A business, a baby, a rebrand, oh my! 2022 has been big, beautiful and bloody tough at times.

In today’s podcast episode, we are digging into this year’s year in review, something that I do every year and which gives me an opportunity to reflect on the year.

Each and every year, I reflect on the year — what worked, what didn’t, how I felt and the biggest lessons learnt (because in good times and even more so in tougher times, there is a lesson in everything that happens). Here’s the 2022 edition!

Things That Felt Great

🖤 Having a Baby

This was the year my second beautiful baby, Sunny, was born. After having my first, my business and life was in many unexpected ways turned upside down, and I was nervous about the impact that my second little one would have on… well, everything really. Mostly, I was nervous about how I would navigate running our Launchpad group coaching program with a newborn. 

Mostly, my fears were unfounded, and that was in part due to good planning and great people. Kahlie, our Client Success Coach at the time, was in the process of transitioning out of the business, and she so beautifully assisted with keeping everything running during that time. We hosted baby bonus workshops so that our clients would get MORE than they had paid for, we paused our milestone sessions for three weeks (with only one complaint), and otherwise the business ran “as usual”. I’m grateful for that, and it was a salient reminder of how far I had come since baby number one. 

In some ways, the business requires a lot more of me than it did when I was running standalone courses, in the sense that I can’t completely ever turn off. However, in other ways, I am so much more supported now than I was then and never was that more apparent than in those early weeks of having a new born. 

🖤 Rebranding the Business

The decision to rebrand the business is one that I have spoken about a lot recently, and so I won’t dig too deep into it. I’m really proud of our brand now. It differentiates us in a crowded marketplace, it has allowed us to serve our clients deeply across their entire journey as a course creator, we stand for something more than money and it has given us a beautiful “base” to continue to build upon in 2023. 

🖤 Operational Elegance

It’s true what they say – systems and team will set you free, but first it will drive you mad, make you question everything and you’ll work harder than you ever have in your life to “learn” a new set of skills completely removed from the thing that you’re actually an expert in.

A client said a very interesting thing to me a little while ago, and it really resonated with me. She said “I think a lot of people aren’t willing to grow a leveraged course business because of the amount of up front work spent creating the assets, creating the course, creating the assets and the like. In many ways, it’s easier to stay solo, show up and just keep swapping time for money”. Never have truer words been spoken.

I have worked so hard over the past two years setting up systems, structure and working on the back end including team, and many wouldn’t be willing to do so. It’s paying off now, and I am thankful to the old me. 

🖤 Space

I listened to last year’s year in review, and much of what I spoke about desiring was related to having more space to spend time with family and see my babies growing up. This year, I needed space for a reason completely unrelated, and although I didn’t get the “space” for the things I wanted, I feel grateful that I have a business that has allowed me to switch off to deal with “life” as it happened.

Things That Didn’t Feel Great

🖤 The Mental Load

For reasons unrelated to business, this has been the most mentally difficult year of my life. I have carried a lot, starting with early breastfeeding challenges, being the carer for my babies and for others, holding space for clients and never really having the ability to “switch off”.

This has felt really heavy, and I have felt challenged this year on a level that I haven’t experienced before. In 2023, I want to work on finding tools to help me better carry the mental load.

🖤 Ghosting

In my business, we work really closely with both prospects in their decision to join our program, and with our clients as they walk through their journey of course creation. It has felt heavy to invest heavily into conversations not “required” of me, only to be ghosted at the end. 

🖤 Time with Babies

I haven’t had the space I want with my babies, and it WILL be my priority in the new year. 

🖤 Launching TWO New Offers At Once

Towards the end of the year, we held CourseCon, and on the back of that virtual event I had intended to launch BOTH Launchpad and our new program, Legacy.

In retrospect, it was too much all at once, but I am usually able to bite off more than I can chew (and chew like mad!) This time, however, I didn’t factor in personal things happening along with life, and it was just too much! So, we canned our Legacy launch, and focused just on Launchpad.

We have enrolled EXACTLY our goal number of people for that program’s January intake, which feels great, however the process of hosting a virtual event was DOUBLE the amount of work (at least). I also didn’t properly consider the scope of the Legacy program, and that with the two programs set up the way they were, we were “skipping” serving people that were past needing Launching, but not quite ready for Legacy in it’s original form. We will be rectifying this and properly launching this program in February for an early April start. 

Next Year

A recap isn’t complete without looking forward to the future, right? And so, here is my “top three”:

🖤 Investing and Building Personal Wealth

It is a big goal of mine to spend as much time on personal wealth building and building a secure future for family as I do on the business. 

🖤 Travel

I would like to enjoy more travel, though I am still navigating what that could look like with two very little ones! On my list is London, possibly a business conference in the US and a family holiday or two!

🖤 Impact

At some point, it’s not about money anymore. It is a huge priority to build on the foundations laid in 2022 to create deep waves of impact and to become an inspiring business, and I want to implement this more deeply across everything we do.

That’s me!

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