The ONE Word That Will Transform Your Year – Are You Ready?

You could be an entrepreneur, you could be a business owner, you could be a real estate investor as your full time career, you could be in legal or it doesn't matter. So you are just whoever you are. I want to ask you personally, maybe, what is your vision? What are you wanting to achieve? Is it a. Is it another benchmark on your road to financial freedom and being able to have the peace of mind that everything is taken care of? Even if you love your job, you know that if your job was not there tomorrow, through no fault of your own, you had the income that you needed to take care of you and your family and to continue to go on trips and things like that. That's a whole different piece of that people don't even think about. Because reality is sometimes we just don't have control over what happens.

Right?

And it's not always about, I want to quit my job. It's, hey, my job might not be there tomorrow for some reason. That's real. And so you should always be in a pursuit of making sure that you are planning for your success and for your family's future.

Hey, everybody.

Flip and Danny here.

We'd like to welcome you to our studio and welcome to another episode of the Freedom Show.

Did you almost forget the name of our podcast?

I was being overly dramatic.

Yeah, you're good at that. Welcome to the show, everybody, and Happy New Year. Happy New Year. We are super excited. Happy 2024. We actually went into the recording of this podcast knowing that it was going to release on the 3rd of January. And so we have great things that we're talking to you about today with things that we're working on right now for the new year. So it's funn. I don't know if you feel the same way, but I was actually thinking about this today and I was like, it's really interesting to me that when a new year comes, you are so much more motivated to make changes. It's like, it feels like it's a fresh start. And when reality is, is that today was a fresh start when we woke up this morning.

That's right.

Tomorrow is a fresh start again when we wake up tomorrow, Tomorrow. But yes, but, but for some reason, the year changing just spurs up all, all of these ideas, all of this creativity that goes, look what we can do next year. And I think for me it's tied to the fact that we measure things in years, right? What did I do last year? How much did I accomplish? Did I do the things that I set out to do at the Very beginning. What didn't go as planned? Where did we shift? And it gives us an opportunity to think big. Right. Because even though this morning was fresh and it was a brand new day, I'm not thinking big about today. Right. I'm thinking very dialed in of what do I need to do today in order to accomplish the things that I set out to do maybe for the week. Whereas at the beginning of a year, you're thinking of the big picture and.

Suddenly I'm gonna do this.

Yeah. It gets so exciting. So let me just start off. We don't really have agenda what we want to talk about. We just have things in our head that we want to talk about. Let me start off by asking you, as you go into 20, 24, what are the things that you're really kind of focused on wanting to accomplish in this new year?

Well, health is one of. Well, is the number one. You know, both you and I, a couple years ago, we kind of took a step back from business and we didn't stop doing business. We just didn't do as much as we were normally doing. And we were focused on health and going to the doctor and getting checked out, you know, doing the whole nine yards. And then we sort of, well, jumped back in with both feet.

Yes.

And we've been doing that now for a little bit over a year. And so my main focus is to dial it back as much as I can. I know that, you know, just, well, there's times we can't, you know, and I get that. But I'm trying to dial it back just a little bit to focus more on health and. But it's the, you know, I sent you that article that I read about the, the two days that, that are not important to focus on, but one day is important to focus on. And I'm focusing on that one day, and that's today. And I'm not trying to say, oh, I'm going to lose. You know, as somebody said it the other day, I'm going to lose 60 pounds. And it's so depressing because you can't lose 60 pounds like that, you know, and so he's like, oh, well, I screw it. I'm just going to give up.

Yeah.

You know, but I'm not thinking that way. I'm thinking I'm just going to lose weight today. Yes, I'm not. Or I'm going to. I'm going to do this today and living one day at a time and, you know, just, just trying to focus more on health than I have not saying more on health than everything else, which is more in health more than I normally have been.

Yeah. So tell everybody a little bit more about that article. You forwarded it to me as well, and I really loved the way it dialed it in that there's two things of the three things you can focus on, there's two of them that you don't want to focus on. So talk more about those three things and why you don't focus on two of them.

Well, I should have reread the article before doing this recording because then it would have been a little bit more fresh on mine. But the, the tomorrow, you don't want to think about tomorrow because you're just worried about something that hasn't happened. You have no control over that. And too many people get wrapped up in. Wrapped around the axle about, oh, what's. What if this happens? And what if. What if this happens and it's out of our control and it's tomorrow. It's not tomorrow. Tomorrow's tomorrow. It'll come tomorrow. And so that's one day that people get wrapped around or wrapped up in. And the other one is yesterday. You know, oh, this happened yesterday. And, oh, I can't believe that happened. And all these bad things happened, you know, and on. Or whatever. And it's getting focused and getting wrapped up in stuff that has already happened. And you can't control that because it's already happened. You can't fix it, you can't redo it. And so the main point of the article is to focus on today. And today is what's in front of you right now, of what you can control, at least as much as you can control it. And so it's trying to get out of your mind yesterday and tomorrow and just put everything in your mind about today. Today is the only thing you can do. And if you do today, tomorrow's gonna be different than what you think in your head because you did it today.

