A 365-day commitment, lived publicly. Be among the first to declare your year — for health, sobriety, grief, career, faith, anything that needs the work. The hashtag is #1year1life.
Two words for the day you wake up. One dot for the year you finish. Then you start again. The first word is what you do. The second is the direction. The dot is the proof you did it.
Be seen. Be there. The opposite of hiding. When the day is hard and you would rather disappear, you do the harder thing — you let yourself be visible.
The direction. Not flat, not down. Standing instead of sinking. One step further than yesterday — even if no one sees it but you.
A finished year. A line drawn under it. You showed up — every day, for 365. The dot is your proof. Then it turns into the start of the next year. 1year1life, again.
~45 specific comebacks across 9 themes. Or define your own. Your daily message and group suggestions match what you choose. Scroll to see all themes.
For the comeback that lives in the body. Cardiac, fitness, weight, sleep, recovery from injury.
Anxiety, depression, grief, burnout, the work of becoming steady inside your own head.
Alcohol, substances, gambling, screens, porn. Whatever you are putting down for a year.
Improve a marriage, become a better partner, become a better friend, reconnect with family.
Career restart, starting a business, growing one, leadership development, finding a new role, building a personal brand, finally writing the plan you keep postponing.
Debt freedom, saving for a goal, learning to invest, building wealth, the financial discipline you have been postponing.
A language. A certification. A new tool. Daily reading. The slow art of becoming fluent.
Writing a book, music, visual art, photography. The work you owe yourself for a year.
Spiritual practice, meditation, prayer, volunteering, mentorship. The deeper questions.
Forgiveness work, family reconnection, a fresh start in a new city, the comeback only you can name.
Every category above has an "Other" option inside the app. When you pledge, you can submit your own comeback in your own words. If we see the same submission from enough members, an admin reviews it and it becomes a permanent named theme on this list — added by the people doing the work.
Submit yours when you download the app on Day Zero.
Add your name to the pledge. We will send you the pre-launch program — a structured runway from the day you pledge to the day you begin. Tailored to the days you have left before 13 July 2026.
No payment. No commitment beyond your name. We send the pre-launch program by email and one update a month until launch.
A pre-launch program designed to get you ready — physically, mentally, logistically — before Day Zero. Same structure for everyone, scaled to the time you have left.
Pick your category from the nine themes. Write your one-sentence comeback statement. Tell one person what you are doing — out loud, by name. The pledge becomes real the moment you say it to a face you love.
Whatever your comeback is — measure where you are starting from. Photo, blood test, weight, sober days, page count, savings balance, whatever applies. You cannot mark progress against a baseline you did not record.
One to yourself on Day 365. One to the person you are doing this for. One to the version of you that almost did not start. Seal them. Open them only on the day they are addressed to.
Pick the one thing you will do every day of your year. Five minutes long. Non-negotiable. Practice it daily for these weeks so that on Day 1 it is already automatic. Big habits collapse. Small ones survive.
The week before Day Zero, simplify. Cancel what does not serve the year. Tell your circle when you start. Download the app on the morning of Day Zero. Arrive at your year empty-handed and ready.
Open the app. Make your declaration. Log your first check-in. Read the day's message. Show up.
— A note on the program. This runway is the same for everyone. The phases scale to the days you have left. If you pledge with 76 days to go, each phase fills its full window. If you pledge with 14 days, the phases compress but every step is still done. The point is to arrive at Day Zero prepared, not perfect.
A commitment platform, not a fitness tracker. Daily check-ins. Voice-read motivation. Group challenges. Personal walls. Works offline by design — no signal, no problem. Use it publicly. Use it entirely privately. Your call.
— Free to download. Free for the full year. Funded by team pledges, not ads.
No vanity metrics. No streak shame. No social comparison. Just the daily commitment, the people on the same path if you want them, and the room to be honest about hard days — publicly or entirely privately.
One question, one tap. The smallest commitment that, repeated 365 times, becomes a year.
The day's message read aloud by the same voice that anchors the brand. For mornings when you do not want to read.
