How To Properly Do An End Of Year Review - Chris Sparks | Modern Wisdom Podcast 262

1. 0:00 – 15:00

   This is the opportunity…

   1. CSChris Sparks0:00

      This is the opportunity to change everything. And everyone thinks just, "I want to do exactly what I'm doing, but a little bit more." And this is your opportunity to completely sell everything, start from scratch, start from zero, and say, "I can do anything I want. What do I want to do? I don't have to keep doing anything that I was doing before. I can completely change."

   2. CWChris Williamson0:30

      Chris bloody Sparks in the building. How are you doing, man?

   3. CSChris Sparks0:35

      Fantastic. Good to be back.

   4. CWChris Williamson0:37

      So good to have you back on, man. How's 2020 been your end?

   5. CSChris Sparks0:42

      You know, it's, there's been a lot of bright spots this year. I think everyone's aware of the craziness and all that's gone on, but I would be pretty, uh, pleasantly surprised, uh, how well I've thrived. Uh, I think the big news was, uh, I got engaged, realized that, um, my partner who, uh, some would say I was, I was stuck with is like, "Wow, this is amazing."

   6. CWChris Williamson1:08

      (laughs)

   7. CSChris Sparks1:08

      "We get to spend all this time together and we're having a blast." Uh, and, "Hey, if it's so good when things ca- appear so bad, uh, let's, uh, let's take this to the next level." So that was a super silver lining. Um, you know, this, this really made me refocus on priorities, uh, which I think we'll get into, particularly being closer to family, so moving closer so we can spend a lot of time with our respective families. Uh, my just-born niece, it's been incredibly meaningful. And also just, I- I've been fortunate that, you know, the way that I earn a living, the way that I serve the world, both of those were already online-based, so I've had lots of really meaningful and interesting opportunities to support entrepreneurs and executives through all of this turmoil. So, I mean, all external craziness aside, I, I think it's been a very cool year.

   8. CWChris Williamson2:03

      You are one antifragile son, aren't you?

   9. CSChris Sparks2:08

      That is the goal. You... I mean, the world is going to get weirder. It is just going to get weird. It's not going back to normal. What happened this year was not just, like, a glitch in the matrix. Um, weird stuff is going to continue to occur, and, you know, my goal, personally, and how I try to help clients is, how can you put yourself in a position to thrive no matter what the world throws at you? And I think it's really encapsulated by that concept of antifragility is, while many systems, people, organizations are threatened with, "Hey, if things change a little bit, if the tide rolls out and, oh no, I have my pants down..."

   10. CWChris Williamson2:57

       (laughs)

   11. CSChris Sparks2:57

       Uh, you know, there, any change becomes bad and becomes a threat. But you can position yourself with your habits, with your relationships, with your learning to be someone who not only is, does, does okay when things get weird, you can actually thrive in those environments because you're well-positioned. You're already surfing before the wave comes. So yeah, I, I think this was a, a test, and that's what I come back to, is it's all practice. It's all an opportunity to put the things that we've learned and know into practice.

   12. CWChris Williamson3:36

       Obviously, your background, professional online poker player, top in the world, and a executive coach to founders and CEOs and all of this stuff, I'm gonna guess that the end of the year is probably a pretty intense time when it comes to reflecting and planning.

   13. CSChris Sparks3:52

       Yeah, I, I try to practice what I preach. I think that's, uh, a really big factor, um, or what I would call a forcing function, to be able to walk the talk, so to say. So I, I try to set aside a few days and the, at the end of the year to close the container on what happened in the previous year and do what I can to set myself up for success. Uh, particularly as around the holidays, there's less inbound coming in, things slow down, and I like to go against traffic, that I find that, hey, when everyone else is taking time off, that's the best time to do the deep work. And something that I've done the past couple years is I then go and take the, the takeaways from my annual review and planning and share them online, uh, which I'll, you know, I'll get into later why the, the returns that I've seen from that. And so that, that's, that's essentially, I'm blocking off about a week towards the end of the year solely for that, that process of capture and then turning that into a post.

   14. CWChris Williamson5:02

       What's your stance on new year, new me?

   15. CSChris Sparks5:06

       (laughs) Uh, I think, I, I think in terms of continuous small improvements. So, you know, nothing changes when January 1st comes along versus December 31st, but these cultural milestones, arbitrary as they are, the, you know, your birthday, the end of the year, these can serve as very valuable checkpoints. So I try to treat it as a checkpoint, you know. On paper, nothing has changed from one day to the next, but it can be very useful to have these recurring check-ins to say, "What's going on? What's next?" And so I don't think that I want to try to change everything, but it's a good opportunity to check, "Hey, a lot of things change in a year, especially this year. What's changed? Based on that, what makes sense to move towards next?"

   16. CWChris Williamson6:10

       Got you. So why do we need to do an end-of-year review? What are the advantages?

   17. CSChris Sparks6:15

       So many. Uh, so I would say the biggest pitch that I would give to someone who's considering doing this is life is better. So we perform better, we feel happier, more fulfilled, whether that's in our work or in the people that we love, when we spend more time in the present. And the issue is today we spend most of our time rehashing the past, things that we regret, things that we wish we could have done, beating ourselves up for past failures. Or in the future, things that are upcoming, stressing out about upcoming deadlines or rehearsing conversations that we're about to have. And my just overall stance is if we can increase the proportion of time that we spend in the present by just a tiny bit, we will get more done, we will be happier, more fulfilled. Our just subjective experience of reality will be enhanced. And so if I set a ti- aside time to reflect and plan, to do that thinking about the past and the future during a designated time, that means more of my time I will be able to be present, that I'll be in that present moment. So that's like the overarching idea of why reflection and planning is important. Annual reviews in particular, I think about every year as a chapter in my story. And so in my 80 to 120 chapter story, this 2021 chapter for me, chapter 34, is a good opportunity to think as the writer of that story, what's happening next to the character? What would I like to happen? What tension is likely to emerge? What opportunities are likely to present themselves? And if I can, if I can position myself and generate some awareness about what's coming up, I can be ready. I can be prepared for that. I can seize those opportunities. And so I see it as I can architect this next chapter of my story if I do some outlining of it ahead of time. Um, maybe this is a good time to talk about the four parts of what I think of a good annual review and planning process are.

   18. CWChris Williamson8:46

       Before we do that-

   19. CSChris Sparks8:47

       Okay. Okay.

