Most people are amped up heading into the New Year. If you’ve been running full speed ahead all year, you likely had 2-4 days (even a week!) to recover from the effort you put into the year. Instead of doing what the masses do, expending excess energy on “partying” you should spend your time coming up with a game plan for 2016. On a serious note, mentally, we’re already in 2016.
The books are closed on the year so here is what we would recommend.
1) No Goals. Goals are not useful. They cause emotional highs and lows that make it much more difficult to take advantage of the enormous *momentum* you have built within that aspect of your life. Lets say your goal is to make $200K next year, and you hit that “goal” by September… Do you simply quit? Do you have an emotional high followed by a let down of “what’s next”? This is not healthy.
Instead you want to get “better” in every important aspect of your life: Health, relationships, finance and anything else that is important to *You*.
If you’re interested in having an emotional up and down roller coaster, just go and waste your money at a motivational seminar where everyone gets hyped up about all the “crazy cool stuff” they are going to accomplish. Come to think of it, the count down on New Years Eve is tantamount to an emotional peak and valley!
2) Review 2015 Expectations: We do this every year. If you write in a journal you will have clear remarks every single month on how your progress shaped up. In our case, it was extremely *non-linear* (real improvement is always non-linear). We saw a boring first three months, a massive event in month four followed by a chaotic next five months followed by an abrupt easing and settling at a higher level than 5 months prior.
In stock terms it was flat for 3 months a gap up and away followed by a flattish tape.
Here is how your 2015 wrap up should look.
Step 1: Review the items you wanted to improve upon. If you did not make *any* progress on all of them you can safely say it was a failed year. We doubt anyone like that reads this blog, but if so, that’s definitely the queue to exit. You should rank each item you wanted to improve upon with a 1-5 ranking system (five being the best) and see how you did.
Step 2: Why was the progress better or worse than you expected? Write out the real reasons, both the good and the bad to keep yourself accountable. What did you actually do, what actually happened and why did it work or not work.
Step 3: Write down what you learned from the ones that did not go well. If you want to win, you’re going to lose a lot. Remind yourself that you didn’t really lose by trying, you just found one way that *doesn’t work* and will find a new way that *does*.
Step 4: Do an expense and income recap. A full year view. You’ve already reviewed your entire year, now it is time to tie up loose ends by looking at the entire financial performance since you have numbers to back up the data. We recommend using Personal Capital for this. Once you know where all of your money was spent you can make a few thematic changes to reduce costs and increase revenue. This does not mean you become a frugal person. You simply want to know where you’re money is going and see if you can make basic changes to save time, save money and more importantly *free you up to make more money*.
3) Listed Action Steps for 2016: Now that we’ve broken down the goal myth, that’s in the gutter, lets move onto the “getting better” section. In order to get better you need to have specific things you are going to *do*. It is not intelligent to simply say “I will have X”.
We don’t sell dreams over here.
How are you going to obtain X? Lets brainstorm some ideas:
Financial: You are selling your fitness product in Canada and it is doing extremely well. An easy similar demographic is the USA… Well then step one for the new year is to expand your marketing into the USA. You don’t know how much revenue you will bring in but it *should* increase. Then you have step two of targeting a new demographic, say people in ages of 18-25 when you primarily focused on people in their thirties. So on and so forth. Come up with five steps.
Health: Some of you guys are already in great shape, even then there is room to improve. The biggest room in the world is always the room for improvement. If you’re already where you want to be weight wise and diet wise… Then you may need to improve your efficiency. How many hours did you spend working out last year? Can you condense the hours and minutes but see a 0% drop off in your actual looks and performance? Try it. If you can do that, then you should choose a new segment to improve upon. Such as flexibility, endurance and exercises performed perfectly (to keep your brain engaged). Come up with three.
Relationships: “I want more friends” is not a good idea. Similarly I want more “business contacts” is not a good idea. How are you going to meet the people you want in your life? Are they going to be in the same places you frequented in 2015? Is there a specific *person* you should target? Once you answer these questions you will have three more steps.
This should take a decent amount of time. And. By the time you are done you will have a blueprint for success in 2016.
4) Sample Template: It may be useful for an example so here is one of ours.
Financial: 1) Expand market outside of domestic sales (currently almost all revenue is domestic) by targeting country Z in January; 2) Target clients named X, Y and Z (calendar invite to call them on phone) on specific dates, 3) Sell new product XYZ to new demographic and turn a profit or break even, launch date in March, 4) stop spending time selling to xyz demographic who do not convert after X months (learned this the hard way in 2015), 5) launch product on blog if X users and X email subscribers are met – December 2016 at best.
