Holiday Posting Party with evyAI Friends

separate company? It seems like you're the serial entrepreneur.

Yeah, yeah, I definitely am the serial entrepreneur. So I, I started Ajax Union back in 2008, and the business didn't really take off till 2010, '11, '12. We were on the Inc. 500 as one of the— number 178, one of the fastest growing companies in America. And I learned a lot of things about myself. One of the things is I don't want to hoard employees. I had 75 full-time people in our office, and it was very difficult. And then I went through a whole journey and I grew the business. And then at the end of COVID we lost 75% of our recurring revenue. We still maintained our million-dollar mark, like to whatever, to keep the business there. But it's not very profitable. It's not a very profitable business, the agency business compared to a software business, not very profitable. So it's also not very scalable. I can't just take on 1,000 new customers. With Heavy AI, if I got a million customers tomorrow, it'd be fine. I can handle it. You get what I'm saying? And so like, I've always dreamt of having a software company. Finally, when I met Tammy and when ChatGPT came out and all that, it made it easier for me to do it. And that's why I kind of like, finally we, we have some traction now, but it takes a while to build a business and to build a community and all this other jazz. So I'm just very grateful that you guys are here and that you guys are customers. And yes, it's a separate company with separate staff, with separate everything. Um, but Ajax Union's still very much running and it's, it's, it's running because we have good team members and good clients. That are kind of like, you know, just clients that have been with us for since forever and that it's working. But Evvy AI is really where we can scale and make a difference to a lot of people. So I'm very excited about the impact that we've made in the past year to you guys, and I'm looking forward to taking things to a whole new level in 2026. We're gonna be adding many, many more features cuz we're almost finished our refactor. We spent the past 6 months redoing the backend of Evvy AI. Um, and that was a lot of work. That was a tremendous amount of work. A lot of time, a lot of effort, a lot of money. But you'll see when we come out with the new one in early 2026, you'll be able to see how much faster Evie AI is and how many more features we are able to add and the speed of adding features. We're adding features slowly now over the past year. We still added a tremendous amount of features, but we're gonna be able to add 200 new features over the course of the next 2 years. And you're gonna be like, holy crap, I can't believe it does this. And so that's really, I'm very excited about that. So. So glad that you guys are all here with me. I'm grateful that I can do this with you guys. I'm grateful that we're doing this together as a team, that we're working together. This is truly a community, a team effort. You know, that's really, really what it is. I met with Zach Madrigal yesterday in Manhattan. He came to Manhattan, and every time he comes to Manhattan, he's like, Joe, I want to meet you. Let's do a selfie. And then I realized, you know what? I need to do a selfie with all of our clients. I got to travel around, meet every one of our clients and do a selfie with all of our clients. So I'm going to be meeting with like at least 40 clients on the ship. I'm going on January 17th on the cruise. Maybe next year in 2028, we could all plan to go on the cruise from Miami together. And there's going to be 450 other people there, but it would be nice for all of us to get together for 8 days. And to network and to build relationships and maybe bring your family and go on vacation. But that's the idea is like you're together for 8 days. Like, wow, how amazing is that? So it'll be nice if you guys want to plan for 2028 because it's all sold out for 2026. But if you guys want to plan something for 2028, it's probably going to happen around January 15th or something. That'd be epic if we got a group together. There's going to be about 40 of us already on the ship that are EvAI clients. Including Rhonda Scherer. You guys know Rhonda? She's one of our biggest affiliates. So she's going to be on the ship with me for 8 days. But I'm going to talk to her about coming again in 2028, which I'm sure she'll want to. But it's a great time. And again, you don't have to pay for the actual cruise. You don't have to pay for the event. You just pay for your room and board on the cruise, which starts at like $1,500 for the week or whatever. It's not a ridiculous amount of money because you're getting unlimited food. You're getting unlimited whatever. And then, and it's whatever, you know.

I'm, I'm— yeah, WhatsApp.

Yeah, so 2027 is sold out, Joe?

Yeah, definitely sold out, closed.

Oh, 2027, Joe?

2026 is sold out, but 2027 is not. Did I, did I say 2028?

You kept saying—

yeah, okay, sorry, sorry. 2027 is not sold out yet. I'll make sure that you guys get cabins if you want. I'll reserve a bunch of cabins, but it does get sold out quickly, so If you guys do want to do 2027, that would be great. That's what I meant. Sorry, I said 2028.

When does that go on sale, Joe?

It goes on sale, um, officially they— it goes on sale in February, but I think I can get you guys a link in January if you want to get in super early. And it's fully refundable till September. So if you do buy, you put a $500 deposit down in January, and then if you don't want it anytime till September, that's fully refundable. So Um, I would suggest that we get a group of ours that are gonna— that are committed to going in 2027. In 2027. And then if any of you can't make it, then whatever. But at least you reserved your— you reserved a cabin.

Um, yeah.

How was your visit with Arlene?

Oh my God, it was wonderful. I met with Arlene.

We need—

we need you to—

we have a call that started 15 minutes ago.

Okay, so she's there already because it says call Jamie. Is she there?

Right. You can we discuss please?

Okay. Okay, guys. I gotta bounce. I gotta bounce. I'll see you guys soon. I appreciate you very, very much. All right. Talk to you guys. I'll try. I'll try to come back. All right. Bye.

All right. Bye.

That's so great that he tries to be part of it all.

