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2025 Goals & 2024 Recap

This is a review of my 2024 and a public sharing of 2025 goals.

At the end, I share why I do this and my process for reviewing the year.

To summarize: This helps me look back at what worked, what didn’t, and what I want to focus on in 2025. I have to pause, reflect, and be honest about where I’m at—and where I want to go.

Let’s jump into it.

🎩 2024 Recap

Remote Life OS

My 2024 goal:

Make $50,000 in 2024 on the side, with only one product, one offer, two channels, with better processes and no hiring.

I missed the goal by more than 50%.

I also wrote this in last year’s goal setting:

I’ve been at this juncture before. Product in the can, on the verge of “figuring out” this business. The biggest mistake I make at this point: I ignore the constraint. I focus too much on the routine (and having a “process”). 

I had way more success here. I focused on executing, and just solving the problem in front of me.

For example, the common mistake here is investing time to build a channel before testing the offer. I could have spent 6 months building an audience on TikTok before testing the offer again.

It’s not that TikTok is not a good channel or the wrong channel, but this would be the wrong sequence.

If you don’t have an audience, just direct sell. You’ll learn 10x faster direct selling an offer than wasting months (or even a year) building an audience… only to STILL have to validate whether they’d buy your offer.

Every iteration of LARJ taught me something new. Key milestones:

  • Create a compelling offer. A compelling offer is clearly defined, promises a specific outcome, and reduces as much friction as possible. Learn the problems people face, then share how you’ll solve these problems, point by point.

  • Three cohorts completed. Each time the program improved, and each time I doubled the price.

  • Lean approach. I ran each cohort out of Notion, Zoom, and WhatsApp. I sold over LinkedIn and email messages, with a sales page I put on Notion. I didn’t even create a proper course until the end of the year, and still managed to sell about 10 units of just the course itself, without the cohort experience.

  • Why people buy. Customers buy for different reasons. Some want a process. Others want accountability. Others need a sounding board. You don’t need to be all things to all customers to give them great value or get them results.

Family

Last year I wrote:

The best thing you can do for your family is to give them the best version of yourself.

There’s a corollary to this that I’m starting to wrap my head around:

The next best thing? Help them be the best version of themselves. 

Here’s an example: sometimes the kids want pancakes on a school day. If they ask me, there’s no way it’s happening. I’m trying to shovel eggs into my face while carrying a baby and packing 3 lunches.

Ain’t nobody got time for pancakes.

Amy’s response?

Buttermilk or chocolate chip? How about both?

For years, I thought the path to becoming a better dad was to make the damn pancakes.

But as Amy worked the griddle, and I cleared the dish rack, changed Theodore’s diaper, and packed the kid’s school bags, it dawned on me:

I don’t need to be the parent that makes the pancakes.

I can be the parent that makes the time and space so someone else can make the pancakes.

In other words: sometimes the best way to be a great father is to be a great husband.

Other family highlights:

  • Theodore. And a six-month paternity leave to spend with him. You can read his birthday letter here.

  • Oliver and Annabel. Watching them continue to grow closer together as siblings

  • Culture over rules. Culture is what a group of people do and don’t do. That’s how we’ve framed our expectations for the kids: this is how we behave in this family. Last week, Annabel reminded an adult to take off their shoes in our apartment. Something is sticking.

  • More tools in the toolbox. This means more ways to be a better parent. Which makes parenting easier, and more fun.

  • 3 family weddings this year. I love weddings.

  • We spent the summer in Ireland. And spent a lot of time with family in Dublin and Cork.

  • Work-life balance works both ways. WLB can mean canceling the afternoon because Theodore came home sick with a fever. It can also mean working weekends. WLB cuts both ways. That’s OK.

  • Always be investing in family relationships. You never get to stop investing in family. The corollary: Investment works both ways. Invest back into the people who invest in you. 

Friends & Network

In 2024, I said I wanted to deepen existing relationships with standing lunches, catch-up calls, and standing weekend hangouts.

I did OK on this in the first half of the year. It was less of a focus in the back half after Theodore was born and we went to Ireland for the summer.

My good friend, Chris, passed in a motorcycle accident before Thanksgiving this year. We moved to Los Angeles together. We got our first apartment together, waited tables together, got started in Hollywood together. I always thought we’d have the chance to run it back down memory lane. Now he’s gone.

These things are the reminder you need: life is short. Make time for friends.

Career

At Persefoni, I built one of the first free carbon accounting tools. Any person or business could create an account and calculate their carbon footprint, even if they didn’t know anything about carbon emissions. I loved being deep in the trenches in climate tech, and working on this with smart, passionate people. I came into the industry with zero knowledge and learned a lot.

