Sunday Sum - 31st December 2023

Hey , welcome back to

The Sunday Summary

, a collection of insights and my behind the scenes from the past week.

📆 2023 a year in review:As I draw 2023 to a close, I mentioned in previous Sunday summary’s what I hope to achieve in the new year, in today’s Sunday summary I’m going to reflect on the year, what went well and not so well.Some of the highlights of my year were yielded by experiences.  Might come as no surprise, but these are often the moments I would put off in favour of more work.My personal highlight of the year was doing live arena commentary in Aarhus, Denmark.  I’ve tried to unpack exactly what it was about this experience I enjoyed so much.

1. Social. It involved a lot of individuals from the tight knit trials family

2. Activity. From the intentional walk to the venue, exploring the local town, to the activity of commentating itself.  I always like to have some kind of engagement.  Mental and physical was the best example of this.

3. Contribution. Knowing that I was part of something much larger than my own individual input. That I was contributing and providing on top of the work that everyone else had provided.  Be that the organisers and the riders.

4. Very low expectation.  Both from the organisers and what I knew of the event.  As expectation was exceptionally low, everything was a 10/10 in terms of the trip.

5. Relaxed itinerary. I had to be in the arena early most days.  But there wasn’t a super packed itinerary of obligation that had to be held to. The spaces/time in-between the events of the weekend provided the perfect respite to collect thoughts.

6. Sitting in the present moment. I can remember the exact walk, the exact music I was listen to, the feel the chair in the padel hall I practiced my breathwork in. The exact seat on the plane with the nice lady I spoke with on the way there.

Checking into my hotel, I made the assumption; “Travel itself amazing, this is what I should do more of”.  Then I thought further.  It’s life, travel was just a vehicle that allowed me to be more present, and leave my always on, future focussed life behind.  Life itself is amazing when you give it the opportunity to flourish for what it is.I am going to use this as bit of a personal blueprint going forward for what life success looks like.  I’m guilty of looking at life through a time optimised and financially driven life.  All of the key components that made up this trip didn’t require either of these elements.  In fact in many ways it was the antithesis of this.   I hope to frame 2024 more in this way. 

🙀 TikTok copycat:REPORT THIS ACCOUNT! - @tomthetaxidriver_Thank you to the eagle eyed viewer who brought to my attention a fake TikTok account ripping off my work.I have a real TikTok account @tomthetaxidriver (no underscore!) which I intend to upload more short form content to in the new year.

However, someone has decided to plagiarise my work with a FAKE account @tomthetaxidriver_ (again, the underscore is the fake one)  They’ve cut up my videos and uploaded on this account which I have nothing to do with (the underscore one).  Please can you help me to get this removed by reporting this account!

💂🏻‍♀️ I'm moving back to London!:I'm still off travelling (I fly to Thailand 🇹🇭 tomorrow morning!), but in March I will be returning to big bad London.  I’m so excited for this decisions and hoping it will streamline my filming process, so in short!  More content from me!Please share this Sunday summary if you wish to keep updated with my movements whilst abroad!

🥤 A big thanks to yFood:10% OFF everything with "TAXI-YOUTUBE"yFood have sorted me out with a HUGE selection of their bars for my travels. They are high protein and super convenient to take with you.  Best thing is, my exclusive 10% discount code will work on their bars too!I thank them for the continued support on the channel, and you will be seeing much more from them in 2024.  If you haven’t already (WhSmith, M&S, Tesco etc).

📖 A book I'm loving:Replay - Ken GrimwoodAlready starting with my resolution to read more fiction (I have 1 1/2 books to beat for 2023, talk about a low bar). I’ve found this wondrous piece.It’s a time travel narrative, where a middle age man gets to start again aged 18, armed with the knowledge and insights of his middle age self.  Using the insight to grow wealth and rich. One thing that’s struck my particularly is that the protagonist uses previous life information to invest in successful companies his middle age self knew.  One being Apple with Steve Jobs.  What stood out to me, is that this book “Replay” was first published in 1986.  So even the nature of an Apple being a success in this time travel narrative is something of a premonition to 21st century Apple.  Kind of jaw dropping really.

📱 An app that's buying me timeOpal - The #1 Screen Time App

The time tracker included nativity in iOS can only block apps by categories.  And it’s a little cumbersome to set-up.

Opal allows specific apps to be allowed/disallowed at specific times.  So very quickly I was able to use this to curb my social media and YouTube usage in the mornings and before bed.  It’s only been a few days so far, (recency bias alert!) but the fact that I have no idea how to turn off the block has made it super effective already!

Thank you for taking the time to read this.

Please feel free to reach out to me with your; comments, concerns or just general conversation.  

I'd love to know what you're up to or what you might be working on!

 📝😁

Have a great week everyone!

Tom

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