Yes.

Or you accomplished what you wanted to do today. Now tomorrow is even better, or tomorrow is even more different than what you thought it was. So it's being more focused on today, which I read that article. I'm like, huh, that's pretty interesting. And then more and more I think about it, I'm just like, oh, that's really interesting. Wow. I think they're onto something there.

And what I love about it is the simplicity. So I'm going to take it a little bit further. So when you say yesterday, I think of my past. I think of all the things all the mistakes, all the things that have happened in our lives, personal and professional, that we could have done different in order to be in a better place today. But we can't change what we did two years ago. And some of them, many of them, most of them are learning lessons that you just go through. I mean, it's part of life, part of life is embracing that things are going to suck a lot and you're going to continually be learning very, very hard. But you get better every single day. One of my coaches loves to say, every day, in every way, you keep on getting better and better. And I know that was a Darren Hardy expression as well, and it's so very true. But it's so easy to get wrapped in to the past and wishing things were different today because of different decisions you could have made and you can't do that. So I take that yesterday comment to not only don't think about yesterday and what happened, but don't think about anything that's happened before. They're all lessons and they're all part of life that you can be upset with or happy with. And we've always said that we're very happy with. We wouldn't be where we are today without all of the things that happened to us throughout our lives. And then tomorrow. I am a visionary. So when you say tomorrow, I'm not actually literally thinking of tomorrow, the next day. I'm literally thinking of 10 years down the road. And although that's good because it allows me to see the vision of where we want to go personally and professionally, it doesn't make sense to worry about it on a day to day timeframe because what I do today, what I learned today may change what I do tomorrow, which then changes what happens in 10 years down the road. So I think times like this, it's very, very good to have the visionary hat on of where you want to go because it gives you the ability to reverse engineer what you need to do in order to make that vision happen. So who I want to be in 10 years, who I want to be more practically in one year, two years, maybe three years. We've talked about this before, how it's so much easier to project three years down the road than it is to project 10 years. So you can always have your North Star. Your North Star is right up there. It's, you know, maybe it's 10 years, maybe it's 20, 25. Depends on where you're at in life and what you're planning for. But you can always have that North Star, but you really now want to reel it back to something that's a little bit more practical for planning purposes. And that's the next one to three years, right? Anybody can look at the next one to three years. So I actually printed out a document before we came up here because we were asking, you know, hey, what are we going to talk about today? Okay, it's releasing on January 3rd. Hey, let's talk about this thing that, you know, the, the yesterday, today and tomorrow. And then let's talk about the vision, because I'm actually in that mode. I don't get in this mode very often, but certainly in annual planning, I revisit what we say we are going to do. Where are we at now? Where what, what do we need to do to get where we want to go? So I actually brought this document so that we could talk about it during the podcast. But really what it's doing is saying, what do we want to do this year? And then past this year? What do we want to see in 2025? And then what do we want to see in 2026? Hello, Flip. For those of you watching, I'm like maneuvering into flip territory here. As I say the, the three years, but the, it really is just a practice and vision, right? Because your team, it's hard for them to wrap themselves around goals where they don't see the finish line. They don't understand where the finish line is. So, okay, you want me to buy 20 deals a month? Well, what does that mean to us? Three down, three years down the road? What does that mean to me and my life and my personal, how it reflects, you know, in, in how I grow with the company. And if they don't see the vision, then 20 deals a month, that maybe doesn't mean much to them. It's just a number and there's no care or engagement with the number. But if they can see what you're trying to accomplish three years down the road, ultimately maybe 10, 20, 25 years down the road, suddenly they get that buy in right of, oh, I understand now, and we've always tried to do that, but I'm really trying to get better and better at that each year as we go. And now that we have a president in place, we have really strong leadership in place for our family of companies. I think that if I can create and finish this document that I'm working on today, give it to then leadership, I think it can springboard across the rest of the company. And when I say springboard, it gives them A launching platform. Right. It gives them a. I understand what is going on. I understand the vision for this company. I understand what my responsibilities are. I understand where my focus should be today. And that's it today. Because I don't care about what happened yesterday, I don't care about what's going to happen tomorrow. We've laid it out, we know where our North Star is, but this is what I'm going to do today in order for us to make sure that we succeed. And if we as leadership do a good job of that for our team. I think 2024 just is amazing. Like our best year yet.

Agreed.