   20. CWChris Williamson8:48

       ... where do most people go wrong when they try and do a review? They haven't seen you, they haven't done your worksheet, and they just say, "I'm gonna have a crack at this myself." What, what are the mistakes that people make?

   21. CSChris Sparks9:02

       I think, I think first I would say that any is better than none. So that's the biggest mistake is-

   22. CWChris Williamson9:10

       Not doing it.

   23. CSChris Sparks9:10

       ... I'm just gonna keep doing, I'm just gonna keep doing what I was doing and, you know, that's insanity, doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results. So my approach is any time and intentionality that you bring to this exercise is gonna have a 10X return on your time and attention. So first, just take it seriously. Um, I think the cultural notion of a New Year's resolution or as you said, the new me, is a good encapsulation of how a lot of people go wrong with this, is they expect January 1st to come along and all of a sudden they're going to become superhuman. You know, going from some- you know, let's say hypothetically someone who hasn't been exercising recently and okay that first... You know, everyone knows those first two weeks at the gym are the worst two weeks to go to the gym because all of a sudden everyone thinks they're gonna be exercising for an hour a day. And so someone tries to go from 0 to 60 with nothing to sustain them except for willpower and the temporary motivation of this year is different. And we all know what happens to those people after the first couple weeks of the year. They can't sustain that sprint forever. And so I think that's the second thing to, to consider is rather than everything is going to change and I'm gonna put this huge unsustainable goal in front of myself, thinking about what is that next step that I can take to create some forward momentum? I don't need to change everything at once but generally, where am I heading? So in my health, in my relationships, in my career, where, where is that next North Star I'd like to direct my attention to? And just what is that next step on the path? I think that, that consistency and that continuous improvement, that's what I call a feedback loop, right? It feeds on itself. Every improvement bec- plants the seeds for the next improvement. And so I think that's a second thing to highlight where a lot of people go wrong, is they set the bar so high for themselves, it's unrealistic, it's unsustainable. And I think the, the final thing that I would mention here is this is the opportunity to change everything. So I, I think when I see a lot of people's results of their goals it was, "Oh, I made, I made $50,000 this year. Next year I wanna make $60,000." Or, "I had 50 clients this year. Next year I wanna have 60 clients." Or, "I can bench press 300 pounds. Now I wanna bench press 350 pounds." And everyone thinks just I want to do exactly what I'm doing but a little bit more. And this is your opportunity to completely sell everything, start from scratch, start from zero and say, "I can do anything I want. What do I want to do? I don't have to keep doing anything that I was doing before. I can completely change." And so everyone is like, "Oh, I'm gonna t- Is it this path all the way over here or is it this path all the way over here?" And no, there's always a middle path that someone isn't considering. And so this is your opportunity to say, "Don't...... try to do more. It's not what I'm doing now, but just more of it, is what do you want? What would you like to be doing? And giving yourself permission to think outside the box, to think about things maybe that haven't been considered. That's why I said it's, it's nice to have this space for possibility, because most of the year we want to be spending our time in the present, focused, sprinting forward, and now is your time to just question everything, and that is so refreshing.

   24. CWChris Williamson13:02

       Yeah. The, um, opportunity to assess our fundamentals, as you say there, the explore before you exploit kind of paradigm, is so rare. And, you know, everyone this year, even though probably the amount of stuff that we've been able to do has gone down, the urgent has still beaten the important for the most part. Tasks that are in front of you, the email that needs sorting, that load of washing that's got to be taken out before it gets musky, you know, all that sort of stuff. Um, people often can spend their entire lives, and I'm realizing this now, I can- I could literally spend the rest of my life, from 32 years old until the day I die, just dealing with urgent and never doing important. And I'd always feel busy, and it would give me the sensation of being busy and being productive, but at the end, the actual amount of movement, ground that I'd covered, would be very little. Also, I was away in Dubai recently for about three and a half weeks, and while I was out there, I met millionaires, billionaires, founders, CEOs, endurance athletes, YouTubers, podcasters, Steven Bartlett, the CEO that founded Social Chain from Diary of a CEO. Like, literally guys that have such huge broad-scope vision, and it just blew my worldview apart. I thought that I had a good idea of the sort of progression that I was able to predict, "Oh, well, I can do, you know, uh, grow the show by this, and I'll start this business, and oh, I'll get a membership site," and this, that, and the other. And then I went and spoke to Steve over dinner, and he said ... I was talking about, "How's podcasting going? Who have you got?" "Oh, I've got Eddie Hearn, the boxing promoter, coming on." I said, "Oh, cool, I've got Eddie Hearn coming on soon. That'll be sweet." This, that, and the other. I'm thinking, "Um, we- we're on the same path. He's just a little bit sort of further along with a bigger pair of shoes on than I am." And then I started talking about how he's monetizing, and he was like, "Oh, yeah, well, Huel approached me, because the CEO loves my podcast. And originally I think they might have just wanted to sponsor it, but then we turned the deal around,

2. 15:00 – 30:00

   Yeah. I, I like…

   1. CWChris Williamson15:00

      and now I'm on the board. I'm going to take them to IPO. I've been given equity in the business, I'm gonna get them to IPO and then I'm gonna exit." And I was like, "Okay, yeah, no, I'm playing checkers and you're playing chess." Like, this is a total fundamental different worldview that we have over what is achievable. And I think what you're talking about there, that step back, reconsider, what are the possibilities that I can do? Like, full, nothing uncovered, what's underneath the rug, what's in that cupboard over there? Like, absolutely everything. So yeah, I, um, it resonates a lot with what I've learned, especially recently. So the, the framework. Take us through the framework.

