My 2024 Annual Review

Hey friends,

I'm back for the second year in a row with my annual review.

You can read my 2023 annual review here. You can also view all of my Annual Reviews on this page.

What is the purpose of my annual review?

This review aims to honestly reflect on my past year, for better or worse, and set a high-level direction for the coming year.

In doing so, I hope to momentarily remove myself from the day-to-day scurry and steer the course of my life toward my deeper desires.

Additionally, by engaging in this process year after year, I hope to be more accurate in setting meaningful and attainable goals each year.

Lastly, I derive a sense of appreciation from this process and enjoy it, which matters.

What is the structure of my annual review?

The structure of this annual review is focused on answering the following three questions:

What went well this year?
What didn’t go well this year?
What am I working toward next year?

May this reflection inspire you to assess how your reality aligns with your vision and actions.

With that said, let's get to it.

What went well this year?

This year, I decided to limit my areas of what went well and what didn't to a maximum of three per domain. For what went well, the top choices were Spirit Work, Networking, and Learning.

Spirit Work

Although I have been technically sober for the past three years of my life, it wasn't until the past year of my life that I began working carefully with a mentor to establish a daily spiritual program of prayer, service, and reflection.

This process has yielded slow-developing results that have improved the quality of my life. Not drinking or using drugs to relieve tension has forced me to develop a new tool kit for managing anxiety, fear, and other challenging emotions. Because of this, I have relied on exercise, talking with others, journaling, identifying and processing emotions, and creating healthy routines in my life.

All of this work has compounded to:

Reduce my anxiety
Improve my relationships
Reduce my tendencies toward people-pleasing
Lengthen the time between stimulus and response
Create more space for exercise
And be more present for my family

I credit these gains to fully engaging with the program of Alcoholics Anonymous by going to a weekly meeting, working with a sponsor, sponsoring someone else, and practicing a daily process of turning over my fears and anxieties to a higher power.

Networking

I've discovered I enjoy and am skilled at bringing people together around a shared purpose. I put this skill to work in 2024 by forming an online mastermind group of some of the most influential people in the world in the ADHD support and mental health space, which met monthly online.

I created and organized this group using the techniques I learned in the book Mastermind Dinners by Jayson Gaignard. My approach in forming this group was to be of value and service to people who inspire me without asking for anything in return and operating from a core belief that by being of service, I would receive benefits that I could not predict or imagine; I have been amazed by the results.

By organizing this group here were some of the benefits:

My businesses gained extensive visibility by being shared by other members of the group
I gained a favorable reputation for being helpful and supportive to some of the most successful people in my industry
I was asked to lead program development for an upcoming conference of people in my industry
Highly successful people started reaching out to me to be a part of my dinners and events
I learned much about how to make my business more profitable, lean, and useful

As I have gone through this expeirence, I have come to believe more and more in the concept of being an Anteambulo, which is a Latin word that means "one who clears the path". Ryan Holiday talks about this in his book Ego is the Enemy, and here is a short break down for those who are unfamiliar:

In Ancient Rome, wealthy patrons hired artists and writers to "walk in front of them" by going places to prepare and support them for their arrival. In doing this, the Anteambulo would build extensive relationships and "clear the way," but also lead the charge, making them incredibly valuable. In doing so, they not only "clear the way," but also chart the course.

This counterintuitive principle of leadership reminds me of one of my favorite quotes from the iconic Grateful Dead song, "Ripple":

You who choose to lead must follow

Learning

In 2024, I slowly realized there will never be a day in which I will escape all my problems and challenges, but I do have the opportunity to see my challenges as gateways to learning new skills and mindsets.

With this new framework, I engaged in lots of professional and personal development that empowered me to face my challenges more clearly and courageously. Here were some of the the notable tools that supported me:

Justin Welsh's courses and his Saturday Solopreneur newsletter
Start with No by Jim Camp
The Alter Ego Effect by Todd Herman
The One Thing by Gary Keller and Jay Papasan
Crucial Conversations by Kerry Patterson, Joseph Grenny, Ron McMillan, and Al Switzler
Comes A Time by Neil Young

I also worked with a life coach, Greg Nakashima, who was incredibly impactful and gave me a range of tools and encouragement to approach my personal and professional relationships with more courage, assertiveness, and vulnerability.

Facilitation

I invested in learning to become a professional facilitator, completing a course, and joining an online community of facilitators. This was incredibly helpful as I learned core skills, which helped me kickstart a new program supporting school districts to improve their special education offerings.

