2025 Yearly Review
1: First big thing that happened is I FINALIZED a thing that I invented. I have never seen a book for people who work in disability services that speaks to real experiences, feels honest and authentic, and sounds like me. Some trainings and courses I have been through have been incredibly helpful and I speak to those moments in the book. But most paperwork I get feels like paperwork. This doesn’t. At the same time, regarding myself as an Author feels a little weird. I have more books to write in my life and maybe then I’ll have to admit it. But writing is vulnerable. At the same time, everybody that has gotten a copy of it, even the prototype version, has had lovely things to say. They see the value.
2: That brings me to my trip to Arizona. One thing that went well is my company started an initiative where anybody could submit their ideas for improving the company for chance to have lunch with the CEO. I had just finished the prototype and half forgot about submitting it when I found out I was selected. I offered to travel and ended up making the trip. We’ll be launching a Pilot Program in the next couple weeks, scale TBD.
3/4: The next two are both from the Bowling Club Launch Party back in July. The first is my lovely friend Melanie and I. We don’t see each other as much right now but she showed up for me that day and got to see an event that turned out to be way bigger than I had thought. I passed out flyers and drove around town telling people about it but I showed up not knowing what to expect. Having her there was very cool to witness some of that and also to be there after the show was over and see my exhaustion. Good friends are the best. The second is of the first person who arrived and also the first person to get a Bowling Club medal. It was cool to get the party started and get some (hopefully) cool Polaroids!
5: That’s the Bowling Club medal. It was important to me to make real medals. Sometimes at disability things especially they will give out plastic versions. Probably because of funding but it also does feel childish. I didn’t wanna do that. I wanted real medals and Capital Trophy did a great job with these. Despite the fact that I am doing all of this on my income as a Lead DSP, every single person who came to an Empathy Adviser Bowling Club in 2025 got a medal. And btw, the 2026 medals will be ready on the 9th.
6: That’s 6 days before the first Bowling Club of 2026, which is Jan 15th. Instead of individual flyers, I decided to make calendars. One piece of paper you put on the fridge. Easy peasy. I’ll pin this individually so you can come back here to check it too. But I liked that idea and it was fun making that.
7: I really don’t like single-sided flyers so I made the back an overview of my plans and goals for 2026 along with how people can help. The Empathy Adviser Toolkit is for sale to individual DSPs in a staple-bound version for $25. The spiral-bound Onboarding version for agencies is $30 with lots of bulk and reoccurring discounts available. The main thing is getting the word out. Marketing myself is something I find to be wildly embarrassing a lot of times. But I also know this can help people. It’s the book I wish I read when I started as a DSP back in 2014. And that was the goal when I sat down to write it.
8: I like lovely things on social media rather than other stuff so I decided to include in this tradition a lovely photo. I went to my recent photos and decided to pick whichever one jumped out. This one jumped out pretty quick.
2026 feels like a big year. 2025 was too and I hope you can find time to be proud of making it through.