   2. CSChris Sparks15:40

      Yeah. I, I like what you said there around this is an opportunity to expand your sense of the possible. And so if you're thinking about, "How do I increase my conversion rate just for my email signups?" you're probably doing it wrong. This is, you can think a little bit bigger than that. Give yourself some temporary permission. Um, so I'm, uh, I'm adapting my format a little bit this year. Uh, I will say the, the f- the format that I've used the past few years is available online. Um, I'm gonna post that in the, uh, the show notes. So, um, we'll, we'll put that link in there. This year, the way that I'm going about it, it's going to have four parts. And so the four parts are reflection, vision, planning, implementation. And so I'm gonna do just a quick walkthrough of each of those parts. And so first, reflection. This is looking backwards at the previous year, and the classic two questions, "What went well? What didn't go so well?" And obviously the follow-up to those, "What can I take away from that? What did I learn?" And so this is where I'm looking at each area of my life. So the, I think the three basic pillars that everyone has, career, health, relationships. And you can break those down for yourself depending upon, you know, need, desire, motivation. So for example, for career, I'd be looking at forcing function, I'd be looking at POCER. I'm doing some investing so I'm looking at my investing. Maybe with health, if you play a sport, you want to break out diet or exercise or sleep. Relationships, for me, I'm looking at my relationship with my partner, relationship with my family, relationship with my friends. And so you, this is fractal, you can go down to any level. And so with reflection, I'm trying to pull up anything that happened, something that was a, something that I learned, something that was unexpected, something that changed along the year that I didn't expect from the beginning. Um, all of these things are helping me to identify what's going on, what conditions work for me, what efforts that I did this year led me towards my goals. Just anything that I can use as fuel for this next year, things that I can draw upon. Whether that's celebrating wins, "Oh, that was awesome. I want to do more of that," or, "Ooh, I thought I was gonna do that, but I didn't even start," or, "Oh, I tried that and it went horribly." Let's uncover everything that happened with that, and what- how can we avoid paying tuition for those same mistakes twice? Because if we really bring up those lessons, hey, that's incredibly efficient that we're not gonna do it that way again, or, "That worked, let's remember that next time when we're in that same spot." And so I- I set about 90 minutes aside, 45 for the things that went well, 45 for the things that didn't go so well.... the second part... Go ahead.

   3. CWChris Williamson18:47

      Uh, I just wondered there, how are you defining or how are you finding the things that you want to focus on? Is it like an objective metric? Like, "I had this much sex this year. I had this-"

   4. CSChris Sparks19:01

      (laughs)

   5. CWChris Williamson19:01

      "... much revenue this year." You know, like people could drown themselves in just high accolades. Are there any ways that you try and pinpoint... Is it just anything that kind of arises into consciousness, the good shit sticks sort of?

   6. CSChris Sparks19:18

      Yeah, I think it's very possible to drown in details and to turn this into a accounting exercise.

   7. CWChris Williamson19:26

      Retrospective diary.

   8. CSChris Sparks19:27

      Um, yeah. So, I mean, the first way is within the, each area, I'm setting a timer and my goal is to just keep my pencil moving until the timer goes off. And so anything and everything, no editing myself. I'm not trying to create some sort of narrative. I'm not patting myself on the back. Anything that comes up. And so if I have numbers handy, that's awesome. I don't, I don't do any of this near a computer, so if it requires me looking something up, I'll just make a guess or I'll say, "Hey, how that felt?" Or, "Hey, here are some wins that came from it." It's, it's super... For me, it's super subjective. Um, early in the year, I have some objective metrics to ground upon. Um, after I've done the, the brain dump, I might check some of my monthly reviews to see, "Hey, is there anything that I forgot about?" 'Cause a year is a long time. But yeah, essentially, whatever comes to consciousness, um, trying to, you know, swim as deep in the water as I can.

   9. CWChris Williamson20:27

      What's the reason for doing it analog rather than digital?

   10. CSChris Sparks20:33

       Uh, 'cause I'm a total Luddite and I think that computers-

   11. CWChris Williamson20:37

       (laughs)

   12. CSChris Sparks20:37

       ... are a gateway to distraction.

   13. CWChris Williamson20:40

       That is a very-

   14. CSChris Sparks20:41

       Uh, half joking-

   15. CWChris Williamson20:41

       ... that's a very good argument, man.

   16. CSChris Sparks20:42

       ... half, half serious. Uh, I think that, I think that our tools shape us in a number of ways. And I, I... For me, I, I like this process to be a little bit messy, and I'm really big on trying to unplug and get away from my current context. So, this is probably a good time to note, as far as logistical stuff, uh, don't do this at your desk. Don't do this in the place that you spend a lot of your time. There... W- your context, in a lot of ways, shapes your thinking. And so I try to get as far from my desk as possible. Um, if you're lucky enough to live in the Southern Hemisphere, hey, like, go put a blanket down on the beach or in the woods. Um, if you're, you know, like us, you're stuck and it's super cold, uh, and you have the ability, I like to run an Airbnb for a couple of days, you know, get a cabin in the woods and, you know, ideally there's no internet there or I unplug the internet, and just try to get away from my normal way of thinking and doing things as possible. If it's not possible for you to leave your home, your apartment, um, pick a new space. Create a special space, like a new chair in a new area that you don't work. Make it inspiring, make, make it, make it a place that, that's reflective of the intentionality you're bringing to the exercise. But yeah, I, I, I think that's a really big part of getting the maximum out of this exercise, is to get away from your normal way of being.

   17. CWChris Williamson22:15

       That pattern interrupt's interesting. Really interesting. I'm a big fan. I'm... We could go down this rabbit hole forever, but my newsletter that's going out this week is all about the pattern interrupt that I had while I was in Dubai. Okay, so we've got, um, what went well and what went badly from the last year. Family... Oh, relationships, career, and what was the final one? Health.

   18. CSChris Sparks22:36

       Health.

   19. CWChris Williamson22:37

       Health. Cool. What next?

   20. CSChris Sparks22:40

       So, we've generated all of this fuel, all of these things that learned. So, we're a little bit inspired and we're a little bit disgusted.

   21. CWChris Williamson22:48

       (laughs)

   22. CSChris Sparks22:48

       And we're gonna take that and we're going to convert it into this next step, which is vision. And at a high level, vision is, what do we want? And what... Another... The overall question is, what does next year look like? And so this is a visualization in the present. We're not saying, "Here's what I'm going to do." It's like, "Here's what next year looks like," and trying to paint a picture of what we want. And so revisiting all of these areas. "What do I want my health to be like? What do I want my career to look like? What's a typical day of work? What's a typical day with my partner?" And creating a picture of that. And the end game of this is generating creative tension. And so with the reflection, we have this picture of current reality, and now we have this vision of, "Here's what reality could be." And so like a rubber band, there's this tension and, "Well, now I know where I am and now I know where I want to be," and it's very obvious the differences between these two pictures. And so one of two things needs to change, right? Nature abhors a vacuum. Either I need to bring this vision closer into reality, you know, lower the bar for myself, maybe something that's a little bit more realistic based on what's going on now, and/or I take my curr- where I currently am, and I push it into alignment with where I want things to be. And so I find this is a really valuable second part of this that's often skipped, and that in the past I would skip, is, "What do I want? What are things going to look like?" Um, because this is what allows me to determine what goals do I need to have in order to bring this vision into reality.

