Year in Review
2022
👆 Listen to the article
As we jet off into the new year, I thought it was a good time to recap 2022. Lots has happened and I’d love to share what I’ve been building and the lessons I’ve learned along the way. Here we go!
🚀 Initiative #1: Ariana Cofone Consulting
I decided to start my own Operations Consulting Business. In less than a year, I’ve had the pleasure of building end-to-end operations for clients as a Fractional Chief Operating Officer, Operations Advisor, and Operations Technologist. This kind of work is not for everyone, but holy cow, is it for me. My clients are a joy, the work is energizing, and I’m having the time of my life. For real.
🧠 Lesson: Don’t Miss the Obvious
I’ve always wanted to start my own business, but was blocked because I didn’t know what it would be about. Ironically, it’s been staring me in the face for over a decade. I love operations. It’s something I fell into because I naturally enjoyed it. By making it the heart of my business, guess what? I’m excited for every day, I love what I do, and most importantly, my cup is filled by helping others. Wins all around.
🚀 Initiative #2: Secret Ops Podcast
Listen—unless they’re in operations, most people don’t know what it is. So what did I do? Start a bi-weekly podcast called Secret Ops where every episode dives into the world of business operations through a different specialty, industry, and role. From the operations behind data science to emergency medical services to revenue strategy and beyond, we peek under the hood to show you what it’s all about. You can check it out here »
🧠 Lesson: Be Generous with Knowledge
I personally believe that if you are proficient in a skill or topic, you have a responsibility to help others learn about it. Operations is mostly a behind the scenes practice. It’s the gears that make the machine work. It’s the foundation of innovation. I hope to bring to light the incredible expertise that enables progress and help the operations community to be more known and accessible. It’ll take time, but we will get there.
🚀 Initiative #3: Start Weight Training
Like most of us, throughout the last two years, I’ve let myself get pretty ... mushy. But as I’ve leveled up in my professional life, I’ve also wanted to do that in my personal life. Since I already have the best husband and puppy around (shout out to Joey & Luigi), I decided to set my focus on strengthening my body with weight training. Intimidating at first, I now have a regular weekly routine to help my mind and body stayed aligned.
🧠 Lesson: Ask for Help
Learning anything new is super exciting for about a day and then it kind of sucks. In learning how to weight train, it was a rough first month. I was sore, exhausted, and not sure if I was doing anything right. Luckily, in asking for help and accountability from my husband, I’m making it happen. Y’all, I lifted a total of 10,554 lbs today! Hot damn. Also thank goodness to the Strong App for doing the math.
Onward & Upward
What a year! If you want to continue to check out what I’m doing, you can subscribe to the Secret Ops Podcast or share this article or my website.
Also, If any of this resonated with you, shoot me an email at hello@arianacofone.com. I’d love to hear your thoughts.
See ya on the flip side 🤙
Ariana
PS: A big thanks to my friend Sean O’Connor for inspiring this year in review (he’ll also be on a future episode of Secret Ops!).