Did I Achieve My 2024 Goals? Honest Breakdown And What You Can Learn From My Mistakes

Have we hit the goals we set ourselves back in January? Have we smashed those targets, or have we fallen short?

It’s become a bit of a tradition on this podcast for me to break down my goals and share exactly how I’ve done against the targets I set. I really enjoy these episodes because, not only is it part of the accountability process, but it’s also a great way to keep things completely honest and transparent with you.

Social media—Instagram, Facebook, and the like—often turns into a highlights reel. And, if you’re not careful, the same can happen with a podcast. But that was never the intention for this podcast. It’s all about keeping it real—the actual ins and outs of running a property business and building an HMO portfolio.

So in this episode, I’m going to share everything with you. I’ll tell you exactly how I’ve performed against the targets I set earlier this year. If you’re curious and want a peek behind the scenes, then make sure you stick around.

Topics covered in this episode:

• 03:00 – Why Goal Setting and Regular Reviews Matter
• 05:51 – Looking Back at 2023
• 14:49 – Finding Balance Between Work and Life
• 21:00 – Business Growth and Financial Results
• 26:46 – Challenges I Faced and What I Learned
• 30:05 – Setting Goals for the Future and Key Takeaways

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Transcript

Andy Graham (00:02.67)

Hey, I'm Andy and you're listening to the HMO Podcast. Over 10 years ago, I set myself the challenge of building my own property portfolio. And what began as a short-term investment plan soon became a long-term commitment to change the way young people live together. I've now built several successful businesses. I've raised millions of pounds of investment and I've managed thousands of tenants. Join me and some very special guests to discover the tips, tricks and hacks, the ups and the downs, the best practice and everything else you need to know to start, scale and systemise your very own HMO portfolio now.

Andy Graham (00:40.716)

Well, it's about that time of the year where we're hopefully sitting down looking back at our progress. Have we hit the goals that we set ourselves back in January? Have we smashed those targets or have we fallen short? It's become a bit of a tradition on the show for me to break down my goals and exactly how I've done against those targets that I set. And I really enjoy these episodes because not only is it part of the process of accountability, but I think it's a great way of keeping things really, really honest and super transparent with you guys. Instagram, Facebook, lot of social media, and certainly it can be the case with a podcast if you're not careful, it really can be a highlights reel. 

The podcast was never meant to be a highlights reel. The podcast was always meant to be about keeping it real. The actual ins and outs of running a property business and building HMO property portfolios. So today I'm going to share it all with you. I'm going to tell you exactly how I've done against the targets that I set myself earlier this year. If you want to nosey at that, if you want to peek, if you want to find out exactly how I have done, then make sure you stick around. So please sit back, relax and enjoy today's episode of the HMO Podcast.

Hey guys it's Andy here. And we're going be getting back to the podcast in just a moment. But before we do, I want to tell you very quickly about the HMO roadmap. Now, if you're serious about replacing your income, or perhaps you've already got a HMO portfolio that you want to scale up, then the HMO roadmap really is your one-stop shop. Inside the roadmap, you'll find a full 60 lesson course delivered by me, teaching you how to find more deals, how to fund more deals and raise private finance, how to refurbish great properties, how to fill them with great tenants that stay for longer, and how to manage your properties and tenants for the future.

Andy Graham (02:21.55)

We've also got guest workshops added every single month. We've got new videos added every single week about all sorts of topics. We've got downloadable resources, cheat sheets and swipe files to help you. We've got case studies from guests and community members who are doing incredible projects that you can learn from. And we've also built an application just for you that allows you to appraise and evaluate your deals, stack them side by side and track the key metrics that are most important to you. To find out more, head to theHMOroadmap.co.uk now and come and join our incredible community of HMO property investors.

Andy Graham (03:00.462)

Okay, welcome back gang. So today is that episode where I break down exactly how I've done against the goals that I set myself earlier in the year. And then I bear it all, share it with you, give you the complete and honest and fully transparent breakdown of my performance. I'm gonna let you know where I've hit my goals, where I've superseded my goals and actually where I've fallen short. This is probably the one episode of the year where I prepare more than any other for. I like to get really, really deep and really, really introspective on this. 

