With the passing of the Lunar New Year, the Year of the Tiger is now fully behind us. Welcome, Year of the Rabbit.
As a born Tiger, it was my year in the cycle of the Chinese Zodiac. Last time it was the Year of the Tiger was 2010 and I was a student in Beijing. I started dating the girl I would marry and I graduated from college in that same year. My, how time flies.
Believe it or not, Chinese culture teaches that your Zodiac year is an unlucky thing. We wear red in our birth year to ward off misfortune. In 2010, a Chinese girl who had a crush on me gave me red underwear. I didn’t wear them–but only because they were too small. I didn’t wear much red last year either, but I managed to get by without much bad luck (I think). Certainly, a lot happened.
I was reminded of just how much transpired when I did my annual review. Truthfully, it’s been a long time since I’ve done a review like this. I don’t think I’ve ever spent as much time on it, either. I pulled together photos, calendar events, social media content, and talked to my wife about the year in order to complete this.
After doing all this, I’ve decided to break the review into a few distinct sections. You’ll find it gets a bit less dense as we go down and there’s a reason for that, which I’ll cover right now in the overview.
Overview
At the beginning of the year, I couldn’t have imagined how I could have fallen so short of my aspirations and still wound up in such a strong position.
I focused way too hard on my work in the first half, which stunted my growth in almost every other critical facet of my life. This is a shadow pattern I’ve seen before–it was responsible for me crashing and burning out of Discord in 2019 and ultimately triggered my journey into shadow work in the first place.
However, I recovered in the second half of the year and finished with many significant wins, including an incredible trip to Japan (not discussed heavily here as I’m still processing and writing through the experience).
The outcome of this is a review that’s pretty top heavy. I’ll kick off with business and writing–the two areas of my life I spent the most effort on. From there, I will go into the less developed areas of my life in 2022. You’ll notice the content is far less dense as a result. There are also areas of my life that matter to me that don’t show up at all in this review.
I’m taking this as a sign that I need to be explicit about how I will rebalance my energy more equitably across my life priorities in 2023. I don’t want to end another year without any progress on things I care about.
My overall feeling at the end of it all is I’ve set myself up well for the next year. I’ve prepared a base to build the life I’ve previously only dreamed of. I feel ready to move forward consciously and conscientiously from here, so let’s get into the rest of the review.
My Annual Theme and Values
I didn’t pursue my 2022 theme of “service” the way I had hoped–I spent the first half of the year enmeshed in a business that wasn’t right for me; I spent far more time at home in isolation than I would have liked; and I let the chaos of the autumn and winter carry me far away from my writing, which is the life-giving work that energizes my soul.
Furthermore, in reviewing my year, I realized I lacked clarity on my values and how I live them in the different roles in my life. I also lacked a set of open-ended questions that drove my interest and effort. I fear the two are related.
The consequence of this is that I continued to fall victim to one of my life’s most common and most pernicious shadow patterns: committing to things I shouldn’t. I believe I do this because I don’t keep what matters most to me clear and present in my mind. Nature abhors a vacuum and it will happily allow others’ values and priorities into that space when I’m not watching.
What’s worse, I hate disappointing people so much that, when the commitment I shouldn’t have made inevitably becomes difficult to maintain, I double down rather than run away. This one pattern of behavior has created more pain and difficulty for me in my life than I have time to explain here.
However, it’s not all doom and gloom.
Businesses and Boundaries
In 2022 I built the courage to begin enforcing my boundaries and reclaiming my power. That courage enabled me to step away from my business, which would have booked around $500,000 last year–half of which would have been mine. I’m very proud of that business, but I’m even more proud of having left it behind. It’s one thing to be brave about boundaries on a small scale. It’s entirely another to be brave when hundreds of thousands of dollars are at stake.
Afterwards, I let my life fall apart completely. This was on purpose, as I felt it needed to be done in order for me to truly reset both my body and my brain. I attempted to do this after I left Discord in 2019 but I didn’t quite have the finances to support it, nor did I have the mindset and courage to endure the uncertainty. I was far better prepared this time.
Having taken the time I did, including the six-week trip to Japan, I have more clarity about what’s important to me and how I want to live my life than ever before.
What’s clear to me now is that the era of Mike the Marketer is at an end. After 12 years in this career, I no longer have any desire to identify myself as a “marketer”. I will still rely on the skills and experience I’ve gained to make money and help others. They will be a huge help as I look forward to the next phase of my life (more on that in a subsequent post about my vision for 2023). However, I no longer wish to have a job title that links me to that identity.
