In Ask Coach Tony, you can put my Operation Melt coaching to the test by asking me questions about how to achieve your goals.
Because a question asked by one is often a question had by many, I am regularly sharing these answers via the Operation Melt blog.
Are you ready for a dad joke?
I offer you this "dad joke" as a light "amuse-bouche" to entertain your mind before we get serious. My dad joke may be groan-worthy, but it's worth every penny you paid for it, right?
This morning, I was walking down the street and I was hit by a violin, then a clarinet, and then a french horn! I think it was an orchestrated attack.
Special Edition: State of the Melt 2024
Happy birthday to OperationMelt.com!
Seven years ago, I launched my blog on the six-month anniversary of beginning my weight loss journey – a decision that changed my life.
“Hey, you should start a blog about Operation Tony Melt.”
That was the comment that started everything. It was really just one of those throwaway comments that could have easily gone nowhere. But that’s not what happened.
A seed was planted, and I took action.
Seven years later, I could never have imagined how big that seedling of an idea would grow.
I am using this week’s post to commemorate my seventh anniversary and to begin my personal end-of-year recap. Since many of you haven’t followed the evolution of Operation Melt since the beginning, I’ll also provide a VERY brief history.
Welcome to State of the Melt 2024!
Where It Started
Operation Melt started as a blog to chronicle my weight loss journey. I wasn’t intending a “brag” blog but a tool to help inspire and equip others to make their own effort. Here is how I described my objective in my inaugural post:
“I have decided to launch this website, OperationMelt.com, as a tool to share my story and help others achieve their own successes…. My goal is to be fully transparent and share it all on this site. I want to inspire, motivate, energize and help others by letting them know that their goals are in reach.” (see A new chapter begins: OperationMelt.com)
That was my goal, and I stayed true to it for a long time. I created back-dated posts to recount my experiences during the first six months of my journey and shared my experiences with readers in real time along the way.
Here are some highlights from my journey updates:
- I shared my major shock at a doctor’s appointment that forced me to make a decision and make a change (see D(octcor) Day: 6/15/2017).
- I shared my plan for how I intended to tackle my weight loss (see Let’s do this my way (with some help from Lord Kelvin)).
- I celebrated my biggest weight milestones with my followers, including losing 25 pounds, my first run, losing 50 pounds, my 75-pound loss, my 125-pound loss and my 18-month celebration.
- I openly talked about my struggles and roadblocks, including injuries, weight-loss plateaus, discouraging clothes-shopping experiences, my surprise layoff and many issues with tying my identity to my data.
- I took my readers along as I achieved many of my goals throughout my journey: celebrating my first anniversary by running (and hosting) my first 5k, completing a half marathon, and the all-important day I achieved my 100-pound weight-loss goal.
No weight loss journey can last forever. At the end of 2018, after eighteen months of focusing on my weight, I shifted my focus. My shift drove an evolution in the focus of my blog.
Pivot… Pivot… Pivot!
Beginning in 2019, I kicked off a four-year pivot of Operation Melt.
Instead of using my blog to share my journey, I focused on sharing my process. I had proven that my left-brained goal success process works, it was time for me to start helping people use it.
I began focusing on goal success topics in my blog and tried new things:
- Fitness Lessons Are Life Lessons: I explored how to apply the lessons I learned during my fitness journey to other aspects of life.
- Goal Success By Choice: I shared tips and techniques that can be used when you choose to be successful with your goals.
- PM Believer: I shared how standard project management tools and techniques can be applied to other areas of goal success.
- Ask Coach Tony: I launched a series that continues today to answer common goal success questions I receive and to share my best practices research and experiences.
Most importantly, I expanded Operation Melt from being just a blog to an entire platform dedicated to helping project managers and other left-brained high-achievers pursue and accomplish their biggest goals.
In 2019, I released my first book, (Operation Melt: How I Used Life-Changing Project Management to Lose Over 100 Pounds in Under a Year) which focused on telling my story and sharing my process. My second book (Reflections On Leadership) followed a year later, as did my third (Goal Success Quick Start Guide).
