125. Look Back & Personal Rating on 2023, Did We Achieve Our Goals?

Dude, my sister sent me this quote. You've already achieved the goals that you said would make you happy. And when you reflect on that, it's like oof. Because you're like, you keep goal setting, keep thinking the next thing, one after that will make me happy if I just do this thing. But if you look back, you've already done all those things that you said you were going to make you happy.

The only way to win the game is to be free of it.

Welcome back to another episode of the Ben and Bergs podcast. I'm Ben, your favorite high school dropout and founder of Collective Shift alongside Ms. Bergs, your favorite MBA and CEO of Collective Shift. Join us as we bring you world class crypto research and strategies to help you dominate this crypto bull market as well as a behind the scenes view of us scaling a fully remote subscription research business in Australia. And today we are doing our 2023 reflections. What did we say we're going to do? What did we do? What didn't we do? And more importantly, the favorite of mine is the fantasy story where we put ourselves. We wrote this back in end of 2022, put ourselves in a future state. A year later, where will we be? What does life look like? Have we done the things that we said we're going to do? And are we living the life that we set out to achieve? And bergs, this is an interesting one. Have you done the fantasy story before?

Yeah, did it last year mate.

Yeah, I mean before this one. Like was that. Have you done it?

That's how I've done it. Yeah.

Yeah.

Okay.

Yeah, it's, it's, I've done it for a few years now and it's, yeah, it's a really cool way to reflect back on to see if the one, have you done the things that you said to achieve? But two have your goals and vision change throughout the year. And I think Bergs, your vision and a few of the things change throughout your year. But what, what's so fascinating is you probably don't even look back on this very often, if at all. But it plants in your subconscious and we, we know this even through goal setting business. You set your goals. You may not look at them every day, you may forget about them, but you look back after a little while and you actually realize you've been working towards them over that period of time because you're consciously or otherwise working towards those things. And that's what I love about the fantasy story.

Absolutely. You have to look back on what you said you were going to do and make a plan to actually execute on it. This, the other equivalent of this is like listening to a podcast. Yeah, that's great. But what if you listen to that podcast two or three times and actually actioned what was there? How would that change your life?

Yeah, spot on, man. So read us out your fantasy story, mate. So Bergs wrote this end of 2022 and for his future self that was basically where he is now. Let's see, let's see how he went.

So this is how you know you've had personal growth where you go to read it and you sound like an absolute potato. All right, here we go. This is my fantasy story at the end of 2023. So I wrote this in 2022. Aaron is calm and fit, looks good in a T shirt and can dunk a basketball ring. He is sleeping well, happy and is pain free. He doesn't feel rushed all the time and appreciates the little things in life. Most of life's inconveniences don't bother him at all. Bennett Bergs has a following of 2000 true fans and has 10000 downloads per week with 3 episodes per week. We've held a Benneberg's meetup and had the best time with degenerates like us. We.

We have some cracking guests. We have some cracking guests. There we go. Trying to read my own handwriting, man. It's difficult. Collective Shift is highly profitable and our staff size is relatively similar. We ran the comp, run the company how we want and have found profit market fit. I want to sell at least one non collective Shift related product on the Internet, build my social media following provided isn't too draining to 10,000 followers on Twitter and I've spent a lot of time with my friends and family, eating, drinking, playing board games and having a good time. I'll look back on a year and see it was a one year I pulled myself first. So all right, this is so interesting and I can kind of go back to the mind frame I was in when I wrote this. Let's start off with the Aaron is calm, fit and can dunk. Okay, I'm Karma. I am fitter than I was at the start of 2022 but I can't dunk a basketball ring from right. Gotta like what that comes down to is like I went really hard at my training but I just need to lose more weight and do specific training to do that. Still one of my goals, sleeping well, happy and is painfree. I'm sleeping a Lot better. Like that is something that I've really focused on. I'm definitely a lot happier. I'm not pain free, but I have a lot less pain because I'm managing that by being more.

I remember that was a big one for you last year. Like you were constantly like tired, didn't sleep well, your nose was like just so many things was just not playing in your court sleeping wise.

Oh, it was horrendous, mate. And then I made that a priority. And it's just those little things like when you look back on your goals, you're like, what are the major things I did? And you don't really think, hey, I'm sleeping better now and I feel refreshed. That's not something people think about. But I actually put a lot of work into that and it's gone really well.

