I’m pretty sure 2024 was the busiest year I’ve ever had where I accomplished absolutely nothing.

Of course, that isn’t exactly true. When I looked back at my calendar it was actually a remarkably full year (list below!), but in my memory, the FEEL of the year was largely one of being on an exercise bike… a LOT of pedaling but no real forward movement, at least in regards to this thing called “work.”

And… there are always multiple ways to see it. In a more positive frame, 2024 was simply a year of “planting seeds.” If you’ve built a business (or, I suppose, a farm) before, you know how this works — you can’t control the sprouting, only the planting (and the environment to some degree). So, at the very top of my main Apple Notes To-Do List (the one I utilize all day, every day) it literally says: 

🌱 PLANT. THE. SEEDS. 🌱

It was a BIG year for that. 

A few days ago, my dear friend Carrie and her awesome team at CultureSync led a New Year goal-setting session and I somehow snagged an invite. They asked us what our primary focus for 2025 was going to be. At first, what came up for me was to “Get My Groove Back.” But as I reflected more, it became clear that wasn’t quite right.

Nope, I cannot go “back.”

I am simply not that person anymore. I’m not a person who doesn’t understand venture capital or the betrayal of a business partner. I’m not the guy who hasn’t experienced the terror of a pandemic or the sadness of a divorce. I’m not a leader who doesn’t know the gravity of having a couple dozen people rely on you to pay their bills. I’m no longer a first-time tech founder. I’m many things I wasn’t before.

And maybe that’s perfect.

After all, at its best, resilience doesn’t “bounce back” — it bounces forward.

Now I know I just need to find my New Groove.

But before we go to 2025, let’s take a look back at 2024 — unquestionably the strangest year of my adult life, where almost nothing made sense and almost everything felt like waiting.

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2024 Goals + Reflections

1) Become a paid speaker (again!)

Did I accomplish this? Kind of. I did make a little money from speaking, but nowhere near what I wanted (or needed). In fact, in full scary transparency, my business hadn’t made this little money since the first year I officially became an entrepreneur almost 15 years ago! I made WAY more money in 2010 than I did in 2024. That feels so incredibly… weird.

Shouldn’t all my experience count for something? Shouldn’t my business networking skills be more helpful? Shouldn’t I know how to make money by now? Shouldn’t my knowledge be more valuable than it seems to be?

Do you see all the “shoulds”??

NOT should-ing all over myself became one of my most necessary practices in 2024.

When I say almost nothing made sense this year, this is what I mean. These were all seemingly valid questions, but I couldn’t seem to answer them. Everything that used to work for me just didn’t seem to work anymore.

With a bit more space, I can now say the year felt like a “closed door / open window” situation, where, likely because of my intense stubbornness, the Universe needed to firmly close a sh*t-ton of doors in my face for me to “get it” — it’s time to go somewhere I haven’t gone before.

This seems clear enough now, but earlier this year it was truly, deeply cloudy.

The last thing I’ll say about this goal is that even though I had enough intuitive sense to put it in my 2023 post in March, I didn’t really commit to it until July. I really did spend the first half of 2024 being stubborn. In my defense, persistence felt like the right thing to do — I was trying to keep #lovework alive — but now I can put “knowing more about when to let go” in my learning column as well.

2) Launch and sustain the Work Revolution Podcast

We had such a great plan for this.

Julie, Kali, and I were going to reboot the podcast for what promised to be a phenomenal Season 2. We had a brilliant concept for the theme of the Season, and we thought the 3-person hosting team would be atypical and interesting, like a good old-school radio Morning Show (if you remember those).

But then life happened. Julie got called into other business ventures and I felt increasingly devoured by the survival-mode situations I wrote about above.

I still want to do this. I loved our thematic arc so much, and I fully intend to share it with you as soon as possible.

3) Be more present with the people around me

I know — this is an incredibly subjective goal. In general, though, I think I accomplished it.

As I look back at my year, I see a lot of experiences that were profoundly meaningful to me and that I am happy I prioritized.

More so, I feel like I was present with my kids during our most significant and consistent one-on-one time: the rides to and from school.

Honestly, I was SO annoyed when the school district killed the bus route to and from the downtown school where my little one goes last year. But it turns out, this time is quite precious, and now BOTH my girls attend schools downtown, which means I get some time with both girls every ride and a little one-on-one time with each as well.

It’s super easy to “check out” on these trips, but I really try not to, and most days I succeed. Pickups are harder as I’ve just worked a full day and I’m often tired.

