This morning, my high-yield, online savings account emailed me their rendition of Spotify's 2022 Wrapped. Obviously, a version focusing on my deposits was far less interesting and I couldn’t help but feel there were some missed opportunities to add more entertainment value.

If you’re gonna rip off Spotify, why not go all in and throw in a qualitative judgment on my personality? e.g. "Your financial personality type is...Fiscally Irresponsible!” 😂

Anyways, if Marcus by Goldman Sachs can get away with cheap, copy-cat tactics to increase consumer loyalty, I’ll happily take a license to do the same!

So without further ado, here is a 2022 Year in Review recapping my favorite books, articles, movies, podcasts, and TV shows from this past year.

Three broad themes emerged after I combed through everything I liked, bookmarked, or highlighted:

1. Biographies

2. Physical & Mental Health

3. Communication & Storytelling

So if I had some fancy-shmancy Spotify algorithm, it’d probably assign “Overly Introspective Think Boi” as my content personality type.

Alongside my recommendations, I’ll share the lessons that shaped my thinking in 2022.

Biographies

The public praises what people practice in private

I’m a sucker for any kind of behind-the-scenes look into elite performers doing what they do best. This spans a wide range of content from sports documentaries like The Captain to YouTube videos of Kenji J Lopez-Alt cooking for his daughters.

One of my favorite videos from this past year was Alvin Zhou’s Day in the Life Series featuring Eric Sze on the opening night of his Brooklyn-based restaurant Wenwen. 

It's such an incredibly raw view into all the effort, attention to detail, and thinking that goes into designing a menu, preparing staff, and running a successful dinner service. I had eaten at the restaurant just a few days before the release of the video, making it especially memorable for me. Their BDSM chicken sandwich might’ve been one of my favorite things I ate this past year.

Observers, fans, and patrons consume in seconds—quite literally in my case—what takes countless hours to perfect.

I have also really enjoyed the personal conversations I had this year where a friend showed me how they write a script, paint a landscape or train for a marathon.

It’s inspiring to hear people talk about their passion with a level of detail and nuance only possible after years of experience and consistent practice.

Don’t take dedication for granted, especially when things seem to come easy.

Finding balance

Founders, a podcast hosted by David Senra, made it into my regular listening lineup this year. Each week, Senra reads a new biography and then synthesizes the similarities and differences in how elite performers achieve their goals.

While it’s another fantastic look behind the curtain, what I find most interesting is how often Senra exposes the dark side of passion bordering on obsession.  

Imagine wanting something so badly you will go through all this shit to get to it…You’d have to be so crazy that people would want to write a book about you.

David Senra

Needless to say, the top 1% aren’t usually the most balanced individuals and a few notable anecdotes have stood out to me from this podcast:

• Steve Jobs worked tirelessly to ensure his biography would be finished before he died. He needed his daughter to understand why his obsession with building Apple led him to be such an absent father.

• Ingvar Kamprad, the founder of IKEA, wrote in his autobiography: “Childhood does not allow itself to be reconquered”, suggesting that no amount of success will buy back the time he missed with his sons growing up.

• Larry Miller, the owner of the Utah Jazz, went from a college dropout to the richest person in Utah. His son wrote after his father died: “I miss him, but it’s not like he was around anyways.”

They’re all cautionary tales against leaving loved ones behind in service of chasing our dreams. 

Senra often cites Ed Thorpe, a math professor turned hedge fund manager, as a notable exception to self-destructive obsession.

He (Ed Thorpe) is the only guy I've studied who didn't over-optimize his professional life at the detriment of his life and family… He focused on his health, he focused on building a business he thought was intellectually stimulating, he had fun, he built wealth but still spent time with his kids and his wife. He just gave me a blueprint for a great day...If I could do that today and then do that the next day, that's a blueprint for the best life.

David Senra

I don’t claim to have their level of success or their drive, but Senra’s profiles are really sobering reminders of not letting our career goals ruin the things that make us happy.

Personal Growth

Experimenting with new routines

All of this content about world-class athletes, entrepreneurs, and creators have inspired me to do a little self-improvement also. 

Andrew Huberman has an excellent podcast exploring the latest research on some really interesting health-related topics.

Each episode is supported by detailed scientific explanations and practical advice on how to actually incorporate protocols into your routine. I assure you it’s better than getting a lecture from our doctors during our annual checkups every year.

I finally learned the differences between dopamine and serotonin after years of using them interchangeably, thanks to his podcast. Dopamine is involved in motivation, pleasure, and reward, while serotonin regulates mood and behavior.

In addition to sounding less ignorant in front of people who actually paid attention in biology class, some of my favorite episodes of the podcast also inspired me to adopt new habits and routines:

• The Biology of Slowing & Reversing Aging (with Dr. David Sinclair) got me to meditate and take a cold shower every morning. Meditation can down-regulate the sympathetic nervous system responsible for your fight or flight response and has definitely made me calmer, less reactive, and more reflective. Cold exposure increases dopamine and adrenaline, supposedly improving focus, energy, and immunity. Cold showers are so awful and I hope they offer more than just a placebo effect and a weird thing to flex in conversation.