I phoned in the first half of the year, though. My motivation was low. One part because I was looking forward to paternity leave, one part internal factors at the company. I checked the box but my heart was into it.

Coming out of paternity leave, I started interviewing for my next role. Then realized now was the time to build under my name. More on that below.

Health

In 2024 I fixed my hip and glute pain. The root cause was my feet. Getting better shoes, getting insoles, and regular stretching did the trick.

I continued to train BJJ and weight train. I always find my way back to consistency, after Theodore, an injury that kept me out of training for 3 months, and extended travel. Without working out with a trainer, I still struggle with intensity.

Money

I used to work with a financial advisor. There was an exercise where we had to list out dream assets. Top of my list: get a minivan. #dreambig We bought our minivan in 2024. It feels like a luxury every long drive we take.

We’re back to a 25/25/50 savings, investing, and spending rate.

I switched from Kubera to a Monarch for day-to-day and net worth tracking. I’m loving the app.

Leisure/Travel

We spent the summer in Ireland. Saw the Taylor Swift Eras tour and the All Ireland semi-final in Croke Park. Oliver got really into soccer, and we saw old friends.

I went to Vegas for my cousin’s bachelor party.

I wanted to take trips to Budapest and Nashville, neither of which happened this year.

🗺️ 2025 Planning

My 2025 theme:

Take risks under your name. 

h/t Naval Ravikant

Summary:

Grow RLOS to $100K business. Build a pipeline for consulting. Invest in family. Build community. Consistency in health. Downpayment banked for a house. Organize our business finances. 

Remote Life OS

I’m moving RLOS off the back burner. It’s on the main. It’s time to give this an honest go.

The revenue goal is $100,000. I think I’ve said this in past updates, but it feels simultaneously ambitious and sandbagging. Time will tell which.

The core of Remote Life OS will revolve around my cohort-based course, the Land A Remote Job (LARJ) program. I’ll launch three 30-day sprints. I’ll continue to offer a coaching and self-paced tier.

Consulting 

Consulting has been a part of my career portfolio since 2021. I help experts build million-dollar courses.

This year’s challenge: balancing RLOS with consulting. I want RLOS to be the main focus. Consulting is just a hedge, a way to make my monthly nut while I’m building RLOS.

I think I could make the math work so I could focus ONLY on RLOS, but I’m naturally risk-averse and that’s only increased with each car seat in my minivan.

But it doesn’t always work that way.

My ideal: I’d consult for 15-20 hours per week, and have enough pipeline where I’m not chasing work. That’s enough to replace my w2 income. Then I can spend the rest of my time on RLOS.

Family

I want to be involved with the kids’ extracurriculars: this will probably take the shape of coaching BJJ or soccer for them.

I want to continue investing in family, scheduling it ahead of time so that it happens. That includes more date nights with Amy.

I’m going to take more pictures.

Finally, I also want to be less petty. Earlier, I said:

Invest in those who invest in you. 

The corollary to that is:

Take in that data. Be realistic. But don’t be petty. Pettiness is poison. Life is too short. 

Friends & Network

Keep building relationships here in Philadelphia. Re-start soft networking in a sustainable way. Pro tip: upgrading my Calendly account and having different calendars for catch-ups, work, etc. makes this really easy.

Stretch goal: host work and networking events in Philly.

Health

Focus on consistency: BJJ 2x per week, weight train 3x per week. Start incorporating cardio, not sure how yet.

I’m not going to worry about intensity. I’m not going to compete in any tournaments.

Money

I want to have enough saved for a house downpayment this year. I’m estimating a purchase price of $800,000, which means $160,000 down.

I’ll sell my crypto holdings and keep up automatic investments to get there.

I also need to get Amy’s and my business finances in order, for tax and investment efficiencies.

Leisure/Travel

  • Spring: Visit my brother and his wife when they have their first baby. Celebrate Theodore’s first birthday. Host a karaoke party for my birthday.

  • Summer: Oliver’s birthday, wedding in Denver, maybe a trip to Dublin, family trip to the Poconos

  • Autumn: Annabel’s birthday, Nashville trip

  • Misc: keep playing chess, reading, watching movies

🛝 Fun Stuff 

I watched 38 movies this year, same as last year.

Random standouts: Wicked, It’s What’s Inside, The Substance, Dune 2, Hit Man, Snack Shack, My Old Ass.

Wicked and Dune 2 I loved the most.

It’s What’s Inside and Snack Shack were surprise hits.

I read 18 books this year. Last year I read 14.

