How to run a business with your spouse - our year in review

If you've set goals in the past and you haven't quite followed through on them, I've got something for you. First, I want to ship you a free copy of my Habits of High Performers book. To get that free copy, all you've got to do is sign up for our 2026 goal setting workshop. The link is in the show notes. Please come and join me and I'll help you with an exact structure on how to set up a year that you're super proud of with the exact same blueprint that my one to one clients use. I'll see you there. Well, folks, it's the very last episode for the year and I've got the most special guest with me, Caroline.

Hi.

Been a little while since you've been on the show.

Yeah, it has been.

Yeah. So we thought we would join together and connect with you guys because Caroline is the backbone of the business. Caroline runs the entire podcast. She's giggling, but it's true. And I just show up and ask the questions, so. So I think I've got the easy job. So Caroline in the background feeds a lot of my thinking has really grown the business. So the business is obviously a lot more than the podcast. The podcast is part of it. But I started out by myself and then hit a ceiling as most founders do. Caroline came in and the business went incredibly well. Like a hockey stick effect really is what happened. And took it to a seven figure business and really proud of it. So I thought it'd be great to have Caroline on here because she's got so much to offer and she's a huge part of the direction the business has taken. So let's have some fun.

Yeah.

Yeah. So this is about reflecting, eh?

Thanks for the intro. Yeah, that was nice.

Well, it's just how it is. You're always in the in the background and people don't get to see you unless they come to our annual event.

And then. Then I'm still in the background hiding.

Caroline doesn't like the desk, doesn't like the spotlight. Do you?

No. This is okay, though.

Yeah. Good. This is stepping outside your comfort zone.

Yeah.

Good. So what we're going to do is step you through something that we do every year together, but we thought we'd do it on camera this time and reason we're going to do it is because it's something I do with my clients as well. And it's a really helpful way to set up for a successful year next year. There's no point in setting up your goals for 2026, unless you're clear on what has happened and what lessons you've learned in the past year. So we'll do better reflections.

Yeah. And I think we also get asked quite a bit about working together, you know, being in a relationship and running a business together. So I think it would be interesting for people to see how this conversation goes. Really?

Yeah. Because it's. It is interesting being in a relationship with someone and running a business together and figuring out where is the stop line.

Yeah. What are the boundaries?

Yeah. Where do you not talk about work? Are there?

Yeah.

We can explore what it's like.

Yeah.

Behind the scenes.

Yeah. And I think goal setting or reflecting on the year so that we can set goals for next year is a big part.

Huge part.

Yeah.

Yeah. So if we were to start with the year that has been 2025, I think the best question to always start with is what has went well? So when you think about your year, you know, personally and professionally, what has went well?

I think we didn't prep these questions either. We sort of spoke about them and then forgot about it. And they were like, let's just chat.

Best way. Raw.

It's raw. What has gone well professionally? I think we got to a point in the business that we've been trying to get to for since I came on board, since you started it, it's been a goal. So we finally got there, which is great. The growth has been amazing. We launched a best selling book. Number one best selling book.

Here we go. Hold it up for you guys that are watching Habits of High Performers. I'm always happy to plug it.

And that was amazing learning because it's something we hadn't done before. So learning how that whole process works was fascinating. And putting our spin on things was fun too. Yeah. That was probably one of the big ones. And then our live event.

Yeah, that was awesome.

That was so much fun.

Yeah.

Um, I think those are my main professional.

That's awesome.

Yeah, I think I've grown a lot professionally. Like upskilled quite a bit, which is great.

A ton.

Yeah.

That's cool. That's. If we stick on professional do professionals, then we'll do personal. I'd have to agree with what she said around like growth. And Caroline's very focused on learning and growth and studying social media, constantly marketing. Looking at how we get the event to the level that we've got it to. You know, it went from 40 something people or 50 people the first year to now we're selling out at 400 or more.

Ish yeah.

So it's pretty cool. And I really admire that she's committed to that growth. So all that stuff's so true. And I guess from my end, professional, what went well was definitely hitting that big financial milestone that I've wanted to do for a long time. Getting the book out, launching it, finally. It took a lot longer than I'd probably hoped. I'm sure every author says that, but it was a team effort in that. Like, I definitely shared a lot with you.

Not writing it.

Not writing it.

There was a lot of brainstorming when you were writing, like forming your ideas, I think just saying them out loud. But the birthing of the baby. I was your midwife.

