I spent a few hours reviewing all of the new year's resolutions for businesses and found 34 that had merit. But most of them were more about doing a specific thing versus making changes that impact everything. With that in mind, I categorized them and came up with five actions I think we can all take to make ourselves and our companies better in the new year and beyond. Of course, I could be a cotton-headed ninny muggins. So let me know what you think!
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Gene: Sorry, miscue. You went a little early, offsides.
Carl: That's teamwork there, buddy.
Gene: Yeah, that's all fine.
Carl: Do you know you got an ax about to fall on your head?
Gene: Chop.
Carl: Hey, congrats. I saw that you made sensei. I don't know what any of that means, but it looked like a big deal.
Gene: I'm glad you saw it. Yeah, it's a big deal to me. I appreciate that, man.
Carl: Yeah. So now can you levitate and shit or?
Gene: Yes.
Carl: Nice. Do it right now. Levitate for me. Hold on. Okay. That's cool.
Gene: No, it was awesome, man. I appreciate it. Wish you could have been there. It would've been cool.
Carl: Yeah, that would've been fun. I didn't get an invitation, but whatever.
Gene: Well, it was a long drive too. You know?
Carl: A little bit. Gene, this is the first episode of 2022.
Gene: Of the new year.
Carl: The new year. I would, first of all, like to just take all the pressure off 2022. 2022, listen to me for a second, this is a little letter from me to you. I don't expect you to be anything. I don't expect you to be better. I don't expect you to be worse. I just expect you to be 365 days in length and then we'll move on. So please don't feel like you have to prove anything and don't feel like we expect anything. You're just numbers on a damn calendar. That's all you are. Ooh, I got mean at the end. I didn't mean to get mean.
Gene: Don't pick a fight with 2022.
Carl: Isn't it true though? Why do we act like you get a new calendar or something flips and suddenly it's like finally I can make things better?
Gene: I don't understand that.
Carl: I had 15 days to wait before I could get better.
Gene: It doesn't make sense.
Carl: No, it doesn't, but we do it. I mean, maybe it ties to some ancient thing in us or maybe it's because taxes are due.
Gene: Well, mine aren't due until October, so whatever.
Carl: Or maybe it's that sense of time passing and we're just like, "Oh, shit, I better really do something now."
Gene: Yeah, I don't know. I've thought about that a lot. Maybe it's the holidays and it's sort of like you stack several holidays between November and December. We kind of slow down a little bit the end of November into December and then people disappear at the end of December and then we pick it back up. Maybe that's it. I don't know. But it doesn't make sense.
Carl: You nailed something right there. It's almost like we give ourselves this time off at the end of the year. Merry happy everything, whatever you celebrate. I think everybody takes at least a week off at the end of the year because as a planet, we've agreed for the most part. I'm sure there are people who haven't and please let us know, but I think for the most part, we've agreed, "Okay, this is the end of the calendar year. We're all on this schedule so that we can coordinate. So let's move on." But I think because of that, we feel like if you're an entrepreneur, you feel like, "Oh, it's getting quiet. I have opportunities to do the big things."
Carl: And then you get mad at yourself the second day of the break because you haven't worked. Right? I mean, I know we talked about this previously-
Gene: You fiddle with stuff.
Carl: Yeah. So I'm curious because first of all, this will be in the newsletter this week. And I did a fair amount of research on business resolutions. What are the top new year's business resolutions? And I could only come up with 34. So we're not going to get through all of them.
Gene: That's a lot.
Carl: Before we dive into that, I'm curious, Gene, do you make personal new year's resolutions?
Gene: No.
Carl: You don't.
Gene: No.
Carl: Tell me why.
Gene: I hope I'm not turning your episode on side. I don't believe in them. I don't believe in them because it's like we were saying, your body, the universe, it doesn't know time. Right? It's just every day is another day. So what I like to do and we just did it yesterday for one of the businesses was... and we use a year. Of course we use the year as sort of a, "Hey, we're going to check in on this next January or December or before the holidays or whatever." But we look at things, from a business, we go, "What are the things that can level us up?" And so I try to do that for myself. What are the things that can level me up as a human or as a dad or as a husband or whatever?
Carl: As a sensei.
