BACKGROUND
What you are reading right now represents multiple firsts for me. It's the first time I did my annual review alongside others through a guided workshop. And it's the first time I'm sharing my annual review somewhat in public. I guess I could also add: it's the first time it's taken less than two weeks to complete an annual review and the first time I've felt this level of joy, confidence, and excitement about it!
With 2020 being such a crazy year filled with so much unexpected change both externally in the world and internally within myself, I felt it was especially important to complete a solid annual review this year.
Along with over 100 others from around the world, I participated in the 3rd Annual "Annual Review" workshop by Forte Lab's Tiago Forte and David Perell.
As I like to do, I went all-in by blocking off the entire weekend. I ritualized things by taking personal retreat within a makeshift pillow fort that I constructed within my city apartment.
After the weekend for the next 11 days, I shared and socialized my reflections and plans with Katie and a handful of others. I spent a few hours every day (mostly first thing in the morning) and a bulk of the second weekend writing and editing. In total, I spent ~60 hours on this. So viola! This is my 2020-2021 Annual Review and Plan.
SUMMARY
It's surprising how much I forgot in 2020. The simple exercises of writing a gratitude list and recollecting all my memories at once brought feelings of true abundance and primed the next phase of connect. Remembering is easier than ever when leveraging technology tools (which I'll use even more going forward to expedite future reviews). I organized my memories into a list of favorites providing a fun "at-a-glance" view of 2020.
2020: Regrouping, Reinventing, and Reawakening
2020 was a pivotal year of "Regrouping, Reinventing, and Reawakening". A year of practicing self-love leading to an increased capacity to love and serve others—namely my parents, Katie, family, and friends—and successfully protecting and growing these most important relationships through crisis. I recovered from professional burnout, quietly transformed internally, and ultimately exploded with new energy and life by embracing my true identity as a multipotentialite learner-creator-designer-dunker, all while the world raged in widespread turmoil driven by a global pandemic. With resiliency, this marathon year's finish line was crossed thanks to acquiring amazing new capabilities and tools (especially metalearning and Building a Second Brain), reclaiming my highest limitless self through transformative personal experiences and spiritual awakening, and co-journeying through the collective struggle with family, friends, and community.
Professionally, HOPA also regrouped, reinvented, and reawakened. We closed HOPA Ala Moana after a two-year run. HOPA served its Pure Aloha mission through new products and mediums and the usual fare at 'Aina Haina. It celebrated its biggest media moment on Netflix's Somebody Feed Phil. A renewed team, strategy, and vision has positioned HOPA for promising future growth going into its second decade of life. My transition into a new career took off as I began seriously exploring the technology world and tech entrepreneurship, mainly by supporting R&D and innovation work with a hyper-growth tech startup. I also stayed connected with the local Hawaii business community by participating in a small business mastermind group, learning the "Value Builder System", and launching local collaboration projects.
2020 taught me so much and provided me valuable lessons to carry forward: embracing my limitless nature, relationships as key to life, living life as art and science, seeking the sweet spot, riding the growing wave of life's abundance, the power of vulnerability, illuminating blindspots, learning how to get help, overcoming fear, maintaining and making space, the exponential power of convergence, alignment for power and leverage, less can be more, and the world hungers for Pure Aloha.
2021: Heal Thyself, Heal the World // Effortless Exponential Dreamalization
As 2020 has proven, the world is unpredictable and is changing exponentially. But that doesn't mean you can't make plans, contrarily, I believe it means plans are more important than ever, for plans provide guidance, structure, and peace of mind amidst chaos. There is a fine balance to strike which can be achieved by designing plans and goals for emergence. Designing systems-based goals that are held lightly. Focusing more on consciously and clearly defining the general themes and intended outcomes. The following are my discovered guideposts of my roadmap for 2021.
Seven words best sum up what brings me the most joy: "Being a Multipotential Dreamalizer Living Pure Aloha". Ahh... such sweet words! To do this, I will intentionally create and spend more time in supportive loving spaces and do deep studies on specific role models, ancient and contemporary.
The elephant in the room revealed itself during the workshop: in 2021 I must embrace and develop an underdeveloped talent and a new identity of "healer". I am excited to double-down on my main success of 2020 of practicing self-love as I go deeper into my self-healing journey, and in doing so grow my ability to heal others and the world at large by recognizing suffering and acting to alleviate it. This is an opportunity to practice learning and creating for an even more fundamental identity and quality that could bring wholeness to my multipotentialism.
I will remain committed to loving and serving my priority relationships with Katie and my immediate family in a year of transition, as well as preparation to serve my future child once I hopefully can become a father. I am also committed to the Pure Aloha vision mainly through loving and serving the teams and organizations of HOPA, RS11, and love-driven entrepreneurs and small business owners. Finally, I want to serve the online communities that have given me so much, including BASB, AR, and upcoming coaching groups.
I will continue to gain knowledge and skills at record speed as I keep building my metalearning capacity and Nosnorb Kroy (my second brain). My key areas for learning: healing, parenting, writing, personal knowledge management, coaching, technology (data science and AI), big history and futurism, role model studies, community building, dunking, visual design, business modeling, and no-code.
The goals I want to double-down on and continue are: self-healing, growing relationship with Katie, supporting my parents' retirement and immediate family transitions, quality time with dad by completing father-son projects, transitioning to passive management of HOPA shop operations, seizing a window of opportunity with a new tech career with RS11, investing in infrastructure/systems/relationships to align and leverage my unique strengths (especially through coaching), building my personal brand and platform, establishing HOPA's flywheel through strategic partnership and publishing projects, growing Nosnorb Kroy, dunking a basketball, and going on retreats for personal transformation.
In 2021, I want to significantly improve my personal finances by increasing my annual income and net worth by 3x. This will require upgrading my money mindset, strategic investments in myself and network, having alignment and focus on the right opportunities, and building capacity through systems and empowering others. Put simply, it's taking "work smarter, not harder" to the next level. I will accelerate and significantly improve my odds of success by engaging in life/business/performance coaching for the first time.
I'm hoping to travel again later in the year, ideally a couple trips to the Big Island, Thailand to spend time with Katie's family, California for work/family/friends, and Europe for a long postponed honeymoon with Katie.