Yes, you were. Thank you for that. Sorry, folks, too much information. But yeah, like, we think about the launch. Like, it's one thing writing a book, but that's another thing, launching it and marketing it. And that was such a journey. Yeah, we learned a lot.

It was all testing because we didn't actually know we had a framework, but from another country.

Yeah.

So.

And we were told it probably wouldn't work in New Zealand, and. But we stuck to it and we knew that we were up against some heavy hitters. Like, look at this. Like I said to the. I said to HarperCollins, what's the point of me writing a book called Habits of High Performers if the thing doesn't hit the bestseller list?

Yeah, it's typical James.

Right? It's like, no good. Like, I. I don't want to have a low performing book we called Habits of High Performers. So I was like, we need to hit the list at least top five. But, like, let's aim for number one. And so our book came out and we had to take Jacinda Ardern off the top list. She's. She'd been on it for months and months. Her amazing book was out. And when nobody was taking it off, there's some other rugby guy who wrote a book at the same time as mine as well. And we thought, you know what, let's just stick to our guns. Let's see how the book floats. Let's stick to our strategy. And week one, yeah, it worked. Went to number one. So really grateful for that. And again, team effort.

And the feedback's been amazing. Like, it's not. It's not. Doesn't seem in my eyes to be a book that people are buying and just putting on a shelf. I'm sure some people are, but the feedback's been amazing. Like the emails and stuff. It's been that's the whole point of it, isn't it?

Yeah, it is.

To help people.

Yeah. I don't want to be shelf help.

No.

Like, read the damn thing, you know, implement it. And it is really cool and humbling to get that feedback from people saying, james, I've read just this bit and it really impacted me here and I made this big decision and like, that's really cool.

Yeah, I love that. Yeah.

So, yeah, professionally from my end, there's lots of things, but that's what really stands out.

I like it personally. We got engaged.

We haven't actually told anyone about that on social media.

Well, no, not on social, because I'm not really on social media. But we just haven't really seen the point.

No, we don't think that that needs to be shared on social media. Like, you guys who decide to listen to the podcast, you deserve to know, like, you're part of the family. So you're the only people outside of our family and very close friends.

Yeah.

That know about that.

Yeah.

Yeah.

So we got engaged in September.

Yes.

And that was fun.

That was Bondi to Coogee and the whales were all breaching and lob tailing.

I think they lob tailing, which I've never seen before. And I love whales. Yeah. And then you asked me and it was lovely.

Thank you. And you said yes.

And I said yes.

Even better.

Yeah. So we're going to do it next year.

Yes.

Get married next year.

100%.

We won't have a wedding. Well, we will, but we won't have a big wedding. We plan to elope. So for any of you in New Zealand who have suggestions.

Yeah. If you've got a suggestion of what would be a good place to elope, please let us know. We're all ears.

We have some ideas.

Yes, we do, but open to ideas.

Open to ideas.

If you guys have any fancy ideas, just let us know.

Doesn't have to be fancy. We want it to be small, simple. Simple.

Good.

Yes.

Right.

Yeah. That was a good personal. Yeah, it was win, I guess.

Yeah. Really a real highlight.

Yeah. A big highlight. Not a win, a highlight. And then personally, I think my fitness is at the best it's ever been this year. And that's been a goal. I grew up doing sports, really competitive swimming. And then when you step out of competitive sports, you sort of lose yourself a little bit. And then immigrating and all that sort of stuff, you lose that sort of daily, like exercise and that drive. And I think it's taken me a while to Find it. What's definitely taken me a while to find it again, but finally found, like, a good thing that's working. So well done. Yeah, yeah.

Your. Your fitness stuff's been actually really cool to watch. So Caroline goes deep on detail on things, and, like, when she's interested in something, goes really deep, which is super helpful from a professional standpoint, but also really helpful from a personal standpoint. And so I'm learning a lot about my health and the long delta between where I am and where I want to get to. So Caroline will feed back to me all the things she's learning about macros and protein and she's studying from all these different legends of health. And I don't have really the time or the desire to go that deep.

Be honest. I don't have the design.

Yeah, just give me the detail, tell me what I need to do. I'll go execute. So it's really cool.

Yeah, it's been fun.

