2023 Reflections - Community, Health, AI, TEDx Talks and Teenagers

Newsletter Highlights

1. What is your WORD / PHRASE for 2024
2. What were the Biggest questions that came up for me in 2023
3. The Year in Review - highlights, gratitude and people to acknowledge
4. My ASK and upcoming events: Share your biggest learning, reflection, or memory of 2023 and what is your TEDx talk idea/story?

Happy New Year! - How long before it gets too old to say that? Just thinking out loud...

As you know, my newsletter is now an annual thing. I want to talk about the biggest questions that have been coming up for me, along with some highlights to review. I hope you find this enjoyable and value-add. Let's start with the first big question

1. What is your WORD (or phrase) for 2024?

Each year I choose a word for my year. I find it provides a certain focus and accountability to align with the year. Here's what I've had since I started:

2015: Connection

2016: Happiness

2017: Healthy

2018: Greatness

2019: Courage

2020: Resilience

2021: Zenough (Enough + Zen + Tough)

2022: Adaptability

2023: Community

Obviously my word for last year has HUGE meaning for me, given the growth of the TLB Club and how I support the communities I am part of.

For 2024 I have chosen the word “STORY”. Here’s why:

• I’m heavily involved in people I care about and thus I invest in you, your Story and your legacy.
• I’m focusing my attention on TEDx this year and helping leaders land their first TEDx talk. These talks are all about the Story.
• Finally, my personal life is a Story that is shifting on it own - now that my kids are both teenagers, my parents are getting older, and I’m thinking more about my health journey as a bigger part of my story.

2. What were the biggest questions that came up for me in 2023?

1?? Question 1: "Have I Become a Shitty Parent?"

I know. This is the biggest question that came up? Yes it has.

For over 12 years, I prided myself on being an amazing, involved 'Super Daddy'. But then everything changed. The pandemic was hard. But now that my kids Nyal and Ryah are 15 and 13, it's hit me harder.

All my knowledge and experience still hasn't prepared me to become considered 'bad' at my job, by the ones I truly love, care about, and would do anything for.

I give them space when they need it. I hold my tongue when they are irrational. I still prioritize their needs first and am here for them. I continue to offer love, support, structure and guidance. ??

And no this isn't about not giving them a smartphone. That is big decision we took, one that is rooted in science. They have stopped fighting me on that one, ever since I offered them to present their finding on why they should get one. (Crickets... ??). It's more about them being on their laptops, talking to their friends, and doing less with us.

While I preach 'Serenity Now" in my head, my heart tells me "I'm not a bad parent, I just have teenagers". ??

2?? Question 2: "Bobby, how is your experience with Community Building?"

In July 2023, we launched the paid membership community of the Thought Leadership Branding club. It's taught me SO much! ??

The greatest aspect is having a place to feel safe, hang your hat, and be who you truly are. Sharing my deepest feelings on things, while supporting others who are struggling, or sharing an emotional moment have been inspiring.

I admit too, that it has been hard to build the community. We have 50 members, which was half my goal, but we are growing slowly and steadily. I think I need to do a better job of communicating the value of being part of it. Or maybe I should look at the positive results we have created:

• 50 members, another 100+ guests in our weekly zoom trainings
• 143 live trainings available for members
• 60 expert speakers delivered trainings and livestreams
• Over 1,000 audio rooms, across LinkedIn, Twitter and Clubhouse, led by LinkedIn Mastery, since we began
• Weekly group coaching, a private WhatsApp group and LinkedIn group for questions, updates and support

I also happily joined two communities for my own learning and growth - Carlos Adell's and Lea Turner's. I admire and respect both of them. We even did a livestream chat on the power of community building. ??

The truth is there are people and brands monetizing and building community on many platforms. We continue to do so in our membership community.

If you join us, you can lock in our Founding Member rate, which is only $250 per YEAR, before it goes up.

3?? Question 3: "What can we do about the rise of AI and ChatGPT"

RUN?? Run for your lives! We're all about to die... I for one would like to welcome our artificial intelligent overlords. Just kidding...

"AI will continue to improve quickly, with capabilities doubling roughly every six months - three times faster than Moore's law" -- Whether you’re ready or not.

