My 2020 Year in Review

2020 is finally in the books! As many of you can likely relate, it was good and difficult year.

It’s been a long time since I have done one of these. In fact, the last time I did a year in review was 2014.

I didn’t know the best way to structure my year in review, so after scouring the web, I settled on a slightly modified version of the year in review format from James Clear. Why? I like the simplicity of it.

I’ll attempt to answer these four questions to the best of my ability:

1. What went well this year?
2. What didn’t go well this year?
3. What did I learn?
4. What do I want 2021 to look like?

This is a time of personal reflection, gratitude and learning. I hope that in some small way you are inspired by what I write.

What went well this year?

I have so much to be grateful for. Above all, Jesus has been exceedingly merciful, gracious and kind to me and my family.

Growing Family

In April, Laura and I welcomed our 2nd sweet boy into the world, Jude Thomas Griffin. He was big (9lbs 7oz), precious and sleepy!

He’s continued to grow in size and sweetness!

My family is a precious gift, and I am grateful to God every day for the blessings that they bring!

Book Reading

I read 12 books this year, which I believe is the most I’ve ever read in a year. I started reading more frequently in 2018 as I began to understand the real benefits of reading books. You get to engage in a conversation with some of the best minds in the world. Why wouldn’t you want to read?

Here’s the list of books I read in 2020 (outside of the first one, in no particular order):

1. The Bible. Yes, I am most proud of and changed by this accomplishment. I’ve never done it before, and now that I have, I never want to have another year where I don’t read it cover to cover. The powerful words of life are found here, and in a world filled with fear, uncertainty and doubt, I need those words every day.
2. Atomic Habits by James Clear. This is my 3rd time reading the book (yes, it is that good). Tiny changes produce remarkable results. I can attest to this simple truth. Read my brief book summary →
3. A Praying Life by Paul Miller. This book transformed my view of prayer and communication with God. I intend to read it again in 2021.
4. The Advantage by Patrick Lencioni. Finally, Pat released a book in plain English! He makes a compelling case that organizational health trumps every other discipline in business (and I believe him).
5. The Psychology of Money by Morgan Housel. A finance book written for the rest of us. Morgan brilliantly intersects the world of finance and psychology to deliver some timeless truths for personal investing.
6. The Vision Driven Leader by Michael Hyatt. If you don’t know where you are going, how will people follow you? This book is a practical guide to creating and implementing a compelling vision for your organization.
7. Managing Leadership Anxiety by Steve Cuss. An excellent book filled with wisdom for managing anxiety in any leadership role, both your own and of the people you lead.
8. The Champion’s Mind by Jim Afremow. I loved this book because when I train, I train as if I am a pro athlete that plays golf. I want to understand how champions think because I want to be a champion whenever I am on the golf course.
9. 5 Voices by Jeremie Kubicek and Steve Cochran. This book teaches you how people communicate and how other people react to their communication. The questions that people ask in each voice category are incredibly insightful.
10. Every Good Endeavor by Tim Keller. I love how Tim writes. He’s philosophical and practical, and that’s a tough mixture to get right. This book helps you connect the dots on how your work relates to God’s mission in the world (and how the gospel transforms work in general).
11. Lead by Paul Tripp. A gospel saturated resource for leadership teams. Although written primarily for pastors, I found it helpful to understand how I should keep a watch over my own soul as I lead others in a non-ministry context.
12. The Explicit Gospel by Matt Chandler. The gospel is not moralistic, therapeutic deism (do good things to feel better about yourself so the God out there somewhere isn’t too displeased). Rather, the gospel is transformative in that Jesus came to save you in spite of the things you have done. And, he desires a relationship with you! That’s truly good news.

OptinMonster

My day-to-day role is serving as the President of OptinMonster, the #1 most powerful conversion optimization toolkit in the world. Since I co-founded it with Syed in 2013, I’ve spent the majority of my time on this product and with this team.

We had our first ever team retreat in January 2020, which seems like ages ago. While we’ve done retreats with the entire company for quite some time, we’ve never done individual product retreats until this year.