   23. CWChris Williamson24:44

       That's cool, man. Uh, the differential, I think Jordan Peterson's got his, um...... future authoring and past authoring and present authoring program, and he uses precisely the same thing, that you create the tension between the two. So we've got our reflection, we've got vision. I forgot the next one.

   24. CSChris Sparks25:03

       Nice.

   25. CWChris Williamson25:03

       What's the next one?

   26. CSChris Sparks25:04

       So, halfway home.

   27. CWChris Williamson25:06

       (laughs)

   28. CSChris Sparks25:06

       Um, vision, I set aside 60 minutes. Um, and again, this is lots of writing, no judgment, keep the pen moving, anything is possible type thinking. And so, I generally recommend, hey, that's, that's a lot of brain work. We're talking only two and a half hours, so obviously someone has the time, but it's gonna, you're gonna feel pretty drained afterwards. And so this is where I recommend if you can, end for the day, and just like F off for the rest of the day. Go run around and play with flowers, you know, go for, you know, ride your bike, uh, hang out with your family, read some books, just like do something that is completely non-work, completely unrelated, just recharge yourself. And it's like letting all of this sit. You wanna, you wanna sleep on it, because things are going to come up in the interim. Now that you've opened these loops, you'll start to identify connections. And so this is a great place for a productive break, where you do anything that's not productive. Um, okay. Day two. And so this is, this is, "All right. Now I know what happened, now I know what I want. What the hell am I gonna do to make this happen?" And so part three is planning. And so this is, this is part of the template which I'm gonna share with, uh, Modern Wisdom crew. You're looking at these areas that you identified in the reflection. And you're picking one goal, just one, everyone wants to pick multiple, one goal that you're going to shoot for in the next year, that north star. And so, the framing here is if you could only achieve one thing in your health, if you could only achieve one thing in your relationships, if you could only achieve one thing in your career, what would that be? And really, really defining that. So how will you know if you've achieved it? Why is it important to you? What would it look like if it was achieved? What does that unlock? You know, let's say that you've achieved enlightenment. What's next? What does that get you? Right? Thinking about what do you want if you could only pick one thing, and said a lot of life is reconciling with these trade-offs. And so assume you can only get one thing and choose wisely. Don't assign yourself more than you can chew. Hey, worst case scenario, you achieve your big goal by month six, you have permission to pick a second one. No big deal. So this is like each area of my life, and so I break mine down a little bit, thinking about what's my one goal in this area. And so once I've really, really defined that, it's clear what it looks like, someone else who's an objective third-party observer says, "Yes, Chris, you did that," or, "No, Chris, you're kidding yourself," I'm gonna start to break that goal down into milestones. And so hypothetically if I wanted to achieve this goal right on December 31st, 2021, I would break this down to okay, end of Q1, end of Q2, end of Q3, here's where I need to be in order to know if I'm on track towards this goal or off track towards this goal. And so let's say, you know, just off the top of my head, maybe my goal for next year is to be exercising for an hour every day. Well, I'm not gonna start this on day one. It might be, "All right, end of Q1, I want to be exercising one day a week every week without fail." And then at Q2, say, "I wanna be exercising two times a week every week without fail," right? Not missing a single one. Q3, "All right, I'm gonna be exercising four times a week," or every other day, whatever it is, and so building up slowly. And so by breaking down these milestones along the year, it allows me to course correct. If I'm behind, "All right, something's gotta change here." If I'm ahead, "Maybe I can raise the bar for myself a little bit." The, and then the final step, uh-

   29. CWChris Williamson28:57

       Just be-

   30. CSChris Sparks28:58

       Go ahead.
3. 30:00 – 45:00

   Excellent question, and if…

   1. CWChris Williamson30:00

      all of that together? I know that like actual tacit goals, the 100K play button that you get for YouTube subscribers or whatever it is, is a nice motivator, um, and that kind of helps to get us moving, but also the daily, uh, challenge is that, what makes the difference is the habits. How, how do we kind of, um, marry those two?

   2. CSChris Sparks30:20

      Excellent question, and if you don't mind I'm gonna use you as a guinea pig example. The short, short answer is both. And so the 500,000 subscribers, this is part of the vision. So having that outcome in mind, right? What do I want? And I think that you work backwards from there. But again, a lot of people let themselves off the hook on this. And so let's use that example. So right, next year at the end of the year, I want to have 500,000 subscribers. Why?... why is that important to you, what does that achieve for you? Okay, now you have 500,000 subscribers. I'm handing them to you on a silver platter. Will you take them? Like, will you take these subscribers from me? Now that you have these subscribers, what next? What do you do? Um, what, you know, what does that change for you? What's different? Um, so this is all part of that vision, as far as what you want. And so clarifying that, and you can say sometimes it's, "Oh, well, I want..." You know, I'm gonna, I'm gonna just project on you. These are not things that Chris has told me before. "Well, 500,000 subscribers allows me to get any guest that I want in the world to come on the show." Or, "500,000 subscribers allows me to maximize th- that impact." That's the magic number that I've identified that, hey, if I have this number of people, I know lots of people are going to hear me. I create some virality. Whatever it is. Well, you're like, "Whoa, that's interesting." Well, let's say that that, that desired outcome is I want to be able to get any person on the planet to come on the Modern Wisdom show. It's like, well, is there anything else you could do that might be a little bit easier or a little bit more direct towards that goal? And so, like, once you have that vision, you can think about, are there oth- any other paths to the top of the mountain? And that's the planning part, is, all right, now that we have this vision, this north star in place, which path do I want to take? And this is very much the journey or the input part of, okay, well, I've decided that 500,000 subscribers is the goal, and now, well, if- if I record this many episodes per, per month and I, you know, send those episodes to these 20 influencers, uh, ev- after every episode, right? You break that down into actionable steps, that it's obvious whether you did it or you didn't, and it brings it back into your own control. I think the whole notion of a SMART goal is super overplayed but way underutilized. There's a lot of power in just making things specific, actionable, and measurable. And so that, what that... I always start with, what do I want? But then I bring that into, what do I have control over? What can I do? What's something that I can track progress towards? So yeah, both and.

   3. CWChris Williamson33:19

      I understand, yeah. You can't... I- I can't control whether or not we hit half a million subs. I can't control whether or not I can deadlift 280 kilos this time next year. But I can control whether or not I stick to my program and stick to my diet and continue to turn up in the gym and progressively overload and regularly check in and do my rehab and all the rest of it. And over time, it's what are the things that I can do that give me the best chance of achieving the goal that I have set?