Gene: Exactly. What are those things that can make me better? And then I look at, what are the things I can do to help me make new habits that support those things? That's how I look at it.
Carl: So glad you brought this up because I made a list of things that you could do to be better. And I'd like to get to that. It's nothing. It's just a pod.
Gene: I thought there were 47 things. There probably are. But that's the key for me. And I found early on that if I focus on worrying about not doing the things that are bad, then all I do is cycle and think about all these things that was bad that I was doing, right? Or that I perceived as negative.
Carl: So that's an interesting take. That's an interesting take that resolutions have to be about not doing something bad.
Gene: Well, let's take something that could be universally, I guess, thought of as bad like drinking. Let's say you drink a lot and you want to not drink.
Carl: You bite your tongue, sir. No, I'm with you. I'm with you. I'm going to drink less in the new year.
Gene: Well, that's the thing. If all you think of is, "Oh, God, I can't drink." Or if I drink this much, it's going to be bad. Or this is negative that I drink this much. Right? It's all negative. Right? Instead of like, "Okay, so what's something I can do that's anti-drinking?" Maybe it's running. Then you could focus on, "I'm going to run a mile a day." Right? And that's a positive thing as opposed to just focusing on, why do I keep doing this bad thing?
Carl: Why can't "I'm going to run a mile a day" be a resolution? It's just about changing something. Right? But this is interesting. I think you're onto something that most people look at a resolution as removing a negative versus adding a positive.
Gene: And you can make a resolution anytime you want. Right? You could do it in April. You know? And I don't care if you want to use January 1st as this kickoff day or whatever. I would just say be careful of that sort of new year's resolution vibe because I think 9 times out of 10, you're going to quit that thing by the end of January.
Carl: I think that's true. And I think when you make it a specific thing, you make it a specific thing and you go... I mean, let's take drinking, right? I mean, this was a big one for a lot of people in 2020. 2021, a lot of people slowed down or found other things to do, but let's just go with that. Or I'm going to lose weight or whatever. Anything that is a personal belief that you need to change from something you've been doing that's a coping mechanism or whatever, or you feel that the external world's looking at you a certain way, Gene, or whatever. But the second that somebody asks you if you want to go out for a beer and you're like, "I said I wasn't going to drink, but I want to see my friend." And you have one beer and you're like, "Oh, well, I guess I didn't do it." Right?
Carl: Or you have a second helping of something or you skip that day at the gym or whatever it is. You know this, you run a gym. Memberships go up right at the end of the year, beginning of the year, because everybody's like, "This is the year I get in shape."
Gene: That's right.
Carl: Right? I think the challenge for me personally, and I would say probably for a lot of humans is that we make it this one thing. It's real easy to fail quickly and give up on because it's something that we were using to manage something else. And we never addressed, what is that challenge? What is that thing that had me drinking more? And it could be addiction, right? I mean, it could be anything or it could be I'm just numbing myself because I don't want to deal with X. Right? So I think that becomes a big part.
Gene: I also think accountability is a huge part. And I think we as people, as humans, we hide from accountability, especially as we're older, maybe even more established professionals, we don't feel like... because we are so used to providing accountability to our employees or children or whatever, that a lot of times, maybe we don't feel like we need it. Like, "Oh, I got this." And accountability can come directly from a coach or a therapist or a mentor or whatever. I think that's huge because what you're getting at is not the thing. The thing isn't drinking, the thing is, why are you drinking?
Carl: Yeah. The thing is, what am I avoiding? Or what am I celebrating every day for two hours? Is the way I like to look at it.
Gene: And you might not be able to see it but somebody else. I've had conversations with you before where you're like, "Well, you know this thing." And I'm like, "I never thought of that," because you can see it and I can't because I'm in it or I'm causing it. Coach is very helpful or a therapist, whatever you need.
Carl: So to me, and this is when these things changed for me, this idea of the new's resolution, because I was on that train of, "Hey, this year, I'm going to do X, Y, Z." And then in February, March, I'm like, "Well, maybe, I don't know." So last year for me, the resolution was I'm going to be a better runner. Right? And it wasn't I'm going to drink less. But by being a better runner, I had to drink less. It wasn't I'm going to... I mean, I did set a goal. Right? And I accomplished the goal. But to your point, I made it public that I had the goal. And I documented it every time and all of those types of things. And I think this really gets to the idea of business goals too. But I'm curious, so before we shift over... Go ahead.