Use the app entirely for yourself. No public profile. No sharing. No posts. Just your daily check-in, your reflections, your year — visible only to you.
Public groups by category, private groups by invite. Founding groups open on Day Zero — Cardiac Comeback Crew, Sober Year, First-Time Authors, and more.
The people in your life can post messages of support directly to your profile. Your circle, on your wall. Off when in private mode.
Weekly written prompts with photo and video attachments. Stays on your phone unless you choose to share.
Designed for places without signal. Your declared year, your check-ins, your reflections — all on your phone, syncing when you reconnect.
The app launches 13 July 2026. Pledge your year now to be among the first to receive it.
Take the pledge →1year1life is not one founder's story. It is the story of every person who declares their year alongside him. Friday is Movement Day — from Day One, one member's comeback is featured across all our channels, every week.
"The first thousand people to declare will carry this movement. We will tell their stories one Friday at a time."
Pledge to be in the founding cohort →A space inside the app for people on the same comeback to walk together. Some are open to anyone; some are invite-only. These are the founding groups — they open with the app on Day Zero, and members create new ones every week after.
For people training with heart conditions. Cardiologist-friendly. Honest about limits. Weekly progress shared. Wednesdays we post questions for the group cardiologist.
Everyone starting a sober year between January and March 2027. Shared milestones at 30, 60, 90 days. Members across 38 countries.
Writing a first book. Daily word counts. Weekly accountability check-ins. No editors, just writers. 50,000-word year-end target.
Conversational Portuguese by year-end. Daily practice check-ins. Voice notes encouraged so we hear each other improve.
Local Cape Town members. Saturdays at 6 AM for a group walk. All fitness levels. Sea Point promenade and Table Mountain routes.
For single parents on a comeback year. Whatever yours looks like. Private, supportive, no judgment.
Everyone in the movement uses it. Once you see it on someone's bio or post, you already know what it means. People who use it identify themselves as committed.
Join the movement →Bring 1year1life into your company. A 365-day shared pledge for a department, a team, or an entire organisation. Same philosophy — Show Up. Same daily check-ins. Built around the outcomes that matter to leadership: focus, retention, energy, cohesion.
Teams do not become focused, healthy, and connected because of an offsite. They become those things because of what each person does on Day 47, Day 112, and Day 248 — together.
A team that shows up every day for a shared commitment learns to show up every day for the work. Daily check-ins build the habit of consistency. The habit of consistency builds output.
Trust is not built in a workshop. It is built when people show up for each other on hard days. Shared pledges create the conditions where a colleague becomes a teammate becomes a friend.
Most corporate wellbeing programmes are theatre. People scan a yoga video once and never return. A 365-day shared pledge is honest because it requires honest effort. The outcomes are different because the structure is different.
A 365-day commitment is built into the existing rhythm of the team. No additional meetings. No "wellbeing tax" on calendars. The work is the work. The pledge sits alongside it.
The leader picks one shared commitment for the whole team. Could be a fitness pledge. A learning pledge. A "no Slack after 19:00" pledge. A book a month. The pledge is the thing every member agrees to do daily for 365 days.
Every team member gets the app with a private team workspace. The founder records a personal kick-off video for your team. The leader gets a private dashboard. Set-up takes a single 60-minute team call.
Daily check-ins, weekly group reflections, monthly milestones. The team workspace sits inside the regular app — invisible to the public movement, visible only to teammates. Members can choose private mode if they want their entries kept fully personal.
The whole team finishes together. Group call with the founder. Shared completion certificate. Anonymised report on team-level outcomes — wellbeing scores, retention, engagement — for the leader's records.
Per-member, per-year pricing. Discounts on annual upfront payment. Pilots available for the first three months at a reduced rate.
For a single department of 5–25 people running one shared pledge for the year.
For a full team or division of 25–100 people, including multiple sub-pledges across departments.
For organisations of 100+, with multiple teams, divisions, and a single point of contact at our end.
— Pilot pricing. All tiers offer a 90-day pilot at 50% of the listed annual rate. If at the end of the pilot the team chooses to continue, the pilot fee is credited against the full annual price.
