Annual Review(s) and goals before my 30s
Okay, this year I’m publishing my annual review. I’ve got an excel file where I synthesize my goals by categories, but I figure writing it…
UPDATE: Review 2022 in bold
Okay, this year I’m publishing my annual review. I’ve got an excel file where I synthesize my goals by categories, but I figure writing it down as an article helps me clarify ideas, be more transparent and ultimately accountable.
These past couple of weird years have been experimental for me. From corporate jobs to freelancing to company building, going through my annual review allows me to hone in on 1–2 things I want to achieve in a given year aka achieving focus and purpose.
As soon as the pandemic started I shifted my main goal to be as antifragile as possible. Being more resilient to externalities to become less fragile. Focusing on 1~2 things help me focus on the outcome when in doubt. For example, not being able to complete 8 hours of sleep because of work was justifiable because my goal is to achieve antifragility.
2021 has been a great year, though challenging in many ways. I had an amazing time during my last year of studies (prior to 2021) where I was travelling and meeting tons of new people. Especially amid the pandemic, I went from travelling thousands of km from different countries and cultures to being locked at my place in Barcelona. But that also has its perks.
As antifragile as I could get, this past year has been an enormous adventure. Fan of the power of law, I’ve started 3 projects (1 failed), moved to Paris, developed relationships with investors and several companies (some of them are clients too) and attended Crypto Hackathons (more on this soon, but tldr, you should too).
But more importantly, I’ve invested in new relationships with friends and advisors (still looking for new mentors here!), I double-down on my longevity objectives and I’ve managed to stay in touch with people that I want in my life.
On the downside, we had tried to raise around for our second project, Onsitefun (marketplace of team experiences) and didn’t succeed, failed to get into YC after the interview and I got stuck with a vision that wasn’t ambitious enough (I should have sent more than one email for advice).
Following a framework I’ve found somewhere on the internet I like to set specific goals in 4 areas:
Fit body (Red)
Calm mind (Green)
House full of love (Yellow)
Business (Blue)
In 2021, these 4 categories looked like this (SPOILER: It also looks like this in 2022 because they are easy to quantify and trackable, but I’ll write down non-quantifiable objectives from a daily perspective that I do want to do).
Fit body
I proudly consider my body as a temple. I don’t see it any other way and I can’t perform 100% if I don’t train. The idea of longevity has been growing in me lately and I’ve been optimizing my training and inputs based on it (I hope to write an article soon about it).
I do my exercises top of the morning and are my gas for the day, fasting also comes in handy during that time as I don’t feel the urge to eat until 2/3pm. In terms of workouts, I combined swimming (cardio) with bodyweight (strength). I used to go to the gym for the classic bulking routine but during the pandemic, I found callisthenics and cross-fit workouts more fun! (Find your partner for this too!).
And don’t forget about yoga, at least twice a day, found a channel called Yoga for Men and I’m in love with the sessions. Stretching feels good!
I also went skiing this year, 2 years without touching snow because of Covid.
Calm mind
This was probably the hardest area for me. I was paying Headspace during 2021 and didn’t manage to find a routine to stick to my schedule or attention. It was more like 1 meditation session per week than a day.
For a long, I wanted to find the habit of reading 30 minutes a day before going to bed. I later this year realize that a better framework is to read by pleasure, so I’ll change the goal and add more fiction books. Add me on Goodreads too.
House full of love
This is also an area that in retrospect I could have leveraged more. I took care of the family, and keep in touch religiously with them. My brother lives with me so I have that too. Barcelona was weird during the lockdown and many outgoing people like myself found it too restrictive (I even got a fine for it).
Regardless, I visited some friends in Madrid, meet the startup community in Barcelona (It exists, and it’s awesome!), move to Paris to join a startup program (Station F), meet new web3 frens, and become the “de facto” friend to visit in Paris.
What to improve? Failed to convince a bunch of friends to remote work from wherever (big fail tbh), need to improve at keeping up relationships (especially international friends), either more phone calls or email updates. I want to host more second degree dinners.
Business
Journalling has become instrumental for me. Especially the morning session, where I write down what’s on my head and my priorities. the evening session needs better implementation, I’m too tired by the EOD.
Okey to the topic. Here it is I want to build something big. Big because it provides value to customers and users and they reward me with time and money. This past year, I’ve experimented with different business models and ideas. Some failed like Peerpull (we’ll spin out something cool soon though crypto), and others are thriving like Onsite.fun and HeadcomAI, both profitable.
The hard truth, there is no time. Focus is the scarcest of my resources and I want to explore fields that directly impact my life positively and by extension others.
Though really up and down, I’m really grateful for my business partner (Jaume), the opportunities, and the connections we’re building throughout this year and I think of it as a ladder.
2022 is shaping up to be a GREAT year. My high-level goal this year is to scale: to take what I’ve been learning this past year and be bolder with my decisions and intuition. This applies to relationships, to business, public building, and to take some things off my plate by saying no.
Goals for 2022 — either adding new stuff or modifying existing goals.
Fit body
I increase workouts to 3x/week (2 strengths days and 1 cardio day). DONE
Learn a New Sport. DONE
Make a 3 day fasting once a month. Not even close I’m too lean and need to bulk more before doing those.
Calm mind
Stop using tech after 10 pm. Not even in my mind yet unfortunately
Start a breathwork habit — I plan to go more in-depth in the journey (I’ll try to launch an app for it too, Spiro — stay tuned). Good idea, lack the time. If you’re reading this, do you want to take it from here?
Build a DAO around longevity — I’ve got some thoughts on the structure and purpose. I still think this is really cool, but complex at scale
Read one book per month. DONE
House full of love
Make hosting a regular thing and pull together more group hangouts. (Ping me if you’re in Paris too!). Half way there, should have been more active
Make a Surf + Remote work trip with friends. DONE
Schedule a weekend trip with 4 smart, thoughtful friends to hang and jam on ideas. DONE
Business
Continue growing the businesses. Things are tracking good for Onsitefun, but I want to be more independent from the day-to-day (Hiring a CMO would help a ton). I want to keep growing at 10% MoM and assess what would be the future of Headcomai. We sold our businesses yay!
Start something new — I’ve got some ideas with friends in the consumer space, probably DTC. This is by no means a full commitment project but rather a side project, an experiment. Nope, but I have some ideas this year too
Get serious about writing and publishing. I’m not the most fluid writer out there, but writing is helping me structure ideas. Growing to 100 subscribers and +1k followers on Twitter sounds about right. Not even close :(
And yes, going full crypto frens. We’re building and we’ll keep shipping. I hope to show you all more about the products and vision — WAGMI. Yes! Stay tuned!
Smaller goals for 2022 are:
Go to a music Festival, probably Sziget Festival. LFG 2023
Make one psychedelic trip. LFG 2023
Do a summer of co-living. DONE
Get my current projects a more independent approach. What?
Learn how to DJ (I need to buy a DJ table, inspired by Chris) NOPE
Keeping my personal CRM on point. DONE
Launch 1 Podcast with my brother, @jamalavedra to chat a la MFM Podcast LFG 2023
Why the 30s as a “limit”? It’s just a mental trick. I guess there are certain goals that I’ll rather accomplish and settle before turning 30. But there are areas that I think about often and want to gear towards. Here are some questions for 2022:
What to do with my money? How to maximize fun and manage it?
What people do I want to support and take a bet on?
What reputation am I building?
What community do I want to live with?
Cheers to making it happen!
One inch at a time, every year.