2021 Roundup

Keep showing up. Do what works. Stay the path. Row row row your boat. Crank the handle. Paddle onto the wave. This was the year I embraced repetition, monotony, focus and routine.

Not that I had a choice really. Think back to Christmas 2020 - we had restrictions. My 40th (in January) was spent on lockdown. Travel was off. Meetings were off. Offices were off. Gyms, restaurants, movies, haircuts, shopping was all off. All that was left to do was to make the most of a strange situation.

The year 2020 was different. It was unknown, unique and novel. There was a lot to be done and a lot to marvel at. The first lockdowns, the speeches from world leaders, the emergency meetings with team members - we were all in this thing together. We had to pivot, we had to reinvent things and reorganise our plans to fit the strange world we had found ourselves in.

Despite the lockdowns and the changes 2021 was not like 2020. The division in society had really set in. Tribes were forming. Politicians were point scoring. Media was scaremongering. Divisive ideas were beset on all sides of a social media feed.

I had been mentally preparing for this year for a long time. Iv’e been writing about a great wave of disruption. I’ve been telling people, get ready to paddle onto the wave so that you can surf it. Paddling is about rhythm. Paddling isn’t surfing, it’s what you do before you surf. It’s tough. You want to be surfing but you know you have to catch a wave first - to do that you have to paddle onto it. Ignore the noise, head down, left, right, left right, left, right.

This was the year of monotonous focus on a few key things. Each week was about showing up for the entrepreneur community, and being present with the family.

I barely left Putney/Wimbledon and barely did any live in-person events. For 20 years I have traveled non-stop around the world speaking at big events but this year I was the most local I’ve ever been (zero flights this year for the first time in my adult life). I did the school. I went for a daily walk in my neighbourhood. I dropped into the local shop for some groceries. Went to the gym down the road. Almost everything I did in business was done from my desk at home.

I kept showing up on Clubhouse and doing the same talks. For the first few months of the year I was on Clubhouse everyday for an hour or two. I kept showing up in the FB Groups we built. I kept showing up on Zoom and delivering the same workshops. Every Tuesday this year from 2-4pm I delivered a Key person of Influence workshop. Every Thursday I delivered a workshop on how to use ScoreApp Scorecards. Some presentations had 5 people and some had 200 show up - regardless, I kept delivering them.

I kept showing up to the gym and I kept going for walks. Three times a week I did gym classes. Sadly I also kept showing up in the kitchen and snacking (sadly one thing cancelled the benefits of the other).

We repeated what worked for our family holiday too. In 2020 we went to Poole and had an amazing time. We did the same again in 2021. We had no idea what restrictions would be in place so at the end of the first holiday we rebooked the whole thing again - we booked the same holiday house and went to the same attractions and the kids loved it (again). Alena and I took a little holiday at the same place we got married in and that we had stayed before. We repeated what worked with our family car. We replaced our 7 seater BMW X5 with another 7 seater BMW X5. With young kids, repeating what works is a sure fire way to remove stress and have some space to have some fun.

This probably isn’t sounding very glamorous. Repeating the same stuff over and over again each week, repeating the holidays, even repeating the car. What happened to the globe trotting, innovating entrepreneur? This didn’t feel like the time to be playing that game. It felt like the time to be a bit boring, keep my head down and focus on the few things that mattered.

I hope you had a happy and safe 2021. Wishing you a happy new year, full of joy and success.

Business Highlights from 2021:

- Dent completed three significant acquisitions - Penoma Press, August Recognition, Plug & Play - giving us a full suite of growth services for entrepreneurs and taking our team up to around 150 people globally.

- We won 2 major awards, 3 respected awards and were finalists in 3 major awards.

- We added over 1200 clients to ScoreApp and quadrupled our MRR.

- The Key Person of Influence Accelerator welcomed it's biggest ever cohort.

- Advising/coaching on a $1B deal.

- I built a following of 60,000 people on Clubhouse and made some amazing new friendships with people I've only heard. We also hosted monthly Clubhouse events with celebrities and billionaires.

- Raising over ￡25K for charities (The Entrepreneurship and Client Earth).

- I made an angel investment into an AI company that has grown by 12x in 1year.

- Developed our Corporate Accelerator offering and we now run internal accelerators with some of the UKs biggest businesses.

Personal Highlights 2021

- My 40th (despite being on lockdown it was lovely)

- Family holiday, walking the kids to school, the nativity play, Christmas celebrations with all the grandparent.

- Ethan starting Reception.

- Cousin Leo's first birthday.

- Seeing Alena succeeding in her property development and going straight into the next one.

- Date nights with Alena.

- Seeing Dave Grohl perform in an intimate 1000 person venue.

- Attending a garden party at Kensington Palace and having a long conversation with a Princess.

- How to Raise Entrepreneurial Kids going to its category number 1.

- The Mission Corporation going to its category number 1.

- Weekly Crossfit Classes

- An amazing long lunch at the Fat Duck.

Favourite movies/TV in 2021

- Dune

- House of Gucci

- Bond

- Paw Patrol Movie (first time taking the boys to the cinema)

- Succession

- Countdown

- The Defiant Ones

- Becoming David Geffen

- Anthony Bourdain - Parts Unknown

Favourite Books of 2021

- Moonraker - Ian Flemming

- The Almanack of Naval Ravikant

- The Status Game - Will Storr

- $100M Offers - Alex Hormozi

- Will - Will Smith