   4. CSChris Sparks33:47

      100%. You take a goal which is way out into the future, and you turn it into something that you can feel satisfaction for moving, making progress on, on a weekly or even a daily level. And that, that's critical for taking action, is to reduce that delay, right? If it's just, hey, I want to look good in my wedding dress or my suit in nine months, that doesn't really get me all that motivated to not have an ice cream today. But if it becomes, okay, well, nine months down the line, I've worked backwards. Okay, at month one, that means I need to be exercising and at least tracking my macros at somewhat, or maybe I have one less dessert per week. But something that I'll, in the present is connected to these future goals, but gives me that satisfaction and reinforcement that I'm making progress.

   5. CWChris Williamson34:40

      So, the goal setting we're picking within the three areas that we've got. That's it. We're not breaking that down yet. Is that part of implementation?

   6. CSChris Sparks34:52

      So, we're breaking those down into milestones.

   7. CWChris Williamson34:55

      Okay.

   8. CSChris Sparks34:56

      So, you know, here's, here's along the way.

   9. CWChris Williamson34:58

      Yeah.

   10. CSChris Sparks34:59

       The, the implementation part, so this is the final. Um, I think this is another part that a lot of people skip. All right? It's okay. Yes, I decided that next year is the year that I'm gonna eat paleo, and all right. I'm just, it's just gonna happen. It's gonna be like magic. Well, now is when we're the most motivated that we're ever going to be to become paleo. And so this is like we set time aside now to do something about it, to take some form of action. And so I set an hour aside at the end, is each one of these goals I have, some- I have to do something immediately to put it into practice. And that, the power of this is that I take something from, "I'm going to do this," to, "I'm doing it." So, let's say my goal next year is to write a book. Uh, all right, well, I want to start writing the book the day that I decide that I'm going to write a book. Even if it is, okay, the title of my book is 2021: The Best Year Ever. Subtitle, this is gonna be a great year. Just, like, doing anything that has that verb change to now it is underway. Uh, because this is really powerful, because the temptation with the goals is like, pat ourselves on the back, "Great, we've done it. We're gonna go ahead." And, you know, I don't think something like buying a gym membership and saying, "Great, now I'm in shape," is the best thing.

   11. CWChris Williamson36:31

       Mm-hmm.

   12. CSChris Sparks36:31

       But you gotta take that first step, so you might as well do it now. Um, so this, this is a part that I think is, is skipped a lot with these, this planning exercise, is like, great, you know what you're going to do. Do one tiny thing to take action towards it.

   13. CWChris Williamson36:46

       So, for each of the different areas that we've got, we're going to take action. The messiest one that I can see here is the relationships one. It's pretty difficult to objectively metric and quantify. Like, you know, let's say, let's say that...... "By the end of 2021, I want to be in a long-term committed relationship." Um, uh, Mom, don't get- (laughs) don't- don't- don't get excited. There's not wedding bells or anything.

   14. CSChris Sparks37:12

       (laughs)

   15. CWChris Williamson37:12

       Um, "I wanna be in a committed relationship by the end of 2021," let's say. F- like, you know, what's the step that I... uh, download Tinder today. You know? Like make sure that the Hinge profile's been updated. You understand that I think the- the relationships ones probably... "I want to have a better relationship with my parents, brother, sister, housemates," whatever it might be. Have you got any ways that you can kinda cut through the noise of that?

   16. CSChris Sparks37:39

       So, let's use the first one. Uh, that's a- that's a common one I hear, is, "I want to be in a long-term committed relationship." And as everyone knows, there's a lot of this that's in your control and a lot of it that's out of your control. Unfortunately, we can't make someone fall in love with us, as much as pick-up artists would like to have you believe. That I think that becoming someone who your dream person wants to be in a relationship with is your best thing towards becoming someone who's in a long-term relationship, right? It starts with working on yourself. And so this is a very good opportunity, both in... so primarily in the vision section of, who is this person? What qualities do they have and what do they value? How do we spend time together? Uh, all these types of things. Having a clear picture of what you're looking for, and so when Cupid hits you with the arrow, you can recognize this person, perhaps. You know what you're looking for. But also is- with the reflection, A, how did things go with dating this year? Um, were you going on dates? Were you sending messages? Um, if the- how did those dates go? Were you... you know? Were you chivalrous? Were you a dick? Uh, were you kind? Were you... you know, were you going on dates with people who looked good on profiles but obviously weren't compatible? Look back to, hey, you've probably tried this before. What worked? What didn't work? Let's not make those same mistakes over and over again. And I think with the planning, uh, personally with dating, um, you know, as I said, a lot... I know a lot of people meet, um, their significant others on dating sites. I don't think that's the most direct path. I think the most direct path is, who are those key relationships who know people who I would like to date, and perhaps they might want to set up some form of an introduction? And so I'm thinking about, who are those three people who might know someone, and I'm gonna send them a message right now, and let's, like- let's line a couple things up. And- and so things that you can quantify, right? Be- being careful on some of these, right? If you- if you over-optimize towards, like, number of dates, right, you're gonna go- you're gonna waste your time on a lot of- a lot of poor dates. Um, but then, you know, this is like a good thing to check in on, is, you know, "What am I doing both to, say, generate some s- serendipity surface area, right? I'm meeting new people. I'm being open that, hey, every person that I meet who I'm somewhat attracted to, I'm gonna be in this frame of, is this a person that I'd like to spend more time with?" Um, you know, this is a g- I like to say, you know, "Hang before you bang." (laughs) Like, that this is a good... Like, "Is this someone who I like spending time with?" That's a good, it's a good question to start with. Um, and then thinking about yourself. What can I be doing to become the type of person that this person would like to date? Um, and I don't know. This ma- maybe this is just, you know, apocryphal, but my perception and my observation is if someone becomes someone who you- we like ourselves, right? We're confident because we're healthy, we're present when we're in a conversation with someone, we're working towards our vision, uh, whether that's in our business or the service, our mission, th- on the world, you're happy, that becoming someone who's dateable miraculously finds someone to date. Um, so yeah, I- I think that's kind of a two-pronged approach that I would take.

   17. CWChris Williamson41:39

       You're using an affiliate model to get-

   18. CSChris Sparks41:42

       (laughs)

   19. CWChris Williamson41:42

       ... new dates when you're dating.