And it's not just for the podcast. It's actually something that I've always done on my goals. I don't think there's any point setting goals if you're not really going to actually spend time breaking down exactly how you've done. And more importantly, not just looking at how you've done, have I hit the target? Have I fallen short? But actually understanding why, why have you fallen short? Why have you superseded your target? Why have you landed exactly where you should have?

Could you have done something different? I think those actions that we can derive from the breakdown and reviewing and analyzing our goals is more important than anything. A good mentor of mine used to say, if you're not measuring, you cannot manage. And setting goals and then measuring your performance at the end of the year, and even on a quarterly basis, even on a monthly and weekly basis, and I do do that, and I've shared this on the podcast before, I do do that as well.

Maybe not in the same level of detail, but it's really, really important so that you are continually reviewing your progress, making sure that you're on track and looking for ways to improve. Looking for areas where you can put your foot down a little bit, or maybe where you need to take your foot off a little bit. So the first thing that I want to ask you, and I want you to answer yourself honestly and candidly, have you been reviewing your goals? Did you set goals earlier in the year? Have you stopped to actually review them yet? Have you looked at what went well, what didn't, and more importantly, why?

It's so important and look, if you haven't done it, if you aren't a goal setter, please, please, please, please really do think about doing this next year because it pushes you to achieve so much more and it gives you so much information and feedback and data that you simply cannot see if you're simply wading through. It's really important to get analytical and actually look at the data and get really, really objective on this stuff. And that's where you'll see performance. That's where you can actually

Andy Graham (05:21.774)

improve your trajectory. So look, if you want to change things in 2025, if you want to generate a secondary income to actually leave your business or job rather, maybe you do want to leave your business. Maybe you want to double things. Maybe you want to add one or two thousand miles, whatever it is, whatever your target is, please spend some time setting it in the new year. Get really granular, figure out exactly what you need to do to actually achieve those goals. Set yourself KPIs, measure yourself, forget those KPIs, those key performance indicators, those actions that you can take and keep reviewing that progress monthly, quarterly, and certainly at the end of next year. And enjoy the process. 

For me, this is a really enjoyable process. Even where I don't hit my goals and targets, I still enjoy the process of setting goals, pushing myself, challenging myself, trying to do things differently, trying to do things better, trying to do things that we haven't done before. I think that that for me is a huge part of the fulfillment that I get from actually building businesses. And actually...

When you step back and you look at how difficult some of this stuff actually is, it's got to be about more than just the finances and the economics and the money that you can make, right? It's got to be about whether or not you are fulfilled, whether you're content, whether you feel like you're challenging yourself, whether you're pushing yourself. There's actually loads and loads of data out there. More of the data actually is on employees, but people are not exclusively incentivised by money. Yes, it does help and it can for some people, but actually far more of us are far more motivated by fulfillment, by passion, by appreciation. 

And I get that as well. And I want you to really think about that when you're setting your goals. It doesn't all have to be about the money. It can actually just be about challenging yourself and seeing what you can do. I think back about school and college and university, and I've done episodes on this before on the podcast and certainly ones on limiting beliefs. And I had lots and lots of limiting beliefs. And I bet there's very few people listening to today's episode that don't have their own limiting beliefs.

But setting yourself goals and really pushing yourself is one of the ways to really challenge those limiting beliefs. Can you actually overcome them? Can you completely rewrite your future? Enjoy this process, but if you're not doing it, if you're not a goal setter, please, please, please seriously think about doing this. If you circle back and scroll through the podcast, I've done some episodes on goal setting, walking you through what you actually need to do to set yourself really good and objective goals that you can keep track of and progress and hopefully see better results from. Okay. Lecture over.

Andy Graham (07:49.358)

It's been an interesting year, hasn't it? What I thought we'd do is first of all, circle back on a couple of predictions I made about this time last year, it was probably earlier in the year actually, around January time. One of them was around the renter's rights bill. This was something that I really saw having quite a detrimental impact on the property market. And I think it has, I think for so many reasons, it's really overshadowed a lot of the great stuff and work that investors and landlords like you and I, and all of us in our community do.

