I am writing this between Christmas and New Year, in Limassol (the Cypriot city where I have lived since 2018), in a house quieter than usual. In other years this week meant suitcases, airports, maybe a ski slope and certainly a trip to Bucharest to see friends. This year it means the dining table, my wife, my daughter and my son, and a laptop I have opened far too often over the last nine months.
I do not want to write a dramatic year in review. We all lived through the same year, each in our own way, and many people lost far more than I did: loved ones, their health, businesses built over a lifetime. I just want to write down, honestly, what 2020 taught me. Maybe for myself, a few years from now. Maybe for anyone reading who recognises themselves in it.
1. Plans are hypotheses, not promises
I started 2020 with a full calendar: projects to launch, trips booked, meetings set months in advance. By March, almost everything had turned into “we’ll see”. Back then I wrote about the first lessons from lockdown and thought we were talking about a few weeks. Nearly all of us were wrong.
The lesson is not that plans are useless. It is that a plan is a hypothesis you test, not a promise you make to yourself. Entrepreneurs know this from business, where we test, measure and adjust all the time. This year I learned to apply it to life too: have a plan, have a plan B, and do not argue with reality when it breaks plan A.
2. Health and family come before any project
I have said many times that family comes first. This year I was forced to actually live it. All of us at home, with school on a screen, work on a screen, news on a screen. There were tense days, I will not pretend otherwise. But there were also months when I spent more time with my children than in many years put together.
When your main worry becomes “let’s all stay healthy”, the other worries quietly find their place. A delayed project can be recovered. A year in which you did not see your kids grow up cannot. It is not a brilliant insight, it is a cliché. But some clichés only make sense when life pushes them right under your nose.
3. A cash reserve is not paranoia, it is peace of mind
In 2009 I learned the hard way what it means to face a crisis without reserves: I sold the majority stake in my online businesses because the alternative was bankruptcy, and I regretted it for a long time. Since then I have always kept money aside, in my companies and at home. Some friends used to tease me for being too cautious.
In 2020, that caution made the difference between making decisions with a clear head and making them out of fear. I watched again, this time from the outside, as companies that looked healthy on paper got into trouble within weeks because they lived month to month. My conclusion has not changed: a few months of expenses set aside is not idle money. It is time you have bought. And in a crisis, time is the most expensive thing there is.
4. A small circle of real friends
Since I moved to Cyprus in 2018, the only thing I have truly missed about Romania is my friends. I wrote about it when I described what I miss about Romania. Until this year I made up for it by flying to Bucharest often. In 2020 those trips became rare.
Distance did a natural sorting. Not every relationship made it through this year, and that is fine. The ones that remained are those where a phone call needs no reason, where it does not matter that we have not seen each other for months. I understood that I do not need a hundred acquaintances, but a few people I can call at any hour. And I cannot wait to hug them again.
5. Technology kept businesses alive, but screens wear you out
Without digital tools, 2020 would have been an even bigger economic disaster. Shops that already had a solid online presence held up better. Teams that already worked remotely barely missed a beat. In the spring I wrote about what we gain and what we lose as working from home becomes the norm, and I still believe part of that change is here to stay.
But I also discovered the flip side. A full day of video calls drains you differently from a day of face-to-face meetings. You lose the breaks, the walk between two meetings, the look on the face of the person across the table. A few rules that helped me:
- I do not book calls back to back; I leave at least fifteen minutes between them;
- many conversations can be settled with a well-written message or a call with the camera off;
- in the evening the laptop is closed and the phone stays in another room, at least for a few hours;
- at least once a day I go outside without a screen, even if it is just a short walk.
6. Slowing down is not failure
I am someone who lives on the move. I travel a lot, I have been to five of the six inhabited continents, I dive, ski and play tennis. This year almost all of that stopped. At first it felt like a loss, even a kind of personal frustration.
Over time I found that a slower pace has something to say too. I had time to think before answering, to read more, to do fewer things but do them better. It is not the first time I have learned this: a few years ago I wrote about how I learned to stop. The difference is that this time I did not choose the pause. It was imposed on me. And, oddly enough, it did me good.
7. Gratitude for the things we took for granted
A flight to a new destination. A goodbye hug. A packed conference, with people arguing over ideas during the coffee break. A long dinner with friends, without counting how many of you are in the room. All of this felt normal to me. This year showed me they are privileges.
I do not want to get nostalgic. I just want to make sure that when I have them again, I no longer take them for granted. To enjoy a crowded airport, a queue at the ski lift, an event where you shake hands with people. If 2020 taught me anything, it is to be grateful more often, and sooner.
What I expect from 2021
This month brought the first truly good news. The UK started vaccinating in early December, the European Union authorised the Pfizer-BioNTech vaccine on 21 December, and the vaccination campaign across member states is due to start in the next few days, from 27 December. At the same time, the UK reported a new variant of the virus that seems to spread more easily, and borders were closed again.
So I am not making predictions. I do not know when we will get back to a normal life, or what that normal will look like. I think 2021 will be a year of transition, with hope and patience in equal measure. My resolutions are few: keep my reserve, protect my time with my family, stay close to my real friends and, when it becomes possible, pack my bags again.
What did 2020 teach you? What is one thing you used to take for granted that you want to value more from now on? I would love to hear.