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Bitcoin, Stablecoins & Year End Life Planning - Understanding the Crypto Drop and Designing a Better 2026

Episode 51 · 3 December 2025 · 1 hr 10 min

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Show notes

Why Is Bitcoin Dropping? Stablecoins and Year-End Life Planning

Why is Bitcoin dropping, and do stablecoins threaten it? Randy Lorensen, Dr. John Oberg and Anthony Marino break down the crypto drop, then turn to year-end planning with John's life-planning process and the AI tools that can help.

Why is Bitcoin falling—and does the rise of stablecoins threaten its future?

Randy, Dr. John, and Anthony break down the recent crypto volatility, what stablecoins actually are, and whether Bitcoin’s long-term value is at risk. Then the conversation shifts into powerful, practical strategies for year-end planning, life direction, habit formation, and using AI as a personal productivity coach.

Whether you're wrestling with market uncertainty, trying to reset your goals for the new year, or wanting a clearer sense of purpose, this episode delivers actionable insights from three very different perspectives.

From Bitcoin supply constraints to life-planning templates, developing better habits, and building an AI-augmented workflow, this episode is packed with tools to help you design a more intentional and abundant 2026.

Stablecoins Explained, Year-End Planning, and a Life Planning Template

What you'll discover:

  • Stablecoins explained: what they are, where they're useful, and why a dollar stablecoin is still a "melting ice cube"
  • Do stablecoins reduce demand for Bitcoin? Tether's reserves and U.S. government debt
  • Why Bitcoin dropped from $120,000 to $85,000: the theories, and a fact check against the Nasdaq
  • Year-end planning: John's four purpose questions and his life planning template (core values, the 5 Fs, two or three goals)
  • John's monthly journal: start, stop, change, continue, and "I release, I choose"
  • Using AI in planning, from Anthony's funnel visualization to Randy's AI "clone"

Timestamps

  • [00:00] Welcome, and a holiday-season episode with all three hosts
  • [00:41] Anthony's article: is Bitcoin still the only safe store of value?
  • [02:06] Stablecoins vs. Bitcoin, explained
  • [03:29] Do stablecoins have value? Payment apps at home, dollar access abroad
  • [05:31] Fiat currency, the gold standard and Bitcoin's 21 million cap
  • [06:47] Why a dollar stablecoin is still a "melting ice cube"
  • [08:44] Supply and demand: do stablecoins reduce demand for Bitcoin?
  • [11:39] Tether's reserves and the market for U.S. government debt
  • [13:06] Bitcoin isn't the only store of value: gold, and past pullbacks
  • [15:26] Why did Bitcoin drop from $120,000 to $85,000? The theories
  • [17:59] Fact check: Bitcoin vs. the Nasdaq over one, five and 10 years
  • [18:54] Break: Premium Cabinets business opportunity
  • [19:28] Year-end planning: John's week of prep and life planning since age 19
  • [25:06] Finding your purpose: the four questions
  • [28:44] Why so few people plan their lives this way
  • [30:00] Advice for every season of life, and why the body is built for work
  • [32:01] Start with one small experience to build momentum
  • [34:51] John's planning template: core values, the 5 Fs and two or three goals a year
  • [37:35] Vision board, bucket list and "the man I'm becoming"
  • [39:27] Begin with the end in mind: Covey and the planning tools John has used
  • [40:23] Why planning matters more in uncertain times
  • [41:21] John's monthly journal: start, stop, change, continue, and "I release, I choose"
  • [43:52] Treat it as aspirational, and make any attempt count
  • [47:01] The stress of over-planning, and why you need some system
  • [53:07] Building the muscle first: the karate lesson
  • [54:08] Less goal, more direction, and when Traction works
  • [57:19] Staying on the rails: the self-checking digit
  • [58:21] "My way was a way": different goals for different people
  • [1:01:29] Using AI in goal-setting and planning
  • [1:03:39] Anthony's AI visualization for his interns' marketing funnel
  • [1:04:31] Randy's "Randy clone": training an AI on your beliefs and values
  • [1:07:46] Final takeaways: plan something small and change the inertia

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About the hosts

This is a hosts-only episode with no guest: Randy Lorensen, Dr. John Oberg and Anthony Marino. (Host bios are on the host pages linked below.)

Disclosure: Anthony mentions on the show (00:49) that about 5% of his portfolio is in Bitcoin. Nothing in this episode is financial advice.

Books mentioned:

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Meet the hosts: Randy Lorensen · Dr. John Oberg · Anthony Marino

Transcript

A full transcript is below. It was generated automatically from the episode audio, so expect some spelling errors in names and terms.

[00:13] always, I'm here, well, I guess not always, but I'm here with Dr. John and Anthony. Gentlemen, how we doing today? — Happy holidays to everybody. — Pretty excited to be here today. This is a fun topic. — Yeah, Anthony just told me we're going to have debate. So, uh, this is, you know, nothing. like every other day. We we only debate on days that end in Y. — Yeah. So, well, let's let's jump into our abundance briefing. And Anthony, you had questions for me about Bitcoin. So, I'm going to just you you read an article and uh you want to tell people what the premise of this article is and then what questions you have about it? — Sure. Yeah. Sure. you know, um full disclosure, um uh 5% of my portfolio is in Bitcoin and um the an article was written uh last week that basically said um the crypto exodus why capital is leaving Bitcoin and the premise of the article was that the uh issuance of stable coins the original purpose of Bitcoin which was a store value of money. Now, it is not the only store value of money. So, I [clears throat] was, you know, I was really looking forward to talking to Randy because he's he knows a lot more about this than I do. And as I watch my portfolio dwindle away to nothing, um, uh, you know, with the with the urge to sell it and get out before it goes to zero, I wanted to talk to Randy and get his take on, um, what all this means because I don't, frankly, I don't understand it. So, have at it.

