2024 – Year in Review

January 31, 2025

Reflecting on 2024, I'd say that generally things are very positive and it's probably been the best year yet, especially psychologically.  I made a few important changes / realizations that have led to improved state of mind and physical health.

On the negative side, I'm wrestling with a role in a company that I co-founded that doesn't seem to fit along with a few other issues that I'd love to work on and improve this year.

I'm going to keep this short due to time.  I need to write this now otherwise it'll be March in the blink of an eye.  

This post is mainly for my own benefit rather than readership.

What's going well

Increased Clarity over my Time vs Money Relationship

I often frequent the FIRE, ChubbyFIRE and fatFIRE movements on Reddit. These subreddits contain people that are trying to accumulate enough assets to live off something like 4% return per year and quit their jobs.  

I  recently read a post about someone with $15m of assets in his mid 40's and something like a $250k per year spend rate trying to bend himself into a pretzel justifying why he should work another x number of years before retiring. Bear in mind that his current spend rate of $250k is only 1.66% of $15m and the 4% rule suggests he could spend up to  $600k per year and be just fine.

The top reply to the post was this:- "You're trading money you don't need for time you don't have".  

The quote hit hard, especially as I'm now 40!  

Then I read Die with Zero and 4,000 weeks (as recommended by Tim Ferriss).  I also delved into a YouTube rabbit hole of retirement planners (Azul,  James Shack, PensionCraft being my favorites).  

This all led me to do a stark realization. I'm also choosing to trade money I don't need for time I don't have

The realization has helped in a few ways:-

  • Saving money is no longer a focus - I've been saving and investing for 20 years, and I'll continue to do it, but it's no longer a core tenet.
  • Spending more - I'm allowing myself to spend more on the things that matter to me (more on that later)
  • I'm saying yes to more things -  Especially if they involve new or interesting experiences (scuba diving, hiking mount Kilimanjaro etc.) or a way to deepen relationships with people that matter to me (travelling from Asia to the UK for just 5 days to see my family). 
  • I'm intentional about work - I continue to work because I'm engaged, I enjoy the challenge and it doesn't hamper my ability to do other important things in my life.  If this changes, I'll stop.  Update: I officially stepped down in Jan 2025 with no plans to work in the near term future.

In Die with Zero, the author talks at length about transient phases of life.  

You have only a few years to experience things like reading your kids a bedtime story or have them sit on your knee and watch their favorite TV programs. Once that period is gone, and they've grown out of it, you'll never get that time back. That experience is gone, forever.   

The author argues this is true for many periods in life.  All too often, we have our heads down.  By the time we come up for air, we realize we've missed out on a lot of what life has to offer.  And there's no undo button - once it's gone, it's gone.

This is probably my main realization of 2024.  

It has made me hyper focused on making sure I don't allow life to pass me by unintentionally.  The real risk is not financial, but to wake up one day and realize the train has left the station without even noticing the train was there in the first place.

So, in short, 2024 has taught me an increased degree of intentionality and clarity with respect to money and time.  This has involved thinking long and hard about what I want from life and placing more value on time and my remaining "healthspan" than ever before.   

Strengthening Relationships with Family and Close Friends

While evaluating what I want from my life (as I alluded to in the previous section), having great relationships was right up there.  I'm optimizing for quality over quantity and 2024 was probably the first year where I really made it a conscious effort to invest a lot more time and effort.  

Relationships have always been a real area of weakness for me.  Not to say that I wasn't there for anyone that needed me, but I had a tendency to feel that I didn't want to bother people or to just keep myself to myself.  So I would go for months on end without interacting with my close friends and family and it would lead to people assuming that I wasn't interested in them and just didn't care.

I have my close friend Robin to thank for an epiphany about this.

Despite living on the other side of the world, he would regularly send me messages asking how I was.  Oftentimes I wouldn't even see his messages and so wouldn't send a reply, so he'd follow up with a call.  My phone is always on silent, so I'd often miss his calls.  So he'd phone again.  Then he'd drop me an email.  

He just made unbelievable effort to invest in our friendship and keep it going - more than anyone else I've met. 

To be on the receiving end of this kind of investment felt good.  It deepened our connection and has been a massive net positive for both of us.

And that's what made me realize: reaching out to close friends and family, regularly checking in, even if just a message or a phone call isn't bothering them at all.  It's showing that you care, it makes them feel good, it deepens relationships and is positive for everyone involved.  

At 39, in 2024, I finally realized that I had got it all wrong with relationships. Why did it take me so long?

As a result, I've probably doubled or tripled my investment in my most important relationships. 

