Happy NewYear 2014

 

What a year 2013 has been.

At it’s start, I thought this was going to be a slow year.

 It started with a client who had financial troubles. As any coach will tell you, it does not make any sense to help people working better together, when they worry if they can keep their job.

And yet I had faith for my business, although that could have been inspired by visiting the holy wall in Israel before delivering a personal agility workshop 😉

And what a year it became…

  • We have published on Retroflection one tweet every day to make people think. Started on the 1ste of Januari 2010 and still going strong.
    A big thanks to our 58 people big Retroflection team. (That said I always look for people who can bring new questions and statements …)
  • We had 9 CoachRetreats organized in 6 countries. A HUGE thank you to Oana Juncu who is the driving force behind this.
    Another big thanks (just a little bit smaller then the one for Oana) for all the local organizers.
    As already 4 CoachRetreat’s are planned for the start of 2014, CoachRetreat seems to take off. My personal goal for 2014, is to train as many women CoachRetreat facilitators as men.
  • ThoughtJockey.org was launched as a trust experience and so far, I can still stand behing what is written.
  • Thanks to some more help, 3 more books were published with my name on it.
  •  A client where I did a small assignment to help a team split in two, turned into a big assignment. We started a re-organization of a 150 people company. I have now trained 4 feature teams and started a traject with the executive committee. A big thank you to Hans Vranken (CEO) & Nathalie Servranckx (CIO) for trusting me. An even bigger thanks to the teams doing all the hard work, in ever changing circumstances.
  • We put the PragAuthor.com project in the freezer. I hope to unfreeze it as an open-source project, when my WIP is lower.
  • I helped out my friends of co-learning with 2 Budget Games: one in Aalbeke and one in Heule
    Thank you Jurgen De Smet, Erik Talboom, Luke Hohman ,  all co-facilitators. A big applause for the first time facilitators of the city of Kortrijk. Wow.
    If you like BudgetGames/Innovation games, please contact Luke or me, as we are looking for 1000, yes thousand people for BG in San Jose at the end of Januari 2014)
  • For my personal training, I wanted to learn about Tribes and squads from the sources and I worked a week at Spotify
    A thank you to Henrik Kniberg for bringing me in contact with Spotify. A bigger thank you to Joakim Sunden, Christian Vikström, Jimmy Janlén for letting me around your Spotify teams and learn at the heart of your tribes and squads.
  • Problem Solving Leadership: one of these trainings that has a huge impact, for years to come. Thank you Jerry Weinberg, Johanna Rothman, Esther Derby for such a wonderful experience. Thank you my co-participants for a wonderful week
  • All the conferences that invited me. Thank you for your trust. I had a wonderful time at each and every event I was.
  • Dear smaller clients, I did no have much time for you, yet each of you gave me so much energy and idea’s. Thank you.
  • Personal Coaching session, I’m probably most proud of this work:
    • A person who returned to his previous job after figuring out, that was better suited.
    • A few persons who changed jobs
    • One person moved to another country
    • One person contacted after every coaching session, the next day. He had already done what he had promised to do by the next session and in most cases, had already gone a few steps further.
    • Even better are the people, who found a better work-life-balance and because of that, became more productive.
  • Thanks to my own investment in a walkingdesk, I have stepped + 4.000 KM this year, most of these while working at home.  For those who wonder that is +5.500.000 steps. (This also means I worked to much 🙁 )
  • I tried to give away the PairCoaching.net domain, I failed to create a community around it.
  • I sponsored ALE2013 to make publicity for the PairCoaching concept 
  • I was blown away by three great books. ( I read more but these three are amazing books)
  • Three great projects I supported this year:
    • RobotTurtles to teach young children (from 3 year old till 10) the basics of programming
    • Programming For kids: a book to teach children (as young as 8 year old) how to programming in Ruby
    • Rethoric: a game to teach people (children + adults) a better way of talking in public

And this is just (yes one of the few places where just is the correct word) the professional side.

On a personal level, we now have 3 children in school.

  • Geike learning how to read and write.
  • Bent working really hard and great at reminding me to slow down.
  • Joppe finding his way in life, enjoying friendship and gradually receiving more freedom.

If I wanted signs that my children will turn out ok, I have now all I need: at the latest family party, they all started dancing and enjoyed it very much. As a parent that is all I want!

As for the relationship with my wife, we did not take that much relational time as we should have. Yet after 17 years I still love my wife. Els let’s go dancing more in 2014.

We will be building a new home in 2014. I hope your life wil be as constructive.

Yves