[01:48] — All right. What's your what's your first question? What what's going on? Why is — it is it is it is it is is there a is there a danger is the the fundamental premise that Bitcoin is no longer the only safe place to store value. — Can we back up a half a step real quick? This is I think the argument partly is about stablecoin versus Bitcoin. Can you just start by explaining Bitcoin versus stablecoin, Randy? And you got to bring your head in. Yeah, I can see your head going off screen, on screen, off screen. — Um, so stable coin is it's just a US dollar. It's all it is. Just like people get memorized mesmerized by the name. But when we talk about a stable coin, all it is, by the way, it could be a euro, it could be a yen, it could be whatever or a Swiss Frank, but — it's something. — But 99 plus% of stable coins are US dollars right now. And all it is is and this started with private companies. This didn't come from the government. They just started doing this in a way that okay they would take US dollars, people would put it in, they would put it on the blockchain and issue a $1 token. They then backed it. It by the way one of the greatest business models in the history of the world, maybe the best. These guys last year, Tether alone had more revenue than Goldman Sachs and they have a total of 80 employees.

[03:23] — Okay. Well, they've grown. They've — So, but they I know they were at 80. So, — do stable coins have value? Yes. If you live in the US, I don't think they have a lot of value. Like the three of us all have a bank account, right? I think we all have multiple bank accounts. We have Venmo, we have Cash App, we have PayPal. In a lot of ways, a stable coin is another version of that. It's just a way to send dollars around the world. Where they're really, really useful is in places that have hyperinflation. So remember, it's a dollar, which means it's a fiat currency, which means it's backed by nothing. It's just the government says it has value. Well, country, the dollar isn't the only one. If you go to Argentina, they had this mass inflation. Now, they're starting they've got it under control pretty well in the last couple years, but you know, if you they had a 100 plus percent inflation. We think inflation's bad here, and it is, right? But it's it you know, they were over 100%. Venezuela a few years ago had 10,000% inflation.

[04:30] Like anything that you had in I think it's Bolivar, whatever the Venezuelan money is. In essence, if you were a you were broke in a year, like if you kept it in fiat. And that is the end of every fiat currency that has ever existed. Going back to Kublaon. Okay. — Okay. So, so Randy, real quick, just for for neophites in the room, myself being primary among them, why is Bitcoin not fiat currency? — Because there will only ever be 21 million of them. Okay, that's a really important that that that I didn't understand the concept of that. I was in Bitcoin for a a couple years before I really got that. But there can only ever be 21 million. Most of those something like 20 million plus have already been mined and we know exactly when the others will come into play at some point in the future. Okay? — So there is no government that can say so here's what governments do. We were on a gold standard before fiat currency.

[05:34] The whole world was on a gold standard and the whole world thrived unlike civilization has ever seen. The the American industrial revolution happened primarily because we were on a gold standard. But the same thing was happening in Europe and in other places. And the dollar was backed by gold. It no longer is. It's just a piece of paper. Um, but what happened? World War I happened and everybody needed money and first it was the British that left, right? The pound before the dollar. The pound was the world's reserve currency. Well, the British went broke in World War I. So did the Germans, right? We know about the hyperinflation there. But they the hyperinflation in Germany with the Deutsch mark that really caused World War II would not have happened without fiat currency. Like them being able to just print money and deval when they print money that devalues what everybody else holds. — Okay. So I took his off Anony's question. So now back to Anony's question. Like should should is the is Bitcoin in trouble because of stable coin then? Is that Anthony? Is that the — That's what Yes, that is. Well, that's that's a question he's getting to. Let's hold let's put a pin on that one for just a minute.

[06:47] — Fiat currency or a US dollar stable coin. If you're in Venezuela that has 10,000% inflation in a year, you love the US dollar right here. Look at the price. And we don't always We see it at the grocery store. We see it in stocks. We see it in housing. We see it in healthcare. We see it in education. Prices are going up here. We're we're like, boy, the dollar's losing value. Well, not in Venezuela, not in Turkey, not in Zimbabwe, not in Argentina. There's a lot of other places where the dollar looks amazing. So, is it a tool for those people? Yes, it's an amazing tool. Um, it's also electronic. They don't have to carry around cash. They can send it on their smartphone. There's a lot of benefits in those countries. In America, I just don't see the benefit. All it is is a you're you're still losing purchasing power, right? Or as Michael Sailor says it, you're it's a melting ice cube. The anything you put in dollar. So where Bitcoin is different, one, there's only 21 million. I'm going to go back to that again. It's also decentralized.

[07:53] No government can print it. No corporation can print it. No one person can control the system. And it it's math. It's code. They can't change it. It's and it's secured, by the way. It's secured by the biggest computer network in the world. And it's not just the biggest. If you add up Amazon cloud, all of Amazon's compute, all of Google's compute, and all of Apple's compute, or maybe it's Microsoft. I think it's Microsoft. The the Bitcoin network is more than a hundred times bigger than all three of them combined. It is the most massive computer system in the world securing it. Okay. But again, 21 million. So, it's limited. It's decentralized. — Okay. So, hang on, hang on, hang on, hang on. Let me let me act like I know what I'm talking about. Okay. So, I'm going to let let me say it this way. Economics 101. Supply and demand drives prices. Right? We all agree. Okay.

[08:58] Everyone gonna can agree to that. Just yesterday, Bitcoin existed. Let's just assume yesterday Bitcoin existed and stable coins did not. Today, stable coins are ubiquitous. And the difference between my understanding is the difference between the stable coin uh infrastructure and um uh the way you the way the money moves. In other countries, it's very easy to pay with the stable coin, right? And if you're in Nigeria or in and and stable coins are like 90 something% of the the dollar the the the the value of stable coins are held in foreign countries. Okay. Um I think that's the number I read. So because stable coins is like a a a more efficient and less expensive version of Visa, Mastercard and American Express, does that reduce the demand of Bitcoin?

