My 2023 Reflection
Change is a fact of life
Introduction
If I could describe 2023 in 1 word, I would say "change".
Those who know me, know that I do reflect a lot. This is something that my mentors have taught me for years, which is ensuring that I take lessons from all my mistakes that I make. And I have made a lot of them over the years.
There are times however, where the lessons are not so obvious and I just make the mistake and wonder what happened... I am a professional overthinker when it comes to this kind of mistake in fact and whilst it can be healthy to think about mistakes, you risk going down a never ending spiral of constant negativity toward yourself when you don’t have a solution.
There are also times in my life, where the lesson to a mistake only becomes apparent with the passage of time.
Dissecting my "mission"
"Mission" to me, is best summarised in this article I wrote back in January 2021 here. I was fortunate back in my 1st year of university studies (back in 2015 which sounds like a lifetime ago now…) to have quite strategically thought about a framework to set goals back then. It was sheer luck that I was triggered to look for a book to help me when I first started my cadetship at Deloitte. That's how I ended up reading the book "How to make partner and still have a life".
Basically, I looked at my life in terms of the different roles that I had, like a son/brother/work colleague/church member/investor/etc and did my best with the knowledge at the time, to set milestones back over the next ~25 years for each of the different roles. Yes, I was a weird 1st year university student with an eclectic personal milestone tracker…
That tracker for a while (since use from 2015 to 2022), was so helpful in my eyes that I even talked about it publicly at Atlas Academia in a podcast interview with the founder, Anthony Mai (before I ended up joining them to support their team) back in Jan 2022 here (and video below for reference).
My podcast interview with Atlas Academia in January 2022
However, readers with good memory will recall in July 2022, I gave an update on my thoughts on that tracker in a newsletter article here. I highlighted how this framework essentially worked until it didn't. There were certainly issues with thinking about "mission" in the original framework way. In fact, I ended that article suggesting I was in search of a new "framework".
Not an exhaustive list, but the core lesson for why that personal milestones tracker was not working for me was that incentivised adding more and more roles into the sheet as a "measure" of success in my mind, and eventually became very COMPLICATED with the number of roles that I had. Each year I just kept adding more and more to the excel sheet thinking that was a good thing.
Just look at how complicated that personal goals/milestones tracker became…
Something a senior colleague at work at Antipodes has been drumming into my head over the last 12 months especially, has been to SIMPLIFY where possible.
So as it relates to mission, I have yet to fully flesh this out, but I recognise it is not as simple as my high school self of saying "I liked studying English and Maths and so I will love finance" nor is it my university self of saying "I like picking stocks in the stock market and teaching others how to". And it is not about how many new roles I can add into my personal milestones tracker and hoping for the best that it all aligns with my mission.
My mission is now more along the lines of "where can I allocate capital (whether time, money, energy, or any other asset) to allow a company or organisation to enact positive change that is value adding to God's world".
My statement above may sound like some grandiose statement but I think that's a starter anyway to help unify and simplify the roles in my life… I'm workshopping it.
So whether that is a company embarking on a new product cycle, or helping a company fix legacy issues, these are some rough examples of where I can see it would align with my mission. Coming to this realisation, has led me to start slowly scaling back in a lot of my roles to be frank. This is not to say these companies/organisations are not important in their own rights, but my refocus on what my "mission" is, has changed my threshold for what I can accept with the limited time/money/energy that I have in this world.
Some examples that are public in the spirit of aligning more with my mission and simplifying my life which I have made, have been:
Stopped
Mentoring at Australian Student Asset Management (after ~4 years ever since I started at Antipodes).
My fundraising/investment committee membership role at Scripture union NSW (after ~1 year).
Stopped leadership committee role at City Bible Forum's Headstart (i.e. young workers program, which I had started attending since 2019).
Scaled back
Direct involvement with UNSW Investing 4 Charity (after ~6 years of more direct interaction, and I detail some of that history here).
Direct involvement with North Sydney Boys Business Society (NSB BSOC), where I have been a mentor/sponsor since 2022.
Personal blogging at yours truly, Michaelli.io.
What was quite coincidental, was that I only realised in hindsight what I was doing at the end of the year when attempting the exercise of the "wheel of life" - which was essentially re-aligning my roles back to those that served my fundamental mission.
This "wheel of life" was a reflection tool that a "productivity guru", Ali Abdaal introduced in a recent YouTube video (which you can find here). I figured I would share it - as it goes beyond "mission".
The "Wheel of Life"
Basically, the idea is to think about your life as a "wheel" with 3 core pillars, that being health, relationships, and work. This then breaks down into 3 sub-pillars for each core pillar. I've listed it below if easier than looking at the diagram.
Work
Mission
Money
Growth
Health
Body
Mind
Soul
Relationships
Romance
Family
Friends
Screenshot of the “wheel of life” from Ali Abdaal’s YouTube video where I got the original idea from
From there, the exercise is to ask for each of these sub-pillars, where your actions today are consistent where you want to be as a score out of 10, with 10 being very aligned and 1 being not aligned.
