2022 Year In Review
Reflecting and goal setting.
Oh, what a year it has been. I gained 17,000 followers on Twitter and nearly died in a car accident. I earned $25,000 in side hustle income and lost 10% of my net worth in the Luna collapse. I bought a house and made a decision that would flip my career path on its head.
For the past two years, I have been doing annual reviews. It’s an exercise where I reflect on the past year and plan for the year ahead.
If you have never done an annual review, I highly recommend it because it challenges you to reflect on your experiences. Through that reflection, you will realize things about yourself that you never thought of. Every year I have done an annual review, I come out refreshed and ready to take on the new year.
This year, I used Dr. Anthony Gustin’s annual review template. I have researched a ton of templates, and I like his the best.
Nonetheless, here is 2022 Review and 2023 Goals. It's broken down into four different areas:
2022 Reflection
2022 Review
Personal Audit
2023 Planning
Let's dive in.
1 - 2022 Reflection
What were my major milestones or moments? What accomplishments am I most proud of?
Quarter 1 (Jan - Mar)
Started my ghostwriting business
10,000 followers on Twitter
Finished the CrossFit Open in the top 89th percentile in the world
Quarter 2 (Apr - Jun)
Won money playing beach volleyball
Wrote this viral workout thread
Quarter 3 (Jul - Sep)
Spent two weeks in Italy
Bought a house
Started a new job
Quarter 4 (Oct - Dec)
Managed a complete house remodel
Learned 3 new trades (Plumbing, electrical, and carpentry)
Hosted Christmas dinner for Rachael and I’s families
What are the people, events, habits, or tasks that I look back on fondly, energized me the most, or made me feel the most expansive 2022?
Two week trip to Italy
Publishing my monthly newsletters
Learning how to renovate a house
Going to the gym at 6 AM
Getting up at 5 AM to read / write
Going to bed at 9 PM
Selling my first ghostwriting client
How can I do more of this in 2023?
Commit to publishing more writing
Focus on honing your sales muscle
Commit to doing things that scare you (buying a house and taking a new job)
Commit to traveling more frequently
Focus on the small habits that make a large impact (working out, sleep, reading, writing)
What are the people, events, habits, or tasks that I dreaded, drained me the most, or made me feel the most contracted in 2022?
Staying up late
Eating too close to bedtime
Drinking excessively
Committing to too many things
Lacking focus and taking on too many projects
How can I do less of this in 2023?
Commit to going to bed at ~9 PM and waking up at ~5 AM
No eating 3 hours before bedtime, which means eating dinner earlier
No more than two drinks in one night
Focus on accomplishing one thing at a time
Avoid shiny object syndrome at call cost
How did I grow as a person?
I learned I can’t do it all. Growth requires sacrifice. If you want to learn something new or improve an area of your life, something is going to have to give. For example, I bought and renovated a house, and didn’t see my friends for three months.
I learned to just dive in. Paralysis by analysis is real. If you want something, go get it. Nobody is holding you back but yourself. For example, buying a house was hard. I wanted to buy where I was certain to get a high ROI and cash flow quickly. That was stupid of me because I never flipped a house before. How was I supposed to know whether one house is better than the other? The other example is my new job. I was nervous to accept the job even though I knew it would be 99% better than my current role! I analyzed and agonized over the decision. Looking back on it, the decision was clear. I could have avoided the stress by just deciding and moving on.
I learned that travel is important. Before going to Italy, I did not understand by traveling was beneficial. Traveling is important because it changes your perspective. It teaches you about different cultures and traditions and that is important for growth. It also opens your eyes to other opportunities you might have never thought of.
What were my favorite books, podcasts, articles, and videos and how did they shape my thinking?
Stillness is the Key by Ryan Holliday is a book that taught me that you need to create time for leisurely activities. These are things you do just because you enjoy doing them. Another way of framing this is, what do you create, just for the sake of creating, without any expected return? This has always been hard for me because whenever I do something, I always run into the question "Why am I doing this?" or "What is the output of this?" Sometimes it's okay to do things, just because you want to.
