<2024 Year-End Letter>

12/30/24

The difference between my physical and mental age continues to widen. I will be turning 50 in a few months but my mental age, I think, is still at around late 30s. I briefly debated on whether ‘early 40s’ would be a better characterization for my mental age but I concluded no because I actually don’t know what early 40’s should look like. Having said, my ‘late 30s’ mental age looks like the following: I am still full of desires – desire to learn new stuff, desire to make things happen, desire to connect & make impact, etc. And I am still full of shit – immature, self-promoting, inconsistent, and many other ‘im-’ and ‘in-’ words. Though those two categories are fairly balanced, the tipping-over factor in my ‘late 30s’ assertion has been that I believe I still CAN DO. So this can-do spirit is the steel rock holding down my mental age and when that starts eroding markedly, my mental age will appreciate to its fair value… probably one of the few things in life I want appreciating to fair value 😊.

Now, without this conviction (or maybe hallucination ^^) on my mental age, I probably would not have been able to leave my employer of the past 18 years, a great place I had joined right after business school graduation (and my only employer since then). In the last six months of self-employment (this sounds better than unemployment ^^), I feel I’ve used my time alright – I have created from scratch a 25-stock portfolio that I’d like to own & operate for many years (primarily for myself but possibly for others?), I have exercised almost everyday (and dragging my boss<wife> with me 2-3 times a week), I have become the primary Uber driver for the family putting in 300-350 miles every week, and I have become BFF with Percy our Malshi dog. But of course, the last half-year wasn’t just about these can-do results but massive no-can-do moments: a forceful trail of self-doubts (just what hell am I doing), analysis-paralysis (where is this all going), and self-reflections (who are you really).

I once heard that the best foliage is found as we journey through the valleys and this has been the case for me as it relates to discovering myself over the last six months. That forceful trail enabled me to really examine my own heart and answer questions like ‘what do you really believe in?’ OK, I’m now sounding like a plot from a low-budget Batman movie so I need to wrap this up pretty soon 😊. Of many verticals of my self-discovery, the cornerstone piece was the spiritual realm and here are three jewels (reflections) I gained at the end of that process.

• Sovereignty of God: What’s the big deal whether I go east or west? So long as God with me, it’s all good.

• Leadership of the Holy Spirit: Jesus did not leave anything for his disciples but simply told ‘em that the Holy Spirit will remind them of all things he taught. So I ought to pray for fullness of Holy Spirit in my life.

• Success of Christians: Not reaching the top or the peak but shrewdly journeying through the wilderness (of life).

None of these three may provide clues to magnitude & timing of cash flows of the stocks and investment themes I’m interested in or practical guides & tips on things I mentioned earlier but they reinforce the bedrock from which I spring forward into the world and play my own Batman movie ^^. I think 2025 will be heck lot crazier and weirder than 2024 so I thought I broach mental age and encourage my dear friends to get ready for the year ahead!

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The thing about life is that we travel for the first time and we only travel once. The thing about people is that we remember them by their impact, not by their accomplishments. I’m ever grateful for all things God granted me in in my life and always feel the pressure to be a good steward. Thank you for our relationship and I hope we can continue to stay in touch. Happy new year!