Albert Chou

December 31, 2023

Goals

I only have two goals remaining to achieve for the rest of my life, and yes, they are wide and kind of immeasurable, but whatever, these are my goals. This is my life. You are welcome to do other things.

  1. Succeed With My Family
  2. Surf Until I Die 

That's it. This is all I have left to do. There is no way to measure if I'm on target or I'm not, and yet, I know this and this is what I want.

These goals are more a way of life than a finite goal of earn $1,000,000/year or lose 20lbs. 

Allow me to elaborate.

Succeed With My Family
Nothing on earth brings me more joy than to see my family succeed. Not a fancy car, not a fast motorcycle, not a huge Gator Football victory. Nothing compares to watching my daughter get her art selected for display at the fair. Seeing my son skip a grade in math and earning the nickname "math god" with pride. Seeing my son achieve the #1 seed in the USA Hockey Tournament. These are all successes in my eyes. They are success because each one requires my children to take on a challenge and overcome some form of adversity in order to achieve some level of success. I cannot buy their successes. They have to earn them.

Money can however buy more opportunities to earn success. For example, it certainly can pay for more lessons, or more equipment, or more practice time, but it can't buy the effort. The effort is provided solely by the kids. I love this about competing, and I love this for them. I love being able to help them put effort towards a goal, and it's an absolute joy for me. I never want this to go away.

In the future, my daughter may come to me and say "I want to start my own art school." If this were to happen, I would want to be able to participate in that success. I would want to be able to partner and maybe purchase the real estate, teach her how to watch her cash flow, perhaps even hire an agency. What I won't be able to do is to deliver the class, give her students a great experience, and earn more customers and renewing customers. She will have to do that. But if we set it up right, and she succeeds, nothing could make me more happy than participating in that success. 

Surf Until I Die
This is more self explanatory. Surfing is my #1 passion and I've written about it, talked about it, and if you want to hear more, I'll tell you more about it. It's my absolute most favorite thing to do in the world, and I invest an inordinate amount of my free time thinking about how will I get to see some of the world's waves. A personal dream of mine is surfing with my family as they are older. If I am fortunate enough to make it to 50, I want to be surfing. At 60, I want to be surfing. And at 70, I want to be surfing. At 80, wow, surfing might be a stretch, so I might be boogie boarding by then. The point is, I will keep working out specifically for the purpose of surfing.

If I can't succeed with my family, and I can't surf what am I alive for? I have no purpose at that time. 

In order to do these two things, there are only 3 things need to be true:

  1. My cognitive functions must be strong enough to help my family solve problems and overcome challenges
  2. I must have enough cash or earn enough income that I can support some investment even if small
  3. I must have enough fitness to paddle and popup into waves.

So everything I do needs to be in support of the above 3 truths, which support my only 2 goals. 

Everything else is gravy.