2021: Year In Review

Hello my friends!

Wow, it’s been a whole year since I posted! Believe it or not, 2021 was the first year I haven’t posted multiple entries since I started blogging in 2005.

I hope this note finds you well as we begin a new year together.

As usual, let’s start with a review of my goals from last year…

//

Goals For 2021 + Reflection

1) A little less “fight,” a little more “flow”

I’m going to mark this one a success. I feel I did a good job throughout the year of paying attention to the contrast of drawing from my interior power instead of pushing with external force; I tried hard to note when to go with the flow and when to speak up and express my truth. This will be an ongoing exercise for me, but I feel much stronger in my ability to do this effectively after a solid year of practice.

2) Start learning jazz piano

I didn’t go much further than “start,” but I did get started! I found a teacher I like, and had exactly two lessons before I decided I didn’t have the time and bandwidth to properly put towards this endeavor. I am still very committed to doing this more completely in the next couple years.

3) Take a long vacation on a beach

I wasn’t this specific in my publicly-posted goal last year, but privately I set an intention to go to Mexico for my 40th birthday in June with a romantic partner, and the universe conspired with me because that’s exactly what happened. I also started a new tradition that I will make at least a once-a-year occurrence: a solo trip of some kind where I am intentionally experiencing solitude and time to recharge my individual battery.

4) Continue good workout habits

Overall, this was a success. I developed a pretty solid rotation of a short workout via an app and Apple Fitness+ (usually HIIT). In my company, we also started working with a yoga instructor to do a 30-minute session with our team every week over Zoom, which was incredibly enjoyable and is something we’re still continuing into this year!

5) Build more relationships

I accomplished this in multiple ways. Since early last year, I’ve been building a new romantic relationship that has been fun, deep, and incredibly meaningful. Through that relationship, I also made a number of new friends as I got back out into the world a bit: going to shows, festivals, parties, and even a road trip. On the business front, we invited a number of new “work friends” (i.e. colleagues) into the company, and I also built relationships with a some very interesting people in the investor community. I still want to work more on building more new friendships in Denver, but I believe that will happen more organically now that we’re nearing the endemic stage of this crazy COVID thing.

6) Orbit the entire Helios biz around #lovework

We did this in some really big ways last year. It mostly happened behind the scenes — it’s an absurd amount of work to pivot a company in the way we have, especially in such a condensed timeframe and with the corresponding pressure from a pandemic — but the fruits of our labor will be much more publicly-visible in 2022 as we bring the #lovework product more fully to the world.

//

Notable Events From 2021

• Flood in my house — Right around Valentine’s Day, something strange happened in my 3rd floor laundry room and water ended up pouring down through the walls on all three levels. This also happened to be at the same time as a bitter cold front rolled through Denver (below-zero degree temps) so everything was frozen… like, “tiny icicles hanging from my garage ceiling” frozen. Fortunately my home insurance covered most of the cost, but it was a multi-month process to get my house put back together!
• Staycation — As mentioned above, I discovered a new tradition for a solo recharge trip. In 2021, that came in the form of a long weekend “staycation” at a local Denver hotel/spa… maybe I’ll wander a bit further from home for this in 2022…
• New romantic partner — This was without question the most transformative part of my year. I’ve learned so much from this relationship already, and I feel sooo amazingly lucky that we somehow met each other (ask me sometime and I’ll tell you the story).
• COVID vaccine — I was thrilled to get the Pfizer vaccine as early as I did. For someone like me with health-related anxiety, the vaccine did a ton to move my mental wellness in a positive direction.
• Mexico trip — Mentioned above of course. I definitely need a LOT more beach in my life, y’all… something about the ocean is pure healing for me.
• Cat Café — My youngest daughter loooves kitties, so we took her to the local Cat Cafe for her birthday. Cue: overwhelming adorableness.
• Playing and singing again — I didn’t do any public performing in 2021, but it felt REALLY good to get back into playing and singing again, if only a little here and there.
• LEGOLand — Allison and I took the kiddos on a surprise summer trip to LEGOLand. This was SO very much fun, and I’m deeply grateful Allison and I can do things like this together.
• True Power Mastermind — My friend Rúna created a beautiful Mastermind experience and invited me to join; this was a really transformative thing for me to be part of in the last half of 2021.
• Festival & roadtrip — As mentioned above, I got to attend a music festival and we road-tripped through Pagosa Springs on the way back. I had been itching to get some hot springs in my life, so this was fabulous!
• So. Much. Content. — A huge amount of my work-life last year was spent creating content for the #lovework app. I am very glad I did it, but wow… the scope of that project made writing a book feel easy.
• Holiday Disneyland — The romantic partner and I took my kiddos to Disneyland at holiday time. I’m already experiencing so much joy from the beautiful memories created by this trip. I was also reminded of my deep love for travel, and I’m thrilled by the possibility of including my kids more on future trips… they are becoming great little travelers. Side note on this topic: my friend Mark posted a quote that really impacted me — he said, “I used to prioritize my schedule. Now I schedule my priorities.” Taking this advice to heart was the singular reason I did the kiddo trip, and I am very committed to living my life in a way where I schedule my priorities moving forward.

Priorities/Intentions/Goals For 2022

1. More physical fitness — Now that I’m, ahem, officially in my 40’s (but just barely, thankyouverymuch!), it’s definitely necessary to keep up my physical fitness habits. Might even work on a few vanity projects this year… no time like winter to get ready for pool season, right!?
2. Buy a beach property in Mexico — This feels like a bit of a stretch, but I’m gonna put it out there: I want to buy a property somewhere on the Yucatán peninsula before the end of 2022.
3. Get back to Europe for pleasure — It’s been far too long since I’ve set foot in Europe. Specifically I want to visit Amsterdam again, but maybe I can visit a few other places while I’m there, too…
4. Build relationships — Continue to put myself out there more, making more new friends, reconnecting with old friends, and deepening the most important relationships in my life. More love, y’all… more love.
5. Create great memories with kiddos — I don’t have specific plans for how I want to do this yet (other than hopefully another holiday Disney trip next winter!), but I absolutely want/need to do more day-trips and travel with my kiddos… it brings me so much joy.
6. 10,000 paid users in #lovework — On the work-front, 2022 is when we start really helping large numbers of people learn how to love work. Our goal is to have at least 10k paid users by the end of the year, but we’ll see… maybe we can do more!

Thank you so much for reading this.

I wish you light and love in 2022, and if we haven’t talked in awhile please reach out! 🧡