How to Get Rich by Felix Dennis is a book that taught me that I want to have a net worth of over $50M. Anything over that is sort of unnecessary, so he says. The only way to do this is by starting businesses and selling them or buying businesses and selling them. You need to have ownership in order to build serious wealth. My stretch goal this year is to start a business, but we'll get to the details later.
My First Million is a podcast that taught me that becoming wealthy is entirely attainable. I'm pretty certain I have listened to every single episode ever published. Although it's my favorite podcast, it breeds shiny object syndrome. So this year, I'm going to try and be a little more intentional with my listening.
How could I have been better as a person? Friend? Etc.
I could have spent more time with my grandparents. They are getting old and I want to maximize the time I spend with them.
I could have been a better friend. This year, I want to focus on building my tribe. I want to figure out who I really want to “do life with”. Throughout my life, I’ve had many shallow friendships. I would like to focus on those few great friends in 2023 and invest time in building those relationships. I've heard it over and over again from people older than me: "It's so hard to keep in touch with your friends as you grow older." I'm not doubting that this is true, but I think it's easier to keep in touch with people when you have deeper relationships rather than a breadth of relationships. I don't know. We will see.
What am I most grateful for in 2022?
I’m most grateful for Rachael who pushed me out of my comfort zone. She convinced me to buy the house and take the HackerOne job. She also was supportive of my drive to build my audience and do all the stuff I do. I’m grateful for her understanding and patience with me as I navigate life.
I am grateful for Tom who helped me renovate the house. Without him, there is no way it would be the way it is today. He also taught me skills I will take with me forever.
I am grateful for my parents who supported me through the whole house-flipping journey. They also helped me with a $15k interest-free loan to support renovations and whatnot.
What books did I read? Which ones were most impactful and why? What were the main takeaways?
I started keeping track of the books I read later in the year. I want to get more diligent with this in 2023. Later this year I'll be building a Notion database with all my notes and everything and then use it as a tool to generate email subscribers.
What were the lessons adversity and life taught me?
Trust yourself. You can do anything you put your mind to. If you want something, go get it. Take risks and trust yourself that you’ll get it done.
Focus leads to growth. When you are focused on one area of life, you will grow. For example, I took on a house renovation project and learned a ton. Other areas of my life suffered, but I grew a lot as a person through it.
Balance leads to peace. When your life is in balance, you are at peace. This is when all of your buckets are full. You are not spending 50% of your time on a single project. You are just chilling and at peace.
Be a big fish in a small pond. I don’t like being the small fish. I always want to pursue or create opportunities in which I am the big fish in a small pond.
Pay for expertise. When you are trying to learn something, paying something to teach you is almost always worth it. Sure, you can try and figure it out on your own, but it will take far more time and will create unnecessary stress. The best type of expertise is the one that 1) will teach you the thing and 2) hold you accountable to doing the thing.
Make quick, thoughtful decisions. Most of your stress is brought on due to an inability to make quick decisions. It is important to think before acting, but only to an extent. Avoid stress by trusting your gut and making decisions confidently and quickly.
Growth comes with sacrifice. You can’t do it all. Next time you throw yourself into something, understand that some things are going to have to give.
Writing solves problems. There is no problem that can’t be solved with writing. Writing is the way for me to get out of my head and actually see what I am thinking.
Be careful who you take advice from. Too much advice can be paralyzing. Only accept advice from those who have been where you want to go. They know what you are going through and will help you get through it. In other words, do not expect someone to give you good advice about something if you are asking them something they have never done before.
Systems > Goals. If you want to achieve something, build a system to help you get there. Fall in love with the process, not the result.
What is currently stressing me out the most?
I really want to finish up the house renovation
I’m not sure what I want to work on next
What are the skills I acquired in 2022?
How to learn quickly. Buying the house forced me to learn a lot of trades in a very short period of time. It helps when you have someone who can teach you everything.