So now let's get to Ben and Bergs has a following with 2,000 true fans. 10,000 downloads, three episodes a week. All that doesn't matter to me. Like, I think that was like, oh, I've started a podcast. This is where I have to be. You know, we need to be this amazing thing. And I just don't even want that. Like, yes, I want the podcast to grow. What I really want is if we held a meetup in any capital city, we would get at least 50 to 100 people at the pub. That's all I want. You know, all the massive numbers don't really matter to me and it's more about just doing the pod and even the validation we had when we went to Oz Crypto Con and the people coming up and talking to us, that was just amazing. That is what I want. Not these silly numbers that are really just meaningless. Like they don't bring joy to my life.

It's amazing the feeling when you chat to someone that's like a listener of the podcast. Like I caught up with a guy the other day, couple that bumped into and they talk about how they listen to the podcast and it's just, it's a much better feeling to know that you helping someone out than just growing for the sake of growing. Like we know. And I wonder if you're picking up what I'm putting down here, but a guy, Instagram guy that we used to work for, well, he runs an agency and we.

Yes, yeah, yeah, yes, yeah.

And he's grown his following to hundreds of thousands of people. But you host a meet up and he's got like 10, 15 people that show up. 20 people. Yeah, you got like hundreds of thousand followers because the content's very bland and, you know, not specific and not really valuable. It's just, you know, optimizing for virality, not actually anything meaningful. So, you know, would you rather the hundred true fans that you genuinely can help or would you rather 100, a thousand fans that don't show up?

It's generic. Yeah, you're right. It's generic and it's trend chasing. And would I rather have like a million views on YouTube or would I rather have two people come up and say, you've changed my life. Like, I now do this thing, whether it's, you know, I, I'm financially free or I've got more money or I've invested or I exercise now or I sleep better, whatever it may be, that is way, way more valuable. All right, have some cracking guests. We've had a lot of cracking guests. Like when I look back, Susano was a cracking guest. He was so good. Even like Mason Lister, amazing. Bill Brockoff, even Frisker was great. Like, we've had a lot of really, really cool guests that I wouldn't even think of having that were just amazing or really changed my life here. Yeah, really enjoyed that. Collective Shift is highly profitable and our staff size is relatively similar. So interestingly, we just post an episode of being an overnight success. Our staff size is relatively similar.

And the last two months have been cracking. We posted the stats on that across our socials. That has been absolutely amazing.

We, we waited right to the last minute to get there, but we got there.

The clip was like, oh, we're all 40, mate.

242. Oh, mate.

So I want to sell at least one non collective Shift related product on the Internet. I still want to do that and I don't know if it's. I have the capability to do it, so I want to do it and see what happens. Like whether it's just a, you know, something on leadership or management or just put out a little course, tips and tricks in small businesses maybe. And I, I will write my reflection later on, but I don't know if this is. I feel like I should do it. Like, you know how everyone's like, I should write a novel or run a marathon. They just feel they should do it. I don't know how much I really want to do that and if it's going to be life changing because I already build stuff with Collective Shift and the other one is build my social media following to 10,000. I just don't care about that. Like, I've got it. Like the people I engage with on Twitter. I actually met up with them in Melbourne. They're absolute lads. They're degenerates like me. And that's not even a goal. It's more just to have fun on Twitter.

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

And the last one was. Oh. And have profit market fit, which we've definitely found with Collective Shift, with our pro offering and our platinum offering. That is just amazing. I spent a lot of time with my family and friends, eating, drinking, playing board games, having a good time. Absolutely did that. And I'll look back on this year and say it was the one year I put myself first, which I have, but I think I need to do it more because I still get caught in a trap.

What. What were the sort of lessons or takeaways for you, I guess, in writing that and. Or looking back, like, you know, do you think you've changed throughout the year? Do you think that's helped you, like, achieve the things you wanted to?

I think it has, man. Like, in writing that, it's really.

Helped me focus and it really highlighted to me what I thought I wanted to do and what I actually wanted to do and what was valuable to me. And I ended up doing a bunch of other stuff that assisted these goals. Like, I went for surgery right in, like, May, and that was, like, a big surgery on my nose. The recovery sucked. It was horrendous. But that has been life changing. I lifted and exercised a lot. Like, last year was the most I have ever exercised. Yeah, there were big periods where I didn't exercise at all when I was, like, recovering or unwell.

