a work in
process

Milestones

Winter 2026

Curated and published the inaugural edition of Specs, a once-a-year “cal-azine” that showcases photography and writing.

December 2025

Three newly-made AZ friends treated me to a birthday dinner. In other words, I made three friends during the Male Loneliness Epidemic.

November 2025

Officially burned out & deleted my dating apps

Summer 2025

Summer in Seattle with Jess and Antoine. Unlocked that most mythical of social planes: the sit-com drop-by.

February 2025

Broke into the world of multiple revenue streams: hired as in-house counsel for a global technology distribution company that just happened to have an office in Gilbert, AZ.

November 2024

Sold my first photograph at the Grande Avenue Festival in Phoenix, via Phoenix Film Revival

October 2024

Admitted to the AZ Bar

August 2024

First foray into self-employment. Began consulting for campaign services firms, helping Democrats send text messages to their supporters.

Summer 2024

Achieved my lifelong professional goal of having the means and freedom to live a full season away from home. My grandfather took his family every winter to Verbier, Switzerland, to avoid Jersey winters. In 2024, Shanti and I split the summer (away from the Phoenix heat!) between Tijuana and San Diego.

February 2024

Bought my first pair of skis and boots—Arizona Snowbowl, here we come! Unlimited season-long weekday pass is just $200.

January 2024

First weeklong quiet contemplation. Days of meditation in each wat I walked past. Nights of jazz at the Arkive on Chiang Mai’s North Gate.

December 2023

Third visit to Elephant Nature Park, this time volunteering with Doug and Molly

December 2023

Moved to Gilbert, AZ as a result of a conversation with Chat GPT

October 2023

Quit work & began sabbatical funded by Uber selloffs

May 2023

Launched GetCoachedbyJay.com

May 2022

Admitted to the NY Bar

September 2021

Joined the law firm Wilson Sonsini in their NYC office. Achieved a life goal of living and working in New York (with enough income to enjoy it!)

October - November 2020

Co-founded Bruins for Biden, amassing nearly 100 likeminded, activist students to work phone banks for CO, WI, and NC. Spent the ten days leading up to Election Day in Las Vegas monitoring four polling stations and cure canvassing over 100 Biden voters whose initial ballots were rejected for a formality.

May 2020

Got my first dog, Shanti, at eight weeks old. He's named after the book Shantaram by Gregory David Roberts

January 2020

Second trip to Elephant Nature Park in Chiang Mai, Thailand, this time with Jess

May 2019

Uber IPO

September 2018

Began therapy

August 2018 - May 2021

UCLA Law

August 2018

Moved to Santa Monica

  • - 85 flights to 43 cities in 21 countries ('17)

    - CRM Lead for Uber LatAm. First time changing jobs to follow a great manager; first time managing people myself. Read more about it here. (May '17 - June '18)

    - Moved to Mexico City. Achieved a life goal of living and working abroad. (May '17)

    - Followed John Mayer on the European leg of his Search for Everything tour to Stockholm, Oslo, Copenhagen, and London. I lived with more gratitude and joy around the time of this trip than I ever had before or have since. Read more about it here. (May '17)

    - First trip to Elephant Nature Park in Chiang Mai, Thailand with Yadavan (Mar '17)

    - Hillary Clinton loses to Donald Trump (Nov '16)

    - Second solo trip, this time to Tokyo to eat at Jiro Ono’s (Oct '16)

    - CRM embed with Uber’s India Growth engineering team (Oct '15 - May '17)

    - Moved to SF. First time living without roommates. (Oct '15)

    - Read Essentialism by Greg McKeown (Aug '15)

    - First solo trip; from DC to San Juan, Puerto Rico (Apr '15)

    - Buddy Friedel, my grandfather, took his own life at a healthy 79 years old; so great was his fear of losing his independence and becoming a burden. (Mar '14)

    - First paid job—operations and marketing for Uber Baltimore/Maryland. Didn’t know what stock options were until I read the offer letter. (Mar '14 - Oct '15)

    - Unable to get a job in government/think tanks/journalism/anything remotely related to my BA in International Relations. About to bounce March’s rent check. (Jan - Feb '14)

    - Published for the second time: An Unsanctioned Iran Is Scary, Nukes or Not (Dec '13)

    - Introduced to David Foster Wallace's commencement address, "This is Water." Now I listen to it once a quarter to try and reset my default social processing. (Oct '13)

    - Moved to DC. Launched my first blog to self-publish foreign policy analysis. (Sept '13)

  • - Graduated from Penn (May '13)

    - Performed onstage for the first time: Legally Blonde (The Musical). Watch my scenes here. (Nov '12)

    - Directed the Quaker Classic, then the country's largest undergraduate mock trial competition with over 500 participants (Nov '10)

    - Founded and 4x'd the high school debate program at City Center Academy in Philadelphia ('09 - '13)

  • - Graduated valedictorian from West Springfield High School (Jun '09)

    - Co-wrote, co-directed, and co-produced my first short film: A Fool's Fate (May '09)

    - Won the Virginia State Championship for Student Congress Debate, leading the WSHS Debate Team to its first school championship in 40 years (Apr '09)

    - First real heartbreak (Dec '08)

    - "Junior olympics" in Berlin. Quitting gymnastics after high school marked the end of my first identity: gymnast from ages 2-18. (Mar '08)

    - First trip to India as a politically aware young-adult. My first time seeing abject, third world poverty. (Dec '06)

  • - Winter breaks in Verbier, Switzerland with my family, hosted by my grandfather "Bumpy" and his partner, Becky. ('01 - '04)

Links

get coached

I’ve been coaching pre-professionals and young professionals since 2014. My coaching philosophy is “Process over Outcomes” because I teach my clients how to build a robust process for thinking about and making big decisions. As a result, every big decision is a win-win: because even if they aren’t happy with the outcome, they’ll get valuable data about what they don’t like, which will inform their process when the next big decision rolls around.

To learn more, visit GetCoachedbyJay.com or @getcoachedbyjay.

travel

My travel recommendations are listed in this Google spreadsheet (not mobile-friendly). You should make your own copy or download it. That way, you'll be able to filter by location and/or by category: food/drink, activity, sightseeing, lodging, and entertainment.

For the places that I know really well or that people ask me the most about, you'll find a dedicated tab with my personalized guide:

watch

My YouTube Channel mostly contains video diaries of my travels:

like

My personal Instagram: @jayfriedel

My professional photography: @jayfriedel_photography, available for purchase at Society6.

read

I use Medium to blog about personal musings, ranging from spirituality to tech to my time working at Uber from 2014-2018.

Wordpress is where I self-publish articles with an international/foreign policy focus. It also has some a my college essays from when I was an International Relations major at the University of Pennsylvania (CAS ‘13).