Some gems in no particular order: Demon Copperhead, Dune, Chain Gang All Stars, Service, The Poisonwood Bible, Later, Presumed Innocent.

🤔 Why do this at all?

Why document it? Two reasons

First, the Bill Gates quote sums it up:

“Most people overestimate what they can do in one year and underestimate what they can do in ten years.”

We’re capable of great things. They just take time.

Second, Having joy, treating things joyfully in what’s considered mundane.

Chris Bailey wrote:

To gain greater enjoyment from your experiences, try practicing anticipation and reminiscence. Both are forms of savoring—ways to convert positive experiences into positive emotions

We can also savor an experience after it happens—a savoring style called reminiscence. We reminisce by reliving an experience in our mind, looking back through photos of an experience, or talking about it with a friend or a loved one.

In other words: there’s joy in looking back.

⏪️ How I Review My Year

My process:

1. Review and retrospective on the last year.

I review:

  • Photos

  • Google photos

  • Swarm check-ins

  • Instagram

  • Google Calendar

Then, I review my notes on Roam. I put these in six buckets: Long-term projects, Career, Relationships, Health, Finances, and Leisure. For each bucket, I think about: (1) What went well (2) What could be improved.

2. Plan the next year.

I review notes about (1) my long-term goals and (2) my Perfect Tuesday. These are my North Star metrics as I plan what I want to accomplish in the new year. (I cover long-term goals, including specific $ I plan to earn, here.)

Finally, I keep the following in mind:

“Plans are worthless, but planning is everything.” – Dwight D. Eisenhower

Success is measured by inputs and intention, not blindly following a set path.

Here are my reviews of 2023, 2022, 2021, 2018, 2017

How was your year? If you did an annual review, LMK. I’d love to read it.

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✂️ The Connection 005 – Not Meant To Play The Son

Last updated on October 8th, 2024 at 05:24 am

This is my friends & family newsletter. I publish here for reference and sharing. You can subscribe here.

⏩️ Updates

I’m now on TikTok! Big thanks to my friend Aakash for the push. It’s more fun than I thought it’d be. You can follow me here.

The next cohort of the Land A Remote Job program starts October 5th. It’s group coaching for ambitious professionals looking to land their next remote role. Past clients have landed jobs at meta, hims & hers, Samsung, Harry’s, and more. Learn more here.

ICYMI, last month I published:

What’s new with you? I’d love to hear about it. Hit “reply” or DM me here.

✂️ Not Made To Play The Son

This newsletter was supposed to be a victory lap.

See, I thought I had my next job lined up. I was already drafting a case study (ha!) showing how to use my interview prep strategies.

It was supposed to be a seamless transition from paternity leave to my next remote job.

I was 90% confident I’d get the offer.

But I did not.

Horse meets cart.

Let’s talk about what’s next.

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The Hope of Something (Annabel’s 4th Birthday Letter)

Last updated on September 24th, 2024 at 12:13 pm

I write and publish birthday letters for the kids. You can read Annabel’s 3rd birthday letter here. And here are Oliver’s, Theodore’s, and Deefer’s recent letters.

I saw her on the DART, en route to the Aviva. A brown-haired girl in a red bow and Taylor friendship bracelets. Her aunt was sitting next to her. She was probably the one who punched in her debit card number on the Ticketmaster site, who grimaced when she saw a 37% fee per ticket, to move some 1s and 0s from the server farm in Charleston, West Virginia to her flat in Inchicore.

But she did it anyway. Because she wasn’t just buying the concert. It was for the months of excitement. The anticipation. The lifetime of memories bought and paid for.

That’s where the value exchange happened.

We don’t have that thing yet, AB, you and I. I think we’ll find it, though.

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the connection

💸 The Connection 003 – An Immigrant Mentality

Last updated on September 8th, 2024 at 04:04 pm

This is my friends & family newsletter. I publish here for reference and sharing. You can subscribe here.

⏩️ Updates

It’s back-to-school season: Oliver started first grade. Annabel sprinted through the doors to Pre-K and hasn’t looked back.

We’re working on getting Theodore into daycare. Once he gets in, we anticipate he’ll spend his first two months at home with a cold. So it goes.

ICYMI, last month I published:

And I’m ramping up the October cohort of my Land A Remote Job program.

What’s new with you? I’d love to hear about it. Hit “reply” or DM me here.

🧠 An Immigrant Mentality

I’m often asked what personal finance books I’d recommend.

I don’t open with this to show off how (incredibly!) financially savvy I am, or humble brag about signal how (very) often people flock to me for advice. I think recommendations require context. Especially when it comes to money.