My prediction is that there will be a huge gap in the future between that 10-20% who stay on top of futuristic trends and other 80% who do not. Some are not even willing to walk and learn. We may not be able to fly the plane, but we each need to be able ride the bike.

I've invested in ChatGPT to learn how to leverage it. We had few trainings in #TLBClub from Darren Gibb and John Aspinall that truly opened my eyes to the power and potential.

I also invested in CastMagic, which is a tool to summarize all our zooms and livestreams. From there, I get time stamps, bios, posts for social media including newsletters and threads.

Finally, I bought Yoodli, a tool to summarize my coaching calls and help identify public speaking analytics.

In the AI and ChatGPT world, I'm walking, riding the bike a few times and am truly enjoying the view of how it can help our businesses and lives. You can too.

The Year in Review - highlights, gratitude and people to acknowledge

January - My brother-in-law Curran Dobbs, made it to the semifinals as 'The Autistic Comedian" on Canada's Got Talent. He shared a great balance of jokes that were both authentic and vulnerable, while also honest and funny. Howie Mandel absolutely loved him and my hope is that this will help elevate his career and life. His sister (My wife) and our kids were thrilled to be there to cheer for him.

February - Now that speaking gigs are finally back, I decided to evolve my style. I did a presentation for Engineers and focused on more stories and on the funny. In fact, in that one hour keynote, I told 7 stories to the crowd. The talk went amazing and gave me an insight into how I plan to do all my future keynotes. ??

March - I went to my first ever Comic-Con and can't believe I've never been before. I am a Sci-Fi nerd, so dressing up as Star-Lord, asking Andy Serkis a question, seeing all the amazing cosplay was a thrill.

April - 6 months into the chaos of the Elon Musk Twitter/X/Xitter debacle, I finally lost my OG Verified Badge. I've also been losing followers at a rate of 300 per day. There have been many poor decisions made on the platform that have driven away advertisers, needed marginalized voices, and some of the best thought leaders. But this decision directly affected me and my business. I still use my Twitter Profile, was glad to have had the badge for almost a decade and appreciate how much it helped me get opportunities to travel around the world to speak.

June - We did another series of LinkedIn Local Toronto Meetups this year after a 2-year pandemic hiatus. This photo was from an awesome panel talking about Partnering with Swish Goswami has been great and we plan another 3-4 next year. If you're in Toronto and want to help us plan these, DM me anytime.

July - I had this awesome opportunity to film video for Viral Nation and deliver LinkedIn content in a TikTok type form. Having the professional set, director and team was really fun and I got to meet and work with Goldie Chan for the first time. I could definitely do more of these!

LinkedIn HQ in NYC: One of the best days ever! Imagine having LinkedIn connections who’ve become good friends and work colleagues the past 5 years but yet I’ve never met in person before - Brenda Meller, Rachel Simon, Lynne Williams, Liam Darmody, Ed Samuels, Kenneth Lang, Danielle Guzman, Beth Granger, Brynne Tillman and many more. Then we got a VIP Tour of the Linkedin HQ! They even had these amazing lunch stations and it was all FREE. ????

Clients Success with TEDx Talks - I started working with individuals and groups to help them land TEDx talks and my system works! Getting WhatsApp notifications from a client that they landed their first TEDx Talk is super exciting and extremely gratifying. Congrats to Michael Gibben and Daisy Cedeno for landing your TEDx talk. Who's next??

Family Health - This was tough year for the health of my family. My 75-year old mother-in-law Nancy got cancer in July and it was unknown what would happen at the time, so we feared the worst. Thankfully, it wasn't as aggressive and we have years to navigate versus months. Later that summer, my 79-year old mom Imtiaz also had a scare with her kidney, diabetes and other complications. My dad just turned 80. So our aging parents are of great concern as it starts to take up more of our mental load.

Meanwhile, our kids are also seeing some challenges with ADHD issues and hormones. We tried our best to help them through a stressful fall. We're researching and learning all about this. For me personally, I had lost a handle on my own weight loss journey. This whole aspect of our life gives you pause to focus on the relationships that matter most and that time is precious.

TLB CLUB - I once made a list of 100 Thought Leaders to follow. These were folks who I had met or built a deep connection with during the pandemic. Many of them continued to support me when we finally launched the paid membership community of the Thought Leadership Branding Club in July. We did a ton of rooms, trainings, and brought in many guest experts from around the world. We have a wonderful community.