Even did the hard thing. Like, I have major travel anxiety. Ended up going to Melbourne and it was absolutely fine. Like, the days leading up, I was like, oh, fuck this, I don't want to go. But literally on the day, and as soon as I get in the car, everything was fine, plane was fine. Go to fly business class. At the time of my life in Melbourne, you were like. It was so funny because I didn't sleep well the first couple of nights. Like, you know when you're traveling and you're like, all right, we're getting up. Like, bloody 8am get the car, you're coming. All right, we're going to the PT for all this bullshit. My recovery score is like 14%. You're like, nah. But he's ain't coming, mate. I went, now. I forced myself to do all that stuff and had the time of my life.

Ended up getting a whoop, which was actually life changing. So the fitness band, which really helped me with my sleep because it helped me learn about my triggers, what I was doing at night that wasn't so good for my sleep. And you can see exactly like if you stayed up late, if you're on the computer, if you had a bit.

Of alcohol, what's that for your skewies, mate.

Oh mate, it was just one drink ruins your sleep. It is incredible. Um, so really focus on that as well and also like it gave me that objective data to put my health first so I could see how much I was exercising, the strain I was doing during the day if I was in like a high stress zone, like what is stressing me out and also if I haven't recovered well it gives me permission to not go hell for leather that day. And I've also started desensitization injections so against like dust mites.

What else? Pollen and a few other things which has been horrendous. But it's a good long term game.

Amazing man, it's fantastic. I think.

I think it's, it's funny I remember you writing these things out like back you know, a year ago, you know, wanting to dunk, wanting to grow socials and I just don't think that's really as important as what it has been in the past. Like things become a little bit more clearer. The spending time with family was a big one for you.

Yeah.

You know, and time, you know, with your daughter and I think you definitely prioritize that.

Oh 100%. So time with my family was a massive one and it was a different year for us last year as well where my wife went back to uni studying a masters and you know, the little ones in school so being able to spend more time with them was being amazing. And it's not the cope of quality time, it's like no, it's just time. And last thing before we kick on to you mate, I'll go through what will definitely change in 2023 and my rewards and how they actually went.

So what will change? Have a better relationship with my body. That's definitely changed. Still needs to change more. Be kinder to future Aaron. Yeah, I've been better with like the whoop and the data and everything like that but still need to be better because a lot of time I'm like, you know, this is future Aaron's problem. He can deal with it. Exercise more, especially incidental exercise. Definitely done that. Eat well, spend time shopping and preparing meals. Need to do that a lot more. When I do meal prep like mate, it's just bang on. I'm not hungry. I just eat at the right time. The fridge is full. Haven't done that well. Need to do it more. Start my weekly calendar with me first. Definitely do that. Be consistent with the things that matter. Even the boring things. I've been at that like I'll be so bad at it. I need to get better. Don't work myself into the ground. Getting better but still working quite hard. You and I both have that and we kind of keep each other in check.

Go to therapy more for maintenance. Haven't done that but have booked in this week. Yes. Be calmer and let less things affect me. Definitely I've gone like, more like ran like certain areas but a lot of things just don't affect me anymore. And the reward for achieving goals in 2023 was a trip to Japan with a family and a rental property by the beach. So trip to Japan, that's happening. I don't want to go now because it's like freezing, freezing cold. All my mates have been and I don't. I, I do the cold, mate. I ain't do the cold. I'm like, no, I'd rather go in summer. So next kind of holidays will go and rental property by the beach. Perth has gone nuts in the meantime. Like prices have gone up by like 40, 50% so I'm going to delay that slightly or I might just buy further out by the beach later this year. But I think that's definitely going to happen.

Amazing man.

Yeah.

I think it's been a good year by the sounds of it.

It's been a cracking year. You just look back and you just think of. Because people like oh what have you done? And you think back and you think about one or two major things but it's not really the one or two major things you do. It's the day to day in the way that you live your life. Like now I wake up and I feel good and like I spend time with my family and I potter around the garden and I make a coffee and I'm more kind of relaxed. I still go super hard at work but it's not what it used to be. I don't wake up feeling anxious and drained and I have to do this like it's just a lot better. And it's those slow daily incremental changes that make a big difference to our daily lives. But we don't really think about because they're not the huge, huge changes and.

I think they're the most important ones. It's like Are you waking up living on a, you know, out of 10, what's your average? You know, and most days you're just going to feel sort of rigid, normal, not great, not sad. But what is that, what is that feeling? You know, it's not like that one, one thing. If you just achieve this one thing, you'll be happy. You know, I've heard from so many people that just like, that's, that's what people think, but it's not reality.