It was stressful to plan and execute, but it was well worth the effort. We had an absolute blast! Here are a few of my favorite photos from the retreat:

OptinMonster has seen tremendous growth in 2020. I’m so proud of the team and what they have accomplished. In the WordPress channel alone, we completely overhauled the plugin, crossed 1 million+ active installs and achieved a 4.5/5 star rating for the product.

We spent much of our time identifying needle movers in the product and laser-focusing on them. By reducing our “priorities”, we made a far bigger impact with the things we devoted our time to.

I also stepped back into the role of Product Lead along with serving as President. The shift was difficult personally (Syed gave some tough but honest feedback to me), but it has born much good fruit.

There is a lot of momentum going into 2021, and I’m honored to be at the helm leading the charge.

Company Growth

When COVID hit, I didn’t know how it would impact Awesome Motive. Fortunately, we experienced a COVID bump during March, April and May, and the rest of the year has seen strong growth as well.

Digital is more important than ever, and our software tools make you money, so why wouldn’t you choose them as part of your online growth strategy? It appears many people agree.

I would like to think that I could take credit for the growth, but I can’t. Where I may have been able to say that I influenced it a few years ago, I am no longer a driving force for growth. Syed, Jared and the rest of the partners have contributed far more than I ever could, and I am grateful to work with them as we empower people to succeed. Our collective sum is far greater than our individual parts.

We made three strategic acquisitions in 2020:

1. All-in-One SEO Pack. We acquired the oldest WordPress SEO plugin in January 2020. We spent the majority of the year overhauling the plugin, and we launched a huge 4.0 update in November. I’m proud of the work done by that team this year, and the future is very bright for the plugin.
2. Smash Balloon. In June 2020, we announced the acquisition of SmashBalloon, the #1 feed plugin for WordPress. John and his team have built an incredible product (I use it on my wife’s business website, Eclectic Tiger). It’s powerful and simple to use, and I’m glad it’s part of the AM family of products.
3. PushEngage. In October 2020, we announced the acquisition of PushEngage, a leading web push notification platform. It was a natural fit within our product family (especially considering the opportunities with OptinMonster), and it had many areas of untapped potential. We are actively in the process of overhauling the product, so I believe 2021 will be a big year for PushEngage.

Writing (Online and Journaling)

After a five year hiatus from writing, I picked up the pen again at the end of 2019. I’m really glad I did.

In January, I began writing the Better Leader Newsletter. I published every two weeks for the first four months of the year, and I’m proud of the work I produced. Once Jude was born, I determined I needed to step back from it for a season to devote time to my family. While I enjoyed writing the newsletter, it took 4-6 hours to prepare outside of my normal working hours, and that was time I had rather spent with Laura and the kids.

Of all the things I have written, this effort has had the biggest impact on people by far. My wife has mentioned many times how she loved the newsletters (a big win in my book!). The number of emails and responses to it were incredible, and I’m grateful to share in those moments.

Additionally, I published a total of 25 articles on my website in 2020 compared to 6 last year. My goal was to write 12, and between the newsletters, articles, tutorials and favorites, I easily passed that goal.

My website traffic also doubled this year. Take a look at my 2019 vs. 2020 comparison:

2019
Pageviews: 40,981
Unique Visitors: 37,821

2020
Pageviews: 85,908
Unique Visitors: 75,895

My most popular article was how to write a mission statement. My favorite one to write was words of wisdom for my sons.

In addition to writing online, I also picked up the habit of daily journaling this year. Daily journaling is one of the highest leverage habits you can build. I’ve journaled consistently for nearly nine months. The benefits are hard to explain but easy to see.

It’s one of those things where you don’t see any results for 6 months, and then someday comes suddenly. The tidal wave of change rushes in, and you know it wasn’t that moment that caused it but rather the moments of dedicated effort beforehand.

Golf

Golf is tough with two kids. I played less than half the number of 18 hole rounds I played in 2019. But, because of daily journaling and the deliberate practice that ensued, I improved dramatically during the second half of 2020.

In 2019, my average 18 hole score was 76. Not bad.

In 2020, my average 18 hole score was 73. Pretty good!

From June 2020 on, my average 18 hole score was 71.5, and that includes a poor round of 80. Now we’re talking!