Examples include:-

  • Flying to the UK from Asia (20 hours travel time) for just 5 days to spend time with family at Christmas
  • Daily calls and check-ins with a close friend going through a rough divorce
  • Flying to and from a city on the same day in order to spend quality time with a close friend
  • Organizing trips in order to bring people together (Yukon River Quest, Kilimanjaro hike etc.)
  • Helping a few of my friends going through difficult periods in various ways (calls, helping them solve problems, loaning money etc.)

The results have been great.  I'm building deeper and more meaningful relationships with people that matter to me.  I'm personally happy, but also the people involved also seem to be grateful and happy to feel my investment in them.

I want to continue doing more of this in 2025.  My only regret is that it took me this long to realize.

New Insights about Anxiety

I've written before about how being more strategic has helped me get results in my life.  Being strategic, for me, means living with intentionality and bringing more awareness to the direction that you're going in, why, and how you're going to get there.

Often it involves a lot of writing and planning.  

My first major business success came from being more strategic and committing to seeing things through.  That positive feedback was both a blessing and a curse.  I started planning my life in greater and greater detail under the illusion that the more carefully I planned and "designed" my life, the better it would become.

Before long, I had a whole master plan for the next 5 years.  I was going to build businesses, get in shape and had about a gazillion other carefully considered goals lined up.

At around the same time, though, I found myself spending more and more time worrying about things.  I had never been an anxious person and so this was unusual for me.  

  • I was worried about money, checking my spreadsheets on the daily
  • I became a borderline hypochondriac
  • I catastrophized about losing everything

This continued for a while...

Then, this past year, I read a book called 4,000 weeks, a book about time management, that helped me in unexpected ways.

It taught me that anxiety is a time related phenomenon closely related to the desire to try and control the future.  It made me realize that all my strategic planning, risk assessments and intentional living was a manifestation of me trying to control events that I don't fully have control over.  And that's what was causing me anxiety.

The future can’t be rendered entirely predictable, no matter how hard you try. And the harder you struggle to achieve security, the more it eludes you, because insecurity is the very condition of human life.

Four Thousand Weeks - Oliver Burkeman

It was such a powerful realization because it shifted my mindset from "I need things to happen in the way I'd planned" to more of a place where I feel that whatever happens, I trust that I'll figure things out and things will be OK.

The shift in mindset from trying to force the future to believing that I'm capable of dealing with whatever is thrown my way is literally all I needed to get a hold of my anxiety.

The takeaway is not to stop being strategic but to accept that I can't control the future.  

I wasn't even looking for answers to my anxiety when I picked up the book, but it was my biggest takeaway.  Thanks to Tim for the recommendation.

Best Shape of my Life?

I think I'm in close to the best shape of my life and that's mostly thanks to reading the book Longevity.  

The book is all about taking proactive care of your health so that you can increase your "healthspan" (the period of time in your life during which you're healthy and physically capable).  It sounds obvious to say, but I really want to live as long as possible and maximize the number of healthy years I have on this planet.

The book is highly detailed so I suggest picking up a copy.  

Here are the most important changes that I've made this year:-

  • 3 x cardio sessions per week - The book talks a lot about the importance of zone 2 cardio training and increasing your VO2 max.  I hadn't previously understood all the benefits of zone 2 and the inverse correlation between VO2 max and all cause mortality (the higher your VO2 max, the less likely you are to die at any moment).

    These cardio sessions have gotten me back into running (I was a national level long distance runner as a young whipper snapper).  I feel better physically but also the cardio sessions seem to be extremely good for me psychologically.

    I do at least 3 x 45 mins of cardio every week.  I'll also throw in a 4x4 HIT session once every few weeks.  I use the polar H10 heart rate sensor with the Polar Flow app to record my training sessions.
  • 3 x weight sessions per week - I've always done weight training, so nothing new here.  I've continued to try and get stronger.  

Strong Pool Tournament Performances

One of my goals from last year was to win the singles event in the Asia Pool Challenge but unfortunately I only managed to take second place, which is still a decent achievement.  However I did manage to win my second Super High Roller tournament in Thailand amongst a field of around 200 players.  So overall it's been another successful year.

Each year my game is improving and that's testament to how effective consistent deliberate practice is.  

Having a sport that I can throw myself into really benefits me in many ways and so I will continue to invest in the game and take things up another level.  It's already clear that I'm at the level where I'm facing quite diminishing returns but my expectations are set accordingly.

Still Alcohol Free...