[10:08] And that's I think that's the premise of the article that yes in the long run I understand in the long run United States dollar is going to crash and burn. That's, you know, that's in the Bitcoin, you know, number one slot of what's why I'm in Bitcoin. The the the fiat currency in the United States will go to zero at some point, whether it's one year or 100 years. At some point, it will. But in the interim, people want to transfer money around easily. They want to buy things. They want to do it inexpensively. it is is so does this does this article have at least a short-term impact on the demand for Bitcoin? And I — I'm saying there's I'm not saying there's zero impact. I'm saying it's irrelevant in the large scale. So let me ask you a question. — Does Venmo impact Bitcoin? I don't think so. — Okay. So, a US dollar a US dollar coin stable coin is really no different than sending a Venmo transaction.

[11:19] It's the same it's the same thing. It's just a different packaging on a withering asset. Any way you look at the packaging has changed. It's digital. Does this allow the U? By the way, this is great for the US if you want to keep kicking the can down the road in the Fed. Okay? Because Tether as they have all this volume, they're buying primarily US bonds. Now, they're taking their massive profits and buying Bitcoin and gold and real estate with it. But if people for every dollar that that people put into the stable coin, Tether or any of these have a dollar of reserves that are in short-term government bonds. So, we are having a problem selling our debt. Bond auctions the last couple years have been getting worse and worse and worse and they go down. We just added liquidity to the banks a week or two ago, which is another huge bailout bigger than 0809 that nobody's even talked. We don't even care now. And this is bigger than that. They're going to keep printing money. Like the one thing that I am 100% certain of is the US government and every other government around the world, they're going to keep printing money as long as they have fiat currency. the the the motivations of the politicians are to get elected, stay in power, and you do that by promising free things. You do that by by you don't do it by raising taxes. If you want to start a war, you print money. You don't raise taxes because everybody would be against your war, right? And they don't.

[12:55] Inflation is a tax, but it's not one that people can see or sense or very few people understand. So, I don't think Anthony this changes Bitcoin's thing at all. Um, by the way, Bitcoin is not the only store of value. I mean, it it gold I mean, gold's been around for 5,000 years. If I wasn't a Bitcoiner, I would be a gold bug. Okay? In fact, I was a little bit of a gold bug before Bitcoin. So, gold has been doing fantastic. Now, historically, when the gold price jumps, the Bitcoin price follows it within a few months and it moves more rapidly than gold. And I understand the price is down. Um, but here I'm going to share my screen and for those people watching, but mostly for Anthony. So, this is the Bitcoin chart from inception starting at zero and today it's just shy of 85,000. 84 and change. unless you bought recently, you're still up. I mean, look at this.

[14:02] Look at these these pullbacks, right? I mean, there was a major major pullback back in 2017, right? I mean, at one point it went to 19,000, went back to three, um, you know, up here, and then it went to like 60. This says 61. I thought it was closer to 70 at then. And then again it went over 100 when the ETFs came out. It hit 126 or something. 122 I think I — Yeah, I read the I read the return the ROI in the last 5 years of the uh S&P and Bitcoin are relatively the same over the last 5 years that which is fine. I mean and and I guess while we have only a few minutes left, what do you think is causing what looks like a precipitous — Hold on. 5 years ago, the Bitcoin price was 7,000. Now it's 85. So that's a 12x. The S&P has done 12x in 5 years. — The I'm I'm just again, you fact check me. Uh but I believe that's rel it's relatively either relatively the same or the I might have read that the that either maybe it was the NASDAQ has outperformed Bitcoin. I I don't want to again I need to be fact checked on that stuff. I think I think it's I think it's this year.

[15:19] — It's not in five. I don't think it's in five years, but I think it's this year — We'll come back to it because this is a big topic that, you know, we all need to be educated on. But do do you have a you know a oneliner in the minute or two left that we have of why the precipitous dropped from 120 to 85? Is there what's the market dynamic that's causing that in your opinion? — There's a lot of theories. Okay. Um they I I don't know the answer, Anthony. I think people that say they know the answer, I think they're full of is what I honestly think. I think — that's a fair that's fair. — I I will tell you what's I'll tell you what the theories are. One of the main theories and you can see this on chain analytics because it is an open ledger system. There are a lot of Bitcoin whales that in people that have held Bitcoin for 10 years and have a cost basis of almost zero that have been selling and taking billions of dollars off the table for lifestyle to buy a house or whatever. So that's — real quick. — Oh, sorry. I was going to give you the quick fact check on your to keep going. Keep going, Randy. I thought you had a — So that's happening number one. Number two, evidently there's a lot of tax loss harvesting right now at the end of the year which is having an impact and people are doing that with ETFs etc.

[16:34] There's another theory that's been floating around. I don't have any idea if this is real, but JP Morgan, there's a there's a claim that JP Morgan has a Chase has a big short and they have been talking a lot of FUD. And if you know, it's a pretty scummy business when you you listen to what these companies that short, some of them own media companies, and they will literally write articles about the company they're shorting and they're they're fake. They know they're fake. Well, I don't think JP Morgan owns a they I don't think they own a media company, but they're putting FUD out there and Jaime Diamond is, you know, is throwing a lot of crap out there. Um that's anti- Bitcoin and all of that has an impact. And I I've heard three, four other theories. So, it could be all of them. My guess is it's about to rip people's faces off that it's I mean Bitcoin goes down but again if you looked at that chart it's had much bigger draw downs than this and it always comes back and it comes back — Well we'll have to come back to this guys you know at some point and really do a deep dive on you know the the market you know you know initially Bitcoin was a a side hustle for a certain group of people that understood it. Then the uh now the big guys are in.