As I journaled, I discovered consistent flaws in my game. In fact, repetitive mistakes would become so painfully clear that I would feel physically sick when I had to write them down. The constant visibility of errors reinforced my desire to fix them at the practice facility.

One by one, I began to address the flaws, and my scores improved because of it. Not only this, but journaling also caused a mindset shift on the course. I stopped thinking about technique and began concentrating on how to get the ball in the hole with less shots. That subtle shift changed how I approached the game, and I know it played a part in my scores being consistently lower.

And finally, I’ve worked out with a personal trainer consistently for six years. In the last two years, my time has been dedicated to stability, mobility and core strength. That work began to pay dividends on the course in 2020.

What didn’t go well this year?

Progress doesn’t come without its bruises!

Better Leader Newsletter

This went exceedingly well until it didn’t. That’s the best way I can describe it.

My aspirations were too high for the Better Leader Newsletter when I started. I imposed upon myself a schedule that was not sustainable with my greater priorities. I set out to do it twice a month, and in doing so, I simply could not keep up.

And when it came time for Jude to be born in April, I had to make the really difficult decision to pause the newsletter. I remember talking about it with Syed and telling him how it felt like a total failure.

I’ve been counseled by many people telling me it wasn’t, but I couldn’t help but feel that way at the time. I had publicly committed to something and then failed to stay the course.

I don’t believe the Better Leader Newsletter is done, but it certainly will not come back in the every two weeks schedule. Rather, it may look like a few times a year when it makes sense to write and send it.

Better Leader Community

Along with the Better Leader Newsletter, I put together a private group on Facebook to support it. It was called the Better Leader Community.

It was a great idea. I still think it is a great idea. But in launching it, I discovered I’m not good at building community.

I jokingly tell my wife that I don’t experience FOMO (fear of missing out) but rather FOGI (fear of getting invited). That should have been a clear hint that this effort was doomed from the start.

Unlike the Better Leader Newsletter, this will not come back. I’ll add it to the giant pile of things I built that never got traction. In case you are wondering, that pile is far bigger than the things that did get traction. 😀

Patience

My 2020 word of the year was patience… and as I write this on December 31, I’m still kicking myself for choosing that word.

I believe I failed miserably at this all year. Maybe it is because patience is only built through trials, and I experienced one trial after another. I found myself constantly frustrated with the lack of progress I was making.

Parenting is already difficult, but the pandemic kicked the “opportunities to parent” into high gear. Miles is sweet but definitely a threenager, and I got to experience all the demands that go along with it.

I would like to think I am more patient now than when 2020 began, but I honestly don’t know. It’s something I need to continue to grow in, but I don’t think I’ll be making it my word of the year again anytime soon! 🙂

One Kid to Two

Laura (my wife) told me that going from zero to one was hard for her. For me, it was going from one kid to two.

The moderate freedom I retained after the first kid evaporated with the second. Eight months in and I’m still grappling with the ramifications of it.

I recharge by being away from people, and sometimes that includes family. Pile on two kids and a pandemic, and I don’t know if I recharged at all in 2020. I’m sure many of you can relate.

Even still, it has been a hard transition. Doing anything with two kids is hard, especially when they are so young (Miles is 3.5 years old and Jude is 8 months old). The fond feelings for my wife have expanded to new depths as I’ve witnessed firsthand what she deals with every day.

I have heard that it gets a little easier as the kids get older. They learn to take care of themselves more, play independently and require less consuming attention. This is only a season, and I need to remind myself often of the words from my counselor: “You will never feel more loved by your kids than you will in these moments now.”

So true!

Building Processes and Systems for OptinMonster

In late 2019, I had set out to begin building some important processes and systems for OptinMonster to make it run more smoothly. Part of those updates included a central hub, LMS-style onboarding and some other parts of our playbook that would make our teams better.

I missed the mark on all of it. I started some, didn’t even begin others, and I let myself and the team down by not finishing it. It was painful and humbling.

I spent some time earlier in December reflecting on why it didn’t happen. At first, I thought it might be that this just wasn’t in my wheelhouse or desire zone. But, I looked at other areas in my life, and I realized that that was not the case. I do have the ability to create very good processes and systems (and you’ll see an example a little later in the review).

You know what the honest truth turned out to be? I just didn’t really want to do it.