Copywriting. Growing my Twitter following was a function of great copywriting. I learned how to phrase things so that people would pay attention. I also learned this from my job at Sean Wes Media where I wrote hundreds of headlines a week
Sales. My job at HackerOne made me realize I really enjoy selling. I may not be too good at it yet, but nonetheless, I realized it is a skill I want to continue to develop.
Copywriting and sales are a pretty great combination of skills. Now, how can I leverage that into a business or product?
2 - 2022 Review
I hit ~50% of the goals I set for 2022.
Here’s an overview.
Physical Health
✅ 200 Crossfit workouts
I crushed this one, but it was actually pretty annoying to keep track of. I have an Apple Watch, so I figured it would be easy to open my Apple Health or Fitness app and see how many CrossFit workouts I completed for the year, but NO. I had to download Health Auto Export, share my health information with this company, download a CSV from their app, open that CSV in Google Sheets, and then filter for CrossFit workouts. It was a 30-minute process that should have taken 30 seconds. There has to be a better way to keep track of this, but in the meantime, here is a detailed breakdown showing how I was able to figure out how many CrossFit workouts I completed this year. You can follow this same process for getting a count on any type of workout.
❌ 300 nights sleep between 10PM - 5AM
Eating and drinking late made this difficult. After doing a lot of research, I learned maintaining a consistent wake time is far more important than your total amount of sleep. In other words, sleeping in to “catch up on sleep” is a hoax and hurts your overall sleep quality in the long term. More on this in a future post.
❌ 300 8PM - 12PM fasts
I started the year strong but eventually began experiencing stomach issues. I realized it was from fasting. I did some research and learned it’s not great to fast every single day. It’s actually better to fast three times per week for 20 hours each. I was reluctant to go on this schedule because I love working fasted. I feel so much more focused and alert. However, the digestive issues just weren’t worth it. Once I started shifting to the 3 day per week fasting schedule, my stomach issues went away and I was still able to reap the benefits of fasting.
Mental Health
✅ 150 walks / runs
I crushed this one too. I finished the year with 327 walks and runs. Walking and running is more of a mental thing for me than a physical. It helps me clarify my thinking. It definitely doesn’t shut my brain off or give me peace, but it does help me sort, understand and focus on what I need to get done.
❌ 300 daily reviews
A daily review is a series of questions to help me keep track of daily habits working towards my long-term goals. For example, did I do CrossFit today? Did I fast? Did I go for a walk or run? I started off the year strong, completing a daily review every day for three months. I even built an automated system that would send me a Google form every day at 8 PM to submit my answers for review. It was a good system, but eventually, I got sick of reviewing my daily habits. Filling out the questionnaire every day made me feel like a robot, so I stopped.
If you are interested in how I set up the automated system, let me know and I’ll send it to you.
❌ 52 weekly reviews
A weekly review is essentially transferring all of the data from my daily reviews into a larger tracker where I can visualize my progress toward my annual goals. I don’t think I did one of these, nor do I think I need to commit to doing these in 2023. I think weekly check-ins are far too frequent.
❌ 4 quarterly reviews
I’m a little disappointed with this one. I love the idea of quarterly reviews; every three months doing a detailed analysis of where you are and where you are going. My friend Joe Wells inspired me to start doing these, but I haven’t committed yet. He has an awesome Quarterly Review Toolkit you can download.
Financial Health
✅ Invest $6,250 in bets
Bets are investments where you are searching for fortune and the return will likely be less than the return of the S&P500 (~10% per year).
Bets fall into two categories: risky investments and learning investments.
Risky investments are those that could have a high monetary ROI, but chances are they aren’t going to outperform the S&P500 over time. For example, cryptocurrency, NFTs, or individual stocks.
Learning investments are those that could have a high learning ROI, but only if you execute what you have learned. For example, courses, books, traveling, and other learning experiences.
