A Gift for Year's End
Not a performance review. Not a goal-setting exercise. An invitation to slow down and ask the questions you have been too busy to ask.
I have been working with CEOs for years now, and there is something I have noticed. By the time December comes around, most of them are exhausted in a way that is hard to explain. Not just tired. Something deeper. The kind of depletion that comes from holding too much for too long.
The instinct at year's end is to push through. Finish strong. Maybe do a quick review of the numbers, set some goals, and collapse into the holidays. I understand that instinct. I have felt it myself.
But I want to offer you something different.
This guide is written the way I would talk to you if we were sitting together, somewhere quiet, with enough time and no agenda. Some of the questions might land. Others might not. That is fine. Take what is useful, leave the rest.
The only thing I would ask: do not rush. The things worth seeing tend to reveal themselves only when we stop moving long enough to notice them.
With warmth, Nikolas
The guide moves through the year that was, through you, through your company, and finally toward what comes next.
Territory One
How are you, actually? Not the polished answer. Before we analyze anything, notice how you are arriving at this moment.
Territory Two
What actually happened? The honest story you would tell an old friend over a long dinner, after the pleasantries.
Territory Three
The moments when you showed up as the leader you want to be. Evidence of what you are capable of, when conditions are right.
Territory Four
The conversations that needed to happen. The decisions that kept getting pushed. Naming them is the first step toward putting them down.
Territory Five
The quality of leadership you bring when rested versus running on caffeine and willpower. What drained you? What sustained you?
Territory Six
When things got hard, which version of you showed up? Sharper and more present? Or controlling, distant, reactive?
Territory Seven
The things everyone around you can see except you. What feedback did you dismiss? What pattern do people keep pointing to?
Territory Eight
What have you built? Where have you created capability versus dependency? If you lost your three best people, what would break?
Territory Nine
Not the values on the wall. The lived experience. What behaviors actually get rewarded? What does everyone know but no one says?
Territory Ten
Sleep, exercise, energy. The things you keep meaning to address. Your body has been keeping score all year.
Territory Eleven
Who got your real attention this year? And who got your leftovers? The people who knew you before all this.
Territory Twelve
When did you feel most alive? Not most productive. The moments when time disappeared and you remembered why any of this matters.
Territory Thirteen
A project, a role, a story you tell yourself, a way of working. Something that has run its course and is asking for your courage.
Territory Fourteen
If you get still enough, there is often a knowing that emerges. A direction trying to get your attention.
Territory Fifteen
Real change does not happen through lists. It happens through commitment. The one change that would shift everything else.
Territory Sixteen
The insights from reflection fade once the noise returns. Who will hold you to what you discovered?
"Your organization will eventually reflect who you are. Your clarity and your confusion. Your courage and your avoidance. Your presence and your absence."From the guide
"This is not another productivity exercise. It is the first reflection guide that actually helped me see the patterns I had been living without knowing it."
"I have done annual reviews for years. This one felt different. Less like planning, more like finally being honest with myself about the year that was."
"The questions are deceptively simple. I started thinking I would finish in an hour. Four hours later, I had clarity I had been avoiding all year."
Designed for CEOs who are tired of shallow exercises
Room to think, not fill in blanks
Complete in one sitting or return over days
Available as a beautifully designed PDF. Print it, write in it, keep it.
This guide is free. Consider it a holiday gift from one person in the arena to another. The things worth seeing tend to reveal themselves only when we stop moving long enough to notice them.
"The person with the fewest blind spots wins."Nikolas Konstantin