Personal from my end one, obviously, getting engaged and you saying yes, highlight, massive. But I can't spend too much more longer than that. You know, these guys are going to be like they're gushing over their own engagement. Definitely. But for me, it was going to South Africa.

Oh, yeah.

That was really amazing.

Nice. Yeah, I mean, I love that, too.

Real personal win. Just being there with you and Finn and getting immersed in the culture, the wildlife, catch up with your family, all that stuff was really cool. And just to me, that was a win that we got to get over there. And it, you know, I look at my life, I'm like, I'm privileged to get to go and do that, and so I don't forget that privilege. And that was really cool. So, yeah, big personal win. Anything else come to mind? There's been a couple of things that just, like, really cool things around our personal goals that we've hit and just hitting those.

Yeah. Yeah. I feel like 2025 for us has been a great year.

Yeah, absolutely. In so many ways.

Yeah, definitely. Yeah. Hit some milestones this year that, like, financially, personally, that we didn't. We had said for ourselves, but we didn't think we were going to get there. That's the way we did. Yeah.

Yeah. And I guess that's us sharing our wins. But now, you listening right now. What went well for you this year? I want you to take a moment in your mind and go, what are one or two kind of big moments that went well? They might even be small moments. But what went well now, what didn't go so well this Year. Does that trick you?

No. Trying to filter through them. I think if we go professionally, I didn't manage to launch us digitally like we've been wanting to.

Yes.

And that's okay because finding that thing that people really want from you, that isn't a huge ask but isn't too small either has been tricky.

It's bloody hard.

It's hard to figure out the digital side and we have so many ideas. But filtering through them and figuring out which one works is the thing that's taking time. So I feel like that wasn't a fail. It didn't not go well. But I didn't. We didn't get to where I wanted to get. So I think I just need more patience with it.

Yeah.

And maybe some more intentional focus on it.

Some thinkpam on it. Yeah. I think that that would be a professional for my unit. Professional fail as well. I'm highly aware that if I'm not on a stage or I'm not front facing delivering a keynote or I'm not working with a team consulting or one to one coaching, the business doesn't scale without that. And that's such a risk and it's also a bit exhausting. And so our goal is to try and scale it. And this year, like, I just don't want to put a course out. People are like, oh, put a course out. Like, no. How many billions of courses are out there that nobody completes? Big A check. Right. How many have you bought that you haven't completed?

So many.

I don't want that.

No. And I feel like there is also just this pressure to scale and I know we want to scale, but not scale to sell. Not now. No, we don't want to scale to sell. Well, at least not now.

We want to scale a bit to give us a bit more time freedom. That's it.

Yeah, pretty much. So it's figuring out what that is and what actually works and doesn't require another full time set of hours during the week.

Yes. And we have taken steps. So I've been thinking about this for a year to join this amazing. It's a boardroom accelerator essentially with one of the world's leading experts in productization. And I probably thought for nine months or a year before committing books. Yeah. And then committed. And it's a three year commitment and it's multi five figure commitment every single year for those three years. But I firmly believe if you can't invest in yourself or your own company, why would anyone else choose to invest in. In you or your company. So that's going to help us figure out the digital side of things.

Yeah. I feel like we're just at this. We're at a really strong point, but we're at this weird growth spurt phase. You know, like when you're that awkward kid.

Yeah.

Who's like, just about to shoot up.

Yes.

But now I look weird and my clothes don't fit as well. That's how I feel like we are.

I love that. That's so good.

And things feel a little uncomfortable and then you're trying to figure it out. That's where I feel like we are.

Yeah. Yeah. It's a good way to look at.

It, but it's lovely. It's beautiful.

100% and it's strong and it's financially working really well and. But you're right. I think it's when a lot of businesses, when they get to that certain point, say, they get to seven figures and say, okay, well, how do we get to it? What would that look like without burning out? Without building a team of 500 people?

Yeah. Because we don't want to right now. It's us. And we don't really want it to be more things.

Yeah, it might expand a bit.

It might expand a bit. But then you become a manager. It's a whole nother ball game. So it's just trying to figure it out.

Yeah. It comes down to, you know, whether we want a lifestyle business or. Or, you know, bricks and mortar business. But if someone's listening right now going, hey, I know exactly what I could do to help solve that, hey, we're all ears. If you think you want to join our team, you tell us why, we'll. We'll definitely listen.

Always open to listening.

