Try Angles - Past Year Review 2020

November 28, 2021

Hi everyone!

Welcome to the TRY ANGLES weekly review where my job is to share with you new readings, methods and tools that I have found and tested.

Reading is one of my hobbies and during my Christmas break, I have encountered: The Prophet, written by Khalil Gibran. The story is about a man leaving his community and sharing his opinions and his wisdom on a wide range of topics.

There is a quote that struck me :

Verily, the lust for comfort murders the passion of the soul, and then walks grinning in the funeral

I have read this quote after some lazy time in the couch. Needless to say, I stood up immediately.

That'll be it: 2021 will be under the sign of seeking discomfort and boosting passion!

But first things first, what has happened over 2020 ...

2020 Past Year Review

Last year, I started the method of Past Reviewing my year, and laying out the goals and expectations for the upcoming one. I have repeated the process this year and wanted to share with you the recap of my year.

2020 is now far away and yet it has been a productive year:

Developed new skills

Public speaking

I have joined Toastmasters, a worldwide organisation where you meet in order to train your public speaking skills. Since the first lockdown in France I have been participating in those events, mostly online due to the circumstances.

I highly recommend anybody who want to improve speech structure and communication to join Toastmasters. The commitment is manageable : 110€ per year, 2 meetings per month.

Writing

2020 has also been my first experience in copywriting and has seen my first article published in July on Medium. The result: 0.72$ worth of revenue 😱.

In total, I have been publishing 8 posts between July and December 2020 which averages 1,33 articles per month.

I plead guilty to you my dear readers: this average is below the 2 articles a month I have promised you.

Writing has a lot to do with momentum and is more of a habit that I did not manage to perform consistently yet.

Developed personal finances

In the beginning of the year I have put a lot of interest and research into personal finance, crypto-currency and automation.

At the end of the year 2019, I had come up with a financial plan in order to keep track of any expenses I had or wanted to make over the course of a month. It helped me to generate substantial savings.

The next legitimate question was: what to do with my savings? There are three answers to that according to me, and to the book and articles I have read about:

  1. Build an emergency fund: money immediately available

  2. Invest in traditional markets: Stocks

  3. Invest in new markets: Crypto-currency

Emergency fund

You never know what's going to happen and you might need to have liquid cash at your disposal for any unexpected event: a tax you've forgotten, medical exams you need to advance, etc.

The emergency fund should be there to make sure that no matter what happens in your life, you'll be able to overcome it financially. Over the year, my emergency fund has grown and added 4 to 5 months of lifetime to my bank account.

Naturally, your burn rate (cash spendings) is depending on your "must have" expenses and your lifestyle, hence personal.

Stock market investing

Stock market is tricky, because you don't really want to bet all your chips on one horse. From the readings I have done, I have oriented my strategy towards index funds and trackers.

Index funds help you to invest in a portfolio of assets and follow the trend of the portfolio. Generally, the portfolio is backed by an already existing index: CAC40, S&P500, NASDAQ, etc. For example you can buy share from an index called BNP CAC 40, which mimics the CAC40 movements on the stock market.

There are multiple benefits:

  • you save on management fees of your portfolio, and

  • you spread your risk on several markets and companies.

My allocation at the end of 2020 is mostly on European and US markets completed with Chinese market.

The next step would be to automate the allocation. So far I haven't managed to do it. I still manually pick the index funds I want to invest in. There's room for improvement

Crypto-investing

I have started to invest in crypto slowly during the first semester of 2020, testing several exchange platforms like Coinbase, Binance, Crypto.com, swissborg.

In the end, two of them have survived because of the ease of use and the services they provide:

  1. Crypto.com

  2. Binance

Crypto.com has been used a lot since I have been using their debit card along with the automated buying of crypto currency. Automation has been the key for me to set and forget my crypto investment strategy.

Binance is now at the level of funding of my Crypto.com account. I have combined my account with a pretty neat trading bot I have discovered. It is made in France and called Napbots. So far, performances are satisfactory even though I'll undergo a more comprehensive evaluation at the end of January, after three months of service

Developed Stockoss.com

A year ago, Stockoss was barely a desktop app where you could order your belongings from a warehouse to your office, and send some stuff back.

A year later we have managed to have a full experience of asset management, extending the lifetime value of a company's belongings. The whole experience has been packaged into a SaaS service, enabling access to the complete value chain of logistics and transport.

Moreover, we've released a mobile app to enable our partners to follow easily our processes.

Finally after having a half full warehouse at the time we now have 4 sites operating to serve our clients!

Health of the mind

New Habits

First lockdown has helped me to build lasting habits

  • Wake up early

  • Meditate

  • Journal and Read

  • Exercise more regularly (yoga and Brazilian Jiu Jitsu)

  • Review and Prepare my days and my weeks

Most of the time, I see an appealing new experience to try, and challenge myself to spend the next 15 days implementing it. Then, you keep what sticks!

Health of the body

Vegan diet

It all started as a two week challenge in August, after coming back from a week of van trip. "Why not try to eat vegan? Would it be so complicated?"

The answer is: No. We did the challenge with my girlfriend and what initially started as a two week challenge, extended into a month then up to five month of vegan experience.

On a physical level, I did not feel any difference in my daily activities. Even when it included intense Brazilian jiu jitsu training.

Even more so, I felt lighter especially in the evenings, and it affected my sleep positively.

Yoga

This has been the breakthrough of the year, during the first lockdown I have started yoga. Since you could not be doing anything else but throw a mat on the floor of your living room and start stretching or exercising at home.

During the period I have discovered the app Down Dog, and it is my favorite companion to do tricky stretching moves in the morning now.

Touching the floor with full extended legs had always been one of those unachievable goals. Well ... after one month of yoga it has been checked.

Yoga is certainly an activity to recommend because it helps you to focus and strengthen your body. It has also brought me side benefits for my Brazilian jiu jitsu practice as an efficient complementary activity.

Health of the brain

Knowledge

You read a lot about high achieving people reading up to 50 books a year, which is almost one book every week.

My reading has reached 15 books in total and an estimate of 300 articles. Here is my reading list:

  • I Will Teach You To Be Rich - Ramit Sethi

  • You Can Heal Your Life - Louise Hay

  • Awaken The Giant Within - Tony Robbins (audio)

  • The Book Of Joy - Dalai Lama , Desmond Tutu , Douglas Carlton Abrams (audio)

  • How to Win Friends and Influence People - Dale Carnegie

  • The Art of Meditation - Mathieu Ricard

  • Rework - David Heinemeier Hansson and Jason Fried

  • Red Mars - Kim Stanley Robinson

  • Think and Grow Rich - Napoleon Hill

  • Shangri La - Mathieu Bablet

  • Paying the land - Joe Sacco

  • Negalyod - Vincent Perriot

  • The Effective Executive - Peter Drucker (audio)

Most of those books are related to self development and psychology, which has been quite a topic for me last year.

What's next?

This episode of Try Angles has to end for several reasons:

  1. I have set a commitment to ship 40 articles this year

  2. See it as a teaser for the upcoming topics I'll be writing about

  3. Another episode is on the way on my goal setting routine for 2021 💪

That's it for this weekly review I hope you've enjoyed it.

Thanks for reading and until next time !

‌‌Cheers,‌‌Franck ⏅‌

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