It's just been quite a negative year on the whole I think for property, for landlords, hasn't it? But I was pretty sure that the renter's rights bill would actually come into force this year. And of course it didn't. Now in my defense, we got within hours of it, didn't we? As government fell apart, this one literally got pulled off the table, but it was so incredibly close. But interestingly, and I actually went back and listened to the episode I recorded about this, I want a bit of caution. I was actually more worried that it wouldn't go through and then labour would get their hands on it.

They would really sink their teeth into it. And obviously I did, and I may not have shared this on the podcast, because I try not to get overly political, but I really did think that the conservative brain was all but done and that we would ultimately be under a Labour government, which is of course where we've ended up this year. It's coming in, it's going to come in next year. I think it could have been worse, but it's not great. And I think it is going to change the landscape a little bit. And I think what it's continuing to do is really pushing out those unprofessional landlords. And I mean the landlords who are not professionalising their business. 

The landlords who are not really taking this sort of seriously. The landlords who are not dotting the I's and crossing the T's. I don't think there's much of a space left for those people in the property market anymore. It's very clear that the direction of travel now that the rental and the property market is going. And if you want to be a part of it, if you want to own property assets, real estate in the UK, you have got to professionalise your business. And the renter's rights bill coming in, that is really going to just force that upon us. The other prediction I made and this wasn't, I certainly wasn't hopeful that this would happen. And I thought there was an outside chance, but I thought we could end up in recession, not just a technical recession, but an actual recession where it does have quite detrimental impacts to business owners and to the general public. Unfortunately, that obviously didn't happen. And what has actually happened, inflation has come down. Interest rates have started to follow it. It's been slower than I think we all hoped, but it has started to come back down. And I think.

Andy Graham (10:09.944)

things certainly more recently have been a lot more stable. It's been easier to actually make assumptions and not necessarily predictions, but make decisions based on reasonable and sensible assumptions about where we might be next month, or the month after the month after, you know, with values, prices for materials, with interest rates and that sort of thing. So obviously that landscape looks a lot better than I perhaps thought it might do. I did think it would look better by this point in the year. The recession piece, that for me was an outside chance, but that probably did in honesty influence some of my decisions. I remained a little bit more liquid than I perhaps otherwise would have. That's probably cost me more than it should have, but that is the price you pay if you want a certain degree of security. 

And I think that that is important. I take a lot of risk and some of that risk needs to be managed and sometimes you've got to think about where you place and allocate your funds and time and resources and have some of that downside covered. But I'm feeling much more confident about that now. And I'll probably do an episode early in the new year about my predictions for 2025. Today's not the day for that episode, but today's obviously about goals. But it's interesting because some of that stuff did influence the targets that I set last year and where I ended up, I think. So my goals, well, let me just very quickly recap on.

I suppose a bit of a summary on the goals that I achieved in this time last year in 2023. It really was my best year yet. And that was for a couple of reasons, both in and out of business. I think across the board, we were about 23% year on year up on net income. So that's sort of income generation. We acquired several large projects. That was a really key part of our development strategy. And I sold one of my businesses and that was a huge part of my diversification process. 

It was a huge part of me being able to just move on to the next thing for me on a personal level. I felt like I'd come to the end of that journey and I was ready for a new challenge and I wasn't the person to take that business forward. I did fall short on a few things, including my goal to be in my best shape ever. We did get married last year, Gemma and I, and we of course went on our incredible trip. We spent three months out of the country and I did a lot of work in building

Andy Graham (12:27.822)

additional systems and processes into some of my businesses to enable me to do that. And that actually gave me a really great springboard to go into 2024 with. At the very end of the year, we won the award for best property deal of the year at the Property Investor Awards. That was completely unexpected. And we were really, really proud of that, especially for me, because that was a project outside of the HMO space. It was for a commercial to residential development.

