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!
<aside> 💡 I've completed a handful of annual reviews in the past. Every time, I took away tremendous value. It's a special opportunity to process and reflect on the past year and intentionally set aspirations and goals for the next. It's one of the kindest gifts to give oneself.
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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.
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 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.
