My goals for 2018, and a reflection on each:
1) Regular yoga practice—average at least 2x/month
Two words for this one: epic fail.
Again, I failed to figure out how to put regular yoga into my schedule.
While that is a total and complete bummer (and my body feels the consequences of this even more this year than I did last year), I have a plan to make yoga actually happen in 2019… stay tuned!
2) Travel half as much as I did last year
As long as I exclude traveling for speaking engagements (which I’m going to), this one I finally achieved. 🎉 If my count is right, I traveled almost a dozen times in 2017 and only six times in 2018.
It’s a very difficult thing, especially in my line of work, to be able to travel less. This kind of goal doesn’t get achieved without a lot of intentionality, planning, and some phenomenal colleagues. To make this possible, I give huge kudos to two amazing team members—they decided to take over leading many of our training experiences last year, and as such, are the primary reason I was able to stay off airplanes. (Thank you Anissa and Pam!)
3) Write majority of Book #2 / 4) Post a new original article on a blog or other media outlet 2x/month
I’m grouping both of my writing-related goals together, as they both suffered a similar fate—they were pushed to the back burner to make room for something totally unexpected at the beginning of last year: finally doing a TEDx!
5) Host another Rework CEO Summit
We talked about doing this, but decided not to.
Sometimes things like this are difficult to predict at the beginning of the year—it seems like a really good idea when we’re writing goals, but just doesn’t feel like a top priority as the wheels of the year get moving.
I’m continuing to learn about the paradox of honoring commitments AND not being overly mired into serving goals that may not be highest-impact as life evolves.
6) Book 3 paid keynote talks at my full speaking fee
I had some fun speaking events throughout the year but didn’t land any full-fee gigs.
It’s perhaps obvious (though for some reason I keep learning this), but opportunities in life seem to come where we put energy, and our team just didn’t do that for speaking last year.
7) Add 100 certified Strengthscope® partners to the tribe
This year we added 57, which was decent growth over last year’s 37.
More importantly, though, 2018 taught us a lot about which kinds of certifications are better for the health of our business than others. This is allowing us some radical focus in our business goals for 2019.
Accomplishments & fun things from 2018:
- Launched an Amazing Year group in Denver (I was a participant in one of these in LA back in 2013)
- Launched our Leader Of The Future Experience
- Did 9 speaking engagements: OD Network in Denver, ACMP in Vegas, University of Denver MBA Class Guest Lecture, Regis University, TEDx, 3to5 Club Summit, OD Network in DC, ACMP Regional in Atlanta, and ATD in Denver
- Saw some excellent shows, including First Date, Hamilton (aw yeah!), Harry Potter and the Cursed Child Parts 1 and 2 (absolutely phenomenal), Aladdin (saw this with my mom!), Sunday In The Park With George, Dear Evan Hansen, and Come From Away
- Traveled for work to Vermont, NYC, Vegas, Kansas City (2x), San Diego, Ohio, Washington DC, San Francisco, and Atlanta
- Hosted 8 events for CULTURE LABx in Denver
- Had both girls in summer swim lessons
- Went to Walt Disney World with my wife and her family — SO. MUCH. FUN.
- Took our girls to see Daniel Tiger Live
- Celebrated our 15th Anniversary!
- Summer vacation in the U.P. cabin… delightful.
- Launched our new company brand, which I’m very proud of: Helios
- Started our oldest in kindergarten and our littlest in preschool (all the feels!)
- Took our girls to see Disney On Ice
Goals For 2019:
A side note about my goals for next year, as there are two conspicuous things missing that have been staples for me in the last few years: speaking engagements and writing my next book. As I learn how to be more of an actual “CEO” and less of a “self-employed guy,” I continue to learn about the vital importance of seriously radical focus, for our team and for me. As such, I’m going to say a difficult “No / not yet” to two things I very much enjoy: speaking engagements (that don’t come to me and aren’t full fee) and writing my next book. Instead, I’ll be focusing my energy on designing and building what’s arguably my most important “product” anyhow, which is the organization I lead, Helios, along with creating a world-changing app for it that will help us achieve a scale of impact we’ve never before been able to even dream of…!
So, with that, here are my goals for 2019:
- Regular yoga practice (because I’m just too damn stubborn to stop trying… and my body needs it badly)
- Build and release a mobile app that revolutionizes how we help transform leaders and organizations
- Create a lot of virtual content to help people love work and to help organizations work more effectively (content could include online courses, regular blog posts, publishing more articles, etc. — I’m not exactly sure of my type and cadence yet, so I’ll refrain from making this goal more specific)
- Spread the TEDx far and wide (my long-term “vision board goal” is 10 million views… please share if you can! Here’s the link: http://bit.ly/jadtedx)
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