SPEAKERS

Sid Meadows

Hey friend, and welcome to the Trend Report. I'm Sid Meadows and I'm a business leader, coach and consultant and a longtime student of the office furniture industry, and in this podcast we have powerful conversations with industry leaders, innovators and others making an impact in their business and our industry. You know, my goal is really simple to provide you with valuable insights, information, resources and tools to help you grow and your business grow, and to help move our business forward. So let's dive into today's conversation. Welcome to season six. Wow, I really can't believe we made it all the way to season six of the Trend Report. It just doesn't seem real that when I started this journey in 2020, that we'd be here today. I am grateful for each and every one of you that have tuned into this show to hear me and my guests talk about one of my favorite topics the office furniture industry and today we're going to spend a few minutes talking about and looking back on Season 5, talk about some changes in my life and a little bit about what's in store for Season 6.

So let's look back on Season 5 for a minute. You know it started out strong. I was working with my coach and friend, mark Ronick, on the planning of Season 5. Announced that in the first episode that it would be the last season of the Trend Report, that I was hanging it up and we got 19 episodes completed. We were doing three shows a month and then it happened Overwhelm and pod fade and it was just like I had to step away. I had so much going on and there were so many things happening. I honestly did not have the mental space to do the podcast and I left you hanging. If you're a regular listener, like Matt and Kristen that have reached out to me and others, I just left you guys hanging and first of all I want to say I'm sorry about that. I should have come on and told you that I was taking some time off and I didn't. But let's talk about what we did accomplish in season five. I mean, it was so 19 episodes. That's a lot of episodes and it was a really, really great season. You got to hear a little bit from me and the 10 to win episodes. You got to hear from my friend, rex Millerer, where we did the whole genius spark episode and learning about my traits both in episode 131 and then again in episode 139. You got to hear the good and the bad about it. Hope you enjoyed that.

My friend stacy sherman talked about customer experience. We got to learn about canoa with lance amato. We also got introduced to Forum Furniture in our CEO chat with Jonathan Johnson. And then another CEO chat with Susan Pilato of Mantra Inspired Furniture one of my favorite episodes of the season. And then David Stella of Caressa man dropped some knowledge bombs on us about the post-COVID workplace. My friend Dominic did a special episode at 143. If you haven't listened to that, go listen to the Silent Partner. And then Catherine talked to us about Thumbprint. Marianne Hewitt talked to us about Sales Star and how to become a superstar at sales. And then Amy Eddington talks about the future and evolution of technology. I mean it was really, really a great season.

But, like I said, then again it happened. The Overwhel happened the overwhelm and it's called pot fade and it's just when you just kind of fade away and stop doing, and I did so from august through february 2025. I was out. It took me a while to come back, get my mind right, and I explained a little bit about of that in a minute, but now I am back. So here we go. I hope you're looking forward to season six just as much as I am. We'll talk about that in a minute.

But let's talk about some changes in my life, both personal and professional. So we'll talk about the personal first. We moved. So after 10 years in the same house, 14 years in the same town, my wife and I, as you know, were empty nesting. Our kids are away at school. In fact, my daughter graduated in December from college, so now she's prepping to go off to grad school and we decided to move. So if you're watching on YouTube, you see I got a new background here, got a new office, actually got some real furniture put in it. We moved to. We bought a house on the lake. We live in North Fort Worth on the lake called Eagle Mountain and it's just amazing. I can look right out my window here and I can see the lake. It's so fantastic.

And we had a lot of travel, some of it planned, some of it unexpected or unplanned. That also took me away a little bit and we got more travel plans for this year. I guess that's the benefit of empty nesting. Now they're not here we have to worry about, we can go, do things, but I'll tell you. I won't give you a whole lot of details about this, but in November of this year my wife and I will celebrate our 30th wedding anniversary. Yes, she's put up with me for that long, and this summer we're taking a 17-day trip to Europe. We're going on a cruise of the Mediterranean Sea, starting and ending in Barcelona, spain, and super excited about that trip, looking forward to that trip and celebrating 30 years together.

