2012: Year In Review

My goals for 2012 were:

1. Publish and release my book.
2. Travel outside of the US at least once.
3. Increase Strengths Doctors revenues and client list.
4. Speak more targeted gigs (corporations, conferences, leadership institutes, etc.) and get paid regularly for them.
5. Do yoga Get some form of physical activity/exercise and floss every day (hey, I like my teeth). (UPDATED 4/10/12 — apparently I’m just not ready for every-day yoga yet! Baby steps.)

Overall, I did pretty well meeting my goals for last year. My book was (finally) released in October, I was able to travel to China, my business and speaking roster grew considerably, and I flossed every single damn day like a obsessive dental hygienist. (This didn’t stop the actual hygienist from telling me I was still “doing it wrong” last month, mind you. I’m starting to think this special brand of condescension may be why they’re paid so well — they have quite a gift for it.)

My big failure of last year was in the physical activity category (even after I downgraded my goal, geez). We’ll see how I do in 2013, I suppose!

Accomplishments & Highlights From 2012:

• At the end of 2011 I dropped my literary agent and by early spring found my book’s publisher, Silver Thread.
• Attended the Future of Work Conference in San Luis Obispo, the Training Conference 2012 in Atlanta, the In2In Forum in Woodland Hills, and the SANG Conference near LAX.
• Accredited five new “West Coast Team” Strengthscope partners
• Visited China — Beijing, Nanjing, and Shanghai, to be more specific
• Went to four YEC Meetups (It’s such a blast meeting these folks!)
• Helped launch a project called LIA (now on hiatus, but will hopefully be resurrected someday soon — it’s quite cool)
• Performed 14 speaking engagements
• Had articles published in Fast Company, Business Insider, The Agency Post, Under30CEO, and a few others — I consider the Fast Company article to be a huge success, especially, as it has been shared almost 6,000 times as of the moment I write this
• Was identified as one of 10 Los Angeles Entrepreneurs To Watch by YFS Magazine
• Was recognized as one of the Top 50 Bloggers For Young Careerists by YouTern
• Was listed as one of the 63 Los Angeles Entrepreneurs To Be Proud Of by IdeaMensch
• Attended a screening here in LA for Broke* — this gorgeous film was made by a couple of my best friends in the world, and I am so proud of them
• Saw The Book of Mormon at the Pantages Theater in Hollywood
• Contributed a chapter for Ash Kumra’s book Confessions From An Entrepreneur (Volume 1)
• Helped create a training program called The Energy Equation, which helps managers and employees learn how to get and stay energized at work
• Visited Disneyland/California Adventure 8 times
• Took a wonderful vacation in Denver/Boulder
• Spoke at the PIHRA 2012 Annual Conference in Anaheim
• Released my book!

One of my other favorite micro-moments of 2012 happened right near the end of the year as I was having coffee with a friend. We sat down to catch up and she pulled out her massively dog-eared and scribbled-in copy of my book. It’s almost impossible to say how much of a flattering experience this was.

Goals for 2013:

1. Regular physical activity every day (let’s try this again!)
2. Sell 2,500 books (that’s a little more than 200/month if you’re counting)
3. Increase speaking income (target = 30% of total revenue via speaking)
4. Double overall business revenue from 2012
5. Release a brand new eBook (I’ll give more details about this soon, but for now I’ll say it will be very short, very interesting, and all about my time working at Apple)
6. Re-edit and re-release my first book, Blur, as an eBook
7. Officially launch The Work Revolution project (you’ll find this at workrevolution.org — though there’s nothing there quite yet!)
8. Blog less, publish more

The last one I want to explain a bit — since, if you’re still reading this, you’re clearly a very loyal blog reader. In order for me to meet my other goals, it’s become apparent to me that I need to continue “widening the circle” of who I can reach with my writing. As evidenced by the Fast Company article, etc., I can do this more easily by leveraging sources that already have larger audiences. I’m not sure yet of my new blogging schedule (as you know, I was doing a new article every single Monday), but I do know that I am still planning on bringing new, original thoughts to this blog on a very regular basis.

What do you need to do? Absolutely nothing. Except, perhaps, you may occasionally have to click a link to read my latest thoughts, as they will be published somewhere else — I’m guessing/hoping you won’t mind that too much. Everything I write will still be listed right here on this blog, and this will continue to be the best way to stay connected to what I’m learning about the future of work, company culture, etc.

I have a few other extraordinarily exciting things that I’ll be sharing in 2013 — I just can’t talk about them quite yet. You’ll just have to wait to hear about those… :-)

Until next time! As always, my most sincere thanks for reading.

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