Yeah. We get pitched all the time on social media, experts. Most of them are crap, to be very honest, but we do get pitched frequently on that kind of stuff. Eh?

Yeah. It's nearly daily in the inbox. Yeah.

That's funny. And for me, what didn't go so well? 20, 25. Well, that professional one. I would probably share that.

Yeah.

Personally, I set a goal to build significant muscle mass and get healthier. Sorry, fitter. This year I definitely think I get a nine out of ten for the fitter. I think I'm fitter this year than I was last year. Not. Not by Country Mile, but definitely improved. I think I get a 0 out of 10, let's be honest, 0 out of 10 for building muscle mass. I started off well and then the wagon fell off. So that's Going to be number one priority for 2026.

That's your new habit.

That's it. I'm going to. Actually, folks, I think there's a book out there that I'm going to use to help me. It's called Habits of High Performers. Use my own damn book. Right.

I think that one. That's been a goal of yours for a few years. It's been on the list for a few years. I think it's hard when you come from a background of. Not of sport or daily work, physical work. It's. You've been a. I mean, drumming is a workout. Yes, I know, but it wasn't like you grew up playing soccer, so you had to be in the gym. So it's not like a habit. Luckily for me, it's a habit that formed from a really young age.

Yeah.

So without it, I feel like a different person. So I have to do it. We'll be jacked this time.

There we go. You heard it here first, folks. Caroline says I'll be jacked this time next year. Here we go.

Jacked.

I love it. And what about for yourself, a personal. Not so.

Well, I don't know. That's a tricky one, because I know that there are a whole lot of them.

Do you want me to start listing them?

I think there have been so many personal wins in terms of, like, personal growth. Emotionally. Emotionally, I don't know if that's the right word, but there are also some hard bits there and things that didn't go so well. You know, I think what I've learned about myself this year more than ever is how important control seems to be for me and how I need to learn to let go of it.

That's good. I think that leads us into the next kind of phase of reflection before we get excited about 2026. And trust me, planning your 2026 and having a structure to plan it is critically important. If we look at our goals, this past year, we set, let's say, five major goals. We've smashed four of them. And I think that the case is you'll always maybe have one that maybe elude you. But generally, when I haven't set up my year and we haven't done it as a team like this, I must hit one of the goals of five. So I'm much happier with the four out of five. So before we get there, lessons learned. So I want you to think about this from your point of view as a listener about what you've learned. So, Caroline, what have you learned about others?

This year that I can't control them.

Correct.

Comes back to control, doesn't it? And it's not my business what they think about me or what they're doing with their life. I just have to control my side. Maybe control's not the right word for my side. All I can control or influence is my side of the street.

Stay in your lane. Is what you said.

Staying in my lane. A. It's a hard one, especially when you're raising a kid. Like, that's a very hard one. So that's been a big lesson for me, and it's a big work on for me is learning that I can't control people. Not that I'm running around being a control freak. No.

I'll put it in perspective. Caroline is not a control freak.

No.

But likes to control her environment.

Yeah.

And control certain aspects of that so that you feel at ease and you feel safe.

Yeah. And I think there's obviously a rigidity in black and white. So when a boundary is set or a rule is enforced by the three of us, for Finney, I don't have flexibility to think that we can, like, let's say it's no ice cream during the week. That's not. Was never a rule. But it makes it easy.

And then Jimmy here says, Thursday afternoon.

Exactly. I'll be, no, no ice cream. We set a rule. And I can't find it in my brain to understand why when they come home from school on a Thursday, James is like, oh, we got ice cream. And then I'm like, what?

It's a workaround for me, that's for sure.

Well, no, no, it's not. It's just. Yeah. Learning how to be a bit more flexible in my thinking.

A young South African kid, he was about 2 at the time, taught me a really, really good quote. What was that, James? Pick your battles is what he said to me. Pick your battles?

Yeah.

Is that what you're saying?

Yeah. I need to learn how to pick my battles. I mean, I think everyone's children, you know, there's that saying, they're your biggest teachers or you learn the lessons you're meant to from them. And I think I'm definitely learning a lot from Finn. He's incredibly smart, very witty, which is amazing. He's an amazing kid. But I'm learning a lot about myself, you know.

Yeah, that's good. That's huge.

And it will continue, of course.

And I think when I think about the. The locus of control, you see this done in corporate teams, but I think it's even more powerful for an individual. Literally drawing two circles. So one and then another one outside it and in the inner one. Like, what can I control myself? My reactions, my emotions, my effort.