There's a brilliant book on this called the Happiness Trap. And that's exactly what it is. Where it's like, oh, if I just bought this one thing or if I was just in a relationship with this person, or if I just didn't do that thing. And it's like, no. Happiness is a choice you make and a skill you develop. You always have to work on it. Things will always change and change those that day to day. So you know, your happiness, like your baseline happiness level is a lot higher than it is today.

Dude. My sister sent me this quote. It just says you've already achieved the goals that you said would make you happy. You've, you have achieved the goals that you, that you, you've already achieved the goals you said would make you happy. And when you reflect on that, it's like, oof. Yep. So you're like, shit. You just keep goal setting, keep thinking the next thing that, you know the one after that will make me happy if I just do this thing. But if you look back, you've already done all those things that you said you were going to make you happy.

The only way to win the game is to be free of it. That is the thing. And if, if, if you're so smart, why aren't you happy? Why is it always an outcome driven thing? Let's just say you sold collectorship tomorrow for let's say 50 million and you had all this money. Great.

I've got done it now. What?

Amazing. And there's no handcuffs. They just bought it. Brilliant. It's in my. Yeah, great.

Now what do I do?

It just creates more problems, man.

Yeah, yeah.

And it's, it's interesting where it's like they say money only solves your money problems. That's true. It does take away anxieties as well. Like you don't have to worry about stuff and do other. Like, you know, it helps you a lot. But it's like these things, as you progress in life and as you get older, you've got like another goal, another thing you want to Achieve and it's kind of, it's never ending.

Yeah.

So you just got to work on your day to day happiness.

Love it. Okay, so mine.

Mine was interesting because I, I sort of, you know, last year was, was pretty interesting for me. Like it was, it was a, it was a bit of a shit fight in terms of, you know, going through what we're going through in terms of, you know, trying to raise money. I was living abroad, went through a breakup, you know, getting sued ex partnership was just still going to shit. We're in a pretty rough financial position. We're losing money like it was. It was a pretty rough year. 2022. So my fantasy story for last year where I wanted to be was I want to be a semi regular public speaker and guest on other shows. Based on my effort to grow my social following to 10,000 on Twitter, LinkedIn and 1,000 downloads per episode in Bennett Burgs Collective 50 is profitable and growing revenue. We haven't grown too much employee numbers, meaning we have a healthy Runway. We're very similar on that. I've spent more time abroad and I'm enjoying living and working solo in Australia, Bali and the US. My network has continued to grow by putting myself in positions where I'm the dumbest guy in the room.

Yeah, he definitely cheated that.

Not with you, mate. Not when you're in the room. I've invested in myself considerably to confirm leveling up being a CEO, content creator, market and public speaker. I'm now in a position to get an apartment in Melbourne and I'm back living there. I'm also continuing to gym four times a week and read six books a year. So this pretty much all came true about 90% of it. Which was pretty, pretty amazing. Like go back a year ago, I wasn't doing any public speaking at all.

I think it's very easy when you set your goal so low.

No, honestly, when you were reading that out, you've achieved every single one of those, man.

Yeah, it's pretty wild. I think the only thing we haven't achieved the 1k 1k downloads per episode on Band B we do across like.

All the different socials.

Yeah, we'd probably go close. Yeah. Yeah. Became a public speaker, did more of that. Didn't get to 10k on LinkedIn, but yeah, basically nearly 10k on Twitter, 10count Instagram. That's been.

But I think that's, that's actually not the goal. Right. Like amount of followers. Your engagement is off the charts. Yeah.

View counts higher. So I think that's That's a learning. Actually, I think this year, like back on the thing of, like, well, do you want a hundred thousand low quality, you know, people or do you want a thousand high quality people that you engage with and you actually add value to? So I, I would argue that, yeah, I've got a, you know, really awesome engaged community that we've been able to deliver. So happy about that. Profitable and growing revenue. Tick. Tick. Haven't grown too much. Employee numbers, Healthy Runway tickets. Spend more time abroad. Literally spend like all year abroad.

Yeah. So 2023, you spent lots of time in Bali. You went to the States.

Yeah.

Went around Australia.

Yeah. Went around Australia. Yeah. Went to different events. So then my network has continued to grow. Dumbest kind of room. I went to Barley's for a big business retreat. That was awesome. I went to the US to go to conferences and went to events, meeting new people.

Did you go to Singapore as well for like a couple of days or something?

I think I might have gone to Singapore for a few days.