Yeah. So, okay, so our question to you really is, for those of you listening, if this is something in your life that you need to do, you know, let's just say you're a physician. We have a lot of physicians as investors with us. We have a lot of busy, you know, professionals is what we like to say. Because that could be any career. You could be an entrepreneur. Entrepreneur. You could be a business owner, you could be a real estate investor as your full time career. You could be in legal or it doesn't matter. So you are just whoever you are. I want to ask you personally, maybe, what is your vision? So a lot of people are connected with us because of freedom through passive income, of the desire to achieve freedom in their life, whatever that may be. And so what is your vision for 2024? What are you wanting to achieve? Is it another benchmark on your road to financial freedom and being able to have the peace of mind that everything is taken care of? Even if you love your job, you know that if your job was not there tomorrow, through no fault of your own, you had the income that you needed to take care of you and your family and to continue to go on trips and things like that. That's a whole different piece of mind that people don't even think about. Because reality is sometimes we just don't have control over what happens.

Right?

And it's not always about, I want to quit my job. It's, hey, my job might not be there tomorrow for some reason. And that's, you know, that's real. And so you should always be in a pursuit of making sure that you are planning for your and for your family's future. And so that's what why we love to talk about that type of stuff so much. And so one other thing is the word for the year. So every single year we have a word. So do you want to talk about what our word was for 2023 and what our word is for 2024?

Well, I believe the word for 2023 originally started out as simple.

Yes.

Yes. And each letter stood for another word.

Yes.

Which Simple. So S was stood for simple. No, I stood for imple. M stood for mple.

And then pull, and then. Oh, there you go.

So it was shine, Innovate, Magical. See, I knew. Now I'm on the spot.

Well, it's funny because innovate was one of the words we chose, but it was actually inspire.

Inspire.

Yeah. Yeah. So it's shine, inspire, Magical. And then P was positive, even though we were like, passion and purpose were in the runnings. And then L was laugh. E was enjoy.

Yep, that's correct.

Right. So, so simple was actually the word to focus on us continuing to be simple. Like everything that we do is simple in nature. We try to take anything that is complex and dial it down to the most simple foundational elements of it so that we can understand it very clearly ourselves and communicate it to our team, communicate it to our investors, and we just gain faster action because there's always a piece of clarity that comes with things that are simple. So that was our word for 2023. But then flip came up with the idea of attaching a word to each letter of simple, and that's where shine. Inspire. Inspire.

Magical.

Positivity, Laugh, Enjoy. Yes, that's where that came from. And as you can see, it's the end of 2023 as we're recording this beginning of 2024, and we're still messing up the letters. And it's because we came up, we. We took the word simple and then wrote it on a piece of paper and came up with all the words that we thought each letter could do. So I obviously had innovate and inspire in it, and P had positivity, passion and purpose in it. And that's the one we screw up actually the most. But we're going to talk about some of this today because I truly believe we accomplished simple. We continue to do a good job of making complex things simple within the company, within the structure, and how we're growing. And also in communicating to our investors and also in what we're building, building out to launch in our funds. There's. There's always a point where we look at something, we go, whoop, that's not simple. And then we dial it back. So I think we did a good job. And then we really focused in 2023 on building the foundation of our marketing team. Our marketing team has probably grown about five times, like, from the start of 2023 to now, the end of 2024. Like, we've really bolstered them up because we are ready to take off. We have built such a strong foundation within our family of companies that we are out here in 2024. And in order to do that, we had to build the foundation in 2023. So all of the. The words shine, inspire, magical positivity, laugh, enjoy became a foundational element of what we built on a marketing, you know, angle. It's, you know, we just. We don't want to go out there and be somebody we're not. I'm. I'm here in my normal T shirt. Right. I've got shorts on. You can't see that if you're watching Flip American Flag.

My normal polo.

Yeah. We just didn't want to become anything that we aren't. We want. Authenticity is so important to us, and it's just at our core that we cannot violate that. So we're thinking of, you know, okay, we want to be these things, and we want to do these things, like, what's the core values inside of us that we want to essentially shine through everything that we do? And how does it shine in everything we do? It starts at the core level of marketing. Right. Because as we show people who we are, it's at that marketing level that we really help people understand what our values are, because they just see it in us. Like, they don't have to read our core values. They just. They're like, oh, you know, hey, flipping Danny. They love to laugh. They love to enjoy themselves. They just want to have fun. They also have passion about, you know, being positive. And we're going to talk about that a little bit about negativity and positivity and about always lifting others up and helping others and achieving things together. Like, that is at. That is just our character and who we are. So I think all of those words. I think we did a really good job.

I agree. And it's. What's interesting is I had smile also as.

Oh, yes, yes.

But, you know, you were just talking about the marketing department, and, you know, for the longest time, we've always said that our acquisitions company, that's the. That's the bus that drives our company, you know, but it's actually the marketing company, because without the marketing company, our companies don't do.