In my other conversations, I also got better at closing apps, utilizing the DND feature on my computer (to eliminate the constant pings and dings), and sometimes even turning off Self-View in Zoom to help me stay more present with the person I was talking to virtually. (I don’t know about you, but I sometimes find that little talking Me quite distracting.)

All of this will continue to be a practice, of course, but overall, I made progress!

4) Regular physical fitness

My goal was 1 yoga a week and 1 strength training a week, and I didn’t quite get this routine solidified.

As the year progressed, I had to reluctantly let go of the indoor climbing gym and the BODY20 experiment (these were my strength training, and both are quite expensive), which really threw me off my game.

Side note: does anyone else struggle as much as I do with getting a workout regiment re-started when the routine gets broken??

Eventually, I tried this place called F45 and really enjoyed it! On average, I was able to do one F45 session a week starting in May and I kept that going weekly until October (when work and volunteer projects got super intense). Then November kicked off a cycle of viruses that kicked my butt for most of that month and into December.

One more section before we get to my 2025 goals… here are the most notable things that happened for me in 2024!

Notable Events From 2024

• Ameritowne Field Trip — I’ve mentioned chaperoning kiddo field trips before; I absolutely love it. This one was adorable, as the 5th graders pretend to be grown-ups for a few hours and ran their own “town.”
• Business Sale (Almost) — I’ve never talked about this publicly, but we got pretty far down the road with a potential buyer for the #lovework business. Obviously it didn’t happen, but it was another fascinating learning experience.
• Spring Health Article — With special thanks to my long-time friend Shannon, I got to write an article for Spring Health called “Energize To Optimize: The Future Of Productivity” — if you haven’t read it, consider checking it out! It starts with a super true story about me in (and probably screwing up) a job interview (something I hadn’t done in 15 years)…
• WorldBlu Summit — Kali and I got to attend WorldBlu’s amazing Freedom At Work Summit in Miami. It was incredible. These are my people.
• Unemployment & Medicaid — Saved my bacon for a good portion of the year. Thank you, Colorado. Also taught me a LOT about navigating government support systems.
• “Love Not Fear” Group — With special thanks to my friend David, I joined a wonderful small Mastermind group for a few months, which helped me re-center around my purpose, craft some new goals, and even update my core values.
• Quality Time With Partner — Kali and I had a lot of fun this year, including enjoying hot springs, hikes, one of our favorite musicals, a trip to space, another ridiculously awesome musical about cannibalism (yes, really), and Terror In The Corn. I’m super thankful for adventurous times with this remarkable human.
• Podcast Guesting — I had the pleasure of guesting on 6 different podcasts in 2024, including the wildly popular AI & The Future Of Work Podcast. If you like, you can find all 6 shows right here.
• Toyota bZ4X — Wouldn’t you know it, the lease on my car was up in 2024. 🙄 I would frankly love to be that guy with no car, but I haven’t figured out how to make this feasible. Due to the “trying to keep #lovework alive” thing I mentioned above, my credit was in the proverbial toilet, so with special thanks to my Dad who co-signed for me (something else I have all sorts of mental “shoulds” about as a person in their early 40’s) I was somehow able to get an EV lease for LESS than I was paying for my last car…! Have you ever heard of this vehicle? I hadn’t!
• Impact Eleven — In June, I was lucky enough to be able to join this fabulous community of speakers. I attended their June Bootcamp in Detroit.
• Outdoor Rock Climbing — For my birthday, Kali surprised me with a super special outdoor rock climbing trip! I’d never done this (I’d only been in climbing gyms!), and it was a thrill.
• Impact Denver — I was super excited to be part of the Denver Leadership Foundation’s fall cohort of Impact Denver, a civic-focused educational experience that taught me so much about the layers of civic infrastructure I’ve mostly ignored my whole life. I found it to be incredibly enlightening, and I’m super grateful for the amazing people I met through this experience.
• Longer Tables — At the end of July, I was one of many volunteers who helped transform Denver’s Civic Center Park into a dining room with a 528 foot long table. (You should probably take a quick peek at the video.) It was so memorable, and so very special. I’m looking forward to helping them create a mile-long table in 2025!
• DisruptHR — In September, I was honored to be first up on the stage at DisruptHR Denver’s fall event. I posted about my experience here, and now the video is available as well if you missed it.
• University Guest Lectures — This fall I got to do two guest lectures at CU Boulder inside their leadership program and one at DU for a HR class. I really enjoy being back on a college campus and around college students.
• Trip To California — I hadn’t been back to California in a few years, so it was really nice to get back and see the ocean and some palm trees. I even almost got back to Disneyland (made it to Downtown Disney).
• BTS Tour @ DMNS + Jeffersonian Dinner — Kali and I were both part of the Event Committee for Impact Denver, and we ended up hosting a pretty cool joint event: a Behind The Scenes Tour of the Denver Museum of Nature & Science (you have NO idea how much crazy stuff they have underground) followed by a Jeffersonian Dinner where Kali masterfully facilitated a conversation about politics, civic duty, and spirituality. Amazing evening.
• First Evanta Gig — In November I got to travel to Fort Lauderdale to deliver the morning keynote to a CIO/CISO Evanta group. I found the event to be incredibly well-produced, the people brilliant and friendly, and I hope I get to do more of these in 2025!
• Nashville Masterclass & UnGala — Every quarter, Impact Eleven holds an in-person Masterclass on a topic of interest for professional speakers, and in December the Masterclass is followed by something they call an “UnGala,” an event that’s exactly as fancy as you want it to be and even more fun than I thought it would be.
• Great Wolf Lodge — In Colorado Springs there’s a magical place called Great Wolf Lodge. (If you don’t know about the waterslides, click that link.) I got to go with the kiddos the year before my divorce, and haven’t been back since. Well, almost a full five years later, we got to go! And even though we were all feeling a bit under the weather, it was awesome.
• Kiddo Events — In addition to GWL, I got to attend SO many beautiful kiddo events this year. I love going to their performances so much, and I treasure the experiences we get to have together. I got to enjoy a choir concert, a 5th grade graduation, a band concert, a production of Peter Pan (with both girls in starring in key roles, no less!), Denver’s fabulous Pride Parade, space (again!), Thanksgiving lunch, the new Wicked movie (OMG amazing), a delightful musical based on books we used to read when they were little, and a holiday concert with the Denver Philharmonic. I am so lucky, and so grateful.

