Life

2017: Year In Review

January 1, 2018• Leadership, Legacy, Life

So… 2017.

You were a doozy of a year, in so many ways.

Overall, I can’t say I’m necessarily sad to see you go, though I will also recognize with gratitude all the wonderful things you delivered.

First, a look back on the goals I set nearly 525,600 minutes ago…

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My goals for 2017, and a reflection on each:

1) Re-start yoga practice—average at least 1x/week

Weeeelll, turns out 1x/week was overly audacious. Across the year, I did a little better than 1x/month on average, sadly—though I will suggest that Yoga On The Rocks should count for at least double, right? *Photo I took below* (Quite an experience.)

That said, if I choose to live according to the “There are no excuses or reasons—there are only priorities” quote from last year’s reflection, I do believe I prioritized the most important things throughout the year (more to come on that).

And that said, I am also completely aware that the pace I kept this year without a sustainable exercise practice is deeply unsustainable and does not create the kind of healthy life I want to live, so adjustments truly need to be made.

2) Get take-home pay to pre-merger level by end of year

I’ve learned so much in the last three years of being a 50% co-owner in a pair of companies. One of those things is just how much commitment and energy it takes to maintain consistency salary levels for a whole group of people instead of just one person.

If you haven’t ever made this transition in your business (from solo-preneur to business owner), I realize what I’m saying probably seems like a completely boneheaded notion—of course that would be a big deal, duh!—stated by Captain Obvious (me). But for whatever reason, I didn’t truly comprehend the total impact of this shift until this last year. As a solo-preneur, I got quite used to the roller coaster of that life with its big paydays and long famines, and when you’re only covering your own livelihood, once you develop good habits around saving money in good times, the waves are reasonably easy to ride. But the moment you take on other people’s’ livelihoods (and I’m not talking about 1099 contractors, but people who primarily depend on the company you own to do things like eat and pay their rent), the game really does change. Again, I probably should have figured this out much faster, but I get it now, deep in my bones.

All that to say, I didn’t strive to raise my salary this year but chose to prioritize other things, including investing in building what I believe will be my business for the foreseeable future: Strengthscope here in the U.S.

3) Continue to grow network in Denver (24 new kick-ass connections by end of year)

I do believe I accomplished this (even with a concrete number, this one is still a bit hard to track/measure). I met SO many wonderful Colorado folks this last year. I continue to be blown away by the kindness, authenticity, and down-to-earth-ness of the people I meet here!

The whole Strengthscope team is SO excited to continue building our network in, influence on, and service to this amazing city in 2018.

4) Average 1 airplane/month, only traveling for things ONLY I can do

I definitely need to re-write this goal. For the most part I believe I accomplished this, but I don’t say that with any kind of satisfaction, as my travel in the second half of 2017 quite nearly did me in, physically/mentally/emotionally.

It turns out the statement “Things ONLY I can do” is slippery in a deeply sinister way, as it’s far too easy to rationalize as “true” in order to justify doing the activity at hand.

5) 25k Twitter followers by end of year

I didn’t quite make this goal, but I did make a respectable leap to ~20,500 followers. http://twitter.com/joshallan

6) Post a new original article on a blog or other media outlet 1x/week

I averaged about 1x/month for almost the first six months and then… well, the last half of 2017 just totally kicked my arse.

7) Release audiobook of Igniting the Invisible Tribe

Yes! Finally got this out—a huge thank you to my friend Jim Seybert for absolutely killing it on the narration (so good!). Here’s a link if you’d like to check it out: http://bit.ly/invisible-tribe-audible

8) Have Dynamizer™ in production and for sale publicly

After multiple years of side-hustle on this project, my partners and I finally released Dynamizer™ into the world! I’m immensely proud of it, and hope it will get out into the world in a big way in 2018, so it can start helping kids everywhere understand what makes them energized and amazing. http://thedynamizer.com

Accomplishments & fun things from 2017:

  • My wife and I continued our DCPA membership for Broadway-themed musical productions, and saw the following shows: Fun Home, An American In Paris, The Curious Incident Of The Dog In The Night-Time, Frozen, Something Rotten, and Waitress
  • For our anniversary, the wife and I also took a trip to NYC (first trip sans-kids!) and saw 1984, Dear Evan Hanson, and Come From Away on Broadway (it was a pretty good year for theater)
  • We saw the fabulously-funky Amos Lee with the Colorado Symphony at Red Rocks—and yes, everything about that is exactly as magical as it sounds
  • Got a last-minute summer vacation to Michigan, which I always love; if you haven’t been there in the summer, please go
  • Did a karaoke date night in a private room in RiNo with some new Denver friends (SO FUN!)
  • Went to Anderson Farm and a local apple orchard with the kiddos (these may not sound dramatic, but this stuff is like freaking Disneyland for tiny humans)
  • Women’s March —I’m terribly sad I didn’t get to actually be out on the streets, but I do consider myself to have been a part of it as I “took one for the team” to be home with the kiddos so my wife could join, and I am SO glad she did… the power of that experience still resonates with me, and I was just following it via social media!
  • Had a chance to work with my wife — we were able to hire her company to work with us on our branding/messaging/story, and not only were they an enormous help, but I think it gave her a chance to experience what I do in a new way, which was really special for me
  • Hosted the first inaugural Rework CEO Summit in Boulder — the first gathering that exists solely to create a community for leaders of self-managed companies
  • Spoke at: 3to5 Leadership Forum, USC, ICF-LA, ATD, Startup Iceland, Vanguard’s Creating Healthy Organizations Conference, OD Network, Denver Startup Week, Insights Conference, APWA’s Imagination To Innovation Conference, the Global Strengthscope Practitioner Conference, and the OC Expanded Learning Summit (where we officially launched Dynamizer™)
  • Traveled to Los Angeles (a couple times), Atlanta, Iceland, Orange County (a couple times), NYC (a couple times), San Diego, Michigan, Eastern Washington state, London, Vermont, Tokyo, and Kansas City… and the vast majority of this happened in the second half of the year
  • Helped reboot CULTURE LABx in Denver — if you happen to be in Denver please join us; we have some REALLY cool things planned for 2018
  • Potty-trained the littlest kiddo
  • Celebrated Thanksgiving with our adopted family (dear friends) here in Colorado
  • Hosted both sets of grandparents in our home over the holidays (so wonderful!)
  • Added 37 revolutionary Practitioners to the Strengthscope tribe (woo!)
  • Made HUGE updates to the Strengthscope business plan here in the U.S. — much more to come on this throughout 2018!
  • Despite my barren blog, I did manage to publish a few things that I felt were pretty important to write:

Goals For 2018:

  1. Regular yoga practice—average at least 2x/month
  2. Travel half as much as I did last year
  3. Write majority of Book #2 (goal of publishing release = 2019)
  4. Post a new original article on a blog or other media outlet 2x/month
  5. Host another Rework CEO Summit
  6. Book 3 paid keynote talks at my full speaking fee
  7. Add 100 certified StrengthscopeÂŽ partners to the tribe

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The Story Of Dynamizer

July 10, 2017• Legacy, Life

Around three or four years ago, we started shopping the idea around.

But nobody wanted it.

Now, everyone loved the idea — in a nutshell: to create a product that would help kids discover and develop their strengths — but they didn’t have the bandwidth to do it, or they had other priorities, or any number of other completely legitimate reasons.

So, after spending a number of months trying to get someone else to do it, we eventually realized that the creators were looking back at us in the mirror.

But none of us had the bandwidth, either.

So, we did what any other crazy entrepreneurs would do (maybe?): we put a weekly 30-minute check-in call on our calendars and made a commitment to each other to keep the ball rolling.

A year went by and we had narrowed the strengths down to sixteen items to try out. We bucketed them into four categories, and sent them to the fabulous Camp Rise Above for testing.

With the Camp’s help, we knew we had something special after the very first round. The offer was simple: a “card game” (we now know to call it a “learning activity”) that allowed ill campers to self-select activities that made them feel strong and alive. So uncomplicated, but it provided lasting and profound effects — for many campers, learning to focus on what’s RIGHT about them (in a world obsessed with everything wrong with them) was one of the most memorable parts of camp.

So we kept going.

We kept refining the language to make it easier for young people to understand.

We started working on different designs for the cards and released a new iteration.

Another year had gone by.

We added in Exaggerators™ — what happens when your strength goes too far and starts frustrating the people around you.

We updated the design again, and built some very cool single-pack prototypes.

We found ourselves navigating a few detours along the way — at one point, we were convinced the product needed a mascot, so that lead us down a rather time-consuming trail. (Though I will say I’m not sure we’ve totally let that one go; we may yet see Dinah the Dynamizer one day…)

And another year had gone by.