Yeah.

You know, and. And I think it's. It kind of happened because it happened. We didn't. We didn't go into 2023, and like, we're gonna triple our marketing budget and we're gonna grow the marketing team by tenfold. You know, we didn't say any of that, but most of that happened.

Yeah.

Because we just kept doing this, this, this, and we need to do this and we need to do this, and. And the reason why the acquisitions team is doing so well right now is because of the marketing team.

That's right.

So it's. I mean, it's. It's.

It. Yes.

Love it.

Yeah. So 2024. What is our word for the year?

So the word for 2024, as of today is. Is excellence. And I do want to tell you that excellence does not stand for each letter.

No.

Stand for a word.

We're not doing that this year. Too many.

Too many e's in there.

It's funny. I was laughing as of today, so that word's not going to change.

I was just kidding. Well, the reason why it was funny, because smile. When we originally did smile. That was before simple things. Sorry, Smile, Simple. It was before things changed and before we jumped back in with both feet.

Yes.

We went from, wow, yeah, this. This year is going to be simple to Holy Helen hand basket. You know, but we still kept it. Yeah, we still kept simple.

Yes.

You know, and I think it was actually perfect that we kept it. It really reigned things in. But that's why I was making the joke of as of today. Yeah, that was a total joke.

So excellence. Why is that our word for the year? It really is because we've grown so fast, and I think most companies that have built as fast as we have would have been in trouble. And I think we've talked about this in other podcasts that there were were times that if we did not make a shift, we would have failed as a company. And that shift was typically growing another arm of our business faster than we anticipated. So it was very, very intentional of, we've got to do this. We had it in our vision, but we've got to do it early in order to keep control of what we're building. But a part of the problem of building that fast is there is just no way to achieve excellence in all that you do. When you grow that fast, you're literally just spinning all the plates and you're just going, okay, don't let them drop. Don't let them drop. Don't let them drop. And it was for the purp and pursuit of success and the purpose and pursuit of taking care of the investors that trusted us that we. We continued to spin, spin, spin Spin, Spin. And so this year is really kind of taking all that we've built and saying, hey, look at where we are. This is amazing. Look at the foundation that we've built. Look at the team that has been created. Like when whenever there's a moment for us to, to kind of be like down on ourselves that we aren't where we, we, we want to be or we thought we could be, you just have to take a moment and go, whoa, look how far we came. And look how fast that happened. So in 2024, our goal is to take everything that we built and said, okay, now it's time to shine the light on all the areas of the business, every single little dark corner and say, hey, we're not doing that right. We're not doing that to the best of our ability. So now let's take this word excellence and just strive for excellence in every single thing that we do. And as we strive for excellence, it means that everything improves. Our team interaction improves. Right? Because people coming into our company and working with us, it literally was, this is what we need you to do. This is where we need help. We do not have processes and systems in place. We need you. We hired you because you're the type of person that's going to go in there and go, I know what to do and I'm going to figure it out. And when I don't know what to do, I'm going to come and ask a question. And that's the type person of, of people we hired. And that's why we love our team so much. Because we're just scrappy and we figure it out and we make it happen. And when we make a mistake, we go back and we figure out how to fix it and we learn from the lesson and we keep on moving. It's not easy, but it's because of the team we've built around us that we've been able to do it. Now we're really striving to even find that excellence within our team. So that one of the things I wrote down on this document was for operations is just having HR really dialed in that when somebody joins the team, they are really given everything, got everything that they need. They've got their, you know, one on one set up, they've got their benefits set up. They know when their reviews are, they know where the online training is. There was a point in time where people would come on board and they're like, I don't even know how to communicate. I've got slack. I've got text, I've got phone, I've got go chat. And like, I don't know how to reach people. So really having that onboarding process dialed in and allowing them to be able to get to know the family of companies because even though you're hired into one one, it really is important that they understand how we all work together. And that's what allows us to be so powerful and strong and how we serve our investors. So that's a perfect example of excellence within the team for 2024. But then it's also excellence for our investors in 2024. Like, where has communication failed? What are things that we could do better to create? Like, wow, this company is absolutely amazing. So excellence across the board is our word for 2024. Because I hope that you see as an invest how much we improve from now to this point, because we've been talking about it for like, I don't know, three or four weeks now. From now until the end of 2024. I hope that we are so dialed in that our reputation is ultimately like the main reason why people work with us. Because it's the loudest voice, right? We grow simply by word of mouth because people are referring us and they are saying, hey, you got to work with this company. They care. It matters to them. Like, they, they're still human, but they have really dialed it in and they listen, they jump on the phone with you and go, how can we be better? So that's the type of company we continually want to be and that's our word for the year. So I thought that would be important to share so that you guys could do the same personally and professionally. Find out what that one word is. I think that really helps dial in the today as well, right? What's the word we're chasing? And so how can I achieve that today? So I think that's really important. And then let's jump into the negativity, positivity thinking. You and I, like, read different things and many of it, many of the things that we read are intended to help us eliminate the negative thoughts, right? Because I think it's natural as a human being to have negative thoughts. I've been on webinars where people say, hey, why are you afraid to do this? In fact, webinar I was recently on why are you afraid to speak in public? And I wish I had the piece of paper with me right now to tell you all of the reasons, but imposter syndrome, I'm afraid that nobody's going to listen to me. I'm afraid that I don't have anything valuable to say. I have the fear of just speaking in front of people, like, why should they listen to me? And there was just. It was about like, I had a piece of paper and I almost filled the entire piece of paper with people's comments. And I read the comments going, I've been there. I've been there. I think it's natural for people to think negative things about themselves when in reality is the more positivity that we put into ourselves, the more successful we become as a result. So I'm going to let you talk for a little bit on how this has impacted your life, our lives, our team's lives. Like, yeah, why don't you share?