I actually found that exercise to be a very helpful tool in reflecting upon my progress in 2023 in a different way. Historically, readers of my past reflections will know for the longest time I had written reflections in an A-Z format (for e.g. see my 2022 reflection here), where I highlight an event that happened to me that starts with each letter of the alphabet.
In a lot of ways, I found it very informative in reminding me the events that occurred to me. However over time when doing my reflections this way each year, I felt it started losing sight of the bigger picture of capturing the "essence" of why I reflect. In other words, it became more like an "annual report", rather than a "self development tool". I think this new framework of the "wheel of life" is something I will experiment for this year, and perhaps review post the 1st half of 2024.
My "Wheel of Life" today
You can't manage what you can't measure. I share my scores in my personal "wheel of life" as I see it today.
Work = 23/30
Mission = 7/10
Money = 9/10
Growth = 7/10
Health = 18/30
Body = 5/10
Mind = 6/10
Soul = 7/10
Relationships = 16/30
Romance = 3/10
Family = 6/10
Friends = 7/10
I would encourage readers to experiment with this tool. Not saying this will fit everybody, but I think people should always be open-minded to learning new things. This tool was quite revealing in forcing me to realise the pillars of my own life more scrutinisingly to help me pinpoint what areas needed development. I can also see the value of tracking this over time, in an attempt to see how I am progressing, and it can be a productive tool for helping my friends/family/mentors pinpoint problem areas to talk with me about and hold me accountable.
I figured for my readers, it may help also if I provide some detail as to how I thought through my scores. This is by no means prescriptive, and I will also reserve the right to speak about confidential matters, but I promise to be as honest/transparent as I can in how I came to these scores. Today, I will explore the pillar of "health", because this has been a "love-hate" relationship for a long time.
Under the microscope with my health?
Whilst I have scored myself higher in work (though I am far from perfect there), relative to my health and relationships, there is no doubt over the years I have observed the cost. I'm not blind to it, but when I was "younger" I would overlook that cost because I figured I could always have time/energy for my health later, whilst my pathway in work needs my attention here and now.
I would be lying if I told people it didn't cost me my health to some degree. When all you've ever known is work and study for 7+ years, it can take a toll on you. I started at Deloitte in 2015, actually as the youngest employee in my time. This was whilst I was studying at university. And at Antipodes Partners, I started there in 2019, as the youngest employee in my time, whilst I was studying for my CFA exams for the first 3 years. That kind of learning curve is what I would describe as abnormal. It's not for most people. It takes a toll for sure. Particularly when you think about the responsibility of the amount of money you are stewarding for other people at a hedge fund and nobody can teach you that experience except by you doing it yourself. It can be very stress inducing (as it was and still is for me) and the toughest part is most people will not understand what you are going through.
It becomes tougher when you are juggling lots of other roles like investing in Sydney Science College, operating as the Chief Financial Officer of Atlas Academia, heading your church's investment team, serving in your church tech team and kids ministry team, etc. Even in those small moments where I took 1 or 2 weeks of leave (never taken more than that), it has never truly felt like rest in the last 7-8 years for me to be honest.
Something I observed in 2023, was both my body and mind are starting to slow down. Slowdown in the sense that my energy levels to dedicate towards tasks in both my body and mind have started deteriorating quite noticeably vs a few years ago.
I used to be quite focused working from 9am to 3pm, but these days, I desperately need a cappuccino to continue working from 3pm onwards. It became somewhat concerning.
Some thinking behind the scoring within my health
In my body, mind and soul, I am trying to rest more. I may explore work and relationships at another point in time when I feel comfortable. With health, some of the changes I have had to make, that have at least led to the scores being not as bad as they could have been are:
Body = 5/10
I started a routine of running at least 1-2 times per week, where I have now pushed for 5kms in under 30 minutes. This has been a struggle to maintain ever since I returned from my South Korea trip in October this year.
Before leaving for South Korea, I was also beginning to push myself to sleep earlier (aka by 12am) and wake up by 7am so that I could take the train earlier to Milsons Point to then walk across the bridge to get to my workplace in Wynyard. The benefits were saving some money from the opal fee across the bridge + forcing me to get to work earlier so I could process overnight news (because we report daily on newsflow affecting our coverage companies at 9am) + ultimately getting more exercise in since I never run on the days I go to the office physically because of fatigue.
In terms of lunch, I have also stopped becoming as stingy. There was a time when I would just eat tofu with rice or a sushi roll for lunch, but I have been converted to adding more fruit and vegetables and protein by many friends/colleagues at work even if it costs me more. These days, I force myself to eat fruit for breakfast (namely apples, oranges and/or bananas). And then for lunch, it is currently a poke bowl or salad bowl (eg from Fish Bowl, Stock Market, or another place in or near Australia Square).
