What a year! Can’t help but reflect on the positives and learn from the negatives. In this post I attempt to summarize the big events from this past year. For more regular updates, subscribe to my monthly-ish newsletter here.
Baby Season
This year my wife and I welcomed our son into the world. Seriously one of the best feelings. This little guy is super chill and we just love him so much.
Becoming a father has provided that external motivation to succeed and to provide that young people have to look internally for. I love having this extra motivation and use this as the perfect opportunity to live by example.
While the little guy was cooking, I bought a somewhat inspirational book about fatherhood called ‘The Dad Advice Project: Words of Wisdom From Guys Who Love Being Dads‘ that really resonated . The book is a compilation of advice from fellow dads at all stages, starting with grandads to dads with newborns. Jordan Spieth’s dad is quoted in it.
Fun little story: We are big on encouraging reading through example. So even though he’s a little nugget, every night we read a book to him. Well after the first few weeks, I could not bear to read another baby book. Instead, we decided to read the classics and picked up ‘The Count of Monte Cristo’. I never read it before. We read about a chapter a night and before you know it, we finished it. It lives up to the hype! Still can’t believe it was written in ~1840s. We just started ‘And Then There Were None’ by Agatha Christie and so far, so good. I’m excited to continue this tradition and to read books I was too young-and-dumb to care to read in high school. Curse you Cliff Notes!
Donkey
About a month after we found out my wife was pregnant, we made the decision to put our beloved dog down on February 9. Donkey developed bone cancer in April 2020 and had his front leg amputated shortly after. After many rounds of chemo, the cancer spread to his lungs and his quality of life quickly declined. February and the months after were difficult balancing the highs of expecting and the lows of losing a loved one.
Donkey, as you are probably aware, was quite literally the best dog. We adopted Donkey from a shelter after Connie saw his picture on their website. We were supposed to only be going to visit him but we ended up taking him home that day. No supplies and no preparation but lots of love to give. He was a perfect angel. A total lap dog and truly man’s and woman’s best friend. I firmly believe taking care of Donkey prevented us from being kicked in the face when the baby arrived. By the end, Donkey filled our lives with love and happy memories. For that, I will always be grateful.
Real Estate Deals – Choose Fuller Real Estate
In 2021, I continued to support friends and family to buy and sell real estate here in metro-Atlanta. I supported four transactions in 2021. 2 buys and 2 sells. I also brought a partner onboard to help support my deal flow. Here’s a summary of my transactions (without the numbers). You’ll notice the term ‘my friend’ in each transaction because that’s all I do business with. I only want to work with friends and family.
- April 2021 – Buy Single Family – ~$500k. My friends relocated from New York City to Duluth area. Partnered on this transaction.
- July 2021 – Buy Town House – ~$380k. My friend from Accenture reached out on a new construction since the 3% transaction fee was unavoidable whether or not he used an agent. I did not partner on this one.
- September – Sell Single Family – ~$485k. My friend from work wanted to test the market on his renovated single family in Dunwoody. We listed it and ultimately sold it to Opendoor. Partnered on this transaction.
- December 2021 – Sell Town House. ~$470k. My friend from work is relocating and wanted to sell his town house. This turned into an off market deal with a super smooth closing process. Partnered on this transaction.
I’m thinking of putting together a paid course on how to become a real estate agent while staying full time in your job. Would you be interested in that? I’d cover the licensing process, how to find a broker, how to find a business partner, and potential earnings. Let me know in the comments or shoot me a message directly.
2021 Goal Review
Every year I like to set goals for the upcoming 365 days. Last year, I set the following goals. Here’s my review of my goals and lessons learned here.
- Grow a Small Business – Did Not Complete
- I identified a small business to support, a friend of my brother’s, that provides outsource IT support. We put together an engagement plan with a success criteria which, if completed, would convert into equity within the company. 6 months of sweat equity.
- This was at the very beginning of 2021 and about two weeks in we found about the baby and our dog was getting much sicker. I decided to exit to ensure I could properly focus on the other items I committed to.
- Start a Failing Business – Part 1 and Part 2 – Needed More Attention
- I have a standing goal of starting my own SaaS/Service business one day. This was my attempt giving myself permission to fail but still try. Remove the pressure of finding something perfect. Something is better than nothing. I write about the two ideas in the links above.
- Another attempt was software for divorce attorneys with my divorce attorney neighbor. This was interrupted by the birth of the baby and murky market demand.
- Build Personal Brand – Needed More Attention
- This goal was well intentioned but poorly bounded. I still believe your personal brand is critical to any future endeavors whether that’s starting my own company (recruiting top talent is critical), branching out into new fields, or just creating enough activity so luck can find me.
- To hit this goal I rebranded my real estate newsletter into a personal newsletter and posted 8 videos on my YouTube channel. Channel Link
- Consistency is key here so I need to rethink my approach going into 2022.
- Continue Strong Work Performance – On Track
- Depending on who you ask I either met objective or hit out of the park. It’s a funny position to be in but overall I’m happy with what I’ve produced this year and how I contributed directly to the bottom line.
One of my big takeaways from my personal goals and even quarterly work goals I set is to keep the goals to a maximum of three. Anything more is just too difficult to juggle. When picking the three I need to remember that work and life are an automatic two, leaving me one open spot. This is a big reason why partnered in real estate so I can push that forward without the time commitment needed to show houses.
I will look at rotating a third goal every quarter in 2022. I tend to work best in three month sprints/attention spans.
So, now you saw my year in review. What do you think? How was your year?