Year End Review – 3 BIggest Lessons on Leadership and Growth from Inc5000 Leaders

Looking back at your past is a powerful tool in leadership. The bIggest lessons on leadership come when we get radically honest with ourselves. I want to give you a look into my year in review with my goals and milestones. I also share the bIggest lessons on leadership from hundreds of interviews. Please tune in to see my process for starting the new year and looking back at the reality of the previous year. I also make some big announcements about what 2020 will look like.

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Year End Review: The Transcript

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Disclaimer: This transcript was created using YouTube’s translator tool and that may mean that some of the words, grammar, and typos come from a misinterpretation of the video.

Welcome to growth think tank. This is the one and only place where you will get insight from the founders and the CEOs. The fastest-growing privately held companies. I am the host. My name is Gene Hammett. I hope leaders and their teams navigate the defining moments of their growth. Are you ready to grow?

Welcome to growth think tank. This is the year in review. I always do a little bit of a look back on where I have grown as a person and where this podcast has grown to. I am excited to share with you some of the things that are going to talk about today because it will help you in your journey to look back and for you to plan this next year.

2020 is a big year ends in zero so a lot of people put a lot more emphasis on those things just like we do in the years of our birthdays it ends in zeros. I have a big one coming up this year which will be my 50th birthday. I don’t feel like I’m 40 yet but I guess that’s good. I feel like I look young. I feel young and it’s but I am putting a lot of emphasis on this year to get things the way I want them to be. I’m excited to share this episode with you about growth think tank because looking back I can really see some big changes that have been made in the podcast but also in me personally for a podcast and point you know that we started the year you’re interviewing pretty much anyone who had some insights and value to help you as a leader and that was great.

I had a lot of bestselling authors on there a lot of speakers a lot of people that have special insight to this but about mid-year, I really decided to double down and focus on those in the trenches changed the name to growth think tank and I only interview those founders and CEOs on the big 500 so hopefully, you find that valuable. But when I think back about some of the things I learned through these interviews and through living life this past year I think you can also do the same thing with your look back so let’s reflect a little bit on life.

I think you can create your own categories but if you have these you know the categories that mean the most to you you will be able to put goals put your things that you’re looking for to grow into inside these different categories and so you’re not one dimensional in fact having one goal because I don’t know many people who only set one goal. It sounds really amazing if you only had one thing what would it be. But I think in life you know there’s more things than just you know money or there are more things than just family.

I know that’s kind of scary to say but I do decide to put three big categories of goals together. And looking back at those I’m going to share with you The Good The Bad and ugly. When I think about my goals I look at business first because this is a business podcast so let’s just start there. I’m looking back at you know the goals I set with intention for the beginning of the year I wanted the podcast to grow I wanted my speaking to grow not necessary in number of numbers the actual number of gigs but in the amount of money that I was charging for those gigs and so I made those big goals.

I also had an income goal now I will tell you I’m going to. I did some math a little bit earlier today where I calculated my income goal. For this year and I’m going to share with you kind of the percent increase for 2019 over 2018 because I have a very specific spreadsheet I use and it calculates all the stuff for me. So I looked at it today I’m recording this we’ve got what five days before in the year six days and I’m at forty-two point one percent over what I was for all of 2018.

That’s in revenue. So a 42 percent increase. Not bad. I’m pretty happy about that. I actually didn’t know it was that high. I looked at different numbers and I thought it was you know. It was OK 42 percent and then that’s a pretty big jump given where I am with this and having a bigger jump. Next year is definitely part of the plan. The other number I track is you know contracts booked. So I can look at the revenue that’s booked into the next year. So I call this next yearbook increase and it’s over 97 percent ninety-seven point eight percent to be exact.

Almost double what I had from last year carrying into the new year. So that tells me my Momentum’s building in a moving forward. So I don’t know what numbers you track specifically but you get to see looking back and be honest with yourself where. Are you. You really know to excel against what you wanted to do. No, I didn’t hit every goal. It’s kind of the way things worked for me I set some very lofty goals I wanted to have more speeches at 10000 plus I did have more speeches this year but I didn’t hit my goal.

So I’ve got to look at that gold again seriously this year to decide what’s right for me. And I will tell you about what I’m to do that at the end of the episode the other things that kind of humor from a business standpoint the quality of work has increased dramatically. I know that I’m getting better results. I’ve got a new offer that I’ve been working with clients on it’s called a deep dive for two days where they come to me in Atlanta Georgia and I have just so enjoyed delivering this and the results have been phenomenal.