Well, I mean, I've always been the. I'm not the guy that's the glass half full. I'm not the guy that's glass half empty. I'm the. I got a glass. You know, I'm, I'm super excited. I don't care if there's something in it. I've got a glass. You guys don't have a glass. I've got a glass. And so I've always been, I've always just focused on the positive because I've seen it and I've seen when people are negative, they're, they're just, they're continually negative. They're, they're, you know. You just won the lottery. Yeah, but I gotta pay taxes.

That's right.

Okay. Okay, then I'll take the lottery.

I'll happily.

I'm super excited because now I get to pay taxes, you know, but, you know, but they're, they're negative about, about everything. And it really just, you know, it sort of puts a black cloud around them. And, and you see that and, and like there's people that, you know, that you and I used to like, hang out with, and they were like, well, they're just constantly negative. They got this black clutter. I'm like, I don't want to hang out. It's Debbie Downer. And I don't want it rub enough on me. And all of a sudden I start feeling negative and talking negative about things because it does spread.

It does.

It's horrible. It's like wildfire. And so, so I've always been a firm believer in being positive and always thinking positive thoughts. And it too is also contagious, you know, positive thinking. The more that you think positively, the more that, you know that things happens. I mean, for example, smiling, you know, I said that. Smile Was my word. You know, when you walk into a room, if you're smiling. I don't know. I think there's a study. I know that there's a study, and it was probably done by University of Michigan just because they do a lot of studies like this. But if you walk into a room and you're smiling, smiling, that 78.6% of the people that are in the room are gonna smile back at you because you just smiled at them. And it's gonna force them, and not force them, but their reaction is to smile back at you. And so it's contagious. And then there's the whole, like, it takes less muscles in your face to.

Smile than to frown.

And we've heard all this since we were like three years old. Right. Well, there's truth to this. And it just makes your day better, you know? And even when it's raining out, last night it was raining out, and we didn't get to go see a concert that we wanted to go see, but I didn't care. I was still smiling. It was raining. So what? And we still had a great day. And we actually went out to eat.

Somewhere that we haven't been.

Yeah, exactly. And so, so, so good things happened in, you know, when. When you're smiling and when you're being positive. And it just. I just. Why not?

Yeah. I feel like the world is a reflection of what is inside you. Right. So the happier you are, the you are as a result. And this is really the law of attraction, really, as a result, you kind of attract, like, things like, attracts like. So people like us that are very, very positive, we love other people who are also positive. We are like a magnet, the reverse magnet for people who are negative. We're like, okay, we just want to go away. And we very quickly dissolve those relationships or say, hey, I don't have time. Sorry, I can't. But for people who are positive, it's like, click, you know? And we are, like, very strong magnetic to them. And that's really how we've kind of built, you know, who we've surrounded ourselves with is the people that we are. We are attracted to the most. So that magnetic example, I think, is really, really powerful. So who. Who people are on the inside is just a reflection of the world that you essentially create. Because we are creators. We can create anything that we want in the world. You just to say what it is that you want and then start taking the steps towards that. You can create that vision for your life. It's all about how much do you believe in yourself? How much? Who are the people that you've surrounded yourself with so that when you do have some thoughts that are not beneficial to the outcome that you are trying to achieve, how are they helping you? Are they cheering you on? Are they telling you, I told you so? You know, it's. It's really that you want people who are going to celebrate your success. You want people who are going to hold you, hold you accountable, push you when you need pushed, slap you across the face when you need to slap across the face. Flip's done that for me many times. Like, I'd be in tears about something and he'd be like, and he doesn't slap me, obviously. That was it. That was an expression. But he will, with his word, say, what are you talking about, Danny? And he will just give me a slew of reasons why I'm crazy for thinking that. And I'll be like, oh, oh. And I was just living in my head, right? And a reflection of what's in my head, in my mind, comes out in how I speak. And so I wrote down this so that we could share it, because it was in the article that you forwarded me. And this is something that you may have heard many times. I have two, but I don't have it written down. And I'm going to write it down here in 2024, and I'm going to post it. So it says, watch your thoughts, they become words. Watch your words, they become actions. Watch your actions, they become habits. Watch your habits, they become your character. And watch your character, it becomes your destiny. And I really, truly believe that after you and I are both over the age of 50 now and 20, and I truly believe in our years of existence, we have proven this statement true. We have proven some of the most common things that are told to you over and over and over that are true. Sometimes when I was younger, I was like, oh, whatever, everybody says that. I don't believe that. Or, you know. Yeah, what do they know? No, exactly. It is so, so, so very true. So I'm going to end with that before we go to the commercial break, because after the commercial break, we're going to dive into our 20, 2024 vision real quick before the we end the episode, just to give everybody a little bit of example of what's in store for us to help you with your planning if you have not completed it or just help you get some insight into what we're doing in 2024. So you're listening to the Freedom show with Flip and Danny and we are going to be right back after this short commercial break.

