2024: The Year of Deeper Connections

It was in a time of stillness, on a recent vacation to Nevis with my family, that I had the headspace to think about the year ahead and what my theme might be. This time last year, I decided to venture out on my own, and considering the amount of speeches I delivered and the amazing connections I made, I accomplished a ton and I feel I had a huge impact.

But how do I take it to the next level, if the theme 2023 was to build the foundation for this entrepreneurial journey. What is 2024?

When I returned from vacation, a lunch conversation with my very good friend Jimmy Mills illuminated the theme for 2024. As I discussed with Jimmy, what brings me the greatest joy is when I can sit across from someone else and help them make an impact in their own lives. It’s being that catalyst to steer other people toward the passions and dreams that have either gone ignored for many years or not fully pursued. 

So my theme for 2024 is deeper connections. This means I will be going deeper into three or four organizations to create more of an impact on the people and leadership. It also means I’ll be hosting a retreat in March for a small group of leaders to help them discover what they can and should pursue amidst some amazing experiences. 

Deeper connections will also happen on an individual level, and I will be more deliberate about being able to see some of the intentions I discuss on the stage all the way through to the end. So much of what I do on stage comes from the individual connections I have, and connection in its purest form is listening. I want to listen more, and to ask the questions to help people move forward. 

I encourage everyone as we tackle 2024, to come up with a theme for their direction they need to pursue, because it’s with progress that joy lives. 

It’s easy to just get into your New Year’s resolution or to-do list, and then at the end of the year, you’re like, Wait, what did I really accomplish in terms of truly moving forward as a human?

For me, shifting to a broader theme of deeper connections requires some internal change, such as taking the pressure off myself to just book a ton of speeches. It’s being more deliberate in how I’m filling the time between engagements. I look back at 2023 and take inspiration from people such as Patrick Lewis ; it’s our “real” friend-anniversary on January 11. I’ve been working with him on some of his foundational leadership at his company Superior Rigging and his online content. We will soon be announcing a retreat that we are running together in March to help more leaders we their own “reawakening.” To watch how he's become one of the most authentic leaders I know and becoming one of my closest friends in the process makes me want to just do more in this domain of "deeper connection."

In all of my accomplishments of the past year, it’s not necessarily the biggest stages and the applause that followed, it’s people like Patrick Lewis and seeing what he’s been able to achieve. Or my identical twin brother, Ben Tuff , who was a schoolteacher for 20 years before we sat down and talked about his passions and dreams — the catalyst for his new documentary, Swim Tuff, and taking to the stage himself to speak with audiences about happy and healthy recovery. 

If I can be more deliberate about that connection and go deeper with a handful of people this next year, it will not only be more energizing and fulfilling to me, but I’ll be able to touch a lot more lives than through just being on a stage. I’ll continue to speak, but I’ll be less reliant on the stage. 

I talk a lot about responsible reinvention, and 2024 represents an opportunity for anyone to responsibly reinvent themselves through smart iterations. It begins with a theme — what’s yours?