I’ve got a few of those already booked for next year so it really is exciting to have the quality of work has increased. Results for clients are better. I love getting results for clients I’m actually addicted to this. I’m really bought into it. My hours worked probably about the same. I work a lot. I really do put a lot into all of the things that go wrong. I’m still juggling a lot of things. The team has increased four times in 19. I hope to increase again but. I.

I put a lot of work into creating the content creating the videos creating the podcast servicing my client’s marketing selling and in working with the team.

Frankly, the writing is getting a little bit better a little bit easier. December is going to be the best month I’ve ever had on ink writing. No page views. It’s just been phenomenal this month. And that is mainly due to one article that just really took off. You never can tell when those will hit but writing’s getting better my team around that really you know jamming. So that’s fun. And the podcasts just love doing the interviews love really serving you and making you building off the team for that has been awesome as well.

So I do want to make the podcast better. If you haven’t already heard. I’d love to hear your feedback if you’re listening to this just go to Gene Hemet dot com port slash survey as you are VII and you can get in on that. We’re going to give away five one hundred dollar kind of gift certificates or gift cards to random people that fill that out. You have to do it accurately have to do it completely. But I really would love you to be a part of the survey. Just go to Gene Hemant dot com ports our survey.

Another area that I look back on and reflect on his family and family is it is very important to me. My wife my son who is almost 13 really loves spending time with them love you know being connected to them. We added a new dog this past year. We took in a foster we thought it was a really good idea to give back and help these foster animals. And I knew it would probably happen which is what did happen which is we end up adopting the second dog. So we have two dogs and a cat.

And so that meant that makes six of us in the family and you know it’s not your traditional family. But this is good for us really love spending time with them just time with my wife just had my son and then time together as a family. And I’ll tell you about the big goal we have for next year coming up. The one thing that was really cool that we did this year as we were on a great vacation to my mother and really enjoy doing that. One thing I didn’t get if I if I’m being honest with you I wanted to be out of completely out of debt.

I am carrying over some tax debt from previous years from income that I made and wasn’t didn’t pay off everything had to do to fill out as much paperwork and whatnot. And so yeah I’m not out of debt on that so that’s going to be a big win for 2020. The third category I look at it personally and this is means a lot to me because you know you have money and you have a family but you not take care of yourself then it really is. You know what’s the point. So I have had.

10 percent body fat calculation on my goals list for probably more than a decade. It really has been a long time. I wish I would’ve known how far back as I could really use a little bit of upset specificity with this but I will tell you I didn’t make it. I didn’t come anywhere close to it. In fact, I’m further away than ever just because I found out my scale was broken and no longer am I at 19 percent body path I’m at 26 percent. So in one day I just found out that I was much fatter than I really was.

So looking back lets you be really honest and you know having something to measure and guide that by I think is important. You may have your own plans but I’m just being real with you because I didn’t hit that goal I didn’t commit to myself until late in the year. Now if you’ve heard some recent episodes I recently did an interview with Angela Polley I talked about my health plan and what has happened and losing about 14-15 pounds from that has been phenomenal. And that’s just over the last less than two months.

I started November 5th so it really is exciting to know that that’s heading in the right direction and building momentum. I wanted to get a brown belt in jujitsu and I didn’t get it. I got my fourth stripe on my purple belt which puts me in the very next step is a brown belt. I’ve got to commit myself to the right training into really improving on my own jujitsu skills in order to get to that level and get to a black belt eventually. And my spiritual growth you know I was here with a men’s group this past year and really enjoyed having these conversations with the men’s group.

I’m no longer with that men’s group but you know there’s something going on inside me about spiritually that that continues to grow and I really do enjoy that and I want to double down that in the next year. And looking back at these different categories and I wonder what your process says I would love you to share with me what you’re doing. Looking back at the numbers what categories you put in there because maybe I could learn something from it. Maybe we can have a chat about it. I’d love to support you in something that’s really important to you and your growth.

I will tell you to know three words that really stand out to me. Looking back at last year are these three words and the means so much to me that I want to share them with you. When I think about the leaders that are growing their companies and creating a culture and evolving as leaders and really having an impact in the world that they’re having they really represent all three of these in a big way. Now some people maybe have room for improvement like we all do but they really do think about being proactive a lot.

