I don’t want to pretend like my life is perfect. I have life, health, and relationship stuff to deal with like everyone else.

But if you were to trace all my possible life paths back to when I was 20-25, I think I’m living one of the best permutations possible from a career, leisure, and life enrichment perspective. I’m not saying I’m euphoric 100% of the time, but I have a great sense of contentment and appreciation for my life.

I have ambitious goals that I love to work on. I have a comfortable life setup and a supportive group of great, hilarious friends. And most importantly, I have a wonderful partner that I am truly lucky to be with.

She is an exceptionally rare person: grounded, tough, funny, intelligent, and beautiful. She reminds me what’s really important in this world… and well, I would write much more about her if it didn’t make her uncomfortable.

We had our civil ceremony recently (!) and our wedding is next year in Portugal. And after dating for 11 years, I think it’s about time we start moving onto the next chapter.

I’m actually really looking forward to getting married, raising children, and eventually putting solid roots down.

I know I’ve tried to savour this “post-money, pre-kids” slice of life, but I think there’s a lot of meaning and excitement that comes with having kids. Lot of life left to live.

2025 was honestly a really, really fun year. I had some of the best trips of my life in the form of New Zealand, Kauai, my bachelor party in Vegas, and Coachella. Turns out that it’s really, really hard to beat nature, music, good friends, and a relaxed schedule.

I also took a huge step forward in my music career, earning over 1.5 million streams and peaking at 100k monthly listeners throughout the year. It’s quite liberating to see some success after years of patient hard work.

It sounds cringe, but I plan on doing whatever it takes to succeed in music. I will not give up, despite the odds and despite the impending over-saturation from AI.

My life is now set up so I will always be able to keep going. And I would like to improve my skills to the point where I’m among an exceptionally rare group of musicians.

Elsewhere in my life, Peak Frameworks has continued to be the fount that keeps on giving.

We were featured in the Financial Times with a hilariously positive shoutout and I think it’s quite clear that Peak Frameworks is the #1 private equity interview prep company in the world. Let’s start there.

Peak Frameworks

I really enjoy my vocation.

I love organizing information into neat, easily-digestible forms, optimizing the speed in which concepts are grasped. I enjoy the struggles of growing a business and embracing the weight of authority.

I do think that some primary tasks are becoming more monotonous for me. I’ve now made six full-fledged courses (Private Equity, Hedge Fund, Investment Banking, Valuation & Finance, Equity Research, Resume & Cover Letter).

I know how to make and market a good course and I don’t feel like I’ve learned much new the last two times around the block.

As such, the current business stage I’m in is “scaling and delegating”, which involves bringing on the right personnel to do certain tasks.

I now have a video editor, customer service person, teaching assistant, script writer, and meme artist. It’s no longer in my best interests from a skill development, business growth, or enjoyment perspective to do many of these tasks. I actually can’t believe I didn’t outsource some of these functions earlier; I should not have been scrolling Instagram for meme templates.

Delegating is interesting – one quote I’ve heard is that you have to be OK with a 70% work quality relative to what you could do.

I then think it’s your job as a manager to create systems (e.g., checklists, proof of work, video walkthroughs) to raise that quality bar efficiently. I sort of feel like an Investment Banking VP, except that I don’t hate my life and my hairline is in tact.

The goal with Peak Frameworks is to get it down to 2-5 hours per week without sacrificing revenue. I’m pretty close, but this is another battleground where AI is right around the corner.

One great ego-gratifying moment is that Peak Frameworks was featured on the Financial Times for being a coveted gift for new finance grads.

I’ll file that one in the “Emergency O-1 Application” folder.

Arial Ten

I feel extremely grateful for the successes I’ve had with Arial Ten this year:

• 5 songs over 100k streams, >1.5m streams in total, peaking at 100k monthly listeners
• 3 official Spotify editorial playlist placements
• Two great label relationships with Multicolor Records and Sidekick Music
• Playing my first headline show in Toronto, started DJing around the city

It feels like a huge sigh of relief after putting in lots of steady work with not much to show for it.

I will say that this next stage has invited a few uncomfortable commercial feelings. I am definitely more mindful of my streams now. When my streams dip (as they all do; ~50% of streams come within the first 2 weeks of a song’s release), it feels like I’ve done something wrong.

I don’t have as relaxed or as free of a voice when it comes to putting out whatever I want. I’m starting to view Arial Ten more as a creative business as opposed to a pure outlet.

One particularly cynical thing is how important making social media content is as a modern musician (really a modern anything, but… it’s so obvious and toxic in music).

I’m committing to posting ~2 pieces of content every week on Arial Ten with a goal of getting to 10k Instagram followers in 2026.

Distribution really controls the value chain in art, especially for something like music, which is an art form so infused with identity.

But any discomfort associated with this commercialism is very, very small relative to the pure joy of making music.

I want to continue to get better and be in bigger studios with bigger artists – that’s a fair trade for a few social media reels.

Making music is so unbelievably fun; it feels like I’m discovering a new treasure every time I come up with an idea I like. Most days I make music I wonder why more people haven’t fallen in love with it.

Life

It’s crazy, but 3 of my very good high school friends (+ me) are all getting married in the same six month period.

Your early 30s are actually so awesome because you get to see so many of your good friends at weddings! You don’t really feel the need to go clubbing if you get a proper wedding dancefloor once a quarter.

I will say that planning a wedding is tough. Not even the pure work, just a lot of competing priorities and a lot of unpleasant compromises.

Separately, there’s also a certain self-confidence that people start to land on in their early 30s. Maybe it’s just the groups I belong to. But it makes being around people much more enjoyable.

There’s less prestige-jockeying and more earnest conversations.

2025 Round Up

Here are a few other loose details about me:

• I started playing basketball pick up again, which I haven’t done since university. It is hard and I am very bad, but it is SO fun. I forgot how fun team sports are; they’re like video games that are good for you.
• I really enjoy reading fiction now. I realized that non-fiction is for try-hards in their early 20s, wheras fiction is for people who are comfortable with who they are. I mostly read fantasy or sci-fi, but I’m open-minded so let me know if you have a suggestion. I loved Red Rising, the Hierarchy series, and Project Hail Mary.
• I had so many great musical (attendee) experiences this year. The Marias and Zedd at Coachella were unbelievably fun. Calvin Harris with my bachelor party group in Las Vegas. My favorite high school band Jack’s Mannequin with some of my favorite high school people.
• I did my first campervan trip in New Zealand this year. I would highly recommend it if you haven’t done it, it’s a great mix of adventure, freedom, and relationship testing. New Zealand is also realistically the most beautiful place I’ve been to.
• Men I Trust goes back-to-back as my most listened to artist. House music has my body, but indie music still has my soul.