11am on the first day of 2025, and I think I have just figured it all out…

Well, not the meaning of life, but it is certainly the meaning I have found this year that I hope will resonate with one or two of you when you reflect back on the past 12 months and as we inevitably start thinking about the year ahead.

2024 was a defining year for me as it was for many of us.

It was brilliant in many ways.  There were so many highs, enjoyed with so many people I truly respect, that I look back on this year with huge pride – I love the wider network I am part of and the team I get to play with every day, for all the small and large successes they have achieved in 2024.

But, in other ways, it was challenging beyond belief, and tested everything we knew (and thought we knew) about our work, about the resilience of our businesses, about leadership in uncertain times, about what we actually truly value in life, about the people we should and need to hang out with, and most importantly… about ourselves.

In a bizarre sort of way, I love years like these. 

Put the wins to one side, I see these as the moments we have been building up to.  To see how we cope when the things outside of our control don’t quite go the way we thought they were going to. 

How do put all those skills that we have learned up to now, to the test. 

Like any marathon runner will tell you...

• How do you push through “the wall” when you just want to stop and rest?
• How do we keep scoring goals, when it feels like the goalposts keep moving?
• How do we keep smiling when sometimes, we just don’t feel like smiling anymore?

We have asked and been asked these questions continuously this year, and in many ways, we have answered them every time.  Good job everyone.  Genuinely. Good job.

But, within those questions lies the key to all of this.  The answer to why we all keep going, keep pushing, keep driving for success.  The fundamental thing that each of us, individually, go back to when things becoming challenging. 

This is not some universal thing that works for everyone; you will have your own thing that works for you.  There is no blueprint here.

But there is your thing, and if you can identify what that is, if you can bottle it up and use it as your superpower when you need a shot in the arm, then I think we’re in a pretty good place to end the year and kick start 2025.

I think I have now managed to distil my thing down to three simple ingredients that make me not only effective when I need to be, but most importantly happy when I want to be. It doesn't always work, but it does more often that not - I will take that!

My three ingredients are Acceptance, Experience and Impact.

Acceptance

When we compare ourselves to others, you will always lose.  There is always a better taken, sunnier, nicer view Instagram photo somewhere.  You will never win.

Don’t get me wrong, I have no issues with “showing off” all the good stuff on social media – in fact I love it!  It personally brings a huge smile to my face seeing people doing fun things, celebrating their successes, being happy, living their best lives.  It inspires me want to continuously do more, be more.

But when we compare ourselves to that, then it goes wrong.

When we compare ourselves to our own potential, however, when we accept who and where we are today and compare that against where we could be if we exercised our real potential, then that creates an opportunity (and a desire) to learn and grow… and that is a good thing.

When you learn self-acceptance, when you learn self-approval, you can’t fail to win.

You vs You.

Impact

On Christmas Day, I genuinely prefer giving presents and seeing people’s reactions when they open them, than I do receiving them.  I know a lot of people feel the same.

It’s that feeling that we are, in some small way in that moment, changing someone’s life for the better.  That just feels good.

I am convinced that one of the most direct routes to eternal happiness (OK, I am going a bit OTT here with the eternal bit, but I honestly feel this is getting pretty close to it!) is making a difference to someone else. 

When you reflect back on the measurable impact you have made this year to those people around you, not for money, not for any other reason than it was the right thing to do and it just felt right, then you start to really get a sense of what real success is all about.

The late Jimmy Carter (US President) said of impact, “I have one life and one chance to make it count for something… my faith demands that I do whatever I can, wherever I am, whenever I can, for as long as I can with whatever I have to try to make a difference.”  

Of course, as we know within the concept of Ikigai, if you can get paid at the same time to make an impact…

Experience

Life to me is all about experiences - making them, embracing them, challenging them, living them. 

When something happens to you, whether you created it or otherwise, that is an experience.  The key is to fall into that experience.  Taste it.  Feel it.  Understand it. Use it.

2024 was abundant with experiences – many new, many never felt before.   New types of Highs. Lows. Pain. Anger. Guilt. Joy. You name it, it came at us.

This is just part of the colourful tapestry that makes us who we are – when an experience comes, take it in.  Understand it.  Enjoy the emotion for what it is.

… and then build on it.

The addiction for me comes from both making the experiences, but then the actual feeling I get from every experience itself (good or bad).

So what do all these ramblings mean for 2025?

For some of you reading this, probably nothing.  These are my ramblings, my experiences of the last 12 months, my translation of what it all means.

But for some of you, I hope, it will give you a nudge to not just reflect back on last year but to actually do something with it.  Otherwise, what’s the point?!

What am I going to do?

Well, I am convinced there are a finite number of core pillars that drive success for each of us.  I have seen this day in day out across the many people we work with across our community, who every day this year have pushed and hustled and dug deep to make the best of 2024 (whatever “best” meant for them). 

