2024 Year in Review

Time to get to work

As I wrote this, I spent a lot of time reflecting on how best to frame this era of my life. Crafting a narrative is tricky because stories are subjective, and that subjectivity often blurs “reality.”

Looking back, 2024 has been a great year in so many ways, but from a career perspective, I’m dissatisfied. I didn’t set clear goals for the year, and without goals, life tends to drift into the chaos of daily whims. I didn’t write as much as I usually do, and when I don’t write, I lose my ability to reflect on progress or maintain focus. My life lacked structure and a schedule, which meant I couldn’t build the small daily and weekly wins that compound into bigger achievements.

“If a man knows not to which port he sails, no wind is favorable.” - Seneca

What’s worse is that 2024 feels like part of a larger pattern of drifting From 2013 to 2020 I was a focused real estate investor, but around mid 2021 the market and strategy I had spent almost a decade on was largely overpriced. I have a strict rule of only buying deals that make sense financially—so after eight years of solid asset accumulation—I decided to take some time to explore. I wanted to gain a clearer perspective on the market and tinker new interests, like traveling the world with my camera and spending a year in Maui to build the BetterLife podcast.

Those experiences made for a rich and fulfilling life and I earned decent money along the way, but none of it compounded, and I don’t have much to show for the effort. That doesn’t sit well with me. I want to get back to building something foundational—something that I can grow larger over time. Thankfully I know exactly how to do this: Work on the same thing every day.

What are some highlights from this year?

Despite being a bit of a lost soul in my career I've still had a pretty wonderful 2024.

All my investments are doing well

I'm mad that haven't spent more time on my investments but I'm very proud to say the investments that I do have are all performing exceptionally. I didn't refinance any of my real estate during the 2021 interest rate mania so my portfolio has about a 30% LTV and is cash flowing great. My portfolio has very little risk, reliable income, and zero stress.

We left Maui and moved to Austin

It's difficult to explain how bad a fit Maui was for me. The weather and scenery are flawless every single day but absolutely nothing is happening, it's like groundhog day in paradise. It's a small town and the people who live there are the types who like peace and find contentment in day to day activities. It is not a place for an extrovert or someone who has regular existential crises, and I fit both of those descriptions.

We do however love Austin Texas more than I ever could have imagined. The weather here is fantastic, I found a gym I love, we live in the coolest part of town, and the overall culture of this city fits us extremely well. I'm pretty sure we will live here for the rest of our lives.

The Quilt store

After a year of building an instagram audience Miss Kate launched www.quiltwithmisskate.com with resounding success. I've become a world class quilt store photographer and she goes on instagram to talk to her community every day and she generated over 100k in gross sales her first 7 months. Incredible. It'll be fun to see what this becomes over the next decade.

We started book club back up

One of my favorite things I do is this book club, it's on year 3 now and I just love gathering with friends to discuss ideas about important topics like morality, mortality, and purpose. I hope I can keep this group going for a very long time

I'm still a monster in the gym

I always knew that squats and deadlifts would be a good investment and now at 41 I'm starting to see those results. I can still pull a 405lb deadlift pretty easily and that's a lot more than the majority of my peers.

The mental health checklist

Everyone has ups and downs through the days and one suprisingly small but effective thing I did this year was make the mental health checklist. If I do what's on this checklist it fixes my bad moods and feelings 99.9% of the time. While simple, do not under estimate this:

• Gym
• Outside
• Socialize
• Water
• Protein

4 years of failed projects that all came together to teach me this one thing

When I could no longer find real estate deals, I turned to those who seemed more successful, hoping to learn and partner with them. On paper, it sounded like a smart move, but in practice, I have five notable failures to show for it.

I partnered with Climb Capital to buy RV parks, but we couldn’t find the right way to work together and shortly after joining their deals dried up as well. In 2020 and 2021 I worked with BiggerPockets on a big media project called Meet the Investor, but we couldn't find a shared vision and they canceled it. In 2023 I moved to Maui to build the BetterLife podcast, but I wasn’t a partner—I was an employee. I tried to partner on some East Coast resorts with a friend, which ended only halfway through our initial agreement. Lastly, I attempted to buy a package of Dairy Queens with another friend, my job was to raising money and finding a strategic partners, which I did, and then immediately got boxed out of future deals.

Each of these experiences taught me the same hard truth: being a “partner” on someone else’s project is the same as being an employee but with a fraudulent title.

Being an employee sucks. Employees live at the mercy of someone else’s decisions and whims, employees don't build their future they build someone else's future and hope that person is benevolent. This is antithetical to my goals. I love people and the idea of partnerships and I'm glad I tried all of these projects, but I made more money and was more fulfilled when I focused on my own investments.

My path is one of ownership, not dependence.

2025 goals and my word of the year

Goals

52 interviews - I've been putting people on camera for 4 years and recently I started this little series where I've been capturing people exactly where they are in life at the current moment with the goal of doing it every year or two for the next decade and watching people's lives unfold.

52 book clubs - I love this book club so much and it's become one of the most fulfilling things I do each week. We meet on Wednesday nights and I plan to give a lot of myself to the group this year.

12 blog posts - I need to back to writing more and I'm trying not to put too much pressure on myself but when I write a lot I reflect a lot and it slows my brain down in a very healthy way. I didn't write much in 2023 or 2024 and my life suffered from it. 12 posts is the minimum I want to write but I don't want to put so much pressure on myself that I can't hit the goal

3 beacons - The Beacon is a small group get together that I've been putting on recently where people just get together to get new perspective and learn about themselves better. It's low production, I make no profit, but it's a way for me to serve people and I love it. The first one is in February here in Austin, the second will be in June in Colorado and the third will probably be in late fall here again in Austin.

Foundations

Going into 2025 I have a solid relationship with Miss Kate, this allows us to focus only on building new things together. We are extremely happy with Austin and plan on staying here for the long haul, this allows us to build friendships that can compound over the coming decades. We have a solid financial basis so our bills are paid, we have assets that will grow, and we aren't stressed about money or putting food on the table.

These things all means we can both spend our time on projects that we believe in without the pressure of needing immediate success. For her the Quilt store, and for me I have personal creative projects and investments that I want to give 100% of my energy towards.

Having this word helps us make decisions like "Should we spend a lot of time with this person who is going to move away from Austin?" or "Should I spend time on this one off project that has no long term future?"

Everything we do in 2025 is going to be focused on building foundations and everything that won't be foundational gets an easy "No".

Who do I write this for?

As I write this 7th annual review I'm contemplating why I write it. This blog has never been a marketing effort - so I always struggle with the question of "why bother".

My photography is the same way, I love that it creates a special bond between myself and the subject and I gladly make it for that reason alone. Video is similar, trying to make videos that rank on YouTube feels both difficult and empty, but videos that I make about people and just give my gift away feels fulfilling. Finally, I can't imagine anyone really cares about this blog or my yearly updates but I find it to be incredibly valuable because it lets me take dedicated time to reflect on my life and get it on paper and then look back on it over the years.

So this year I'll be writing this blog and newsletter for future Alex. In 10 and 20 and 30 years I want to look back and see how life has changed, I want to use it as a means to document what I've done right and wrong so I can reflect and improve, obviously I want to share things that are valuable to you as well but I doubt that you have found nearly as much value in my writing as I have. If there was ever an over arching lesson to extract from my work here it's that you should write your own story for yourself as well.

This website is an investment—a time machine for my future self.