Health: 1) enroll in a yoga class beginning April 2016 given product launch will be the priority, also book three active release therapy sessions for the month, 2) purchase five different skin care products (already researched) and see the impact over two months each, 3) no longer eat lunch at desk, vitamin D deficiency is a real issue and common especially if you work on Wall Street, will leave email tasks for lunch held outside.
Relationship: 1) find one more person to help, currently stand at three people per author while adding a fourth limit to 4 hours of total time spent per week 2) fly to country X in July to personally meet a new contact for projects in the future, 3) slight *increase* in nightlife activities as too much time was spent staring at a computer screen in 2015 (probably won’t happen!), 4) we have a basic fourth here, which is to send two personal thank you letters to guys we are modeling our lives after (instead of one)
5) Book or Girlfriend: If you’re in a relationship we’re happy to hear it. Go ahead and spend some time with friends/family at the end as well. If you’re single we recommending reading an *entire book*. You will have a whole book under your belt right when you enter 2016. While everyone else is up late at night damaging brain cells you’ll be up late at night expanding your brain cells (doing the opposite as usual).
“Books are the most undervalued assets in the world. If you learn one thing to apply to life, that is worth $10K not 10 bucks. 1,000x return.” – @WallStreetPlayboys
Concluding Remarks
This is the general template we use every year, feel free to make it even more rigorous. Given that you’ll have three full days, there is no reason why you can’t 1) review your progress, 2) make a plan of attack and 3) read a full book.
If you’re really ambitious, feel free to write out your basic outline in the comments. And. By the end of 2016… You’ll look back at 2015 and say “It was all a dream…”
You writing style is so sharp and objective that it’s like a KATANA that cuts all the shitty readers and make them run away. Good for them, only people who embrace the truth are allowed to stay!
Thanks for giving so much valuable information FOR FREE!
I see concrete positive results after applying your guidelines.
Thank you and good luck!
Yes!! I expected nothing less from you guys. Absolutely murdered it with this post.
Many thanks gents! And have an excellent 2016!
“It was all a dream I used to read Word Up magazine
Salt’n’Pepa and Heavy D up in the limousine
Hangin’ pictures on my wall…”
Haha! Solid song choice fo sho my man.
Pretty Brilliant.
Every Year. Better friends, Better (Newer Problems!). New potential business partners
The only thing I admittedly was slowing down was health and fitness. I started to get a small gut. Back to eating whole foods and the gym!
Pro-tip, better change your schedule to allow for strange hours at the gym in January. (Lunch time, really early, really late)
Why? The New Years “resolutionists” will flood it for about 4 weeks.
I can second this one — began working on competition level physique in 2015 and remember this issue from last year. 5:00 AM is an excellent time — you’ll only find winners in the gym that early.
Gotta surround yourself with success if you wanna succeed!
Agree, most people wake up at 7 go to bed at 11 and are broke for life.
I just did the 2015 recap. Funny, I was thinking where I was exactly 1 year and 2 months ago and it’s embarrassing. I did a lot of small-medium mistakes, but I learned the most from them. Oh well!
Great template (and yeah screw goals), let’s put it to use:
Financial: 1) Talk with XYZ for potentially joining a young and promising startup. 2) Venture into affiliate marketing, start with CPA. 3) Evaluate potential interest and market research for a new business in an early market. Launch in early/mid 2016 if it has potential. 4) Kill/sell any remaining mediocre projects. 5) If possible get into sales as an independent seller in a couple verticals.
Health: 1) Get injury treated in Q1 of 2016 and hit the gym again. 2) Start in mid 2016 yoga/pilates 1 day/week for posture and stretching. 3) Get back on track with more healthy eating.
Relationships: 1) Travel more, while hitting 1-2 conferences to broaden my network (combo). Ideally, much it with work to cover my flight expenses or more. 2) Slightly more going out (1-2 times a week instead of 0-1). 3) Invest a bit more time into girls/dating
I am pretty sure these goals will have adapted/evolved by max Q3-Q4, because a lot of them will happen and be evaluated in Q1-Q2.
Thank you very much for your posts, they are truly helpful!
Have a great 2016!
Extremely strong overview.
Add some exact dates on the tasks you will be doing and add it to your phone as a reminder to sign up or “act” that very day.
Nice suggestion, I will do that on Saturday thanks
Love the rap video at the end of a lot of the posts haha. Keep up the good stuff guys. Nobody else on the internet has information like this, explained this well and applicably.
Thank you for the kind words
I’ll bite.
