Making This Your Best Year Ever

As the new year begins, it’s a good time to reflect back on the good and the bad. The friends we’ve made, the people we’ve lost and what to do next if we want to make 2020 our new best year ever.

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David:                   Hi, and welcome to the podcast.  Today, co-host Chris Templeton and I will float a few ideas that you can use to make this your best year ever. Welcome back, Chris.

Chris:                     Hi David, thanks for having me. Let’s talk a little bit about this because I’ve always thought about it in terms of growth of the economy. When is it ever too much? When do we say, as a business, “Gee, I’ve got to where I want to be and I don’t need to make the year better than the last.” Is that realistic to have those kinds of expectations?

David:                   That's a good question. I don't know. I imagine there are people who get to a point where they're doing the type of business they want to do. They don't really feel the need to grow, but even in those situations, if you just want to maintain; you tend to have to have a growth mindset anyway because there're going to be clients that are going to go away. There are going to be clients that go elsewhere, or something happens. So I think in business, if you're going to remain in business, there is always a process that involves thinking in terms of next steps, thinking in terms of advancement, thinking in terms of replacing clients who are no longer with you and that sort of thing. And there are some people who are more motivated than others. There are some who want to start out the New Year and they're like, “Okay, I want to double my business in the next year.”  And there's some people who say, “I'd like to maintain the business I have. I don't really want to grow anymore because I'd have to hire more people.” And it's an individual thing. So for different business owners, for different salespeople, the mindset is going to be different. The approach is going to be different. But just thinking in terms of what does that even mean to me? In other words, my best year ever might not have anything to do with the volume of sales I do. Maybe it has more to do with spending more time with my family. Maybe it has to do with spending more time with my friends. So your best year ever is going to be different than my best year ever, or somebody else's best year ever. And that's going to be part of what we need to identify is: What does that even mean for you? And as they said at the beginning of the podcast, making it your new best year ever. Cause ideally each year we always want our next year to be better than the last. That sounds like an Irish blessing or something. You know, may your next year be better than your last. I don't know. It seems like it should be if it's not, but it's just a good thought. It's the idea that we want our lives to constantly get better and we want things to evolve and continue to grow and become more wonderful.

Chris:                     I know this wasn't in what we're going to talk about, but this is why I truly love doing this podcast with you, David, because it's so easy for people to fall into this idea of, well, I'm going to have my best year ever. What, what's that mean? Well, it means I'm going to make more money than I ever did. And you, and what you do is always about a work life balance and I just think it's so important that in this day and age, more than any, we take a little bit of time and make sure that that balance is there.  And you've really done a fine job of consistently making that a priority, and it can be tough to do can’t it?

David:                   It can.  I mean, I think some people are more focused on it than others, and when we talk about best year, like I said, it means different things to different people. For some, it might just be a matter of if somebody has been dealing with health issues, they may be focused on having their best year ever from a health standpoint. If they've been dealing with financial issues, then it might be related to financial. But that's why again, this time of year, and we talked about this a little bit in the previous podcast it's just really nice to be able to sort of think through things where we want to be and all that sort of thing. So when we talk about starting the New Year off with a bang or just, you know, really starting the New Year off the way that we want to, it is going to be a completely personal thing. And so, simply thinking through that and deciding what do I want that to look like and what does it mean for me to start the New Year off with a bang? Is it going to be that I'm going to spend more time focused on my friends and my family? Am I going to spend more time on my business? What is it going to be and outlining those priorities and then gearing our lives to match up with what it is that we want it to look like.

Chris:                     And I just think it's so important and it can't be understated enough. And I think that the other thing to keep in mind about this is as we talked in the previous podcast, this is a great time to really think about where you'd like to be. What would feel good, how would that work life balance look like? How would I like my time with my family and friends to be in the coming year and how can my business support that?

David:                   Yeah. I remember years and years ago, there was a speaker, his name was Bob Harrington. I don't know if you remember that name, but Bob Harrington was, he's a motivational speaker.  I believe he was also a preacher in New Orleans, if I'm not mistaken. And he used to talk about six areas of life and finding the balance there. And the six areas of life that he talked about were physical, mental, spiritual, and then social, financial and family, and saying, if you can find balance among those six areas, you're going to have a much better life. And so as you approach the New Year and you think in terms of those things, okay, what do I want to do physically? Do I want to do something as far as whatever, losing weight or getting more fit or taking more action?  Do I want to start walking or running or exercising and doing something like that?  What do I want to do from a physical standpoint? And then what do I want to do from a mental standpoint? Do I want to read more? Do I want to focus on developing some other aspect of my thought processes? Do I want to become more positive? What do I want to do from a mental standpoint? So from a spiritual standpoint, this is also different for different people. It could be something that's religious based or it could simply be about your own internal spirit. The way that you internalize the world, the way that you see things. And what does growing spiritually mean to you? Cause it's something different for everyone. A lot of people, particularly in business - think in terms of sort of having to refresh the spirit every now and then, you know, just to stay in the zone, to stay motivated, to stay focused.  So, what does that look like for you? So, if you're looking to start the New Year off with a bang from a spiritual perspective, what does that mean?  Beyond that then we go to social, who am I going to interact with? Who am I going to choose not to interact with? Who do I want to spend more time with? Who do I want to spend less time with? From there we move onto financial. Now a lot of people put this first, and this is sort of how we led off at the beginning of this podcast, the expectation that when we talk about best year ever that people are automatically thinking in terms of financial, that's not always the case. But it is necessary to consider the financial aspect of things because that's what's going to determine what we get to do on a daily basis. And in a lot of cases who we get to interact with and how those interactions take place. So it's definitely a consideration. Definitely something that has to be included in the mix. And then the sixth one is family. What does it look like this year? Am I going to be able to get to interact with my family more than I did in the previous year, less than I did in the previous year? What do I want that to look like? And of course, you know, when we come to the end of the year, we think in terms of the people that we've lost, and it's very likely that there are people listening to this podcast now who might've lost a person or two who was very important in their lives over the past year. I know that's been the case in our family, and it's probably been the case in a lot of other people's families as well. And it happens year after year, right? And the older we get, the more often it happens. So when we think about what that means to have the kind of life we want to live, to live the kind of life we want to live, it really generally touches on each of those six areas. So when you're able to focus on those, you've got a great opportunity for growth.