Leadership

In 2024, I had to make tough leadership decisions to keep one of my businesses afloat. These decisions had painful reverberations, which forced me to evolve from always wanting to be liked as a leader to doing what was necessary for the sustainability of the business. This was a head-on collision between my ideals and my reality. To navigate this process, I developed an approach for making challenging decisions, which was the following:

I surrounded myself with a core team of trusted advisors to approach these decisions with care and thoughtfulness. I gathered everyone's input, processed the various perspectives, and then acted with force and clarity when I had reached a conclusion. Through this process, I leaned into the tools for my program of spiritual living, which included prayer, meditation, exercise, and getting adequate rest.

While I faced many challenges, I also learned that having a structured process to make tough decisions can reduce anxiety and lead to better executive function.

As a mentor of mine shared:

"See the chaos, be around the chaos, but don't become the chaos."

What didn’t go so well this year?

2024 was a pretty phenomenal year in hindsight, but here are some areas I struggled in:

Business growth

As one of my businesses has grown, it has become a complex organization with different levels of administration and responsibility. Given that this is my first time leading an organization, I had to grapple with new challenges around avoiding going into debt and responding to team members' desires. This was like walking on a tightrope without a circus net to catch me. I did my best to navigate these challenges while experiencing many growth pains. Above all, I am grateful for the opportunity to lead and learn.

Transitions

One area for development is the daily transition from work to home life. I've noticed that if I do not create a space between the end of my work day and the beginning of home life, I tend to carry the challenges and frustrations of the work day into my home life. I also noticed that if I do not create a practice for grounding myself before work and throughout the day, I can become dysregulated and overwhelmed by "all the things."

Additionally, I would like to harness the power of stepping away from my phone and computer for extended periods, especially during a weekly "Sabbath" in which I focus on being anti-productive. I was not so consistent with this throughout the year, and I hope to improve my skills in this domain.

Communication

I struggle with communication, both personally and professionally. While I do not doubt my ability to communicate my ideas in writing, I often fear being direct with others to avoid hurting them. This lack of radical candor can lead to not providing timely feedback, allowing unacceptable behaviors and activities to fester and explode down the line. To develop my skills in this area, I plan to read more about communication skills and leadership, work with a business mentor, and challenge myself to have crucial conversations throughout 2025.

What am I working toward?

Here are three areas that I would like to zone in on in 2025.

Family Legacy

I want to create memorable family experiences that include travel, holiday traditions, and family reunions. To prepare for this, I am using annual calendars to visualize the year as a whole, rather than focusing on things week by week or month by month. I will also block out weekly time to plan with my wife about family goals and visions.

Scaling my Courses

I look forward to scaling up my courses so that more people can get support through my offers and launch their executive function coaching practices. I aim to make 175 course sales per quarter and determine the questions I need to ask to get closer to that goal. To do this, I will work on becoming more skilled at creating email segments and offering value through targeted campaigns that address the most critical needs of identified segments in my audiences.

Being Impactful

As I continue to evolve as a person and leader, I want to ensure what I create and improve aligns with my legacy to support others in improving their executive function skills. With this in mind, I plan to identify selective opportunities that allow me to support executive function skills on system-wide approaches. I see this happening through a range of activities that include:

Developing strong and skilled leadership teams in my coaching companies that will carry on the work indefinitely
Doing keynote speaking on executive function skill development
Creating and refining courses that help people develop EF skills
Supporting more influencers and thought leaders around harnessing their message to be more impactful
Leading the program development for NeuroDiversion 2025, to gather and support neurodiverse people in one location

The Bottom Line

I hope you enjoyed reading my annual review for 2024. I wish you much success, clarity, and joy this year. If you would like to dig deeper into my work, check out the following links:

See all of my annual reviews here.

Halfway through the year, I do an "Integrity Report," where I evaluate to what degree I align with my vision for the year.

See all of my Integrity Reports here.

Thank you to Chris Guillebeau, James Clear, and Jesse J. Anderson for inspiring me to write this.

Hi, I'm Sean 👋

After building three successful businesses in five years, I felt a strong pull to create a broader impact—not just within my businesses but in the larger community.

I struggled with balancing my desire to share my expertise with my commitment to raising two young children and running multiple businesses.

Creating a mastermind group of accomplished entrepreneurs helped me realize there’s never a “perfect time” to start sharing your knowledge—the time is always now.

Guided by the wisdom and accountability of my mastermind peers, I began publishing and helping others, turning my expertise into a source of value for those navigating similar challenges.

If you'd like to contact me, you can connect with me via my LinkedIn page.