   20. CSChris Sparks41:45

       Most direct path that, hey, going on a dating site, there's lots of things... The problem is, uh, there's so much to unpack here. The problem is so much of our cognitive machinery is dedicated towards reassuring ourselves that we're doing a great job. It's like, "Awesome, Christopher." You know, and I say like my alter ego. "Awesome, Christopher. You sent 20 messages this week. You're doing great."

   21. CWChris Williamson42:11

       (laughs)

   22. CSChris Sparks42:12

       "Andhey, you went on 10 dates with people who, you know, they love celebrity gossip and you've never watched television in your life. Awesome job. You're gonna find the one th- next day," right? And it's very easy to justify what we're already doing. And, you know, scrolling through Tinder is obvi- it's super easy, it doesn't require a lot of effort, it's a lot of- it's very passive, but it feels productive. Hey, we're doing something. And usually the most direct path...... the fastest way to achieve our goals is really uncomfortable. Asking for help is really uncomfortable. But just think about context. Is it more likely that you are going to find your person through, like, a random heap that the algorithm is serving you or through someone who knows you incredibly well and knows another person incredibly well and can make a very warm introduction that makes you look really good where the other person feels safe and open? Which of those is more likely to be successful? Yes, it's going to be a little bit uncomfortable, but certainly you're going to have to go on fewer of those dates to get something going than the other way around. And so that's a good question to ask is, are you willing to be a little bit uncomfortable?

   23. CWChris Williamson43:35

       I love it, man. Internet marketers out there just thinking in their heads about warm leads versus cold leads right now.

   24. CSChris Sparks43:40

       (laughs)

   25. CWChris Williamson43:41

       Like, "Yeah, yeah, yeah. So what I've done is I- I'm kind of retargeting and it's sort of on an affiliate model." And as the front end of the funnel has actually been, they- they've got a referral code and they've come through onto this different landing page. So, okay, so that's the- the four steps. Is there anything else you can say?

   26. CSChris Sparks43:54

       It's- it's a good lens- it's a good lens to think about things, right? Hey, it's like something that works for you in another part of your life, right? Say I'm really good at marketing, how could I apply marketing to this other part of my life?

   27. CWChris Williamson44:08

       (laughs)

   28. CSChris Sparks44:08

       It's like it's crazy that I see someone who is just absolute outlier in one area of their life, completely has one area of their life solved, and then in another area, just completely wings it. And it's like, "This thing that's working for you over here, have you tried that over here?" It's- it's- it's surprising how often that works.

   29. CWChris Williamson44:29

       Taking those mental models and applying them elsewhere. Because as we've identified today, the principles are the same. You have large goal broken down into sub-tasks, broken down into smaller tasks, broken down into daily actions and that slowly gets you to where you want to be. But yeah, the number of business people who are massively out of shape or the number of good athletes who've got shit relationships or the number of people that are happily married but their career's going down the pan, like, you know, these things don't happen by accident. So we've got the, we've got the framework. Is there anything else to say about the framework there?

   30. CSChris Sparks44:58

       No, I- I think that's good.

4. 45:00 – 1:00:00

   Again. …

   1. CSChris Sparks45:00

      Um, I think, you know, viewers will see the- the template. I think the questions lay it out. A lot of this is just asking yourself questions, attacking the problem from different angles and listening for answers. And so the more questions you ask, the more angles you approach things from, the more likely you are to elevate something that you might have missed. And hey, I- I- just taking it seriously, the- the process that I laid out, um, you know, for me takes about five hours. Um, you know, it's fractal. If you have one hour, spend one hour. But the idea is here, "Hey, I- I dedicate one full day or two full days to this. Maybe I increase my chances of achieving this stuff by 100% next year because I avoid making a bunch of mistakes or I get started in February instead of October." Like, it's worth investing the time now to figure this stuff out because hey, this year when that's, when things kick off, I want to be sprinting. I don't want to be sitting in April having an existential crisis and being, "What do I want to do with my life?" Now is the time-

   2. CWChris Williamson46:09

      Again.

   3. CSChris Sparks46:09

      ... for that crisis.

   4. CWChris Williamson46:10

      (laughs)

   5. CSChris Sparks46:10

      Let's get it out of the way.

   6. CWChris Williamson46:11

      Doing it again. Yeah, I mean the time as well between Christmas and New Year is such a, like, dead man zone in- in any case. What's going on? Nothing. You're finishing off the confectionary celebrations sharing box of sweets and kind of getting a little bit bored of being with your family and the dog's farted and, you know, like, you- you probably, but you also don't want to go back to work, right? And I think everyone, it might just be me, but everybody gets reflective towards the back end of the year. We... These stake posts in the ground, we think, "Okay, I was here probably in the same place." Mom and Dad's house, boyfriend's house, girlfriend's house, whatever, family house with the kids. "I'm in the same place as I was this time last year. What's different?" Perhaps the location's the same, but what else has changed? And I think, yeah, it- it's a natural run on. It doesn't surprise me that there is such a thing as New Year's resolutions. It's kind of like if there wasn't a name for it, people would come up with one. Um, how can people stay motivated? 80% of New Year's resolutions fail. What's the way that we don't just get to the February slump and everything drops off?

   7. CSChris Sparks47:25

      The way to stay motivated is to not need motivation. If you need motivation to succeed, you're not going to succeed. Uh, I think motivation is- is very flighty. Uh, if you personify motivation, uh, they're very wispy, they're hard to- hard to pin down. And so my goal with this exercise is to eliminate the need for motivation throughout the year. Assume that there will be long periods, yes it happens for me all the time as well, where I don't want to do anything towards my goals and I'm super unmotivated. How can I set up conditions that I make motivation irrelevant, that I can't help but slip and fall and stumble into making some form of progress towards my goals? How can I make what I want to do easier? So that's the really key part of that implementation at the end is what can I do now to start moving, to already start making progress and to make progress throughout the year easier? And you know, again, you notice that I'm eating my own dog food and you're like, "Oh my God, Chris just said spend six hours looking at my life and he wants me to do more." I wonder if you checked in at regular intervals, say every three months or every month, even if it's just asking yourself questions like you said, "Hey, I was sitting in the same chair a month ago. What's different from the last month?" Or, "What's changed? What's working?" These types of questions. If you keep asking yourself the same questions, you're gonna want to give yourself different answers. And so...... that's what I refer to as the improvement loop. And so, you have the three parts, it's reflection, execution, and planning. And so, the faster that you're going through this loop, the faster you will make progress. And so, that, that's essentially what I recommend is, hey, this is pl- this is the super 10,000-foot view, like, really stepping back. But if you don't come back to these questions throughout the year, you're gonna forget about the answers. And so, hey, return to them, come back to your responses, read them over, remind yourself of why you're doing what you're doing 'cause it's easy to forget, and just keep thinking about, "Hey, what can I do now to move myself forward a few inches towards this vision?" Um, it's really a marathon and not a sprint.

