Picture 1 - Sunset at Beijing after work
How was 2025
How much have I grown this year? This is the kind of question that many will ask and it’s a bigger question than it looks. Real growth needs context — personal & professional goals, timelines, honest conversations with yourself, and the messy trail of experiments that didn’t work. My founder/entrepreneur friends think about growth constantly; many others check in once a year with the new year resolutions. I live closer to the former camp. I measure impact - business impacts and the next order of magnitude: if we’re at $1M ARR, what would it take to reach $10M? If we serve 1,000 customers, how do we earn the right to serve 10,000? Still, I’ve learned that “net worth” and “follower count” don’t say much about the life I actually want. Two lenses helped me far more in 2025: rate of change and time to solve problems.
Rate of Change
Every three to five years, all of us become different people—new problems - new friends, new family member, new teams, new company, new seasons of life. The real question is whether that change trends positive. I try to optimize & improve my baseline month over month, week over week, day over day — to be better leader, better teammate, better father & a better husband. I set reminders at my Calendar 30mins every monday evening to reflect and plan. This mindset forces me to think ahead - am I behaving today like the role model I want my children to mirror? Am I a role model to the people I am in-charge of? Am I making decisions my future self would be proud to inherit? When I frame growth as compounding behavior rather than grand outcomes, I’m less distracted by applause and more focused on habits that last.
Picture 2 - Watching my family from Beijing hotel
Time to Solve Problems
I anchor most big decisions in three domains: career, finance, and family. If I truly want something, it’s almost always because it serves one or more of these. Where do I want to stand in this society? How am I contributing to my company, my family and community? Where should my wife and I build a home for our kids? What does “enough” look like financially for all of us? In 2025 I was hospitalized twice — once serious enough that the A&E rush felt like the life end. People ask why “health” isn’t a named pillar. The honest answer: I’ve often traded energy and time to create value for people I care about. This year reminded me that time is still the ultimate constraint, and that what I choose to solve & work on matters more than ever. Time is against everyone and because I do not have enough time, I reserve my time with the right purposes for the right people - family, friends and colleagues.
Options and Doors
The older I get, the more I realize how many “impossible” things simply needed time, people, and access. I meet more builders, learn faster, and can marshal resources I didn’t have years ago. At the same time, constraints show up - I’m not 20 anymore. So I ask myself three questions: 1. What options did I have five years ago that I don’t have now? 2. What options do I have now that I didn’t have five years ago? 3. What options do I not have now that I will have five years from now?
Opportunities are doors. Some shut. New ones open. Some friends and family members did ask me why I didn’t get a proper job when I was building my own company at Starbucks. Investors rejected my business ideas because they are not “innovative enough” or “big eenough”. The real work is choosing the right door at the right time and having the courage to walk through it and stay with it. Ultimately, nobody is forcing me to choose - I picked the door that is closest to one of my three domains.
Picture 3 - Airport dashboard showing airlines cancelled
What 2025 Taught Me
Professionally, 2025 was a breaking point for many businesses. Layoffs and closures were real. I’m grateful ours survived and, in several places, thrived. After traveling around for business for an entire year, I learned that presence is not a soft skill; it’s a strategic “energy”. Being physically and emotionally present for teammates in the tough meetings, for customers when stakes are high, for my family at the end of the day, changes outcomes - real impactful outcomes. It builds trust that no dashboard can fully capture, it builds respect and confidence that no report will ever document down. I am thankful to be working very closely with some of the smartest engineers & inspiring leaders.
Picture 4 - All of my air tickets from 2025
On the personal side, I did reset some priorities in the mid 2025. I was also humbled by how fragile life can be. Viruses, fatigue, random bad luck etc — none of us are immune. That perspective clarified which fires are worth fighting and which frictions are simply noise. Not everything deserves my attention. Focus is a kindness to myself and a duty to the people who rely on me. At the last few days of 2025, my family and I ended the year with a simple family staycation — sun, sand, and hours in the pool with the kids. Those moments are irreplaceable. The laughter, the salt in the air, the tiny hands tugging me back to the water—memories I can’t “make up” later. Children grow up so fast and I am grateful that I have a very kind and accommodating wife. I want them to internalize a few simple principles: how you do anything is how you do everything; be useful; create value; leave places better than you found them. The best way to teach that is to live it at home and at work.
Picture 5 - Reflection from the hotel, Staycation at Singapore
2026 Looking Ahead
If 2025 asked hard questions, 2026 is my answer. I’m entering the new year more certain about the kind of leader, colleague, father, and friend I want to be and more committed to compounding the right habits. I’ll keep optimizing for rate of change and time to solve meaningful problems. I’ll keep choosing doors that align with the life I’m building.
Thank you, 2025, for the lessons, the scares, the grace, and the growth. Hello, 2026 - I’m ready.
P.S. I do not publicize my blog anywhere because I am writing for myself. If you read this far, do come and share with me your thoughts, reflections and plans.