Annual Review Table of Contents

Every #AnnualReview  that I publish on this blog contains 4 parts:

  1. What were my victories?
  2. What could have gone better?
  3. How many New Year’s Resolutions did I keep?
  4. What are my resolutions for next year?

To see all of my annual reviews, click here. To use my workbook to create your own Annual Review, click here.

Part 1 – What were my victories of 2021?

This was a great year overall. My word for the year, Ease, was kept in spirit if not in practice. I can’t afford (financially) to lounge about and relax all day, even though this would be the best way for me to tend my autoimmune disorder. So instead I’ve had to find ways to invite ease into my life while staying productive.

Overall, I’m less stressed, healthier, and geographically in a better situation than last year. Here’s a list of specific victories from this year:

Moved for the 11th time in 11 years

I share the story (and lots of pictures) in this blog post. On Samhain we packed up another caravan and moved again, from the North Island to the South Island of New Zealand. This was a victory for many reasons that I won’t go into here, but one of them is the prospect of not moving right away. The Huntress Clan has moved so many times in the last decade, I will cherish the momentary pause to catch my breath.

New keynotes

This year I developed a lot of new material for keynotes and virtual presentations. Some of them are going to be assets I continue to use for years. New titles include:

  • The 4 Levels of Productivity
  • Digital Badging and Gamification
  • Your Message = Your Mess+Age
  • 22-Minute Goalsetting Workshop
  • Lead Magnetism
  • Digital Engagement Workshop

I also put together a onesheet that looks great. I leveled up as a virtual speaker this year, doing a lot of green screen work and making videos for clients.

Great client work

After fracturing my positioning for 3 topics for a while, I decided to come back to focus on marketing. I’ve made a few great websites, my coaching clients regularly had significant breakthroughs, and I migrated my website servers twice. As of this week, all of my website files are stored in Sydney, Australia. (Big project.)

Published lots of posts on this blog

My publication record was probably 2020, but this year was good. I ironed out a syndication formula so now my weekly newsletters go onto this blog, and a LinkedIn article, and a Medium post, and a few other places. One weekly post gets published on multiple channels, it’s the kind of automation that I like.

  1. New Years Resolutions 2021
  2. Why Your Website Isn’t Generating Leads and How To Fix It
  3. Email List Building Statistics For Success
  4. Make Superior Proposals Quickly With A Great Template
  5. Test Your Own Purchase Process
  6. Marketing Yourself is a Series of Failed Experiments
  7. A Customer Avatar Helps You Find The Buying Trigger
  8. [Techweek] ‘Grow your Business With Marketing Automation’ next week
  9. [Book Update] Deep in the editing darkness
  10. My life was a TOTAL mess until this happened
  11. What’s the difference between a game and a test?
  12. [Level Unlocked] Your power-up has unlocked new abilities!
  13. [Masterclass] Lead Magnetism next week
  14. A Table of Contents is both a map and a menu.
  15. 11th move in 11 Years
  16. Posting styles on the internet can ((and should)) change
  17. New Zoom Apps – play games LIVE with me next week
  18. Marketing Yourself book cover revealed!
  19. Do it 100 times to earn capability and confidence.
  20. Your Message = Your Mess+Age
  21. Finding Your Message Can Get Messy
  22. [Masterclass Replay] Your Message = Your Mess+Age
  23. 4-week Mastermind with me in October
  24. Lessons from 16/100 YouTube livestreams (so far)
  25. I don’t want to be a cryptobro, but….
  26. To niche or not to niche?
  27. How #TeamSeas made a movement
  28. The work of editing is to get from polish to publish
  29. Crypto-curious? Come to my free training & AMA this week, ‘Bitcoin Basics’
  30. Crypto did *not* buy the US Constitution
  31. How to deliver a Lead Magnet to new email subscribers
  32. Purpose + Goal = Focus
  33. 22 Goals for 2022

Published many videos

These are the videos I published on my YouTube channel this year:

  1. #1 ROI activity for small business owners
  2. The origin of the word ‘coach’
  3. #TechWeek2021: Grow Your Business With Marketing Automation
  4. [YAWS] Designing Productivity
  5. [Masterclass] The 4 Levels Of Productivity
  6. Online Community Review – Pat Flynn’s SPI Pro
  7. [Masterclass] Lead Magnetism
  8. How to make a Simple Sales Pipeline Template with Trello as your CRM
  9. How to Make the Most of your Marketing
  10. Atomic Habits by James Clear #3MinuteBookChat
  11. Join the WAM – Weekly Accountability Mastermind
  12. WAM 1/4 – Weekly Accountability Mastermind
  13. WAM 2/4 – Weekly Accountability Mastermind
  14. WAM 3/4 – Weekly Accountability Mastermind
  15. WAM 4/4 – Weekly Accountability Mastermind
  16. Business Coaching with Caelan Huntress
  17. [Masterclass] Your Message = Your Mess+Age
  18. [MAP] Welcome Video
  19. Grow Your Income, Influence, and Impact
  20. How are you handling Zoom Fatigue?
  21. Fun Game to Play on Zoom: Proverbs
  22. [Replay] Certified Virtual Presenter Virtual Happy Hour
  23. Fun Zoom Game: Mad Libs
  24. How to Keep People Engaged on Zoom in Virtual Presentations
  25. Video Testimonial from Bryan Whitefield, Wendy Dias, and Paula Rivas for Stellar Platforms
  26. Angela Maiers video testimonial for Caelan Huntress and Stellar Platforms
  27. Testimonial for Caelan Huntress from Veronica Monet
  28. Video testimonial for Caelan Huntress from Matt Katzenson
  29. I support #TeamSeas from the Pacific Ocean on the South Island of #Aotearoa #NewZealand.
  30. How To Make A YouTube Thumbnail with TubeBuddy
  31. How to use Time blocking to plan your day
  32. How to find the best YouTube tags with TubeBuddy
  33. How to buy your first Bitcoin (Easy Checklist)
  34. Ask Powerful Questions guided journal – #3minuteBookChat
  35. 1/100 Livestreams on YouTube
  36. 2/100 – Digital Engagement Workshop – 0821
  37. 4/100 – Updating an Email Onboarding Sequence in ConvertKit
  38. 5/100 – Get the Zoom Host Checklist
  39. 6/100 Get the Marketing Automation Checklist
  40. 7/100 – How to fix apple pencil not connecting
  41. 8/100 – Chronic Fatigue & Ulcerative Colitis
  42. 9/100 How To Break A Fast Slowly
  43. 10/100 [Masterclass] Your Message = Your Mess+Age
  44. 11/100 Facebook’s Terrible UI
  45. 12/100 4 Types Of Games You Can Play On Zoom
  46. 13/100 Getting the Momentum Planner from Productive Flourishing onto your iPad
  47. 14/100 4 Levels of Digital Engagement in Virtual Meetings
  48. 15/100 – Spring Forward in New Zealand
  49. 16/100 – #3MinuteBookChat – Simplify by Dr Richard Young
  50. 17/100 Short Livestreams are Dumb
  51. 18/100 How to add Line Breaks to Instagram Captions
  52. 19/100 How I Lost 1 ETH to a Crypto Scam
  53. 20/100 #TeamSeas cleaning up the ocean
  54. 21-36/100 YouTube Videos
  55. 37/100 The 25 Minute Meeting by Donna McGeorge #3minutebookchat
  56. 38/100 Get the Personal Branding Checklist
  57. 39/100 How to Register ENS Domain on Ethereum Name Service
  58. 40/100 The Focus of Content Marketing Strategy
  59. 41/100 How to deliver a Lead Magnet for new email subscribers
  60. 42/100 Bitcoin Basics Training
  61. 43/100 #WAGBTC We’re All Gonna Buy The Constitution
  62. 44/100 How To Buy Crypto Coin $CRO
  63. 45/100 Trading Crypto on the Gains Network – $GNS overview (get $DAI $MATIC & $QUICK too)
  64. 46/100 22-Minute Goalsetting Workshop
  65. 47/100 Annual Review Livestream

I published about three dozen more, either for clients, or for membership areas of products I sell (like the Marketing Automation Planner).

20-year reunion of Dell’Arte

In August I gathered together with the alumni of the Dell’Arte School of Physical Theatre’s Class of 2021 for a 2-hour virtual reunion. I produced and hosted the event, and it was great to spend some time with my clowns.

Learned futures trading

I’ve been leaning more into cryptocurrency this year (making niche affiliate sites like https://firstbitcoinchecklist.com/) and I’ve been fascinated by future trading. Leveraging a small amount of capital to make dramatic profits in crypto trading is how a number of cryptobros have gotten rich. Those dudes are no smarter than I am, they just studied a few things I had to learn. Things like technical analysis and futures trading. The intellectual acuity and flexible lifestyle of a day trader would suit me quite well. I’m not ready to start doing it full-time, but I’ve learned the necessary skills this year, and that was a huge victory.

Part 2 – What could have gone better?

Marketing Yourself was not published.

