I chose a list-format for the majority of this as it was getting super lengthy.
TL;DR:
- Grew the Customer Support Team at Webflow from 5 to 12 team members (and we're growing more in 2019 as needed 🤯 😄 📈)
- I built a few sites in Webflow 🙈
- I shaved and regrew my beard 4 inches in 6 months (also spent a little more time on mybeard.co)
- Found myself weighing in at 297lbs, started eating right, now down to 257lbs and a goal of 225lbs or under
- Spoke a lot more about mental health and wrote a user guide to Waldo (available upon request)
- Built a website for Epicurrence and attended Epic Unknown (it was AMAZING and life changing)
- Attended the Support Driven Leadership Summit and met some amazing humans
- Traveled to Johannesburg, Cape Town, Lisbon, San Francisco x5, Boston, Kansas City, Springfield, Denver x2, Tennessee, and all around St. Louis
- Learned to fly drones (I admit it, I have a problem and am slightly addicted 🚁 🤖)
- Read a few amazing books 😄 📖 🎧
- Started an Ecommerce business with my wife called Midwest Mutt Shop 🐶 🐕
- Started a YouTube channel to share my Webflow and web design experience with the world
- Started this blog finally 😄
Here we go
I started off the year with 1.5 weeks of vacation with my wife and extended family in South Africa (3 weeks in a row actually if you count the end of 2017).
For those of you that don't know, I'm originally from Johannesburg, South Africa and moved to the U.S. in 1999 with my parents and older brother (my parents sacrificed all that they had for my brother and I to have a brighter future in the U.S. and I am forever grateful for all that they did, more to come about that later 💜).
Taking that time away helped me set up some goals and boundaries to operate within
- Be a better husband and dog daddo
- Be more intentional about how I spend my time
- Learn to be a better leader and better serve my team
- Lose a lot of weight
- Pray more
- Have more in-depth-conversations
- Find ways to better serve our customers at Webflow
- Make more web elements that provide utility for many and scale the way I share what I've learned
- Build more fun stuff in Webflow
- Build and foster relationships with amazing humans that inspire me 💜
- Leave the house more often and go to Meetups with other humans
- Only take on freelance projects that excited me and paid $5K+, or hit my heart strings
Actions I took to address these growth points throughout the year and some comments because my stream of consciousness fluctuates a lot 📈 📉 🎢 :
These don't match 1:1 with the above list in case you're wondering 🙈
- Spent more time with my wife and doggo (cutting off at 6pm - 9pm to hangout, but it took several reminders to get this balance right and I'm still struggling 😅)
- Went to an amazing leadership training session in San Francisco thanks to Webflow
- Identified that I asked a lot of leading questions during training and became super intentional about asking open ended questions that make you think
- I wrote a user guide to Waldo 😄 (available upon request)
- I gained more weight (went from 276lbs ➞ 297lbs in Q1 😬)
- Then back in August identified that I have an emotional connection to food and it lost it's grip on me ✊, now down to 257lbs and on track to hit my goal of 225lbs soon
- I started posting my Webflow projects on CodePen and it seems like the community appreciates it 💜
- Spent more time in prayer, too often out of necessity instead of to simply seek The Lord just to know Him better (had that reality check a few days ago)
- Read more books:
I read: Shoe Dog, It Doesn't have to be crazy at Work, Be our Guest, Pitch Anything, The Productivity Project: Accomplishing more by by managing your time, attention and energy, The Year Without Pants: wordpress.com and the future of work, Find your why, Deep Work, Remote: Office Not Required, Drive: The Surprising Truth about What Motivates Us, The 15 Commitments of Conscious Leadership.
I re-read: Radical Candor, Love Works, Ender's Game and Speaker for the Dead - Joined some Slack workspaces and left quite a few as well
- I traded web design work for 1:1 leadership coaching with the amazing and incredible Kaley Klemp
- I focused on the content of my websites and client websites instead of just the design
- I made the conscious decision to eliminate the word "try" from my vocabulary. This helped me grow my confidence and better nail down my commitments
- I asked A LOT more questions during my 1:1's with team members and with my manager Vlad
- Joined, attended and spoke at a few web design Meetups (yay I left the cave 🎉)
- I started a YouTube channel
- Updated my username to @Waldo on Dribbble, CodePen, Webflow, and attempted to get it on Twitter which seems impossible 😂 🤷♂️
Here are some projects I worked on this year:
I could probably write up a full case study for each of these, but that would take a long time and I'm not sure if anyone would read them. If you're interested in learning more about any of them, just message me below in the contact form and I'll see what I can do 😄.
Spaced design challenge
Abstracted control panel
2018 Epicurrence site REBUILD
Responsive clonable website footers
Light and dark theme switcher
Clonable style guide site templates for Webflow projects (light & dark variants)
Share my idea freebie webpage template
Spider-Man built with CSS Grid in Webflow
Aviation Gin concept redesign by Jeff Black, dev by yours truly
Agvance website with design by Jeff Black and Jump Company
Mission Taco Joint website with design by Jeff Black and Jump Company
Midwest Mutt Shop, name by my wife, logo and branding by Leah Quinn, design and development by yours truly
Mybeard.co
Epic Unknown for Epicurrence. Design by Dann Petty, words by Kris Puckett, development by yours truly.
Angel Band Project website with design by Jeff Black and Jump Company
I'm certain that there are a few projects I forgot to list, it's easy to lose track at times when you enjoy what you're working on 😄. While writing this I ended up putting together a list of the challenges I faced in 2018 and what I learned through them which I'll be sharing as a separate post after its finalized.
Next up I'm writing a 2019 goals post which you'll be able to find below.
Please feel free to reach out any time if you have any questions or comments via the contact form below. I love to connect and am always looking for more topics to share my thoughts on if it adds value. 😄