2022 in Review

Another year in the rear view mirror. So how did it go? The interesting thing to me is the halo effect – looking back at all 12 months it’s been a great year, but the wonky economy has made Q4 and the Q1 outlook weak, which is disappointing.

As part of the sandwich generation, keeping track of kids and elders went well. The only big miss was not going out to visit my family in Michigan at some point. I had a weird lockdown rebound, I thought that I’d be itching to travel once things were open again, but instead I just wanted to take advantage of everything here and rest. The Berkshires is a tourist destination so I was sold on the idea of a vacation where I didn’t have to spend any time driving. And it was great. We got a family pass to the town pool and I really enjoyed taking a couple hours after the work day to swim and then chat with my neighbors. The kids are both healthy and doing well at school, which is very satisfying, especially with H moving up to Greylock for Grade 7.

There was one home improvement project that we didn’t get done but the scoring on that is a little weird – we thought it was going to be a massive project but it turned out foundation work was not required, so even though it’s not finished we are farther ahead than we thought we’d be at this point without doing much of anything. So with that, just over 80% complete for family stuff.

Given the insanity of the past handful of years I had beefed up the mental health and fitness goals and then got it all done. Some points off for coming up 5 bike rides and 7 yoga classes more than I wanted, but I joined the local gym last winter because I was tired of not running as much in the cold and I more than made up for that excercise, including putting lifting back in the rotation which even with The Ultimate Warrior telling me I had to do, I never got around to it until this year.

I also managed to hit my weight goal as part of Falmouth Road Race training. The race was part of our Cape vacation which looking back was probably our best vacation ever. Bonus for getting to grab ice cream with Sarah, Mike and Lachlan! Concerts, gaming with cousins and skiing were all fantastic last year.

I’m not sure if I’m in for Falmouth again, Michigan may be the big summer trip but we’ll see.

Financial goals also went very well, the wrinkle is that I could have hit the investment goals but I’m keeping the cash on hand with all of the current weirdness.

And the financial goals are 99% dependant on the work goals. It was another growth year for MoC listeners but the ad market for Q1 is the shakiest I’ve seen in more than 6 years. Trust Insights breaking growth records solves all ills, as usual for a growing business. Since I decided to take 2022 off from writing there was no miss there. The only problem was that I wanted to do a live event for MoC in 2022 and that was not feasible. I at least finally got back to MarketingProfs B2B Boston in the 4th quarter after missing INBOUND because I did not stop testing positive for Covid early enough.

That makes it an 84% year from the numbers. When the big gaps are because I should have taken one more vacation and save more money (and funny that these are counter to each other) I have to admit that I’m truly fortunate and grateful for all that I have.

So my first wish for 2023 would be that it goes as well as the past year. A book has to go back on this list this year, as well as a Michigan trip. I do need to pick a road race so I don’t get lazy. I’ll spend the rest of the week kicking around some ideas before putting them on paper.

I hope your year went well, and all the best to you in 2023!