• Tools for Optimizing Sleep convinced me to start leaving my phone in the living room before bed. As a result, I sleep better because I don’t roll over to check Instagram if I wake up at night. Another nice side effect is that I get out of bed faster in the morning because I want to use my phone.

• Science-Based Tools for Increasing Happiness inspired a 2022 goal to have at least one new experience each month. Time doesn’t seem to fly by as quickly when we’re younger because of how often we have new experiences. Setting this goal reminded me to break from routine and motivated a bunch of firsts this past year—trying Omakase, seeing a professional Broadway show, and going to Spain among many other really rewarding experiences.

His episodes about alcohol and sugar are also super eye-opening although I’ll need more discipline to consistently follow through on his recommendations there.

Self-Awareness and Emotional Fitness

It’s refreshing to meet people who could express themselves rationally but without seeming heartless or robotic. They break down what they’re feeling in a really logical way but don’t treat their emotions like some annoying side effect of being human.

I thought I had emotional discipline and self-awareness, but these interactions made me realize how much more I needed to understand my own feelings.

Emotional fitness is an ongoing commitment to looking inward, processing difficult emotions, and working toward self-awareness and self-improvement.

Emotionally Fit Leaders by Coa

My emotional fitness journey started modestly, first reading a great article called Hit the Emotional Gym and then a book called Models by Mark Manson.

To be honest, Models is a book about emotional development AND dating, so it’s hard to tease out which topic motivated my friend’s recommendation.

I’m recommending it as an excellent guide to both with no judgment attached!

Fear of failure was a central theme that motivated more self-reflection, more deep conversations with friends & mentors, and finally my seeking out a therapist for the first time this year.

The reason men fear rejection is because they’re operating on other peoples’ truths, not their own. In fact, men who fear rejection tend to be oblivious to their own truth because if they were aware of their own desires, needs and values, what would they be afraid of? Why would they ever hesitate to expose that vulnerability to others?

Mark Manson

Getting to know myself better has been one of the most rewarding things I've done this past year.

It’ll be a never-ending journey but I've already noticed small but significant improvements in my self-awareness, relationships, productivity, and overall happiness.

Reframing Discomfort

I used to scoff at the idea of "being kind to oneself," thinking it was just an excuse for people with thin skin to avoid hard truths. But I can now recognize the unproductive nature of negative self-talk.

Anxiety arises for me when I need to take action but don't feel in control of the outcome. My fear of failure is compounded by guilt for feeling this fear. And that leads to procrastinating or avoiding that task altogether.

One thing I’ve been working on is reframing discomfort as something that’ll help me grow rather than criticizing myself for feeling it in the first place.

We cannot control everything that happens to us. But we can control how we react to it. We can choose to reframe it and actually learn something from the pain

I actually can’t find where I got this quote from but I wrote it down in my Notes app…

Emotions are neither good nor bad so you shouldn’t suppress or avoid those feelings.

It's not weak to feel anxious before a presentation or sad after being criticized by someone you love. You’re experiencing feedback that doesn’t jive with your perception of reality, but you’re also in control of how you can move forward now that you realize it.

Being kind to yourself doesn't mean telling yourself you're a special snowflake. It means forgiving yourself for being human and having emotions, not labeling what you’re feeling, and then focusing on the right actions to take.

Actions influence emotions

Your behavior has a direct impact on your feelings. When you do something, you feel different for having done it…Simply taking action CREATES the feeling that you thought you needed to act in the first place.

Patrick Buggy from Mindful Ambition

Every blog post has evoked intense feelings of self-doubt and apathy at some point during the writing process. After positive reinforcement from the last piece wears off and you’re over the honeymoon phase of a new idea, being in the midst of a really really rough draft often leads me to think, “Wow…this sucks.”

It’s hard to feel motivated to write when the words don't come together properly. And because I don't feel like writing, I stop. Then, I feel bad for not writing, which makes me want to write even less.

All my major episodes of writer's block have been characterized by this negative spiral.

But sometimes I’ll try to break through by booking a tiny win—like revising just one paragraph or setting a timer to write for just 5 minutes. That modest step is usually enough to propel me onto my next modest step which propels me to my next one. If I do this enough, the negativity passes and I’m reminded of how fun it is to take a jumbled thought and articulate it into something coherent. Before I know it, “Wow..this sucks” turns into “Hmm…I think we got something here!”

Rather than waiting for my emotions to inspire my behavior, I learned that my behavior can often inspire my emotions.

Momentum is powerful in either direction so don’t underestimate the impact of taking tiny steps!

