How was your 2022?

Did you lose more than $1 billion of your customers’ money? 

Did you overpay for an unprofitable social-media platform, create a revenue crisis, antagonize your best clients, decimate your staff and lose over 70% of the value of your other business?

Then it was a great year, no?!

Right now the media is full of articles about how Artificial Intelligence (AI) will completely change how we live in the next 20 years. 

There are some incredible AI tools that have been released over the past few months.

But you know what is far more powerful than Artificial Intelligence? It’s Question Intelligence. Your ability to ask – and answer powerful questions.

Over time, Artificial Intelligence will give you better and better answers, because it is good at learning and producing great answers to the questions that you ask. 

But no intelligence in the world can help you if you are asking the wrong questions.

Of course, that’s where coaching comes in… The ability to ask challenging and provocative questions. 

Life-Changing Questions

Great coaches ask great questions but I’ve had access to a tool for the past 25 years that didn’t require a coach but was still absolutely life-changing. You see, once a week, for two and a half decades, I’ve sat down for between 5 minutes and an hour, to answer a few simple but powerful questions. 

And every December, I’ve spent an hour or so reflecting on the entire year that has just passed. 

I used to be completely unconscious about how I lived my life. From the moment I began answering powerful questions, I began to take real responsibility for my life and everything changed. 

The Power of an Annual Review

I highly encourage you to undertake an Annual Review — and to take your clients through one, too. I base my Annual Review around 6 concepts: success, energy, fear, growth, confidence and excitement. 

Take the questions below and answer them for yourself. And read on to see my review of the past 12 months…

THE ANNUAL REVIEW

1. SUCCESS: What are you proud of this year? (It’s not bragging if you’ve done it and bragging is a lost art). 
2. ENERGY: What energized you and what drained you this year? (Your next level of success is held back by the people, places and habits that are draining you of energy). 
3. FEAR: What scared you this year? (Fear is often a mask for desire. Did you let it hold you back, or did you move ahead anyway?)
4. GROWTH: How did you grow this year?
5. CONFIDENCE: What are you most confident about in this current moment?
6. EXCITEMENT: What are you excited for in the year ahead?

MY ANNUAL REVIEW

1. SUCCESS: What are you proud of this year? 

We had one of our best years in top line revenue. We weren’t as profitable as 2021 but that’s because we hired new team members and re-started in-person events in 4PC. It’s expensive to run live events but it feels great to be back in a room with great people. 

4PC is now oversubscribed, with a waiting list to join us and the caliber of our members is world-class. We ran two in-person 4PC Intensives and they were so much fun. The 4PC Accelerator was our best yet and it resulted in some wonderful clients joining our community. 

The April Intensive (RLI) rocked. It was also our best one yet. And I’ve just wrapped the Dubai Deep Dive and I’m reminded how much I love having ten people sit in a circle, with one after another joining me in the Hot Seat. 

Project Kairos is a wonderful program for supporting coaches who want to create clients. It’s incredible to realize that this year we began our 7th cohort. 

It was only two years ago that I began creating smaller programs for the first time. This year, I had so much fun running How to Coach a Superhero, The 90 Day Money Game and Money Money Money.

We added four new team members. I hired a wonderful new assistant, a program manager, a marketing consultant and an audio visual expert. And I upgraded my home office. When you spend so much time on Zoom, you’ve got to create a great experience for your clients. 

We’ve now recorded almost 150 episodes of my podcast, 1 Insight. It’s such fun to create these episodes. All I’m doing is what I love: coaching my ass off. My only regret is that I didn’t start it earlier!

I love to write and, as usual, I wrote over 100 articles, plus another 100 posts on Facebook and Mighty Networks. My writing feels like it’s the best it has ever been. 

I hired a stylist/colorist to upgrade my wardrobe this year. I had always thought this was an unnecessary luxury but it turned out to be a blast. I now have a closet full of clothes that I actually love! Plus, I have a color palette from which to choose future outfits. Walking into John Varvatos, one of my favorite stores, with my white-haired, 70-something stylist, had the guy who was helping us give me a very strange look. By the time we walked out, he said to me, “She’s extraordinary, Rich!”

I began the year working out at a gym doing weight training and I ended the year with a personal trainer who’s got me running 2-3 miles almost every day, with 100 push-ups along the run! I close all three rings on my Apple Watch almost every day and I feel fitter than I’ve felt in years. 