A team pledge is not a wellness initiative. It is a shared commitment to one specific thing the team agrees to do every day for 365 days. Here are worked examples of the pledges we design with teams — drawn from the conversations already underway.
Daily commitment: one 90-minute deep-work block, no meetings, no Slack. Logged in the app. Year goal: ship four major releases without burning the team out.
Daily commitment: one new conversation, logged. Tracks outcomes against pipeline. Year goal: 6,500 new conversations and a measurable lift in pipeline-to-close.
Daily commitment: 30 minutes reading from a shared list — books, long-form essays, industry reports. Monthly group discussion. Year goal: a more intellectually deep team.
Daily commitment: a 12-hour boundary, every day. Modelled from the top. Year goal: a healthier executive team that signals healthier behaviour to the rest of the company.
Daily commitment: any movement that takes more than 20 minutes. Yoga, walk, cycle, gym, dancing. Logged in the app. Year goal: a measurably more energetic company by Day 365.
Weekly commitment: one 15-minute call with a teammate about anything except work. Year goal: meaningful relationships in a fully remote team that struggled with loneliness.
1year1life is a new programme. We do not have ten years of corporate data to point to. What we have is a clear theory of change, the metrics we will measure, and the commitment to share results honestly with the leaders who run pledges with us.
Quantified inputs from the app. Self-reported outcomes from quarterly team surveys. Both are shared with the leader in a private dashboard. Members opt into individual data sharing — the leader sees aggregates, never individual entries.
— We will not promise specific percentage gains until we have run enough cohorts to publish honest data. What we will promise is to measure rigorously, share results, and keep our claims grounded in what teams actually report.
A short form. We use it to understand your team and propose the right tier. No sales pressure — most conversations end with a 30-minute call to explore whether a pledge makes sense for you.
We will be in touch within 48 hours with a short proposal and a calendar link if a call makes sense. In the meantime, you can read the master strategy or browse the journal to get a feel for how we work.
In 2016 I had my aortic valve replaced. On 24 April 2025 I had a severe heart attack — and slept through it. In April 2026 I was diagnosed with high cholesterol and high blood pressure. That third warning was the one I could not ignore. On 13 July 2026 I begin a 365-day comeback that ends with a 600km bicycle ride down the Atlantic coast of Portugal. This is the founder's page — my story, my videos, my support.
Five days after the first anniversary of the heart attack I slept through. My wife is in the next room, talking to my youngest daughter. I am not in the conversation. I am the subject of it.
"You're just like your father. You run away from anything physical."
She meant it gently. It was true.
That is who I am to my daughter now. The man who avoids physical things. The one who would rather not. The father whose example for her, on a Wednesday in April, is to flinch.
It is not who I was.
I was the boy outside until the streetlights came on, sweating through three sports a season. I was the young man who travelled rough and tough through Namibia, Botswana, South Africa, Mozambique, Madagascar — sleeping under stars, hearing lions roar in the dark. There was a night in the Okavango Delta where a hippo rubbed against the canvas of my tent and I laughed about it the next morning. There were countless versions of me that bore no resemblance to the man my wife had just described to my daughter.
Disease and getting older are sad things. They take the body before they take the memory of the body, and that gap is where most men quietly disappear.
I am not disappearing.
This year is for my son. For my daughters. For my wife, who I love, who I want to grow old beside in Lisbon and across every other place she loves. It is for all of them.
Scrap that.
It is for me.
I need this. I need to prove it to myself. I want my children to remember me as a fighter, a lover, a friend, a husband, a father, a son, a brother. I want them to know the man who slept under stars, not just the man who flinches.
I love life.
I want to live my best life ever.
The clicking sound at night that the family knows. The reason for nearly a decade of self-imposed limitation. I told myself I was being careful. I was being half-present.
Came home from a restaurant after a family dinner — sushi, a glass of wine, an ordinary Thursday night. Told my wife I had pulled a back muscle, went and lay down. Slept right through the pain. Got up the next morning and went to work. Sat through meetings with my team. Realised, partway through the day, that something was not right. Drove myself to the GP. Confirmed: a severe heart attack. A clot. I had walked through it. The cardiologist used the word "lucky." I used the word "enough."
