Year Concept, Year Concert.

(Download your Year Concert Playbook below)

The end of the year does something to me. It slows me down. Makes me look around. And it makes me look inside. I don’t know how other people clean up their inner wardrobes. Maybe some don’t. Maybe the New Year is just a trick of the mind—one day stepping aside for another. Still, changing a calendar feels different than changing a date. It felt like a milestone , a shedding moment, an invitation to celebrate and reflect.

For the past ten years, when the year reaches its edge, I felt compelled to sit down alone and do one thing - to make my Personal Professional Development Plan. The name sounds stiff, but the truth is simple. It’s not really a plan. It’s a look back and look forward.

I write down what stayed with me. What hurt. What mattered. What I want to change. What I want to remember. What I am grateful of. What I am prepared to let go and forgive. Then I look ahead, to imagine who I might become. I plant many seeds. I make a few promises to myself. Whether they grow or not is out of my control. What matters is that, in that moment, I mean them. Mind the plowing not the harvest - as an old Chinese saying goes.

I think most of the time, we live on autopilot. Half-awake. Moving through days like we’re walking through fog. This short yet precious moment of looking back is like waking up at dawn and catching my reflection in the mirror. I see myself clearly—maybe not perfectly, but honestly. Then I step into the day more awake than ever.

This year, I did this work in Cinque Terre, Italy, during the quiet season. I sat in a small local café, jazz playing softly in the background. The door beeped open now and then, a little bell dangling, marking people coming and going. All of it became part of the music.

On my screen, there was no blank Word document. Instead, I gathered the questions I’ve been asking myself for years and shaped them into a small booklet. It felt like traveling through my past and future at the same time. The name came quickly. I called it my Year Concept.

Then I paused and thought a little more... Everything begins with thought. Everything ends with inspiration. I wanted the start of the new year to feel like music. Like a celebration. So I changed the name to Year Concert.

Just one letter different. Maybe half a letter. The distance of a single leaf—or a spark that can grow into a firework.

I’m sharing the edible booklet here. If you feel that same urge at the beginning of the year, would you like to make your own Year Concert?

Download the Year Concert