2016 plan:
–Business (note–I am in manufacturing, not finance)–
* Introduce internet-of-things functionally by Q3 to all of our products (ahead of the competition of course)
* Set up Puerto Rican subsidiary to reduce tax liability
* IT-wise replace our server, install a real hardware VPN and firewall, upgrade to a new enterprise resource planning software that doesn’t blow, upgrade to a better CRM platform
* Expand our marketing efforts to Western Europe (security–guess why), the Caribbean, and Latin America
* Establish new joint-venture in China
* Improve our marketing by redesigning our website, more consistent e-mail marketing, Youtube videos, and speaking at conferences (already booked for two)
* Design the next generation of our industry-leading technology as competitors are starting to bridge the gap
* Get ISO 9001 certified
* Outsource the stuff we aren’t good at (in progress already, need to finish)
* Create niches in the consumer space and in a different industry in order to reduce our exposure to fluctuations in industrial space (collapse in oil & gas CapEx bit into our revenues)
* Raise wages for loyal production employees
* Implement a high school intern program to get a lock on good talent before they move out of the area
–Health–
* Drink less. I typically have 3-4 drinks a night and on occasion drink far too much. And this year’s drinking was an improvement on last year’s.
* Stop using client meals as an excuse to diverge from paleo.
* Life more consistently. I did well this year but after non-exercise related injuries in September that prevented working out for six weeks I was far less consistent.
–Relationships–
* SMILE & NOD. I have a ‘spergy personality where it really bothers me when people are *wrong* and thus get into too many arguments with losers. Do this less.
* Start working on building a family. For obvious reasons this process will not be completed in 2016.
* Spend less time on girls & dating. Girls are an annoying time sink, and conquest is much less satisfying than it once was.
–Other–
* Tailored clothing. Tired of ill-fitting garments that fall apart. I’ll get started on this in India where I can leverage my income with their labor costs next month.
* Start looking for land to build a house. Our factory isn’t going anywhere, and the local housing stock sucks.
Happy New Year and thanks for the great work!
Fantastic action plan, similar to the other commenter in your case may be smart to have an alert on the *day you will begin* each task. Generally the hardest part is taking the first step.
Glad we have this one in common:
“* SMILE & NOD. I have a ‘spergy personality where it really bothers me when people are *wrong* and thus get into too many arguments with losers. Do this less.”
Hey,
I’d love to know who the 2 guys you model your life after are. Love the blog, shows me there’s other people thinking alike and gives me new ideas, too.
Have a good NYE,
Johnny Guapo
Too personal, but find someone 15 years older than you as a guide post.
This post couldn’t have come at a better time. I was kind of feeling like a loser for turning down invites and for wanting to stay in and sort my shit out, probably read or practise some guitar, but this has inspired me to look at it from another point of view.
Yes I know I shouldn’t need to read this to validate my choices, but it just helps sometimes to have a little inspiration.
Have a good New Year and thanks for the awesome work.
Well played, 5x mark up on the same event with less excitement and more hype.
Review/Planning: Going to spend next couple of days planning progress and reviewing the year. Up until September was *killer*. Then took foot off gas a bit and learned the hard way that once you take the foot off the gas a little bit, you’re going to slow down more than you wanted. Tough lesson to learn – should have been accelerating. Got an ER interview coming up so will spend few days diving into that sector and modeling out a few co.’s to prep for that, and then more generally grinding on networking this Spring to lock down either 1) a FT offer, or 2) SA offer .
Books – college student, already hammered out one book since being home, next one I’m going to hit is “Ca$hvertising” as per your suggestion.
As for NYE itself – like I said, college student, so I’m going to be whipping my car as an Uber driver and stacking surge pricing $$$. Then waking up early the next morning and starting the grind. Already looking forward to that, ha!
Good luck!
Be sure to lace your car with plastic when the regulars start puking (half joke)
Christmas as New Year transition point: you get your hit of fun, and then move on. Starting a week (or whatever you decide) earlier for your year is like waking up early in the morning – by the time NYE partier is rubbing his eyelids and has hit the snooze button a second time, you’ve already taken action and made measurable progress toward your planned objectives. Enjoy the view in the rear-view mirror. *Exception*: you are hosting the party…and by doing so you are achieving something useful, ex. building connections: http://wallstreetplayboys.com/throwing-snow-parties/
Loved it – the “girlfriend” word at the end surprised me a bit coming from you guys
Happy New Year
Lots of people who read this blog date etc. All good.
Pretty stoked here.
Nothing much better than ending the year with workload and some wine.
Came home from a seminar last night, joined in some peers as I haven’t met them for months. Being in a room with a host with adequate sales skills and 11 other guys in their early 20’s who are being sold on the dream of making money **effortlessly**, while having zero marketable skills nor enough work ethic to back things up – it killed me inside to know that those who I consider ‘friends’ are being the ones who are being easily sold about.