[17:51] So it it it's acting seems to be acting more like the stock market than what it was before. But boy, there's a lot. — Super super quick fact check. So NASDAQ is up 20% or so, 21% this year. Bitcoin's down 7%. So NASDAQ outperforming. And looking at the last uh 10 13 years or so, there's been a number of years where uh Bitcoin has been outperformed by the NASDAQ 100. But overall uh the just the numbers I'm looking at, Bitcoin last 10 years up 81% compounded. NASDAQ up 17%, last 5 years, Bitcoin up 60%, NASDAQ up 17%. Last year, Bitcoin up 70%, NASDAQ up 14%. Just one site I pulled up real quick. don't haven't fact checked that specifically but you know I think uh they don't seem you know necessarily correlated so — okay great — all right well listeners we will be back after the break to talk about year-end planning and uh and stick with us it's Randy from Tales of Abundance is starting a business part of your journey do you have ambition but no clear path maybe you feel trapped in your current career do you want a real business that can produce $250,000 or more income for you and your family. We have an opportunity for a profitable business that can be part of your path to abundance. I want to personally invite you to see the proven system we've built. It's designed to give you that freedom and control you've been searching for. Visit premiumc to learn more. That's premiumc Listeners, welcome back to Tales of Abundance. Why settle for less? I'm still here with with John and Anthony and uh we're going to get into some year-end planning and I think this is a really interesting topic really timely obviously uh you know John I know this is something you you go deep into this and last week was your your week to go really deep so just tell us about that.

[19:51] Let's I I want to hear your process to start like what you do and why and how you got there and let's start with what you do. — Yeah. Yeah, LA last week actually wasn't the week I do it every year is between Christmas and New Year's and last week was my week to kind of get ready for that. And so there's a lot of things I prep for, but you know, I was I was sharing with my son who's a junior in college. Like I've been doing some form of what I'll call life planning since I was 19 years old. And I know you and I have talked a lot about Tony Robbins lately, but like I think one of the things we haven't talked about is I started listening to Tony Robbins back when I was like 19 years old. And while I haven't listened to him a ton in the last, you know, 1015 years, I know you've done a lot of that. And I want to get back into it with my kids. There's a lot of this life planning stuff was a result of some of the, you know, self-improvement work that I did when I was in college, coming out of college to um just make sure that I was working on the things that were important to me in my life. And so I've I've kind of come at it a number of different ways over the last 30ome years. And um I've worked with lots of my clients on this type of life planning both for their personal life and their business. And so I think there's a there's a very large toolkit that people can access, not all of which are necessary and not all of which are useful all the time. Like I've got I've got a big tool kit in my utility room that I use the pliers a bunch and my screwdrivers a bunch, but a bunch of those things I hardly ever use. I just pull the tools out one by one when I need them. And so this is the time of year when I'm thinking a lot about, you know, what happened in 2025, what do I want to have happen in 2026, and how do I make sure that the most important things, you know, actually come to — So, okay, last week you said, I was unaware of this. Okay, so this is interesting. Last week you took a week to prepare for your end of the year planning. What What does that entail?

[21:37] — Yeah, a lot of it's taking stock of this year so far, right? So, it's like going through and understanding like for all the businesses that I'm involved with, you know, where are they? Um what are what how am I doing? You know, I've got six weeks left in the year and so what need what needs to get over the finish line in the last 6 weeks of the year? And then I look at, you know, some of the important parts of my life plan are about like what happens in the event of my demise. For example, I've got like a love letter that my family has with like my will and all those things. And I look at like what needs to be addressed by the end of the year. like what are the things I have to update and so um yeah so so it's really taking stock of six weeks left to go and what needs to happen for the next six weeks and then what are the what are the questions I'm going to be trying to answer between Christmas and New Year's to get my goals set for the following year. I I spend a lot more time on this than most people and I don't recommend that people dive into it with the level of um time investment that I have. I don't think it's necessary for most people or desired by most people. I do it because it's something that I enjoy doing and it I it I find that it takes pressure off of me, doesn't put pressure onto me. And so I I don't recommend that people take on a process that puts unhealthy pressure on themselves.

[22:49] — Can you give us a couple specifics like things that you know what what came up last week? Give can you give us a couple specifics that apply to you this year? — Yeah, I think for me one of the things I really want to be thoughtful about next year is like where I invest my time with my family. like what are the conversations I want to be having with each of my children that uh about their future that they're excited about. So, not me pressing kind of my life planning on to them, but you know, my daughter has some things that are really important to her. And so, how can I support her in in those conversations? And my son, my 20-year-old son has a different set of things that that he's interested in. How do I support him in those conversations? and then my my 14-year-old son, you know, who's about to be 15, how do I have a, you know, a different set of conversations with him that are, you know, appropriate and the conversation. So, so that was a big part of like what are the things I want to be doing? Then there's there's a couple of experiences as a family we've signed up for next year. And so those experiences, I want to make sure that that we get a lot out of those experiences, but I don't want it to be so intense and over the top that that they don't enjoy. Like so, so we're planning a trip. And so I want to make sure this is a big trip for our family. And so I want to make sure that we go in and we have all the right anticipation and fun, but I don't want it to become work for them. So it's it's important for me to have the fun that I want to have with anticipation growth getting ready but I don't want to saddle them like with so much of that that it becomes a chore to go on this really great trip.

[24:14] — How has this changed? I mean we have listeners we you know when I when I look at our numbers we have listeners from 18 to 70 it seems. So go back to the 20 30 year olds. How how has this changed for you since then? I've got a long document today, Randy, that goes through a lot of detail about what I want my life to look like in 10 years. And when I was 19, 20 years old, I couldn't think about that as clearly as I think about today. And that's totally fine. Like the things I wrote down when I was 19 or 20 didn't come true at all. And and there's nothing wrong with that. So what I told my son this last week as we start to kind of reveal this process to him, my daughter's less interested in this than he is. um is like, you know, you don't have to be as meticulous. Like just start to put ideas down that are interesting to you and just start a list of things that are interesting to you. So when I talk about people finding their purpose, the four questions you heard me talk about for years, what are you great at? What are you passionate about? You know, how do you want to spend your time and treasure and t and talent? How do you want to spend those things? And what mark do you leave on the world? Like what mark do you leave on the world? He's like, I don't know.