Did you know that it is really hard to admit something like that? It is so easy to deceive yourself and make things look better than they are. I tried to find every other excuse to soothe the disgust of my own selfishness, but I knew it wouldn’t make things better. It would only hurt myself and those that I lead.

It was total selfishness on display, and in it I showed a complete lack of maturity and discipline. I had to repent of that behavior and apologize for it. It’s foremost dishonoring to Jesus whom I love and serve, and then it’s dishonoring and disrespectful to the people in my care.

Despite this, I feel a great burden to help build those systems and processes this year, and I truly believe it will happen. And if it is to be done, it will be through God’s power alone.

What did I learn?

Of the questions I’ve asked, this the most important. I’ve learned a few key lessons in 2020.

I Need the Bible Daily

I believe the Bible has the true words of life. And in 2020, I needed those words more than ever.

In a world filled with fear, uncertainty and doubt, I can cling to the hope, power and life found in the Bible.

I read the entire Bible in 2020 through The Bible Recap, and I’m incredibly glad that I did. It’s the first time I’ve ever done it (now is better than never). My relationship with Jesus is far stronger, and my relationships with others have deepened as well. I’ve also seen much personal growth as a result.

“God opposes the proud but gives grace to the humble.”

1 Peter 5:5b

Reading the Bible with daily prayer to God on my knees has instilled this truth within me. I want to be like Paul in his letter to the Corinthian church:

But by the grace of God I am what I am, and his grace toward me was not in vain. On the contrary, I worked harder than any of them, though it was not I, but the grace of God that is with me.

1 Corinthians 15:10

May it be that way now and forevermore.

Reflection Is Powerful

In November, I wrote about the surprising power of daily journaling.

I didn’t realize the mountain of benefits that daily reflection would bring. I spend so much time in the weeds of life that I forget to zoom out and study the big picture. Reflection through journaling allows me to gain that valuable perspective on a regular basis.

Want to make better decisions, improve your performance, grow in your leadership, {{insert X thing here}}?

Start journaling daily. You won’t be disappointed.

Count Your Blessings

It was a tough year for so many people. Lost loved ones. Lost jobs. Lost homes.

My family and I were spared from many of these calamities. I am grateful to God for the blessings and provisions he has given us in the midst of trying times.

Gratitude is a position of the heart. It’s being thankful for what you have. I’ve not always held this position well, but 2020 taught me count my blessings often.

I’ve learned this: the more you are grateful, the more you want to continue being grateful.

What do I want 2021 to look like?

My word of the year is refinement. I want to be refined as a man, husband, father and leader.

I have three primary goals for 2021:

1. Finish T214 with the other men in my group.
2. Average 72 or better for my rounds of golf.
3. Save 25% of my income.

1. Finish T214 with the other men in my group.

During the second half of 2020, I began to feel a stirring in my heart to invite other men into reading the Bible daily with me. I also had a desire to see men become more faithful and effective leaders in their homes, workplaces and communities.

This desire gave birth to T214 – a discipleship intensive program. I created this system as a way to encourage continued personal and spiritual growth in men.

I felt the need to clearly articulate the problem, the proposed solution, the vision of results, the values & beliefs, the mission, the passion, the process and the milestones. By doing this, I knew I could be clear on the path forward and lead people through it.

In 2021, I along with four other men are going through this process together. My hope is we would see marked gospel transformation that permeates every aspect of our lives.

2. Average 72 or better for my rounds of golf.

I averaged 73 for my combined rounds of golf in 2020. I would like to improve upon that by one stroke to 72 in 2021.

This is attainable, but it will require discipline when practicing and playing because I don’t know how much I’ll get to play.

I intend to build upon what I learned in 2020 to improve how I approach the game mentally, and I believe that will continue to translate to better scores on the course.

3. Save 25% of my income.

I want to be more intentional about saving and investing in 2021. While I’ve been consistent in saving a portion of my income, I’ve not put back a consistent amount.

In 2021, I want to save 25% of my income to put toward retirement and diversified liquid investments.

BONUS: My Favorite 2020 Pictures

Here are some of my favorite pictures from 2020!

Here’s to a happy, healthy and better 2021!

Cheers,
Thomas