Gene: Let's break that down though, why that worked is because you set this goal, you set this concept of like, "I want to be a better runner." And then you gave yourself-
Carl: I want to see myself as a better runner. Yeah.
Gene: And then you gave yourself some sort of metric that you could use throughout the year, which was the 1,500 miles.
Carl: Yeah, 1,500 miles.
Gene: And you decided if I make 1,500 miles, I will become a better runner because I will have to become a better runner to get 1,500 miles. So you used that barometer throughout the year and you knew what you had to keep up with or whatever. And then you laid on accountability by telling people, you put it here on the podcast, you told me. And you have other runner friends and stuff. So that's a really good system. And I think a lot of new year's resolutions lack that system and that's why they fail.
Carl: And here's the thing, I did not initially say 1,500 miles because that sounds ridiculous. What I did was I said what's reasonable each week for me where I am right now. It's not something that I have to get to. It's something I can consistently do and I'll do it each week. And for me, that was about 32 miles a week. Right? And then I said, "Okay, what if four or five weeks out of the year, I'm not going to be able to, if I'm just out?" And you know what? With a calf injury and a hamstring injury and then getting COVID over the summer, these were things that just took me out of play. And so I think this is really interesting and I think that this will transition well. It's not about what you can accomplish this year, it's about what can you do consistently every day or every week that shows you that you're still on the right path? Right?
Carl: And that was the thing especially... and this gets to it as well. So many people say what gets measured gets done, and in that case, it's true. And you have the opportunity through different online tools to say, "I'm on course or I'm 10 miles behind or whatever." But I think for me, you said when we were talking before the show, is that your goal for the year? And I was just like, "No." You know what? It was cool. Do you just increase that? No, that's not what I want. But the bigger thing to your point was I quit drinking because I didn't want to ruin a run. I didn't want to ruin a run because I didn't want to ruin the week. I didn't want to ruin the week because I didn't want to miss my monthly and I didn't want to miss my annual. So it all built up. And I think this could transition to anything.
Carl: The other part of it is when you start to look at it that way, you sometimes find that certain goals you thought you had to meet, you don't. And for example, I thought I had to be a certain weight. I was really trying hard to be around 170 pounds because in my mind, I had this concept that that was my perfect running weight. And there was an article in Runner's World that just came out that the cover is the lie of the perfect running weight. And it's this guy who's about 400 pounds running and he is the founder of the slow as fuck running club. It's got 8,000 members in it and they're runners, man. It's like it doesn't matter.
Carl: But to me, what I found was... and this was about three months ago, I quit tracking calories and I quit all that shit. And I ended up gaining about six pounds and actually being a better runner. I had a false metric in my mind that things were correlated, but because I had a higher level goal, it totally changed it. So I want to shift over though because I want to... as much as I have personally reflected on what that was, I do have a new personal goal for this year. I'm going to let go of grudges that I've had for a long time. And this is a tough one, but it actually starts within my extended family with my brother and sister. And the first thing I did was I had conversations with them about why I had been so angry with them. Right?
Carl: So I think for me, the reason that was it and it's such a shift from some sort of a physical accomplishment or whatever, it's because when I looked at myself more as a holistic person, the things that hold me back are things I can't let go of. Right? And that all transitioned through a lot of journaling and stuff into realizing that I'm holding onto some of this angst from the past.
Gene: That's great.
Carl: And in order to move forward, you've got to let go of that stuff. And honestly, I'm not hurting anybody but me when I'm holding onto these grudges. So it was funny. At midnight, I didn't know this was going to happen, but we've been shooting off fireworks and stuff. And all of a sudden, Kaylee, my oldest said, "Let's hear everybody's new year's resolution." And mine was going to be letting go of grudges, which is just funny. But luckily, everybody got distracted before it got to me. So that was that. So you don't have anything? There's nothing?
Gene: Not really. Not that you'd call a new year's resolution.