[25:22] What are you good at? Well, I don't know. Well, there's a few things you're good at. Let's just talk, you know, and then what things are you passionate about? Well, I don't know. Well, let's put the things you could be passionate about. And and there should be lots of um grace for people who want to just try things on early in their career is my view on the world. — By the way, John, you mentioned this exercise. We did it in our group like five years ago. I'm holding it up for the camera, but literally I just saw it sitting. It's sitting in front of me. I I It's something I still reference every now and then. Um, I probably should update it, but it it really is a great exercise, those four questions and putting them in the four quadrants. So, I it it's something I still look at. Like I said, years ago, we did it. — And we're lucky to be part of a friend group that like we can talk about each other's four questions, right? And talk about what and people miss it, right? Like I had someone recently who's like, "Hey, can you help me with mine?" I was like, "Sure." They wrote them down and they sent them back to me and I added a whole bunch of things they were good at and I added a whole bunch of things that they had shared with me they were passionate about. And so now the key to that is I I wanted to be clear that I wasn't like projecting my wants and needs on to them. That's really an important part of this. But but I was able to kind of help them see themselves in a way and and I have other friends who've done this with me that I look back at these things, you know, we did it 10 years ago. And so [clears throat] a great way to get started is just four blank pieces of paper and just start writing down like what are all the things I think I'm good at? And that means naturally good at or skills that I've developed over the years. And then what are the things that I'm that are important to me? What am I passionate about? And then how do I enjoy spending my time? And then what things do I want to do to change the world? And I don't think change the world has to be like, you know, uh fix global warming. I think change the world can be I want to be a great friend to five people, right? Or like it can be something that that people could judge it as big or people could judge it as small. And I think that's just unimportant about somebody else's judgment. I think it's really important to get excited about the mark you want to leave on the world because that's what makes you feel a sense of inner peace inside.

[27:26] Yeah, some people it's just doing a great job raising kids, right? — Some people it's just being a great partner and not having kids. Some like I think I think it can be anything and judging it as big or small. The the butterfly effect is such an important effect. I think about this uh saint whose name I can't remember who wanted to have this massive impact on the world and he went out to be a missionary and he ended up getting killed by the people he was trying to be a missionary to and probably I'm guessing you know died thinking he was a failure and 40 years later his writing was brought out to the world when they found his writings I can't I can't be in a cave or something and and he became a saint because it impacted so many people but never in his lifetime. So, I just I'm really cautious to like get people shuing on themselves like I should want this, I should want that. I don't think that's super helpful. I think, you know, finding kind of an inner sense of peace about the way you're built is is generally the encouragement that I give people. — This is all really good advice. Um, for sure. Um but how you know when you don't have a peer network when you're in you know a crisis period um what what's the you know most most many people are you know um insulated uh they're on their own and they don't uh I don't I don't know of many people who do what you've described why is that I mean it makes I mean and I you know first of all survey of one I'm one of those people you know I'm not I'm not a planner necessarily in the way you are my the way I plan is v vastly different than that I've always been more of a what's tomorrow going to bring kind of guy um and I think mo a lot of people are like that so you know how do you what's a little thing someone can do to you know take that first step um to get a little more clarity and a little more purpose and and help help them achieve. You know, a lot of people are going to look back on this year and they're going to say, "Didn't really accomplish much.

[29:43] — I survived. I'm still alive. Good enough. Um let's let's move on till tomorrow." Um when there there's there's probably was a lot of wasted time, a lot of wasted effort. um or or effort that wasn't leading to something of value. So, you know, what what advice would you give, you know, a 20, 30, 40, 50 year old? Uh and I, you know, the different seasons of people's lives and so forth. How how would you — you know, I was just talking to a group of interns this morning about um the role of comfort versus stress in your life. And so I think the first thing to acknowledge is the human body is designed to take on stress that is good stress. In in the mental health world we call this ustress. EU S ts ustress which is different than distress. So ustress is where you're uncomfortable but you're growing positively and building capability. Distress is where you're hurting or breaking down. In in muscle building it's hypertrophy versus atrophy. So atrophy is the breaking down of muscle. Hypertrophy is the building up of muscle. So when you go to the gym done well, you're building muscles in a good way, but you're outside your comfort zone. Done poorly, you're hurting yourself. And so I think the first thing is to get get understand the notion of comfort all the time is not how the the body is built. The body is built for work. And once you understand that, then it's like, okay, what work am I called to? Well, because it can be enjoyable. Like work can be really really enjoyable if you find the right work. And so I think a couple things I I give people who've never done this before is just take a blank sheet of paper and write down everything you might think you want. Whether you think you want it or definitely want it, just write it all down. And in the first time I ever did this exercise, it was very early in my career. I had like three or four pages of things that I and I didn't make any judgments. I wrote down the cars that I wanted, multiple cars, all the different cars I might want, all the different things I wanted in the house, all the different clothes that I wanted.

[31:41] It was lots of material things when I was younger. And then I went back through the list later on a day later and I wrote down why I wanted it. And I think that when when you can start to do that, the list starts to stack rank itself. And if you can find just, you know, it's like, okay, what's the one thing I want to work on getting? Whether it's a thing or what I would suggest is find an experience that you want and start with something small and easy so you can build momentum. It's a really easy way to start to get the things you want in your life. Whether it's the people you want in your life, the experiences you want in your life, the feelings you want to have in your life, but start small and build momentum. But but start with that list. What's everything you might possibly want in your life? Anthony, it took me until I was in my 30s to figure out how to build friendships that would last. But I had to go build those skill sets because I didn't, you know, I I told my son this last week, like I didn't have a father at age 20. And so I didn't know how to develop these skills and I didn't feel comfortable talking to my mom about some of these things. My mom was a superhero. I should have. And so I I found mentors that gave me little pieces of this along the way. So, but to answer your question, make a list. Make it as long as you want. Put the most ridiculous things on there. put the smallest things on there. Then put the list down for 24 hours. Come back to that list and write down why without judgment, why next to all of them. And that should help you pick a couple small things you can work toward that aren't year-long goals. They're just things I want to get done this week. But people need to just start, right? Because like I know me, I've had similar to you, right? I've had a list and then some things I look at a year later like I've got a vision board. We've got a previous episode on a vision board. I look at my vision board and I look at it and one of two things happen. Either the growth or change I've had that no longer interests me or sometimes I just look at it. I'm like, "Oh, that seems kind of cool, but I'm not actually willing to put in the work or I'm not motivated to do that, but I am willing to do this." So, it's a living document that's always evolving.

[33:56] — And Randy, here's one of the biggest misconceptions I think people have about goal setting. I have things on my list that are 10-year goals that I'll just strike off there because, you know, 90 days later, they don't make sense to me — And I give myself lots of permission to strike through things that don't matter. But, but when I set a goal for the week or for the day, those are the things I'm super committed to. And in a business, it might be for a quarter or for a year because you're leading a business. But for the people that aren't leading a business or they're super early in the business, like it's okay to only be committed in a shorter term. Like there's very few things I'm committed to for life, right? My faith is one of them. My wife, one of them, my kids, three of them. Like like there are some things I am committed to for life. But there's a lot of things that I put down that I'm like, "Yeah, I mean, you know, the house that I live in, not so much." — Well, let's jump forward three, four weeks. You said between Christmas and New Year's is when you do the real planning. So, you did all the pre-planning. What is that going to look like for you or what does that typically look like for you?

[34:59] — You know, I'll share with you the template I use, Randy, with the caveat that it's pretty overwhelming for most people. Um, if if someone looks at this template for the first time, my best advice is don't use it. Like, like just fill in one little part of it. Like I'll show you this template that I that I use. Um, let me just pull this thing up. because I carry it with me wherever I go. And it's like I want to know my core values. If you don't know your core values, we have an easy exercise you can do to start to understand your core values. Go check out that episode. It's a cool episode. The my purpose, man, I had this thing on my list of things to write down for 12 years before I actually put a draft of it down there. So, this thing was blank for 12 years. So just scratch through it. Forget about it. That passions, skills, lifestyle, and impact. I did that exercise we just talked about and I put the top five on here. So I didn't do the exercise on this piece of paper. I just took the top five things from each one and put them on here. [snorts] Keys to success. This changes every year. Like I just it's it's a very fluid like very fluid thing.

[36:16] Then I've got my annual goals. So this will change next year to 2026. And you'll see the five Fs that we talk about all the time. I do not set goals for all five Fs. I want to set two or three goals for the whole year. So I might have five ideas or 10 ideas for each one of these things, but I want to make it really clear. I only have a couple goals for the year. — I keep it really simple, but I have ideas on here about things that I like. then I've got any success habits that I want to create for the year. So you'll remember Randy a few years ago I had learn Spanish on my list like three years in a row and as you were somebody else in our group who's like hey man you've had learn Spanish on there for like four or five years and you've done nothing toward it. Can we take it off? — So so learning Spanish is on my bucket list still but I haven't committed to actually doing it because I haven't said but but working out I got really committed to working out. So I I did what I had to do to spend the time, the resources, the money to start working out. Now, I've been working out really significantly over the last year, and it's it's impacted my fitness levels for sure. Next on my list for working out is figuring out how to um increase my my um capacity. I have athletic onset asthma. So, next year I'm going to have a much better cardiovascular um kind of health around that. I have a vision board that you've seen, right? So, you've seen my vision board, right? This hasn't changed a lot for years. That's my vision board. These are like just emotional reminders of the things that are important to me and we can talk through that or you can go watch the vision board episode — and this by the way this tool you're going to have on the we're going to put on the website tales of money right yeah.com so listeners if you want to see if you're watching great if you want to see the tool or even if you are watching and you want to use this tool uh it'll be on the website you can go download that and and use that. So — this exercise about the man I'm becoming came from a book called Think and Grow Rich where there was like a narrative that he wrote out to himself and like a letter to himself. And so I just did the same thing. I just wrote a letter to myself about what I want the next 10 years to look like. And you can see there's parts of it here that I want to change over the next year.

[38:23] Right? So I'll do that. I'll do that when when that end of year comes up. Then I have my bucket list of all the things that I want to do. I want to look good naked. That was mine. I'm so glad that's on there. Thanks. — That that that's a vision I'm have no interest in. — It was It was about But it was about fitness. I didn't I didn't mean to keep it on there, but — we know, John. We're just We're joking. Anthony need the visual is what we're telling you. — No one needs that visual. I'm going to take you back to my car. I can take you back to my my vision board like when I played water polo in college. — So, okay. So, this I I can see how this is overwhelming. And my advice to people would be if you're going to use this, just start on it this year. Get some done and then you can add to it over the next years, decades, or whatever while you figure out what works for you, — Or or or don't do it. Just grab a piece of paper and write down everything you think you want and put why and then figure out where it fits into this a few years from now if you're if you're doing it on a regular basis, you know? But, you know, there's so many cool tools I used over the years. I don't use a Franklin CVY planner anymore, but like the the whole idea of begin with the end in mind from Steven Cvy in his book, The Seven Habits of Highly Effective People.