Chris:                     And again, I'm just going to harp on this one. This is about where you want to be and I think it's very easy to look at these things and say, “You know, my kids are driving me crazy.” Well let's talk about how you want that relationship with your kids to be. Physically, is it about losing weight or is it about feeling good physically? And I would really encourage people to shift their perspective from the problems of these six areas to what you'd like the solutions to be, and how to get there. What do I need to do to get to a place where I feel better about all of these things, including financial, by the way. And I think so much of what we look at in these realms of the things that we want to do, financial more than anything is about bringing us freedom to be able to do the things that we want to do.  Whether it's with family or socially and even spiritually, having the time to do the things that are important to us and I think it's so easy to forget about those things. And this is great. This is from Bob Harrington and he was a preacher.  Right David?

David:                   Yes. If you Google Bob Harrington, you might be able to find some of his stuff, but this was years ago. I think it was some of the earliest listening that I did on the subject of personal improvement. I remember hearing Bob Harrington, he just had this great booming, resonating voice with the Southern accent and he was just, he was a very inspiring guy.  Passed away a while ago.

Chris:                     Well, I'll tell you again, I just have such admiration that we get to talk about on a topsecrets.com podcast about not only how you can do things better, but how you can do things better in a well-rounded way; and these six areas, physical, mental, spiritual, socially, financially, and family. I don't think you miss much there. Do you?

David:                   It really covers a lot of areas. I think it's one of the reasons that it stayed with me all these years. I was talking to a friend of mine at lunch and she was talking about the fact that I very often quote different people and I quote different things. She's like, “You read so much, and you remember all this stuff.” And I'm like, “I remember a tiny, tiny little fraction of the things that I've read. Most of what I've read, most of what I've learned, I totally forget. But the things that tend to stay with me are the ones that are important.” So something like this, which I'm sure I learned from Bob Harrington more than 25 years ago, it stayed with me all that time just because it's so valuable.

Chris:                     Right, right. Exactly. Well, and it is valuable. Okay. So let's talk about what are the things that we think listeners can do to make 2020 the most well-rounded definition of their best year ever?

David:                   Well, I'd start with identifying what it is that you think will help to make 2020 your best year ever; and really look at which of those six areas require the most improvement. So is it from a physical standpoint, is there stuff that you know you need to be doing from a physical standpoint that maybe you've been putting off taking action on for years or decades? If so, that needs to be a focus. Is it from the standpoint of mental, do I need to read more? Do I need to think more? Do I need to study more? Is there an area of growth that I'd like to pursue from a knowledge standpoint that would all fall under the mental category? From a spiritual category, you decide what that means and there are lots of different people with lots of different beliefs. Whatever your beliefs are that falls into your spiritual realm.  How do you want to expand that this year? From the standpoint of social, who do I want to interact with? We talked about this a little bit earlier and it's just so critical. Everybody knows that the people that we surround ourselves with impact us more than probably any other aspect of life, and yet we sometimes end up interacting with people who are bringing us down, who are a drag on our energy and our resources. Now is a great time to sort of re-calibrate and say, "Where do I want to spend that time? Who would I rather invest that energy with?" And make those decisions appropriately. From a financial standpoint, we cover that in practically every other episode; so I think that speaks for itself. You need to look at where you need to be from a financial standpoint, examine the actions you needed to take, and roll from there.  And family; and putting it last does not mean that it's last, but it's an important component and maybe for you that's going to be the first thing you need to focus on this year.  And if that's the case, by all means do that because these relationships are going to be key to your success from a personal standpoint, for a business standpoint, and it's just so important to keep them all in mind and try to balance it whatever balance means in your particular situation. It's about tuning up one thing, bringing up one thing and bringing down another and finding that ideal balance and that's what I wish for everybody listening to this podcast for the coming year.

Chris:                     And maybe the questions for each one of these is how can I feel authentically good about each of these areas? I think that gets right to the heart of the matter. Don't you think?

David:                   It does.

Chris:                     Okay. Nice job. I want everybody to have their best year ever in 2020 mostly in terms of happiness and meaning. Just feeling good about the year and I hope that includes all of those six things. David, what's coming up on the next podcast?

David:                   Okay, Chris in our next podcast, we will get onto the subject of what happens when prospects ghost you.  You think you're having a great relationship and all of a sudden they disappear.

Chris:                     Ugh, I hate when that happens! Okay. Hey, we will cover that on the next podcast. Remember, go to topsecrets.com/call to have a strategy session with the team there and find out what you can do to help make 2020 the best year ever. David. Thank you.

David:                   Thank you Chris, and Happy New Year, everyone.

Chris:                     Happy New Year everybody!

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