Get better every year

Hi Friend

I'm sitting on my plane in ATL 10:30p on Friday night, heading home. (i'm gonna get in super late, so I don't want to wake up at 5a to write you.) It's been an EPIC week. If you've been reading these ramblings for a while, you know that every year I get to MC the HoganTaylor annual Firm Mtg. This was my 14th year. And it happened again...

... we outdid ourselves from the previous year. It's shocking that it happens. And I say this truthfully and with humility, but every single year it DOES get better. That's not just my opinion. It's a consensus from attendees and peripheral participants. Some giving feedback have experienced the last 10 years and some only this year.

Trust me, I know I'm entirely bias too. We put A LOT of effort and energy throughout the entire year to brainstorm, create and finally execute. It's an 8 month process. This year was our most difficult because it was such a broad idea: TEAM. We went with Sports as the main framework, which can go in a million directions.

Doing this for so long, I know a few things about how to continually improve year over year. Wouldn't you love for the things that happen annually in your life to ALWAYS get better? I mean, heck, just life itself. How wonderful would it be if every year on our birthday, we could say about our lives, what I confidently and accurately say about the HT Meeting?

1. THERE MUST BE SIGNIFICANT CHANGES

This year we removed the round tables from the main room. That might not sound like much, but we deliberated for months. I'm not joking. We looked at a variety of possibilities. We considered half the room with tables. We heard a rumor the CEO definitely did NOT want people starting the day complaining because they couldn't sit down to eat breakfast.

It felt risky! Once we committed to a no-table-setup however, the next batch of ideas flowed. Customized seat covers. Branded towels on the chairs. Pom Poms. A very unique setup that included an EXTRA WIDE aisle that our marching band came down.

For life, relationships, progress, joy, health and purpose, significant change must occur for us to move forward fulfilled. I'm convinced people's dissatisfaction with their own lives is rooted in their resistance to risk going all in on big changes!

MINDSHIFT

What if you took a risk and made a significant change before the summer ended? What would it be and what's at stake?

2. THINGS MUST BE CONSISTENTLY CONSISTENT

Though this may seem contrary to what I just wrote, it is not. It's intentionally complimentary. In the midst of altering major elements we also retained other big components. Our rotating schedule that moves the audience between 5 different rooms every 30 minutes, remained.

You and I have bedrock routines that ground us in a foundational way. If those get disrupted it throws everything off kilter. We have critical relationships, character traits and identity beliefs that shape our existence. Inconsistencies in any of these domains drastically impact our peace and sense of stability.

MINDSHIFT

What if you enhanced and intensified one of these core necessities, being way more consistent than you currently are?

3. OTHERS MUST BE INVITED TO CONTRIBUTE

Since we designed this meeting format, we've involved people in two meaningful ways. First each session room has one or two leaders who create the theme, content and teach it. Second, every attendee is invited to wear attire that fits with the theme. (Can you say OKC Thunder Up?!).

For me and you to keep getting better, we must invite others into our life. Giving someone access to benefit from our efforts is called generosity. Giving someone access to apply their own perspective to our efforts is called humility.

It is possible to get better every single year! We like to think we already do, don't we? I've been to many annual conferences however, who don't actually get better, they just do something different that risks nothing. It's fresh paint. We also are prone to do that - surface-level-living that doesn't enable us to genuinely become more than we currently are. 

Let's fight the pull of mediocrity and commit to getting better!

SHIFTING

I hope this week you consider what's at stake if you DON'T make significant changes, guard your most valuable realities or invite someone in. You can legitimately get better and better and better with every year you attempt to. #ShiftAway