Another Year Around the Sun

Today is my birthday. 38 not out!

For most of my twenties, that meant one thing: an excuse to get as drunk as I possibly could. Celebrate hard, suffer the next day, repeat. Birthdays were events. Occasions to go big.

That has changed.

Now I use them differently. Not as a reason to celebrate, but as a reason to stop and look clearly at where I am.

Because the older I get, the more I appreciate one thing above all else: compounding.

Not just the financial kind, though that matters. I mean the compounding of choices. The quiet accumulation of how you live, day after day, year after year. The decisions you barely noticed making, slowly building the life you are now living.

This year, I want to reflect on three areas that have come to feel most important to me. Not the most impressive or the most talked about. Just the three that, when I am honest with myself, I know actually matter.

They are health, wealth and wisdom.

Here is where I am with each of them.

Health: Your Body Is Your Foundation

Writing this today, I can confidently say I am in the best shape of my life.

That is not something I say lightly. I am stronger than I have ever been. I am playing padel six hours a week on top of four serious strength sessions. And perhaps most importantly, I am injury free.

At this age, that last part matters more than anything on paper.

I am reaching the point in life where the compounding effects of your choices start to become impossible to ignore. You look around and you can see it, not just in yourself, but in the people around you. Some people invested in their bodies early. Others did not. And the gap between those two groups is widening every year.

I am grateful I started prioritising my health when I was young. Not because I was particularly disciplined or visionary. I just found things I loved doing, and I kept showing up.

But here is what I have also come to understand: it does not stop.

Health is not a destination you arrive at and then coast from. It is a practice. A continuous investment. The moment you stop is the moment the compounding starts working against you.

For me right now, that investment looks like this:

• 4 strength sessions a week.

• 3-4 padel matches.

• A high-protein diet and a relaxed 80/20 principle: real, whole food at least 80% of the time, without being precious about the rest.

• Daily walks, with at least 10,000 steps.

None of it is revolutionary. But consistency rarely is.

The body is the vehicle for everything else. Your energy, your presence, your ability to show up fully for the people and moments that matter. All of it runs through how well you take care of this one thing.

I’m grateful I have invested in it well.

Wealth: A State of Mind, Not a Number

I used to think wealth was a number in a bank account.

Hit the number, feel wealthy. Simple.

But I have reached financial milestones I once thought would change everything, and sat with the uncomfortable reality that they did nothing for me. At least the feeling I was chasing did not arrive the way I thought it would.

What I have come to understand is this: wealth is mostly a state of mind.

To feel wealthy is to feel like you have enough. It is an abundant mindset. A quiet trust that your needs will be met, that life is on your side, that you do not need to grasp or hoard or constantly prove your financial worth to yourself.

Now, I am not dismissing the practical side. Being in a good financial position matters. Removing financial pressure from your life is genuinely freeing. It creates space to think, to choose, to live without a constant low-level hum of anxiety about money. I am glad I started investing in my twenties. I am glad I made choices that gave me more peace of mind.

But here is what I have learned: the financial foundation helps, but it will not do the inner work for you.

You can be rich and feel poor. You can have less and feel genuinely wealthy. The difference is not the number. It is the relationship you have with enough.

Wealth compounds too. The decisions you make in your twenties, to save, to invest, to spend with intention, quietly multiply over decades. Not dramatically. Just steadily. And one day you look up and realise that past version of you gave you an enormous gift.

But the same is true of the mindset. Every time you practise gratitude instead of grasping. Every time you choose peace over comparison. Every time you remind yourself that you already have enough: that compounds too.

I’m grateful I started early, stayed consistent and shifted my relationship with enough.

Wisdom: Seeing Things Clearly

Wisdom, I have come to believe, is not about knowing more.

It is about seeing more clearly.

Seeing what is real and what is not. What matters and what does not. Where life is actually happening, versus where your mind tells you it is happening.

As I have gotten older, or at least as I have gotten more honest, I have realised how few things actually matter. Not in a cynical way. In a clarifying one. Because the things that do matter, matter infinitely more than everything else. And when you stop filling your attention with the noise, you can finally feel their weight.

The biggest shift for me has been this: the only moment that exists is this one.

Not the next moment. Not some future version of your life where everything has gone to plan. Not the memory of how things used to be. Just now. Just this.

That sounds simple. Maybe even obvious. But living it is a different thing entirely.

I still get lost in my head. I still miss the moment I am actually in, running through tomorrow's plans or replaying yesterday's conversations instead of being here. That gap between knowing something and living it is humbling. And I have stopped pretending I have closed it.

But I am getting better. I am noticing sooner. Returning faster. Catching the drift before I have gone too far.

And increasingly, I am making choices that support this. I am aligning my life with things that make me feel present. Not grand, impressive moments. Just fully engaged ones.

For me, that is time with friends. The gym. A game of padel. A good book. Moments that pull me in rather than pushing me toward something else.

These are not exciting revelations. There is no highlight reel in them. But they are the moments I am actually alive in. And that feels like the whole point.

Wisdom is not accumulated like information. It is uncovered, slowly and quietly, as you let go of what was never really true to begin with.

What Another Year Means

Another birthday. Another year of compounding.

Every session in the gym. Every sound financial decision. Every moment of genuine presence. None of it feels like much in isolation. But it is all quietly building something. A life. A foundation. A version of yourself that future-you will either be grateful for or wish had chosen differently.

I am not where I want to be in all of these areas. The wisdom one, especially, still has a long road ahead. But I am on the right track. And looking back from here, I can feel the foundation that has been laid.

So if you are reading this and any of it lands, whether it is your relationship with your body, or with money, or with the moment you are actually in right now, I want to leave you with one thing:

The best time to invest in any of this was years ago.

The second best time is today.

Adam