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

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."

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

Fantastic. Good to be back.

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

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."

(laughs)

"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.

You are one antifragile son, aren't you?

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..."

(laughs)

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.