This book has been stuck in editing for a year. I tell myself it’s because I want it to be good enough for people to read before I publish it, but that’s not really it. I think I’m afraid of publishing a substandard book, and having people think I’m a substandard writer. I hold my own work up to a ridiculously high standard of quality, and that keeps me from publishing and moving on to the next project. My business growth has hit a ceiling because I haven’t published a book yet.

My first studio in this house sucked.

When we moved in May, I set up my recording studio in the back room of the house. It was so far from the wifi we had to run an ethernet cable under the house. My MacBook doesn’t have an ethernet port, so I needed an adapter. I also needed adapters for all my equipment, and the sound and lighting in that room was very difficult. I was always working against the deficiencies of the room, and it was slowing down my work. On Christmas Eve I packed my studio in boxes, and on Boxing Day the whole house went into an uproar so we could play musical chairs with the bedrooms. I am writing this post from my new studio, which has much better natural light. This was kind of like a 12th move to get in here.

Low revenue

This constant refrain in the challenges of my years is getting tedious and tiresome. I was able to pay all my bills this year, but I hit a few low points on the feast and famine cycle. Some months were full of bounty, and others were leaner than I like. Thankfully, none of the financial low points this year led to catastrophe, but I still had to spend more time than I wanted chasing down dollars.

Something I’ve learned this year is that financial stress aggravates my autoimmune disorder. The best thing I can do for my health is to get rich. Knowing that all the bills are paid for a few months would allow me to relax when I need to recuperate.

My positioning is fractured.

For a time, I tried to split my positioning in three parts: Digital Marketing, Digital Meetings, and Digital Money. It’s a neat overlap of topics that covers a lot of my IP. But it tripled my workload, in content production and pipeline management. When I got on a call I’d have to sell something completely different than the last two calls, so I have had to constantly recalibrate myself.

This challenge led me to realize that I need to focus on one, so I’m pulling back to marketing until I can get my book published and earn some financial flexibility.

Live events

One of my 3 positions is as an expert on live virtual events and digital engagement. I thought this positioning – being the guy who teaches professional speakers how to give great virtual experiences, through the eSpeakers Virtual Host Certification – was going to get me plenty of virtual speaking gigs, but the market doesn’t have the appetite for it.

There are thousands of hungry speakers competing for scraps right now. A bunch of companies and conferences tried going virtual, with tepid results. Most zoom is bad. The audience doesn’t want to commit to virtual events. Nobody wants to schedule anything on their calendar, because the most precious resources are time and attention. Even if I can host a great event, people don’t want to show up. I am tired of paddling upstream.

In 2022 I’m going to spend more time and effort on short form asynchronous video, instead of long form synchronous content.

Part 3 – How many New Year’s Resolutions did I keep?

Resolution Kept

Some Success

Resolution Not Kept

Gratitude Journal before social media

Some success.

My gratitude journal is kept in a drawer in the kitchen, so when I have morning coffee with my wife it’s easy to access. Looking back through its pages, where I write the date on the top, I can see I was diligent with this practice in January, and had a good cadence for the first few months of the year. Not many entries in April and May, when we moved, and sporadic entries afterwards. 1-3 times a week, with stretches of up to 3 weeks between entries.

The important thing I learned this year was to postpone checking Twitter until after I had a shower and made coffee. If I open myself to other people’s emotions before I am situated for the day, it throws off my whole morning.

My previous workaround was to spend time writing gratitudes before I look into the void, and listen to it screaming back at me. What I’ve learned this year is that what I want out of the practice is time with my own thoughts before entertaining others.

I still find gratitude journaling to be a wonderful and worthwhile practice, but I didn’t need it as much this year as I have in previous years.

Vibration plate visualisation

Some success.

This was another resolution that was easier to maintain in the old house, and didn’t quite make it through the move. In our new house I’ve been unable to find a good yoga mat location next to the vibration plate, so I’ve changed my morning routine around. Instead of having my ‘vibe time’ dedicated as 10 minutes of meditation before physical exercise, after the move I lengthened the timer on the vibration plate and the light therapy device to 15 minutes, and spent this time listening to recorded affirmations. Visualizing during this section of my morning Power Playlist wasn’t practical.

I need to find another portion of my day where I can devote visualization, because it’s a small but highly leveraged practice that I know I would get a lot of benefit from, if I could do it on the regular.

Before we moved, I had a great visualization sequence that was really rewarding. But then my goals changed, and I haven’t replaced my previous sequence yet.

4-day weekend once a month

Fail.

Until I’ve met specific revenue goals, and I won’t have to fret about money when I take the time to relax, I can’t justify more downtime to myself yet. While I know that taking 2 days off per month would have a tremendous positive impact on my health and well being, I kept putting off the days off to hustle for more cash. I know that my attitude to this would change if I had more money and less debt.