I have always eaten well. The Mediterranean diet, my whole life. What I had not done was move. Not really. The diagnosis in April was the third warning the body had given me — surgery, heart attack, this. Three is the number where you stop pretending the warnings are happening to someone else.
If I am going to do this, it cannot be quiet. Quiet is how I got here. Public is how I finish. So in April I picked up the camera and started filming the build — the team, the app, the journal, the route. Not as marketing. As a way to make it impossible for me to walk away.
My wife to my youngest daughter. I overheard it from the next room. She meant it gently. It was true. It was also the line that made the year real. The heart attack was the medical hinge. This was the emotional one. That is the day I stopped designing the year and started living it.
App launches. First daily check-in. First voice motivation. My wife's pre-launch interview goes live. The thing I have been building in private becomes the thing I am living in public.
Caminha to Sagres along the Atlantic coast — the EuroVelo 1 route. Documenting the beauty of the coast and what it offers, alongside the daily reflections. My wife joins for the final stretch. Book pre-orders open. The ride is not the comeback. It is the proof of the comeback.
My Instagram, TikTok, and YouTube — all in one place. Tap a tab below to see the latest from each platform. Or follow directly using the handles below each feed.
This feed will display the latest Instagram posts in real time once the account is connected at launch.
@1year1life on Instagram →Donations to the founder go directly to me. They cover medical care for the heart valve and the heart attack recovery — cardiology check-ins, monitoring, and the cardiologist-cleared training that gets me to Day 365. They do not fund the movement, the app, or the brand. Those operate independently. This is for me.
Donations are personal — they go to the founder, not the brand. Full breakdown of where they go, recognition tiers, and transparent boundaries on the dedicated page.
Daily content goes out across every platform below. Long-form videos on YouTube every Monday and Thursday. Daily Shorts on Instagram and TikTok. Sharper, more direct on Twitter / X. The patron-only feed lives on Patreon. Pick your platform.
A 6–9 minute weekly recap of the seven days of training, reflection, and life that came before. New every Sunday from Day Zero. The podcast launches October 2026.
— A note on the archive. These are the planned first six weeks. From Day Zero, the real weeks replace them — filmed as they are lived, kept in the order they happened.
Weekly long-form conversations with members of the movement. Audio-first. Available on Spotify, Apple, and YouTube. Episode 001 is My Wife — recorded the week before Day Zero, released the week after.
Pledge your year first →A practical book for the day you decide to come back. Built around a single philosophy that fits in your hand: Show Up. Drawn from a 365-day public comeback and the thousands of others walking it alongside.
Every chapter takes one situation where the comeback breaks — fear, fatigue, plateau, doubt, the bad day, the day no one is watching — and shows you the rule that holds. Personal stories from the founder's year. Reader exercises at the end of each chapter. A QR code that opens the app where you can practice what you just read.
The Show Up. Journal in eleven editions — eight for the audiences the movement is built around (Men, Women, Dads, Moms, Sons, Daughters, Boys, Girls) and three ceremonial editions for the years that mark a life (Last Wishes, Expecting Mothers, Weddings). Same paper. Same binding. Different reader on every cover — and an interior written for them. Select any edition to see what is inside.
A small range of physical objects designed for people in their year. Every item carries the same two words on the chest, the wall, the desk, the head — Show Up. Nothing branded loudly. Nothing disposable. Each one made to be used every day for 365 days.
Framed posters for the room you spend the most time in. A small card for the desk. Something to read on a hard morning before the day even starts. All printed on archival matte paper, hand-framed in Portugal, ready to hang.
— A note on the prints. Each piece is printed on 250gsm archival matte paper using pigment ink that does not fade. Frames are sourced and assembled in Portugal. Ships globally in protective packaging. Free shipping on orders over $100.
Email for written conversations. WhatsApp for quick messages. Or book a paid one-on-one call if you want strategic time on your own comeback or a question only a face-to-face conversation will solve.
