Dear Gordy, From 29
- Gordon Bonker
- Jun 4
- 9 min read
I’ve started to make it an annual tradition to write a letter to my future self to read on my birthday.
It started when I turned 25 and was writing here on thebonkerbeat.com which was my first shot I took at making content and writing.
I wrote another one to myself last year when I turned 28, documenting my first year on my own as an entrepreneur and all the life events that had taken place from the 3 years in between my letters.
I love reading these posts. They remind me of how quick time moves. They transport me back to all the things that were happening in my life at those times that brought me joy or sparked my curiosity.
This is the one piece of writing I click publish on every year that I only truly write for myself. I want these letters to serve as a time capsule for when I look back on the journey that I’ve been on later on in life.
The first letter I wrote was to my 50 year old self.
I hope that 50 year old Gordy reads all of my letters, and enjoys reliving all of the memories and the experiences that life has thrown his way. I hope the 30 year old Gordy reads it too and sees how far he’s come.
So whatever future version of Gordy is reading this right now - I hope you enjoy it, and I hope you keep writing them.
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Dear Gordy,
Today is your 29th birthday - and what a year 28 was.
The single most important thing that happened this year was Amanda became your wife. The wedding up at Crystal Springs was beautiful, and we had the time of our lives with our best friends and family.
As I’m sure you remember, Jack shared our story and officiated our wedding. Everyone had a blast and our after-party was one for the ages.
We took pictures with dad’s (my future) Mustang - oddly enough as I write this now even after 29 years I still haven’t drove it. Maybe for my 30th next year we can take it for a spin.
We travelled to Saint Lucia for the honeymoon, and Amanda surprised me with a helicopter ride to the resort from the airport. We had an incredible trip, and saw the Piton mountains and relaxed by the pool with drinks in hand.
I know that marrying Amanda will always be the best thing that ever happened to us.
As I’m sure you also recall, the bachelor party was a lot of fun too - I had all the boys up at Saratoga Springs NY for the weekend to play some golf and catch the races.
I recapped it in this video:
We’re still very much in the wedding season of life. Amanda and I’s calendar have been filled these past few years - I think we’ve probably been to 15 by now. And we’ve still got a lot to go!
Last month we were fortunate to close on the condo we’ve been renting the last few years here in Morristown. Amanda is in the middle of her clinicals as she’s finishing her NP degree, so not having to move in the middle of that was a saving grace, and we’re incredibly thankful and lucky to finally own this place and call it our own.
I love living in Morristown. Most of the gang is still here. Pampin moved to Hoboken this year, but we still see him all the time.
I don’t take any of the days for granted here with most of my childhood best friends still living within just a couple miles of each other. I can remember thinking when we graduated high school - I wonder if I’ll still see these guys? Then after college? Then once we moved out? I think at this point - I feel pretty solid in saying they’re not going anywhere.
We also took a group trip down to the Bahamas this year. Was awesome having the whole crew together, and we tore it up at Footprints. Johnny and Lyndsey came too which was super cool.
Work’s been good.
I spent all of 28 working for myself, continuing to grow my sports card business. A couple crazy things happened. I did better than I thought I could do. I had some really bad days. I had some days that I will remember for the rest of my life. I’ll share a few of them here, and I’ll also share a few lessons I’ve learned now that I’m almost 2 years into being self-employed and an entrepreneur.
I bought and sold a $300,000 1952 Master Set.
This deal changed my life. I wrote about it and called it “The Find of a Lifetime” if you want to read back on what I was feeling that day. After writing that piece, just a few days later I reached an agreement to sell the set, and it would become my biggest sale ever. This deal gave me the confidence that what I’m building with my platform and audience on Bonkers Cards is something special. It taught me that hard work sometimes doesn’t show progress all at once. It takes time. Both the seller of the set and the buyer came from reading this newsletter.
In 2024, I committed to writing one newsletter a week no matter what. Didn’t matter if we had a trip. Didn’t matter if I didn’t want to do it. Didn’t matter if I had nothing to talk about. I wrote one. Every week. And it was a full year and a few months later before this newsletter would provide me the opportunity for a deal of a lifetime.
At the time of this writing, I have 1,737 subscribers to this newsletter. I have 128 paid subscribers, that pay $8.99 a month to read my deeper-thoughts about the industry as well as some other benefits that I call the Bonkers Cards Club. I launched the club Jan 1. of 2025, and so far it has been a great success.
I travelled more than I ever have this year.
Just to start in 2025, I went to the West Coast Card Show in California, Dallas Card Show in Texas, Chantilly Card Show in Virginia, Strongsville Card Show in Ohio, a ton of local NJ shows and the Westchester NY show. My content from these shows has been awesome, and I’m starting to get a good process down in terms of learning what to buy, where to buy it at, and who to buy from.