   8. CWChris Williamson49:51

      What's the cadence that you do that on, personally? Do you do 90 days?

   9. CSChris Sparks49:58

      Uh, my, my monthly review is the big one, um, where I spend a couple of hours every month, usually on a Sunday with a nice pot of tea, uh, just going through all the areas of my life and saying, "Hey, what's going on?" Um, this is where I usually pool in a little bit more data, so I have things to draw upon. But essentially, this is just my check-in. What's, what's... I have a green, yellow, red system. So green, awesome, keep it up. You're doing great. Don't change a thing. Um, yellow, all right, like, at least you're, at least you're not, like, completely going backwards, right? You're making some progress. Like, you know, caution, like, you probably could be doing better. Think about maybe ways to accelerate. Red, you know, get your ish together. Like, you're- you haven't done, you haven't done anything. Um, assume that if you don't change anything, nothing's gonna change . Like that, like zooming in on those reds. It's like, all right, I don't want to put red down two months in a row. What can I do to change that? Um, quarterly level is a little bit more, it's like, hey, do I want to change those goals at all? It's like, maybe that annual goal, I achieved it in quarter one, or I need a new goal. Or maybe this annual goal of write a book, uh, wow, like, I've experienced this before. Writing a book in a year is, like, pretty impossible. Maybe the end of the year is like, all right, have a fr- have a rough draft of the book. That's like a good, it's a good opportunity to scale up or back those goals.

   10. CWChris Williamson51:18

       Got you. So the monthly is a check-in on cemented goals, and the quarterly is allowing for the optionality to sort of switch those up while still optimizing for us to stay on one path. I like that. There's, um, a few sort of other questions that have been good prompts for me. Um, asking myself what would have had to have happened by the end of this year for me to look back on this year and consider it a success-

   11. CSChris Sparks51:40

       Mm-hmm.

   12. CWChris Williamson51:40

       ... um, helps, I think, to frame. That might even be one of yours. Um, I made like a, this time last year, I made the ultimate collaboration of all of your stuff on the internet. It was like your existing Experiment Without Limits book that I'd got a hold of, plus then, like, whatever the original first draft of that that's still floating around on Medium was-

   13. CSChris Sparks52:00

       (laughs)

   14. CWChris Williamson52:00

       ... and then something else, and there was, like, some prompts that I loved that had gone and some other ones that were still there. So, yeah, I w- I sort of found myself being very playful with that. Other stuff that I think would be useful for everyone to remember is that the, the James Clear-ism. I would imagine most people f- fail at their New Year's resolutions by trying to do too much too soon because we just desire that dopamine hit of, um, so, "I- I- I've managed to achieve 25% of the movement toward my one rep max deadlift that I wanted to get by the end of the year within the first two weeks." You're like, yeah, but maybe you're going to fuck your shit up by the end of the month, and then you, you're injured, and then you can do nothing for the next six months after that. If we set ourselves an appropriate goal, which I guess comes back to the explore before you exploit paradigm, you will be able to make progress. I know you're a big fan of direction over speed as well, that as long as you are moving in perfectly the right direction, no matter how slow you're going, you are always getting closer and closer toward the end state that you want to be in. And also, the Bill Gates quote, I think it's, "Most people overestimate what they can achieve in one year and underestimate what they can achieve in five." It just shows that we tend to have a big blind spot for how effective compounding can be, which is probably not, not all that surprising. Um, but yeah, those are, those are some really good prompts, man. I- I'm looking forward to, to going through it.

   15. CSChris Sparks53:21

       Can I add a- can I add a, uh, a- a-

   16. CWChris Williamson53:22

       Oh, yeah. Drop it on me.

   17. CSChris Sparks53:23

       ... asterisk to one of those?

   18. CWChris Williamson53:24

       Yeah.

   19. CSChris Sparks53:25

       Um, I agree. I, I think people think far too much about speed and efficiency rather than direction. So, thinking about this logically, the best way to waste time, imagine yourself sprinting as fast as you can, faster than you've ever run in your life, but you're going in the opposite direction. So, the better that you do, the farther you can get away from where you want to go. And what a great way to just waste your time, and sorry for being dramatic, but your life, to sprint as fast as you can towards things that you don't actually want. So, isn't it worth taking a few minutes to think about, hey, where are you going? Maybe, you know, maybe a map will help you get there. But I do think a danger that I do see with achiever types, with this, "Oh, I need to know exactly where I'm going." Uh, like, "I need to figure the, I need to figure out exactly what my business looks like before I quit my job," or, "I need to know exactly what my habits are before I start doing them," is rather, like, have a general idea. Think about all your goals as a rough draft that are written in pencil that you can erase and change any time. It's not the vision, it's the power of the vision. It's not what your vision is, it's what your vision does. It gives you something to head towards. And I think that skill is to course correct continually, is you're heading in the right general direction, and you're always aware of opportunities either to go more directly to where you want to go, or, "Oh, I need to be going northeast and I'm actually going northwest. All right, I'm gonna start to tilt myself a little bit in this direction." Um, so yeah, I just want to make that, that clear up front, is you don't need to have a perfect vision in order to start moving forward.

   20. CWChris Williamson55:20

       Bro, I didn't do...... my 2019 New Year's resolutions, so like two years ago, I didn't do those until I'd finally finished Atomic Habits, which ended up being halfway through February. I was like, "No, no, no, because-"

   21. CSChris Sparks55:36

       It was still, it was still incredibly useful, right?

   22. CWChris Williamson55:38

       It was super-

   23. CSChris Sparks55:39

       So it didn't matter that

   24. NANarrator55:39

       Yeah.

   25. CWChris Williamson55:39

       ... it was super useful, b- but I'd been too focused on having my direction compass perfectly aligned. I was like, "Nah, I'm gonna wait because maybe e- I could optimize for a little bit more of this." And I'm like, "Hang on, like (laughs) 10% of the year's gone. 10% of the year is gone (laughs) by the time that I've actually done this." I could have done some of it and then updated as I went. Um, yeah, man, it's, it's an interesting time for this sort of stuff, and I hope that it's really prompted people. I also like... I'm gonna guess the reason that you've put a time limit on this is to stop people from wallowing and obsessing too much within that. It's like, "Oh, shit, I've got to Parkinson's Law this year. I only have 90 minutes to do this particular section, I, uh, right, that'll do. That's close enough. Like, I, I'm, I'm working hard."

