I’m trying to be better this year about sharing my usually relatively private, strange and interesting life, to stay better in touch, connect with others up to similar things in the world and hopefully share some things that may be helpful to you.
I live in a forest now.
I saw more animals than people last year.
The person I see more than anyone is a monk who lived in the Himalayas for 25 years and used to be friends with people like Ram Dass. We go for nightly walks a few times a week. He lives near me in the forest.
You might be wondering, how did I end up living in a forest and what have I been up to…
My 2021 Review:
I started 2021 off on the east coast in a medical clinic. That’s about as fun as it sounds.
I’d had some ongoing health challenges for a while but they got especially bad so I spent months on the East Coast paying some mad scientist doctor an obscene amount of money to try some very outside the box methods.
I left in January and was told to go rest for a couple months.
So, I went out to Sedona to stay with a friend.
If I wasn’t napping or chatting w/my friend, I often spent 12+ hours a day reading, thinking, journaling and meditating.
I didn’t really have the energy to do anything else.
He lived right next to the National Forest so when I wasn’t doing the above and had a little energy, I’d take a short walk out there and go chill on a giant rock.
After a while I started looking at heading back to the Austin area.
I’d let the lease of my downtown place expire when I was back east in the clinic so I needed a new spot.
I wanted to be around nature more both for the peace to read, write and think, but also being around a bunch of cell towers and Wi-Fi signals in a downtown highrise when trying to heal is a pretty horrific strategy. My new doctor wouldn’t even start my new protocol if I wasn’t in a spot without wifi as he said it’d be very unlikely to work.
I couldn’t find anything I liked on the market to rent or buy. I called my realtor and asked if he knew of any off-market nature properties.
He called me back a few days later and FaceTimed me from a new construction build that was set to be finished in a couple months.
He showed me the surrounding nature and I bought it over FaceTime.
Shortly after, I headed back to Texas where I planned on crashing in airbnb’s for a month or two until my house was finished being built.
While I was waiting for it to be finished I found a house I liked even better that had just come on the market. Exactly the type of nature seclusion I was looking for.
So I bought that one, and flipped the other once the build was finished.
The rest of the year was honestly a blur.
I started off the year just hoping to improve my health, work on my book and maybe buy another investment property or two.
I bought an investment property.
I had a decent amount of energy again.
I bought another.
I thought the market was completely mispricing things.
So I bought some more.
I ran all sorts of calculations to try and figure out why prices were much lower than I thought they should have been. “Am I wrong, or is everyone else?, I wondered to myself.
I bought more.
“Why isn’t anyone else scooping these up?”, I questioned myself, debating whether my thought process or analysis was flawed in some way.
I bought some more.
I couldn’t get any math I ran to show that the areas I was looking at weren’t significantly underpriced.
So I kept buying.
One of my favorite quotes is from Charlie Munger, and it’s something I’ve always tried to follow:
“A few major opportunities, clearly recognizable as such, will usually come to one who continuously searches and waits, with a curious mind, loving diagnosis involving multiple variables. And then all that is required is a willingness to bet heavily when the odds are extremely favorable, using resources available as a result of prudence and patience in the past…You should remember that good ideas are rare— when the odds are greatly in your favor, bet heavily.”
So I did.
I ended up buying hundreds of properties before year end.
Probably not the recommended prescription for taking it easy/letting my body rest, but it was a good distraction from my health stuff, and I didn’t know how long the market would stay mispriced, so I wanted to strike while the opportunity was there.
It’s amazing what you can get done if you eliminate all else except what you’re wanting to do.
Living in the forest with no TV, limited use of social media and no phone. Oh yeah…in 2021 I kept my phone turned off 99% of the time.
Kobe Bryant had a concept he called editing your life.
Decide what you want and edit your life so it happens.
Most people are not willing to edit their life, so their life stays relatively the same or at least nowhere near the life they desire because they aren’t willing to edit and cut out the unnecessary to guarantee their desired results/life.
I knew I had to edit hard. So I did.
In 2021 while working nonstop on my health/trying to manage my often limited energy, I bought hundreds of properties, am finally close to completing the rough draft of a giant book I’ve been working on for years, read 84 books, took 500 + nature walks, and helped several coaching students massively grow and/or exit their businesses for a lot of money.
I also spent pretty significant time diving down the spiritual/mystical rabbit hole. Tons of reading, meditation, contemplation, and just practicing stillness/observation.
It’s extremely fascinating to me and several times throughout the year I reached certain states of consciousness that I’m not sure I would have believed could be reached without the use of high doses of psychedelics had I not experienced them myself.
I tried to get as much insight as I could from others who’d been deep down the road already.
While in Arizona I realized one of my recently read paradigm shifting books that I loved had a foundation that was headquartered an hour from Sedona, and they supposedly would get together and discuss ideas, a study group of sorts.
I called up the foundation and asked if I could come.
I tend to read a lot of old, under the radar books and it was a super old website so I didn’t know if they still met.