The Tea Letter
Last year was an awesome year for me as a writer. I believe I wrote more courageously and authentically than I have at any point since launching The Tea Letter in 2017. I also published far more than I did in 2021. At 16 posts versus 7, that’s an increase in publishing of almost 130%. I will look to grow this further in 2023.
Out of those 16 posts, I wrote some pieces I’m extremely proud of:
However, I didn’t make any progress on my Simple Life Series. That’s both a sign of struggle in my own simple life as much as anything. I haven’t forgotten that series and fully intend to return to it as one of my first writing priorities early this year.
Beyond writing itself, the move to Substack was also a huge boon.
My subscribers grew almost 39% and most of that came from Substack’s recommendation engine. I also got my first paid subscribers! It feels good that my assumption about the value of Substack as a platform versus other email service providers like ConvertKit was correct. Substack is truly working on my behalf, whereas no one else is.
I’ll be leaning more heavily into Substack this year to hopefully grow even more. I’ll have much more to say on this front in my vision for the new year.
Lifestyle Design
I don’t know why it took me so long to learn that a fulfilling life must be built intentionally. I had never considered that life could be designed and constructed the same as anything humans make for themselves. It took Cal Newport’s podcast to shock me into recognizing this one simple fact: lives worth living don’t happen by accident; they’re crafted with intent.
I came close, once, when I purchased the book Designing Your Life by Bill Burnett and Dave Evans back in 2019. I just never read the damn thing–until last year. Yoshiko and I took a series of cafe trips to sit together and work through the exercises in the book. We’re not done yet, but what we’ve learned about ourselves and each other was revealing.
We’re now in phase one of trying to take what we’ve learned so far and live it. For me, location independence and control over my time was a huge pillar of my desired lifestyle. I’m happy to say I took some strides towards making that a reality last year.
I traveled to North Carolina, New York, California, Idaho, Michigan, and Japan. I learned quite a bit about how my habits and behaviors hold up as I shift my environment. Spoiler alert: they often don’t. I’ve realized how much of my day-to-day life relies on the consistency of the physical environment I’m in.
On the one hand, I am learning how to use my environment to help funnel myself towards the things I want and away from the things I don’t. On the other hand, it’s a brand new way of living and I have room to grow.
Family & Friends
Last year I had the chance to make wonderful new friends and grow my relationship with old friends. This was easily one of the most rewarding portions of the year. There are some wonderful people in this town of Austin. However, I can’t say I’ve built a strong tribe like I was hoping when I moved here.
Part of my challenge was not taking responsibility for the effort to seek out or attract more of “my kind of people”. The other part was simply making it a priority to put myself out there and let serendipity do its thing. The effort and expense of going out when I could stay in; the reality of facing rejection or disinterest; and the discomfort of the whole experience makes for strong headwinds.
Online communities are a supplement, and I do have a couple I will try to lean in with next year–the Write of Passage community and Paul Millerd’s new Find The Others group. But I want people close to me in real life, so I need to meet other human beings in the meatspace.
I stayed inside rather than brave elements more often than not–something I’ll look to change in 2023.
Finally, Yoshiko and I launched our family plan. We are officially trying to start a family and, if all goes well, I’m hopeful we’ll see a little Newton arrive on the scene either late in 2023 or early 2024.
In Like A Tiger, Out Like A Rabbit
Last year was so full of blessings.
I was challenged in so many ways. I lived in moments of darkest shadow and came through the other side not only whole but better for it. I’ve never felt more confident about who I am becoming and what I want for myself in the future. I still have plenty of work to do–the shadow is not so easily defeated–but I am armed with purpose and a growing tribe of people who love and support me.
This newsletter, and your support of it, is a continual source of power and strength for me. There are hundreds of readers now and I feel ever more honored by the gift of your time and attention. I have no shame in admitting there are times when I sit at my laptop and cry tears of joy and gratitude when I see your responses to my writing. I read every single comment and email–sometimes repeatedly.
Thank you to all of you, whether you just got here or you’ve been around since the beginning, for being with me in 2022. I’d like to know more about you in 2023, so I hope you won’t be surprised if you see an email from me asking to connect out of the blue.
With this review behind me, it’s time to look forward to my vision for 2023. What will the Year of the Rabbit look like for me? I have much to think about in that vein, which I will certainly share with you when I am done.
Until then, and as always, happy drinking.
Love this, Mike! I'm looking forward to reading more of your words in 2023!
KEEP IT UP!