Carl: Okay. Well, let's take a look at what it means when you're actually an entrepreneur and when you're a, I'm going to say, web shop, digital agency leader, if you're a founder, if you're running a team, whatever it might be, we transitioned this idea into our roles as well in our companies. I mean, do you agree with that?
Gene: Yeah, absolutely.
Carl: I think it's every year, we're like, "Okay, we finished the year. This is what we did. Now we're going to look at this next year." It's a lot stronger, I think, than it is for people individually when you look at it as an organization.
Gene: It is and it's a team-based thing. And I do think that when you use it in your business, it is fiscally related, I think most of the time, because your billing year is over December 31st for most business.
Carl: For most people.
Gene: Yeah, unless you're on that weird July track or whatever, but you still have tax... in the U.S., you still have tax filings on the same dates. Bills are due on the same time of the year. So yeah, I think it relates around your income and how you record all that.
Carl: So I spent a few hours and I went online and just looked at business, small business, entrepreneur, blah, blah, blah, new year's resolutions, and literally after a few hours called this list down to 34. And we're not going to go through all of them.
Gene: Give me the highlights, real deal.
Carl: Highlights. Okay. First Hamilton reference of 2022, highlights. I want to go through them really just in a way that makes sense for a lot of what we just talked about on the personal side, right? It's not so much an individual metric as it is an overarching theme. And you can measure these for sure, but I think the one that matters most that everything else falls out of is delegate and mean it. Just like I was saying with the idea of a certain metric like I need to be lighter to be a better runner or whatever. It's like, "No, let go of that." Right? That doesn't matter. Or the grudges, right? It's like, "Why am I holding onto that? It was a long time ago and it's preventing me from being who I can be now."
Carl: And I think with the delegate more and mean it, you know what? First of all, everybody's struggling to keep their teams together. Give people more responsibility so that they can see themselves as a bigger player so that they can feel like they're a part of what's going on. I think that's huge. But at the same time, you're not all that. You don't have to do every single thing. And if you are all that, then why would you be spending all your time doing the small stuff? Right? And so, for example, for me, it's like I really have to let go of some of the micro-scheduling. I have to let go of being a part of every single thing that happens at the community. I mean, today for the first time, we're going to have roll calls coming back, which are based on what you do at your company. And they're being run by ambassadors, right? I'm there if they need me for these first few, but the plan is they're going to run them. They are the host. They are going to make them their own.
Carl: And that's really hard for me because I associate myself so much with everything that happens, but the Bureau's much bigger than me and that I think is my... For me personally, I think that's my business thing, is I got to delegate and mean it. I can't just put on a happy face and say, "No, no, you do that," and then be running around behind the scenes looking at everything.
Gene: Right, reminding everybody.
Carl: Yeah. I think that's probably the biggest one. There's another one that I think is related to it and that's drop what's not working and move on.
Gene: Wow. Yeah. That's very important.
Carl: Yeah. I mean, there are things that we might have the urge to delegate, but then we just realize, "Actually, that shit doesn't matter at all."
Gene: I saw a really great quote on... it was spray-painted on a wall somewhere up in North Carolina in the mountains. It said, "Don't stick to a mistake you took a lot of time to make." That was like, "Wow."
Carl: Let's think about that for a second. Go ahead.
Gene: I was going to say we have these things that we have just done in our business. We've always done it that way and we never stopped to think like, "Well, why the hell are we doing that?" And it's costing money or it's useless. Why are you still doing it? Yeah, figure that shit out.
Carl: This was a thing when I was at the advertising agency. And then I know a lot of shops that do this too. Yeah. And even with the advent of agile and all the things over the past 5 or 10 years, people would have a one all hands meeting. Right? And those meetings were almost always on Monday morning. In the advertising game, they were almost always on Monday morning. And I remember one time somebody at Husk, the agency I was at, said, "Why do we do these the morning when we're the least knowledgeable about what's going on?" Things have changed. We're trying to figure out. We sit here with 26 people and we say, "I'm not sure, but I think 10,000 times."
Carl: If we could just do these on Tuesday mornings, we could have Mondays to figure out where things are, be prepared, come in, nail it, get out. And then we suddenly had AM Tuesday, which was Agency Meeting Tuesday. And you know what? Somebody said it, I think what you just brought up is great. There's so many times we're just doing things because we always did it, and that's part of letting go as well.