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Goals & Intentions For 2025

For 2025, I have a new way I want to think about my goals — through the lens of “role” and “identity” (thank you to Carrie and the CultureSync team for this).

The idea is to think about the many roles we play in our lives, and then narrow that list down to a few that represent the changes or goals we desire to embody in the new year.

This approach makes a ton of sense, as it helps illuminate limiting beliefs AND anchors desired new habits in a positively-framed forward-momentum “magnet,” which is how successful behavior change works, as far as I can tell (after studying it pretty intently for the last 5 years).

Let me show you…

1) I AM A HEALTH GUY

In 2025, I want to adopt a new kind of focus on my physical health.

For years, maybe my whole life, I have actively dissociated myself with that of the “health guy.” To me, “that guy” was sporty, bulky, muscley, big, food-obsessed, and frankly, annoying. My mental image was the stereotypical “gym bro.”

I am thin, I don’t really play or watch sports, I feel quite out of place in a gym, and due to some kind of fortunate genetic metabolism, I’ve never had to pay much attention to what I eat.

But I now see this mindset as a limiting belief.

As I get older, not seeing myself as a “health guy” is making it hard (impossible?) for me to actually keep my body healthy.

I’ve never talked about this publicly, either — I am also a self-diagnosed borderline hypochondriac. I have been since I was a child, I think. This means I’ve always been a bit afraid of the inside of my body, but thus far my problems have always just been a kind of ghost in my imagination, where the fear is real but the illness never is. Well, as I get older, this gets less likely to be true. Obviously, age does things to our bodies, and I think 2025 will be an important year for me to really learn how the inside of me works, to pay attention to it, and to love it and care for it in ways I simply haven’t had to before.

Because now, I Am A Health Guy. I am adopting this identity.

I think it’s quite unlikely that I will now turn into a gym rat, or even a super muscley dude, but I believe I can craft this identity in a way that will suit me. And it is a belief that actually aligns with my intention to be a centenarian+, whereas my old mindset was actually antithetical to this desire.

If there’s a statement that sums up my adoption of this identity, it would be: “I have never been in better shape.”