Yeah.

What can't I control? Put that in the outer circle. Other people's reactions, the weather, the economy. And realizing that a lot of the time we focus on the outer circle.

Yeah.

But we got to keep bringing it into that.

Much more is out of our control than we even think. There's so much. What we can control is so small, but we focus on all the other stuff, like you say.

Yeah.

So I think just having that awareness and catching myself with it, and that's been a big lesson, and I'm. I'm getting better with it. I call myself out on it too, which is new. And just finding other things to fill your mind other than thinking about that stuff.

Yeah.

So if you find yourself, like, thinking about what other people are doing or what other people are thinking or what. What they should be doing, you're trying to control them. You can't. You clearly have too much time. So I'm finding things. What interests me? What can I learn? Because I find when I'm learning and growing, I'm not thinking about that stuff because I'm so focused on something else.

That's such a really good lesson, I think, for all of us. I find that people who are creating or are. Who are achieving greatness and really committing themselves to growing, whether it's in their sport, their business, whatever, they tend to be the ones who are not criticizing other people. They tend to be the ones who are not keyboard warrior ing. They tend to be not the ones who are the parents standing at the playground with their arms folded, gossiping about other parents. They're so focused on just how do I get a bit better? How do I make a bigger difference? Yeah, I'm with you on that. That's huge.

And you, what's your lesson?

My lesson? Couple of lessons for me. One, I've appreciated that I've learned about myself that I appreciate simple things a lot more than lavish things. That's a big change. In my late teens, early 20s, I remember going to Hong Kong and I just stocked up on Louis Vuitton man bags. Would you have dated that guy with.

Me at the time, you wouldn't have dated that guy. No judgment, if that's what you're into. It's just not what I'm into 100%.

And, you know, for me, it was about getting the car, and it was the European car. And it was about. And again, no judgment. Like lots of people drive European cars and they're bloody good cars. You know, just about really extrinsic things that money would get or that would be.

That would look good.

Materialistic. Yeah.

Yeah.

And I've just had a. I've learned about myself. I've changed a lot in the last decade where I appreciate simple things. I appreciate good things. Still. Don't get me wrong, I'll still buy a really nice jacket that cost me a reasonable money. Yeah. Shoes. I'll buy a really good shoes that last me. But I'm not. I don't have affluenza. I don't go and buy lots of things. When I travel, I really do like staying in a nice place where I feel safe and the view is beautiful. That's where I spend overly, perhaps, but day to day. Very.

Yeah. And we're not out.

Yeah. We're quite private people, which is weird. If we're doing a podcast.

No, I don't even think it's that we're private. I think we're just quite intro. Well, I'm definitely introverted. I think you are too, personally. But professionally, you know how to be.

Yeah. I think I enjoy humans and enjoy connecting and speaking to humans, but I need to recharge.

Yeah. And that's where we. I think that's also been a lesson for me is learning more that I like solitude.

Yeah.

I enjoy being on my own also with you here.

That's good to hear.

But I enjoy my own company and I think that's a healthy place to be.

Yeah. And I think knowing what kind of person you are and what you need is important. I used to need much more social connection and outings and at the pub and I need a lot less of that because I need time to recharge. I enjoy hanging out with my pets, my family and my books. Simple stuff.

Yeah.

You know.

Yeah.

The one other thing I've learned about others is that the vast majority of people are radically unclear on what they want out of life, out of their work, out of their relationships. There's just so much muddiness. People just are not clear in that area at all.

Yeah. We often get emails for you and it's evident in most of them that people aren't clear and that. I mean, there's certainly areas we're not clear.

Of course. Like the digital thing, right?

Exactly. We're trying to figure it out. But yeah. I think there is just so much distraction now that stops people from knowing what they want. Because they lose themselves. I was on social media. I was on YouTube watching something and a lady was speaking about. They did some study. Look, I don't have the study for you. I don't have any of the details. But when you spend enough time on social media watching other people and what they do and their interests, you forget about your own and you forget who you are and what you actually like. And I think I've spent time. I used to be on social media quite a lot, scrolling a lot. And I was really unhappy then and really anxious. And it's only in the last year that I stopped going on it and I removed it from my phone. And I'm so much happier. And I know what I want. Like, when there's an afternoon. A year ago, if I had an afternoon on the weekends when it was just me, James would be like, what are you going to do? Like, I don't know. What do you want to do? I. I don't know. But now what are you gonna do? I'm probably gonna go for a hike. Is that what you want to do? Yeah. So I think people struggle with the clarity because there's so much noise.