One the other things I fell short on was my intention to buy another HMO. Just didn't find what I was looking for last year. And I also had put a plan in my goals last year to buy a new personal primary residence in my own home or our own home. That was probably a goal that I was not really committed to and shouldn't have actually featured in and I didn't do it. So it was a great year in fact, last year across the board. It was the perfect balance of business growth and personal growth, enjoyment, fulfillment, and some huge personal milestones. And it was always going to be a very, very, very, very difficult year to top. 

So what goals did I set for 2024 and how did I do? Well, my first goal, and this is always the most important one for me. And interestingly, the least objective goal was to continue having a balanced life. Balance between work and business, but also social stuff and health and general wellbeing. I didn't want to grow the businesses. In fact, I don't want to grow any of the businesses if I'm going to have to compromise on stress and lack of sleep and my health and spending time with my friends and family and my non-negotiables that I like to do every single day. Just walking the dog and training every day. I also wanted to get out of the country a few times and go on a few holidays and Gemma and I, we wanted to move house. We had obviously sold the business last year. That was my real kind of last sort of anchor, I suppose, to where we used to live. Spoiler alert, I've probably just told you that we have moved, but wait, there's more. I also had some pretty objective goals on the business. One of them was to increase year on year growth against income generating activity by 10%. And actually similarly with growing my capital base, I wanted to increase that also by 10%. Now, when I'm talking about those sorts of things, income generating.

Andy Graham (14:49.25)

bit activity and my capital base, there are a number of things in there and certainly on the income generating activity, there's several, there's a number of different income streams there. I have done an episode on that before, but it's not a single income stream that I'm talking about. It's across the board. So how have I done? Well, I think first of all, in terms of balance, I feel like I absolutely nailed that piece. There have been times, don't get me wrong, this year where it has been really, really, really stressful, much more stressful than last year from a property perspective and a big part of that has just been on some of the bigger sites. 

There's been a lot of stresses and strains on planning. There's been challenges just developing on site, problems that you find in the properties, in the buildings, problems with refinancing and just timelines, problems with contractors, you know, the usual sort of stuff. But because of the volume of work that we took on this time last year, we had acquired three, I think, new projects to take us into this year. We were going into 2024 with three pretty big projects on, there was always going to be a lot of work to do just in the commercial to residential business of mine. And that's aside from my own portfolio and all my trading businesses. And I think we've really sort of felt the strains of that from an operational point of view. It's been a really steep learning curve. And we've had to, many times, double and even triple down on our efforts and time spent in that business just to kind of bring things to fruition. And that's not to say it hasn't been really enjoyable.

On the whole, it has, it's a challenge. Definitely some of the stuff we would much rather not have to do and deal with and certainly on a personal hit level, that is absolutely the case. But that is the nature of the beast. That is part and parcel of building property businesses. It's not meant to be easy. It certainly isn't easy and you have to take the rough with the smooth, but certainly this year it has been much more difficult to manage that balance than it was last year, but I think I have still just about achieved it.

That meant I had to take my foot off in other areas though, in reality. From a general health and wellbeing perspective, I think I've really kind of stayed on top of my personal goals and targets there. Getting in the gym regularly, training regularly. I think I'm in better shape this year than I was last year. Of course I'm a year older, so I think that that's got to be a success. Still not in the best shape of my life. I think that.

Andy Graham (17:10.869)

I might be fooling myself into thinking that that is actually going to be possible and certainly possible anytime soon. But it's been a really good year, I think, across the board. I feel like Gemma and I, we've found a really good balance when we've struck a really good balance of things. We also did manage to get out of the country a few times. Gemma and I went to New York early in the year. We also went to Spain after Gemma got pregnant and spent a couple of really nice weeks just in a really, really special place. I got out to the mountains early in the year in March with all the property guys, for proper ski as well.

Three great trips out of the country this year. And more recently, we've been, I suppose, just battening the hatches really, waiting for baby G to arrive early in 2025. And just sort of getting the house in order, quite literally, like any of you that are listening today that have got children of your own, you'll know that there's a lot of stuff there to get ready for newborn babies. And I've been learning all of that stuff, but it's been really, really enjoyable. And we've been balancing everything that comes with preparing to have a baby, scans and appointments and all of that alongside everything else, but it's been really, really enjoyable. 