Then we shifted from individually-wrapped decks to a 15-deck box to make it easier for teachers, youth group leaders, and camp counselors to help lead conversations with many kids at once.

That required completely NEW prototypes.

And a completely redesigned instruction booklet.

(And another year.)

But, finally, at long last, we found our way to the product you see at the top of this post.

Click here to see the photo!

Now, 15 decks of Dynamizer are all contained in a little blue box. But it’s still exactly what it’s always been — a simple set of cards that contains a world of positive possibilities for young people everywhere.

Isn’t it time we helped our young people focus more on what’s RIGHT with them, instead of obsessing over their deficiencies and gaps? As a society we tend to fix what’s wrong instead of building on strengths — but this strategy never helps our kids truly thrive.

And sure, this product is designed to help kids eventually end up in a career they love. But kids do quite a lot of living before they end up in a job, and long before they’re in a workplace, knowing their strengths helps young people interact better with others, build better relationships, stand up to peer pressure, and can even help prevent bullying.

Are you ready for this?

(We are… it’s been a few years.)

I hope you’ll join the Dynamizer tribe. We need your assistance to make it happen — there are no investors with deep pockets bankrolling this thing. So far, it’s been entirely bootstrapped by us three creators, and we’re hoping an Indiegogo campaign will help us pay for our first production run and build momentum around this movement.

It’s our goal to bring the power of strengths to young people all over the world — will you help us?

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Visit our Indiegogo Page to Donate or Purchase!

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2016: Year In Review

January 1, 2017• Life

As we get started, I want to share something I learned toward the end of this year from a new friend and strategic business partner of mine, Chuck Blakeman. He shared something that was told to him by his mother years ago:

“There are no excuses or even reasons—there are only priorities.”

It’s hard for me to describe to you how deeply this resonates with me, and how profoundly it has already altered my thinking. So, with that said, I’ll make no excuses for what I’ll share below, but will instead offer my thoughts on how I occasionally prioritized other things over the goals I initially set.

So with that sentiment ringing in my/your ears, let’s get on with the show!

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My goals for 2016, and a reflection on each:

1) Continue my yoga practice

Ooof, it’s a bummer to start with this one. I made it to yoga twice (?) this year…? I drastically underestimated the number of other things I would prioritize when moving my family into a new city. I will say that I’m not giving up on my practice, though… more below in my goals for 2017.

2) Get my salary back to pre-merger levels

Definitely made huge strides on this over 2015, but we’re still not quite there. We’ve got a solid plan in place to make sure this happens by the end of 2017.

3) Grow Twitter followers 10x (right now I’m at ~2000)

At the time of this writing, I’m at 13,200 followers, so I didn’t make my 10x goal but I did grow a respectable 6.6x.

4) Official proposal/outline and agent for Biz Book #2

This goal was a big question mark for me for the whole first half of 2016—I was seriously considering making it happen even into Q2. Eventually, though, I decided to intentionally put it on the back burner and revisit it later, which is… well, now. I’m not going to put this into my official goals for 2017, but I will say that, as happens with crazy people like me who write, I have been waking up early some mornings with full chapters that I transcribe furiously into the Notes app on my iPhone from bed… in other words, I’m pretty sure Book #2 is coming soon.

5) Work Revolution Summit #2

We were dangerously close to seeing this happen—The Work Revolution decided to “present” a related event that I co-founded called the Rework CEO Summit, which was going to happen in November. At the last minute, we decided to postpone this event into 2017 due to scheduling conflicts with some of our attending CEOs. I am remarkably excited about this project, and fully expect it—and a couple other fun Work Revolution-related things—to happen in 2017.

6) Build a thriving local network in Denver

Despite the total unmeasurable fuzziness of this goal, I consider it to be off to a very successful start! I’ve met some really fabulous individuals over the last year, and have very publicly told almost all of them my goal is to “meet all the cool people in Denver/Boulder over the next 5 years.” I’ve gotten connected to folks at the local chapters for NSA, ATD, OD Network, CultureLabx, Small Giants, and also a number of other groups I haven’t been able to actually attend yet. In December, I also joined a business owner group called 3to5 Club. I personally believe in building meaningful relationships, and as such, a thriving local network is a goal that will just take time; there’s no real way to rush or accelerate it—I just have to be persistent and genuine, which is my continuing intention.