I know.

It's just it's amazing how many places and once that he can be.

So.

Just phenomenal.

Jane's back.

Yay. So welcome, Rick, and welcome, Elaine.

Good to see you.

Love your backdrop. Beautiful backdrop.

Hi. I love beef. I love steak.

Where's the beef?

Better put my glasses back on.

I had to check the name. I thought it was Ian.

You thought it was Ian?

I thought she couldn't— yeah, Rick, so did I.

I know my internet's unstable. Is it unstable on your end too? Do you know?

Okay, Barbara, I don't dare ask because my computer just shut off.

So, is that what happened? I was wondering because I know you were baking.

Yeah.

So, everything's in the oven.

What is— what are everybody's plans for the holidays? I mean, like, I know I'm already in the holidays. I, I'm Jewish and we, we've been lighting our menorah every week, every, every night. Celebrating and what it all means. And yeah, so what is everybody doing? So Mindy, what do you do for the holidays?

Yeah, we celebrate it. It's very hard for me here. There's literally a tree chipper directly outside of my window. So if I'm screaming, it's because I don't know what I can— what the volume is right now. Can you hear that?

No.

No, I can't hear it, so no worries.

Um, yeah, so we celebrate, and we are— unfortunately, several of us have COVID, so whatever we're planning for this weekend is not happening. My COVID has been lingering, so anyone who knows anything about long COVID, uh, I'm interested in hearing when it's going to end. I got it Thanksgiving weekend. And I thought I was better. No more fever, but the head is still not 100%.

Mindy, let's talk. Let's talk directly.

Yeah, you know what to do.

Okay. Um, I wish you all the best.

I'm sorry?

I'd be happy to talk with you too.

Yeah, I have a friend who had long COVID. Um, I think Tom actually met her. You met Christy, right, Tom? Yeah. Christy has had long COVID, and it's, it's— she has— not that she's sick now, but she's— she continues to have symptoms. But it's not— but now it's not COVID, but she feels the symptoms.

See, I wish you all a spectacular 2026. I am so excited. It's coming so soon. And, um, love the community. Thank you, Barbara, so much for hosting every single week. Uh, it's a very special time for, for me, for sure. I know for all of you also. So I appreciate all that you do, and I appreciate you, um, having part of my tribe, and I love being part of yours.

Thank you. Thank you for being here. It's always a pleasure having you. Marlene, what are you going to be doing for the holidays?

We will be hosting a family gathering at our house and have dinner and gift exchange, that sort of thing. So it'll be fun.

Oh, beautiful. Sherri, what about you?

Yes, I'm— after this, I go to the store to get the final stuff for tomorrow night, and then gonna go in my backyard and clean it up and weed and put everything together. I have a little party for my neighborhood, and I invited some other friends this year, so we do an elephant gift exchange and, you know, have a chance to just really celebrate each other and spend time together. So that's what I'm looking forward to.

Oh, beautiful. Uh, Tom, what about you? What do you do for the holidays, for Christmas, for New Year's?

Um, it's family. It's similar to Marlene's. Uh, we have 4 kids and 16 grandchildren all at our house, but it's, it's fun. They actually— the— we got some teenage boys in that, and they will bring a tent and all the boy cousins will stay in our yard and we will lock the doors at night and that's where they're stuck. So that's the plan.

I love it.

We love it.

Yeah, definitely. Latha, what do you do for the holidays? Your traditions are different.

So what do you do?

No, I don't know, actually. Every year I make traditional cake. All the fruits and nuts I actually soak for almost a year and make a cake.

Yeah.

And that has been going on for the last 20 years. We have the tree up, house is all very beautifully decorated. My daughter will come on Sunday, other 2 sons are in Iowa. So we— I am planning to have a fondue, you know.

Fondue?

Yeah, fondue on Christmas Eve. And on Christmas Day, they all want my chili. They really love chili. And I am a vegetarian, so I'll be making vegetarian fajita. And apple crisp, apple crisp.

Beautiful. I love it. Philip, what about you? What are your traditions?

So, it's funny. My wife wanted to try to make Beef Wellington one year, and her sister came up and so they made the dough from scratch. I mean, they, they did everything from scratch. Well, my boys decided they liked Beef Wellington and they wanted to replace our traditional Christmas meal with that. And so my, my brother Hans, his wife does not like venison, so he gives us the backstrap and we have venison Wellington. But Christmas morning we have a Swedish tea ring with hot chocolate and peppermint sticks and, uh, clementine.

That's so interesting.

What is a Swedish tea ring?

You know, it was one of those things that my grandmother, my mother's mother, started doing because she liked that— she liked the Swedish tea ring. So she started making it at Christmas, and it became my mother's family tradition, and then my family tradition, and now my children's tradition. So it's gone 3 generations. And it was just a, hey, my grandmother liked this. She found this recipe. My wife's family makes international cookies at Christmas. She's got 16 different ones that she does. We pared it down to about 11 this year.

But what is the Swedish tea ring? I've never heard it, and I'm Swedish, so I'm curious what it is.

It's, it's sort of like a sweet roll with cinnamon and raisins and nuts put into a ring and cut. It's called a Swedish tea ring in the cookbook.

Sounds like a Danish.

Send me the recipe. I've never heard of it. It sounds more German, but I'm curious, so I might learn something from Sweden.