For press, partnerships, longer questions, or anything that does not need an immediate reply. Usually answered within three working days.
hello@1year1life.com →For quick messages or anything that needs a faster reply. Voice notes welcome. Replies within 24 hours, often sooner.
Send a WhatsApp →One-on-one strategic time on Google Meet. Three call types — comeback consult, strategy call, or press & partnerships. See all options and pick a slot.
See call types & book →If your reason for getting in touch is more specific, we have dedicated pages for it. Press has its own resources hub. Calls have their own booking flow.
A practical book for the day you decide to come back. Built around a single philosophy that fits in your hand: Show Up. Drawn from a 365-day public comeback and the thousands of others walking it alongside the founder.
The hardcover is the heirloom. The ebook is the version that travels with you on every device. The audio is the founder reading it himself. Pick the format that fits how you read.
280-page hardcover. Soft-touch matte cover. Cream paper, debossed title. Ships September 2028. Pre-order locks in the early-supporter price.
Same book in two file formats. Read on Kindle, iPad, Kobo, browser, anywhere. Buy now, get early chapters as they are written. Final compiled ebook on launch day.
Three early chapters delivered today. New chapters monthly until launch.
The full book read aloud by the same voice as the daily app messages. 8 hours, MP3 + streaming. Bundled free with hardcover pre-orders, or buy separately as the standalone audio companion.
— Bundle & save. Buying the ebook now and the hardcover as a pre-order? The bundle is $36 — saving $6 on the standalone prices. See bundle options at the bottom of the page.
There are enough memoirs of people who survived hard years. This is not one of them. This is the playbook. Two words at the centre. A chapter for every situation in which a comeback breaks. Reader exercises that make you do the work, not just read about it. The chapters are short by design. The book is meant to be read in one weekend or in slices over a year — whichever the reader needs.
The whole book hangs on two words: Show Up. Each chapter is a different angle on the same rule. By the end the reader has internalised the philosophy without having been preached at.
Day 47 of a heart attack recovery. Day 112 of a sober year. Day 248 of writing a first novel. Day 89 of leaving a job. Real days, real members of the movement, named where they have allowed it.
Each chapter ends with a "Try this" — a small, specific exercise that takes under fifteen minutes and produces something the reader keeps. The book is meant to be written in. There is space.
The book is not organised by month. It is organised by the situations the reader will actually encounter. Pick the chapter that matches the day you are having.
The story of the wake-up call, and what to do with yours when it arrives.
The month where motivation does most of the work, and the trap of trusting it.
For Day 47, Day 89, Day 112 — when nothing is showing yet, but the work is real.
Specifically how to log a bad day and not lose the thread of the year.
The most important chapter. The whole game lives here.
Months four, five, six. When the body has adapted and progress slows. What to do.
How they show up. How they pull back. How to use both.
The chapter nobody warns you about. What happens when Day 365 starts to feel close.
To other members. To your past self. To the person you thought you would be by now.
For the second year. Or the second comeback after the first one stuck.
The version of the rule that applies to people. To partners, friends, family, the difficult ones.
For careers, businesses, the meeting you do not want, the project that is dragging.
The closing chapter. 600km from Caminha to Sagres. Day 367. What the body finally said.
Most personal-development books are written ten years after the work. By people who have polished the story, smoothed the edges, and quietly removed the parts that did not fit the lesson.
I am writing this one as I live it. The chapters are written in real time alongside the year. The reader exercises are tested on the members of the movement before they reach the page. The bad days are kept in.
If the book works, it is because it was honest. If it does not, it will not be because it tried to look more put-together than it was.
— The founder, 1year1life
Pre-ordering locks in the early-supporter price and gives you everything below — most of it before the book even publishes.
— Cancellation. Pre-orders are fully refundable up to the day the book enters print (currently planned for May 2028). After that, refunds are processed once the book ships and is returned in saleable condition.
The book is the philosophy. The journal is where you do the daily work. The audio is the founder's voice on hard mornings. Bundle them and save.