Finally, I expanded into a more hands-on offering to help people achieve their goals. I used the extra free time provided by COVID lockdowns to become a certified life and health coach. Once I was certified, I slowly took on a few clients to build my experience and processes.
While my weight loss journey had concluded, my fitness journey continued. I grew as a runner and focused a fair amount on weight training. I continued trying new things while using my data to manage my health.
Living a post-weight-loss life included navigating a plethora of mindset struggles. The biggest of these struggles was watching the number on the scale increase after spending so much time celebrating it going in the other direction. This was a total mind fuck, and it took considerable effort to come to terms with it.
It turns out that my body was not able to sustain my lowest weight point, especially as I continued weight training, running, eating and drinking. My body ultimately found its comfortable maintenance weight, which is still about eighty pounds lower than where I started.
State of the Melt 2024
As we approach the end of 2024, my seventh year of Operation Melt, I am happy to report that my latest chapter is in full swing.
My primary goal today is to be Coach Tony. I am a master life and health coach dedicated to helping project managers and other left-brained high-achievers pursue and accomplish their biggest goals.
And I am making a big impact as Coach Tony. In 2024, I conducted more than sixty one-on-one coaching sessions with my clients and assisted them with many life-changing goals.
I continued my journey as an author and spent most of this year marketing and supporting my newest book, Seasons of Transformation. This is my first fiction book, and I am very proud of it. Lots of people have read it, I have conducted book events, and many friends and supporters have helped me build awareness. So far, I have a perfect 5-star rating on Amazon. I have already started on my next two books, one fiction and one nonfiction.
The Operation Melt blog is still going strong seven years later. In 2024, I focused a lot of energy on my favorite new addition, Interview with a Goal-Crusher. With these posts, I get to interview someone achieving big goals and share their story with my readers. I love it!
Beyond these advancements with my coaching, books and blog, I also incorporated many other improvements throughout my Operation Melt platform. Some of these accomplishments included simplifying many of my operational processes and continually improving my social media presence.
I know you’re wondering… yes, I am still going strong on my fitness journey. I continue running at least three times per week and have exceeded my 500-mile annual running goal by about fifty miles so far. Unfortunately, I am running slower and am not entirely sure why. I also am working on getting into a more consistent weight-lifting routine.
Best of all, I take frequent, months-long breaks from logging food and weighing myself. This is a much more significant accomplishment than you might think.
A Look Ahead
2025 is just around the corner, and I have big plans for this upcoming year. I am working on a few surprises and some things that will be no surprise whatsoever. While I won’t share all the details, here is the tl;dr version of my big three 2025 goals:
- Plan, do, grow: Establish a business plan for Operation Melt and use it to guide daily activities that achieve a 2x growth of my impact in 2025.
- Walk my talk: continue my physical and mental health journey by establishing a routine that helps me get faster, stronger and do epic shit (time to feed my enneagram 3!).
- Break my inertia: challenge the ruts throughout my life and try more new things on all fronts.
Thank you for continuing to support Operation Melt and allowing me to share my message. It means the world to me that I get to help support your goals and help you live your best life.
Have you figured out your big goals and how you are going to do epic shit in 2025? If not, I would be happy to be your partner in doing so. Let’s chat about coaching.
I believe in you; let me help YOU believe in you!
Meet Coach Tony
My name is Coach Tony, and I am a coach, author and project manager on a mission. I am working to build a world where no goal ever dies of loneliness.
I almost allowed one of my biggest life goals to die without ever being attempted for forty years. My goal almost died, not of failure but of loneliness. But, I took a risk and leveraged a simple, logical process that helped me wildly exceed my goal.
I transformed my life, and you can do the same with the help of Operation Melt.
Operation Melt provides engaging, practical content and hands-on coaching to inspire, motivate and equip project managers and other left-brained high-achievers to pursue and accomplish their biggest goals.
Breathe new life into your goals
Download my free ebook to learn how to create goals that actually work and get the jump-start you need in life!