Add new income streams to your financial statement. Freedom Family Investments can help own property and get paid rent. Join funds and get paid interest. Wealth is well being. Own your own future. Freedom Family Investments get more time to focus on what matters. Learn which investing path is for you, where to start and who to trust. Visit freedomfamilyinvestments.com don't forget to leave a.

Review so we know how we're doing and what you guys are enjoying.

All right, welcome back. We're super excited to be here on this episode. We're talking about 2024 and launching into the year and what we have done to prepare for 2020. Super excited about what we've gotten planned. And I told you that after the commercial break we were actually going to dive into a document I've been working on today. And by today, I mean a couple weeks before the year ends because we are pre recording this. So you're getting some insight into what 2024 is going to look like for us. So Flip told you that our word for the year is excellence, and we described what that means to us in the terms of excellence. Now, excellence also, like Flip said, I asked him about 22024 and I didn't really go into this at the very beginning that, but that we're focusing on health. And so like a big thing that nobody really knows about right now but they're going to know about by the time this, this podcast airs. Excuse me, is that Flip and I did a drinking challenge and so I've.

Been drinking every day for like four months.

So part of our health journey is that we've, we love drinking beer, like for alcohol. For us, we're not much of a mixed drinks person. And when beer, like, it's the watered down kind. Like, we love Michelob Ultra.

I know there's beer connoisseurs listening to.

Us going, oh, yeah, they're not beer drinkers. So we laugh at ourselves and it's just, you know, we're kind of lightweights, but we just enjoy being able to turn off. It's like we've called it the easy button. Right, the easy button to relaxing at the end of the night after a long day. And so or on the weekend or whatever it is that we're doing. So, um, you know, we've had different fitness challenges in the past and we've done, you know, really well considering the fact that we drink beer. Um, and so we recently decided, hey, we're just going to, you know, do a 30 day challenge and just not drink and just see where it takes us. Um, and so we're at the recording of this. We're at day 28. Um, so by the time you hear this episode, we will have successfully finished our 30 day challenge. Because there's no way that we're going to be drinking in the next two.

Weeks unless they go on a vendor.

So we also have a couple more. No. Yeah, Today is going to be day 29, actually, tomorrow's day 30. So. Yeah, so, so super excited about that and, and excited about the fact that we've just taken our. Our health to another level. We've said, hey, this is probably the reason that we haven't really dialed in the. Our fitness and our nutrition because we're continuing to hit the easy button and drink. And so in this part of whenever you stop something, it requires you to start something new in order to have a higher chance of success. And what I mean by that is we had to replace what we were doing at night. Right? So the actual first night, we were on the fence of whether we were going to drink or not. We actually still went to the restaurant, still sat at the bar, and literally ordered a water. And so that was kind of proof that, hey, we can do this. We made it night one. Night one's the hardest because you're just so used to it. And so. And then night two, and, and I. And I think, I think what night one proved to us is that we hated the idea of not drinking because it meant we didn't go out to restaurants, because if we went out to restaurants, it would tempt us to just have a drink, because that's what we did. That was just the occasion. Um, but we proved night one that, hey, we can go to a restaurant. We can actually sit at the bar and actually just have a water or your unsweet iced tea. Right. Um, so I think that's really what kicked it off. I think on the right way is just proving to ourselves we could because we've continually gone out to eat and we've continually been willing to sit at the bar if we didn't want to sit in a booth. Because at the bar just. It's just flipping eyes. So sometimes at the bar, you just. You get your food faster. That's number one. That's our number one reason for sitting at the bar. But you also have other people and the TVs are right in front of you. So we just enjoy, you know, just kind of having Fun to each other, with each other and being, being relaxed. But I'm just going back to the, to, to this to say every single year could be a new level of what you've been trying to achieve. So it's not like I thought that we in the past, because we have lost weight, we have gotten better in certain areas, but this year we just decided to take it to a new level and go somewhere new. So just be encouraged that no matter where you're at and even if you're still trying to achieve a goal that you've put on your list two or three, four years prior, there's always a new level that you can hit. And if you're having difficulty getting through a challenge, an example is just us trying to change the environment. So like we're doing a lot more activity, like we're just walking a lot, we're going to new places, we're experiencing new things and all of it is in an effort of, hey, if we're not going to go drink, what else can we do that's fun? And we're really, really enjoying ourselves and just having a good time with this. And so we've kind of both said, you know, the 30 day challenge is going to continue on. Whether or not we have a drink here and there doesn't really matter. We've actually now become non drinkers that occasionally drink instead of drinkers that occasionally not drink, which is what has been in the past. So that's just a quick encouragement that came off the cuff because I'm super excited about it. I'm super excited.

