What will you do in 2025? Here’s what we will do.

According to the calendar — and they have a tendency to be accurate — this will be our final feature article for 2024.

The common theme for this time of year is “New Year’s Resolutions,” and perhaps you’ve already started thinking about yours.

Almost every list I see is comprised of actions — things we will do. The word encourages us to take action, which is why we use it in the name of our company: do good. That actually works for the purposes of a resolution, and I think it would look good on your list. But it’s a little broad.

Lose weight. Get in shape. Those are the same: broad in scope and therefore not easily measured.

And it is said that in order for goals (or even resolutions) to be useful, they should be measurable and ultimately measured. So the weight loss resolution might be better stated as “lose 10 pounds by March and keep it off all year.”

Resolutions also tend to focus on the person making them. There is nothing wrong with that, because striving to improve ourselves is an important ingredient in personal growth. And personal growth allows us to experience — even leads us to — interpersonal growth.

We want to make sure we give attention to interpersonal growth, because It is in the interpersonal realm where doing good lives and thrives.

Beautiful!

Here is an example resolution for you: “I resolve to read one book a month for a year. At least three of those will be on self-improvement, at least three of them will add to my knowledge, and at least two will be entertaining. None of the books will be trashy in any way.”

Accomplish that and you will have made yourself — mind, body, and spirit — better. As a person who has grown through reading, you will be better equipped to help others. As you help others, you yourself will continue to grow! Beautiful.

Once you get that rhythm going, it is almost like the mythical “perpetual motion” machine. Even better, this machine spreads and creates more “upward cycle” growth in both you and in those around you.

Doing good, done right, invariably creates benefits for many. The ripple effect is amazing.

Whatever resolutions you choose — and I hope you choose some — may they elevate you as a person and also bring more and more good into the world.

What we are doing… Announcing Do Good Talks

About six weeks ago we at Do Good U made a resolution. It wasn’t close enough to 2025 to call it a New Year’s Resolution, and we weren’t going to wait until now to act on it. But now we are formally announcing one result of that resolution.

Our resolution was something that sounds simple but required action. Kind of like that “lose weight” thing — you just have to reduce your caloric intake. Simple, but requires action.

In our case we had some assets that were not being used, and we resolved to use them. We knew that God had provided those assets, and that we didn’t have them just so we could sit around and look at them. They were, we believed, a call to action.

Very quickly we knew that we should use those assets to launch Do Good Talks. We describe it as “kind of like TED Talks, but all about doing good.”

And so you are the very first group to learn that we will host the first Do Good Talks on May 8 and 9, 2025, at Highlands Church in Scottsdale, Arizona!

(That sentence was fun to write! Seeing how everything came together to make it writable was even more fun. Divine intervention!)

There are a lot of details to work on, of course, but we already have a few speakers lined up, and it is going to be an outstanding event. We’ll let you know a lot more in the next few weeks.

What we are doing… Do Good U (the book)

I don’t know the date, but for some time now I’ve been talking about writing a book for Do Good U. In the spring of this year, the book began to take shape in my mind, and I began to talk about it.

As I did, more of that Divine intervention started popping up.

That started when I told a friend I was going to write a book about businesses that intentionally — as part of their mission or strategy — do good in several ways. They might be great employers or generous or have extraordinary customer care.

He gave me a couple of names of people that I already knew, and they were perfect! Their stories will be included and inspire others.

The next morning I saw my friend again and he said, “I have one more company for you — Scheels.”

“Yes!” my brain said. I had experienced a Scheels store just a few months before and loved it. Even then I thought about Scheels for the book, but had no idea how to make progress on that.

So I said, “That would be great. I love Scheels. Do you know someone there?” And he did: the Chairman of the Board.

Scheels is in the book, which we plan to publish just in time for Do Good Talks. More on that will be coming your way soon!

Businesses and schools

I have just enough space to tell you that in 2025 we will begin helping more companies and schools with both our “Do Good U” curriculum and our “Do Good Leadership” curriculum.

That is our core business, helping schools (especially athletic departments) and businesses learn to do good and learn to lead.

Our resolution when we started this company remains the same: bring more good into the world.

We do a lot of that ourselves, but we love multiplying it through businesses and schools, and they love the results. Doing good feels good when you do it yourself, but when you do it as part of a team at school or at work, it is amazing!

Do good in 2025. It’s in you!