25 lessons I learnt in 2025
A doctor had his first child, stopped working as a doctor, changed careers and learnt many things along the way.
I wanted to get the last 365 days out of my brain and into an essay, if only to selfishly make sense of the busyness of it all.
Even though it’s written fairly selfishly, I’m sure (and I hope) that there’s stuff in here that you’ll find relatable or useful too.
Personally, 2025 has been the most transformative year of my life for a long list of reasons none more important than the fact this was the first year of my first child.
As somebody who studied their entire life to become a doctor, I also left my job and now work as a football correspondent, not an orthodox path for a formally educated doctor at all.
With all of that being said, here are the 25 things I learnt in 2025:
Energy is emergent.
Energy is created or destroyed according to the context you’re in. This sounds confusing so I’ll illustrate it with an example. No matter how tired I am, coming home to see my son in a good mood creates energy within me that allows me to play, even when my energy reserves were on empty no more than five minutes prior. It is a magical thing how human energy is born and destroyed. Surrounding yourself with people, things and situations that create energy in you like magic should be a priority. Notice when this happens and do more of that.
Me and my little one. A flexibility in time is a great measure of career satisfaction.
I left my job as a doctor when my second year came to a natural conclusion. Long night shifts before having to jump into long day shifts no more than a few days later were painful. At my new job, I am very grateful I have the privilege of coming in later if my son and family need something, if I make up the time somewhere else. This flexibility in schedule that permits me to be a better family man is the number one thing I would prioritise as an employee.
Do more than you consume.
This one is self-explanatory. My added bit of wisdom will come in the form of telling you that sometimes ‘productive consumption’ of content that feels educational will trap you in metaphorical quick-sand. Because it’s fun and easy, it’s harder to recognise that you may be wasting time consuming rather than doing the thing that helps you achieve the goal you want to achieve.
Learn from the greats before you.
I found out about David Senra’s Founders podcast this year. He reads an autobiography from one of history’s greatest founders, takes detailed notes then solo-explains and storytells the lessons he found. This has primed my brain with decades of experience that I haven’t yet lived. Interestingly, many of the great founders themselves talk about the value of learning from past greats, alive or through books and interviews.
David Senra’s podcast has been source of much inspiration this year.
Don’t shy away from chasing greatness.
The conversations around Timothée Chalamet’s speeches and mindset ‘shift’ this year through the Marty Supreme press run were interesting. Without delusional optimism and self-belief, greatness is unlikely.
Surround yourself with your future self.
I was added to an X group chat of around 40 cracked entrepreneur, founders and all round great guys. Between us, there are millions of followers and millions in net worth. The conversations I have, or read others having has given me knowledge formal education won’t. It has also given me a hyper level of drive each day seeing the consistency and quality of my peers, some in positions I am striving to end up in.
Crowdsource learning.
Building on the group chat point above, if two people spend all of their time researching a topic before sharing their findings, they have double the knowledge of a singular man on the same mission. The more people that closely share you mission, the faster you become experts.
Play keeps you young.
Seeing the oldest relatives become bright, energetic and playful when they see my son is such a nice thing. It brings out a younger version of themselves. There’s an inner child within us all that deserves to be teased out often. The world is too serious and dreary otherwise.
Failing without shame is the key to success.
My son is the best. Babies are born knowing like, three things. They can’t talk, walk, crawl, I mean, they can’t do much at all. One year on and my son can do a ridiculous amount and he didn’t strategise or learn theory. He observed and tried, and failed. He did this often until he could crawl and talk and stand. It is objectively insane. Adults would be better taking that approach.
Simplify and delete obsessively.
When you learn something for the first time, you don’t know much. Then you begin to amass lots of knowledge and your understanding is vast but messy. Expertise is then in the act of taking that dense mess and extracting the essence from it. Delete things. Simplify things. If you can get to the essence of situations, topics, ideas and plans – you move in the right direction, and faster.Simplicity is the ultimate sophistication. It takes a lot of hard work to make something simple – Steve Jobs
You need to say no to things you want to say yes to.