Learned alot from the sales guy as it’s been a long time too that I haven’t met someone as good at selling emotions, yet what’s actually heartbreaking is seeing this people you once considered as bros, seeing their eyes lighting up as you see and hear them getting pumped about the idea of not having to work anymore for the rest of their life. One guy was even so pumped up he ate the free meal so fast and rigorously enough to crack me up inside.
I’ve never been sincerely disappointed in my life. Sadly 2015’s gonna end up with more people in my phone’s blacklist. You guys were actually right about the blacklist stuff it kinda freaks me out a bit.
Anyways, just did a quick read on this while taking some rest(been up since 5amish working), I feel this needs some quality time by the end of the day to really put things in perspective.
Just wanna thank you guys though, been following your blog since Q4 2014, taking hard hits with doses of reality. Looking back my gut’s twisting right now to admit that your simple finance pointers alone got my Q3 and Q4 2015 expenses way way above the first half of the year.
The cash flows, leverages, office politics, smile and nods, blacklists, health > wealth, eradicating frugality, etc etc.. Thank you, thank you.
It was up to you to realize the truth. Well done.
Loved the posted as always.
Been cranking 12-16 hour days since Christmas in prep for management presentations starting Monday morning and prep on Sunday.
Materials are now done and I know you guys would disagree but I gotta go out tomorrow.
Happy new year!!!!’
A very interest book is the How to Fail at Almost Everything and Still Win Big. It shows the same idea as number 1. A system is better than setting goals because it will make you unstoppable. You also can accomplish more and *care less* about your fails doing that. I have found difficult to apply this principle in general. For example, I always study a lot (system), but I would be very frustrating if I had not receive a honours degree (it was not the case though). Even in this book the author (scott adams) agrees that you only have a system because you want to accomplish goals, but doing this change of mindset you are more likely to succeed.
Whatever, I want to thank you guy for doing this blog. I have changed a lot since I started reading it (2 years ago). I let some *friends* go, have started eating healthy and have started hitting the gym. I went from 0 books per year to an average of 15-20 and have a total different mindset.
Looking forward to start my career next year 😉
Interesting recommendation, may check it out.
Side note, seems our international readership is taking off.
Haha, I ‘ve been living in an English country for 4 months now. I have to be more careful with some grammar mistakes.
No worries it will improve.
Recent non-target, non-finance graduate here. Used the info here to break into MM IB in SF, and am pretty excited for the gains 2016 has in store. Just wanted to thank you guys for all the content that you’ve made available and for keeping it 100.
Congrats! Good luck Slumdog.
Remember the first 3 years are the worst, just have to survive, avoid complaining and get the right people to like you.
You’ll be thrilled by year 5.
Concentrate on activities and chose your superior guiding directive for 2016. That is much better than having a lot of goals.
Put me on the waiting list for the info product so long as it’s not entirely ibanking (technical) related. It’s funny watching you guys expand while keeping one finger on the quality control switch – can’t be easy. On another note:
GOOD LORD ALL MIGHTY WHAT A F-KING YEAR
I mastered the art of working hard. Which feels great till I realized that I was running as fast I could…..in circles.
So for 2016 the goals are:
-Discipline
-Consistency
-Or Even Humility
Give me just one by next Dec 31 and it’ll be a productive year. As frustrating as it is, I suppose these things really do take time (UGH). Keep on a’ movin…
Happy New Year!
Time to do it again, but better
Awesome work and no we would not create an investment banking product.
Solid post once again, here are my goals for 2016, taken straight out of my last article:
• Health 2016
Probably my most important goal during 2016 is to switch as much as possible of my diet to bio/organic and grass-fed.
Although I don’t eat many calories per day, (almost 1700) still around 70% of them come from non-organic sources. Apart from fish and eggs, all the other protein sources are from common animals. I plan to switch to grass-fed beef, chicken and pork during this year. Apart from the price, one more factor that makes it hard, is to find a good, reliable source of such meat. It’s not exactly a commodity where I live, so I will need to make a lot of extra effort in order to get it. Nevertheless, it’s a must, and I cannot skip it any longer.
I don’t intend to change much on my training program. I might increase my aerobic during the cutting period, but this is something I will decide on the spot.
• Relationships 2016
Well, to be honest, I don’t intend to change my model very much. I want to be able to see a few, actually very few people more often because they have an overall healthy mindset and we can both exchange some value.
Pretty poor goals hah? I know.
But to tell you the truth, I don’t miss nightlife or interaction with average people that much. What I really miss and I would like to improve on, is increasing my social circle with people of better quality.
But this can be done with two ways. Either “hunt them down” and trying to befriend them (which is a totally legit procedure for some people), or raise my value and make my life and the acquisition of such people easier. I will attempt a balance of those two methods (with a bit more effort on the second one).