And I don't think we've compromised in anything. I've been at every appointment with Jem and been able to kind of support her. And I think if this episode goes out, she's probably sort of, we're into the last few weeks now. So yeah, it's been really nice that I've been able to be there for her and continue to support Gem through that process and actually enjoy it with her as well. So just staying on the personal theme of goals, we have moved house. We sold our house earlier in the year and we put it on the market, it flew off the shelf. I think we had about 30, nearly 40 viewings in the end. It was crazy. The house went well above the asking price and we were really, really pleased. 

And in the end, timed it really well with actually coming to the end of my term mortgage or our term mortgage on that house. Now we had also, and if you've been listening to the show, if you're a regular listener, you'll know this, but we'd also had an offer accepted on a new property that we were buying in North Yorkshire. And after we put that offer in it was accepted, it became a probate sale. The gentleman who owned it passed away, unfortunately, although I think he was going into care and it was being sold in the first place by his family. 

But that all of sudden meant that things were going to take much, much longer. So Gemma and I made the decision just to move into a rented house. And that's exactly what we did. It wasn't easy to find something that was suitable. We were panicking actually, it of really came down to the wire, but we moved out of our place, sold it, moved up here and into our new place. And the place that we're trying to buy, which is actually only a street over from where we are renting, that's still

Andy Graham (19:34.85)

going through, it's bumbling along. We've been working on a planning application. I'll probably update you more on that at some point next year, although we don't have a huge amount more to tell you at the minute. Hopefully early next year we can complete on it, but then there's going to be a bit of a project anyway. We're not going to be moving in in any rush. I think in reality, if we moved in even next year, we'd be doing well. It's quite a big project that I'm planning to do on that particular house. So all of that has been happening and I think moving house can be quite stressful. Planning to have a baby can be quite stressful. 

I think just across the board, we found a really good balance of it this year. I felt good, healthy, happy, most importantly. And alongside that achieved some really great things in the business. So let me tell you a little bit more about some of the more objective goals and targets that I set. So from a growth perspective, my target was 10% year on year in the income generating side of the business. We actually finished the year at 16.5 % year on year up. And that's despite me making the decision to pause our mastermind in 2024. 

The last six, seven years, I've run a really successful mastermind with lots of really incredible people who've achieved some really wonderful things. And it was something that I really, really enjoyed as well. But just looking into 2024, I could see that with the projects and everything else personally, I had to put something on pause or I had to put something down. And whilst I really, really enjoyed the mastermind, I decided that the mastermind was the thing that I needed to pause, it's the one thing that on a personal level, probably didn't feel like it was taking me much closer towards my goals. Now I still want to pick that up at some point. I'm not sure that's going to be next year, maybe the year after we'll see, but actually that was part of our income generation activity and we lost them. But I think despite that, and actually despite hiring some more people into the business, we ended up the 16.5% year on year up. And I think for any business, that's a really remarkable result.

And that came from a few different places. Part of it in the portfolio. Now I'm talking about the wide portfolio here. That came from rental increases. It came from improved occupancy and it came from reducing overheads and reductions in interest repayments. So overall kind of bottom line profits just increased quite a bit in the portfolio and across the trading businesses. And let me talk about the roadmap specifically. The roadmap has just gone from strength to strength this year. We're now four years into it, but this year our average monthly subscribers has

Andy Graham (21:59.726)

been up 40% year on year. actually the revenue that follows that identical as well, unsurprisingly. That was a really incredible result because that's one of the areas where we pushed in terms of our marketing. We wanted to let more people know about the Roadmap, what's inside it. And also we needed to do more work on the infrastructure. We wanted to actually improve also how it functioned and what was inside the roadmap. And I think almost accidentally, we have absolutely built what is the most extensive resource for HMO property investors.

And the feedback has continued to be just incredible, almost across the board, which I'm really, really proud of because I think it is easy. You get to a point in any business where customer service and performance starts to drop off, tail off. And actually the opposite has happened. We've continued on that upward trajectory, continued to month on month, increase memberships, continue to get great feedback and continue to just add to the value. So that for us was a huge part of the plan this year, building the roadmap was a really front-ended exercise. 