I had the most fun this year doing two things:

First, training our mini Golden Retriever puppy, Luna, who just turned one year old. We’ve mastered sit, down, leave it, drop it, come, high five, watch me, heel, place and wait. Next, my kids are excited to teach her to play dead!

Second, attending the Porsche Driving Academy. I no longer remember where the certificates are for my Bachelor’s and Master’s degrees but I feel like putting this certificate up on the wall! My highlight was driving on the skid pan with my eyes closed…

Monique and I celebrated our 15th wedding anniversary in San Francisco, where we first met. We took the boys on safari in Tanzania. I spent daddy-son time with them in Paris and London. And Monique and I had a couple of overnight date nights. Note to self: we need more of these!

I worked really hard this year but I also took 16 weeks off work and I didn’t work Fridays or after 3.30pm and the business still thrived. 

I’ve added two important meetings to my calendar each week: Business Freedom and Personal Freedom. Since freedom is one of my highest values, it’s been a game-changer to set aside time each week to reflect on what’s energizing me and what’s draining me. 

Finally, I’m coaching some of my most fascinating clients ever. And I completed the first draft of my next book. Yippeee!

2. ENERGY: What energized you and what drained you this year?

Energizers: More adventures, Fridays off, The Porsche Academy, time alone, time with interesting people, training Luna, brainstorming ideas with the team (I process things best by talking them through out loud), time with my mentors, creating (articles, videos, programs, books, etc), and building relationships, particularly with members of my community. 

Drainers: Not moving my body every day, not having date nights on the calendar. Having a full calendar, too much admin, too many meetings. 

Clients who are not open to coaching, clients who constantly filter for what’s wrong, clients who want to caretake on behalf of others. 

Open loops (eg. when team members don’t let me know if an action is in process, stalled or stuck). 

The words, “I had a feeling about that…” (When something goes wrong, there’s nothing worse than a team member letting you know they sensed there might be a problem but felt afraid to say anything. This is why I encourage and reward my team for checking with their intuition and speaking from the heart about red flags – warning signs – especially if they’re unsure that they’re right). 

3. FEAR: What scared you this year? 

I was afraid to finish my book but I did it anyway. I was afraid to wrap up a business deal that had real potential but wasn’t working out quite the way I had hoped. I trusted my intuition and wrapped things up. 

I felt guilty about booking trips and experiences on my own – without Monique and the kids – but I did it anyway. I’m good at taking care of others and have a habit of putting myself last and then quietly resenting people. It’s time to break that habit. 

4. GROWTH: How did you grow this year?

I grew from being mentored on intuition. I grew from couples therapy (and believe me there have been many days when I’ve hated our therapist!) I grew from speaking at the event of a thought leader I really admire. 

I grew from bringing travel and adventure back into my life this year. 

And I grew from having very honest conversations with Monique about how we might create the next 15 years of our relationship. 

5. CONFIDENCE: What are you most confident about in this current moment?

I have absolute confidence and trust in my team and our secret mission statement, “We don’t have a business plan. We have a team. And we’re f**king awesome! We can make any idea or opportunity happen in two weeks or less…” 

I have confidence that the sooner I say NO to anything or anyone that drains me, the more fun and success I’ll have. 

I have confidence that what got me to my current level of success won’t get me to my next level of success. So I’m in the game of constant reinvention. That’s fun – and a little scary. But a little scary is good, so it’s my clue that I’m heading in the right direction. 

I am confident that learning more and more about intuition is a game-changer for me.  

6. EXCITEMENT: What are you excited for in the year ahead?

I am excited for my book launch. I am excited to be creating a bunch of innovative new programs. I am excited to be growing our team. I am excited for what’s shaping up to be a year of travel. I’m writing this in Dubai and in the next 6 months my travel plans include London, Curaçao, New York, Rhode Island, Peru, India and Italy. (Looks like Peru plans may need to change, if you’ve seen the news). 

I’m excited for my agenda in 4PC this year, “The IP is in YOU…”

I’m a recovering overachiever and I intend to live more by this quote from Kevin Kelly, in the year ahead: 

“Efficiency is highly overrated. Goofing off is highly underrated. Regularly scheduled sabbaticals, vacations, breaks, aimless walks, and time off are essential for top performance of any kind. The best kind of work ethic requires a good rest ethic.” 

I’m excited to live more deeply into the premise, “The less you do, the more powerfully you show up and the greater your impact…” 

Finally, I’m excited that Monique and I have already got 12 monthly overnight date nights on the calendar for 2023. Yippeee!

How was the past year for you?

Love. Rich