Since 2022, I’ve been making yearly goals (some people call them New Year’s Resolutions) and they really help me stay on track with what matters most to me. My top priorities are health, money, and learning, so my goals usually fit into one of those areas.
The following are my goals for this year (2024) and I am also sharing my progress as of November.
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Education Goal #1: read 100 books
status: done 🏁
I have finished 100+ books!
Just like the previous years, I plan to continue reading after I complete this goal, for educational purpose.
Here are some of my favorites (not in particular order):
Chip War
Chip War is incredibly eye-opening and educational. It talks about the past and present of the semiconductors (aka chips). To summarize: chips are more important than oil as a strategic resource. That is because chips power all sorts of equipment, including military weapons. With more advanced (and smaller) chips, the equipment get more sophisticated.
Over the last couple decades, the advancement of chip manufacturing make the US and several East Asian countries (Japan, South Korea, Taiwan) wealthy by being able to create and sell things like the walkman, laptops, televisions. In the case of Taiwan, it became a key manufacturer of chips which gives a strong incentive for the US to protect it from a potential Chinese invasion. It made the US military much stronger with advanced and highly accurate weapons, as it demonstrated in the first Iraq war by using smart missiles to hit precise targets (before that, missiles and bombs had very low accuracy and could miss their targets by 1000 feet).
Chips require highly specialized machines and resources to produce, and so nations like China want the capability to create them, but the US and its allies have been actively stalling China’s efforts by banning the sales of manufacturing equipment and technology. Needless to say, the Chip War will continue.
The Lifestyle Investor
The Lifestyle Investor talks about how to achieve financial freedom by investing into cash flow deals. This, of course, is more applicable for higher net worth investors, but the core ideas are consistent:
- invest in yourself with education to get higher earned income and become more sophisticated
- use that higher earned income to invest into deals that generate cash flow for you, aka gives you passive income every month or every quarter
- learn how to do the due diligence (the book talks about how) to find and evaluate the investment deals
- repeat the steps to generate the passive income machine, which frees up your time which is your most valuable resource
I especially like the audiobook version because each chapter includes a short interview with the author at the end to include additional insight and content.
Quiet
As an introvert, Quiet is relatable. The book argues that while extroverts appear to be more capable, introverts that are doing just fine! Many successful people are introverts, even though they may look and sound like extroverts.
I myself have been an introvert my whole life, but after reading many books like Fire Yourself, Sorry I’m Late, I Didn’t Want to Come and Never Eat Alone, I find myself willing, or sometimes even happy to, talk to and network with strangers. To many including Mrs Chuy, that is an extrovert behavior, but I find the conversations interesting and educational. In many cases, I have gotten benefits and valuable information. It really reenforce the idea that networking is a big component of success.
NurtureShock
NurtureShock is a great read from my perspective as a father. It is broken into multiple chapters, all are very interesting and even surprising, or at least thought-provoking. For example, one study shows that children speech development is hindered by watching cartoons and specifically Baby Einstein DVDs, because the cartoons don’t show the mouth movements along with the words. In fact, the same study claims that any movie featuring real people speaking is better than those cartoons.
Another study shows that “non-violent” cartoons like Arthur or Clifford The Big Red Dog cause younger children to be more aggressive relationally (as in, not physically), because a majority of the shows depict problems or mean behaviors including verbal abuse, only at the end does the problems get resolved, but most children don’t watch until the end so they watch the “bad” stuff instead. That being said, being aggressive is not necessarily a bad thing because ultimately it is part of a social life and children will eventually learn to balance between being aggressive and being collaborative.
There are many other similar studies throughout this book as well, and the book’s writing simultaneously educated and entertained me. I would recommend this book to parents of children of any age.
Wealth Goal #1: invested in 3 syndication deals
status: done 🏁
If you are not familiar with syndications, think of them like crowd-funded (mostly real estate) projects with the contribution from multiple investors. It’s not the same as REIT.
I started investing in syndication deals since 2022 so this is my 3rd year. None of my deals have completed yet because on average, they last 5-7 years, so I don’t have any significant returns to show besides the still-very-small passive income that I get every quarter.
Because each deal takes a substantial amount to invest ($50k minimum), I have been doing 3 deals each year, and this year is no exception. I have already invested into 2 deals this year, and I just invested into my final deal (a Georgia apartment complex) so this goal is done!
What’s next?
I am going to get a head start on my 2025 goals, because why wait until January to start? I will have another goal update next month.
Thank you for reading. If you are also working on some goals, how are you progressing? If you don’t have any goals, I would highly recommend setting some goals so that you can continue to push yourself to where you want to be in life.