• Wealth 2016
Having said that, I will maintain the current productivity momentum I have at this point throughout 2016 as well. I believe that I am currently in a very good balance between social life (minimum) and wealth building (maximum).
I invest more than 50 hours per week for all my ventures (counted and logged with software) and if you think this is easy (because of the social conditioning you have heard that 80-90 hours per week is achievable), then you should try implementing it.
Working 100% focused on what you do for 50 hours a week ain’t a game. Try it for a week by using some pomodoro software or a timer and let me know on this 😉
As my knowledge increases, I am sure my efficiency will increase as well. My overall decision making and implementing skill will be more accurate, with faster and better results. I don’t expect that to become overnight, but I definitely notice a slow but steady improvement as time passes.
More specifically, I want to grow all these ventures up to a point that will allow me to have a steady stream of income without putting a lot of hours, so that I can build some new ones as well. I want by the end of the year to make 5 figures per month, which I believe is totally achievable if everything goes as planned – stay around for the 2016 edition of the same post to see if I made it or not.
As a highlight, taken from the same post:
After the second half of the year, I gave my full attention to my wealth building process so the social front took a hit. It’s not really easy to keep pushing in every direction, so I decided that money > relationships and as they say in wallstreetplayboys:
“If you could choose between $10M and the love of your life, what color would your Ferrari be?”
••••••••
Thanks a lot for another inspiring post guys.
Please remove the word goals from the vocabulary and it looks like an excellent plan for 2016!
Hey Roberto,
I just wanted to quickly comment on your health goals. If it’s too personal feel free to skip it but how much do you weigh/ how old are you? Also what are your current fitness goals (i.e cutting/bulking/maintaining).
I only ask because i find that 1700 calories is very little calories for a grown man. Unless you’re in the last phases of a cut, or your older in age. If you were planning on cutting 1700 may be too low because you’re leaving yourself with too little calories to work with once your weight loss stalls.
Just my two cents!
Agree with your assessment.
Hey man, I am at 1.69cm and I weight 70 kilos.
I have a decent conditioning at the moment, but I have seen myself really lean (six pack type of thing) only below 65kg.
Not easy to get to that point with more calories than those 🙂
Why didn’t things work out financially?
Obama
Made $12,000 in January, $12,000 in February, so on so on. At 23 years old. At around $75k in earnings around summer time the roof came off the house.
Merger.
Boss fired, managers relocated, position discontinued. Out on the curb down $1000 a month by October.
Healthcare industry is fucked boys.
Medical sales is no longer a viable option. Have a couple side businesses with products used in the operating room but they are getting fucked by pricing pressures in the hospital. Have a starry up website with a partner out of SV, but obviously not in a stage to produce in one to support. Investors happen to be doctors who have millions but are reluctant until further proof of concept. Their diminishing pay checks from further Medicare cuts and Obamacare BS arnt helping either.
Have to completely shift industries or find a different angle in this one. Maybe software sales vs devices.
Net Worth projection took a hit this year, hopefully will make up for it on taxes.
Tits
Start up website *
Enough to support*
Hopefully spend more time proof reading career path than my blog posts
Wow crazy story, you have sales skills so you will continue to be employed no doubt!
It sounds like the beginnings of The Wolf of WallStreet! Belfort, after filing for bankruptcy from a failed door to door seafood business, scores a gig with LF Rothschild, but is fired after Black Monday. Same year he was hired! He’s kicked out on to the streets and forced to search the classifieds for a stock broker gig.
I see the analogy. Anybody know of a crappy little medical device company that pays 50% comish on products and has little to no regulation. Im in! HA. Doesn’t exist as long as this clown is our president. Trump 2016 baby.
It was a good read. I can’t read most of the articles I find on the internet. They always say useless or feel good bullshit. There is no useless sentence in your articles and I like it.
Thanks!
Pretty certain 2016 is going to be the best year of my life so far. Thanks for the ideas!
However, looks like I need to redesign my “goals” document going forward. I was setting them like 2016 Q1, 2016 Q2, and so forth..
But I guess it would be better to simply have a few “goals” that are time agnostic, and then aiming to tick them off as soon as humanely possible? (Unless you are guaranteed to be restricted externally, such as a particular course only starting on a certain date.)
[Parkinson’s law is the adage that “work expands so as to fill the time available for its completion”.]
Do I have the right idea?
As stated in paragraph 1 goals are useless.
Improve in each area and just write out *actionable* steps to improve in each category.