That investment was very, very heavy at the front end because of all the infrastructure for that type of a platform and actually the investment in actually nurturing our community. You guys make sure that you've all got what you need. That takes time and a lot of resource. And now we're able to enjoy some of the benefits of that. And it's really great now seeing the data come through and it's wonderful to see that actually it's really, really predictable. And so it's a fantastic business that I really, really enjoy running. That's one of the areas that it's come from. 

We've also seen a lot of growth through the expansion of our digital services, like our partnerships as well. One of the things that I didn't really want to do too much of was start doing lots of sort face-to-face programs, bums on seats, that sort of thing. I'm not an event organiser. And actually I've never wanted to be an event organiser. I understand there's a place for that. And I enjoy going to some of those things myself. We've dabbled with a few little bits this year, but it was never going to be a core focus of what I do and what we do.

Actually, we've invested in other parts of our service, the community of digital offerings. And so as well as subscribers and subscriptions, we've increased revenue through some of our other service offerings as well, which has been really great to see. Capital growth then, my target this year was to increase my capital base by 10%. Now it's really difficult to know exactly what the performance of that is. And at any point in time, it's quite difficult to say exactly what it is because of course, can you say exactly what your assets are worth?

Andy Graham (24:22.478)

And do you know exactly what your liabilities are? You probably have a pretty good idea, but it's difficult. And certainly when you're developing, when projects are part developed or nearly developed, but not quite over the line, again, it's really, really difficult. So my best guess is actually that it wasn't 10% year on year growth. It's perhaps more like 5%. And there's a couple of reasons why some of our projects have just took a little bit longer to get started. Took a bit longer through planning, took a bit longer through the of the pre-commencement phase and took bit longer probably on the refinance phase as well. Some of that capital hasn't necessarily been crystallized yet or created on paper, so to speak. Some of it certainly has. We've also just had a project that's taken a little bit longer to develop. It's been more problematic than we anticipated and that's dragged on a little bit. And so the knock-on effect is that actually that capital growth uplift, it just isn't there. So there's been some and I've not really included general capital appreciation here, inflationary.

Has probably hasn't been a huge amount this year anyway. But I think about 5% year on year is up and I'm hoping that that'll be better next year. Cause we've got some of the projects that we've been working on coming to fruition and more coming through. So I'm more kind of planning stuff that hopefully comes through that will add some value. So that's quite exciting for me next year. I think we'll probably see the scale tip a little bit in the favor of that one next year. And that's a goal when I share this episode later or early in the new year, that's probably a goal that'll talk about a little bit more. So a couple of other things this year that we achieved.

We won two awards. And I'm really, really proud of this. So we won the Best Content Provider at the HMO awards and that was for the HMO roadmap. I think the amount of work that's gone into it, that was an exceptionally proud moment for me and our team. And we also got the runner up for best mentorship program as well. As you guys know, I've run a mentorship program for many years. It's always been a really small and really bespoke program. That's the way I like to do it. I like to know everybody that I'm working with really, really well inside out, their businesses.

So that I can give them the best possible advice. Some people do it a little bit differently. My program is small. It's one-to-one. It's completely exclusive. It's very bespoke, very tailored. And I really enjoy that. And I think to get an award like that for my program says so much about not just the program itself, but also the results that we've had on the program. And I'm really, really proud of some of the results that some of my clients have had. Really, really phenomenal results. Really quite mind blowing stuff actually. 

Andy Graham (26:46.082)

So that was an exceptionally good moment for us this year. Two of our projects featured on the Great British Home restoration on channel four. That was kind of something completely unexpected. It wasn't necessarily a goal, but in a way it's one of those subjective things that happens that makes you kind of feel like you've absolutely smashed some of your goals. To get two of our projects and certainly for me, who's a bit more specialized in HMOs than commercial ro resi stuff on channel four. And it wasn't like we applied for anything. They found our projects. They wanted to record them. That was.

really, really great and got lots of great feedback about them. Talked a little bit about balance, haven't I? And traveling, that's good. So where have I fallen short then? Well, one of the kind of biggies, I think for me and my business partners is that we just didn't get any of our commercial projects finished in 2024. We would have really, really liked to have just got some of them over the line and refinanced, but for various reasons it's just taking longer than we anticipate. And that's something that we've got to learn from. 