Yeah.

It's hard to get clear when there's noise.

And it's almost a choice. A lot of that noise, you're choosing to engage in it. Like social media, it's addictive. It really is.

So it's hard to give it up.

Very. Like most people when they go to take a dump, take their phone with them and they're checking their socials and scrolling and the same thing when they're, you know, getting out of bed in the morning.

I love that that's where you in first.

Seriously, though, like, I see so many people. I'm just off to the toilet coat. And they take their phone.

Well, it's even waiting in the queue at the grocery store.

Yeah.

Or whatever you're doing, you take the phone.

Imagine instead of checking your phone during every grocery store or bus lineup, wherever you line up, you use that time to think and to challenge yourself and to maybe have a card in your pocket with your values, and you pull that card out instead of your phone. You go, these are my values. What have I done today to live into these? Like, that sounds ridiculous to a lot of people to do that, but imagine how that would shift your perspective and your behavior.

Yeah.

Significantly.

Yeah. I think thinking is the hardest thing to do, though.

It is, but we do all bloody day long.

I know, but I think people are afraid of being alone with their brain and Their thoughts, so it's easier. And I don't say people. I mean, I'm one of these people. It's hard to be alone with your thoughts.

Yes.

You know, that's something I can work on meditation.

Do you want to do a vipassana? 10 days.

I don't want to do a silent retreat.

I want to do a 10 day silent retreat just for myself. Because you do it individually, right? You don't do it as a. I can't do.

You go as a group, but. Well, not with people. You know, you just go. They're other people, but you can't talk to them.

I could.

Yeah.

That'd be so hard for me.

Yeah.

Not talking. Ten days.

We call him Chatty Cathy. That's his nickname.

So I can't not talk to people. If I bump into someone, it could be a 15, 20 minute conversation.

It could be two hours.

Yeah.

What's it gonna be? Don't know.

But yeah, that would be a really good challenge. So perhaps, folks, if you think I should do the vipassana, let us know. And perhaps if I get enough people telling me how I should do it, and maybe we should raise some money for charity while we do it. How can we shut James up for 10 days? There we go.

We get an anonymous offer.

Yeah. $500,000 gets donated to shut James up for 10 days. I'd be up for that. All goes to charity. Okay? So I want you to use that framework, listeners, to focus on what went well, what didn't go so well, what have you learned? And then can I ask you, Caroline, what have you read this year that comes to mind that's been good reads?

Habits of High Performance. Got it right here.

I'll pay you later for that.

I did actually read Habits of High Performers and it was a brilliant read. Yeah, I definitely would recommend it. It's just easy. It's an easy read. And it's not one of those. You don't have to keep reading a paragraph over for it to sink in. You can just read it and do it. But the main party takeaway is the implementing because I'm definitely one of those people. I read a lot, but a lot of the books I just read and then I forget to implement. So make sure you implement it. Otherwise what's the point? Yeah, other books I've read. Oh, quite a lot. Main Street. Main Street Millionaire, I think it's called by Cody sent my girl Cody. Yeah, Cody Sanchez. It's about buying boring businesses and becoming wealthy doing that. So that's definitely an area of interest that will go deep on soon.

Yeah, Caroline will go real deep on it.

I haven't got time for that rabbit hole right now.

Christmas is coming.

That was a good one. Another one that I'm currently reading is Unreasonable Hospitality by Will Something.

Guardia Something.

Just look up. There's no other book called it so Unreasonable Hospitality. And he's from a hospitality background, so it's really. If you've worked in hospitality, it's really interesting. And it's all about going above and beyond for your clients and your customers and how they implemented it, and I find it fascinating. What about you? What books have you read?

A lot of books this year I enjoyed. I always reread the Alchemist by Paulo Coelho. I think we should all read that. Every leader that I work with, I ask them to read that. I've been reading Visualize by Maya. I can't remember her second name. My apologies. We're not doing well. But really cool. Just around the power visualization, I've restarted. For the.

How many of the time?

Yeah, multiple times. I've restarted the Untethered Soul, and it's a really difficult read. And I'm finding it easier now that I'm like five times restarting it.