Excellent post. I have yet to iron out my 2016 plan but once I do, I will follow a simple change to boost productivity: I will actually slot out time in my calendar (in large chunks) and then set my schedule at the beginning of each week with time already booked for activities. The to-do list alone does not work! Lesson learned, change will be implemented.
It seems like you guys have spoken about white-labeling/selling your own product in the money machine post but also endorse affiliate marketing quite strongly and seem to even prefer it. I suppose that leaves me to assume that you have both an actual product business as well as an affiliate business in a sheep-friendly area (skin, diet, “6-figure lifestyle nomad!”, etc.)
I have found that typical affiliates (mass aggregator sites like shareasale) typically don’t have the best affiliate percentages. I’ve had my best success in reaching out directly to top-brand manufacturers and creating an affiliate link by speaking with an internal rep. Amazon affiliate links are horrible and pay out a paltry <10% (waste of time + inefficient).
For aspiring affiliates…it is not enough to buy traffic from google/fb alone! You must buy targeted sheep clicks. E.g. for diet and wellness buy yahoo/bing ad space, for college admission CPA stuff buy space on college confidential and on scholarship websites, etc. Spend wisely-get the most bang for your traffic buck!
100% true, we already mentioned FB and Google buys are not enough (previous post)
Great post as usual.
I found your blog back in February from a comment you left over at Financial Samurai. Although, I’m not in your target demographic, I have been impressed with the mental frameworks you use and I’ve implemented a few things.
I appreciate the quality content you put up and I’m looking forward to what you have in store for 2016.
Happy New Year!
Side note: It’s been interesting to see your evolution on fast-forward as I work through some of your older posts.
Thank you Ted! We would say we’re embarrassed by really old posts, but we’re not. Zero experience in blogging and had to make a decision on the type of blog this would become so we used a tremendous number of posting styles.
Good luck in 2016, hope you’re staying in.
First of all, I need a new identity in 2016 – not so much a “recent graduate” anymore!
A lot of my progress this year did not happen until the last three months of the year, which things just took off.
Financial plans:
1. Get FDA approval for my jarred food product. Launch a website and sell it online.
2. Finish remodeling my current restaurant – inside and out. Inside – increase efficiency by figuring out ways to significantly reducing the human element in making food and simplifying everything by changing the menu. Out – update the worn down aesthetics while keeping in mind that good food matters the most.
3. Help launch an innovative online ordering website/app that would allow me to send lots of food to lots of people at the same time and potentially get over 2x increase in sales.
4. Launch an online restaurant – basically a fast casual version of our food that will target a new younger demographic.
Health plans:
1. Exercise at least 6 times a week. Figure out how to set up a routine.
2. Cook healthy breakfast/brunch + juice regularly. Limit “cheat” meals by having food made ahead of potentially busy mornings.
3. Figure out a routine to allow morning walks everyday instead of reading books while lying in bed.
Relationship plans:
1. Keep up more regularly with important people. Been using the “too busy” excuse far too much this year. Just realized not too long ago that “too busy” means you’re telling the other person that you’re more important than the other person – a big no-no for interpersonal relationships.
2. Get better at holding conversations. I seem to be too passive and asking too many questions + being insincerely attentive. Should learn how to tell stories to keep the other side interested. Want to be more likeable instead of being known as a quiet person.
2016 seems like a make it or break it year for me. Starting 2 side hustles along with improving my current business will be challenging (and fun!!!). Hopefully everything works out well, but if not, I know I will learn a whole lot from mistakes.
My biggest obstacle is being consistent with everything – but I’ve made huge strides and seem to have figured out how to block certain time wasting activities from happening (like mindless web browsing). If anyone is interested, will write up a quick actionable guide once I can be truly consistent.
Favorite book I read this year is “Skill with People” by Les Giblin. This is a very quick read – maybe will take 2 hrs and will give you a basic understanding of people. It changed the way I look at people and ultimately allowed me to understand my business better since I understand customers better. A must read if you tried reading Zig Zagler’s book (or even Dale Carnegie’s) and did not exactly understand why his techniques work.
Many thanks for 2015, and as extremely excited as WSPs and other readers/commenters for 2016. Couldn’t have wished for a better community of people.
Well done be sure to announce your new user name!
I would be really interested in your guide for blocking time-wasting activities. Probably my biggest problem right now.
Great post as usual. Mostly like the point of not setting goals such as I will make $200k this year because it has resulted in laziness in the past on my part. I have tried to incorporate goal extensions to become more disciplined and mentally tough. ex. I might set out to do 30 push-ups for a set, but once I reach 30, I will whisper “screw it, go for 35, pain is only temporary”.