I'm slightly under 2 years and 2 months alcohol free at this point and I don't think I'll ever drink again.   The thought that's kept me from going back to having a drink every now and again is that I know that if I do have one drink then at some point in the future (it could be days, weeks or months after that first drink) I'll end up back at square one binging once or twice per week.  

It's not worth it.  

I'm enjoying life way too much to be controlled or imprisoned in any way by a substance like alcohol.  

I won't go into more detail about this, but here's my last post on the matter.

Business Operating System - EOS

At LevelUp, we implemented a Business Operating System called EOS and I think it's been a success.  

A business operating system gives you a framework for how businesses should be run.  We've spent far less time figuring out how to structure the company for alignment and clarity and more time on the things that matter (strategy, unique value proposition etc.).

The net result is that the company is very much in alignment and making steady consistent progress. We have metrics that we track, everyone is on the same page and accountability is clearly defined.

Going forward, I'll continue to use a Business Operating System for any companies I'm involved with. 

Saying "Yes" to More Things

I'm currently in an Airbnb in the Maldives awaiting to embark on a liveaboard scuba diving experience through the atolls.  

When I was offered the trip about a month ago due to a last minute cancellation I didn't know the first thing about diving, how to get qualified, what equipment I needed or whether I'd even enjoy it.  I was especially unsure about living on a boat for a week.  Despite all the unknowns, I just said "yes" anyway.  

I went for it because last year I deliberately made the decisions to say "yes" more.  I was biased towards action.  Not blindly, however, I said yes as long as there was a good chance of the following criteria being satisfied:-

  • Relationships might be be strengthened or formed
  • There is potential to have a unique, interesting, enjoyable and positive experience
  • The downside is limited

It turns out I love scuba diving and it's a new hobby that I plan on exploring further.  

I've noticed that this happens a lot - most of the time, when I say "yes" to something that meets the above criteria, I'm happy I did.   I will continue with this attitude going forward.

I'm pretty sure I also got this idea from Tim Ferris while listening to this podcast.

What's not going well

Square Peg, Round Hole

I recently stepped down from my role as CEO of LevelUp.  

The past two years has been an interesting experience for me but ultimately I realized that it was like trying to fit a square peg into a round hole.  One of the main problems is that unlike 10 years ago when I would do anything to earn my freedom, I now don't have the endless drive that's needed to push the huge boulder up the mountain anymore.   

Some people just seem to have this desire for business success and achievement throughout their lives even beyond the point at which they are successful by all metrics.  It actually intrigues me to know what keeps them so relentlessly energized and driven.  I now know that I'm not one of these people.  I want to do things other than work all day and night.

Rest assured the company and the people are great and it's actually headed in a very positive direction.  But someone else is definitely better suited to lead it.

The magnitude of relief that I experienced after stepping down reinforced that the position wasn't right for me. 

Stupidly, I already feel the need to start something again.  But I have decided to take a year out first and reassess.  

Spotty Consistency

I've been a bit inconsistent in some key areas this past year.  For example, I dropped my reading habit for a while.  

The root problem is that I still experience periods in life where everything is just a real struggle and that's when I tend to lose some of my habits.  The cause is often when I let me feelings and emotions take over.  Some days, for no reason whatsoever, I'll just wake up with the worst thoughts that lead me to question what the point of anything is.  While swept up in such a negative thought process, finding motivation to do anything productive is very difficult.  

I think the key is to recognize these thought patterns quickly and interrupt them.  And that's what I do 99% of the time.  A few still seem to slip through the cracks now and then, though.

So, this year I'd like to work further on really finding my why and getting into state.  

For any big project going forward, I should know why I'm doing it and how long I'm going to commit to it.  I also want to figure out what practical steps I can do on a daily basis to get myself into the right state to perform more consistently. 

Proactivity around Health

In 2024, I put off health checkups that I know I should be doing due to anxiety (mild hypochondriac). I'm 40 this year and I will do a full MOT for all areas of health without fail.

Lost Friends

A lot of my friends are those that I used to drink with and since I've stopped drinking I now barely see them.  I've tried to connect with them in other ways outside of drinking with varied degrees of success, but I've come to accept that losing friends is just part of the process.

Highlights of 2024


Bring on 2025

I'm bullish for 2025.  I'll be laser focused on experiences and relationship building more than ever.

I'm also going to be:-

  • Learning Tagalog (with a teacher)
  • Bringing my back my passion for playing the piano
  • Visiting Africa for the first time
  • Taking on some extreme physical challenges (Kilimanjaro and Yukon River Quest)
  • Get back into competitive running
  • Start coaching pool

Looking forward to it - can't wait!

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2024 – Year in Review

2024 – Year in Review
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