2022 - A Year of Change?
Something happened this week that hasn’t happened in over 5 years… I’ve officially got a job.
A friend of mine introduced me to the broker who manages his commercial buildings. She’s got her hands in a lot of pots (management, development, maintenance, sales, etc) and she is in desperate need of help.
Specifically, she’s in need of maintenance and management help. That is where I come in. (Although we may blend some sales in there as well.) In fact, it appears to be the reason my friend introduced us in the first place.
What seemed like a nice introduction appears to have had ulterior motives — get his broker more help. Don’t get me wrong, I’m not mad about it. It is a great opportunity, after all. Just found it funny.
Still not 100% sure what the job will entail. Sounds silly since I’ve already worked there for two days. When she first brought up the idea of bringing me on I asked, “Where do you need the most help?” She responded, “The boats got a leak and we’re all furiously shoveling water back over the sides. Grab a bucket and start shoveling.”
That may make it sound like a nightmare, but it honestly seems like a good opportunity. Also, I’m only starting at about 20-25 hours a week so I’ll be able to dip my toes in. I’ll have the choice to go full-time if I wish. Plus, if it doesn’t end up being a good fit I could pretty easily go back to having no job and just keep flipping houses.
Speaking of which… I’ve got a new home under contract with another one finishing up, plus a third one that I’m wholetailing rather than fixing myself. Since my job will only be part-time I’m planning to keep at the flipping game.
The next step with my flipping business is to automate some marketing and revamp my website to be more SEO friendly. The goal is to have a steady stream of leads coming in that I can either purchase or wholesale to other investors.
I’m a little unsure just how much I can realistically do on the flipping side this year. It is only my first week on the job and I’m already feeling the strain of less free time. I was just starting to get back into consistent writing and even starting a couple of hobby projects. Looks like some of my goals for 2022 will have to change…
No Pain No Gain
I’m not typically one who can effectively manage multiple projects/goals while being on a tight schedule. While I may want to keep pushing forward with everything I had planned for this year, I know myself well enough to know that I’ll just end up burned out.
At the same time, I don’t want to drop all the goals/habits I’ve been building into my previously open schedule. I still want to push myself to grow. To put things in lifting terms, I’ve been in a bulking phase with lots of time to pursue lots of interests. I’m now heading into a calorie deficit and about to get really lean. We’re going to see if I can keep up or if I wimp out and stop exercising. (Metaphorically and literally)
So… This means I have to figure out what is staying in my metaphorical diet and what gets dropped. How do I go about this? By keeping my focus on today.
Since I started writing I’ve found myself getting better at saying “no” to rabbit holes or opportunities that shift my focus. I’m by no means perfect in this regard, but getting better.
So what is today’s focus? (In a general sense, not literally today.)
FI Goal
Fitness
Learning
Creating
To be clear, these are personal goals/projects/habits that go below the ultimate project — Family. That is why the FI goal (financial independence) sits at the top.
FI Goal
As I’ve written before, I’m trying to get to a position of F.U. Growing the flipping business while simultaneously starting this new job will be huge toward that goal. Plus, I’ve only got ~14 months to hit my initial goal of FI by 35. My late goal is to hit it by 40, but I’d rather be earlier than later!
Before the new job began I also had the goal of starting my first business outside of real estate. The goal was to come up with something that could make $10k in the first year. I’ve got a couple of ideas, and still may try to execute on one, but that will have to wait until things have settled.
Realistically, I’m not gonna hit perfect FI by 35. Perfect FI would mean my wife could feel free to quit her job if she chose to. In all likelihood, we’ll be ~75% of the way there. I already consider us halfway there since I don’t NEED the job. I already consider myself to be F.U. adjacent and could keep doing what I’m doing. But the job will help with the other part of the formula, so I’m jumping on the grind.
Fitness
Here is the literal part of my exercise analogy above. Since mid-November my best friend and I have been hitting the gym pretty consistently — 4 days/week. In that short two months, I’ve already seen solid gains in strength. I’ve also noticed some arm bulges that weren’t there before. 💪😎
I’m liking the progress, but due to the job will now have to hit the gym twice a week on my own. This has never been a strong suit for me, so we’ll see how it goes. I got up early yesterday and made it. The plan is to keep that up on Wednesdays and Fridays each week.
I’m still in the bulking phase for fitness, but mid-late February is when I plan to cut.
Learning
I’m already falling behind the goal I set in the last piece — read and take notes on 12 books. Due to the new schedule, I may revise this and instead of doing 12 new books do a 1/2 and 1/2 kind of thing. 6 new books and notes and revisit 6 old books I’ve already read. For the book I've already read I’ll either officially take notes or just reflect if notes have already been taken.
Books are the one area I need the most help with focusing. I have the tendency to buy books that sound cool but then never read them. I’m much better at this than I used to be, but I want my learning to be laser-focused and helpful NOW. However, I still want to leave room for books that support future projects/creativity. So we’ll see how this goes.
My first 3 books for the year are about human behavior. They probably fall in the “somewhat helpful now but most helpful for creative projects” category. What would actually be helpful now is probably still a bit ambiguous. That is something to better refine, I suppose.
Creating
It hurts me to put this last but is honestly where I’m at with goals/projects. Creating was higher on the list until the job started. But as I said, I’m in the cutting phase. Besides, I’ve gotten myself into too many creative projects with the lack of time restriction.
For one, I’m making music again. Well, have been for a little while but I’m determined to hit the 100 beat goal. It just won’t happen as fast as I hoped. I’ve also got my writing which I want to keep up with. However, I’ll have to wait on doing new writing projects. But I can at least keep this personal journal-style going. Lastly, I’ve picked up a new hobby that I’m finally ready to reveal….
For about 2 months I’ve been playing around with Unity for simple video game design
You can see what I’ve attempted here. The picture above is from the latest tutorial I followed — building a simple 2D platformer. I’m following another now for a slightly more intricate platformer.
The game above has a bug after level 1, which I don’t know how to fix, so I’m clearly not very good yet. Plus some of the other examples in the link don’t load for some reason. Still, I’ve been enjoying the process and haven’t gotten bored yet. Hoping to keep that momentum going, but we’ll see…
Coming into 2022 I was hoping the year of change would be in how much creating I got to do. I had ambitious goals for music, writing, and game design.
It may be that I’m having to drop the creativity and pick it up once other goals are reached. Hoping to stay balanced and do it all, but also want to keep up another important piece of the puzzle in mind that I’ve yet to mention… Personal happiness.