I want to do everything. I have a huge list of passions and it is a blessing and a curse to be good at a few different things. My biggest struggle for many years has been trying to do everything and jumping between different ideas often. I have always slightly envied people who had their one thing they loved. By focusing solely on a singular direction, they were able to go further than somebody with a scattered focus.
Now I still don’t opt to do one thing solely – I think a combination of expertise makes you unique in whatever you decide to give the most time to, but saying no to things that would be good ideas is hard but important.
Have a ‘too hard’ pile.
I heard the fellas from the Acquired Podcast talk about this idea and they got it from Warren Buffett. Buffett has a ‘this is too hard’ pile on his desk where he puts new work that he deems too hard.
He accepts not all (voluntary) work is worth doing. Deeming some work too hard gives you the brain space and time to do work you would be able to do well. What I feel is key to this whole idea is having a strong grasp on your own strengths and skills.
The ‘too hard’ pile represents things that less efficiently line up with your strengths. Follow your skills and spend time doing the most high leverage things you can actually impact.
Be grateful for what you were excited about when it happened
Good news feels like the best thing ever in the moment. A new purchase does too. Humans however like novelty and the novelty wears off quickly. It is easy to feel ungrateful and frustrated with new problems that arise with situations you were once over the moon about. In times like those, take a step back, recall the joy you felt on first hearing the news and appreciate the position you’re in.Talk through your problems, it doesn’t matter who to
The act of talking, like the act of writing, gives your brain the deliberate task of sorting and making sense of whatever mess is in there. You can talk to a doll and the benefit of what I’m describing still holds up. The act of talking to a person and the feedback you get is addicting though. My brother gets a phone call as I drive back from work and acts as the backboard for me to make sense of the world.If you have the privilege of a back-up, take risks
Not everyone has this privilege and growing up, I didn’t either, so I completely accept that this isn’t something some people will want to hear given how difficult life can really be.
But if you are young, if you live at home, if you don’t have dependents, if you have a great back-up with regards to employment, there is little downside in taking big risk. The world favours risk takers so do so whilst you have the chance. The answer to ‘what’s the worst that could happen’ is not so scary for some.
I decided not to pick a training pathway in Medicine because I wanted to spend time with my family and see if the sports world had anything in store for me. I had the back-up of picking up locum shifts as and when I needed to pay the bills, but in the last week of my job, I was offered the football correspondent’s role I currently do – one I wouldn’t have been able to do if I had accepted a medical training job
That’s me in the bottom right there. A little bit of something big is better than all of something small
I started an educational software business. I don’t have a technical or coding background. I paid a friend to build out my idea after I had vibe-coded an MVP and shared it on TikTok. That video went viral so I knew the idea was strong. Long story short, after v1 was published, I made a fair bit of profit. I wanted the product to be better and ended up splitting ownership with my friend for continued tech updates. I own less but share equity with an incredibly talented person now empowered to make this project a success as much as I want it to succeed.It takes a village to raise a family.
A known cliche but it’s a cliche because it’s true. It’s in here because my in-laws live within a walk’s distance to our home. With a baby, it has been the single greatest ROI decision (we unintentionally made) – no exaggeration. If you can live close to extended family as you navigate parenthood, do it and thank me later.Health is wealth.
Two back to back cliches, crazy. That must mean we’re getting towards the end of the list. I’m (mostly) joking.
The reason this lesson is here is because people around me had some of the most unexpected run-ins with bad health you could imagine.
A family friend in their mid-twenties, with no past medical history, had a stroke. Something like that you can’t prepare for or comprehend. You can only deal with it once it happens.
Taking every day to practice gratitude for our good health whilst taking decisions to protect our health is something each one of us should take seriously.Taking initiative creates luck.
Initiate things – invite people over, reach out to old friends, say hello to co-workers. It increases your surface area for luck. You can increase your capacity for luck by taking as many shots as possible, creating as many situations in which luck can arise.
By starting three or four conversations you may otherwise not have done, you are giving yourself three or four more chances to become lucky.
