Welcome to another year in review! I was reviewing my past reviews and realized I haven’t written a review since 2019 😳 I did an audio review in 2021 and totally ghosted the 2020 review. I’m excited to write again this year — I know when I write, I better understand the experience.
The W.R.A.P. Method for Annual Reviews
W.R.A.P. originally started as a weekly review method, but I’ve expanded it to look back and answer questions about any stretch of time, including the annual review. Here are the four questions I ask myself…
[Wins] What went well? What am I proud of in 2022?
[Results] What were the results of my goals and intentions in 2022?
[Alignment] Are my actions and habits aligning with the person I want to be?
[Pivot] Based on my 2022 review, what do I want to pivot—or plan—in 2023?
Wins
- Our third son, Locke Matthew, was born in April. He’s been happy and healthy!
- First year profitability for my new creator agency, The Whatever Co.
- Closer relationship and better communication with my wife, Morgan
- Received my blue belt in Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu
- Grew my personal revenue by 40%
- Hosted a backcountry retreat for 12 men
- Kept going to therapy
Overview
Most of my wins are reflective, meaning that I didn’t really have goals for most of these at the beginning of 2022 (more on that next). The only things I knew about were (Locke and Jiu-Jitsu) were less about goals than showing up and doing my best. But as we’ve talked about in many productivity and habit videos, success is just as much about your willingness to show up and do the work as it is a particular strategy or achievement. Again, more on that in Results.
But that doesn’t mean there weren’t real wins. A healthy baby—and family—is a huge win and blessing. A profitable first year while supporting the equivalent of four full time employees is a win. I loved going back in the woods with a group of guys and fly fishing for two days. Starting and sticking with therapy has been a tremendous win — my wife recently commented on the change in my presence and demeanor. Heck, THAT is a win.
2022 was a good year with a lot of wins and happy moments. But it was also one of the most challenging years of my life. On to the results…
Results
- Met my not-very-clear goal of “making it” through the year
- Lack of clear goals and intention made for a very hectic year
- Though profitable, I failed to lead Whatever Co as a proactive, intentional CEO
- Fell off YouTube almost entirely — only 13 videos this year
- Fell off with meditation and prayer
Overview
Simply put, my strategy and goals were lacking in 2022. The whole year was a blur, just trying to stay a step ahead or more often, hustling to catch up. A lot of it was tied to work and the pressure of providing for my family while doing work I was excited and passionate about.
There are probably more reliable, safer, calmer ways to make money—narrator voice: there were safer ways to make money—but I’ve never truly doubted that I made the right decision. It’s just a matter of time before the higher impact results come to life. 2023 is shaping up to be a very good year, in no small part to lessons learned and difficult challenges overcome in 2022!
The result in 2022 I’m most disappointed in is how I fell off YouTube. I haven’t given up on it as an important channel for creative expression, but the time simply didn’t exist. Between the new baby, new business, and prioritizing mental + physical health… YouTube almost always lost. I hope in 2023 that I’m able to hire more support and have a bit more family stability, i.e. sleep to be able to start working on videos again. I miss them.
Now it’s time to get even deeper… are my daily actions aligned with my life’s purpose? Ok maybe not that deep, but not that far off 👇
Alignment
Am I in alignment with the who I want to be and the life I want to live?
To be honest, I did not ask myself this question enough in 2022. I was afraid of the answer… because it was “no.”
On the surface, I could show you “yes.” I was running my own business, raising a family, exercising, eating well — all things I enjoy and value (remember that for a minute).
But inside I was scared, anxious, and full of doubt.
- Scared that I had made poor decisions that put my family at risk
- Anxious that we would run out of money and need to sell the house
- Full of doubt that I was a person who could pull all this off
In 2022, my mindset and attitude was NOT aligned with who I want to be or the life I want to live. Remember all those things I enjoy and value? My family, exercise, working for myself? I can enjoy and appreciate each one internally regardless of external outcomes. But this year, I did not.
Getting back into prayer, meditation, and being aware of my thoughts has helped tremendously with my mindset and attitude. Weekly therapy is the foundation of this change, and I’m grateful for the time, money, and space to do the inner work.
Each day, I walk around and say “thank you” for everything I see and do. This morning gratitude practice has led to a profound shift in my mindset and attitude. Some examples…
The life I want to live is the life I am living right now
On December 6, 2022 I had an unexpected breakthrough in therapy. I was doing a gratitude exercise and listed the things above. Then my therapist asked me what I wanted to be different in the future. What was the life I was working so hard for? And I said…
“Well, I want to do work I find interesting, spend lots of time with my family, train jiu-jitsu and CrossFit, be outside, and have enough money to be comfortable.”
She checked her notes and asked “how different is that than what you’re doing now?”
Her comment was so clear and my mind so blocked that I just started laughing hysterically at the truth of it. Right now, today, and for months if not years, I was living the life I wanted to live. I had done it, I am doing it. And for that wonderful moment I accepted where I was instead of being frustrated about where I was not.
I’ve hung on to that moment for dear life ever since
I know. It’s only been two weeks since then. But the days have been wonderful. My wife has commented “you seem different lately, in a good way.” I could talk about it for hours (ask my therapist) but the simplest way to explain the difference is I’ve become more comfortable with where I am instead of being frustrated about where (or who) I am not.
Pivot/Plan
Knowing what I know about 2022 — what’s on deck for 2023? At the moment, what feels right to me is to keep doing more of what I’ve been doing mentally and emotionally the past couple months. I can see I’ve been getting in my own way for years. Doubts, anxieties, fears, and limiting beliefs all haunted my life and work. In many ways, they still do. But I’m getting better at recognizing when they pop up so I’m able to process faster. The pivot has already begun.
For plans and goals, I’m taking it slower this year. One of the downsides of being a productivity-focused creator is the pressure I put on myself to have everything figured out by the first Monday in January. Part of the reality of 2022 is that I’ll be selling until January 31st.
The only goal I have today is the next client, the next lead. But that’s salesman thinking, not CEO strategy. Again, see Results above. I failed at that in 2022. I won’t in 2023. Other pivots, plans, and goals include…
2023 Professional Goals
- Build Whatever Co to 1MM ARR by the end of the year
- Hire and train myself out of the editorial process
- Become a CEO, not an operator or even a manager
- 25 YouTube videos (2/month) and 100 YouTube Shorts (2/week)
- Double my personal revenue
- Write 100 Twitter threads and 200 LinkedIn posts (cross-posting is ok)
2023 Personal Goals
- Throw an amazing 40th birthday party
- Spend a month in the mountains (non-consecutive weeks) and at least one week in Colorado
- Take a weekend trip with my wife
- Host a men’s weekend in the woods
- One day a week with no phone and no work
- 150 BJJ or CrossFit workouts
- 3 camping weekends, 1 full camping week
Most important: be grateful for where I am and who I am at this moment
Looking back, I’ve been in this position for 10 years, if not longer. I wouldn’t say I’ve been ungrateful, but unsatisfied? Absolutely. I was already ready for the next thing and didn’t appreciate where I was, what I had, and who I was. I resented myself and others. I was full of self-criticism.
If you know me, even a little, I may not have seemed that way. And I wasn’t that way all the time. But I was enough of the time, and all those feelings were never far from the surface. The darkness was never far away. There’s a passage about this in Brandon Sanderson’s Rhythm of War that has stuck with me. It’s reminded me of where I was and may find myself again:
Life will get better. Then it will get worse again. Then better. This is life, and I will not lie by saying every day will be sunshine. But there will be sunshine again, and that is a very different thing to say. That is truth. — Wit
My Best Work
I want to share the best work I did and created this year, along with a little behind-the-scenes at how I did it.
YouTube
One of the goals I missed on this year was growth and consistency on YouTube. I still published 11 videos including my favorites on Note-taking in Notion and 10 Simple Habits to be Happy.
W.R.A.P. Newsletter
My newsletter is the creative work I’m most proud of this year. I published the W.R.A.P. every weekend (courses and holidays not included) and added To-Do’s Day this fall. I’m not prioritizing the time to go through my archive and count the emails, but a conservative guess is around 70 newsletters published in 2022. Here are a few of my favorites…
Productivity Power-Up: Time Blocking
The most effective tool in my productivity toolkit this year was time blocking. I have a good sense of task duration after years of time tracking and that was put to good use in 2022. Most weeks were time blocked in advance to allow time for agency work, newsletter writing, and the occasional YouTube video.
For better or worse, time blocking is the reason I slowed down on YouTube and even stopped for the past few months. As much as it bummed me out, I know a video takes at least 3-4 hours to create, and that’s with an editor! So every time I wanted to make a new video, it went down the priority list.
- Is this a task that will help a client? Ghostwriting, editing, communication.
- Is this a task that will help our team? Systems, sales, training.
- Should I do this task instead of going home to see my family?
- Should I do this task instead of taking care of myself? Sleep, exercise, etc.
As I filled up my time blocks each week, I had a harder and harder time finding blocks for YouTube videos. Looking back, this was impacted by the rollout of ConvertKit’s sponsor network. Because of it, my newsletters had sponsors. And when a newsletter has a sponsor… the newsletter takes priority over YouTube.
I was talking with my parents this weekend and commented that I only focused on three (and a half) areas in 2022.
- Growing the Whatever Co creator agency (courses and newsletters)
- Raising my family (especially with a new baby)
- Personal health (exercise, time outdoors, and therapy)
I note the “half” because the newsletter is less time consuming than YouTube and I’m able to do it late at night.
