I thought I’d see this year out in a fallow, hibernatory period of time is to write an Obituary for My Rippling Year.

Here’s my attempt to memorialize what this year has been for me in a way that’s satisfactorily summarizing without circling in endless analysis.

I'm leaning into my Q4 spirit as a brave, evolving leader.

I'm spreading the spirit of directing my own sails.

I'm launching some new offers and reaching out for your help to spread the word.

I've come to the center of my Rippling Year. An interesting place to be for a year in which I'm reminding myself to be guided by the question What is my center and what am I spreading?

I know my work is better when I do it with others. That can be true for all of us if we think of ourselves as parts of an ecosystem. Our outputs can be as rich and varied as a forest when we share resources the way woodland species do.

To make real magic, you’ve got to identify the conditions that make you productively uncomfortable, and make the decision to put yourself in those conditions. It’s taken me a long time to hone my ability to identify and embrace those conditions for myself, but now that I’m working for myself, I’ve found it’s easier to lean into them.

If I’m working toward change, whether that’s for individuals or organizations, that change can and should happen without me there to see it. I still struggle with what the roles of ambition and public recognition are in this mix.

The word I’m centering for 2024 is RIPPLING.

Ripples make change gently and from small beginnings. They can’t happen alone. Rippling is a collective enterprise, and it touches more than it starts with. More than its source can ever know.