It goes back to that whole day not thinking about tomorrow, not thinking about yesterday, but thinking about today.

Yes.

So I'm not trying to think about, I'm not going to drink tomorrow and the next day and I'm not going to do this tomorrow and the next day and or anything like that. I'm thinking about just today, Today I'm going to, I'm just, I'm not going to drink today.

Yeah.

You know, and it's no big deal. And it's. And it, because I'm treating it like it's no big deal. Now you say it's been 28 days. I'm like, wow, that's four weeks.

Super, super incred, super exciting. So always just be encouraged to continually keep trying things that you have been trying in the past. And then let's dial into this real quick. So excellence is the word for the year. So I have some stuff at the very beginning of this document for my team. But here's some things that I wrote down for ways to achieve excellence. So I wrote down take pride in your work. Prompt communication such as inbox zero and 24 hour standards. Proactive communication, personal and professional development. Identifying ways for us to improve and exceed our goals. Attention to detail, a desire to go above and beyond. An attitude of love and kindness in every interaction. Providing clarity where there's confusion and confirming responsibilities, power to act and resources needed to succeed. And then we have a whole sheet that I linked to of team member contributions where they actually did this exercise and said how can I create excellence in 2024? And I'm actually going to take the time to read through the sheet and highlight some things that I find valuable to add to this list and to give to the leadership team hopeful, hopefully by end of day today. So past that ways to achieve excellence. Then I gave everybody, every company a top three for 2024. And my expectation is that every department and every company underneath us gives every individual a top three for 2024. Because when you're focused on too much, it's very hard to dial things in. You just get overwhelmed and you're not sure where to start, you're not sure what to on focus, focus on or what is more important than the other. So if you have a top three that you're always focused on, it's easy for you to look at today and say there's my top three. And so what's on my list for today and which of them have to do with these three things? And that's how I prioritize my days going forward. And that's what helps us gain major, major traction to our goals. So the entire family of companies has a top three. The marketing department, financials, oper, Freedom. The freedom. So the real estate group, which is our marketing company, Freedom Family Capital, which is our fund and syndication company, Cash for Ohio Houses, our acquisition company, bdr, our renovation company, ipm, our property management company and IRGR Retail Brokerage all have a top three. And then we have some new ventures or shifts that we're making in the FOC for 2024. Then underneath sector that I took and said, what's the three year forecast when we succeed at our top three in 2024? What does 2025 and 2026 look like? This is the extra piece that gives your team and your investors, your customers, what depends on what business you're running or what company you work with. This is what gives you the vision so that you understand why my top three for 2024 are important because you're going to see how it affects 2025 and 2026. So same categories each have to say what 2025, 2026 should look like as a result of achieving what we set out to do in 2024. And that's what we're essentially going to roll out to the company so that we can really do a better job of dialing in what we focus on each and every day and where we're going. And I'm super, super excited to be rolling this out. And one of the examples I gave earlier in the podcast was the 20 deals a month, right? And I put that as a minimum, a bare minimum in 2024 of 20 deals a month. Why? Because in 2025, 20, 2026, what I put for C4. Oh, I put. We've expanded in other markets and have become one of the largest wholesaling companies in the country. And our team consists of key leadership and an army of superstar VAs. So when we become this great wholesaling company, we are not only serving ourselves because we wholesale deals to ourselves, but we're also wholesaling properties to other invest to. What do we accomplish by doing that? We accomplish other investors to be able to find deals, to be able to improve neighborhoods, to be able to provide more housing to renters, to be able to clean up areas that have boarded up homes. So it's like it's a really big. Every single company has a purpose and a vision tied to it that means something to us in a way that we are helping the world, we are helping communities, we are helping people. It also allows us to raise more capital because we're doing more deals. We're actually going to. In our 25, 26, we're actually going to start expanding on our portfolio of what we own. So not only owning multifamily and self storage and the things that we've been after recently, we'll also probably create our own single family and small multifamily portfolio because we just believe in those investments as well. So super exciting for every single company to understand what 2024 looks like and why and how it leads into the next two years so that they can actually do a small exercise that says, how do I contribute? What's my top three? And now know where to focus on every single day. If you can do that for yourself, personally, professionally, 2024. Four will be your best year yet because you stay focused throughout the year because there's only one time that you typically do this type of work. It's now, it's right at the end of the previous year or the beginning of the new year. So as you listen to this podcast, if you have not done it already, this is the time to take a step back and just block two hours. I think I did. I created what I, I have so far after our pre planning meeting that we had and that was like a couple hours and then this, I spent a couple hours on it. So it doesn't take a lot of time. What it does take is undistracted time. You have to be able to focus and really kind of get inside yourself to say what you want and what do you truly want, not what somebody else wants. I didn't put on this paper what Steve wants or what Flip wants. I put on this piece of paper what I want and then I'm going to give it to Flip into the rest of the team and we're going to then negotiate and dial in what these top three things truly are for every single. And then every single person is going to then further identify what it is. And it just, it's really going to be something that we have continued to do better every year is this planning because it's this time that we get excited, motivated, inspired, and we start thinking bigger. So now's the time to build on something like that.