Yeah.

Yeah. Invest in myself considerably. Yeah. Kept. Kept, you know, growing on that front. Content creator. Learned a lot. Spent a lot of time working on. On that. My craft there from content creation. Literally. Moved into an apartment yesterday. So back living in Melbourne.

Went hard.

Going to the gym. I don't think I've ever been in a sort of better physical condition.

You got a. You got a trainer, mate.

Got a personal trainer. That's been super helpful.

Yeah, man. So, like, overall, that's been like. That's been pretty accurate. Now what's interesting is, like, what? Things definitely need to change in 2023. This is an interesting one. So no more fundraising, no more relationships. Focus on me. Focus 100% on growing business revenue. More me time. So golf, reading, journaling, gym. More traveling, more content creation. Less time spending on pointless shit, I. E. Bad meetings and worrying about stupid shit. And more. Better sleep.

More, better sleep.

More, better sleep.

I want more good or sleep, mate.

I want better asleep. This actually mostly came true as well. So stop fundraising. You know, I focus on me for a long time of 2023 and more me time. Did a lot of traveling, a lot more content creation than I was. Isn't that crazy? If we only really started doing content creation like a year ago.

That's wild. Yeah.

You think about it and, you know, we've been to learn a lot. Come a long way over the last, you know, year.

Absolutely, man.

Better sleep. The whoops helped me as well. Still need to work on that. Probably not spending enough me time, but focus 100% growing business revenue. Like, yeah, like a year ago we were so fundraising and product focused. In the last year we've been 100% focusing on growing business revenue. And that's just like paid off in dividends.

Exactly right. We didn't have any marketing acquisition channels, mate. We had to build from scratch.

We had nothing.

And to think where we are now with like, the opportunity we have ahead of us is, you know, really, really exciting. So.

Yeah, man, in terms of that, I'm pretty stoked with 20. 2023 has been a. It's been a great year. I feel as though the foundations are set. We got through the hard stuff with three and a half years are in the books now for Collective Shift, we've got the foundations for acquisition channels. The product's good.

You know, I haven't done my 2024 fantasy story yet, but I think it's going to include a lot of content creation. Probably a little bit less like busy time, a lot more thinking time. I think you do this pretty well. Like just getting that headspace to think and read and strategize. Like, I need to do more of that.

So this is one thing I want to focus on. I want to get more specific with my goals and I actually haven't had. I haven't done that a lot probably in the last four months or so, like to really sit down and be like, not this afternoon. I'm turning off slack, I'm turning off email and I'm going to read a specific book about something and then action that in the company. That's something I need to do a lot more.

Yeah, I think we both need to do that a little bit more for sure.

Because it's been a lot of, a lot of work and a lot of operations and a lot of execution and it has to be that way because our business is small and we needed to do that in order to survive. Now we're in a better position, we can start working on the business a lot more.

Yeah. And then, and then the other side, like, personally, I want to. I think I want to spend a little bit more time like, you know, meditating and you know, I want to go do an ayahuasca retreat and I want to, you know, I want to do like, want to try mushrooms. I want to go like a. More of a, you know, explore that sort of spiritual, you know, side as well. A little bit. Not like full woo woo, but like to sort of explore that. I think that'd be really fascinating.

You got full Jack Dorsey let's go. You come back with a giant beard with no stash. Just the beard.

Come back. I'm a. I'm a Buddha.

Here we go. We're transitioning into Edibles Collective Shift Edible Edition.

Collective edibles.

We're not Collective Edibles. So good. Wrap it up in Alpha Merch. Let's go.

Oh, dear. But yeah, so, yeah, excited for 2024. I think it's going to be exciting year.

That's great. And we're. We're going to go away and we're going to write our 2023 Reflections in 2024 goals, and we'll bring that to you in a couple of weeks. That's going to be interesting because doing a full reflection on that year, like going through my calendar and everything that happened, that's going to be fascinating. And then how that will kind of tie into what I want to achieve this year. I think I know what I want to achieve, but after I've done that reflection, we'll see how it goes.

See how we go. All right, guys, thank you so much for listening. We'd love for you to subscribe to the podcast either on Spotify, Apple or YouTube if you can. Really helps us out. Really allows us to grow the podcast. Coming to you each and every week, twice a week. We are so excited for a massive 2024. Going to help you crush the crypto bull market, crush your personal growth and win together. Bergs. We'll see you next time.

Thanks, champion. See you, Ben.