Well here we are at the end of another year, and the end of another decade!
I remember the end of the ’90s, and worrying that we were going to lose our database to the Y2K bug… and it only feels like yesterday!
When I think back over the last 10 years, I am reeling at the amount I’ve accomplished whilst living through the most challenging decade of my life.
The last 10 years have seen me sell 3 businesses, open another 4, and pivot so many times it’s mind-boggling. I’ve studied in the fields of fitness, wellness, coaching, business and a HEAP in online marketing. My 20-year marriage ended, I lost a lot of money through some bad investments, moved from Adelaide to Sydney, traveled to hundreds of places around the world, and lived in some awesome places that I never thought I’d live. And the highlight is definitely meeting the man of my dreams and marrying him on the top of a glacier in Alaska.
My biggest learning over this decade has been to be intentional about living your life exactly how you want to live. Living by society’s rules or someone else’s rules can mean you may have regrets, and nobody has time for that!
When I sat down to write my 2019 reflection, I started by thinking not much happened this year. And then I realized:
- I started the year with a workshop tour of 5 cities on the east coast of Australia
- Released 101 episodes of my podcast, Thought Leaders Business Lab
- Interviewed well over 50 experts including Dr. John Demartini, and Ryan Levesque
- Hosted well over 100 webinars
- Presented at the Mid Atlantic Podcast Conference in Atlantic City, as well as numerous events around Australia
- Was on the judging panel for the Stevie Awards – Women in Business, and was invited to the awards ceremony in New York
- And my husband Leon left his 30 year corporate career and joined me in the business. This is something we’d been working towards for a few years, so we’re extremely happy to have made this happen (we may or may not have celebrated this with a bottle of bubbles!)
Writing this post has certainly been a reminder to always take the time to reflect, and acknowledge the wins. I can’t believe I originally thought it was a pretty uneventful year… I crack me up!
My Yearly Theme…
Each year, we choose one word to focus on as the theme for our year, and our 2019 theme was expansion.
It’s interesting to note here, that we didn’t achieve the expansion goal that we set at the beginning of the year. But in actual fact, by keeping our eye on our long term plan, we made some big pivots during the year. This meant that whilst we didn’t get some of the wins that we had originally set, we are on track for achieving our long term goals, and this is much more important.
I’m really proud that we gave ourselves space to really explore this, and didn’t go for the quick wins, or beat ourselves up for failing to achieve our original targets.
I cannot stress the importance of knowing where you’re heading and WHY. It’s so easy to get off course when you’re busy in the day-to-day in your business. If there’s one thing you take from this blog post, I hope it’s this lesson.
Now onto 2020, and the theme we’ve settled on is refinement. We actually settled on this theme much quicker and easier than previous years, and I think it’s because we naturally moved toward this theme as we started to feel the influence of the 2020 energy in November.
Like last year, we spent a lot of time this year on the road traveling. I find I’m much more creative when I’m continually in new places and having new adventures, so this is an important part of our business success. We mixed this up with road trips close to home, interstate trips, and overseas adventures.
I also enjoyed attending many fantastic events and meeting business owners and entrepreneurs doing great things in their space. I love connecting with like-minded people, and sharing ideas – with the added benefit that in many instances, these conversations occurred over a glass of wine (or two!).
Yet again, I have a long list of books I’ve read this year. Almost all of the books I read have been around for years, so you may have already read them yourself. Here are a few of my 2019 favourites:
- Shoe Dog – Phil Knight. This was my highlight book of the year. This is the story of the launch and growth of Nike through the eyes of Phil, so you won’t get any actionable marketing strategies. But what you will get is the real and raw story of the kind of grit and resilience it takes to grow a successful business.
- Free Prize Inside – Seth Godin. With mass marketing not having anywhere near the same effect as it used to, how are you going to innovate and get the edge in your market? As any Seth Godin book, you can expect your brain to be firing off in all directions.
- Superfans – Pat Flynn. This book is an easy read and is full of great stories to drive home the importance of standing out and growing your tribe. “You don’t need to change the entire world to build a successful business; you just need to change someone’s world”.
- The Miracle Morning – Hal Elrod. This book shares the 6 habits that will transform your life before 8am. I heard about it at a time during the year when I was feeling a bit worn out, and the practices in the book had me fired up in no time.
In reflection, 2019 felt a bit all over the place at times.
I questioned my purpose, A LOT!
I pulled things apart and questioned why I’d built them this way, or that way.
I set new foundations in the business and created new things in areas I’d never created before.
I explored opportunities with new collaboration partners and launched new products with them.
I spent time doing things that brought me joy, even though they didn’t necessarily make sense at the time – they just felt right.
I believe that my work and personal journey this year is the beginning of something even bigger as we move into the next decade.
And by continuing to do the work I do, we help create people who love their lives doing work they love, and in turn have happy children, partners, families, and friends. Can you imagine the ripple of impact if everyone loved what they did every single day?
And finally, I want to thank YOU for being part of my world in 2019.
For attending my workshops and webinars, for commenting on my social media posts, for listening to my podcast, and for sharing my work.
I look forward to connecting with you further in 2020 and continuing to help people just like you create and grow unique businesses of purpose, using the expertise that they’ve spent years refining.
Let me know below… How was 2019 for you? And what’s in store for 2020?
Here’s to a new year filled with health, wealth and happiness,
Samantha and Leon
And a few extra things…
The week before Christmas, I did a training on growing your coaching business. If you missed it, that’s OK – you can catch the recording here. It’s for you if you want to add 6 figures to your coaching business in the next 6 months.
Have you subscribed to the Thought Leaders Business Lab podcast? If not, you can do that right here.
And you can join the Thought Leaders Business Lab Community in our private Facebook Group. Be sure to introduce yourself to the group 🙂
