Making 2020 the Best Year Ever for ZooFit

Happy New Year, fellow ZooFitters! Welcome 2020! What a year it is going to be!

In 2019, I did A LOT of traveling and speaking engagements, and made a lot of wonderful memories. Here are my top 5 from the year, and they don’t cover half the events and traveling I did this year.

5. Attended 5 conferences teaching animal professionals how to take care of themselves so they can take better care of their animals.
4. Launching my newsletter, YouTube channel, Hummingbird Group beta testing, and Healthy You, Healthy Earth video series

3. Finishing ZooFit Safari and launching it at AAZK’s national conference in Indianapolis.
2. Mom and Dad’s 50th Wedding Anniversary

1. Optimize Coach Declaration/Graduation Weekend in Los Angeles- and doing my first Spartan Race.

And this list doesn’t include all the community talks I did at libraries, farmers’ markets, and community centers, nor does it include all the family and friends I connected with this year (cruise, family reunion, LeakyCon in Boston, etc).

If you think ZooFit stayed busy last year, hold onto your hats, because I’m going to blow 2019 away within the first 2 months of 2020.

• January 7th (Tuesday)- ZooFit New Year presentation at Freeland Library on Whidbey Island at 2pm. I’ll be presenting on how to connect our healthy habits to conservation efforts, and demonstrating a meal prep straight from my fitness challenge book, ZooFit Safari.

• January 9th (Thursday)- same thing, but at the Oak Harbor Library on Whidbey Island, again at 2pm. Only, this is NOT a repeat presentation. There are so many habits to cover, I’m going to present on a DIFFERENT habit and how it connects to conservation. And demo a different recipe. So, if you can make both, I highly recommend it!
• January 18th (Saturday)- Third library presentation on Whidbey Island, this one in Langley at 10am. Following this event, I will be a guest author on the Writing on Whidbey Island podcast with the ever delightful Tom Trimbath and Don Scoby. Of course, I recommend hitting this talk even if you see me in Freeland and/or Oak Harbor, because I’ll again have original material to share.
• January 28th (Tuesday)- My dream come true. I’m doing my first talk to keepers at the Woodland Park Zoo, discussing how to manage their energy and create healthy habits so they can provide better care to their animals. I’ll be at the zoo probably all day, hopefully interviewing a couple keepers for a future blog or article project titled “The Zookeeper’s Holiday” (more on that below).
• February 1 (Saturday)- NerdFaire in Lynnwood is going on at the Lynnwood convention center, and I will be presenting not one, but TWO panels. “Fandom Fitness- Unleashing Your Inner Superhero” and “Fantastic Beasts and How to Save Them”. Super stoked and excited, as this is my first appearance presenting ZooFit to a large audience of non-zookeepers. The first of many, I feel!
  
• February 13th (Thursday)- I’ll be giving my first “Eating Green” presentation at the Bellingham Co-op Community store. It starts at 6:30pm. I will be using the three library presentations to determine which recipes work the best for demonstrations, but I will have an entire KITCHEN at my disposal, so I can do ANYTHING! Teaching Bellingham to connect to the earth in a healthy and positive way by bridging our eating habits with conservation efforts. What more can I ask for?

Of course, this is just the beginning of 2020. There is so much more to come! Here are some of the major projects I’m working on for the new year:

• Fandom Fitness- This workout guide will turn your exercise routine into an adventure of a lifetime. From Disney to Harry Potter, Sci-Fi to Fantasy, cult movie to literature classics, I have something along the line of 40 workouts, plus dozens of recipes for every fandom out there. Unleash YOUR inner superhero and make fitness FUN. Launching sometime Spring 2020.

• Positive Reinforcement is Not a Burger After the Gym- This project has been put on hiatus until I can attend some writing groups and classes and feel a little more confident writing a fiction story as a parable. But I am excited and hopeful for this book. It tells the story of a zookeeper and a fitness instructor who meet and see how each profession can the other’s. Fitness can be fun, engaging, and oh so rewarding. This book will show you how.
• Zookeeper’s Holiday- Ideally, this will be not just a blog series, but travel magazine material, or at least parents’ magazines, local tourist guide articles, or guest blog on zoos and travel/parenting/tourist websites. I’m not really that picky. The title of this project comes from the idea that whenever a zookeeper goes on vacation (or holiday, as they say in jolly England), they will visit a zoo if there is one in the vicinity. Sometimes they plan their vacations AROUND zoos they haven’t been to before. WHY would animal professionals who spend more than 40 hours a week IN zoos want to visit them while on vacation? To get ideas, see incredible unique species, and learn about different conservation projects, highlights of different zoos, and what they do exceptionally well.

• Hummingbird Online Group Coaching- I’ve been beta-testing moderating and leading a group discussion every Monday for the past three months, teaching a small group how to develop healthy habits to create the best version of ourselves, and help save the world, simply by doing what we can. We focus on micro-wins, positive reinforcement, and operant conditioning to achieve success. I’m still working on details, but this 3-month online class will be available sometime in early 2020.
  
• Online Individual Fitness Coaching- do you want to connect to the earth in healthy and positive ways? Do you read ZooFit blog posts and say “WOW, I wish I could do all that!” Well now you can. I’m offering my services as a certified Optimize Coach, fitness instructor, and conservation ambassador to teach you how to eat clean, live green, and train positive. Contact me at pjbeaven@christopherb52.sg-host.com to schedule your free consultation.

It’s going to be a crazy awesome year! Are you ready for ZooFit?