Progress Check.

Reunions, Reflections, and Resets (fuelled by pizza)

Hey team,

Welcome back to a slightly revamped newsletter 😊

We have a new name, a new logo and a new layout on Substack - which was inspired (stolen) from Paul Millerd’s homepage (thanks Paul Millerd haha) - and a very slightly different format.

I realised one of the reasons there was friction in me writing each week was that I felt pressure to write a mini essay with a good hook and, like I mentioned last week, a moral to the story.

I was treating it like a heavy-lift Substack post rather than a low-lift weekly newsletter.

But then I thought about the newsletters that I like to read, and they have a much lighter tone with an intro, an outro and some good stuff in the middle.

And so, whilst I can’t promise the good stuff in the middle (sorry 😬), I can write an intro and an outro and try to make it feel more me.

I think the change in name to Progress Check also helps because all I’m doing is writing an update from the week, not some high value essay (not that my posts have ever been high value ha).

And so, with all of that being said, here’s my update from the week …

🎄 Ex-Team Ali Abdaal Reunion

After our official Team Ali Abdaal Christmas Social last year, a bunch of us went for a drink and decided (in true Ali Abdaal style) to set our goals for 2025. Mine may or may not have included leaving Team Ali after almost 4 years - but that’s a story for another day 🤐

We also thought it would be a cool idea to all meet up the next year, at the same place, to do it all over again.

So last Monday I headed into London to catch up with the (mostly) ex-Ali Abdaal gang for our Christmas reunion. A few of of us did some co-working in the day, but then we all met for dinner - for the very traditional Christmas dinner … pizza 😂

It really was so nice to see everyone again and even though we’re all pretty good at staying in touch in some capacity, nothing beats having a proper “off the clock” catch up whilst breaking bread (pizza crust?).

So catch up we did - for a solid 2 hours. And then we caught up some more when walking the 30 minutes to the same place we ended up at for drinks last year.

It was at this point that I realised that I would only be able to stay for 20 minutes if I was to catch the train home that I’d booked, but I knew it was going to be worth getting a much later (and longer) train back and another ticket. And worth it it was …

🧡 Talented Friends

Do we all look happier having left?

Once we’d taken the obligatory group photo for the gram, we settled in our booth to talk goals.

But instead of just setting our goals, Saf (again, in true Ali Abdaal style) suggested we also give a little recap of our year seeing as we didn’t all have a chance to speak to each other at dinner.

This was such a good idea because (a) we all got to get up to speed on what everyone else had been up to over the last year and (b) whilst we were going around the table, I realised just how cool my friends were 🤩

Between them, they’d launched successful 6-figure businesses, landed incredible new jobs & clients, and travelled to some pretty cool parts of the world. These guys had achieved so much since leaving and I was so proud of what they’d done and I’m so grateful that I get to call these guys my friends.

Now, I’ll be honest, I was very thankful we’d gone in leaving order because it meant I had 5 people before me, which gave me a some time to think. Compared to everyone else, I felt like I didn’t have a list of achievements - or even an achievement tbh.

No big launch. No headline win. No job.

Just a 3 month sabbatical (would recommend btw), a tentative step into freelancing, and a whole lot of “what on earth am I actually doing?!”.

But tbh, even though everyone has absolutely smashed it this year - they all did it in their own way, on their own time. And it’s pretty damn inspiring to see. So I’ll do it my way, in my own time 🫡

I can’t wait to see where we’ll all be in another year’s time 🚀

Bhav x

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