   26. CSChris Sparks56:27

       Yeah, it serves two purposes, and so people see this with procrastination all the time is, you know, you can't get yourself to get started, set a timer for five minutes and work until that five minutes is up. At least you're get- at least you're doing something. And so first, like, you set that timer, um, say, "Okay, I'm gonna think about my goals in this area for the next 15 minutes till the timer goes off." A lot of people are like, "Okay, great, 30 seconds in, I know what I'm doing for the next year. I'm not gonna spend another 10 minutes thinking about what I'm gonna do all of next year. No, that's, that's, that's not, that's not something I need to do right now." It forces someone to go a little bit deeper. The first answer is usually not the right answer. Let's think about other ways to approach it. Let's be, let's, let's, let's think, let's like widen our vision a little bit. So it forces someone to actually use all that time, keep the pen moving. But also said, it's very easy to rabbit hole on this type of stuff and to go beyond the point of diminishing marginal returns. And so you set a timer, you set a limit. It's like, "All right, I only have this amount of time to figure it out." You know, secretly you could change it later if you really want to, but you need some sort of answer in order to close that container and move on. So I think it works on both sides.

   27. CWChris Williamson57:37

       I like it. Any final thoughts about end of year review, planning for the, the next year? Anything that you need to add in?

   28. CSChris Sparks57:50

       I always like to say with things like this, don't let the perfect be the enemy of the good. If this is your first time doing something like this, anything that you're going to do is going to be valuable. It doesn't need to be a perfect process. You don't need to spend a ton of time, but to just take it seriously and see what comes out of it. Right? You're gonna be living, knock on wood, multiple years. You'll have multiple shots at this to improve. So do what you can, take the time to look backwards and think about what you want, to look forwards, do something to put that into motion. And hey, it can be messy, but, you know, just, just take it seriously and do it. Um, and I also say, hey, I have the, the brilliant idea, um, you know how much I love Forcing Functions given the name of my company. I bet between the two of us, it would be a really valuable forcing function as well as pretty illustrative for some viewers if after we go through this process, maybe we hop on. Um, for those of you guys who are listening, I have, uh, one of these conversation series as well inspired by, by Chris, where I have guests on and we do conversations like this. I say we hop on Lunch Hour and we talk about what came out of this annual review and planning. So we'll get some public accountability, but we'll kind... It would allow us to maybe, you know, demystify some of this, open up the curtain and say, "Hey, what this actually looks like behind the scenes."

   29. CWChris Williamson59:19

       You're making me-

   30. CSChris Sparks59:19

       How does that sound?
5. 1:00:00 – 1:04:13

   (laughs) …

   1. CSChris Sparks1:00:00

      who's listening to this episode. Um, a couple other places you might want to check out. Um, forcingfunction.com/workbook, the, uh, workbook that Chris mentioned earlier. It's my distillation, 100 pages of all the best things that I've seen to set yourself up for success. In particular, chapter one, Goals. What are the prompts that you need to do to discover what you want out of life, what you want to achieve? Um, those are the ones that I found to work the best. That's also free to download. Um, a couple other things that I'm really excited about. Uh, this is the first time I've mentioned it publicly. We're about to release the Forcing Function Library. Um, so my favorite studies, books, articles, resources on productivity categorized by topic. So there's a special section for planning and reviews, and you can see all the places where the things that I talk about originated. Um, my favorite things that I've found wandering around the internet for some of these topics. So that's Forcing Function Library, forcingfunction.com/library. Uh, we have our performance assessment. Hey, maybe you want some guidance on what is the best place for you to get started in the new year. All these things I could improve, what would help me the most, um, this is our free quiz to help illuminate your biggest opportunity in the new year. That's forcingfunction.com/assessment. And finally, last one, I promise, uh, we started a program this year, which I was incredibly excited about, where...You know, for the past few years, I've only been working one-on-one with about a dozen executives per year. Um, and so I... Unfortunately, my impact was limited. And for the first time, we started a group coaching program called Team Performance Training. We ran the first cohort in September. Uh, it was a great success. Um, you can see some of the results that people had on the page really blew me away. And based on that, we're excited to announce that we're going to be running it again in February. And so we're opening up applications for that in January. So you can check that out on our website as well if you want to get notified when those applications are open. That's forcingfunction.com/teamtraining. Um, you know, that's all for me. I- I always like to think of these conversations as the beginning of a conversation. Um, you know, Chris, as you said, it's been a year. Now I've forced you, we're going to have to do this again in a month. You're going to have to see me again.

   2. CWChris Williamson1:02:24

      (laughs)

   3. CSChris Sparks1:02:24

      Um, if any of you guys, you know, had questions, something you s- that I said today, um, resonated, something that we said that you completely disagree with, please let us know. Um, you can get a hold of me on Twitter as well. My handle is @sparksrebarks.

   4. CWChris Williamson1:02:40

      Dude, so good. I have to give another credit to the Experiment Without Limits, which is /workbook, right? On your website. That thing is a magnum opus of productivity. Like, I- I've said it to people before, it should be 1,000 pounds. Like, the fact that you're giving it, you give that away for free is the most ridiculous thing. And then I remember as well, it was you that introduced me to Meditations on Moloch by Scott Alexander from Slate Star Codex. So I went through-

   5. CSChris Sparks1:03:10

      Epic.

   6. CWChris Williamson1:03:10

      ... your, um, my favorite articles from around the internet, which I'm going to guess will get ported across into this new library thing. And holy shit, man, if you didn't infect me with the Scott Alexander book when I read that thing, I was like, "What on earth is what..." It was- it was crazy. So yeah, um, you're an underground hero of this stuff, man. I know that everyone else who's part of this space absolutely adores the work you do, and long may it continue. Thank you for coming on. I'm sure that everyone's taken just so much away from this. If you do end up doing your end of year review and it follows this format, just feel free to tag us wherever you follow us. Um, that's it, man. I guess we're going to have to, we're going to have to loop back in early January now and talk about all the ridiculous plans and my- my innermost fears and dreams for the next year.

   7. CSChris Sparks1:03:56

      I can't wait. (laughs)

   8. CWChris Williamson1:03:57

      Peace. Cheers, dude.

   9. NANarrator1:04:02

      (music)

Episode duration: 1:04:13