Meditate through insomnia

Success.

This year I have been diligent about my sleep, because I have had to be. I did not have any serious relapses this year, just a few weak weeks. I have become more adept at noticing my body’s health beginning to slide, and devoting all my spare time and attention to recovery. Whenever I ran out of spoons, I would try to get 12 hours of sleep in one night until I was better.

Cutting my daily coffee intake down to 2 cups per day before 11am really helped. I still have occasional insomnia, but this resolution gave me something immediate and practical to do. Instead of fretting that I was losing sleep, and getting aggravated and staying up, instead I open up my Pranayama app and do deep breathing exercises for as long as it takes. I can either go back to sleep, or wait until my alarm goes off in a meditative state.

Recently I’ve been waking up too early – 5:30 or earlier – and spent the earluy hours scrolling on my phone instead of meditating. Its only a week or two after Summer Solstice, so the sun has been rising earlier (and the birds have been whats waking me up) so I dont thin k this will be a long-term problem, and I have an idea for another resolution that will help with this next year.

Track symptoms daily

Success.

Habit stacking works. I was having a hard time taking Serrapeptase in the morning. Its an anti-inflammatory supplement that has to be taken in a fasted state, so I need to take it in the morning. After my first cup of coffee, I make a cup of Pu-erh tea before I can have a second coffee. When I put the kettle on to boil, I take Vitamin C and Serrapeptase before I drink my tea.

I found a similar habit stack for tracking my symptoms for my autoimmune disorder. Exactly 1 year ago, when I made this resolution, I bought an app for my phone called Bowelle. It has customizable fields so I can open the app as soon as I get out of the shower in the morning, track how the day before went, and now I have a year of detailed notes on my condition, symptoms, and diet.

This has been helpful on a few specific occasions, where my condition began to falter, and I was able to look back through my activity history and identify risk factors. I’ve now learned additional triggers that can aggravate my condition, and this helps me live a better life.

Dance every week

Some success.

The move derailed this resolution, but two weeks ago we bought the most recent version of Just Dance for the Switch. I love that game, and my kids and wife will often dance with me. For more than half the year this was not kept, but I’ve recently picked it back up. I plan to dance more in 22, but I dont think I need a resolution for it.

Publish 100 videos on YouTube and TikTok

Some success.

100 is too many for one push.

What I learned about myself this year is that I will get bored somewhere shortly after 30. I will want to change the format, or the tech, or the strategy.

Counting client videos (which did not make the list above), I have uploaded somewhere very close to 100 videos to YouTube. I tried to get to 100 in a row (which is why so many have /100 in the title) but only made it halfway there. Over on TikTok, I only published 26 posts this year. I think I haven’t felt ready yet.

Which is totally stupid, because the aesthetic is not polished and pristine, its casual and corny. I keep thinking I have to have this figured out before I do it, which is not how TikTok works, and I know it. I just need to get over myself.

Here’s me trying to kick off 100 and failing, again:

Publish and launch a book

Fail.

my book coverI had some successes with my upcoming book, Marketing Yourself –

  • Sent an Advance Reader Copy out to my list
  • Revised it based on their feedback
  • Revised it again because I didn’t think it was ready to hand over to an editor yet
  • Had a book cover designed

I am rather proud of the book cover, and the manuscript (now into draft 7) is being polished more than it really should be.

I need to get this book published and off my plate, regardless if it’s going to be a bestseller. I don’t mind if this book is not how I’m known, because I have other books in me that are more meaningful.

But I can’t get to those books until I finish this one.

I need to finish this project in ’22.

40 Podcast interviews

Fail.

I planned this for Q421, expecting my book to be done. I’ve put off interviews until I complete this project. Wh. n I do, it will be good to go on a podcast tour and introduce myself to lots of peripheral audiences, but this resolution is dependent on another that didn’t happen.

Saturday solo dates

Fail.

Trying to schedule my homsechoolers for regular activities is not smart. I live my life by my calendar because I was raised as a schooler, and calendars work for me to plan and get things done.

For my kids, not so much. They just don’t work that way.

What I’ve found more effective for my goal with this resolution, for nurturing a relationship with each of my kids individually, is to share a hobby with each of my kids. When we share a hobby between the two of us, there are countless opportunities throughout the week for us to have time together and share an experience. So this may have been a failure as the way I set the resolution last year, but this is another example of why breaking New Year’s Resolutions is good for you.

Part 4 – What are my New Year’s Resolutions for next year?

You’ll have to read all about them in tomorrow’s New Years Resolutions 2022 post.