These are my 5, that I will obsess about this year (I know that is a strong word, but I genuinely feel that if you don’t obsess about your pillars then they never really happen).  I am not suggesting you follow my 5, find your own that work for you, but at the very least do find your own.

I have written these down on a note that I shall carry with me every day in 2025…

Opportunity

I have always been an optimist and with that tends to come a good dose of opportunism.  As far as I am concerned, there has to be opportunity within everything that happens to me and around me. 

The fun is trying to figure that out as you go.

How big is that opportunity, how possible is it and how likely is it to happen comes down to the four other pillars (see below), but without something you genuinely want to stretch yourself for, to wake up for every day, without that opportunity you strive for, we become wanderers, blown around by factors outside of our control and disengaged by the journey. 

We saw a lot of that in 2024.  Disheartened people “waiting, hoping for the markets to improve”.  Too busy dwelling on the reality to see the opportunity.

My favourite author, Dr Seuss, refers to it as the place where people are just waiting "...for a train to go, or a bus to come, or a plane to go or the mail to come, or the rain to go, or the phone to ring…" - you get my point!

When that happens, when you get stuck in the Waiting Place, the days drag on, the years feel long and you may or may not be successful… but who knows?!  Certainly not you.

This was for many people, one of the main stories of 2024, but I hope won’t be in the new year.

Capability

The world we live in today is very different.  It’s changed and is changing.

That’s fine and expected, but only as long as you can accept the change that is going on around us and then respond accordingly.  That means being “future fit”. 

That means having the right set of skills to do the job tomorrow, to future proof your capability.

The skills you have built up over the years have got you to where you are today, but they won’t necessarily get you to where you are trying to go next.  I have been asking myself this question all over the Christmas period – what skills do I need to have on my 2025 CV if I want to achieve my full potential this year?

I need to evolve at the same pace (if not faster) as the environment around me, and so does my business.

Potential

Henry Ford hit the nail on the head when he said, “whether you think you can or you think you can’t, you’re probably right.”

Success is always down to our mindset.

How much do we want it?  How much are we willing to go through to get it?

Later this year, I’ll be taking part in Quest, a 1000km Ultra Triathlon from Glasgow to London to raise money for Great Ormond Street hospital all in the name of two amazing souls (Ryan McCabe from Odro and TJ, my first son) who both left this planet too soon.

Physically this will stretch me beyond anywhere I have been before, but I know I have it in me as I think we all do, but it won’t be my body that will determine if I compete it or not. 

It will be my mind.

I have seen too many people limit their potential in 2024, because they didn’t have the right mindset.  They just didn’t want it enough, they just didn’t obsess about the opportunity enough, especially when things got challenging.

Easy to say, harder to do.

… but always the difference that makes the difference.

Capacity

If there is one thing that 2024 has taught us the most, is the true value of time. 

It is the most precious commodity on this planet and yet the one thing I think we abuse and disrespect the most.  Time.

Time to enjoy those experiences. Time with the people we cherish the most, whilst we still have time to cherish them. Time to do more of the things that allow us to outperform our potential.

Time.

In 2024, I started to understand how to better protect some of my time. This was huge for me.

How to ringfence moments in my day to do the things that really mattered to me, to my business, to my wellbeing.  To achieve Flowstate (if you don’t know, look it up!).

Again, easy to say, harder to do!

How efficient I can be in 2025, will be the determining factor for me.  I will not achieve those opportunities I am setting out, if I don’t create the time to use my capability.

Nor will I enjoy the journey.

Cadence

If any of you do any form of cycling, or running, or swimming, you will know the importance of cadence.  Creating a consistent rhythm in your activity. A beat.

The heartbeat that pumps the motion, that propels you forward.

It creates consistency. A greater sense of stability – two things in particular that were being challenged the most this year.

When you lose that rhythm, when you lose that cadence, your success spikes up and down, as does your mindset, your emotions, your mental resilience. They become a mess.

We spent of lot of last year talking about doing the basics brilliantly and consistently, and we will continue to beat that drum in 2025. 

So there it is.  That’s me done for the year just gone and now fired up for the year ahead, whatever it brings.

My 2024 unwrapped into three words:

• Acceptance
• Impact
• Experience

... and my 5 pillars of success for 2025:

• Opportunity
• Capability
• Potential
• Capacity
• Cadence

I genuinely believe with the right mindset, the right skills, the right people around us and the right focus we can all achieve our goals for 2025… and that is certainly what I intend to do using my 5 pillars of success, for both myself as well as everyone I work with this year.

As Dr Seus concludes:

“You’re off to Great Places! Today is your day!

Your mountain is waiting. So… get on your way!"

Happy New Year everyone.