My favorite show this year was the West Coast Show in California because I got to bring Amanda. We went to San Diego for the week after and took that trip out West we’ve wanted to do for some time now.
I also got to play Torrey Pines, which was definitely a bucket list golf course for me.
I now have over 20,000 followers on TikTok as well. I wonder how many I’ll have the next time you’re reading this. I hope it’s more, and it probably will be - but that thought brings me to another lesson I’ve learned this past year.
The process matters more than the results.
There are things in life that I cannot control. Sometimes those things impact the end result of what I’m trying to achieve.
So I’ve learned focus on the things I can control, and let the chips fall where they may.
Keep writing the articles. Keep posting the videos. Keep showing up at the card shows. Keep networking. Keep learning.
That’s all you can do.
I still struggle with my mental health at times. I’ve gotten better at it though.
I think I’m learning there are some things that are innately part of who I am, and some of them I need to accept. I am a highly emotional personal. My highs are high, and my lows can be low. Recognizing that is important. I have made progress in categorizing things in my head as what’s really important and worth my stress and what’s not. Most of it is stuff that’s not worth my stress. There are still things that bother me more than they should.
There are days that I feel like I’m not doing enough, and there are days that I have so much I’m trying to do at once I don’t know where to start.
I think I’m learning that’s sort of just part of life. There’s ebbs and flows to it. I try to just remember that we’re only getting to do this whole thing once, and I always just try to bring myself back down by thinking about all of the things in life that I’m grateful for.
A few other things on my mind today as I turn 29:
-I love golf. I still run a little bit, but easily my biggest hobby outside of work is now golf. I joined Basking Ridge CC last August and Cole and I play a ton together. I’ve become a little too obsessive over my handicap (It got to as low as 7.7 last summer, it’s at a 9.2 as of today) and I’m DEFINITELY too hard on myself about my scores.) But I love it. I love being outside, I love getting my mind focused on something singular - I love that it takes me off my phone for a few hours. I love seeing the personal development that it brings. I think it challenges me mentally even more than physically. And golf is really hard.
Just last week I hit our first hole-in-one. Yes I say first - because I hope we get another one over the years. I expect to play a lot of golf in my lifetime, and I hope at some point when you’re back reading this letter, you’ve gone on a golf trip somewhere cool with the boys and made it some sort of tradition.
-I’m starting to lose my hair. I don’t know if it’s because Penn State football lost in the semis, the Yankees lost in the World Series or the Knicks lost in the ECF - but that’s probably not helping. I actually got a haircut today and kicked around going for the buzz cut. The barber kindly nudged me away from that idea.
-I wonder what Ai is going to be like in the next few years. The market this year has been incredibly volatile, mostly because of geopolitical stuff that I bet you won’t even remember when you read this. But one of the themes that has kept the market up has been the insane advancement in Artificial Intelligence. CHATGPT has become mainstream, and everyone uses some form of Ai now to help them with their jobs.
I’ve started to play around with it to help me form ideas, structure my day, and even ask it for golf tips. It’s still early on, and I can tell when people use Ai for their writing or videos still. There’s still something specifically authentic in my opinion that exists only from real humans writing their own thoughts.
I do think it is going to really change the way people work though. You already are seeing companies hault hiring, on the premise that most of their entry level work that used to be done by college kids can be done by Ai now.
I wonder what that leaves future generations for their work. I believe that creative workers, and people with personal brands will be the most valuable assets to the future economy. I don’t see people wanting to support robots. I think I see people supporting human beings that leverage robots to make products and experiences that enrich people’s lives.
How that shakes out in the markets I am not sure. I am thankful to have had 5 years in the traditional corporate world that taught me a ton about how to conduct myself and run a business. But I think a lot more people will continue to go down the path of self-employment and entrepreneurship as the corporate world grasps with what capabilities technology can bring them.
-I still love to write. I have been writing now pretty consistently for about 5 years or so. I go through phases of strong creative periods and then periods of time that it is really hard to do anything remotely creative. I also think that’s pretty normal. I think a goal I have is to write a book one day. Maybe at first it’s an ebook or a digital guide of some sort. It’s been in my head the last few months and I’ve started trying to get the outline done.
I hope that desire to keep trying new things stays with us and your curiosity keeps guiding you.
I hope that you try not to take everything so seriously and you learn to lighten up a little.
I hope you keep telling the people in your life you love them whenever you can.
And I hope 29 is as good as 28 was.
It sure will be a tough act to follow. I’ll see ya in the mirror.
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