There's things that we need to reflect on and figure out how we can be better at. Can we be better at getting through planning and the decisions that we make? And we're actually pretty good at that as well. So we're talking really marginal stuff, but can we be better at kind of getting through the pre-commencement phase with all the console T reports that we need, things like that. Could we be better planned? Could we use our resources and contacts better? Could we develop faster? Could we develop with different types of contractors. 

We've got some great contractors on some sites and sometimes it's more challenging. Do we need to be more realistic about our expectations? That's actually something that we might learn here. Maybe projects are just going to take us a little bit longer than we want them to and actually the goals and targets that we set are perhaps not achievable. That's something that needs to be looked at in a lot of depth. I think the other big one for me as well is that we moved house, but we didn't buy our new house. And that was a bit disappointing. I really wanted to get something completed on. And actually behind the scenes it's hopefully it's going through early in the new year, but there's a bit of planning that we're sorting out and things like that. So we'll have to wait and see. But I think on the whole, I felt like I superseded income generation goals. I feel like my capital growth probably wasn't quite where I wanted it to be, but that's probably because I set expectations that were just a little bit too high and perhaps even just a bit unmanageable. And I need to look at that closer. I need to really get to the bottom of that when I think about next year's goals.

Andy Graham (29:06.988)

I think absolutely nailed the balance thing, I think, to be able to move house and plan for a baby and run the businesses and go away and travel and things like that. I think that for me is probably the overarching success of this year. For me, enjoying as much of this process as I possibly can is the most important thing. And I feel really blessed. I've got the time and the freedom and the choice and the flexibility to do what I want, when I want. I can go to a scan with Gemma. I can walk the dog whenever I want, it's wet in the morning, I can go in the evening. I can go to the gym whenever I want within reason. 

Gemma and I have been on some nice holidays. It's really nice. And I'm really proud that we can do that and not have to worry too much about what things cost. And of course that's taken time and years and a lot of hard work and a lot of risk to take to get there, but it's great just stepping away from goals and targets and objectives to feel like that. So on the whole, well, last year was an exceptional year. I think very difficult to top, getting married, achieving some really incredible business growth, selling a business and traveling for three months. This year has been a really, really good year as well. And look, I think it's important to say at this point that these good years won't last forever. And it's actually really easy to run businesses when things are going well. Actually, I think good business is all about what you do when things aren't going well. Now, do I think that that'll be next year? Probably not. But do I think we've got some tough years ahead? I do.

I think under labor, I think while growth as an economy is down, I think there are some challenges ahead. Now, will that influence what I decide to do? Yeah, it probably will on some levels. I've got to be careful and every project that we buy and do, I'm thinking about the risks, what I need to think about, what I need to do, maybe what I need to not do, what I need to try and avoid. But I think that there's some important stuff there to take forward. And actually some of this is just security. It's liquidity, it's capital, it's stuff for a rainy day. It's stuff that...

might be useful if there is a problem at some point. And I think as I'm getting a little bit older now, I'm starting to reflect a bit more on my goals in that way as well. What does actually the success of this year really mean? Does it mean there's more stability for us as a family over the coming years and into the future? Yeah, it probably does. Getting to a point now where I'm actually thinking more and more about things like pensions, about legacy plans, about exit plans and stuff like that. Not that I want to do or...

Andy Graham (31:25.696)

expect any of that to happen soon, but it's not so much about growth, growth, growth anymore. It's about managing that balance. It's about making sure that as well as today, tomorrow's going to be okay as well. That's probably about it for today guys. I hope you've enjoyed that episode. Like I said, I enjoy these because it holds me to account. I know I'm going to be sitting down sharing my performance with you guys. I found the whole process of reviewing my goals cathartic. I like to know exactly how I've done. I like to kind of look back at the challenges and the obstacles that we have had to come as teams to get to where we are at the end of the year. 