Communication & Storytelling

Non-Verbal Cues

Cues by Vanessa van Edwards is an incredibly useful book packed with tips on how to use body language to better communicate what we’re thinking and feeling. 

Here are a few tips I started employing:

• Removing barriers between you and the person you're speaking to can go a long way in building trust and rapport. Things like moving your drink to the side or putting away your laptop signal to our subconscious that we want to eliminate obstacles and open up communication.

• When someone’s droning on and you want to get a word in, open your mouth silently (like a fish 🐟). Most people subconsciously pick up on this silent cue and politely stop talking to let you speak. As someone who admittedly talks way too much, I’ve also been more mindful of this cue from others.

• Leaning in is the single fastest way to look and feel engaged in a conversation. It’s almost like a nonverbal boldface emphasizing whatever has just been shared.

Writing

I’ve mentioned, Steve Fortier’s Every Word Counts in previous posts but his awesome perspective on the theory of language is worth repeating.

Language is useful precisely because of how much information it doesn’t need to directly communicate. With language, we can condense detail-rich ideas and experiences into a simple blueprint that another person can fill out using their imagination

Every Word Counts by Steve Fortier

I love that metaphor of language being a blueprint because it forces us to be aware of how our ideas are being received. The words we use, the tones we adopt, and the body language we exhibit are our best attempts at an instruction set for the message someone else’s brain needs to construct.

Connecting with others is important to me and I believe communicating with clarity, precision, and empathy is absolutely critical in that endeavor.

Amazing Storytelling

I’ve also come across some incredible writing and storytelling this year!

• The Casino and the Genie by Mario Gabrielle was my favorite piece of tech writing in 2022. I’ve been following Mario for a little more than a year now and he’s shaped a lot of my early interest around writing and Web3. In light of the FTX scandal and the prevailing pessimism in crypto, I thought his piece was an excellent example of someone reflecting and then updating their point of a view in a really honest and balanced way. I got to meet him in person last month and hearing him talk about his process was one of the highlights of my year!

• The Social Animal by David Brooks was one of the most unique books I’ve ever read. Brooks tells the coming-of-age story of Harold and Erica—an archetypal, high-achieving American couple. Through their fictional story, he presents the latest research on human behavior touching on a wide range of topics like how our parents influence our personalities, our biological impulses in choosing romantic partners, and the psychology of contending with our own mortality during old age. It’s like Sapiens had a baby with Catcher in the Rye and it’s absolutely awesome.

• I’ve watched Hasan Minhaj’s latest comedy special three times. Each time through, I notice some new dimension of his impressive storytelling. The first time, I just loved how effortlessly he could deliver his personal story in a seamless narrative ark. The second time, I started noticing how masterfully he used his tone and body language to convey the emotions behind his story. And the third time, I noticed how much the tightly choreographed visuals and set pieces enhance his overall message. It’s a masterpiece in audio and visual storytelling.

• Dopesick was my favorite TV show from the past year. As someone who was distantly aware but not personally impacted by the opioid crisis, the incredible writing and acting helped me understand the real human toll these drugs had on families and communities across America.

Conclusion

A few of you will remember that I did a version of this year-in-review in 2021. 

Doing this a second time, it’s cool to reflect on the year-to-year similarities and differences.

I've maintained my interest in people’s ideas and stories, how they present them, and how to improve my own communication.

However, I spent significantly less time reading about tech, crypto, politics, and the economy, and much more time studying personal stories, psychology, and emotional development.

I still read Stratechery and Tangle religiously, but, on a relative basis, I was less interested in what was happening outside of myself and more interested in what was going on inside my own head.

I’m not sure if it’s coincidence, correlation, or causation but my content consumption also coincided with things I did more consistently in 2022:

• The stories of high-performing athletes and chefs got me more serious about fitness and cooking.

• Reading about emotional fitness inspired me to become more self-aware, vulnerable, and mindful about what makes me happy versus what's expected of me.

• Improving my communication and connection with others has kept this blog going as a way to practice bringing my ideas into the real world. I hope my posts this year have been an enjoyable outcome of that!

Collectively, these activities have clarified what I value most—learning, creating, and connecting. They give me energy and inspiration and are now guiding some of my main goals for 2023:

1. I want to spend more time on the creative side —writing consistently, cooking more on my phil.wannabe.chef@ TikTok channel, or trying my hand at something new entirely. I love the feeling of taking an idea and turning it into something real.

2. Some of my best memories from this past year came from randomly texting someone "Hey, it's been a while! Wanna catch up?" I've really enjoyed connecting with the amazing people in my life and want to make a concerted effort to do it even more often.

3. Reflecting on my biases, triggers, and motivations has been challenging but rewarding. If my core values center around learning, creativity, and connection, then I see emotional fitness as a key support system for that. I'm excited to explore that topic more in 2023 and hopefully become more self-aware and resilient in the process.

And that's a wrap, folks! Thank you all for reading and being part of such a wonderful year 😄!