We are closing the year soon, and I'm still at work this week - lot's of stuff to do at work this year.

But, I wanted to take some time out, on the last day of the year, to reflect on 2021, and what I look forward to in 2022.

This year, the most significant event in my life was been asked by Matt to start full-time in his firm. It has been a rewarding experience - working with him on diverse projects.

Work

I've been working at Learnflo for more than three years now. We have been mostly bootstrapped all the time - which has been quite challenging.

Earlier this week, we had a meeting to discuss the plans for next year. And, the plan for next year was to go into hibernation.. it was pretty gut-wrenching, and made me reflect on what we could have done differently.

It's been a wonderful experience - we had a well-thought-out business model - but here we were.

One thing that has been hard this year has been balancing my time between TrouthouseTech (THT), VerticaDev, and Learnflo. I'm looking forward to doing better at this next year.

This year working with THT has been great - I have had the wonderful opportunity of working with great people from around the world. It has been challenging, but it's been quite rewarding.

Next year, I plan to get better at being a better enabler of others in the team. I'm looking for resources on doing this - if you have any, please do recommend them.

Health

I entered 2021 with the pounds and more I gained in 2020. I had, at many points in the year, tried to start a regular workout routine, and the most consistent I was, was at 2 weeks straight - but I couldn't just do it.

I plan to do better next year.

Learning new things

This year, I had set out to learn machine learning - believing that it would be a great compliment to my programming experience. It was interesting - but I can't say I enjoyed it. I hope to pick it up sometime in the future.

This year, I picked up on reading non-fiction, after reading fiction (webnovels, specifically - love them - can spend an entire day just binging one), and it's been great.

The first I read was 'Shoe Dog', the Nike founder memoir. It was an interesting read - learning about the unique challenges they faced, the interesting people he worked with.
I also, enjoyed reading "That Will Never Work: The Birth of Netflix and the Amazing Life of an idea", it made me see pivoting in action, and how it kept Netflix alive at the early stages, and how it lead to its success.

I plan to read more books next year. This time around, I'd love to read some fiction (recs, anybody).

I also started learning Rust, a wonderful programming language that helps you write reliable and performant software. When I get better at it, I plan on exploring how to use it with React Native to write cross-platform native code - not sure how feasible this is. But, it's something I'd love to explore.

2022

A new year is a new beginning. My overarching goals for the year are to continue learning rust and get better at it, enough to contribute to open-source Rust projects.

I also plan to take some time to learn more about real estate investing, and start a portfolio.

And in the interesting dynamic startup ecosystem we have in my city, Lagos Nigeria, I plan on becoming an angel investor.

I also want to spend some time writing more on this blog, I had some interesting ideas this year to write on, but I couldn't find the time to do it — plan on doing better next year.

I quite hope that by putting this here in writing, I'd be more motivated to achieve all of this.

I'm hoping next year will be a better year for all of us. Happy New Year.