Another year is almost in the bag! Yeesh - 2023 was super rough personally but also a year of growth and excitement. Much like every year, I’m thrilled to share my top albums of the year. Similar to last year, I find myself listening to music less and just enjoying quiet time more!

I think it’s interesting to note here that for the first time in a long time, I only have one hip-hop record listed in my top hits. I’m finding that I’m definitely moving away from newer hip hop and embracing a lot of my rock and punk roots with some of my choices this year.

10. Rancid - Tomorrow Never Comes
9. Metallica - 72 Seasons
8. Foo Fighters - But Here We Are
7. Macklemore - BEN
6. Queens of the Stone Age - In Times New Roman
5. The Glorious Sons - Glory
4. The Dirty Nil - Free Rein to Passions
3. The Gaslight Anthem - History Books
2. Blink-182 - ONE MORE TIME
1. The Hives - The Death of Randy Fitzsimmons

Wishing everyone who reads this a happy holiday season and all the best in 2024!

It’s been quite a few months since my last update on how my summer has gone. If you need a refresher, be sure to check out my post: Summer Summer "Break" & Gratitude. It’s been a ride!

Recovery Updates

As I start to approach the 5 month mark since my arm surgery, it’s incredible to think how far I have come. I was at 4 weeks for my last post and was barely able to bend or extend my arm. Since then, I have had multiple rounds of physiotherapy and daily movement to get back into some sense of normal activity. I’m lucky that I was able to invest in a bike trainer to be able to ride inside safely during my recovery. Since then, I have been soaking up as much of the “nice weather” (I use that term loosely) in Greater Vancouver as possible. This has included some pretty epic bike rides around the Tri-Cities, as well, trying out night-riding for the first time!

While the physical side of my recovery has been progressing, I am admittedly really struggling with the mental aspect. I’m starting to transition from the recovery portion of my injury to the integration, where I truly get to understand how this accident will impact my life in the future.

In particular, this is my first surgery in which I have had a metal implant for a part of my recovery. This implant is also unique in that it’s relatively easy to feel where the metal was drilled into my elbow. Not fun!

A New Mindset

With everything I have gone through this year (aforementioned injury, craziness of the tech industry), I have found that I ave developed a bit of a better mindset in my life. In particular, I don’t sweat the small stuff as much as I used to.

This is particularly becoming more apparent in my day-to-day work. Don’t get me wrong, I’m still working hard and contributing as much as I ever have to the company that I work for. But what i’m finding is that I’m much more mindful of the work that I do day to day, what my priorities are and where I’m focusing my efforts. I mentioned earlier in the year that I moved to an individual contributor role, which has made it a bit easier for me to put some guardrails around the work that I’m doing.

I recently finished reading The Good Enough Job and it has provided a lot of good context for me and how I think about work in my life. In particular, I’m no longer going to tie my work so closely to my identity. Instead, I’d like to focus my identity on areas that I have a bit more control of in my life…

Yearly Values Exercise

I traditionally take some time over the holiday break each year to do a ton of reflection, and that normally starts with a revisiting of my core values. Each year I tend I find to “refresh” my core values, revisiting what I had as my focus for the current year and see if they need to change or be updated. Given the above and my focus on finding my identity, I was inspired to do my yearly values exercise a bit early this year.

For 2024 I have settled on 3 core values that really speak to me in the current phase of my life:

• Adventure - I like exploring new areas, new challenges and the learning opportunities that come with them.

• Order - I thrive when there is structure in my life and things are in their right place.

• Wellbeing - I take care of my mind and my body and encourage others to do the same.

I’m really excited to see how these new values weave through my life in the next year, and how they can help me solidify a new identity outside of work!

Well… I have completely messed up the summer of 2023 for the Hansen family. Nice one, Dylan…

These are the thoughts that ran through my mind on the morning of July 4th. Nearly 24 hours after I took the plunge and purchased my first ever dual-suspension mountain bike, I found myself on the forest floor of Bert Flinn Park in Port Moody, BC, clutching my broken right arm.

