Nearly at the end of the year... phew.

2021 is bound to be better eh?

I wrote about the feeling of crashing into a Covid Iceberg (which was a great opportunity to include a lot of Titanic references!)

For our family, it's not all been bad, we've stayed healthy and so have immediate and extended family, sometimes it's good to remember that basic measure of success.

Good things this year - family time (walks, movie nights & general time together)

Bad things - family time; in particular home school taking over my life and sucking time from the day, plus squabbling with my son about home school (my daughter is much easier!)

From a business perspective, it's been tough for paid coaching work but really rewarding in terms of helping people on free calls, making appearances in webinars and panel events and even chatting on national radio. https://www.inspiringdads.co.uk/media

Lockdown Dads Podcast

In May, James Millar and I kicked off Lockdown Dads - the podcast we hoped would only be relevant for one season. Now we are booking guests for season 3 that will run until April. In the nicest possible way I sincerely hope that we can kill it off then!

The final episode (#27) is available to watch or listen here:

https://www.inspiringdads.co.uk/lockdown-dads

"A look back at 26 episodes of Lockdown Dads - the good, the bad and the ugly as we ponder the "annus horribilis" that was 2020. We talk guests and the tips that inspired us and the tips that shocked us, it's all here as we discuss what 2021 has instore for dads and their families and how as a show we can continue to bring you interesting and informative content onward into season 3 of a project we wanted to kill off. Too much lockdown...!"

Awesome People

Finally for this year I was very proud to see two friends recognised for their work

Rhian Mannings MBE received a Pride of Britain special recognition award from actor Michael Sheen for her charity work.

While Eb Mukhtar was recognised with an MBE for his role in organising PPE logistics for the NHS.

"The fact that no NHS hospital ever ran out of stock is largely due to improvements he made."

and onto now

Here in SE London we're in Tier 4; Christmas plans are cancelled and we wait again to see what the plans are for schooling. The eye opening stat is that in our immediate areas 1 in 100 of the population tested positive last week for Covd.

Not me though, I paid for a test so I could visit my Dad, safe in the knowledge that I wasn't going to infect him. Naturally, I got a negative result a few hours after discovering that Xmas was off and it was a waste of £120. Such is life.

Great news is that Caroline from his local pub The Ruishton Inn are going to deliver him a Christmas Dinner. Community is alive and well!

Looking ahead a bit to 2021

It's exciting to be bringing another set of awesome guests to the Lockdown Dads podcast in the spring, a couple of collaborations will be launched and I'll be rolling out "The Successful Dads Scorecard".

The scorecard will give dads the opportunity to answer some important questions and get simple actionable tips based on how they scored. I can't wait to share it with you!

If you want to be a beta tester? email me here info@inspiringdads.co.uk

Some final words

Sometimes all we can do is adapt and accept and keep going. As Rocky Balboa says in the film Creed "One step at a time. One punch at a time. One round at a time."

and keep talking

talk to your partner

talk to your kids

talk to your mates

because as Bob Hoskins once said "It's good to talk"

Merry Christmas

Ian, Lisa, Freya and Struan

Picture Credit: Volodymyr Hryshchenko via Unsplash @lunarts