I failed spectacularly in 2024

This was supposed to be the year of sustainability.

What a joke that became!

Instead of slowing down, I booked myself with MORE. I built two brand-new cohorts from scratch. (What the heck was I thinking?) There was Writing Original Works in May, then Notemaking Mastery in November. It was all part of putting together our annual program Knowledge Accelerator™.

I have mixed feelings about it. I feel accomplished. It was a huge success for everyone going through it. We delivered the goods. I'm so proud of the content (and the transformations it supported). But it took a lot out of me and the the rest of the team. It soaked up all my extra bandwidth. I only made 10 Youtube videos the whole year, I wasn't able to do proactively reach out to fellow creators and collaborate on things, and for long stretches of time, my email inbox looked like a post-apocalyptic hellscape.

Then, the last half of the year took me into new frontiers of inner work, wildly outside of my comfort zone, and perhaps the hardest work I've ever had to face.

And then, there's the book. While I secured an amazing literary agent, I mostly spun my wheels on it this year, forgetting about it for the majority of the year, only to re-immerse myself in it for intense four-day stretches.

My theme of the year was "sustainability" and I failed spectacularly.

And yet, I don't know, I can't help but feel good about it. I think it's because I'm feeling hopeful. That's a pattern of mine I've noticed. I'll feel all the feels—being half Serbian I've learned I'm preternaturally prone to the morose—and I like it, perhaps because deep down I know, in the words of Annie, that "tomorrow is only a day away."

That's right folks. 2025 is going to be different. 2024 was just a warm-up for sustainability—or as we say in Writing Original Works, it was "the session before the session." 2025 will be the real year of sustainability. Will this become the same joke 12 months later? Or will I break the pattern and achieve a modicum of balance.

To ensure a more sustainable year in 2025, here is what I'm doing differently and how I’m measuring success.

The ​Knowledge Equation​ was first used to help people entering the Knowledge Accelerator understand their strengths and weaknesses with managing knowledge. Feel free to ​take the 20-question quiz to get your results​.

But what about using the four parts as a subjective measure for success in an endeavor. There are four parts:

• Clarity

• Confidence

• Capability

• Creativity

Here’s a simplified sketch:

The problem with 2024, and the reason it wasn't sustainable was not about creativity. It was about being maxed out in capability. I had no extra time or energy.

Interestingly, the solution isn't about fixing capability, it's about fixing the bottom half of the equation.

Recently, a new acquaintance became an in-person coach for a day. Darrell Vesterfelt flew to my home in LA and sat with me for the entire day, learning about how my business was operating, challenging my assumptions, and most excitedly, putting together three clear objectives for 2025. Darrell uses the OGSM framework, which, at least for me, is remembered by sounding it out: "O-gasm."

First you define your highest level objectives, then you define quantifiable goals for each, then strategies for each goal, then measures/metrics for each strategy. It's not complicated, but that doesn't mean it's easy. This was hard but rewarding work. The objectives (and goals) we have for LYT in 2025 are as follows:

• Match revenue

  • The goal is a number to hit. I don't even want more, just matching is good enough. Remember, this is the real year of sustainability.

• Meaningfully expand the reach and impact of LYT

  • The goals here can be measured in three ways: selling the book proposal, adding YT subscribers, and, perhaps most importantly for understanding the health of a creator-style business, adding newsletter subscribers.

• Radical team alignment

  • Clearly define the roles & responsibilities. Accomplishing this goal will solve much of the chaos. While it's worked for us to grow and be "noteworthy," what got us here won't get us there. We need to mature and grow into evolved roles that are clearly defined.

  • Then fill gaps to form a more complete team. Small teams have to do a lot of context-switching. If you are the operator that's fine. I've realized it's not fine for the person in the role of being the lead creator, which is the role I have in Linking Your Thinking. Switching from writing deeply about an idea to dealing with tax compliance login issues in another state just kills me.

If you are clear on what you want (objectives) and what needs to be accomplished (goals) and what you need to do to get there (strategies) and how to measure the effectiveness of the strategies (measures)—then something cool happens. All that clarity bolsters confidence. Now you can have confidence in every move you make, every decision, every subtle prioritization.

The problem for me (and the team) in 2024 was maxing out my capability by trying to do too much. I was running hot and straddling the edge of burnout like ​the jet engines in this crazy desert rocketman's ride​. To solve for the symptom, I might say, try to do less. Take a break. Recharge. And while that works for the week, I have just as much work to do when I jump back into things. It doesn't address the underlying (see, bottom half of the equation) needs of wanting to do too much and not having the clarity and confidence to prioritize effectively.

That's not a problem when a person is linking their thinking with linked notes. Creativity is around every corner. LYT is a creativity machine. But perhaps it can become a problem, the joy of connecting getting in the way of a person's higher-level objectives. That's the tension. That's the riddle. That's because I believe rigid, top-down intentions that have not truly emerged from the bottom-up can cause just as much harm as can creatively frolicking in the forest of ideation.

Wildly, and unexpectedly, I believe the Knowledge Equation is a powerful touchstone here. Feeling too scattered and overwhelmed? Well, then you probably need to dial in your clarity. Maybe trying the OGSM framework. Conversely, if you're feeling a lack of enthusiasm and a loss of joie de vivre, perhaps your goals are too rigid, or just as likely, out of alignment with your creative spirit. Then you'd probably benefit from journaling, reflecting, and wandering without hierarchical purpose.

This is currently a first draft and has not been thoroughly proofed.

What do you think about all of this? Please let me know. I wasn't expecting to write all of this out, but I thought it might be helpful.