Yeah, it, it, it— she also makes the Danish gingerbirds. They're called Danish gingerbirds, but I'm, I What I'm here— what I understand is that this, that thin ginger cookie is all over Scandinavia.

Yeah. We're eating tons of them nowadays. You eat them with moldy cheese and you drink mulled wine with it.

That sounds good.

That's really good.

A little butter and then like a, not a gorgonzola. It doesn't go too strong, but you know, those Bluey moly cheeses or greeny moly cheeses. Just put that on the ginger cookie and some mulled wine.

It's lovely. Ooh, nice.

Hey, Therese, how do you celebrate Christmas?

Well, lots of ginger cookies and mulled wine.

Exactly.

I'm staying drunk all the way until January. No, not really. But my sister is flying in from Germany. She lives there since 25 years back. So she's coming on, I think, on Monday or Tuesday. And then it's just a small family gathering. gathering, some aunts and cousins, but we mostly eat tons of food. It's another one of those Swedish smorgasbords, more focused on ham this time than the pickled herring, and we drink mulled wine and we, we do, we eat too much and we don't exercise enough and we definitely don't get enough fresh air. And then we start with somewhere between before New Year's and just a grasp of fresh air.

Good.

Try to get into the New Year dress. And then you go New Year and then you're back to work.

So that's how we do it.

I love it.

Rick, what will you be doing for the holidays? How do you celebrate? You know, are there traditional foods that your family enjoys?

Well, my— yeah, thank you. Good to see everybody. So my wife just left to go to Kentucky to get her mom, bring her back here. And Jenny and I, we're a second marriage. So we're like the Brady Bunch. We have 4 girls, 2 boys combined, and 2 granddaughters. And we just found out we have a new grandbaby on the way from my youngest son.

Congratulations.

So we're going to be a third. Hopefully that'll be a boy and another Clody. But my wife's maiden name was Rouse, so that's kind of German. I'm a Clody, which is Swiss. But my dad's family were all French from New Orleans. So we, you know, listen, I'm gonna do a gumbo. I've already got a cheesecake I made in the Instant Pot. I'm getting ready to make a French vanilla pound cake for my grandmother. Um, our big tradition is in New Orleans we do a king cake, and it's like a round cake with a little baby in it. And what we do during— it's really, we, we have a big party on King Day, which is 10 days after Christmas.

You know, they—

oh, 12 days. You know, the 12 Days of Christmas.

12 days.

Supposedly, traditionally, the 12th day is when the wise men showed up for the— at the crib, whatever, and to see the baby Jesus. And so we celebrate King Day, but in the cake, the round cake, it's like purple, green, and gold icing. And some people do cream cheese filling. I don't like that. I like the cinnamon with the icing on top.

Mm-hmm.

It looks like a Danish, and one of the pieces will have a little plastic baby. Whoever gets that baby has to throw the party the next week, and then whoever gets the baby at that party throws the party the next. So during king cake season, we have a party every week until Mardi Gras, which is Fat Tuesday. You know, foie gras is Fat Tuesday. Mardi Gras means Fat Tuesday before Strove Wednesday, which is Ash Wednesday. And anyway, so King Day is kind of so, but we can get the cakes now. So I order them from New Orleans and have them over, you know, overnighted, like FedExed up. And everybody comes, wants to come to my house to get a piece of king cake because it's like what we ate as kids growing up.

Yeah.

But Jenny's German family, they do the strudels and all that stuff, you know.

Oh, beautiful.

Beautiful.

No, I mean, when we lived in Switzerland, I mean, we had, you know, we had the Königskuchen.

Kuchen.

So Königskuchen. So it's from the German. Yes.

Yeah, definitely.

Our family is St. Gallen's on the Austrian side.

Right, exactly, exactly. Great tradition. So Elaine, what do you do?

Hi.

So what I normally do, I have the dining room, I have a glass table. And so what I do is have all of my work off the table for that week. You know, I love working here because I could see the birds. eating and blah, blah, blah. So, anyway, so what I do is I set up food. There's food lined on the table, all the things we like to eat, nuts. And one thing I haven't been putting is the Jordan almonds. I love those. I love those. So this year, I'm going to put that and dates because my great-aunt used to always have dates and I thought that was so ugly, but now I realize how— fruitful and healthy those are. Some of the things we cook, which are traditional in Black culture, is collard greens. I have 3 sweet potato pies in the freezer. When I— Thanksgiving— Rick is like, ah! Yeah, so sweet potato pies, I make like 10 of them and just cover them up and line them in the freezer. And we're trying not to eat much of that because when they disappear, we like, call the police! Somebody Broke in here and stole the pies. Who stole that pie?

Love it.

So, in a week, you'll see the result of the pies on my waistline. So, anyway, I've appreciated you guys. I'm having a party tonight at 7. I'm gonna post the information. Yeah, it's just gonna be all adults. If you wanna tell a rude joke, you wanna laugh, scream, let your hair down, have a drink, On the call. It's just gonna be— I held one one year, and it was just wild. It was so nice. It didn't get rude. So I told people keep their clothes on because the human body I find quite disgusting without clothing. So anyway, merry happy holidays to everybody, those celebrating with the menorah. Now I have one, a little menorah here in my house. But I don't celebrate that religion, but I I certainly respect it. So everybody, happy holidays.

Thank you.

Yeah, thank you, Elaine.

Jane.

Jane's baking. I know that.

So what have you got? She's got her apron on.

Can you see these? These are the rosemary, lemon, and olive oil shortbread. And yeah, my neighbors complained that I didn't give them enough. So I'm baking again.

I want a piece. Can you send some to Sweden, please?

Hey, check out, check out what I put in the chat about this chocolate. If you've never heard of Spring and Mulberry. It's only made with cocoa and dates, and they're amazing. Dates are very healthy for you, Elaine.

Oh, yes. And a great sugar replacement when baking too.

Yeah, my, my son's birthday is the 21st. And that now it has become tradition that we make Beef Wellington, as you described, on his birthday. So we're all making dough and rolling out stuff and we're getting everything ready. So it'll be pretty cool. Looking forward to that. And I forgot there was something else. But yeah, I'm getting ready to leave for Colorado on Sunday. And I think I'm going to completely Unplug for the week.

Good.

She's coming to Boston. Thank you. We'll see you in Boston. Thank you. Awesome.

I'm teasing you.

And, and hey, Sherry, I sure hope you meant you're having a white elephant exchange.

Yes. Yes.

You need a big yard for the elephants. Okay.

She said, I hear all y'all and all the partying.

So Douglas, are you still with us?

I see you, Douglas.

Are you here?

Mindfall this season.

Sorry, I just—

Where is Sherry living that she's so hot? Sherry, like, you hardly have any clothes on. What's going on?

Well, it's gonna be 85 degrees today. I'm in South Florida.

That's crazy.

Let's take a picture with everybody here. Let's take pictures. Everybody ready? Gotta get Jen to unmute. Look at the screen. 1, 2, 3. All right, I think I got some good pictures here. So, Douglas, I think you're new to EBI, aren't you? Or I know you're new to the group.

So, hello.

How are you?

We're kind of not doing what we normally do, which is kind of give our pitch and where we're going, but I want to welcome you to the group. So glad you're here. And it's kind of a— it's wonderful that we have Joe here as well. So tell us who you are and who do you serve and how can we help you? And we're here for you.

Well, thanks. Thanks for the welcoming. I'm not really new. I just have not been active with ABI as I should have been in 2025, but I joined in June last— this year. So I've been on and off on that. I do participate with Joe in a lot of his own things as well. But I just got other activities that really sometimes the time doesn't, you know, have some conflict sometimes. So who I serve, I left my W-2 last year and became work optional. Basically, I'm a fund manager today. I built passive income through the last 12 years from investing in real estate and other cash-flowing assets. So I educate and teach, you know, younger people how to do that. So they kind of break away from the W-2 dependency and diversify. And that's what I do.

Beautiful.

Okay.

Who do you— how do you— okay, I know my internet's unstable. I apologize. Tell us, um, how do you celebrate the holidays?

What are your traditions? You know, obviously I'm Latin, uh, so we have, uh, some traditions. Um, I'm married to a Colombian, uh, lady, and, um, I'm from El Salvador originally. Uh, I've been in the States over 45 years now, 42 years to be exact.

Excuse me.

So we today, we know it says family gatherings on Christmas Eve. We celebrate Christmas Eve going into Christmas Day, right? So our gathering is Christmas Eve. You know, we get together and there'll be some cooking. The ladies will cook, some family members. Some of that would be stuffed beef, you know, some traditional, very ethnic type of desserts. You know, we call some very delicious dessert like, you know, buñuelos, which is a really— it's a deep-fried sort of a dough fritters, you know, sort of, you know, not as healthy as that, but they're really good.

Oh, yeah.

So, it's stuff like that, you know. So, we get together and sometimes we cook turkey. Like, you know, we just had Thanksgiving, so— but there is a very, very special recipe that we do for turkey which makes it very delicious as well. So, so this would be a combination of a couple of things.

That's wonderful. Fantastic. Fantastic. Hey, Ian made it.

Yay! I love your background photo, Ian. It looks like you're in a room with me and I'm celebrating something. Maybe, maybe I'm celebrating that I accomplished my goals for 2025 and I'm setting new goals for 2026. By the way, if anybody wants to join us, we still have a handful of spots left for next Monday. We're doing a 3-hour session. I know Jane's coming and Barbara's coming. Um, a couple of you are coming. So if you guys are interested in the Zoom chat, I put in a questionnaire you can fill out if you're interested in joining us for 3 hours. Jane, you want to say something?

Well, Leith is up too, but to what you're saying, I've already— I'm already doing the pre-course and it's It's incredible. I've got everything printed out for me to take to work on on vacation.

Amazing.

Oh, wow.

Amazing.

Yeah.

It's unbelievable.

Joe, I just want to say the 3-hour is on the 29th.

Um, next Monday we have the webinar.

Okay.

So at 3 PM, is it 3 PM the webinar happening on highenergyzoom.com?

Yes. Correct.

Okay. So we're having a webinar this coming Monday to kind of discuss what we're going to be discussing on the goal setting masterclass that's happening the following Monday. So it's happening on the following Monday at 2:00 PM, but the webinar is happening this coming Monday at 3:00 PM. And Jen, you put it in the community so everyone could see it?

Yes, it's in the community, Joe.

All right. Awesome. It looks like the team needs me on another Zoom, but I just wanted to say happy holidays and, uh, thank you guys for being amazing. Thank you for being part of this amazing community. And Deb, looking forward to doing the goal setting masterclass for you. Deb also upgraded to the bundle plus yesterday. So Deb, congrats on being part of the bundle plus with Barbara and everybody else as part of it. So thank you.

I have a question, Joe. So I really enjoyed that prompt you gave me, the 30 prompts for Nana Banana. How can I learn to create more prompts? Is there a way to learn?

I wrote a book that I finished called High Energy Prompting that teaches you how to do prompts. I'll send you a copy of it so that you can read it and maybe even write me an endorsement for it before we actually publish it. So if anybody else wants it, just hit me up privately and I'll send you guys a link to it. All right, I gotta bounce.

All right, thank you, Joe.

Bye-bye.

All right, so Ian and Deb, what we've been doing is going around the room and telling our favorite holiday traditions for this season. So Ian, what's your traditions?

What's my what? So I'm just having dinner. Sorry, say again.

What are your—

what do you—

what do you— how do you— how do you celebrate the holidays where you normally—

On a beach in Mexico, but my wife this year decided she didn't want to go this year. So yeah, normally on the beach in Mexico, but, uh, so I don't really know. I think we're just getting family around, but normally we're just laid on the beach, uh, drinking and eating.

That sounds good.

It sounds good.

Sounds relaxing. Sounds relaxing. What do you do?

Right.

No, I'm asking you. Okay, so I'm asking Deb, what does she do? What is her—

what are her holiday traditions? So I used to always go away with my kids because that's when they get off from school. But now that they're all grown-ups and I don't have to go away, then I'm usually covering other people and picking up some extra, you know, client stuff, picking up some extra money and making money during the holiday week. I'm not big into holidays. Like, I feel like every day should be a little bit of a celebration. Maybe that's because I had cancer 16 years ago. So for me, it's like, I don't, I don't want to have to feel— I know this sounds very like, you know, granola, but I am, I am that way. So I don't want to have to feel that because it's this day, I need to feel this way, right? So I kind of like just celebrate the wins as they come. I do wish other people happy holidays. I will be getting together with my entire family at my sister's house because this woman loves to cook, bake, and decorate like no one I have ever seen. She is the complete polar opposite of me. I appreciate the decorations, but all I can think about when I see them up is, wow, that's gonna be a whole project to take them down. So you understand what I'm saying? It's like up, down, up, down, and I, I'd rather do something else. So yeah, that, that, that's my holiday story.

And you're sticking to it, right?

Yeah, I appreciate it. For a lot of people, a lot of people have a lot of meaning out of the holidays. For me, I try to find the meaning in my regular days and not necessarily in the holidays, because, you know, like I said, it's, it's, it's— for me, just because it's that particular day doesn't make it special. It makes it special to me on any given day that I can find a win. And I think I've mentioned this before, but I have this mug. I actually just showed it to one of my kids last week that I bought my freshman year of college. I was 17. It has Snoopy and Woodstock, and on the other side it says, this is going to be a great day. And I still have it, and it's the first thing I see every morning because it's in my bathroom with my toothbrush in it. So every morning—

Love it.

It's like an af— it was an affirmation before they had affirmations. And so I always find each day I'm trying to find something to be happy about.

That's beautiful.

No, it's beautiful. That's beautiful. No, in my household, it's like you live each day, you know, and you know, we we have our traditions that we have, but each day is like you know we each day is special because we don't know how long we have on this earth. We learned the hard way losing my daughter. Yep, yep. Anyway, so what we normally do is we we've been making brisket and we've been making latkes in several different ways and Experimenting. I, I love to experiment. So the holiday time kind of like slows down for work, and so it gives me the chance to actually try out different recipes. So I have my whole week filled with trying and experimenting and doing something new because I love the newness of doing something new. That's just the chemist in me. So it's like one— if you ever came to my house, it's like every time I cook, it's an experiment. So I love experimenting. And this year I decided I would finally, after years of doing a hand mixer, get a real mixer that sits down. And I'm gonna try out all sorts of different things that I can use the mixer for. Like, one of the favorite things that I miss from childhood is making different kinds of things where you want to fluff up your egg whites, right? So it's like the omelets or the soufflés or That kind of stuff. So I'm excited that I finally decided to buy the mixer so I can experiment. Yeah.

Barbara, I have a great recipe for you that I just made for a party tomorrow night. Tres leches cake. Oh yeah, it's— it was— boy, those egg whites fluffed up. Oh, it was good. It's gonna be good.

Oh, you'll have to send me the recipe. Yeah, no, my mother used to make for people— she was a realtor and she loved being able to give something that was different. You know, we always know about the spiced nuts. And she would actually— what made her special is that she actually beat up egg whites to put into all the different flavors. These were kind of a sweet savory. And she would actually— the base of it was really egg whites, and then baking the nuts in the egg white in the In the seasoning. So it's like, you know, that's, that's been such a tradition in my family. It's like, you know, wow, I haven't thought about that one in years, but that's something else I'd like to experiment with. But yeah, very cool. Any recipes that you can think about with, with egg whites, that would be cool. I would love them.

You're making me think my wife has not made her soufflé in a long time.

Right. We used to, being Jewish when we were growing up, our— we had friends who were Jewish and they had their Hanukkah bushes, and we would go over there for Christmas Eve. And it was, you know, having a steak type of a Wellington, if you may.

But we—

the dessert was always a chocolate soufflé, and it was always to die for because my mom And this other woman would always cook it together. It was always special. So chocolate soufflés, like, I haven't thought about doing that in years.

You might want to try— have you ever heard of pavlova? Look that up, put it in the chat. Pavlova, it's a dessert that was— my understanding, it was made for the ballerina Pavlova when she visited Australia. That's what one of our nannies explained. And so I looked it up and it's, it's really good. And you can use different fruits on it or you can do— it's just very versatile. But it's really cool to make it. I used to make it a lot. I just realized I haven't made it in many years, but maybe I'll try it again.

Yeah.

You should all try it.

Yes, I have read the book Lessons in Chemistry. Yeah.

But, but you— it's a good tip from Jane. You should all try the pavlova. I make it quite often because you make an Italian meringue, the one that is a bit chewier, not a dry meringue, but a bit chewier. And you fill it with whipped cream and you can put, as Jane said, fruits on it or those canned fruits or whatever, but it's really, really lovely. And if you're really good with meringues, you make it into kind of a bowl that's empty. So you put it all on the inside and then you crack the bowl. I'm not that good, but I've got it like that in dinner sometimes, people who really know. So pavlova is actually quite simple, but really, really nice.

All right, one of the traditions that my grandmother, who came from Hungary, used to make was a meringue. It was a meringue cloud is what she called it, and then you would put ice cream and then drizzle chocolate sauce over that. So that was one of the things that she just absolutely, you know, would have any special time growing up.

Yeah.

Lovely.

This is making me hungry.

I'm way overdue for a Jim Dore here.

So you're looking for a pfeffernüsse, Deb, that's gluten-free? I'll, I'll have to see what I have.

Yeah, because some of the recipes that I'm seeing for pfeffernüsse, they just say flour, but gluten-free flours vary, and I don't want to start doing the whole thing and then find out I've used a bad flour. Like, I want one that's Specifies which kind of gluten-free flour. I want someone else to have done the experimentation, failed 5 times, and tell me what the success is.

There you go.

I don't want to bake them 6 times.

Right?

Yeah.

I, you know, my family always says they enjoy the flops that I prepare.

Deborah, I'm putting a recipe in the chat. You know what I always look for? The ones that have the highest number of stars, and this has 4.8. And it's been tried by over 48 people. I look for the most number of people with the highest number of stars, and then I, and then I never make a recipe the way it says. Yeah, I always leave stuff out or add stuff to it. It's just me.

I always look—

I do the same thing too—

ingredients into that I bought, bought, and then had buyer's remorse. Like, I need to use this up, right? So I bought unflavored pea protein powder, and it tastes disgusting.

Okay?

So I finally put it into pea soup yesterday, and it was decent.

Oh my goodness.

I'm thinking if I, you know, it's one of these things, if you can't break, join, right? So I'm like, okay, how bad could it be to put pea protein into pea soup? And it was actually not bad, and I'm going to be able to use the protein up that way.

Oh my goodness. What are— is everybody gonna be around next week, or is everybody gonna take off next Friday?

I'm covering other people for next Friday.

I'm working.

Okay.

So, you know, if, if you're around next week, I'm happy to hold our, our, our posting party. One of the things that I know just for my niche is that because this is a downtime for corporate, this is a time they're going to be reading more on reading what I do, because it's not a time where they feel like somebody is going to say, oh, what are you doing on LinkedIn? And so it's a, it's a great time. I know for me to continue with my message, so I will definitely be around. So if you need someone to start commenting on your post, just let me know. I'm going to be here. Okay. And so it's the, these 2. weeks when most people power down. This is when I know my niche, they are not paying attention as much, but this is a time that they are starting to think, what do I do? How do I, how do I start this next new year in a way that's going to benefit me so I don't feel like I'm starting from scratch and that I feel like I'm coming from ease? Who else is going to be around? Let me know. I'm gonna be around. Deb's gonna be around.

Okay.

Awesome. Awesome.

Awesome.

Barb, I just put in the chat a link. I just decided to start a post for holiday recipes. We can all dump them in there. I'm gonna dump a couple of my favorites. My mom used to do this artichoke dressing. Anybody ever had a boiled artichoke where you stuff it with all the good stuff? She, you know, it's a pain in the neck because you got to pull the leaves off and eat the stuff. She made a dressing with all the stuffing, no leaves. No, no pain in the neck. And it's like I never take any home. Never take any home. It always it vaporizes at a potluck.

Yeah, I was gonna ask you if you would share that recipe. That would be cool. Awesome, Mindy. What's what's up?

You gotta go.

Okay, you're on mute. You gotta go. Okay, feel better. Okay, feel better.

We'll talk.

Yeah, feel better.

Latha, go ahead.

I have a question about the goal setting mastermind class of Joe. Do we have the payment for that? Or if you're a pro member, can we attend? Do you know?

Um, I believe it's a fee. It was $244.

Right.

He has something for an hour on Monday, but then the one that Barbara and I are going to is a 3-hour that then includes things throughout the year. There is a fee for it, but I considered that fee to be fairly small in comparison to what we get for it. And I don't know about you, but I like planning something with some accountability.

Oh, yeah.

And I know I'm going to be there, you know, and then I'm going to get support throughout the year. So I found it worthwhile. Obviously, your mileage may vary, but I thought it was worth it and I signed up.

And when is that going to be?

The 29th is the first 3-hour session.

What time do you know?

I believe it's from 2 to 5 Eastern.

I think it's in the afternoon, 3 to 5.

No, 2.

I believe it's 2 to 5 Eastern. I can check. I seem to remember things pretty well. So—

And it is 2 to 4. How can we sign up for that? Is there a link or something? Do you know?

Actually, Joe, Don't put it in the chat.

It's in the chat.

In today's chat? Oh.

Yeah, I only got the chat from when I joined, so, but I, I already signed up, but yeah, he may have. Um, I do recall that there was only room for a certain number of people, which is one of the reasons I signed up right away because I felt the value was there at that price point. And so I was available, it was a good value, and I just went for it.

I don't see— I don't see that link.

Barbara and I just put it in.

Just dropped it in the—

in the—

And how much is it?

$244.

$244. Okay. Yeah. Yeah.

I see—

I see a potluck. That's more interesting than the gold for me.

For those of you that didn't get—

for those of you that didn't grab my holiday survival guide, it has 40 holiday recipes in it. So I just put it in the chat again for you to get it, and you just enter.

Thank you.

It's all capitalized to get it free.

Are any of them soup?

Yes, I think I have soups in there.

Awesome. Thank you so much, Sherry. Appreciate it. Appreciate it. So has anybody started planning what they're doing for 2026?

Yeah.

Yeah. Does anybody like, like me? Do you start? How, how early do you start planning for 2022 for the next year? If you're at the close of the one year, when do you actually start planning? Latha, when do you start planning?

I already started planning.

When did you? What month did you start planning for 2026?

Actually, last month. But and something actually Joe helped me in that post. He talked about accomplishments. I was jumping up and down. This looks Looking at the accomplishments this year, I did not even think about it. This much I accomplished. That made me feel so much energized to have my next year goal. But with my accountability partner, I went through that. But we are not still 100%. So next week before Christmas, we are going to have another one to fine-tune. We are not going to put a lot of goals. And this class on 29th might help us to help me to. To make it more. Yeah. What about you, Barbara? What do you like? You didn't say that. What are you making for Christmas?

We make brisket in many different ways. You know what, what I've been experimenting with this week is really different potatoes and using them in making potato, traditional potato pancakes. And so I've been making several different ways to get the very crispy. Including making potato chips with, with potatoes too. So it's been an interesting experimental week with potatoes. So gotta love potatoes in my house. Um, yeah, most of the potatoes we actually grew, so that's pretty cool. This week actually we went to, um, I bought russets because that gives you the best flavor for making the potato pancakes. And so we've been doing, you know, a face-off between the things that we have grown and, and the russet. And I gotta say, the, the, the russet that we grew was actually the most flavorful, but the russet that was grown from the store actually gave us the best crunch. So it's interesting. It's interesting. When do I start planning? I actually started planning beginning of November. For what I wanted the beginning of next year to be. And part of that is because I work with a lot of different business owners and we are planning out the very— November, December, and getting us into January. How would that triad look like? So a lot of the planning, I just continue planning after I help them plan. I just continue planning. What would my first and second quarter be? And now it's about really fine-tuning where I want to be. Yes, purple sweet potatoes, those are so good. Yeah, I haven't tried making potato pancakes with them either. One year I actually made, um, potato pancakes with sweet potato and regular potatoes, and that was really delicious. And then another year I made it with zucchini and potato and made It that way. Go ahead.

So this is going to sound very anal and very project manager-ish of me, but hey, um, what I do is I have like a roadmap for my company— 1 year, 2 year, 3 year, 5 year, that kind of thing. And so 6 months ago, I already knew what some of my goals would be in year 2 if these, let's say, 3 things happened in year 1, right? So it's not goal setting for me per se. There is some goal setting and fine-tuning of goals, but I always sort of try to have a big, big picture and then fill in all the details. And it's got that conditional logic, like, right? Like, if this thing happens, let's say if business gets to 30 hours per week of billable, A VA has to come in, and then it's researching that VA so that when you need the VA, you already know who you're going to hire or which company you're gonna go with. So that's how I do it. And I also put— every time I sign up for software or anything like that that has an expiration date, I calendar the 30 days before the expiration date so that I can look at it and go, do I still wanna keep this or not? Because once you skip it, You've got another year whether you want it or not. So I, when I sign up is when I calendar what it's the, you know, if I'm entering, I want to know how and when I can exit.

Right?

So all of that stuff is in my calendar. But that's kind of what I do for a living.

I love it because it's the moment that it's somewhere where you can look at, then you don't have to remember it. And I love that.

Exactly.

I love that.

Constant and consistent brain dumping. Just get it into your computer, paper, somewhere where you can find it, preferably, which is what I like, the computer or the phone, and then it'll remind you. And it's like, I always joke, this is, you know, past Deb doing it for future Deb, right? Like, I've got somebody who's looking out for me. I'm a big Back to the Future and sci-fi fan, right? So I'm thinking, what can I do to set myself up so that next year or next 2 years, 3 years, I will have thought about it and came and poked myself on the shoulder and then ran away. Right?

So I caught you so that you could think about— my computer was unstable— so that you can think about what?

Oh, sorry. So essentially, like, if you see Back to the Future, like, where Marty McFly and the whole thing. So I set things up so that 2 years from now, 3 years from now, past me is essentially tipping myself on the shoulder and then running away so I don't see myself. But I'm reminding myself, I'm nagging myself in the future by putting all that stuff in there. And I like doing that because nobody else is going to care or say to me, hey, did you realize you're going to get charged another $1,000 for this thing?

