As 2024 draws to a close, I wanted to draft a few quick business & life lessons I’ll be doubling down on in 2025.

It took me a long time to learn these. I’m still re-learning them today.

If you’re just starting out, these are critical foundations to build not just your business, but life upon.

If you’re an established business owner, let these principles realign you toward what’s important (as they do for me).

MY PHILOSOPHY

I believe that the key to contentment in life is to focus on ruthlessly optimising around 3 core tenets:

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1. Health
2. Wealth
3. Relationships (partner, friends and family)

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Everything I do and think about in life is focused around amplifying my level of fulfilment and achievement in all of these. Anything that degrades them needs to be removed as fast as possible.

The challenge with these 3 tenets is that excessively focusing on one often causes the other two to collapse.

As an example, I spent the first 4 years in business solely focused on wealth.

You could argue it was necessary at the time, but it came to the detriment of time with my family, friends and my health.

Once you’ve achieved a certain level of success with work, it should be no longer be optional to focus on those other two - it’s mandatory.

I no longer think about “crushing the competition” or having FOMO from business. For me, it’s simply a tool to improve other tenets of my life and facilitate growth there.

I do my utmost to ignore what others are doing and simply focus on my own journey and personal happiness.

With that being said, these are the major lessons I’ve learned this year which I’ll be building my life around next year.

1: Focusing on Inputs over Outputs

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This year passed me by too chaotically.

A large part of that was learning how to balance my newborn son with other tenets, but it was primarily due to self-inflicted, reactionary behaviour and losing focus on inputs.

Examples of this (not specific to my life, just illustrating context as to how most of us behave):

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• Hitting the gym 2-3 times in quick succession as you missed the previous two weeks
• Going on a diet as you added 20lbs in the last 3 months
• Taking out a payday loan as you mismanaged your finances
• Scrambling to do outreach when you churn a client
• Going to counselling as your relationship has broken down

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You can’t live your life being reactive this way.

Instead, you need to create daily actions (inputs) to take you towards your goals.

I now have clear benchmarks for health, relationships and business on a weekly basis I’ll be tracking diligently.

Because what gets measured gets improved.

If you get distracted as easily as I do, I’d highly recommend spending a day to sit down and map out the inputs you need in your own life to become the best version of yourself. It’ll create unbelievable clarity and focus.

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2: Think about the “Feeling” I want from my Business

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Have you ever found yourself amidst the dumpster fire that is your business, and taking a moment to ask yourself, “Why am I doing this to myself?”

Most of the time, we’re creating more busy work (reactionary) to compensate for some unresolved trauma or insecurity to feel “productive”.

I realised I was my own worst enemy (still am) with this behaviour and it was not aligned to the goals I wanted out of my business when I first started it.

And here’s something that’s so critical to remember: it’s not an arbitrary amount of cash (i.e. $1million). That is a fleeting target that will not make you happy - the goalposts will simply change again.

Instead, what I’m optimising for this year is a “Feeling”.

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• Am I motivated every single day that I wake up and at peace when I go to bed?
• Am I able to leave the office 80% of the time to attend to something else that demands my attention?
• Is my daily anxiety low and do I feel content?
• Does my business give me freedom to pursue things outside of work that I enjoy (travel, boxing, reading)?

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You can put a direct measurement on all of these if you really want to, but most of the time, it’s a state of mind and being at peace with yourself that allows you to feel that way.

This has to be balanced with the hard realities of operating a business and the natural ebbs and flows which threaten derailment at times, but if you’re feeling anxious, stressed and strapped for time while sacrificing the other 2 tenets on this list, you’re doing something very wrong with your business and your life. The only exception to this rule is if you’re in the early stages of your business (first 3 years) and grinding relentlessly.

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3: Health is a Non-Negotiable

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A quote caught my eye the other day while doomscrolling on Instagram.

“Most people would readily die for their children. But why wouldn’t you choose to live for them instead?”

This hit me hard.

As somebody who has frequently used the excuse of a child to eat crap and not exercise this year, this was the harsh truth I needed to hear about my lack of discipline.

At 35, I’m still young, but sometimes I feel old!

My own father was quite old (he was 47 when he had me) and one of my fondest memories was playing football in the park each weekend with him.

I remember once he hit his late 50’s, his body started breaking down and he couldn’t keep up with us. It was a horrible memory seeing him deteriorate when I was in the prime of my youth.

When Max is a teenager, I want to me a role model for him with health and still participate in sports and outdoor activities. It’s one of the best ways for dad’s to bond with their children.

Even though I’ve trained hard most of my life, I allowed complacency to creep into my routine this year.

It also makes me feel foggy and lose focus with work when I don’t train.

So next year, I need a radical overhaul of my routine to ensure consistency as well as a better diet.

In order to achieve this, I’m going back to morning training (start the day off right) and just 2 meals per day to minimise thinking time and stick to better macronutrient targets.

This isn’t an area of my life I’m particularly bad in (I tend to lose weight, not gain it when stressed!) but it’s still an area I feel as though I’m drastically underperforming and need accountability.

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Final Thoughts: Leverage is Everything

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When you're starting out, you have to work 100 X harder than you do when you have some degree of success because nobody gives a damn about you or what you can offer.

When you are somewhat established, it's much easier to build relationships with other smart people because you're able to reciprocate value and be a net-positive input to their time and not detract from it (it sounds arrogant and harsh to say this, but very successful people ruthlessly protect their time - and rightly so).

Something I was terrible at in 2024 was making myself available for others as well as using my existing leverage to meet other smart people who could fast-track me towards my goals.

That's why this coming year, I'll be refocusing on making myself much more available and expanding my sphere of connections.

What are the inputs I'll follow for this?

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• Attending at least 2 meetings per month offline, or 26 per working year
• Joining 1 industry event per quarter for 1-2 days
• Relaunching my podcast Creator Journeys, with a pivot away from "content" and more towards general business, intertwining the 3 tenets above to make them more human and interesting (i.e. asking entrepreneurs how they manage their relationships and health as opposed to just being another run-of-the-mill business podcast)
• Potentially organise a global meetup of fellow agency owners (not yet finalised, thinking about it)

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That's it for this week. If you enjoyed this newsletter, please leave a comment and let me know your thoughts as writing this is the most fun part of my week!