In a year where I still worked super-hard, it was because of time blocking that I realized I simply didn’t have the same capacity to ship a weekly, then bi-weekly, then even monthly video on YouTube. I intend to do more in 2023, but it’s still below all the other priorities when planning each week. If you want to know more about how I think about time blocking, watch this video.
Building an Agency with SOPs
The best work I did this year isn’t something I can show you. Well, not anything more than this database of standard operating procedures (SOPs) about the newsletter process. I wrote thousands of words and recorded hours of video about how to do the work that delivers value for our clients.
I had to use every power-up in my productivity kit to make this happen, on top of doing work, making sales, onboarding clients, creating forms, and more. It always feels difficult to take time away from what’s needed right now in order to create a checklist or video about the process — but it’s the only way to grow.
Without these SOPs and many others, the Whatever Co would not have made it through the year. At the very least I would not have made it through the year because I’d be trying to do everything myself.
I’ve measured my creative output on YouTube for the past 5 years, so there’s an old part of me that feels very unproductive in 2022. 11 videos!? And let’s not even talk about the (relative) lack of channel growth.
But I’m growing as a person, a creator, and an entrepreneur. My family is growing and taking a bigger chunk of my time — which I’m happy about and thankful for! I’m also reminding myself that I haven’t lost any of the skills that helped my YouTube journey. I’ll have even more stories and experiences to share when I start again. If you miss my videos, I linked a bunch in the lessons above.
Favorite Things
What follows are my favorite books, YouTube channels and videos, podcasts, products, and music. It’s very link-heavy, so you’ll wanna bookmark this post and come back to it later.
Books
- Comfort Crisis by Michael Easter (see video below)
- Wild Problems by Russ Roberts
- Letting Go by David R Hawkins
- Hero on a Mission by Donald Miller
- The Wisdom of Your Body by Hillary McBride
- Just a Thought by Amy Johnson
- The Psychology of Money by Morgan Housel
- The Midnight Library by Matt Haig
YouTube Channels
- Van Neistat — Good Fathers Are Vital
- Creative Minds — Virgil Abloh’s Creative Advice
- Chase Reeves — 22 Notebooks & Journals
- WillyJ123 — My boys and I like watching his silly music videos
Podcasts
- Creative Elements (watch the YouTube channel also) — my friend Jay Clouse interviews top creators, writers, YouTubers, and more.
- I Will Teach You How To Be Rich — real talk about money, with couples. Fascinating and helpful!
- Stratechery — tech, culture, business, news and more. It makes me smarter.
- My First Million — consistently great interview show hosted by Sam Parr and Shaan Puri. I met Sam at a conference this year and he’s simply a super-smart guy. If you’re in business and entrepreneurship, it’s a must-listen.
- To be honest, I listen to a ton of sports podcasts. Especially during football season. My favorite is the Ryen Russillo Podcast. Even if you’re not a sports fan, give the life advice segment a listen at the end of each episode.
Products
My favorite gear and purchases. Some are affiliate links (like the books above) but are at no additional cost to you.
- NikeCraft GPS Shoe → designed by artist Tom Sachs, a Nike shoe unlike any other (actually the only Nike shoe I own). Missed four raffles and finally got a ticket to buy this month! Early Christmas present for Daddy, picture below.
- Dedicated Office → after seven years working from home, I dedicated and protected the money for an out-of-house office. If you also have several small kiddos running around, it’s highly recommended. I actually work less, but get more done because every hour there is deep work time.
- All the books → so many books. I haven’t even read all of them. I may never. But I love having books around the house. For an additional list, check out these 12 books for men.
- GORUCK Kit Bag → the toughest damn duffel you can buy, and spacious too. I keep all my workout and jiu-jitsu gear in there with room to spare.
- LandCruiser → ok, a little one. Call it an ornament for the tree, call it an office prop, or call it manifesting destiny. I’m the owner of a vintage LandCruiser (the next one will be bigger).
Music
- Best New (to me) Artist: Bring Me The Horizon — I listened to Can You Feel My Heart and Happy Song nearly 100 times this year. Read The Tail End of Rock Shows for context.
- Runner Up Artist: Shane Smith and the Saints — I heard the band on an episode of Yellowstone and have been hooked ever since. My favorite song is What a Shame.
- Favorite 2022 Album Release: Can I Take My Hounds to Heaven? by Tyler Childers. As an aside, this review showed me I don’t listen or pay attention to many album releases. This is my favorite of the bunch, though Purgatory is the best Childers album.
- “Loopers” is my playlist for head-down focused work. A good mix of styles, but almost all of them without lyrics.
- Best of 2022 is my personally curated playlist of favorite songs, since my boys listen to a lot of songs on my Spotify and dilute my Wrapped recap.
This concludes my annual review, thanks for reading!
Merry Christmas and Happy Holidays,
Matt