#40 - Insights and favourite things of 2022

I think most of us are glad to see the back of 2022. It has been a tough year with a lot of uncertainty and change.

I’ve been taking a look through my journals and reviews over the year and thought I’d share my favourite insights and lessons that I’m taking into 2023.

Personal Insights

Putting myself out there more, without worrying about failure or what people think. This past year was the first full year I devoted to TikTok. I went from about 3k to over 30k followers. I didn’t know what to expect when I started the channel but has opened up more opportunities than I thought possible.
Focusing on maximising each day and not worrying about the future or beating myself up about mistakes in the past.
Remembering exactly what the role of goals is for: something that sets the direction for my actions. Daily actions and habits are the things that make the difference just keep moving and you can course correct.
Accepting that if we set audacious goals, chances are, we won’t achieve them all.
It’s much more about enjoying the journey. Having this mindset has helped me stay more consistent and find more ways to be creative and improve my craft.
Realising that a lot of what happens is out of my control so instead of tying happiness to external events, living more in line with my principles.
Once you set a target (100 blog posts, 100 videos, 6 months of gym, read x books, or a project), be consistent with it, and see it through no matter what.
Trust your intuition. Deep down you know if something doesn’t feel right. Whether it’s a relationship, career, or general life direction. I keep thinking back to Steve Jobs’ commencement speech. It resonates with me more as I get older. He said not to settle and that:

“You can’t connect the dots looking forward, only looking backwards, so you have to trust the dots will somehow connect in your future. Believing the dots will connect down the road will give you the confidence to follow your heart even if it leads you off the well-worn path and that will make all the difference”.

Overplanning and overthinking (what I used to do) are silly. Because you never know what opportunities can come your way if you keep doing good work.
Learning to be compassionate with yourself. My English lit teacher used to have a quote above the board and she used to remind us every lesson: ‘Lost time is never found again’. I’ve learnt to give myself permission to be happy while I’m grinding and hustling instead of deferring it to once I reach some arbitrary goal. You’ll never be as young as you are now and you can’t have this time back so may as well enjoy it.

Favourite things of 2022

Notion. I plan all of my content, TT, newsletter, projects and day-to-day. I use to run my whole life basically.
Readwise. I LOVE this app. I’ve always enjoyed reading but often find that a month or so after reading a book I’ve forgotten most of the content. I now use Readwise religiously to use my phone to scan passages. It then feeds a few random highlights back to me every day from the entire pool of highlights across all books. Reading is time-consuming and this helps me retain what I read.
Changing World Order is the most impactful book I read all year. I think everyone with a passing interest in economics should read it.
Meditations. Whenever I get frustrated and start losing my way I always turn back to Marcus Aurelius. It just helps me put everything into perspective. Looking back over this year particularly, the worst instances have mostly involved solicitors. They drove me to the brink of insanity, but this book helped keep me centred.
Film: Top Gun Maverick
TikTok. I’ve spent more time on this app or making stuff for it than anything else.
Pilot Custom 823. I write with this pen almost every day.

What I want to do more of in 2023

Journal. I started taking it seriously around September and has helped me gain so much clarity and process things.
Reading.
Content creation.
Rowing. I took this up because I couldn’t maintain my running habit. So far it’s going well. Goes back to finding something you enjoy to stay consistent.
Networking. Definitely networking. By chance, I connected with some very knowledgeable people at the very start of my property journey, which helped set me up. Since COVID I’ve neglected this aspect. So I’m making an effort to do more in this area. I still maintain that networking is the highest return on investment activity on my time than anything.

Thoughts going into 2023

It’s normal for people now to make plans for the coming year. But when it comes to property, I believe that time in the market beats timing the market. So it's about having a longer-term mindset.

Having said that, I am personally not as pessimistic as the media is about the industry. I think it will be a year of opportunity. Generally, people tend to overestimate what they can achieve in one year but underestimate what they can over 10 (or even 5). So it’s about building upon what I’ve started, and for upcoming projects I have envisioned, laying out the foundations for years going forward.

Going back to Steve Jobs’ point about having the confidence to go off the well-worn path, I wanted to expand because it’s becoming more relevant than ever. The world is changing faster than it ever has. Look at the last 5 years or so alone. Just to name a few examples: nobody thought you could start a car company in the modern era and compete with the established giants, Tesla has gone from a small car company to surpassing the market cap of Ford and GM combined! TikTok didn’t exist 5 years ago, today it has 3.5 billion downloads. Crypto has proven almost all experts wrong and gone from what the CEO of JP Morgan called a ‘fraud’ to something that banks like Santander have accepted is here to stay and large institutions (incl JP Morgan) include in their portfolios. I think we’ll see even more change in the next 5 years. There will be events happening, inventions, and change in the way we do things that we just don’t foresee now, and with change comes opportunities so I plan to keep open-minded to different paths. So I think fortune will favour those who bias towards taking action vs those stuck in analysis and planning.

All it really boils down to is: have fun!

I also wanted to thank all of you newsletter subscribers. When I started this content creation game, I had no idea if anyone would pay attention but the support has been more than I could have ever expected. I’m able to continue creating, doing this thing that I love because of the support. Thanks a lot! Much more to come next year.

See you in 2023.

Hans