This year, I invested A LOT of money into bets: Bitcoin, Ethereum, Matic, Solano, a ton of books, and I bought a house! I’m realizing now that I did not buy one course this year... Last year I bought Nat Eliason’s Defi Orientation and Sahil Bloom & Blake Burge’s Audience Building Course. I'd like to double down on my learning investments this year.
✅ Earn $25,000 in side income
Between ghostwriting and other miscellaneous jobs, I earned an extra $30,000 this year. This was just enough to put a downpayment on a house, cover closing costs, and have some money left over for renovations.
Vocational Health
✅ Write 40 Twitter threads
This goal was tied to my broader goal to hit 10,000 Twitter followers. I wrote 40 Twitter threads and it paid off. This is a perfect example of how I need to structure goals in the future.
Instead of setting a goal like “Build my Twitter following to 10,000 followers” - which is entirely out of my control because I can’t force someone to follow me - I should be setting goals like “Write 40 Twitter threads” - which is exactly within my control and directly influences the number of followers I will get.
✅ Write 150 Tweets
See above. Writing tweets led to followers.
✅ Publish 12 newsletters
So I hit this goal, but not how I wanted to. I wanted to be consistent with sending my newsletter. I was for the first half of the year, and then I bought a house and my consistency went out the window. In 2023, I will be publishing a newsletter every Monday.
❌ Study 400 hours for the GMAT
I decided I did not want to go to grad school within the next couple of years, so I obviously did not study for the GMAT. More on this decision in a later post.
❌ Spend 40 hours writing my MBA essay
See above.
❌ Spend 40 hours writing my GSAP story
GSAP is a program where Deloitte will pay for you to get your MBA. To get accepted into the program, a few partners must sponsor you, and then you have to give a presentation, sharing why you think you are a good candidate. This goal was centered on spending time preparing for that presentation. Long story short, I decided to not get my MBA and I ended up leaving Deloitte for HackerOne, so this goal was a wash.
Social
✅ Call parents 150 times
This goal is important, but also stupid. I talk to my parents every day and see them at least once every other week.
✅ Call brother 150 times
See above.
❌ Call grandparents 50 times I’m really upset about this one.
I need to spend more time with my grandparents. This year, I’m committing to seeing them at least once per month.
✅ 30 date nights with Rachael
Nailed this one and I want to ramp it up in 2023. Rachael and I are designating Fridays for date night.
❌ 20 day trips with friends
20 day trips is a lot. I don’t think I realized this when I first set this goal. This year, I am setting a goal to do 4 “Bro Trips”; one every quarter.
❌ 40 contacts with my core network
At the end of last year, I wrote down 10 to 15 names of people - my core network - that I want to keep in touch with. My goal here was to keep in touch with all of them; kind of like a personal CRM sort of deal. I realized this was stupid and the best friendships and relationships are not programmed like this.
You are going to spend time with the people you want to spend time with. Period. However, I will say it’s important to identify the people you want to spend time with and make time for those people. But, it's not healthy to maintain relationships just because a spreadsheet says so.
Which accomplishments at 2022 am I most proud of? Why?
Buying a house and learning how to do electrical work, plumbing work, and carpentry because it pushed me out of my comfort zone and I learned a lot of new skills.
Growing my Twitter audience to 17,000 followers because I have an audience of people to share my ideas and writing.
Earning ~$30k in side income because I was able to use that money to invest in a house and I learned how to make money online as a writer.
Boosted my earning potential by 60% because it gives me more optionality when investing in future experiences.
What habits, people, routines, or environments supported me in reaching my goals?
Habits
Exercising
Reading
Writing
Publishing
Going for walks
People
Rachael supporting me and pushing me out of my comfort zone
Luke motivating me and reminding me what’s most important
Mom and Dad giving me the resources and support needed to pursue my dreams
Tom teaching me how to be a responsible homeowner and how to do all of the trades
Michael trusting me and offering me my first writing gig
Sahil offering me a job and being my job referral
Liam connecting me with Crescent and being my job referral
Jordan for his career advice on startups and MBAs
Spencer for offering me my job at HackerOne
Josh inspiring me to take risks.