You never know which avenue unlocks a 100x return on your small, forward action.Goodwill you amass today will pay dividends in ten years
I formally applied to the job I currently have but my application got lost for 8 weeks. My application was only found and reviewed because somebody I had worked with in the past and left a good impression on mentioned me as somebody who would do well in this role to a staff member at the company. All of this happened prior to my interview and without me knowing the conversation had taken place.
Who knows what I’d be doing day-to-day if that conversation never took place or if I had not amassed goodwill with this specific person, a long time ago.Please stop multi-tasking.
Activity-stacking is the norm. We listen to podcasts whilst we walk; we watch YouTube whilst we eat; we talk on the phone whilst we drive. We lack the ability to be bored. We lack the ability to sit with what we know and let our brains unpack information. We don’t give our brains the space to analyse, interpret and add to information we have collected. This needs to change otherwise we end up simply regurgitating what we have heard and read from others without filtering it through our own brain.
conduct|r@conduct_rrwe are overstimulated and we don’t even notice. netflix while eating. reels in the bathroom. music while cooking. podcasts on walks. we consume by default, not by intention. you keep filling every gap, then wonder why you feel foggy and unmotivated. boredom and silence are the
9:31 AM · Dec 25, 2025 · 1.74M Views362 Replies · 6.29K Reposts · 39.7K LikesWhat success looks like is changing.
This is specific to me but what success looks like isn’t singular. My favourite founders in the world are Ross Mackay and Marcus Milione. Ross Mackay, I love because he is a successful founder, creating a mission-led product, whilst prioritising health and being a present father.
He wakes up at 3am to run so he can be home before his daughter wakes up. I’m paraphrasing but his point is if he wants to work and achieve things, that’s on his own time – it shouldn’t eat into family time. This is contrary to many founders’ experiences but when so many successful people say they wish they spent more time with their family, whilst on their death beds, MacKay’s approach is inspiring and one I have adopted too.
Ross Mackay@RossMackay111Got asked today about my plan for Cadence. The truth is, there is no plan B. My family and Cadence, that’s my whole life. That’s all I think about.12:21 AM · Dec 11, 2025 · 6.25K Views4 Replies · 1 Repost · 129 LikesWinning in multiple fields isn’t done by doing a little bit everyday.
The general advice is to do a little bit often over a long period of time. That’s fine and it works to an extent but big exponential gains are seen when periods of intense work are done. For me, I’ve always gone hard and fast on a particular topic, realised the gains, switched to a maintenance period in that field and pivoted to do the same in the other area I was interested in. This novelty keeps me excited and it allows me to master multiple fields, albeit through this alternative approach.Social media immersion works to speed-run expertise.
The best way to learn a new language is to immerse yourself in the country’s culture entirely, hearing only the language you want to learn. The best way to learn anything follows this theory, in my opinion. In-person immersion is the best method possible but virtual immersion has been my primarily method for becoming a superficial expert quickly, before mastering a field through attempting to achieve a specific goal.
I create a Twitter account or list, follow everybody talking about a field at a high-level, look at who they follow and reply to and do the same again, and read my timeline obsessively sorting by new.
You’d be surprised at how fast you learn the language and tactics of a particular field this way.Input goals over output goals.
It feels apt to round up this year review talking about goals, especially with people’s obsession around new year’s resolutions.
What has worked for me has been setting goals based on inputs – things you can control and achieve predictably, such as: ‘I want to make three videos a week,’ rather than ‘I want 40,000 followers.’
This is a particularly powerful reframing because by consistently hitting your input goals, the outcome you achieve has the potential to be far greater than what somebody would’ve set their output goals to be at the start of their journey.
25 is a long list. I hope you found it as insightful to read as it was for me to write. There’s lots in there that can become its own blog post so if you’re keen to hear me dive deep into a specific bullet point, do let me know.
Let 2026 be great for you. I have the unrelenting self-belief that it will be for me. Subscribe to my writing here to see where I land. I’m committing to writing often.