive review and summary may eventually find its way onto Get Rich Slowly.
A Values-Driven Life
The philosophical foundation of J.D.’s new chapter is further reinforced by insights from Readwise highlights, notably a passage from Stephen R. Covey’s foundational text, The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People. Covey writes: "The ability to subordinate an impulse to a value is the essence of a proactive person. Reactive people are driven by feelings, by circumstances, by conditions, by their environment. Proactive people are driven by values—carefully thought about, selected, and internalized values."
Reflecting on Covey’s words, J.D. realized that a core driver behind his need for a reset was a temporary loss of impulse control coupled with a detachment from his deeply held core values. Recognizing this drift, he has already begun taking tangible corrective action. To curb digital distractions and regain control over his daily environment, he recently uninstalled apps like Reddit and Hearthstone from his iPad.
With these digital barriers removed, J.D. is preparing to realign his daily habits with his carefully considered values. While future dispatches on his platform may arrive intermittently and vary widely in length and format—ranging from brief updates to deeply conversational essays—the overarching mission of authentic self-improvement remains firmly intact.
