It’s A Wrap: 2021

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Hello everyone, and happy last day of 2021! I know we are all looking forward to a new year and a fresh start. This post is a simple recap of my year and should be a short read. PS: I went into more detail on my Birthday post a month ago (you can read it here).

In this post, I will go over the following topics

Books read
Burnout
What I’m most proud of
Most watched media
Top guiding principals
Biggest Takeaways
Best Purchases
Investment strategy

Books Read

I read and listened to 32 books this year (not including fiction which was another ~10). For their dollar cost, books are the best value for your money (unless you have access to a mentor for free). The authors not only directly share their knowledge but as you read more of their works they also become mentors to you.

PS I tried Shortform and enjoyed it. Shortform is an online subscription that has summaries of the majority of popular books. I found for the price I preferred reading the entire book. That being said, I will try it again in 2022 as a way to quickly refresh my memory on books already read and to help select the next book I want to read.

Here are my top 6 book recommendations

1. Atomic Habits – James Clear

2. Atlas Shrugged – Ayn Rand

3. The Steal Like an Artist Audio Trilogy – Austin Kleon

4. How to Win Friends & Influence People – Dale Carnegie

5. Deep Work – Cal Newport

6. The ONE Thing – Gary Keller

Bonus Recommendation: Principles – Ray Dalio

Here are all of the books I have read and listened to (on Audible) in reverse chronological order. This list does not contain any fiction books except Atlas Shrugged.

Physical and Kindle books read:

The Millionaire Fastlane – MJ DeMarco
The Almanack of Naval Ravikant
The Low-Carb Athlete – Ben Greenfield
Awaken the Giant Within – Tony Robbins
$100M Offers – Alex Hormozi
2 Second Lean – Paul Akers
The Wim Hof Method – Wim Hof
Ready to Run – Kelley Starrett
Tribe of Mentors – Tim Ferriss

Audiobooks listened to:

Atomic Habits – James Clear
Atlas Shrugged – Ayn Rand
The Tao of Seneca – Seneca presented by Tim Ferriss
The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People – Sean Covey
The 5 Second Rule – Mel Robbins
Unleash the Power Within – Tony Robbins
Breath – James Nestor
The Steal Like an Artist Audio Trilogy – Austin Kleon
Start with Why – Simon Sinek
How to Win Friends & Influence People – Dale Carnegie
Think and Grow Rich – Napoleon Hill
Anything You Want – Derek Sivers
Critical Chain – Eliyahu M. Goldratt
Deep Work – Cal Newport
The ONE Thing – Gary Keller
I will Teach You to Be Rich – Ramit Sethi
The Entrepreneur Roller Coaster – Darren Hardy
Power Moves – Adam Grant
Crushing It! – Gary Vaynerchuk
The Compound Effect – Darren Hardy
Principles – Ray Dalio
Zero to One – Peter Thiel
Content Inc – Joe Pulizzi
The Infinite Game – Simon Sinek

Burnout

2021 was full of ups and downs. There were extremely productive times and times when it was all I could do just to get an ounce of work done.

Burnout is real, and it happened to me. I count myself fortunate because I was able to recover, and it did not last long. Looking back, I see that I hit burnout 1-3 times per year every year. I end up overcommitting to too many projects and then I need to break my routine and solely focus on the project I overcommitted to.

This leaves me exhausted and not the happiest camper. My plan for avoiding/minimizing this in 2022 is to try to streamline what I am working on so that I am more in charge of my schedule. This will apply both at work, where I can control what we say yes to, and more importantly when we do it. The goal is to maintain a workload below our maximum capacity. With woodworking it is the same, I need to find a steady level of output and balance between the custom orders and production.

By keeping within my capacity, I can continue to stay with the ideal schedule and achieve my most important goals.

What I’m most proud of

The answer to this question surprised me as I would not have guessed it until this very moment.

I am most proud of growing through the pandemic.

I believe I am a better human today than I was 3 years ago. Even though I am extremely hard on myself and often think I should be doing more, I am proud of everything I did:

I lost over 20lbs by eating less and moving more.
I built a solid walnut clock.
I bought a CNC and learned how to use it.
I ran 100+ Km in a month.
I started this blog and posted 22 blog posts.
I got over 3000 views on my YouTube channel
I sold $1000 of handmade items on BH Craft

Most Watched Media

This year I watched a lot of woodworking, business, and lifestyle media. My top watched creators were

Alex Hormozi
Ali Abdaal
Davie Fogarty
Peter McKinnon

Top guiding principles

Saying no today protects you to say yes tomorrow
Growth is exponential, not linear
Focus is the most important constraint, not time and not money
Make the one decision that removes 1000 other decisions
Focus on the ONE most important thing to your overall goals. Forget the rest

Best Purchases

Google Pixel A Buds
Canva Pro Subscription
CrossFit Membership
Peloton Membership
Books + Audible Membership

Biggest Take-aways

There is no one single path to success because success looks different to every person. In order to be successful, you need to know what your definition of success is. If you do not, it will be impossible to know if you’re moving closer to being successful. Many of the so-called successful people became well-known for providing value to others by combining two separate fields that gave them a category of their own. Not too many people can be the best in the world at a single thing (like golf, or watchmaking). However, if you combine multiple passions, you can create a category of your own that catapults you to the top.

My investment strategy for 2021

This year had me do a complete 180 on investments and wealth. After reading countless books (I technically could count them, I just don’t want to) on money, investments, saving, and the like, I came up with a strategy of my own. I do not like the thought of saving 10% of each paycheque for 40 years to be able to retire with a couple of million dollars. I am saving, I just do not want to wait until I am old to have the freedom.

This is just too slow of wealth creation for me. I am not going to bank on 8% of compound interest for my freedom. I want to 10X that amount. The only way I know how to become truly wealthy is to give more to others than I wish to receive for myself. And the only way I can provide that much value to others is to invest in myself and grow as a person. So, my investment strategy for 2021 was to learn as much as possible so that I can more value to everyone else.