7) 50% unstructured time (no meetings in afternoons)

This goal was a huge area of success for me. As my work/role has shifted from “consultant” to “CEO,” my time has been needed more and more in video chats and phone calls (these are what count as “meetings” for me). While this is understandable and (mostly) welcomed, the tangible effect of this transition was that by the end of 2015 I was feeling absurdly scattered and completely unable to find time to do more of the “creative” aspects of my work—those things that require solid, uninterrupted blocks of time so I can read / think / write / design, etc. without getting pulled out of my zone of focus by a 30-minute call that got plopped in the middle of my afternoon. Blocking my afternoons as sacred was magic, and I’ll be continuing it again this year.

Also, a quick note on this if you’d like to try it: know that it’s harder than it sounds (at least it was for me). I have to be continually diligent about protecting this time from myself, first and foremost, and then also be kindly insistent that other people (on my team, vendor-partners, colleagues, clients, etc.) respect my need for this as well.

Accomplishments & fun things from 2016:

  • We moved into our new house on January 1, 2016! If you’re curious, the truck with all our “stuff” in it arrived to said house on January 4, 2016. ;-)
  • I moved my office back into my house, down into the basement (something that’s not really an option in LA)—and after having a separate office space down the street for the last ~3 years, this was an interesting, and mostly great, transition. The commute certainly can’t be beat!
  • We potty-trained our then-two-year-old—a huge, fantastic, shining achievement for all involved (those of you who have done this know exactly what I’m talking about).
  • We got acclimated to the mile-high altitude, our new neighborhood, our new courtyard, and our new neighbors. You don’t get to pick these people, so we are extremely grateful for how wonderful they all are!
  • We mostly-furnished our house and completed a side-yard patio that is quite lovely—as you may recall, we had a TINY apartment in LA, and gave away or sold most of our furniture before we left, so this has (and continues to be) an interesting process.
  • We hosted a number of dear friends in our new home when they visited Denver, and it was simply delightful to be able to offer them a place to crash in a space that could be mostly their own (the basement)—we found this to be a bit more appealing to guests than a couch in our living room, for some strange reason…!
  • We traveled to see both of our families over the summer, which was excellent—easier travel and better weather in their respective northern-U.S. locations.
  • Our three-year-old started preschool, two afternoons per week, and also ballet class—she loves them both, which makes my nerdy-artsy daddy heart very happy.
  • Purchased season tickets to the DCPA musical theater 2016-2017 season. So far, we’ve seen Cabaret, An Act Of God, and Finding Neverland. Great date nights! Loving it.
  • Spent two glorious days at Disneyland/California Adventure—call me a nerd or whatever you like, but after being Annual Passholders for the last ten years… wow, we miss that place.
  • For the first time since we were married (13 years ago!), we did NOT travel for the end-of-year holidays, but instead hosted our families at our house. A M A Z I N G.
  • I did a couple of keynotes and a guest lecture at a local university; always tremendous fun for me!
  • We built and launched a brand new strengthscopeUS.com website.
  • We experienced an exciting amount of other business successes—I won’t bore you with a list of those accomplishments, but want to share one notable change. Since starting our partnership, Mike and I have been running both of our companies as Co-CEOs. This approach worked well for us to get everything started, but was proving to be increasingly difficult as each business kept growing—in short, we were starting to feel spread much too thin. So, starting in 2017 we’ll be focusing our roles: Mike will be taking over as CEO of beForte (our consulting arm) and I’ll become CEO of Strengthscope U.S. (our product company). We’re both still owners of both and will continue to serve in an ongoing strategic advisory role for the other company, and we’re hopeful this will provide us with more focused energy to help each company continue their growth!

Goals For 2017:

  1. Re-start yoga practice—average at least 1x/week
  2. Get take-home pay to pre-merger level by end of year
  3. Continue to grow network in Denver (24 new kick-ass connections by end of year)
  4. Average 1 airplane/month, only traveling for things ONLY I can do
  5. 25k Twitter followers by end of year
  6. Post a new original article on a blog or other media outlet 1x/week
  7. Release audiobook of Igniting the Invisible Tribe
  8. Have Dynamizer in production and for sale publicly (this is a side project I’ve been working on for years, literally, to help kids discover and utilize their strengths!)

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