Specifically my goals for this identity in 2025 entail:

1. A couple minor surgeries — These are to fix a Baker’s Cyst in my left knee that keeps leaking (because I really like walking) and to fix the deviated septum in my nose (because I also really like breathing).
2. An anti-inflammatory lifestyle — This will entail a journey around healthier food (which is always a challenge as I do not enjoy cooking), supplements, and maybe some other experiments (I will report back on these). I would like to put chiropractic 1-2x/month and massage 1x/month in here, too.
3. A consistent workout routine — I think this has been on my goal list in some form for the past decade or something, so why stop now? Right now my starting objective is to do F45 and yoga, 1x/week each.
4. Daily care routines — Right now I’m thinking about regular electric toothbrushing, regular flossing, water first thing in the morning, and finding some kind of amazing face cream that I should be using daily (suggestions welcome!). Also some kind of meditation and setting of daily intentions when I wake up? I don’t yet know the specific answers but I think these are directionally-correct questions.

This identity is first, because it is what allows me to do all the others.

Ready for the next one?

2) I AM A TIME TRAVELER

This identity/role is actually all about my work. As I see it, I “travel” to a more collectively-desired future and bring back ways to help us create that future.

If there’s a statement that sums up my adoption of this identity, it would be: “I move slowly, with presence.” (Because if there’s one thing a time traveler does NOT have to do, it’s rush.)

Specifically my goals for this identity in 2025 entail:

1. Re-grow my company — You’re probably well aware by now that I am effectively rebuilding from scratch. Not totally, of course, but in many ways. In a nutshell, my goal this time around is to see how big we can make this thing in terms of both impact and revenue with as little overhead as possible. I also want my business to give me as much freedom as it gives me money (many “small business owners” make lots of money but end up a prisoner of their own company).
2. Create cool shit — This year, I am intending to publish 1 new article a week. I also intend to create and publish a brand new book or workbook… more on that soon. 😎 I’ll also create frameworks and worksheets because… well, that’s just what I do.
3. Give freely, in multiple ways — I am intending on joining at least one volunteer board. I have also (quite accidentally) had a few pro bono coaching sessions with friends who are startup founders in one way or another… and I’ve found this to be surprisingly rewarding. I think it makes me feel like the roller coaster of the last 5 years is tangibly helping the world in some way. Right now I’m not actively seeking this, just noticing and getting curious about it. I would be excited to do more guest lecturing at local universities in 2025. I also intend on giving away as much of the above-mentioned “cool shit” as I possibly can.

3) I AM AN ALLY

Originally titled “I Am A Supporter/Helper,” this identity is particularly interesting if you understand Enneagram, especially if you know that I am a Social Enneagram 8.

If there’s a statement that sums up my adoption of this identity, it would be: “I speak up for others.”

Specifically my goals for this identity in 2025 entail:

1. Be more vocal in the moment — I’m not sure if you perceive me as a “vocal” person, but internally I know I can do more to stand up for others. I don’t know exactly what the ideal self-labeling verbiage is, but I know I can and want to be an ally and advocate for the marginalized and oppressed. This year, I want to be more bold, more self-assured, more courageous, and less afraid about standing up for others in the moment when I can and should say something that matters. 
2. Continue to clarify my civic and political thoughts — I don’t currently post very many things publicly about my political opinions or thoughts (although occasionally I simply can’t resist), but these perspectives are increasingly important to me. If you want more of these kinds of thoughts from me you can request me on Instagram or Threads. My accounts there are private, and both are places where I continue to clarify and share my thinking.
3. Support the marginalized and underrepresented — None of us know what exactly the next four years will bring, but I am pretty sure there are going to be opportunities for people in positions of privilege (like me) to support others who are marginalized.

4) I AM AN EXPERIENCE-BRINGER

This identity has quite a lot of crossover with both #2 and #3, but remembering this as a unique role helps me in a variety of facets of my life.

If there’s a statement that sums up my adoption of this identity, it would be: “I am whole.” (Because if I am whole, I can avoid getting caught up in my own whirlwind and show up as a true space-holder in service of others.)

This one doesn’t really have “goals” attached, but more “reminders” as to why this identity is so important to me, specifically:

1. This helps me in my speaking and writing — I want to bring people an experience that changes them somehow.
2. This helps me as a dad — I want to bring meaningful shared experiences into my family.
3. This helps me as a supportive partner — I happen to know a few of Kali’s goals for next year include creating experiences and I intend on being helpful for them.

Next year I’ll report back on the experiences I was able to help create!

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Closing

Well, that was epic! Even more of a saga than usual, I think. If you made it all the way here, I am seriously impressed. But more than that, I am thankful. While I write all this mostly for me, I will admit I maintain some kind of vain hope that maybe the things I write will somehow illuminate something new for you, too.

I wish you love, and light, and peace, and fire, and hope — and probably a bit of dragon-slaying — in 2025.

Thank you for reading, my friends. I am so grateful for you. 🧡