Elite Impact Education Platform

Don's Thoughts

January 14, 2025 | Volume 24

Like other higher-performing companies, at DLP, we conclude each year by reflecting on successes, acknowledging and troubleshooting misses, and realigning on the path forward. While many CEOs and leaders may view these exercises as merely routine, this reflection, issue-solving, and goal-setting period is critically important to our continued success. It is so essential that it is the basis of three separate events for us each year: our recently hosted Year in Review webinar, Vision Day, and senior leadership retreat.

As I was putting together the content for this year’s senior leadership retreat, I had an idea. How powerful would it be to look back five and ten years and see what our biggest goals were at the time? Seeing the difference between what we thought were ambitious goals then and what we know to be achievable today was incredibly inspiring. It illustrated the power of being clear about your organization's purpose. If you’re a real estate operator or developer ready to take your business from ordinary to extraordinary, I invite you to join me at our Building an Extraordinary Organization Mastermind this April in Ponte Vedra Beach, FL. It’ll be an incredible two days of panels, workshops, networking, and entertainment that you can’t afford to miss if you’re serious about 10xing your business in 2025. Space will be limited, so don’t wait to reserve a spot for yourself and your A-Players.

Just as I prioritize year-end reflection and vision-forward goal setting for DLP, it is equally important to me to spend time with Carla and our three boys at the end of each year on a similar exercise. Habits and traditions are an integral part of our family, and our year-end family celebration is one of my favorites. It’s dedicated time to align as a family on our goals for the future, check in with each other on where we’re experiencing success and where we could use support, and, of course, belly laugh at memories along the way.

2024's Extraordinary Days

If you’re a parent, you’ve undoubtedly experienced the pleasure of finding that a day or moment you took for granted meant the world to your child and, conversely, the humbling experience of realizing you may have tried too hard on something that just didn’t make the impression you thought it would. In our family, we measure “extraordinary days” and have a goal of sharing 1,000 extraordinary days together as a family before our oldest son, Donny, goes to college. The rules of an extraordinary day are that it must be a day we were together as a family, and we must all vote that it was an extraordinary day.

In 2024, we experienced an incredible 103 extraordinary days. Below are each of our favorite days.

Dad’s Favorite Day

November 6th, when Donny, Alex, and I were all baptized together. I was raised catholic and baptized as a baby, then went through confirmation. All of our boys were baptized as well, but for our two oldest to choose Jesus as their Lord and Savior and for me to be baptized alongside them was incredibly special.

Mom's Favorite Day

My favorite day was over the summer when Don, Jakey, and I picked Donny and Alex up after their first-ever weeklong overnight Christian camp. I missed them so much, and the limited communication made it hard (mostly for me), so when I got to hug them that day, I was so happy. The pick-up celebration with all the other campers and their parents was so emotional and fun. The boys were in a cabin together, and they were awarded the Golden Plunger Award for cleanest cabin. Hearing the stories of all the fun they had and everything they learned was amazing!

Donny's Favorite Day

The day before Christmas Eve, Pop and Grandma from Pennsylvania surprised us by showing up at our house to visit us for 4 days. I loved spending Christmas with them.

Alex's Favorite Day

On a family board meeting with dad, we entered a Pickleball tournament in St. Augustine. Teammates rotated so I played with different people, but dad and I each did really well. I love pickleball and spending time with my dad.

Jake's Favorite Day

“Jesus.” He’s still getting the hang of the extraordinary days. I won’t pick an extraordinary day for him, but I can confidently say he had a blast riding his bike alongside his big brothers in downtown St. Augustine.

Many of this year's extraordinary days were spent in service as we traveled alongside the DLP Positive Returns Foundation on mission trips in Panama, Guatemala, Costa Rica, and Belize. I've highlighted many of these trips in past editions, but here are a few highlights.

In Belize, we supported PathLight, which empowers children to receive a quality education, break free from poverty, and reach their God-given potential. While there, we had the opportunity to snorkel and swim with sharks and take a cooking class with Mayan locals.

In Guatemala, we worked alongside Transforming Futures, a signature partner of the DLP Positive Returns Foundation. We shared beanie babies with the local children, fed over 400 families at a local feeding center, put together care packages, and went bowling and shoe shopping with some of the local children.

In Costa Rica, we witnessed John C. Maxwell bring 100s to salvation. We also visited Panama alongside his Transforming Futures organization, where we had the privilege of being part of donating sports equipment and a new outdoor recreation center. Carla and Alex even got the chance to help him sign books.