So that’s the first one proactive. And I think this really is an important piece to all of the work we’re doing as leaders is to be proactive. We want to be proactive in our leadership and design and defining the culture that we want to proactively our goals proactive with how we treat others and not reactive.

We spent too much time reactive. My business is completely run around. The idea of being proactive. Very little of it is reactive. So that is impressive to me and it makes it easier for us to manage that kind of growth. Had. The second word behind this is mastery is something I’ve thought about for a long time it’s one reason why I do Brazilian jujitsu because it’s incredibly hard. One of the hardest things I’ve ever done to stay healthy and continue evolving. And it takes the right mindset for mastery.

Same thing with leadership. You’ve got to truly be intentional about how you’re going to show up in that journey of mastery. Leadership is very important. And then finally ownership. This is the year of ownership in 2019 because that was I’ve had so many conversations with companies about you know creating ownership amongst their people and what’s moving forward. And that really is a big part of this. You know even at a personal level you’ve got to own your health. You’ve got to own the fact that you’re not hitting your goal weight or you’re not eating the right way.

And that’s really important to do. Now as we plan for what’s going to happen in 2020 I’m just going to kind of throw this out there for you. I’ve got some really big things planned for myself and hopefully, you’re doing the same thing. And you can maybe learn a little bit about how this works. But the first one is you know going back to the same categories of business you know I’m planning on increasing the revenue drastically. I want to increase the team. I want to create necessary more programs but I want to completely fill out the programs we had.

I forgot to even mention that we did the Porsche leadership event the two days intensive.

That was just the first time I’ve heard Dan in a moment Tom Tiger had so much fun with that. But when we raced around Porsches and we had four founders and CEOs and CEOs of fast-growth companies come in and have a two-day conversation on leadership and the evolution of that leadership was just some of the best work I’ve ever done. So I want to do more of that in 2020 and we’re going to speak more very intentional about where we’re speaking. I’m not worried about the fees as much although that will come.

But I want to get on the right stages and that is definitely part of the journey for 2020. And finally the podcast we won’t improve it. We want to make sure that we’re serving you. So make sure you go to the survey. Gene Hammett com for such a survey to get it right away. As far as a family we’re going to go on a big trip. We had a couple of date nights about maybe about two months ago with my wife and we were just discussing what we wanted to do and it kind of hit me.

We have a 13-year-old he’s 12 now he’ll be 13 soon but he’s only got six more summers with us until college or till he’s an adult until he’s practically on his own. And we wanted to do something special and we thought about it. We looked at different options. We’ve decided we’re gonna go to Italy for one month. This year. Most likely gonna be July. We haven’t got the exact dates down. We haven’t actually put this together because we don’t know how we’re going to create this.

We’ve got a very busy schedule. Our teams depend on us. Their clients depend on us. I do plan on working while I’m on this. This one month vacation but I’m going to minimize that. The only two client work and only work with no sales conversations that are necessary but I’m not planning on doing podcast interviews and not planning on writing flights that they won’t be doing during that period. So.

I say all this to you because this is a big goal for the family and spending time with them and really traveling exploring is really an adventure for us so we’re excited about it. Personally 10 percent body fat. That’s it. You heard me say it here. I’m gonna finally get there. I’m going to continue what I’ve been doing I’m gonna take it to the next level and working with some trainers and some nutritionists and I’m gonna commit being intentional about my own food and taking full ownership of that. That’s a big part of where I’m going for 2020.

So that’s just a look back and look forward to you. And I’m curious about what you’re doing. I’m curious about how you were planning to grow and there’s a way I can help you. This is not a pitch for me to sell you something but I really do want to serve you so I would love to hear what you’re doing I’d love to have you chime back in so we sent out an email about what you’re doing to prepare for 2020. I want to be a part of that and this is again I’m not trying to sell you a program or anything like that.

I’m just literally want to be a part of your group.

So make sure you keep tuning in here to go think tank make sure you keep pushing forward to your own goals and you make sure you keep me in mind if I can help you and serve you in any way.

As always lead with courage. We’ll see you next time.

Disclaimer: This transcript was created using YouTube’s translator tool and that may mean that some of the words, grammar, and typos come from a misinterpretation of the video.

 

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