🥡 The Way It Works

I started waiting tables when I was 14. It was my uncle’s restaurant, at the top of the hill, off the Rensselaer exit in East Greenbush. Today the sign out front reads Asian Tea House. Before that, it was called Yip’s. Most of my family did a tour of duty there: aunts, uncles, my parents and siblings.

I was 17 when I started training my brother, Jon. We taught by shadowing/shadow back. He followed me first, watching as I took orders, refilled glasses, and dropped off checks tucked beneath sugar cookies containing pithy quotes and useful Chinese expressions like “bus station.”

Then I followed him. He covered my station and I stepped in to help with calling out orders in Cantonese or getting tea while he took orders. Later, it got busy, so I assigned him to one table off my station.

Afterward, his customers left him a $5 tip. He was delighted. 2 of those bought you a pork lo mein dinner combo, which included fried rice, egg roll, and soup. 8 bought you a new Playstation game. He started to pocket it when I stopped him.

“You’re still training, so you don’t get tips yet,” I said. I took the bill.  

“But I worked that table. You didn’t do anything,” he said. 

I didn’t like his tone. “Look, you’ll get your own station soon. I trained for 3 months and never got tips. That’s just how it is.” I thought I was giving him a lesson.

It wasn’t until years later I realized he was giving me one:

Money is not equal.

To me, that was another bill I’d add to my haul for the night.

To him, it was the first dollar he earned. He sweated for it. He fished it off the table, wiped the sauce of it, and imagined what he might buy with it.

Before his older brother took it from him and stashed it away where it immediately became unrecognizable from all the other Abes and Andrews, it meant something to him.

That’s the way it works, I told him.

Which was true.

But it didn’t have to be.

👫Proud To Object

Amy saved up €12,000 before moving to Los Angeles. This was in 2012. At first, she planned on renting her own apartment, in a half-baked plan to feign appearances. We quickly discarded that idea. She was already moving 5,142 miles for us. We might as well go all in.

It took her 18 months to scrape that money together, between summer camp, teaching a correspondence course, and bartending. At first, we thought she was rich. Then we split the security deposit and the first month’s rent. She bought a car (a ’92 Corolla, with a busted AC and a passenger door that didn’t open. But still.) She started commuting 80 miles a day for an unpaid internship. Pretty soon, most of the nut was gone.

We tried slowing the burn. We ate at home a lot. If we did eat out, it was 50% off takeout from the Thai restaurant I worked at, or the $7 carry-out special from Papa John’s. We stopped buying stuff. For Christmas, we gifted everyone homemade coasters made of Scrabble tiles.

We split the rent equally, which seemed “fair” in the unnuanced definition of the word. I was too naive to know better. She was too proud to object.

Fair isn’t one person has 3-years to build a life in LA and the other gets 3 weeks, then splitting things 50/50. Fair isn’t about each person contributing equal parts to the household. Fair isn’t about the count: dishes, diapers, dollars.

What is fair? 

It’s contributing meaningfully, to the best of your abilities, as you both work towards a common goal.

Fair is being on the same team.

🫎A Wild Place

The richest day of my life was breaking $100,000 in compensation.

I was 27 years old. I never thought I’d make that kind of money. I only needed to work two full-time to do it. I remember thinking, why would I ever need to make more money than this?

When I told my friend Scott about this, he laughed. “Then you have kids and a family, and you realize that’s not quite true.” He was right.

I have another friend who made a couple of million during the crypto hype train of ‘17. He bought 30 BTC at $300 and a bunch of ETH at $7. He invested in a bunch of ICOs, too. Most of which went to zero. A few, though, yielded somewhere north of a 20x return.

He didn’t get out at the peak. Wasn’t far from it, though.

This friend is the one who gave me my education on start-up equity, FMV and strike prices, and how much money could be made against 5-10x multiples for a Saas business. He opened my eyes to how many levels there were to this money thing.

But to be honest, it still seems fugazi. Made up. Existing only as 0s and 1s, an ephemeral effervescence. That’s an immigrant mentality. If you can’t touch it, if you can’t shove it under a mattress, it doesn’t exist.

The challenge is holding both these ideas simultaneously in your head as truths: 1/ grateful for what you have, and 2/ ambition for more.

That second part is equally important as the first, because while it’s true that money doesn’t solve all problems, it does solve money problems. And there are always money problems, evolving and transmuting like a time-lapse video on the nature channel.

Recessions, workforce reductions, family emergencies, 2am decisions, drink, drugs, calories, terrorists, crashes, disease… we can’t know which we’ll face. However, we can be certain of some combination in our future.

The world is a wild place.

