24 raw truths I learned in 2024
Each year I use the “Pie of Life” or also known as the “Wheel of life” framework to guide my thoughts. In short, I reflect on 7 categories...
Hey beautiful human 👋,
First off Merry Christmas and happy holidays!!
I really do hope you are giving yourself the time to rest and re-charge for the new year.
This will be my last newsletter for 2024.
There were so many things I wanted to write and share about…
But since I couldn’t decide what to focus on…
I chose to share 24 lessons from different parts of my life this year.
Each year I use the “Pie of Life” or also known as the “Wheel of life” framework to guide my thoughts.
In short, I reflect on 7 categories:
Family, Friends, Work, Finances, Fun, Health and Self-development.
There are a few more categories in the original framework, but I prefer to focus on what’s most important to me at this point in time.
Here are my [summarised] 24 lessons in no particular order:
Family time → The best moments with family aren't planned - they happen in simple and authentic conversations over dinner.
Financial freedom → Calculate your total annual costs: family expenses, healthcare, education, and lifestyle needs. Multiply by 50 (using a conservative 2% withdrawal rate) to determine your target net worth. This assumes your total assets generates a 10% annual return, you spend 2% and re-invest the rest.
Social balance → Friendships need active maintenance, or they slowly fade into the background.
Retirement schedule → There is no plan to slow down until a 2% - 4% withdrawal rate covers my entire family’s living expenses.
Mental health → Rest isn't lazy - your brain literally needs it to stay sharp and creative.
Physical wellbeing → Shifted from lifting for looks to training for longevity - mobility work that will serve me well into my 70s.
Business margins → Stop focusing on how much you’re making, it’s about how much you’re keeping.
Friendship dynamics → Good friends energise you. If they drain you, something's off.
Time management → Slowing down isn't failure, it's strategic when done intentionally.
Energy levels → Your body signals problems way before your mind admits them.
Family support → Supporting parents financially is fulfilling when you can finally give back.
Social circles → Not organising meetups is a sure way to drift apart from friends.
Work progress → Success is choosing which opportunities to ignore.
Investment strategy → The stock price should be the last metric you look at when investing into a company.
Personal growth → Growth happens when you're slightly uncomfortable, not completely overwhelmed.
Life balance → Good routines aren't about perfection - they're about consistency.
Real relationships → The bestest friends will always turn up with no excuses.
Financial planning → Cash flow is like oxygen - you only notice it when it's missing.
Health habits → Small, consistent health choices compound over time.
Family bonds → Time with aging grandparents is precious and irreplaceable.
Mindful living → Your attention deserves to be protected as much as your time.
Community building → Finding your people makes everything else easier.
Personal development → Sometimes growth means letting go of old versions of yourself.
Self-awareness → Understanding what drives you changes everything else.
I hope you were able to relate to some of these learnings!
— Mizko
Bite-sized learnings
💰 The money paradox: While preaching "money isn't everything" is popular, I've lived both realities - from lower working class to financial freedom.
↳💡 Learning: Financial freedom isn't about being rich - it's about having options. And if you've experienced both sides like I have, you'll know that working intensely for a decade to build wealth and gain freedom of choice is worth every sacrifice. But keyword is intensely. Nothing worth having comes easy.
🎯 Expensive advice: Paid $3K per call for a business mentor who pushed me towards "scaling" - ended up spending hundreds of thousands optimising for revenue growth that didn't align with my goals.
↳💡 Learning: The most expensive advice isn't always the best advice. Before taking anyone's guidance, ensure they're optimising for YOUR definition of success, not their formula for scaling.
📚 Speed tax: This year I invested $11K in specialised courses (real estate and equities) because I realised something crucial about wealth building.
↳💡 Learning: The fast track to ‘financial or career success’ isn't grinding it out solo - it's learning proven methods from people who've already solved the problems you're facing. Think of course fees as a "speed tax" - you're paying to skip years of trial and error.
Useful lil' links
Things I'm vibin'
Home office - Over the last 4 years I’ve been bouncing around different offices, wasting a lot of money. I finally found a new tenant to take over my current office lease, which means I’ll be working from home in 2025. I spent the last few weeks cleaning up my space and I’m vibing it again.
Quick maffs - This year I’ve been spending a lot of time learning more about how to value businesses. I’ve spent many late nights studying various courses, jumping into Google Sheets projecting valuations and practicing my quick maffs. This is something I’ve been really enjoying as it helps me make better decisions in many aspects of my life.
How can I help you?
Here are a few ways I can help you crush your career goals (just like me):
💼 Build confidence in end-to-end UX/UI design (10 hours) - You’ve mastered the tool and UX research and now you want to learn how to lead, design and manage a project end-to-end. Dive deep into every little step alongside me with a real-world project. (400+ designers)
🖥️ Master Figma (10 hours) - Become an expert in Figma so you can get more done; faster and better. This isn’t just a technical course about features, it’s an end-to-end course on how Figma fits into a real-world project. (7,900+ designers)
🔍 Dive-deep into UX Research & Strategy (10 hours) - Learn how to run UX and business research to make more strategic and data-informed decisions for larger scaled projects and improved stakeholder management. (800+ designers)
⚡️Design 10X faster with 8,000+ pre-designed components - We just launched v.2.7.1. If you’re starting every project from scratch, you’re probably wasting a lot of time. Leverage Shipfaster UI to speed up your process dramatically. (3,400+ designers)
🚀 Looking to launch a product? - At More Cursors, my team and I help founders strategise, design and launch world-class products. Feel free to book a call directly with me if this is something you need.
That's it for this month's newsletter!
I really hope you were able to take away something from it.
I wish you all the best and I will see you in 2025.
Mizko
Love all 24 learnings, but especially #1 and #20.
Curious to hear about the courses you've taken!