A 365-day undated journal designed as the physical companion to the app. Same paper. Same binding. Same cover stock. Eight editions for the people doing the year. Three ceremonial editions for the years that mark a life. Same philosophy on every cover. Different reader on every front.
Eight editions for the eight people the movement is built around. Each cover names its reader — and the interior is written for them. One research-backed 365-day spine, then a different opening chapter, weekly prompt voice, and monthly ritual per edition. Select any edition to see exactly what is inside.
Three editions reserved for the moments where a year is the unit of measurement. The same paper. The same binding. An entirely different interior architecture for each. Select an edition to see inside.
Most journals are pretty for a week and abandoned by month two. This one is built for the opposite outcome. Every detail — the paper weight, the binding, the lay-flat construction, the single signal-green ribbon — exists to make sure the journal survives 365 days of daily handling and looks better at Day 365 than at Day 1.
Morning: an intention and the one thing you will do today. Evening: the Show Up mark, three gratitude lines, a mood scale, and a dot-grid space for whatever the day asks. Two to five minutes — the dose the research supports. 365 of these, one for every day.
Every seventh day, an after-action review: What held. What broke. What changes Monday. The format elite teams debrief with, turned on your year — plus one longer prompt in each edition's own voice.
Once a month, a page reserved for someone in your life to leave a message. Pre-printed header reads: "Someone who loves you was asked to write something. Here is what they wrote."
Day 30, 60, 90, 180, 365. Each gets its own dedicated spread — a full-bleed signal green page on the left, deep reflection prompts on the right. Five chances to step back.
Every milestone page carries a QR code that opens the matching screen in the app — record a video for your future self, watch your Day 1 entries, share your milestone publicly if you want to.
For the things that did not fit a daily slot. Drawings. Pasted-in cardiology results. Mid-night letters. The mid-year recommitment. Twenty unstructured pages.
Any journal survives the first week — motivation does that for free. This one is built on the mechanics that keep people writing in month seven. The research is specific: a visible streak makes people work roughly 40% harder to protect it, and a single missed day makes them 63% more likely to quit outright. So every edition carries both the chain and the way back.
Page one asks where the journal lives in your day — after the coffee, after the kids are down. A habit tied to an existing routine forms; a free-floating one evaporates. You declare the anchor before you write a single entry.
365 dots inside the front cover, one filled per day. Day 0 comes pre-filled at the printer: an endowed chain is a protected chain. Filling today's dot takes two seconds and is quietly the most addictive page in the book.
The daily page has a full version and a floor: mark the Show Up dot and close the book. Streaks die when the entry fee feels too high at 11pm. Ours costs thirty seconds, so the chain survives real life.
The most dangerous morning of the year is the one after a missed day — that is when most people quit entirely. Each month banks one grace day, and the Comeback Page turns the miss into an entry instead of an ending.
The milestone spreads at Day 30, 60, 90, 180 and 365 ship sealed with a paper band. Curiosity is a renewable fuel — you keep showing up partly because something in the book is still waiting for you.
Every daily page closes with the same seven words, traced over faint type. Habits anchored to identity outlast habits anchored to outcomes. By Day 365 you have written the sentence 365 times — and it is simply true.
Most of what makes a journal good is invisible until Day 200. By then the cheap one is falling apart and the writer has stopped using it. This is the spec sheet for the one that will not.
Warm black. Hand-feel that improves with use. Title debossed lower-third. Signal green dot foil-stamped to the right of the title. Back reads "Show up." in white foil. Audience name foil-stamped on the front.
Cream not white — softer on the eye, better for handwriting. Heavyweight enough that ink does not bleed through. FSC-certified throughout.
Signal green thread, visible at the top and bottom of the spine block. The visible stitching is part of the aesthetic, not a flaw to hide. Lays completely flat at every spread — required for daily writing.
4mm wide, cut on the diagonal at the bottom. Marks where you are. One ribbon, not three — restraint matters.
Mist green inside. For keepsakes, photographs, the letter you wrote on Day 1 and want to read on Day 365. A small but important detail.
Sourced and assembled in Portugal. Ships globally in protective packaging. Free shipping on orders over $100.