[39:38] We'll link to it in the show notes. And then there was a book by CVY and Merryill called First Things First, which broke out one of the chapters on planning into an entire book. Like I did those things early in my 20s and it really helped me get into a rhythm of planning each and every week. And I know that you guys make fun of me for how much planning I do sometimes. I don't do that level of planning every week in the same level of intensity. But I built those muscles and those habits and they still serve me well today. So it takes me far less time than it used to take me. But today, you know, it's it it really helps me get productive each day, each week. And but and I don't put a lot of pressure on myself for years and decades now. — You know, we have so many distractions in our life. um far more um comes at us every day, you know, whether it's social media, TV, information, uh pressure, um the uncertainty uh that exists in in the world, period. and and around us whether it's personal uncertainty about your work, your job, your health, or that of people in your in your life that some [snorts] amount time spent cataloging and planning seems more important than ever at this point.

[41:00] — So, I'm going to make a — because if you Yeah, — I'm I'm going to plug Anthony. So, so when I when I got overwhelmed by this process, because I did get overwhelmed by this process at one point, I tried to go through and read about like how the most successful people in history did this regularly. And journaling was the thing that I came up with like like like people journaled. And so I took everything I could learn about journaling from leaders over the last couple hundred years and said, "What were the things they put in their journal?" And this is the journal I came up with. And we can we can definitely find a way Randy to get this to the listeners. But like what did I learn last month? What should I start, stop, change, and continue doing after looking at my last month? What was my highlight? What was my low light? And then I go through and say, okay, well, based on all of that, what are my goals for next month? And then winning the day is what habits do I want to improve next month? And it was what I learned was that big changes in habits over a month were not a good idea for me. tiny little changes in habits were a great idea for me. And so I picked no more than five goals and a couple habits.

[42:05] And then I put win the day up top. And I'll show you why because I and this is my list of things I want to put on my list for later, like just things I want to think about later in my life, but not today. Then I had this daily journal where I said, "Okay, what am I here's my here's the date. What am I grateful for? Did I win the day?" So, did I do more than 70% of my habits? Ferrris was like, "Pick seven things and do four of them every day." Then I just reminded myself what I wanted the future to be like next week, next year, whatever. How I wanted to feel, what I let go of, what I chose instead. So, like, you know, I release judgment of myself. I choose to be graceful with myself. I forgive myself. I was always the person I forgive the most often. And then Anthony to the what was I going to do today? What three things that I want to get done? And if I did this every day for 30 days and then went back to the end, you know, at the end of the month and said, "What did I learn?" Man, it was a really power. I've never ever given this journal to someone, had them do it for 30 days, have them come back to me and say it wasn't worth it. Like I've been doing this for 15 years now. And every person who I give the journal to who does it for 30 days comes back to me and says they've changed their life for the better. Some people a little, some people a lot. But if they do the whole journal for 30 days, life-changing. So listeners, two things. Go to the website. Um John will have a link on there as well to how get a hold of that.

[43:35] And so John, you get again the the the planning document, fantastic. The journal, fantastic. I've used it myself for years, although I'm inconsistent. Sometimes I do it every day for six months and sometimes I don't touch it for three months, but — which by the way, totally okay. Totally okay to do that, right? — Yeah. So, okay. So, listeners, I'm going to put that out there as your aspirational goal, — right? But I also realize that's probably too much for the average person. So, Anthony, I'm guessing what you do. Can you tell listeners what you've done for planning or or just that I think maybe will give people a different jumping off point? — Yeah, I um so I'll give you an example. So I'm not great at as I said earlier. I'm not I'm not um I'm not the bell weather here. Yesterday um in fact I downloaded an app on reminders or tasks or something. I can't even remember what it was, but I was went off for my for a walk and on the walk I ended up with 25 tasks that I've got to get done this week. And they're they're all really important. And what struck me was, man, I'm a that that is just way too many. Should have been on this before.

[44:54] How did I forget about that thing? Jesus, I got to schedule that for sure. Time is running out on this one or that one or this is really important to this person. I was letting people down. Um I was going to let people down if I if I didn't get things done. So, um you know, I'm I'm a I was always a, you know, uh to-do list kind of person, but always things that I could see directly in front of me, like what's that car going to do in that lane kind of kind of guy. And I and the reason I wanted to have this discussion was I from a self-improvement perspective. Now I don't expect to be John and and go full boore, but I do want to um be better at planning ahead um so that I can have an im more of an impact on people. you know, the season that I'm in is not really about me, but about the impact that I can have on people. I don't um you know, I have certainty in my financial uh uh bucket.

[46:02] So, I'm cool there. But there are some other things um you know, some personal growth uh and the impact that can have on some people that are running businesses and on um people close to me. I think by having a better planning methodology, I can do a better job of those things. — Yeah. So, — let me ask you a question. You said you're not gonna — Hold on, Randy. Hold on. Before you do that, I just want to point out Anony's been super successful with his planning methodology as imperfect as he thinks it is. Like, whatever process works for you, the listener or whoever like like I just want to point out again like it's okay. You can want to get better, but you've been very very successful with a methodology that you call imperfect. The the best methodology is the one that works for you at the time. And I know lots of people who have to change their method over time because it got stale. They were trying to grow like whatever the case may be. But like so any any attempt at this is good. — Yeah. I will say all all that's true and thank you for saying it. But as I look back on it, the [clears throat] amount of stress that it created for me and the moments of urgency that presented themselves because I didn't do planning were highly stressful and I would I would like to have changed that those moments in time.