Also, the concept you pushed in that tweet about a good $10 being worth $10k is just gold. It shows that there is a wealth of opportunities and chances out there for little to no money if we just get up and look. Great example is how I learned how to register a business, manage my ebay store, and file sales taxes just by google searches and paying around $10 to register the business, rather than in school.
My goals are the following:
Social goals: To push past my comfort zone in social/romantic situations.
Professional goals: Add valuable work experience to my curriculum through a job/internship so I have a good history by the time I graduate college.
Fitness goals: Continue on course at the gym and keep reaching for new PR’s and overall health, while also reducing consumption of junk food.
I like those goals because they are measurable in the sense that it will be clear by the end of the year how well I did, yet they don’t give me a specific number that will cause me to begin slacking once I reach it. Looking forward to your posts!
We might manually delete the word “goals” from all comments on here ha!
Jokes aside, good luck sir!
There is a book called ” sales dogs”,forwarded by Blair. It talks crossing the line and seeking opportunity In the ” just do it” chapter. I strongly recommend
I’ll throw my hat in the ring.
*None of this is bragging but to stir up the many lurkers who may not think they have it in them.*
August 2015 – A good friend texted me a link to “$1M in 10 yrs 0 Excuses”. I couldn’t sleep for several nights my mind was blown. Not just mine but my wife’s as well.
November – I finally quit working IN my office cleaning business and hired staff. This meant my income would drop by $45K over the next 52 weeks. BUT allowed me to 1) Search fulltime for sales positions 2) Begin Aff Mrktg part time. I started seeing conversions by week 2. (Pro Tip: Search high & low for a good affiliate manager. Mine saves me time, money and headache WEEKLY!) (Pro Tip #2: LP’s are a must. Steal others’ then tweak.)
December – Landed a B2B sales position at a 9 figure SaaS company. Anyone can get into sales if you search and apply. Demostrate energy & a desire to learn. Plus dress sharply, they’ll like this even if the company as a whole dresses in jeans and polos. I have no college degree.
January – I start my sales role this month. Our product is a steal and I’m looking forward to learning and making sales.
My wife launched her YouTube vlog last month and we’ll implement our newly learned online sales skills to provide free content, build trust, grow her base & sell a product, repeat.
We have two infants, one degree btwn us both and 2015 had many many setbacks, by far. But we did the heaviest lifting and now have a solid plan in place.
I’m looking forward to learning more from you *douches* in 2016. And from hearing about everyone elses ups and downs and ups!
Well done. Based on your post the recurring theme is quite obvious. Scale! Find a way to scale.
Unbelievable that your wife was okay with our blog name + post. Honestly that’s our first real shock since starting this blog.
Thank you Sir. Duly noted on scaling.
And yes she rolled her eyes re the name but finds your finance articles succinct and worth reading.
Stay strong!
Beyond hilarious, good luck keep scaling and remember the more you work the less time you have to waste, that’s really how the ball keeps rolling.
Could you clarify what LP’s are?
A quick google search of “affiliate marketing lp” will do the trick 😉
Cheers Michael!
Got Trump’s The Art of the Deal in the mail yesterday, decided to take your guys’ advice and read a book instead of going out and partying. Finished it this morning, was a much better decision reading that than wasting time and drinking poison.
Thanks for the post!
Fantastic decision!
WSP – I particularly appreciated your timely post. Spent the day vacillating whether to go out or stay in. Saw your post and decided to stay home, have a beer and read “A Guide to the Good Life: The Ancient Art of Stoic Joy”. Whether hitting up a member’s club or a snow party at a loft, or just general bar hopping – it just didn’t seem worth it after your post.
Now back to work on the 1st, with a clear mind and focus. There are a couple of deals coming up that need my attention, and got a head start on it today.
Resolution would be focus on health, weeding out bad relationships, have peace of mind, and engage in a scalable side business venture. I had a big physical setback for which I required surgery and am still undergoing treatment – I’ve come to realize that without good health, everything else is null. Nearing my 5th year on Wall St, I finally feel like my career is starting to pan out in front of me, but I’d like to not get complacent.
Always appreciate your quality / non BS posts. Hope to run into you guys in the city some day, would love to buy you some beers and share ideas. Cheers
Fantastic book choice that is extremely good for Wall Street employees.
Did you like it?
Very much. Was a great practical introduction into the thinking and lifestyle. Helped me reframe some of my goals and own meaning of happiness.
Took your advice (although a bit late to the new year). Finished reading “Emergency: This Book Will Save Your Life” by Neil Strauss. Lots of tidbits of practical information and much of it may particularly interest you (5 flags, offshore banking, multiple passports, what to do WSHTF).
Thanks for the awesome content as always! Wishing you a prosperous new year.
I agree that the best way to spend nye is to have a quiet night with a book. Preferably near a fireplace. If you have a girlfriend you can include her.