2022 Trek Top Fuel 7 - such a wicked ride! For 30 mins…

I don’t recall exactly how the injury happened. I was 30 minutes into what was the best mountain biking session of my life. Armed with my new Trek Top Fuel 7 and a newly-purchased FOX full-face helmet, I felt invincible. I did a few basic trails to get a feel for the new ride, and headed off to some more advanced trails to tackle some of the lines and features that I had been working on so far in 2023.

The end of Belle’s Trail got me. I passed a raised skinny feature, stopped, moved my bike backwards and thought “I should try this one!”. As I did, I lost my balance on the feature, heard a snap and suddenly found myself with a severe injury: distal humerus fracture (a complete break of the bone right above the right elbow), an injury that would require a significant surgery a few days later.

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After a successful surgery at Royal Columbian Hospital, I have been spending the majority of the past month at home recovering. It certainly isn’t the summer our family had been planning, however, given this is our first full year in our new house we had planned to stay close to home regardless. Throughout my recovery, I kept a note of mantras that I discovered that kept my mind in the right space throughout my time at home:

8 hours in the emergency room

1. This happened doing something you love - Mountain biking has been such an amazing experience for me in 2023, something that I look forward to continuing as my body allows.

2. Brain is OK - I’m incredibly lucky that my head and/or neck weren’t injured during the accident.

3. Pivot - Advice that was passed to me from Rupert’s soccer coach. Pivot! Gotta change your plans for this summer and adapt.

4. Recovery won’t be linear - This is my 7th surgery before 40, so I’m well versed in the recovery process. There have been, and will be, many ups and downs throughout my recovery and I need to be able to roll with it.

5. Our bodies are always healing - I learned this from The Art of Mountain Biking Podcast, our bodies are always healing and recovering. In my case, it’s just doing more of that recently!

6. Post traumatic growth - As above, The Art of Mountain Biking Podcast podcast discussed looking at any trauma experience as an opportunity for growth.

7. This is the way - We watched a lot of Mandolorian during my recovery!

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As I write this, 4 weeks after my accident, I find myself (surprisingly) filled with gratitude. I generally don’t deal with injuries well as I have blogged about, so the fact that I have been navigating this challenging time with a positive mindset is fairly new for me. Perhaps it’s due to the fact that I’m currently reading Learned Optimism, or my new look on having control in 2023, or something else. Regardless, I’m there are many things I am grateful for after this experience:

The boys are getting used to the playground by the hospital…

• Family: My family understands that this is an accident and that, while many of our summer plans will be derailed, we’re going to make the most of it. It’s been wonderful to have support from my wife and the kids (who have been the best helpers!).

• Sue and Shiela: Two amazing individuals that first discovered me after my accident, helped me orient to the right trailhead so that an ambulance could pick me up, and watched my bike for me.

• Apple Watch: My watch detected my fall and prompted me to call 911. This was beneficial as reaching my phone was challenging, and, quite frankly, I probably would have tried to get my family to pick me up to take me to the hospital instead - which wasn’t the best idea at the time.

• Colleagues: My colleagues have been super supportive during my recovery period - allowing me to take a week and a half away to rest and sending me a very nice gift basket with treats. I couldn’t wait to get back online to see them and to see many of them in the office!

• Our Home: As mentioned, this is our first full year in our new home. I’m grateful for the space that we have (I could sleep in our basement without disrupting anyone’s sleep) and I’m thankful for central air conditioning during the summer days!

• Indoor Bike Trainer: Finally, I’m grateful for my new indoor bike trainer setup that will allow me to continue to ride safely and keep my fitness up during my recovery. As an added bonus, I now have a good riding setup for the cold winter months in Metro Vancouver. I plan to write a post next about my setup!

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It’s much easier to write this post as I look back on the past 4 weeks of my life (both for mindset and the fact that, you know, I can actually type better now!). I have been doing reading on the psychology of recovering from sports injuries, I can’t help but be optimistic on the lessons I learned during this experience. I’m ready to come back stronger! I’m also hoping to find humour in all of this: I named by bike Snap! Will never forget this experience as long as I ride it.