2021 Reflection

Past years reflections have been written in cafes in Netherlands and beach houses up the coast. This year I sit plonked in my chair on a muggy Sunday afternoon in Sydney.

Welcome back to my annual reflections where I publicly introspect on the year past and look forward to the next.

If you want to check out previous years here’s 2018, 2019 and 2020.

What a year. Starting full-time work, speaking to former PMs, going viral on tiktok, hiring an intern, writing a book and starting angel investing. At the same time; almost burning out, spending less time with my family and experiencing relationship breakdowns.

The most consistently intense of my life. In some ways trumping my period of body building in 2019. I’ve got a lot of thoughts about this year but let’s try tackle this sequentially.

Nature, sun and surf were the theme for the first 2 months of the year. Making the most of my last months of ‘freedom’ before starting full-time work. I cooked meals for my family, went on endless road trips and soaked up more than my fair share of sun. I caught the best wave of my life up in Byron, whilst in the same week calling Adam and saying this is the first time in my life I feel in a slump. The heaviness in my chest over a broken relationship something not even a Wim Hof session could take away. In this period I ticked off a few goals; including improving my cooking, the ocean swim and getting stuck into investments and podcasts. As much as I tried to appreciate ‘going slow’, there was an unmistakable impatience humming in the background. If only I knew what lay ahead.

As March rolled around I eagerly took the leap into full-time work. If you’ve met me in person I’ve probably chewed your ear off about how much I love my work so I’ll keep it short. I’m lucky enough to have stumbled across what feels like the perfect job at this point in my career. It’s a wonderful mix of venture building, design and stereotypical management consulting. In the beginning months I eagerly soaked up as much information (and alcohol) as possible, leaning into the kind of bougie consulting lifestyle. Around this time I also turned 22, felt the thrill of Malcolm Turnbull accepting to come onto our podcast and closed my first angel investment deal into a company called Asaak.

As the summer tan begun to fade I found myself longing for adventure again. Over Easter my agnostic prayers were answered with a weekend for the record books. With a few great mates we camped near the top of Kosciusko, woke up for sunrise, had an ice bath in Jindabyne and drove to a festival on a farm. Over the next few months I appeared on my first advisory board and various podcasts, caught feelings and really started settling into work. However in the middle of this year I felt I hadn’t achieved enough, here’s an entry from June.

Looking back, this was clearly a sign that I hadn’t seamlessly transitioned into full-time work. When recounting what I’d achieved in the first half of the year I would almost always leave out having a full-time job. The fact that I worked 45h + a week in an intense career hadn’t quite sunk in. Clearly my relationship with ‘achievement’ still needs work. It’s unrealistic to expect my number of achievements to linearly increase every year (especially with full-time work). I’m working on holding two ideas at once. The first that I love to strive and push myself further each year. The second, achievements can sometimes just be small hits of dopamine and often take your attention away from things that really matter.

A month later this all seemed to mater a lot less as Sydney was plunged into another lockdown. As tough as it got, I’m extremely grateful for my conditions in lockdown. As a (likely) form of channelling my Covid angst I dived deep into a number of projects. We begun writing our book The Rising Tide, we hired an intern and rebranded our podcast, grew our Linkedin from 0 to 1400 followers, begun planning and branding our angel investment syndicate and made a paid podcast series for Victorian schools. In this period I learnt so much about managing a team, building something from the ground up and evolving into a better leader.

This all sounds impressive on paper so let me give you the other side of the coin. Every night when I’d log off my full-time job as a consultant, I’d squeeze in a quick workout, wolf down dinner and then work for another 3 hours in the evening. Weekends weren’t excluded from this. What’s more exhausting than the raw hours is the attention switching. Moving from a meeting about an investment, to a branding change in our podcast, to writing pages in our book. As much as I’m deeply proud of what we accomplished, I wasn’t near my best self in this period. Here’s a diary entry from August this year.

As I joined online communities with like-minded people and intensely worked on these projects I noticed judgements begin to creep in. People in communities like Next Chapter, were among the most accomplished I had ever come across. Managing full-time jobs, whilst co-founding businesses, and having an insatiable curiosity to learn about things like psychology, mimetic theory, crypto and investing. I begun to feel a distance to people outside of this world.

These judgements, whilst rarely vocalised, are something I’m not proud of. Contrary to what the self development community will tell you, I don’t think ego is purely a negative thing. In fact it gives us a sense of identity and purpose. It’s an enabling tool that tells us the work we are doing matters and gives us fuel to become our best selves. However there can also be a dark side and to me being an open, curious and kind person trumps any achievement. These feelings of judgement aren’t who I want to be or how I want to perceive another people. I believe they were a side effect of me not knowing how to handle so many side projects mixed with lockdown. Although they faded away as Sydney opened up again, I am now hyper conscious of maintaining the values that matter most to me as I grow. It’s also spurred a renowned desire to travel. I spent much of my pre-covid adult hood overseas and I long to feel that raw human connection that outweighs any false sense of distance between humans that the ego constructs. Many of the best moments of my life have been when travelling and adventuring.

As the days started to get longer the intensity of this year didn’t slow down. From parties to podcasts to milestones at work. A few notable moments were meeting equity mates for beers, podcasting the Deloitte CEO and navigating my grand dads health difficulties.

Reflecting on my goals for this year, there were so many opportunities that popped up that I didn’t even consider at the start of this year. The main goal I didn’t achieve was my physique goal (I’m currently sitting at a reasonably lean 76kg) however I also realised as I get older I will increasingly prioritise function over aesthetic. A big goal of me joining consulting was learning to go deep in a problem space, a skill I’ve lacked in the past. Whilst I have definitely developed in this space, there’s still room to improve my focus. I’m proud of how I’ve integrated into the team with crypto presentations, podcasting partners and hosting events helping this cause. Similar to my feelings when I first started at Sydney university before I started work I caught myself asking ‘do I have what it takes to thrive in this environment?’ It’s safe to say I no longer have those thoughts.

Amongst all the chaos I’ve actually begun to really appreciate stillness in a way I haven’t before. I’m an intense person and I’ll constantly have techno blasting and be chatting about the next adventure. Whilst these activities always fill up my cup, I’ve found a new love for having a coffee in the sun, staring at the clouds and a walk without my phone. Maybe I’m maturing (or getting boring) but often in the swirl of normal life I forget I’m 22 with so much lying ahead.

I’m so very grateful for this crazy life and all the leanings this year. I’m not sure in all the intensity if I had as many moments of happiness as in previous years, so this will be top of mind moving into 2022.

So here’s my goals for next year. On a personal front as I move out the thing that matters to me most is staying close to my family and enjoying living with my best mates. Adam and I spent some time over the weekend reflecting on where we want to take everything we are building, which you can read here. We decided on focus which means doubling down on the podcast, becoming creators and the syndicate. I toyed with the idea of doing a half marathon or triathlon but I know I’m gonna be incredibly time poor and 30 year old me would want me to stop loading up my plate with more commitments. As a result I’ve decided to focus on yoga and surfing whilst still lifting 3–4 times a week and playing futsal.

If you got this far find some more hobbies (I appreciate you). Wishing everyone a lot of presence and happiness over the break. Until next time.