As far as planning for the new year goes, you should already have a spreadsheet with your plans for the next quarter. I generally like to start looking ahead to the new year in november or december.
Yearly plans are good. Take it a step further and nest your quarterly plans within that general framework.
Other things I like to do in my end of the year write up: list out where I am sitting and what I am wearing, write down the names of the people who have impacted my life in the past year and old friends I had the pleasure of meeting up with over the holidays. I feel like these details help anchor it when you go back and read over it.
” slight *increase* in nightlife activities as too much time was spent staring at a computer screen in 2015 (probably won’t happen!),”
So I am not crazy then. Already have a business loaded on a server. Ran tests of it sitting on the porch of my apartment. Goal for 2016 is to get it to 100,000USD passive income. Thank you so much for this blog. You guys are a light in the darkness.
p.s. Goal two is to stay as far away from regular people as possible. Got in a couple fist fights and pulled out a loaded shotgun once this year because of them.
The past year was spent dealing with major health issues. Now that those are fixed, here is my plan for 2016.
Health:
Step one : fix my sleep (go to bed early – 9 pm, at the same time every day and get 9 hours of sleep) and eat healthy and tasty food I cook myself (quit eating junk food, cakes, chocolate… and learn new recipes)
Step two : my joints are weak, I’m skinny and I’m fat. To become healthy, sport is needed. 1+ hour per day (work out, stretch and relaxation/meditation)
Finances : learn how to create a budget and save X$ a month (X is yet to be defined), find a book on the basics of finances and read & apply (if you guys have any suggestion, I’m a completely ignorant about this topic)
Life : get into the college I want next year to complete my education (MBA), prepare to enter the job market = get my driver’s license, gain some skills (yet to be defined). Too much time has been spent staring aimlessly at a computer screen. Read more. Finally, find a routine to follow my progresses with weekly check ups and daily planning.
Debriefing of the year :
Sleep : sleep schedule still fucked
Diet is completely fixed
Sport : began working out an hour per day, 5 days a week with swimming on sunday
Finances : found how the create and manage a budget, found how much I should save each month (20%), bought security analysis
Life : I couldn’t get into the college I wanted, I’ll get my driver licence 4 days from now if everything goes well. I didn’t read more and kept starying at computer screen too much.
I had more health issues that are now 95 healed and which will soon be 100% healed.
I didn’t make everything happen but I learned a lot from each of these failures.
Now onto 2017.
The unemployment rate is simply one piece of the economic equation. Look further into the data and it’s more enlightening what we find.
“The headline unemployment rate has been at 5.0% since October, but the underemployment rate is 9.9%, near where it was in June 2008, though well off from its October 2009 peak at 17.4%. Meanwhile, the labor force participation rate came in at 62.6%, among its lowest levels in nearly four decades.” -Lawrence Lewtinn, Yahoo Finance
Unfortunately for us, but fortunate for democrats who tout about their amazing economic recovery, the masses of voters don’t read between the lines.
Coming back to this post early.
Traveling to Europe for these last weeks to end the year, so want to hit the ground running first week of Jan.
2016 was filled with positive “failures”, and lots of lessons.
See ya’ll in 2017.
Always a classic.
Thanks for sharing your wisdom. Took a lot of L’s in 2019, so happy to take the ego hit. Improving life this year as documented below:
Mental
1. Internalise ultralearning processes for rapid learning (by end of Feb)
2. Produce 1 research project a month with analysis (starting January)
3. Publish at least 1 research paper (by August)
Emotional
1. Become more adept at influencing the emotional state of others
2. Read 3 non-fiction books
3. Enjoy adventures in A, B, C, D to break up the hustle
Financial
1. Make X skill into primary income generator (by May)
2. Develop copywriting side hustle (by July)
3. Iterate and test online business ideas with recurring revenue model (starting June)
Spiritual
1. Transmute spiritual energy for 363 consecutive days
2. Attend sessions at Z on a weekly to fortnightly basis wherever possible
3. Maintain sobriety i.e. no alcohol, etc
Vocational
1. Consistently create insightful posts on X, 1 per week (starting January)
2. Make weekly contributions to Y (starting March)
3. Attend Y to make industry connections from A, B, C
Physical
1. Ramp up gym consistency to 4-5 days/week (starting January)
2. Learn how to efficiently cook a healthy repertoire of meals (by March)
3. Start dancehall/soca/afrobeat dancing (from September)
Relational
1. Arrange monthly meetup with fellow future winners (starting January)
2. Get X as my career mentor (by end of Feb) and Y as my financial mentor (by end of May)
3. Generate trackers in evernote for important relationships to help accelerate trust formation