My 3 Words for 2010

Posted: 01 Jan 2010 01:30 AM PST

3 words mindmap Setting goals is what January 1st is all about. Over the last few years, I’ve practiced something I call “my 3 words,” where I come up with three words that I use as guidance for how I should conduct my efforts in the year to come. I set goals around these three words. I build deadlines and projects around these words. They don’t have to mean anything to you, but the process might prove interesting to you, especially if you’ve found goal-setting difficult in the past.

My 3 Words: Ecosystems, Owners, Kings

I won’t explain my words in detail, because they relate to me. I’ll share a bit and then, we’ll talk about how you set your own.

Ecosystems – Every project I work on has to fit into an existing ecosystem that I’ve created. I’ve got 4 potential buckets for this: me (as in my personal life), CrossTech Group (the parent organization of my company, New Marketing Labs ), CB.C (chrisbrogan.com and related), and Human Business Works (my as yet-to-be unveiled new project, which is picking up steam). If it doesn’t make sense to what I’ve outlined for goals for each of these projects, I’m not doing in 2010.

Owners – One area I could have improved in 2009 was to help people be owners of their projects. In the ecosystems above, that means that I am not empowering people that I work with in various ways, and I seek to help them feel more ownership of what we’re working on.

Kings – You can thank Marsha Collier for this word, because of advice I received one night at dinner with her. She said that I should “be kingly” with regards to managing criticism, and that essentially meant that I needed to maintain poise and balance and charm and demeanor when dealing with life’s unpleasant moments. I’ve thought of that phrase quite often since, and have evolved it to include my business passions, and so it becomes one of my three guiding words for how I conduct myself and business in 2010.

How You Can Set Your Own Three Words

What will your 3 words be? How do you choose?

Pick three words that help you the way a lighthouse helps a ship in a storm. Give yourself a word that guides you towards a powerful new opportunity, and that keeps you focused on what comes of this year. Use these words as starting points for tangible goals, SMART goals that can be measured and have dates to accomplish tasks by. These words sit above the actual goals, and set your guiding principles in place.

The words I use have larger meaning than the word itself. If I put the word “focus” down, it would be more of a reminder of an action, and not exactly a lighthouse upon which to set my goals. In the past, for instance, in 2006, I used the words “Ask. Do. Share.” They helped me get very successful, but they weren’t entirely large enough to be a flexible planning word. So, what I’m trying to do with the words is come up with something that would take more than a sentence to describe, but that when you think about it, the ideas explode out to fill your head with thoughts of how you might want to conduct yourself.

Side note: the new book Julien and I are working on does this in its title to big effect, so you’ll see this thinking echoed a lot in coming months.

I hope you give this some thought and consider sharing your three words here. It’s been very helpful to my success over the last few years, and I predict it’ll help me navigate the complexities of my upcoming 2010, as well.

Ecosystems. Owners. Kings.

And From The Past

My 3 Words for 2009
My 3 Words for 2008
My 4 words for 2007
My 3 Words for 2006: ask. do. share.

mindmap of cb.c focus areas

Bragging Rights

Posted: 31 Dec 2009 07:43 AM PST

There are lots of year-end posts going around. They’re all lovely. I see predictions. I see a huge trend of “best of” posts that I think are largely due to Christopher S. Penn sharing how he did his. I see lots of wrapping up posts.

Oddly, what was on my mind, was bragging.

Becky McCray has a “brag basket” set up on her blog, where you’re supposed to comment on the post with things you want to brag about. I’ve done it a few times. It’s always left me feeling weird, because I’ve been taught (like most of us) that bragging isn’t very useful.

But man, I really feel like bragging about 2009.

I want to brag about my family: about Katrina managing my family’s daily operations and handle my crazy travel schedule, all the while being a caring and thoughtful participant in the success of what I’m doing. My mom and dad, who are now acting as my backoffice for a lot of my work, and who are researching and editing and doing all kinds of interesting things for my upcoming projects, as well as managing my business schedule. I’m proud of Violette for being interested in food and cooking, and Harold for being able to read much better than a 3 year old should, and because he’s potty-trained (thank you, Kat).

I feel proud of my New Marketing Labs team: Colin Bower, Bob Collins, Justin Levy, Colin Browning, TJ O’Connor, Stephen Saber, Nick Saber, and our support teams, who gave us a huge great first year in business. I want to brag about Coffeehouse Ideas, who did lots of design projects with us, as well.

I want to brag about Christopher S. Penn, Whitney Hoffman, Michelle Wolverton and all the amazing volunteers and teams who put on successful PodCamps this year, and for what we’ll all do in 2010 (not to mention their own amazing careers and projects).

I want to brag about Jon Swanson, who writes amazing blog posts on more than one blog (if you’re Christian, you might also like his 300 Words a Day blog. (I’m not especially Christian, and I love it).

I want to brag about Megin Hatch and the team at GNMParents for writing great parenting materials. Same with Doriano “Paisano” Carta, and Jeffrey Sass, who keep the fires burning at Dad-o-Matic.

I want to brag about C.C. Chapman and Mitch Joel, who have so many great projects on the go, and who are pillars of their community.

I want to brag about Julien Smith, for all his accomplishments with co-authoring a New York Times and Wall Street Journal Bestselling book, as well as his own incredible blog. (that was cheating)

I want to brag about all my friends who acted as trust agents to their companies in 2009, like Christopher Barger at GM, and Scott Monty at Ford, and Frank Eliason at Comcast, and Paula Berg at Southwest, and Jenny Cisney at Kodak, and Kenny Miller at MTV Networks, and Jess Berlin at Cirque Du Soleil and Bonin Bough at Pepsi, and Peter Fasano at Coke, and Bert DuMars at Rubbermaid, and Fergie Devins at Molson, and George Smith Jr at Crocs, and just all the incredible people I’ve been able to meet and share ideas with.

I want to brag about all the great people I met in 2009. I met around 10,000 new people this year, plus got to catch up with several hundred wonderful people at the few hundred events I attended. It’s a crazy life, flying all around the country (and the world), to New Zealand, to Mexico, to Paris, to Amsterdam, and all the other amazing places I’ve been, and what keeps me going is finding people like you, who are driven and motivated and passionate and connected to what comes next. You might think it’s cliche, but it’s you who makes this all worthwhile, and believe me, I talk to Kat all the time about how I’d pack it in if I didn’t have as many amazing friends and community members like you out there.

This year proved to me that you can be ambitious, can have a strong sense for business and revenue, and still bring as much human touch to what you’re doing as possible. The more I reach out, the more I connect with people, the more I give as much as I can away for free, the more it pays off.

But that’s because of the great people I’ve come to know and spend time with, and from all the time I can put into building relationships that matter.

Thanks for an amazing 2009. See you in the new decade.

One last thing: I’m most proud of these two speeches I gave in 2009. If you have some extra time, give them a browse:

From Web 2 Expo 2009 Keynote: