If 2024 Sucked For You OR You Want 2025 To Be Your Best Yet … Do This.

I think a lot of people just are so focused on the doing that they're not actually figuring out what worked, what didn't. Why was that working? What could I have done better? How could I have changed that? How do I make sure that doesn't happen again?

I think there's two different types of entrepreneurs here. There's the ones that perpetually live in a pipe dream and think they're doing amazing all the time. And then there's others that are like on the other end. They think everything sucks all the time when it actually is good. When we probably should just have a bit of a balance in the middle. Foreign. Welcome to the Success School podcast. We're on episode 76 today and we're talking about if 2024 sucked for you, do this.

Yeah.

Steph, how you feeling?

I'm excited to dive into this. This is going to be a fun episode and I have no idea what to expect because part of this episode today is going to be about asking you guys questions or giving you reflection questions to consider going into next year. But also we're going to be asking each other the questions and so I' excited to see what comes out of it.

Give us a gym girly update, Jim girly update.

So you may notice that I'm currently in Jim girly outfit now because I actually identify full time as Jim Girly at this point. I've been following the programs, I've been doing the things. We've been running a bit more, which I think we're going to next. But yeah, I'm really enjoying it. I love the gym girly life. I love having my protein shaker at the gym and having a pre workout, not a protein shake. We have protein shakes when we get.

Home that's allergic to protein.

It's been epic. Like I love it. I'm. I've never skip days anymore. I just enjoy it.

It's quite hard too when I'm like, it's a gym.

Super hard. Yeah. Tim's like, I'm like. He's like, what's the plan today? And I'm like, I guess we're going to the gym.

Tell us about terrible.

Tell us about Timmy Brockman.

Timmy Brockman. So there is a legendary runner, Ned Brockman, who ran from Perth to Sydney and he's inspired me a little bit to start running. So I woke up on Monday morning and I said to myself, don't be lazy this week, Tim. Let's go for a run. So I hit a run. It nearly killed me. I limped home But I didn't stop, unlike Steph. And I did it three days in a row. 2.6 ks around the block. That doesn't sound like far, but if you're 100 kilos and you haven't run for six months, it's far. Then I had a day off. Beat my time by two and a half minutes and that beat Steph's best ever time.

No, it didn't.

Yes, it did.

Such a lie. It.

Steph had one hold over me and it was. She beat me around the block once in terms of the time. But Steph's running technique is very different. She sprints and then walks. Much like how she handles herself in business, Pretty much.

I handle life.

Yeah.

Yeah.

So, yeah, I'm on the Ned Brockman life. He did 1700 kilometers, I did 2.6. I'm nearly there. I feel like I'm pretty close.

When he had the, the win, I think was like 17 minutes. It was like six minutes 51 kilometers.

Yes. It's like walking.

It's basically walking.

The 2.65 40 kilo weight vest on.

Yeah, yeah, yeah. Okay, so 2.6 ks. He came in, he's got his runner's glasses on, he's got his runner shoes on, he's got all these like, running.

I looked hot.

You did look. You look very hot. You look very hot.

Thank you. Yes, we're having a good time.

Very hot running behind me. So up until this point, I have been the faster runner and today I think maybe a day where I challenge.

You again shows our athleticism in the house.

Yeah, we're not fast runners. No, no, no.

And great coaches. Will make you a lot of money.

Can lift.

Yeah, can lift. Won't make you faster at running.

Will not run. Not a runner, not a running group. But it's been fun. It's been super fun.

Get into my personal update, please. So I've, I've been on a bit of a development journey of inventing stuff. Would you like to hear about it?

I don't know what's going, going to come here, but yes.

So I have been working on a time on Brand Funnel.

Oh, yes.

Little TM on the top. Essentially how that comes about is it takes someone 7 hours of content to become a lifetime fan of yours. So I did the math on this and it worked out to be something like they would have to watch 2496, 10 second reels of yours, which if you posted day would take 6.9 years, which is quite a while. So I was thinking, how do I speed that up. Obviously we're going to do it with paid ads, because that's what I do.

Yeah.

So I've developed a little bit of a time on brand funnel TM on top, where we go through four different content pillars and we run them on ads and we speed that from 6.9 years to 1 month. So watch this space, guys. If you would like more information about how I can build lifelong evangelists of your brand and create winning fans of your brand, more information to come on my Instagram at Real Timbre. Do you like that?

Damn.

So that's my update.

It's been fun.

That's what's up.

It's very cool. I'm excited to see if it works. Yeah, I'm excited to see if it works. Look at his face. He's like, oh my God, Steph. Of course everything I do works eventually. It does always work. Everything works. You got to give it enough time and effort. Okay, the stats. Mine is so do you like the stats? I do like the stats. Can be very prepped. Mine is a feelings based one.

Okay, cool. So I feel better. I check my numbers. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

I do feel better about checking my numbers, but I had someone asked me an interesting question the other day. She said, hey, Steph, I think that you and I both have similar energy, like output kind of feelings, I don't know, like, I guess human design types or whatever. So both have similar energy types. How do you stop yourself from burning out? And it's actually been a long time since I've burnt out, like proper burnt out. And so what I realized was that I really have gotten a lot better in the last couple of years of listening to what my body needs. And it's actually not that much my body. It doesn't actually need as much as what you think it does. And I wanted to say this because I think there are a lot of people out there who think when you're tired, when you're fatigued, when you're off it, when you're stressed, when you're overly stimulated from work or from business, sometimes you could think like, oh my God, I need like a two week holiday. All you need is like a two hour break. Like most of the time I feel so much better. Just I could be. I could be feeling so steamed and I get really, like really overstimulated really quickly. I can feel really overstimulated and like stressy and have all my energy and feel so tired. Like I just want to pass out for like six days and then I'LL just go sit on the couch, play some Call of Duty, do some, like, whatever, online shopping, have a bath, and.

Then do less of the online shopping place.

Have a bath. And then I'm like, oh, I feel better now. I could go back to work and I could do my stuff. And that's how I pretty much manage my energy levels. It comes Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday. We go pretty hard. Thursday midday, I start. I start tapping out.

I'm like, I start mowing the lawn.

So true. Thursday midday, I'm like, I'm pretty done. By Friday. You and me are like, we need a rest. So Friday afternoons are kind of our sacred time. We don't do a lot. Saturday mornings, typically podcasts, and then Saturday afternoons, like, we'll be couch Sundays, we'll go on adventures. And so it's really one of those things where you just have to find the energy cycle that works for you. Like, we can get a lot done. Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday. We can pretty much get everything we need done for the week in those three days. The rest of the week is just about, like, fulfilling client needs and. Yeah, totally.

Yeah. The amount of Friday meetings that get canceled.

Oh, yeah, it's my most cancelled day, don't forget.

Oh, fuck. I can't be bothered.

Don't book in with Tim on a Friday. He will not be showing up to your meeting. Okay, so today we are diving in to Reflections for 2024. May 2024 was an epic year for you. If you're listening to this, maybe it sucked. Either way, you need to look back at what worked and what didn't so that you can go into 2025 with your eyes wide open. It is New Year's Eve Eve today, and so we thought a reflection episode would be super important and really practical. So we're going to give you guys the questions that you need to ask yourself to reflect on what went well this year or poorly so that you can go into next year even better. But, Tim, I'm going to kick this off. Are you a reflective person?

Define reflection. So what, like, what do you mean, reflect? Like, do I think about look back?

No, I didn't. I.

I reflect on a week, but I wouldn't reflect on a year. And that's probably. I'm not going to say the dark energy, but I like to just keep pushing forward. I don't really reflect at all, really, because I reflect on a weekly basis and that reflection is by KPIs.

Yeah.

If we did shit or we did good, I'll fix it the next week and then we'll go from there.

We do actually reflect more than you.

Think, probably in conversation. I don't, like, I don't actively sit there and write out like, oh, I'm so good. What a year. Like, that was amazing.

I mean, reflection is also good and bad, but we reflect. I would say we reflect on.

I.

Say that we always, we reflect a lot. I would say, like birthdays, first of all. You always are.

Yeah, it's like, what's 33 lessons this year? I'm like, I got three. Like, call the leads and look at.

Your KPIs every birthday.

Hang out with your parents more.

Yeah, that's literally it. Every time. Tim says every year on your birthday is like, cool. So like this year I'll be 35, come up to 35, which is crazy. But he, he'll say, I know he'll say, what are 35 things you learned this year? And I'm like, dude, we're not doing this.

I think we get to eight, literally.

Yeah. And then we just stop. But I think we do reflect in the car a lot. I'll be like, cool. What was something like that? Like, you know, what happened this week? Like, what can we learn from this? You know, where did we go wrong? What do we make sure that we never do again? And we do have a lot of those conversations. Why do you think it is important to take time to reflect? Like for anybody, like, we're maybe doing it together kind of subconsciously or unconsciously. You're probably reflecting on a day to day, week to week basis. But I think a lot of people just are so focused on the doing that they're not actually figuring out what worked, what didn't, why was that working? What could I have done better? How could I have changed that? How do I make sure that doesn't happen again? Do you think it's important?

I think it's important. I think there needs to be a balance. I think there's two different types of entrepreneurs here. There's the ones that perpetually live in a pipe dream and think they're doing amazing all the times. And then there's others that are like on the other end. They think every, everything sucks all the time when it actually is good, when we probably should just have a bit of a balance in the middle. And by way, I'm, I think me, I need to be this person as well. So we do this in successful. We have an eight week plan. We say, what were the five biggest wins that you had in the last eight weeks? And Then why were they a win for you? It's a little bit of a reflection, but I think it is very important. I think you need to look back and think on what you grew in the business, especially over the last 12 months. But also like personally, financially, relationships, I think they all kind of come into this as a whole. I think you can't really win in life without all of those things in terms of money, relationships, business, health as well. So to answer your question in a long roundabouts way without actually answering question, yes, it is important.

Great, thank you. So we're going to dive into these questions. I think that there may be too many. Tim said we weren't going to do this, but I'm doing it anyway. We are going to give you guys a Google Doc. It's going to be very easy for you to download so you can reflect on these questions yourself. We're going to rapid fire these to each other, I think, and it's going.

To be one each answer, I think one H. Okay.

What do you reckon?

Yeah, let's do one.

All right, so I'm going to get with you.

Yep.

All right. So these are questions you need to ask yourself to reflect on 2024 so that you can have an even better 2025. So Tim, in what ways did you personally grow or change this year and how has it affected business?

What ways that I personally grow this year and how did it affect business? I feel like I became the leader I needed to become to grow this company to help a thousand entreprene has built a seven figure business and 5 million for us. I think I became a lot more calm, less fiery, less reactive, more analytical and less emotional, which I think has helped the company tremendously this year. If I were to reflect on it. I'm awesome.

Yeah, you're like positive reflection.

All right, question two for Steph. What accomplishments are you most proud of this year and what steps led to that success?

So there's a lot actually of accomplishments that I wanted to talk about here, but I think the one that feels the biggest and best for me has been that this year I feel like I really got back in touch with my feminine energy, which. Oh, like, I hate saying it because there's so much just like nonsense on the Internet about this. But it has really helped me to be back in my feminine energy because there's a lot more trust, a lot more flow, a lot more ease. There's zero flow in that body.

If you're watching, I was trying to.

Try to dance and. And because of that what it meant was that, like, I. I actually found time for. I enjoy more, so I found more time for things like, you know, Call of Duty, which is super feminine cooking. No. And it's been really nice to have space and time to, like, see my girlfriends. And I've just been making more time for that stuff, which has been really nice. And the way that it's helped business is because I've stopped being so, like, crazy. I don't micromanage. I switch off. At the end of the day, I'm a better wife, I'm a better leader within the business because I'm come with a more calm energy. And so, yeah, tapping back into that has been super beneficial for me this year.

Awesome.

I hope it's been beneficial for you also.

It's been so beneficial. I've loved it every minute. It's been amazing.

Tim, what were the biggest challenges or setbacks that you faced and what did you learn from them?

The biggest challenge I faced was our fertility journey. We were trying heavily for kids and I thought I was broken for quite a while. I definitely knew that I thought I was the problem for a very long time. We went and got checked and I did, you know what in the cup. And they checked everything and we realized there's actually not that much wrong, which has been quite relieving. And I was really. I kind of like to be the masculine alpha guy. And I thought, I can't even fucking knock my wife up. Like, what kind of a man am I? And it was really playing in my head for quite a long time. So it's very relieving. It was quite a setback. And I honestly thought about it every day. I was just like, dude, what kind of legacy you got to live? And you can't even, like, create a legacy for yourself. And the legacy is in kids.

And what did you learn from that?

I learned that I need to trust the numbers and do my KPIs. And that sperm count is a KPI?

Yes, sperm count is a KPI.

We track it every week now.

And I think that. I think that, like, reflecting back at you as well, it was one of those things that as soon as we found out, I think that you're just a really good problem solver. So I think because you thought there was a problem, there was something to fix. But then the minute you found out there wasn't a problem, we immediately decided that we didn't even want kids straight away. Really funny thing, like I said, we found out, like, oh, we could have them. And it's actually going to be totally fine. We were like, oh, well, I guess we'll just keep doing what we're doing.

And yeah, just have some more fun.

All of a sudden. We just didn't want to have them as much as we did previous to that. So I think that there's a lesson in there about being a problem solver as well.

So, Steph, how has the market changed and what trends should you have responded to? Faster.

Yes, very guilty here. The market has changed and I think that we're seeing a real decline in organic growth on social media. And I think that I responded much faster to that. I saw it going backwards. Everyone was reporting that was going backwards, aside from a handful of highly skilled entrepreneurs who are also running ads, by the way, that I should have realized sooner that organic was going backwards and I should have. Instead of trying harder to make it work for me, what I should have done is just switch to long form content earlier. I Wish I'd started YouTube earlier. I wish I'd made more time for it. I wish I'd stopped faffing around on social media trying to go viral and just put more energy and time into making long form content that actually helps people love it. Tim, what investment provided the best ROI for the business and which one fell short?

The best roi? I'm going to actually talk about personal here. I think having a house, a mortgage was great because we made a lot of money in the mortgage in the last 18 months of this year.

We did get lucky.

Yeah, we got super lucky. We made heaps of money on silver and crypto and Vanguard as well. So we did really well in investments and for us, this was just having investments and you won. So we didn't actually have to do anything for that, which was epic.

Very passive money.

In terms of business. Best ROI we had was just our setting team and our sales team. I think that was just been fucking tremendous. We have gone from. And I'll give you actual stats on this, 1 in 100 leads would book a call prior to us having a setting team and now we get 1 in 10.

Yeah.

So that's a thousand X ROI in terms of having a setting team or.

People calling leads and which investment fell short.

Which investment fell short. We got sucked into a coach's great marketing online and we thought we needed it. So we spent $25,000 and joined a program and we got a you playlist with no coaching and we got added into a group and I found myself coaching in someone else's program because they weren't coaching in group because I just want to help people.

Yeah, yeah, absolutely love that one.

Steph, how efficiently did you use your time and energy and resources this year?

I'm going to say 60%. I am not using 70% because I don't think 77 is not a number that you can use. It's too, too mild, too bland. But 60%. I think that I did waste a lot of time worrying about things that didn't matter. I do think that I got myself on, you know, little teases too often and probably jumped to solve problems too quickly when we should have just let the data be the data for extended period of time. So with that reflection, though, I think it's super helpful going into next year because now I know to give things a little bit more time before I jump in to try and fix them. And also just probably get off the Instagram and unfollow everybody, which I think is going to happen in the next couple of weeks.

You can say that I am going to do it.

I'm going to unfollow heaps of people. I'm going to do it. If you're still.

How many following like 2000.

I'm following like 2000 people. Yeah. Yeah.

That's hectic.

It's going to come down.

I'm following 600 and 580. Don't post.

Yeah. Well, that's great.

Yeah.

So lucky.

Yeah. So see yours all the time.

You do have a lot of people on mute.

Yeah, I mean, a lot of people.

Okay. What is the legacy or impact that you want your business to create and are you on the right track?

So ours is all mine is a thousand seven figure businesses. I think we're getting close to number six, created within. And I got really fucking inspired after. Well, this is not how it's going to come out, but after Kerwin Ray passed away and the impact that he led, just seeing the outpouring on social media was incredible and fired me up even more to create a legacy, even like a tenth of what he did was amazing. Kind of leads us into next year. We might be. We're probably going to be changing gear a little bit and focusing on a bit more on events in person, which is going to be great and it's going to help us achieve this number a lot faster than successful. So I think we're on track and I think it's been incredible. Steph, looking back, what would you prioritize more or less if you could restart the year?

I would prioritize more freebies. More free lead magnets, more stuff. I would, I would prioritize giving.

Giving.

It's so interesting because when I first started all the businesses I've started, giving was always the thing that was the number one priority for me. And in the last 12 months, I don't know, I think I just started listening to a lot of people that were like, you know, you should get them to pay for things, low ticket and all this nonsense. And I'm like, that's just not who we are. We are givers. We always have been. I should have just stayed doing what I always have done, which is just giving tons of value for free. Because whether or not you sign up to work with us doesn't matter. We just want to help people. Like, that's literally in our heart and what matters most. I was so caught up in trying to play silly social media games instead of focusing on just giving to people and creating more content, creating more YouTubes, investing more in this podcast, you know, it's something that I should have done a lot sooner. So if I could go back and do something differently, I would do that.

Give more, Give more.

Tim, second last one. What activities outside of work brought you the most fulfillment and joy?

Yeah, if you're a listener on the podcast, you'll know. I have all the gear. No idea. And I have all the activities. I have motorbikes, guns, full drives, best of everything. And I rarely use any of it. But lately, what's really got me fired up is being handy daddy around the house and calling myself Daddy's really weird on a pod, but let's see if the team keep that bit in. But yeah, just fixing up the house has been nice. It's giving me quite a bit of fulfillment. So I do about an hour a day. It's really random. I'll be working and at like 11 in the morning, Steph will come out and I'm power hosing the front yard for about an hour and then I go back to work.

Yeah, it's pretty bizarre. It happens at random points in the day. You just don't know. All of a sudden the blowback's going off at like midday. It's. Yeah, it's. There's a whole. There's a whole thing that's happening right now. But I'm really glad that you're enjoying it and it's really nice because things get them done around the house.

Yeah, it's looking incredible. I took out a tree the other day. Randomly greenies around the world, freaking out. Frangipani tree, the Guy at the tip was like, dude, did you just cut this down? I was like, yes. And he said, why don't you sell it it? And I said, can you sell a dead tree?

No, there's not a dead. It wasn't a dead tree. French patties grow like wildfire.

Is that legal to cut them down?

It's our tree. It's our front yard.

And do what the.

I want my tree.

And last question, what boundaries would you benefit from setting in the coming year? I think we did this pretty well, but is there anything that we didn't?

I don't know. I think. I think we did pretty well with boundaries this year. My reflection on this would probably be to stay as solid with our boundaries as we have been this year. You and I have been. I think this has been something that we've been super conscious of, of I think from the previous year. I think 2023 for us was. We were pretty sure, pretty bad at this. So 2024 was a real intentional boundary setting. Yeah. And I just. If we carry that forward, I'll be super happy. So, yeah.

So if that was helpful for you guys, I want you to go to the show notes of this podcast, download it, I want you to fill it in, and then I want you to send it to us on Instagram and just show us that you've done it. That would be great to see your reflections that have come through. So. So we're on the eve of New Year's Eve and it feels like a month, but usually the time between Christmas and New Year's Eve is kind of the time that people don't do anything in Australia, I think Americans are still getting after. Of course they would be. But for Australians, I think it's a really good time to do some reflection and I would love to see you guys send this over to us.

Yeah, it'll take you 15 minutes, half an hour. It's so worth doing. It's really gonna set up your next year for being super intentional so that you have a better year than you had this year. So, guys, happy New Year. Thank you so much for listening to the podcast this year. It the world to us to be in your ears, especially at this special time of the year. If you're listening, thank you so much and we'll see you guys next year.

And just lastly, guys, if we did give you some value and you're one of those people that never messages us, please message us if you're going to listen throughout the year. We would love to hear from you. I'D love to connect with you on Instagram. As always, guys, hit subscribe. If you're new around here, hit that subscribe button. We'd really appreciate that number. And yes, I track it on the KPIs every week. And if that doesn't go up, I'm going to get fired from success. We don't want that.

It has been going up. So thank you.

Thanks, guys.