Gene: It's part of growth, man. It's a growth, growing as a person, as a company.
Carl: What do we accomplish doing this?
Gene: Speaking of the great resignation, if you have Monday morning meetings, you should probably stop that shit to stop people from leaving your company because I would quit. I would quit. And I actually did because this company I was working with wanted to have an 8:00 AM Monday meeting. What the hell is that? I'm sorry. I can't get here at 8:00 AM on Monday. It's just not happening. I'm trying. Sorry.
Carl: So I got one more here. I know we're coming up on time, but I think delegate more and mean it is huge. I think drop what's not working, move on, right? Because both of those really give us more time as entrepreneurs. And I think the third one that mattered the most for me is fall back in love with what you do. You know? Now, obviously, that is more of a statement and a goal, but it's like we all did this for a reason. We all wanted to create something. And we spent the last two years trying to protect something that's not real anymore. If there's something that we always did and I believe this, I'm sure there are exceptions, but we always were adapting. We always were making the changes that were necessary because especially in digital, things were changing so fast and we had to decide which waves to catch and which ones to pass on. We had to decide what things we had always done that we were going to keep doing because they were big breadwinners and what things we were just going to start doing because we thought they were cool.
Carl: And I think we've lost that we think it's cool part of being an entrepreneur and we've just doubled down on the I can't get the old thing to work anymore. Right? And so I would say that third one for me, and I don't think you need to have a bunch of them, but it's just like these are all really related. It's like remember why you did this. You know? Who were you then? And I hear a lot of people... I'm 54. How old are you, Gene? You're in your early 40s.
Gene: 47.
Carl: 47. There you go. And so I think a lot of us go, "I'm too tired or couldn't do it again." Shut up. You know what? It's like live.
Gene: Yeah. Then give it up.
Carl: Do it or get the hell out and let somebody else do it.
Gene: Yeah, that's right.
Carl: We have such an amazing opportunity. I've said this before again and again, we're in a better opportunity to succeed right now than we've ever been. I get that we can't get all the people on the team we want. I get that we can't expand out how we want, but that's all based on preconceived notions of how things were. Now we need to make them how they are. And you know what? I'm going to throw a fourth one in there. Charge more. Damn it, charge more. Right? It's like if we can focus on this handful of things, then we can turn the corner on a new industry. We can turn the corner on becoming something that we weren't that we can love again, instead of something that we were and we absolutely hate that we can't make it work. And to me, if we're going to do one thing as we throw out the puppy calendar and pull in the kitty calendar, it's that. It's like let go, let other people pick up that slack, stop doing the shit that doesn't work and fall back in love with whatever we can do right now that sustains us both as individuals, as spiritual beings, and financially.
Gene: I love it.
Carl: I didn't see that coming, and I apologize.
Gene: Yes.
Carl: Now if you excuse me, I got to go do 50 crunches. Gene, man, I just want to thank you.
Gene: Yeah, man. Go ahead.
Carl: Thank you for this. We haven't had a show in a couple of weeks and I forget how grounding this is for me. And you know this, so you say whenever I get on stage, it's a gut check for me because I don't want to lie to people. I don't want to say things aren't what they are. I don't want to make it sound better than it is. And this to me is like that. For everybody that's listening, just know we're bringing the truth as we see it. It doesn't mean that it's your truth, but I hope when someone-
Gene: Yeah. Definitely we're not wrong.
Carl: And I just want to say this show is for me. I get that it helps the Bureau. I get that it helps the people listening, but man, it helps me so much. And Gene, I just want to thank you for that. You bring a lot of clarity to my week every week. Thank you, sir.
Gene: I'm glad. You do as well. I look forward to this every week, man. There's 50 more this year.
Carl: That's right because there are going to be a couple of weeks where we're just like... like when that ax falls on your head, it's going to be one of those weeks where people will have to get it. Everybody listening, happy new year, welcome back. We'll keep bringing you more episodes hopefully with less focus on how awesome I am, but maybe not.
Gene: Well, we've got more to do.
Carl: All right, everybody. We'll see you next week.