The journal does not duplicate the app. The two are designed to work as complements. The app handles streaks, group challenges, public posts, and quantified data. The journal handles handwriting, longer reflections, the things you do not want a screen for. Daily prompts mirror each other. Milestones link directly via QR codes printed on every milestone page.
The app is free for everyone in the movement. The journal is the optional physical companion. Members who use both report deeper engagement and stronger completion rates than members who use either alone.
Each of the eleven editions is available as a standard or as a numbered first edition. Both are physically identical. The numbered first edition includes an inserted slip on the colophon page hand-numbered "1 of 1,000" with the printer's ink. After the first 1,000 ship per edition, only the standard remains.
The Show Up. Journal in its full form. 416 pages, hardcover, exposed binding, ribbon, pocket. Available in all eleven editions. Ships within 3-5 days. Available indefinitely.
Same journal. Hand-numbered slip glued to the colophon page. First-edition imprint. Ships in the order ordered — first to pre-order gets a lower number. After 1,000 are gone in any edition, that edition's numbered run is closed forever.
Everything you need to write about 1year1life — the founder, the movement, the coastal ride, the book, the app. Press kit and brand assets below. Founder available for interviews from May 2026.
"After an aortic valve replacement in 2016 and a severe heart attack he slept through in April 2025, a Lisbon-based founder began documenting what he calls a 365-day public comeback. On 13 July 2026 he will publicly declare the year — joined by thousands of others around the world declaring their own — and on 14 July 2027 he will cycle the 600km Atlantic coast of Portugal from Caminha to Sagres to mark its end. The movement is anchored by two words on every surface: Show Up."
Use the paragraph above directly. No attribution required. The longer founder bio, photography, and contextual one-pagers are in the press kit below.
Use these directly attributed to "Ruben, founder of 1year1life" or simply "the founder." All cleared. No further sign-off needed.
"I slept through my own heart attack and went to work the next morning. That sentence is the entire reason this project exists."
"Most days will not feel like progress. That is the whole test. Show up."
"The hardest problem in every team I have worked in — small or large — is the same. Getting the team to keep showing up. For the work, and for each other."
"Comebacks do not look like comebacks at the time. They look like a Tuesday you nearly skipped."
"We did not build the app to make people post more. We built it to make people show up — even if no one ever sees them do it."
All assets free to use with attribution. For interviews, photo requests not in the kit, or anything else, email press@1year1life.com directly.
Founder bio (short and long), high-res photography, app screenshots, brand assets, two-page project one-pager, the full quotable-line library, fact sheet, distribution map.
Founder portraits in studio and on location. App in-use shots. Journal product photography. Daily life, training, family. All cleared for editorial use with attribution.
Primary wordmark in SVG, PNG. Signal green hex value. Typography information. Brand guidelines one-pager. App icon in three resolutions.
Two-page summary of the project. The story, the calendar, the philosophy, the coastal ride route, the founder bio, contact lines. Built for editors who need the whole thing in 90 seconds.
The founder is available for media interviews from May 2026 forward. Audio, video, written, in-person where geography allows. For commentary on cardiac patient experiences, founder mental health, building public movements, or the philosophy of comeback work — direct line below.
— Embargo & coordinated coverage. Major announcements are released to journalists 48 hours under embargo. To be added to the press list for embargoed access, email the address above with the publication name and your beat.
Pick a slot. Pay at booking. The Google Meet link arrives in your email and on your calendar automatically. Three call types below — pick the one that fits the conversation you actually want to have.
Each call type is structured differently. The strategy call is hardest to book — the founder takes a maximum of two of those a month — so plan ahead.
The booking calendar is embedded below. Choose your call type, pick a time in your timezone, pay at booking. The Google Meet link is sent automatically.
Replace this placeholder with your live booking embed from Calendly, Google Appointment Schedule, SavvyCal, or Cal.com when ready. The embed iframe slots into this same panel and auto-syncs with Google Calendar and your payment processor.
A page for the people who would rather give than buy. Donations go directly to the founder, separately from the movement, the app, the shop, and the corporate pledges. They cover medical follow-up, training, and the equipment needed to ride 600km down the Atlantic coast on Day 367.
