Answering the 40 questions (2025)

Roger on 29/12/2025

Doug Belshaw answered Steph Ango’s 40 questions. Here’s mine for 2025.

  1. What did you do this year that you’d never done before? Start with a hard one, why don’t cha. I think there were probably lots of little things but nothing big stands out.
  2. Did you keep your new year’s resolutions? Kind of. My new year’s resolutions are pretty much always centred around my three areas of focus: contributing to for-good digital transformation, getting an effective education, and living an intentional life. So, all the things I did this year such as starting an MBA (effective education) and maintaining my runway (intentional life) are keeping my new year’s resolutions.
  3. Did anyone close to you give birth? No.
  4. Did anyone close to you die? No.
  5. What cities/states/countries did you visit? Hardly went anywhere, just London.
  6. What would you like to have next year that you lacked this year? More exercise. It’s always the first thing I drop when things get busy.
  7. What date(s) from this year will remain etched upon your memory, and why? Can’t remember any dates in particular and I’m good with that because memorable dates are usually dramatic or traumatic and there’s been enough of that in the past few years.
  8. What was your biggest achievement of the year? Pretty much everything I achieved either involved others or was a step towards something else, so nothing feels like something I have achieved, but I’ll go with developing a clearer positioning of my role at work. I hope I continue to bring calm kind challenge to all the different things I get involved in.
  9. What was your biggest failure? Not supporting people as much and as well as I should have.
  10. What other hardships did you face? My hardest hardship this year was number 39. I’m fine with the stress of suicide attempts, police, ambulances, sleepless nights, unhelpful NHS teams, etc. The hard part is accepting that the help I can provide isn’t always the help that’s wanted or needed.
  11. Did you suffer illness or injury? No, I’m pretty healthy as far as I know.
  12. What was the best thing you bought? A little keyring torch. It helped me connect with a little boy when he needed it.
  13. Whose behaviour merited celebration? One of the leaders I worked with this year showed inspirational levels of humility and self-reflection. That kind of thing isn’t celebrated nearly enough but seeing it stuck with me as something to aim for.
  14. Whose behaviour made you appalled? I should probably say it was people like Trump and Musk but I have such low expectations of them that it’s hard to be appalled by their appalling behaviour, so I’ll say it was some of the NHS mental health team members who literally have the power to affect people’s lives and use that power without much consideration of how their decisions affect people.
  15. Where did most of your money go? House. I track my expenditure and group it into categories for easy analysis so I know exactly how much I’ve spent on books, clothes, and on the house.
  16. What did you get really, really, really excited about? I don’t think I got really, really, really excited about anything, but I was definitely excited by some of the things I’m doing at work and starting to study an MBA.
  17. What song will always remind you of this year? I went to a Dermot Kennedy gig so it’ll probably be this one.
  18. Compared to this time last year, are you: happier or sadder? Richer or poorer? Healthier or unhealthier? About the same. I judge how rich I am by my runway (how many months I could go without an income), which is about the same now as it was at the start of the year. I don’t have a means of judging happiness but feel as even-keeled at the end of the year as I did at the beginning. Health is pretty much the same although with better leading indicators (eating, sleeping, exercising).
  19. What do you wish you’d done more of? Blogging. I used to blog a lot more and wish I had the time to do more of it. It’s where I explore ideas more deeply than I can in weeknotes and it helps me have a more well-thought-through position on things I talk to others about.
  20. What do you wish you’d done less of? Wasting time on things that turned out not to have the effect I thought they would, but without perfect foresight, sometimes you just have to try things.
  21. How are you spending the holidays? Just like every other day.
  22. Did you fall in love this year? No.
  23. Do you hate anyone now that you didn’t hate this time last year? No, same.
  24. What was your favourite show? I don’t watch much TV so I’ll go with Survivorman, which is always my go-to escapist fantasy.
  25. What was the best book you read? Probably Impact-first product teams. Mostly because of the confirmation bias.
  26. What was your greatest musical discovery of the year? Didn’t have any.
  27. What was your favourite film? Can’t remember watching any films so don’t have a favourite but was interested to see some of the stuff about the 50th anniversary of Jaws (which is one of my favourite films).
  28. What was your favourite meal? Coffee cake and custard in a hospital visiting room.
  29. What did you want and get? A hoodie. (I assume this is referring to Christmas presents.)
  30. What did you want and not get? There wasn’t anything else I wanted.
  31. What did you do on your birthday? Nothing much.
  32. What one thing would have made your year immeasurably more satisfying? Spending time in wild places.
  33. How would you describe your personal fashion this year? “Gone ‘till November”, which could have been written about my trousers because I pretty much wear shorts most of the year.
  34. What kept you sane? Work. It gives me focus, intellectual challenge, and a sense of contributing to a larger purpose.
  35. Which celebrity/public figure did you admire the most? None of them.
  36. What political issue stirred you the most? Flags on lampposts. It’s a horribly scary, too-close-to-home show of right-wing power. Also, the stupidity of using St. George’s cross as a symbol to exclude people who “aren’t English enough” when St. George was from what is modern day Turkey.
  37. Who did you miss? I didn’t really miss anyone, my brain doesn’t work that way.
  38. Who was the best new person you met? Probably a delivery manager who’s really good at his job. Delivery management is one of those roles that can be done effectively in so many ways so it’s always good to meet someone who knows their way.
  39. What valuable life lesson did you learn this year? You can take a horse to water but you can’t make it drink. Or, you can offer help but you have to accept that people don’t have to accept it.
  40. What is a quote that sums up your year? “I expect next year to be a record-breaking year.” -Jensen Huang.