I love it. And then once you give it to me, then I'll put it into ChatGPT and I'll give it back to you.

Yeah, you probably should have put, you know, learn AI. I don't know, we should probably do an episode episode on AI sometime. I don't know about the rest of you, but AI I think is really, really important for us to learn. But I'm also not, I do not want to be dependent upon it.

I think I need a chat GPT for like maybe like a third grader or something. They need to stop using all the big words. And every time I use chat GPT they're like this sounds of you.

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

You don't say these words.

Well, that I think it's going to be interesting in 20, 20, 24 to see so many companies are using it. And so when you see something, you're like, is that them, you know, or did some AI write that for them? And for anybody who doesn't understand what we're saying, AI is artificial intelligence. I think most people understand that that's a big thing these days. Computers are doing most of the work for us and not us in particular. Like, we have embraced it in that you have to stay on top of technology. You have to make sure that you stay in tune with where the world is going, because people don't do that, are going to be left behind. So it's incredibly important to stay on top of it. But it's also incredibly important to understand who you are as a company and how much you're going to use of it. So is it okay to use it to give you ideas? Yes, absolutely. And that's what we're using it for. But then we're grabbing it and we're actually still creating the content ourselves, still our voice, it's still us. But AI maybe gave us 10 more ideas that we wouldn't have had otherwise. Or, you know, created an article that, you know, we had ideas and gave us three more bullet points to expand on that. We're like, oh, those are super important. Let's talk about those. I think that's where it makes us better, and it makes. And it makes us faster because the ideas can be, like, punched out, but then we still create the content and still us. So I know that's a really weird side topic, but I think it's relevant for 2024 planning. Right. You know, if you're a business owner, you need to be learning AI, but learn. Figure out how you want to use it, because, you know, it. It can literally put somebody else's face on a screen and say things that that person isn't actually saying. Like, it's really weird and kind of scary to me what AI can do. So it's going to get harder to trust people because you really have to. Now go. I want to see you in person. Like, are you real? Like, and are you really? Like, the things that is being said via video and email, like, is that you? Like, am I. Am I learning to trust? That's a real person. And it's actually their personality. Like, it's just gonna get weird. So, yeah. So that might be a topic for a future. Actually, it should be. We'll make this a topic for a future podcast where we go back and forth on the pros and cons and maybe what you should be watching out for in companies that are utilizing it to make sure that, you know, they're still staying true to who they are and the people that they're serving. I think that's super important, but that's all I got. Flip, you got anything else for a new year? New you?

Well, I had a word for next year, but we'll save that for next episode.

You scare me when you say things like that. Let's not ask.

Probably best.

All right, thank you guys for joining us today. I hope 2024 is kicking off the right way for you. And if it's not, then that means that you can change it right this moment because you have the power to do anything that you want. You are a creator and you can accomplish all that you desire if you just set your mind to it. So at a time. Yeah, kickoff, 2024, the right way. If there's anything that we can do to help help you. That's why we're here and that's why we record these podcasts. Happy 2024, everybody. Bye.

Nothing on this show should be considered specific personal or professional advice. Please consult an appropriate tax, legal, real estate, financial or business professional for individual opinions and information on the show are not guaranteed. All investment strategies have the potential for profit or loss.