It's not easy, that one, but it's.

A really important one, I think, because it's about realizing that most of us are tethered to things, to outcomes, to people. People.

Yeah.

And to become more free in life and to have more fulfillment, you've got to become an untethered Soul. So it's a fascinating read. I'm enjoying it, taking notes. Implementing.

It is a hard read. It's one of those. It's like a Russian doll. Go into the mind of your mind. Sit back in the seat of it. It's like, what?

I find that tricky, that stuff.

Yeah. But once you get it, it's like, oh, okay, that makes sense.

Yeah. Like when you started reading Dr. Joe Dispenza many years ago, it was tricky, and then it became easier.

But becoming yourself. No.

The habit of becoming yourself. No, Breaking the habit.

Yeah. Breaking the habit of being yourself.

That's it.

I don't know. We probably butchered it.

Ask ChatGPT. It'll figure out for you guys.

But that one was the same. It was a bit tricky to wrap my head around, but, yeah, it got there.

Yeah.

Really good book. You can feel a shift when you start thinking differently. It's amazing.

100%.

Yeah.

One more. Robin Sharma, His Wealth, Money Can't Buy book. He's wrote many books, but that was his most recent one. I enjoyed reading that this past year. Highly recommend it. Steve Vamos, my friend wrote a book called Through Shifts and Shocks. I recommend it. If you're a leader running a rather medium sized and large company going through a lot of change, that's the book for you. Anything else?

The Psychology of Spending Money.

The Art of Spending Money.

The Art of Spending. The other one is the Psychology of Money.

Yep. By.

Morgan Housel.

High five on that. Yes.

Yeah, those were good ones.

Brilliant reads.

Yeah, you were passionate.

Oh my God. I love them because they're simple and Morgan Housel money expert says it how it is and it's like actually to be financially free. So many more people can do it by doing some simple things really well and buying for utility rather than for vanity and showing off. Read those books. They're brilliant.

Yeah, yeah, those are good books. I mean there's so many others and they'll probably come to me tonight at 3am and I'll be like, why didn't I mention that one? But that's okay. I can put it in the show notes.

There you go. And folks, we want to be mindful of your time and the fact that we want to go for a nice hill walk before we do that. If you're serious about having a year next year, 2026, that's full of smashing your goals, having fun, being connected to the people that matter most. I'm going to be running a two hour deep dive. It's a workshop masterclass on 2026, goal setting. You want to come and join and you're in Australia and New Zealand. It's going to be virtual. But if you're in Australia or New Zealand, you also get a free copy of my book. We will ship it to you at no cost. So we'll put the link in the show notes for that. And on January 11, January 11 at 7:30pm New Zealand time in the evening, it's a Sunday evening and it's the exact process and blueprint that I take my clients through, that we go through. And if you want to just be more intentional with your year next year and smash four out of five of those goals rather than one or two.

And it's not about developing a whole new like notion system template that you need in your laptop that you check daily with the dashboard. It is really simple. But it's the only way that we've managed to smash our goals. Really?

Yeah. We keep sense checking it with other people that we're working with and our clients and seeing that they're getting the goals too. Yeah. We don't want to complicate it by giving you another app and another software and another planner. Now it's going to be super simple. So if you want to come and join us, link is in the show notes and have a great Christmas. If you celebrate Christmas, enjoy the celebrations. If you don't enjoy this time of year where it's maybe a little bit quieter, hopefully for you, a little bit warmer.

Hopefully. If you're in southern hemisphere. I was going to say the northern hemisphere, but slightly cooler, but depending, you.

Know, depending where you are in northern hemisphere. If you're in like Singapore.

Oh, exactly.

You see, I'm there for you.

Yeah, I have it.

Thank you for all your support with the podcast this year. We deeply appreciate it. Appreciate you. Thank you for sharing it. For those that bought the book Habits of High Performers, I deeply appreciate your support and thanks for sharing it and telling others to do so. Unless you want to add Caroline, before.

We wrap up, if you have any suggestions on where we should elope to, let us know. It will be us and a 9 year old by then. Maybe 10 year old.

Yeah. So we're all ears.

We're all ears.

Yeah. And I think it's about that time.

To get out there and lead your life and lead your life on purpose.

There we go, folks. Get out there and lead your life on purpose. Happy New Year.