Right?

You have 30 days in which to say cancel. So I put it in the minute I sign up for it because I know that otherwise I'm going to forget. There are people who have their whole business based on that, where they go in and audit all of your softwares and all of that stuff. So I just put it in there. I'm starting it. This is when I can stop it if I choose, or continue, or renegotiate.

I love that because that's really great for your brain because it has that certainty of what you do next.

I love that.

Yeah.

My favorite part was the lead time, Deb. I love that you give yourself 30 days. I do the same thing, but I don't give myself 30 days, and sometimes it's not enough time.

It depends what the contract says, Rick. When you read those terms and conditions— and by the way, I do read them— um, it may tell you you have 30 days, 35 days, whatever it is. That's what the rule is. So you have to put it in there so that you're then alerted. Oh, okay, this week I need to consider, is this thing serving me or not? Have I decided to switch to something else and I have the time to really think about it. We all have a million subscriptions to a million things and some of them you can renegotiate. Like I call up my phone carrier every year and try to get the best deal I can, you know, retention department, etc., etc. So, but if you put it on your calendar, once it's past that date, it's past the date. You're— you've signed up for another year whether you want it or not. So like as an example, I was using Snagit and it really wasn't doing what I needed for my clients. I ended up delivering some training to my clients using PowerPoint instead because Snagit was just not working well. So I had calendared when my window was to cancel and I canceled because I don't need it anymore. I found a different tool that works better or just as well. If I find another different tool, then I'll go with that one, but I'm already paying for Microsoft and so it's included. I'm not paying any extra, and that frees me up to spend money on things like the Goal Setting Masterclass. They're the same price, right? So instead of spending $250 on Snagit, I'm spending $250 on Joe's program, which I feel will be much more beneficial to me.

And it's $240, by the way. It's $244. 44 is my favorite number. But yes, if anybody— if anybody— thank you for that. I appreciate you guys. It's also your favorite number, Latha?

I'm going to— I'm signing up right now, Joe.

Okay.

Congratulations.

Congratulations.

And we only have a few spots left and then we close the door. So if anybody wants it, it's, um, it's amazing. So thank you, Deb, for sharing that. And yeah, I always call the, um, I always call companies to try to get a discount, even if it's like $10 or whatever it is, because everything really adds up. Like you call your ISP or whatever, or your phone service. I recently lowered my phone bill by switching. I called Verizon. They told me to go to hell. So I said, okay, I'm going to go to T-Mobile. And their customer service is so much better. And so I just moved to them and, and they gave me a crazy, crazy deal. I'm saving about $1,200 a year just from, from that. So I'm like, all right, goodbye. I was with you for a long time, but you guys are gonna treat me like this, I'm moving on. So yeah, I totally agree with them.

I just got rid of some channels and my husband didn't even notice we didn't have them until 5 months later. And when he complained to me, I said, you haven't watched them for 5 months, Ed. Like, you don't need them.

Yeah, yeah. Canceling like Netflix or whatever and seeing if you even use it is an interesting thing. And then when you need it, you resubscribe. It's not the end of the world, you know what I mean?

Or multiple people have licenses. Like, I, I have cybersecurity clients who audit their clients and they say they'll have like 1,500 user licenses and they only got 800 people using it. Like, 700 people that used to work there still had— they were paying for the license.

Right.

You need to look at these things on a regular basis. They're counting on you falling asleep, basically.

Right.

And just, you know, yeah, there's a bill, I'm paying it. And some of them are fungible, meaning you can assign the license to somebody else, and some of them you can't, and you're locked in for another year on a person who's never gonna use it. So, you know, set aside a little time for that, or just calendar it like I do, so you literally don't have to think about it.

I love it.

Yeah, that's a great hack.

I learned something in one of, in the big corp that I used to work in that was, is not the big revenue that's gonna make you rich, is the low cost. So keep track of your cost. I mean, revenue counts, but every dollar you don't spend is—

Invest in things that will give you an ROI. So for example, Evie AI will give you an ROI. I just signed up a guy named Zach Um, he's a new client of Evvii. That's why I left here to kind of sign him up. And he signed up and he knows that because he's gonna spend $3,600 a year on Evvii, he's gonna end up making $100,000 from that directly. So that's why he's making that investment. So if, if you know that you're paying like, you know, money like for Bitcoin, that's an investment. Fund money in software is an investment often, but if it's costing and you're not making money from it, then don't spend it. That's the idea.

Well, y'all, it's been great. I've got to jump, and I just want you to know I'm so excited to be in this place that when my computer shut down and I was waiting for it to restart, I threw my shortbread in the oven, came back here, and suddenly realized I didn't turn the oven on.

Well, that's better than it burning.

Here's a cooking lesson. Because they're made with olive oil, not butter, they went into a hot oven that was, you know, going down, and they did not lose shape. They're still in there perfectly good. So I'll let you know how they worked out.

Awesome.

Awesome.

I love it.

That's great.

Elaine, what time is your party tonight in case I can make it?

Yeah, 7 o'clock tonight. Okay, then have some jokes time. We're gonna have people telling some jokes. Adults only, please. And don't, don't invite Joe because he's, he's young at heart.

Uh, have a great week.