Ready to create your own extraordinary days with your family? Our Extraordinary Impact Family Event this June is a great place to start. Spend four days with your family and other like-minded investors in beautiful Asheville, NC, strengthening your family’s bond and even experiencing some extraordinary days of your own.

Get a feel for what makes this event so unique with the recap of last year’s event. Browse photos, watch a recap video, and even see recordings of some of the most popular sessions.

Memorable Moments, Mission Trips, and More

We celebrated Donny’s 12th birthday with a trip to Sea World. Another incredible part of 2024 for him was making the middle school basketball team.

Alex celebrated his 11th birthday with indoor go-karting. He also performed in several violin recitals throughout the year.

I turned 40, with my team and family pulling off a surprise celebration I didn’t see coming, while Carla celebrated her 29th birthday.

We secured another flag football championship in the spring.

Then enjoyed fishing in Jackson Hole, Wyoming.

Prepare for an Extraordinary 2025: Compass and Living Fully Dashboard

In the next edition of Don’s Thoughts, I’ll share my Personal Compass and Living Fully dashboard goals for 2025. If you haven’t taken the time before to complete a Personal Compass—or aren’t sure what I’m talking about—let me tell you why this exercise has become an indispensable part of my life. You can also learn more about this tool in my book Building an Elite Career (Chapter 3).

The Personal Compass is a tool that enables you to Live Fully, achieving both success (achieving your goals) and significance (making an impact on who and what matters to you). Completing the personal compass can help you connect with what you want to accomplish in your life and force you to take an honest look at what has been holding you back from living the life you want. It’s about going from dreaming about the life you want to live to planning for it. It’s a tool to encourage discipline, the foundation of success in all aspects of your life, including what I refer to as the eight F’s: Faith, Family, Fitness, Finance, Fulfillment, Freedom, Friends, and Fun.

I’ll explore the Personal Compass and the Living Fully dashboard in the next edition, but today, I want to encourage you to complete your own personal compass using the template available here. If that seems too overwhelming a place to start, focus on the Living Fully dashboard section. As you’ll see in my updates for 2024 below, this section is about identifying your top goals for 2025.

As you work through the Living Fully dashboard, remember to focus on progress over perfection. Be ambitious, but aim for things you can see yourself being accountable for in the year ahead. If you’re new to this type of goal setting, I recommend no more than 4-5 goals. Completing a Life Assessment (available here) and evaluating where you are in your life using the 8 F’s framework is a great guide to get started.

My 2024 Living Fully Dashboard Results

Goal: Win the Year: 84 extraordinary days in 12 different places each year, visiting 7 national parks.
Update: We had 103 extraordinary days in 19 different places. We only visited 3 national parks, but we will make up for that with a big 2025 national park plan.
Goal: Daily family routines: daily prayer and 15-minute convo with Carla and daily prayers with boys.
Update: Not as consistent as I would like, but the habits are in place and largely achieved.
Goal: Clear, active role at a church and church rolled out through DLP Communities.
Update: Not 100% achieved, but great progress. Eleven22 is our church, and we have done a lot with Eleven22 through the DLP Positive Returns Foundation.
Goal: Clear giving plan with 3+ significant ministry partnerships and EDC contribution implemented.
Update: Yes! This was accomplished with 10+ significant ministry partnerships and the rollout of DLPgives.
Goal: Sacred pace: Miracle Morning daily; free Friday; solitude days; quarterly 4 days off the grid; read 75 books; write a book.
Update: Largely in place! Overall a success. I read 70 books (an average of 20 hours per month) and am halfway through writing Building an Extraordinary Organization.
Goal: Weekly basketball and pickleball with indoor courts complete in St. Augustine and Asheville.
Update: Asheville is complete! We were able to play on the courts for the first time on my birthday weekend. St. Augustine is permitted and ready to start construction.
Goal: Be in the best shape of my life at 40.
Update: Overall, I did well. There’s still work to do to get to where I want to be in 2025. I reduced my biological age by 3 years this year. All of my blood work, stress testing, body composition, etc., have continued to improve this year.
Goal: Achieve investor and DLP return targets.
Update: On track!
Goal: All 12 tribe key seats filled: 4 Elite partners, 3 strategy team members, 2+ ministry partners, 2 mentors, 2 friends.
Update: 100% achieved. Very blessed.
Goal: Read the Bible chronologically.
Update: This has been a great joy. I’m about 80% complete and will finish in Q1 2025. I look forward to deepening my relationship with Christ through deepening my knowledge of scripture in 2025.