A Year in the Rearview

That's right, this is technically email 53 😳

In case you never saw it, the first email was definitely a similar theme to my usual emails, but it's still hard for me to read past writing ... it's like listening to myself in a recording - no thanks lol.

Hopefully my writing has improved and the value in these has increased, but either way I've learned a couple things since starting these, and I figured it was worth recounting some lessons before kicking off a new year!

When I started this series, I was in probably the deepest depression I've ever experienced in my life.

I wouldn't have said I wanted to die, but I definitely had the thought many times that if a semi hit me head on while driving home, I actually wouldn't be mad about it - it'd kinda be nice to have someone screw up and take me out of the picture, so to speak.

Terrible place to be, but straight up, that's where I was.

And I knew it was a culmination of life events, poor decisions, and an overall broken mindset, stemming from a weakened walk with the Lord.

I determined I would do two things to work through the funk, thanks to input and wisdom of some very special people in my life.

First, I decided to pray for breakthrough - I didn't know for what exactly, or how much, I just prayed for total, undoubtable breakthrough in 2024, in the name of Jesus.

Second, I figured that in order to battle the deafening sea of negative thoughts in my head, I would begin an email series (even if no one subscribed) where every week I would recap the week and share a lesson I was learning - with the primary goal to encourage the readers.

Nearly every email has been me writing to myself actually - each one where I'm challenging myself to remember what I've learned and to APPLY every lesson diligently.

We've had more opportunity to learn than we think.

One of the first lessons I've learned this year is exactly that.

As I've sat down each week to write these (yes, fresh every week) I've realized how much opportunity there is to learn when we just slow down and think about it.

Journaling (I'm still terrible at it) is a great way to start.

When consistency meets perseverance, you discover resonance.

Weird thought, I get it.

But what I've found this year is that probably 4-6 of the 52 emails I've sent have deeply resonated with some of the subscribers on here (can you believe it?? there's more than just the two of us reading these now ... wild).

(for the data geeks, that's based on measuring replies to emails, content of reply, quantity of replies per email)

But it took writing the other 46 emails to get to those 6 that resonated. (that's an 11.5% resonance 😉).

So no, this has never been a "one hit wonder" series, but in the year of weekly emails, I've found that resonance can be discovered; when consistency meets perseverance.

"You don't have to be great to start, but you have to start to be great" - Zig Ziglar

Be transparent, but be discrete.

This is TOUGH. And I by no means have achieved this perfectly - at all.

But it is something I am actively learning.

Most of my emails involve a business story or experience.

That's mostly because while some of the readers here may be engineers, artists, nurses, personal trainers, etc., I am always involved in business activities - I LOVE business.

The other reason I do this is to actually share stories from my personal life in a way that protects and respects other individuals.

And it's remarkable how you see the parallels in life when you're open to seeing them.

So while I've been extremely transparent in this series - almost uncomfortably so for me - I've also been striving to be discrete throughout.

I sincerely believe this is one of the things that is missing most from my generation and greatly desire to see it brought back.

Still working on it myself, but it's worth starting and growing in.

I'm really looking forward to 2025!

And by the way, I'm ramping up my prayer for breakthrough.

I've seen the Lord answer that in more ways this year than I can describe here, and I also have realized that however you define that place of total dependence and surrender to the mighty hand of God is exactly where I want to be.

Not just this year, or next year, but every year.

So, this email will continue on, and who knows how it'll morph in 2025.

And so will the prayers, and the building, and the learning, and the applying, and the sharing... you get the idea 😉

Now, I'm super curious, friend, how has this email series been beneficial to you this year (or at least since you subscribed haha), and how can I support you more in this next year with this email?

Seriously, super interested to hear :)

HAPPY THANKSGIVING!!