I'll also share very, very briefly. My mother is very ill. That's also taken me away, made me travel to go visit with her. She is in a long-term care facility and unfortunately losing her battle to dementia and for any of you that have a family member that is battling that disease, my heart goes out to you because I know how difficult that it is. And she's not the same person. She is just the shell of herself. We can't even have conversations with her and most of the time she knows who I am, but last time I was there she did not know who I was. But the most important thing I think for me right now, during this time, is that these visits that I make to see her are about me, not about her because she isn't on there, right, it's about me making sure that I get to connect with her and that I get to see her are about me, not about her because she isn't on there, right, it's about me making sure that I get to connect with her and that I get to tell her that I love her and even though she doesn't really know who I am, I get to hear her say that to me.

So lots of stuff going on in my personal life, and not counting traveling to see my son play football. He plays college football in Kansas and that's been a lot of fun. They made it through the second round of the playoffs this year, so this last year, so this year we'll be cheering him on going up there as much as we possibly can. All right. So let's talk about changes in my professional life.

So in November I left my position at ThinkSpace. Now I was a contract position. I was actually a fractional vice president there and I helped to rebuild that organization, rebrand it and really really grow it, and it was a lot of fun for the two and a half years that I was there. But it was time to step away and to go do other things. It was a mutual decision on everybody's part. There are no hard feelings with anybody. We left on good terms and I wish my friends at ThinkSpace all of the best.

So now it was like, okay, what am I going to do? Now I can tell you. The first thing I did is I took the entire month of December and about half of January off and I reconnected with me. I hung out with my kids, who were home from college for the winter break we're also in the middle of moving at that time right and so it was just a really nice time to recharge. I also hired a coach who could help me gain clarity on the future, and I'm really excited about rebooting, if you will, my coaching and consulting business, though I never closed it because I was not an employee of ThinkSpace. I was a contractor at ThinkSpace, and so I'm excited to get back out there helping other small businesses and other leaders in building and growing their business, and so really looking forward to that.

You'll hear more about that throughout the show, but, as you know, these are not publicity or advertisements for me or my business, but I just wanted to share what was going on in my professional life, and I'm also working on a really exciting new venture that I'll be able to share more about later, probably around the March or April timeframe. So, as you can tell, a lot of things were happening and this is one of the things that contributed to the podfay, just to be honest with you guys. So what can you expect from this season? Well, you're going to hear me talk a little bit in our personal and professional development episodes the 10 to win series, if you will. I really enjoy doing those and I get a lot of positive feedback from all of you on them. So thank you very much for that.

And I got to tell you I got some amazing guest interviews lined up, got the recording schedules all mapped out, going to bring you some really powerful conversations with industry leaders and several CEOs. So we got some CEO chats planned. I know you guys like those episodes and hearing from the CEOs in our industry, and I talked about doing this in Season five and never actually got to it. So in season six we will have at least one, maybe two, roundtable discussions with a couple of my industry friends, sharing our thoughts on things and answering questions and helping to again move our industry forward. We didn't get to it last year, but we absolutely will get to it this year. So let's talk a little bit more about the future.

So last year I did tell you that the trend report was coming to an end, but I also said that I reserved the right to change my mind and, given the pod fade and everything else that I experienced last year, I have changed my mind. We've got a lot more to discuss, friend, and I've got a lot more to share with you. I'm feeling rejuvenated, excited. I'm mentally and physically and emotionally healthy and I am ready to go, and I hope you are too. And I just want to do a big shout out and thank you to all of you that reached out to me and asked me about the podcast, what was going on with me. Your support of me and this show means more to me than you will ever know and that I can ever explain. So thanks for joining me today for this quick update about me and welcome to season six, and I look forward to seeing you again really soon. Go out there and make today great. Everyone, take care.