📚 Here are my 4 favorite books to help you navigate the wilderness:

1/ I Will Teach You to Be Rich by Ramit Sethi – My go-to recommendation for someone starting their financial journey. Ramit keeps it real with no-nonsense advice that sets you up for financial success. This is where you learn all the blocking and tackling (e.g. credit cards, getting out of debt, which savings account to open, etc.)

2/ Psychology of Money by Morgan Housel – This book is a perfect follow-up to Ramit’s, diving into why we handle money the way we do. It’s super insightful about the weird ways our brains work when it comes to money and risk, showing you how to make better financial decisions. If IWTYTBR is the block and tackling, then this is the mental game of personal finance.

3/ The Millionaire Fastlane by MJ DeMarco – I didn’t love this the first time I read it. It gave me “Rich Dad Poor Dad” vibes. But on the second and third reads, the ideas here changed how I think about diversifying income sources.

4/ Quit Like A Millionaire by Kristy Shen and Bryce Leung – This one’s got a strong FIRE vibe (Financial Independence, Retire Early), which might not be for everyone’s. But even if retiring early isn’t your goal, it’s packed with straightforward tips on how taxes work with different investments. Useful as you dive deeper into exploring how you want to design an investment portfolio.

⭐ Recommendations: Tipping, Diet Pepsi, Credit Card Rewards, Chess

💁The generosity of strangers — via tips — paid off my student loan, and got me through tough years in LA. So I have conflicted feelings of the pervasiveness of tipping culture today (do I want to tip 25%, 22%, or 18%)? Two podcasts that do a great deep dive on it: Shit You Didn’t Learn At School and The Daily.

✈️ About 80% of our flights to Ireland have been covered with credit card rewards. I think playing the game is worth it — if you play it carefully. Here’s a great breakdown on what that means.

🥤Diet Pepsi by Addison Rae was the song of my Brat summer.

📕 Barbara Kingsolver wrote The Poisonwood Bible, which was nominated for the Pulitzer Prize for fiction. Then she wrote Demon Copperhead, which won the Pulitzer Prize. Both are fantastic. Every other paragraph is poetry.

🔉If Books Could Kill did their takedown of Jonthan Haidt’s The Anxious Generation. Strong recommend, especially if you have children. Tl;dr they make the case that Haidt cherry picks data, has an agenda against social media, but doesn’t actually care about the well being of teens, and uses the fact we all come in with the bias that constant social media usage is probably not great for kids — but doesn’t do the research to back up his case.

♟️I’ve started playing chess again. I love playing on chess.com’s app, they make it super easy to learn the game and play some quick matches. If you play, let me know your handle!

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10 Tips To Get (and Stay) Fit While Working Remotely

Today, I’m going to show you how to get (and stay) fit while working remotely.

In a world of diet fads and 60-second abs, I’ll walk through a habit-based approach that focuses on adherence.

(In other words, this approach helps you stick with fitness.)

Here’s what most remote work advocates don’t talk about…

How easily bad fitness habits form when you work remotely:

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career

The 1 Question You Should Ask For Big Life Decisions

Today I’m sharing my favorite way to make big life decisions.

From:

  • Selling my house in the suburbs
  • Moving my family abroad
  • Choosing between jobs

There’s no “right way” to make these decisions. But I found this model simplifies the decision-making process and reduces anxiety.

No pro and con lists.

No sleepless nights.

By answering a simple question, you can remove complexity from similar life decisions.

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6 Steps to Land a Remote Job (Using LinkedIn)

Last updated on March 6th, 2023 at 05:08 am

In this post, I’ll show you the exact steps I’d use today to land a remote job, using LinkedIn.

In July 2022, remote jobs made up 16% of job postings on LinkedIn.

Yet attracted 53% of the applications.

Competition is fierce. You need a consistent way to stand out.

Most people think you do this with a word-perfect resume or crafting a beautiful, bespoke cover letter.

They’re wrong.

In the last decade, I’ve landed 5 remote jobs.

Here’s how you can do the same.

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5 Steps to Create a Recession Proof Career

Last updated on March 6th, 2023 at 05:08 am

In this newsletter, you’ll learn how to create a recession proof career.

In the last 30 days, Google, HubSpot, PayPal, & more have seen layoffs (6%, 7%, and 7% reductions, respectively.)

(Source: Layoffs.fyi)

When you’re fortunate and layoffs don’t impact you, you still run through a gamut of emotions.

Relief. Empathy. Anger.

Then you go about your day. You try to do good work. To prove you drive impact in the company.

This is not enough.

The problem is our careers are more fragile than we think.

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