Today, a year ago, I clicked the publish button here on LinkedIn, and my first Creative Bite went live. One year, many Creative Bites, and over 12K subscribers later, I would like to share a few lessons and observations from a year of writing.

Seriously, did you think this was just a year of writing?

Of course not; it was also a year of long covid, foggy brain, and other disasters, but to balance it: a year of learning, growing, healing, and many blessings, including saying diplomatic “f!”§s you” to disrespectful people and, generally, a year of everything.

One of my favorite stories is the one that happened in Namibia during a conference. After my speech, I was approached by many people, and I was so grateful I could listen to them and their stories. And the one man stuck with me as he said something along those lines: “I saw you on that stage speaking, and you got into my heart. It was mesmerizing.” I was showered with compliments. And the only thing was:

I really didn’t know what had happened. I actually still ask myself: What happened on that stage?

It was this kind of out-of-body experience that I blamed my foggy brain for. I couldn’t remember my performance. And the funny thing is that I was recently invited to do exactly the same presentation at another conference.

So now, the question is:How do you define success?

Or, in the entrepreneurial world, we would say: What are your KPIs for success? Or, in my words: What are your key personal indicators of success?

Here is what success means to me:

Success is the coherence between what I think, feel, say, and do; and doing my very best in any circumstance. And to the year of (writing), I’m happy to add the following successes:

-> The above-mentioned coherence.

-> Having my brain back and fully functional. – I celebrate it every day.

-> Persevering.

-> Speaking up my mind when I saw injustice happening.

-> Cutting off ties to disrespectful people (very useful in private and professional life); respect is everything in any relationship. (Some people will call you problematic, but it doesn’t matter).

-> Writing as much as I could.

And I also had many first attempts in learning:

-> I learned more about listening to people on many levels. This is one of my favorite creative tools. And I still FAILED epically on it in a few cases.

Listening is crucial; people will always reveal who they are when they speak.

-> I spent time and money with people I shouldn’t have given any trust: lesson learned.

-> I run many “failed” business experiments I will never mention.

-> I learned again that you can give everything you have and still be called problematic and delusional. It doesn’t really matter what people call you, but this one was very refreshing.

Moving forward to the second year of Creative Bites:

I will keep on writing for the pure sake of writing. ChatGPT4 can’t take this pleasure from me. The AI between my ears is looking forward to more intellectual and curious adventures in writing, speaking at conferences, designing and running workshops, and creating tonnes of business experiments moving forward.

So what are your key personal indicators of success? What are your recent fails (first attempts in learning)?