No pressure. Most members of the movement never donate — they buy a tee or pre-order the book or just share the work, and that is enough. This page is for the people who specifically asked for a way to give.
Donations are personal. They go to the founder directly. The brand operates separately — funded by the shop, the book pre-orders, corporate pledges, and an early sponsor cohort. The split matters. So you know what your money is doing.
Cardiology check-ins every 90 days. Imaging, ECGs, the appointments that keep the mechanical valve safe and confirm progress. Not covered fully by insurance. Costs around $400 per visit, four visits a year.
Cardiologist-cleared training. A bike that survives 600km. Helmet, kit, tools, panniers. The physiotherapy that keeps the body in the game. The 60-day support team for the coastal ride in summer 2027.
The cameras, mics, and editing time that turn the year into the daily videos, the weekly recap, the podcast, and the book. Most documentary projects have a budget. This one runs on what we can fund ourselves.
Every donation gets a personal acknowledgment within a week. The tiers below add specific recognition. You can opt out of public recognition at checkout if you prefer to give anonymously.
Within one week of the donation arriving. Real reply, not a template. With the day count, what you funded, and what is happening in the year that week.
Every first-edition copy of "Show Up." — published September 2028 — carries an acknowledgments page with the names of donors who gave $50 or more. Anonymous if you prefer.
From the founder, recorded on his phone. Not polished. Just a thank you and a small update on the day you contributed to. Sent within two weeks.
When the book ships in 2028, you receive a signed copy alongside the Show Up. Journal. Both addressed to you personally. Free shipping included.
On Google Meet, scheduled at your convenience. About anything you want — your year, his year, the coastal ride, the work. Treated as a friend's call, not a paid consultation.
For supporters who would rather give monthly with community perks built in. Patrons get a closer view of the year — the conversations that happen when no one is watching, the chapters early, the merch first, and a real piece of the project arriving in the post. Three tiers from $5 to $50. Cancel any time. Most patrons join at The Inner Circle.
For supporters who want the closer view without the full membership. Digital-only. No shipping, no waiting, just access.
The tier most patrons land on. Hardcover included at launch. Real objects in the post. The Q&A call. The math works the moment you stay 6 months.
The Inner Circle at $15/month for 14 months is $210. You receive: a $36 hardcover, a $14 eBook, the welcome sticker pack, $30 of accumulated merch credit, 14 monthly Q&A calls, and a handwritten card. That is well over $250 in tangible value, before you count the things that cannot be bought.
Direct donations on this page go straight to the founder via Stripe with no platform fee. Patreon takes a small cut but adds the community feed, the perks, and the monthly rhythm. Pick whichever matches how you want to support.
The brand has its own revenue streams — shop, book pre-orders, corporate team pledges, early sponsor cohort. Donations are a separate line and do not subsidise commercial activity. This is the rule that keeps the project honest.
— A summary of donation use is published quarterly to everyone on the donor list. Plain English, no marketing.
Most members never donate, and that is the design. Buying a tee or pre-ordering the book funds the project just as well — and you keep something physical at the end of it. Sharing the work with one person who needs to hear about it is more valuable than most donations.
Tee, hoodie, cap, prints, the journal, the audio companion. Every item carries the brand's two-word philosophy. Margin funds the project the same way a donation does.
Browse the shop →$28 hardcover or $14 eBook today, both ship September 2028. Pre-orders fund the cost of producing the book itself. Your name appears in the back if you want it to.
Pre-order the book →Monthly community support from $5. Patron-only feed, behind-the-scenes content, early access to videos and chapters. Closer view of the year, less of a transaction.
Join on Patreon →Send the link to one person you know who is on a hard year. The movement grows by introduction, not by advertising. One real introduction is worth more than a hundred ads.
See the movement →Whether you donate, buy a tee, share the link with one person, or just close this tab — the work is the work, and it is going to happen either way. The point of this page is to give the people who specifically asked for a way to support the project a clean, honest way to do it. That is all.