And it gets me in the of the mood and it starts me thinking about goals for next year. It gets me excited. It motivates me and encourages me. And I know that it can be really difficult through the year, slogging your way through projects, trying to kind of get over the hurdles. It can be really difficult, can't it? To keep yourself motivated, to keep pushing. And I have those slumps as well. I'm not always at the top of my game all year. There's peaks and troughs.

And that's normal. That's absolutely fine. And you shouldn't expect anything different, but this process reviewing and then planning the next year, that is a big part of what just keeps me motivated. It keeps me excited. It keeps me fresh. I think it's so important in business. If you're not doing it, I think it's going to be really difficult to actually get wherever you want to go. And look, one final parting question I want to leave you with today.

Do you know where you're going? I recorded an episode a little while ago and it was about my number and that number was 40 million. If you haven't listened to that episode, go and listen to it. It's so important. So many people have reached out since I recorded that episode because I think it really resonated with them, but nobody or very few people have been thinking about it in the right way. I talked about a number, that number represents something in the future to me. And these goals and these targets, that's where it all takes me. That's the point, or it's certainly part of the point.

Do you have that? Do you have that flag in the ground? Do you know where you're going or are you drifting? If you don't, I would say that you are drifting. And if you're drifting, if the sails are raw, but you're not looking at the map, there's a good chance that you are going to end up off course, a thousand miles out from that paradise destination you want to be at. Whether that is on a beach, whether that's on the side of a mountain, maybe it's just having the time and freedom, choice and flexibility. Maybe it's just not working for somebody else. Make sure you know where you're at.

Andy Graham (33:41.91)

and where you are going. That's about it for today's episode guys. Thank you so much for tuning in. Thank you also for all of your support this year. I get so many lovely messages from you guys and Instagram and on Facebook and in our community. And I'm really proud of it. And I really, really appreciate it. And I probably don't tell you guys enough, just how much I do appreciate it. As well to my teams, thank you so much for all of your hard work this year. I know you've been working incredibly solidly for the last 12 months.

And we've achieved some really great things as a result of that. Our business partners couldn't do so much of this without them guys. I'm incredibly excited about the stuff that we're doing into next year and beyond as well. And look, no matter how you've done, whether you've hit your goals, whether you've fallen short, whether you've completely obliterated them, try not to take any of this stuff too seriously. I try and zoom out regularly and remind myself that it's all a game and we're just here to enjoy the game. You know, life is like just one big game of Monopoly and try and enjoy the process as much as anything else guys. 

That is it. Don't forget that I'm on handover in the HMO community as well as our 10,000 members. So if you want to come and share your performance for this year, share the goals, what's gone well, what's not gone so well. Have you got any words of encouragement, enthusiasm, any motivation to share? Maybe you just want to have a bit of event. Maybe you want to talk about some of the struggles that you've had this year and get a bit of help and support, trying to figure out why and what you could do next year to improve on it, it's a great place to come and chat. That's the HMO community. It's our free group on Facebook. Remember, so anybody can join. And of course, if you want to level things up, if you are a HMO investor, but you want to take things to a completely new level, whether you're just getting started, even if you're an experienced investor, but you want to keep scaling up, improve things, head over to theHMOroadmap.co.uk. It is of course our one stop shop. You'll find everything you could possibly need to start, scale and systemise. 

All of our partners. who can offer you the services that you need, tried and tested. And I put my name to them. You can find all of my downloadable resources. It'll save you hours and hours of time and thousands of pounds trying to create them or buy them yourself from somewhere else. Plus all of our videos, over 80k studies from community members, the deal stacker, and so much more. Just trust me, check it out. And I promise you will not regret it. Maybe just a little Christmas present to yourself. Hey, why not? That's it guys. Thank you again and wishing you and your family's a very happy Christmas. Take care and don't forget that I'll be right back here in the very same place next week. So please join me then for another installment of the HMO podcast.