I acknowledge this is not perfect. The ideal situation would be to make my own food someday, but maybe I will reserve that for when I move out to my newly bought apartment in the 2nd half of 2024 and when I have more control over the kitchen vs my parents.
I also try to eliminate the snacks, and maybe December is not a representative sample size to point to, but I have noticed I have been eating more in the last few weeks, perhaps because of Christmas parties or whatnot.
Overall, whilst there have been some changes, I am not satisfied, as the last 1-2 months have been rougher for me in keeping with the fitness schedule, although my eating schedule has been a bit more consistent.
Mind = 6/10
Aside from the mechanical stopping/scaling back of some of my committed roles which I noted above which has done wonders to give me back some mental headspace, there were a few other changes.
I have become less strict with when I can take leave. I see the value of taking a day off here and there to "recharge", especially when I feel I need to recover for that 1 extra day. In the past, I would be very stingy about using my leave, and more often I used to think I should never take leave and keep working… It took a while for me to change my mind on this believe it or not (friends who know me well, know I can be a seriously unhealthy workaholic).
I find I am using ChatGPT + BARD a lot more both at work, but also at home. I think AI assistants are a great thing when used properly. There are many times when I "outsource" the thinking work to an AI now. Whether that’s cleaning up my writing, summarising a long book/article that I am too time-poor to read, or even just coming up with things to do on a weekend with a friend. AI to me, is a massive unlock for human productivity, allowing the mind to rest and focus on more important things.
The ability to pass on knowledge and delegate is also something I am slowly recognising. For the longest time, I kept a lot of my church tech team knowledge to myself and did not train anybody. But recognising that I would be serving kids, I realised that the church could not depend on just me, nor should they. This has led to me realise that simple proverb of "if you want to go fast, go alone. But if you want to go far, go together". For my headspace, it is not realistic to try to pretend like it all depends on me. I have learnt to lean on people for help more and more than I used to given this lesson.
Overall, whilst there are some changes that I have tried to make to allow for my mental capacity to improve, of which I believe some moves have been in the right direction, I will admit that there are still many problems. I do admit that although I may be able to think on more "less demanding" tasks, I have noticed the my thinking on "more demanding" tasks is still not as strong as what I may have remembered of myself years ago.
This needs improving and is where I want to go.
Soul = 7/10
Because of kids ministry (and we only have 2 mums + me supporting the year 3-5 kids in Sunday school), it means about 2/3 of the school term time I am away from the church sermon - and thus missing out on listening to God's word.
It took a few months before I came to the realisation that I needed to make a more proactive effort to fight the complacency… This was one of the toughest struggles for me. But it led to some interesting changes by me.
I've mentally had to shift gears to be more proactive to engage with the church members after service to stay connected (and not feel disconnected from the congregation).
I also started going to church around 8am, to the nearby local café to do my daily Bible reading - in some ways to compensate for not touching God's word during Sunday service times when I'm serving the kids but also to beef up my knowledge when teaching the kids. This has been a step-function change in my appreciation for the Bible.
I would highly recommend anybody doing what I am doing, to get a Study Bible. I would like to be a lot more consistent in that when going into 2024. The interesting thing I find, is when I have blocked out that hour to meditate, read, and reflect on the Bible, I often actually look forward to that time. It doesn't feel like a chore. That's a healthy place to be in I think (of course every wary of complacency, however).
Upon stepping down from the leadership team in City Bible Forum, I substituted that Monday night time, with now using that time to catch up listening to the sermon recording from the prior day's Sunday service whilst I am on the train commute home from work. I find it working ok for me.
The issue I currently have with this set-up is that I have a OneNote where I document all my sermon notes for each of the books in the Bible, and when I'm in the Sunday sermon, I would type those notes in pretty easily.
However, on a commute home, I find I don't have the energy to write the notes in my OneNote library. I am still workshopping how to improve this, perhaps it could be some AI assistant (like a ChatGPT or BARD) that helps me summarise the notes which I just proofread when I get home?
Overall, I do feel like in 2023 I was triggered to make some more intentional changes to better align myself on my soul, or spiritual walk with God.
The snorlax pokemon (which I found in South Korea) reminds me to rest more
A thought to end on
There are so many times in my life where I do not know what to do… Probably more than I would like to admit. Whether that's with my work, health, and relationships. But at the end of the day, despite whatever I think I can do myself, I could not have been where I am without my dependence on God. To that end, maybe you could argue my greatest mission is to trust God… That’s for another day.
"Trust in the Lord with all your heart, and do not lean on your own understanding. In all your ways acknowledge him, and he will make straight your paths." - Proverbs 3:5-6
To conclude
If you lasted to the end of this blog (and did not fall asleep yet), thank you so much. It means the world to me when people reply back to me and offer feedback/share their thoughts too if there's any value in what I have written personally.
For any readers who want to reach out to me, please do! I also just love an excuse to drink coffee...
Wishing everybody a Merry Xmas and happy 2024,
Michael Li