I mentioned some of the successes above. But with me always was the leadership team - huge gratitude to Lynne Williams, Roy Kowarski, Angie Alexander, Rachel Simon, Sebestian Ong, Ilia Francis, Juliana Bolden, Tom Knoble, Leanne Calderwood, Heather Epstein for where we have gone. Most importantly, I could not have gotten done what we did in 2023 without Melanie Mitchell-Wexler, my partner and best collaborator ever.

My partner Ananda and our kids Nyal and Ryah: Seeing my kids thrive and nurturing my connection with my wife are what love best. So I saved the best for last. My trip with Ananda to NYC was rich in culture, shows, food, and romantic times. Our 21st year of marriage was a good year.

My 15-year old son Nyal is excelling as a speed cuber and a violinist. Watching him keep breaking his own records at cubing events (like doing the one-handed 3x3 in 24 seconds!) is cool enough, but seeing him perform Vivaldi's Winter as the finale act in his recital made me SO proud.

My 13-year old daughter Ryah loves her friends and has a big heart, but she is also a really beautiful singer. She had the lead role in her musical this year and has started to dabble in song-writing and playing piano again along with guitar. Hearing her sing this song melts my heart.

Obviously I can't talk about everything, but certainly there were many other fascinating things that happened or were of interest in 2023 - I almost got on a game show, Collaborative Articles, the rise of Threads, bringing back an old networking keynote because people need them again, having a car accident, etc. Regardless, I am grateful and thank you all for inspiring, teaching, and sharing with me.

What is My Ask for Today?

As we reflect on the past year, I would love for you to share a photo of something you are grateful for, something you learned, or something that was meaningful to you. ??????

UPCOMING EVENTS - 1 BIG ONE

Here's what I'm up to in the month of January, including a very HUGE event

1?? ???????????? ?????? ???????????? ?????????????????? ???? ???????? ???????? ?????????? ???????? ????????

Given all the TEDx success I've had - Done 5 TEDx talks and every client who took my signature methodology and did the work got a TEDx talk - I've decided to focus 2024 on this. So I change my banner and profile, partnered with the amazing Chris Colt to create this. ????

Here's the dealio...

1. 5 days of one-hour training daily Jan 15-19, 11:30am-12:30pm (replays given)
2. Only 40 participants for a more intimate mastermind group
3. $100 entry, so that we get people who have some meat in the game and recognize the value (my normal consulting hourly rate is much higher)
4. VIP Pass option with several bonuses available, including an extra 1-hour consult and an excel sheet with every TEDx event globally including contacts and links
5. I'll share my 5-step process, my 17-page TEDx Roadmap??, and how I can GUARANTEE in writing that you will land a TEDx talk in 2024.

Interested? Join us HERE. ????????

2?? Audio Rooms - I'm still doing them because I love them. I'm doing 3 weekly

• Tuesdays 4pm ET LinkedIn Mastery with Rachel Simon, Melanie Mitchell on LinkedIn Audio
• Thursdays 2pm ET LinkedIn Mastery with Krista Mollion, Kenneth Lang, and Roy Kowarski
• Mondays 11am ET Power of Connection chat on Twitter

3?? TLB Club offerings - we continue to run events, trainings, and coaching support for our paid members and for the public

• Thursdays 4pm ET our zoom training featuring guest expert speakers (we've had Richard Moore, John Espirian, Judi Fox in the past). This one is open to the public. Check out #TLBClub company page for the latest schedule
• Mondays 3pm ET, we do a group coaching session for our members
• Monthly livestreams - our next one is Wednesday Jan 24 at 3:30pm ET featuring Brenda Meller and Cher Jones. We're going to talk about "Thought Leadership and the Importance of Digital Presence"
• WANNA JOIN US? Click the Thought Leadership Branding Club website and get started.

WHEW? What a year. If you got this far...

Thanks for reading!

Newsletters take a lot of work. But once it's done, it feels pretty darn good. Wishing you all the best this year.

1. If you need help getting a TEDx talk to elevate your personal brand and build thought leadership, I'm your guy.
2. If your organization needs a keynote speaker or trainer to inspire greater community, connection, and culture, I'm your guy.

Take care, Bobby

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