Routines
Getting up at the same time every day to read, workout, and write.
Environments
Twitter
Italy
Gym
New house
Nature
How do I lean into these in 2023?
Double down on your daily routine of waking up at 5AM, reading, going to the gym, writing, and going for a walk.
Get back to publishing content regularly
Continue doing things that make you feel uncomfortable
What habits, people, routines, or environments prevented me from reaching my goals? How do I remove these blockers in 2023?
Habits
Staying up past 9PM → Get in bed by 8:30PM to read and relax.
Eating 3 hours before bedtime → Don’t eat 3 hours before bedtime. On nights when you go to the gym in the evening, eat earlier.
Drinking before bed → Avoid alcohol 4 hours before bedtime.
People
I think I have a pretty good tribe of people around me. I don’t think anyone is holding me back from reaching my goals.
Routines
Putting Netflix on at 8:30PM, when I know I want to be in bed by 9PM → Just don’t do it.
Environments
Messy house → Designate time to complete chores. It’s been pretty chaotic trying to keep a clean house amid the renovations, but I know it is something I need to do. I’m considering hiring a cleaning service.
3 - Personal Audit
Daily Audit
Weekly Audit
Start / Stop / Continue Habits
Start
Going to bed ~9 PM
Waking up ~5 AM
Not eating 2 hours before bedtime
No drinking 4 hours before bedtime
No screens before bedtime
Publishing weekly
Sending a weekly newsletter
Stop
Staying up late
Eating late
Drinking excessively
Getting distracted by shiny objects
Drinking too much caffeine
Continue
Going to the gym early
Eating health
Define Your Purpose
My purpose is to create things and work on projects that challenge me to learn new things and step out of my comfort zone.
Define Your Vision
My vision is to be a leader who helps others pursue excellence.
Step Four: 2023 Planning
What type of person do I want to be?
One who loves and prioritizes their family
One who goes to the gym early in the morning
One who supports small businesses
One who hosts dinner parties and holidays
One who is financially free
One who is not afraid to share their ideas
One who publishes a consistent weekly newsletter
One who does what they say they are going to do
What’s your theme for this year?
Compete to be unique.
Read things that challenge your thinking, pursue projects that are difficult but meaningful, and write and publish things that will help others.
What are your goal areas for 2023?
Physical: Maintaining fitness across broad time, modal, and age domains.
Mental: Pursuing knowledge across various subjects and skills.
Spiritual: Finding inner peace regardless of what is going on around you.
Social: Building and maintaining relationships with people who give you energy.
Financial: Using money to create growth and inner peace.
Vocational: Achieving fulfillment from work, maintaining balance, and making a positive impact.
What are your 2023 goals?
Physical
300 workouts
100 mobility sessions
~9 PM - ~5 AM average sleep window
Mental
Learn two new sports (skiing, jiu-jitsu, rock climbing, archery, mountain biking)
Read 12 books
Publish 12 book summaries
Spiritual
Delete Facebook / Instagram / Snapchat for 6 months (maybe one year if it is going well)
Weekly journal sessions
Conduct 4 quarterly reviews (Q1, Q2, Q3, Annual Review)
Go to church once a month
Social
Weekly date nights
Monthly visits with grandparents
Monthly dinner parties / get togethers with friends
Quarterly bro trips (snowboarding trip, multi-day hike, tbd)
Financial
Pay back $15k loan from parents
Invest 40% of my income
Increase income by 25%
Vocational
HackerOne
Complete Introduction to Cyber Security Learning Path on TryHackMe
TBD
TBD
Content
50 blog posts
50 podcasts (stretch)
52 newsletters
Projects
Finish house renovation
Write house renovation book
Create book notes database
Write career change book (stretch)
Write fitness book (stretch)
Write personal finance book (stretch)
Create the Milk Road for security (stretch)
Well there you have it.
✅ 2022 Reviewed
✅ 2023 Planned
Time to get after it!