Do you still have meetups?
“How did you find out about us?”
I found a website but I didn’t know if it was up to date.
“Oh. Yes, we do still meet.”
Awesome, can I come?
“Well, sure, we’d be happy to have you!”
So the next time they met, I went. And it was me, my buddy and like 8 super old ‘enlightenment seeking’ people in some small cabin in the woods. I guess they’d been meeting for decades.
Anyways…
It was an extremely tough year at times, dealing with the unpredictable ups and downs of energy that comes with the health stuff that can still occasionally wipe me out for days or weeks.
But the business/investing stuff was fun and felt good to be playing that game again.
It kinda felt like real life monopoly.
Overall it was a weird and interesting year.
I remember being such a combination of focused and tired one day that I went out to grab a morning coffee, paid for the coffee, and drove home. But I never actually waited for them to make my coffee. I just left. Haha.
It was definitely hellish at times trying to deal with health stuff and still try to accomplish some things that I wanted to accomplish, but I got better at just surrendering to taking days off whenever I needed them as much as it bugged the ‘achiever’ in me. I took the first couple months of the year off and most of the last couple, so was able to work about 8 months on the year, when at the beginning of the year I wasn’t sure if I’d be able to work 8 days. Still a long ways to go but shit… life!
My 2022 Goals:
I normally don’t share goals publicly, usually with just a few close friends/family, partly because I haven’t wanted to risk some false sense of accomplishment in talking about them vs. doing, but also with my health stuff I sometimes don’t know if/when I’ll have energy so attempting to achieve goals by itself can be frustrating with that variable, but to publicly say I’m going to do X knowing that variable is alive, adds to the fear of it popping it’s head up. Just going to do my best.
I’m trying to do better about sharing more/being open this year so I’m going to share all of my 2022 goals:
- Buy at least 50 properties
With prices getting much higher, margins getting smaller and me wanting to spend more time completing my book it seems like a good target despite it being lower than the amount I bought this year.
- Have my book publish ready
I brain dumped 400,000 words into a document several years ago. Unfortunately that’s not a typo. Most business/investing books are in the 40K range, I put everything I know about money/decision making down and have been slowly figuring out what to keep for my book.
- Accept 4 new coaching clients to help them achieve life-changing goals
I love sharing what I know to help people accomplish life changing goals. This is definitely one of the most fulfilling things I get to do. It’s my version of play.
- Break ground on at least 4 new construction builds
I see a gap in the market for a certain kind of build so I’m going to test my theory out and start a small construction business. I’ll either be wrong and learn a lot while having fun or I’ll be right and scale.
- Hire an amazing right hand person
I very much need someone awesome to free up my time so I’m only spending it on my unique abilities. This goal is a huge domino to help me achieve other goals this year.
If you know someone amazing who’s worked in a role such as chief of staff or executive assistant who loves working in a fast paced environment and is the most detail oriented and organized person you know, let me know!
- A least 4 singles dinners/parties
Dating is an area I have spent 0 time on the last couple years. And living in the forest isn’t exactly the ideal setting for meeting people. And if you’re looking for a legit match, dating apps are about as inefficient as you can get. Since there isn’t a terrific solution in the dating space yet, I’m going to throw some singles dinners/parties, have my chef come cook for us, bring a bunch of eligible bachelor friends and just help good people meet. So, if you know of some amazing bachelorettes in the Austin area let me know and I’ll try and include them.
- Publish quarterly updates on ForeverJobless
I’m going to post short goal tracking updates to keep anyone who wants to follow along up to date and for public accountability.
- Vacation for at least 6 weeks
Trying to maintain a balance to help reset/stay fresh.
- Publish at least 3 articles
These might be short since my writing time will be focused on my book but I miss writing articles so I’ll publish at least a few.
- At least 600 light cardio section sessions
- At least 250 days of journaling
Journaling has been a huge cheat code for me, not only helping to talk through ideas with myself, but looking back over it helps you to uncover things about yourself you’d forgotten or discounted. We often forget what we want/what’s important. Journaling can remind us. I did a 3 day silent retreat before the new year and read through all my 2021 journals, which helped me map out what I wanted and set the right goals for myself for this year.
- At least 250 days of meditation
- 1 unique good deed per month
- 3 separate, abnormally kind deeds
- At least 50 friend/family hangs
- Lock myself in a cabin for at least 2 weeks to write nonstop
- Throw a retreat or party of some sort w/some friends
- 125 days of caffeine or less
- Cheat meals: 6 meals or less
- At least 48 weeks of specific goal tracking/weekly planning by Sunday night each week, including uploading to show accountability partners my weekly review and upcoming week commitments.
Here are my three Q1 priority goals:
- Buy 15 properties
- 142 hours on the book
- Hire epic executive assistant or chief of staff
2022, here we go.
“One day you will wake up and there won’t be any more time to do the things you wanted to do. Do it now. “
—Paulo Coelho