[47:24] So that's kind of as I that really I've been doing a lot of self-reflection in the last as you know — in the last 90 days about what it is I'm going to spend my time doing. — hold on. How would how would you change that? You said that stress and you would you what would you tell yourself now or your younger self? — I would say docu do what we're talking about. Document the things that are important to you that that either need to be done or um are ideas that you have. Get them on paper. You know, there's plenty of tools. Use whatever. Use your you know, scratch them into your desk. It doesn't really matter what you do, but keep track of stuff. Um, — well, hold on. I do want to point out though, it's really important, Randy, that someone picks a system because there's a lot of evidence that says if you have several systems or work through and change your method all the time, it produces more anxiety versus having one particular system that your brain can rely on reduces anxiety. And then having goals that are too big can cause anxiety. Right- sized goals can reduce anxiety. So, there are some things you can do to make your life better. There's also some things you can do to make your life harder. And there are a ton of tools. So you can, you know, Reich and ASA, which is what I use ASA Monday.

[48:41] I've used that before. You can use really sophisticated CRM systems. You can use Google reminders or streaks is a great one. There's a ton of these things, but the key is to use like the technology isn't the important part. It's having a system. I think David Allen has a great way of going through like the to-do list system. I think CVY does a great job of the planning piece of it with Mel in first things first, but but have have a system that's as small as possible to get your stuff — See, John, I not to I'm going to push back a little bit. I think that scares people that to have a system. I think the first thing is just start doing just start documenting somehow. The system will come to you. You'll find a system that works for you, but it's it's that first step of — both hands, you know. Yeah, I don't disagree that it's scary. It's both it's both and, right? Like, so it is scary, but if you try to figure out your own system, you're going to spend potentially years figuring out what other people have already figured out. And so, what I'd say is start doing something. And when you want to get it organized, go find somebody else who's already organized it for you and make your life easier because I've watched people try to figure it out themselves.

[49:50] That's a mess. — Yeah. I I give I give our listeners credit. this the people that listen to us and watch us are, you know, uh, smart and will are are are listening to us because they want to create abundance in their life and so they're willing to do the work. So [snorts] I have confidence that they'll find — the the systems are easy to find, right? I mean you can just do a reminder on your iPhone for sakes and if you use a count you use a calendar — but the the thing is it's that first step and then the consistency of it's like exercise or diet you know if you eat really well today and then eat really bad the next six days doesn't do you much good for today but the consistency of just doing the little the little things. Um — well now now you've just one more thing we haven't talked about today which is goals versus habits. I think those are two different things people work through. And so, you know, again, great book, Atomic Habits, talks about the way you improve your habits different than a so goal I typically think of as something I'm going to do once. A habit is something I want to be a lifestyle improvement for me. And so I and and helpful to improve those things — Well, but but they're they're interlaced, right?

[51:06] — That's right. you're not g you're not going to reach achieve a goal if you don't have good habits around the things necessary to achieve that goal. So and and your earlier point about setting you used to call it shortening the runway — you know setting a goal very close — to where you are today instead of you know um yeah — you know flying to Hawaii you know you gota get off you gota you gotta get the plane off the ground before you can get to Hawaii. So, I think that's the advice that I would give people is shorten your runway and then over time you your runway will will get longer. Your destinations will be further out in the future. They'll be bigger or different. And as you said earlier, which I think is the most important thing, things you know, your environment changes, you know, family's health around you changes, their economic conditions change, they have babies that weren't planned, and you know, all those things. So, uh that that have an impact on you — Uh these are these are stimuli, there's a pokes, these are punches in the mouth.

[52:15] These are all these things that you got to be aware of and then things get crossed off and added to that to that — Look, I mean, everybody's got to figure out what works for them. You know, I I'm thinking about my planning and when I was young, I was much more like John, right? I don't think it was quite to that extent, but I was really detailed in my annual and monthly and quarterly planning and and I really like went deep. Well, and then I went, you know, when I was playing poker, there wasn't so much planning and and I kind of got, you know, and I went back to that. But I found as I've gotten older, that's not what's best for me. As I've changed, I don't necessarily thrive on that. And some of it, like the to-do lists, like having a list to me is it's just not effective. And I know that's it is for a lot of people, but I it's not — Randy, hold on. This is really important because building muscle sometimes you have to do things to build the muscle to figure it out to get there. And sometimes we do people a disservice by trying to have them start at the end versus building the muscle. And the best example I can think of was when I learned how to block in karate. My arm came all the way across my body to my left side, then all the way outside my body to the right side. And that's not how you effectively block something, but it is how you build the muscle to learn the movement for later on. And so when you're a white belt, you learn how to block like a white belt. and you don't learn how to block like a black belt.

[53:40] And the reason for that is because you're learning a certain set of movements, you're learning to move your muscles so that when you go to the black belt level, you're ready for all of that. I think goal setting, there's some things you do where you can very easily overdo it in the beginning and find there's a more efficient way to do it later. But if you start too far down the path, you miss some of that muscle building you need. And I don't want people to try to shortcut it because that's how I think people get in — I don't think I was talking about shortcutting. I I was talking about what works for that individual, right? Like like to-do lists have never been very effective for me. They just never even when I was younger and I did more they work for most people. They I'm not it right. So, I figured it out. Um I became less goal and more directional. I spend a lot of time asking myself questions. You know, what do I want this to look like? What should this look like? what would happen if it was 10x better, 10x easier, blah blah blah blah blah. Right? I ask I spend time thinking, contemplating, asking questions to figure out my direction.

[54:45] — And then one of the changes I've made, and I know, by the way, the book um traction is a is great for people running a business. — Just got to mention that. it wasn't the best for me. I followed that really about as well as I could for a couple of years. And then I started focusing more on what one thing do I really need to work on this week. And for me that's sort of the shortening the field and even now. Yeah. — I have been way that's just worked much better for me. Not saying that's going to work better for everybody else — but for me — breaking down what do I need to accomplish today. And what I found is that to-do list, it just automatically when I start focusing on what's the big question, the to-do list takes care of itself and I don't necessarily have to write it down. It just falls into line. — I'm going to I'm going to go ahead John. — I was going to say the great book called Living Without Goals by a guy named Oglevy who writes about this about being directional and there are some people whose brain is just much more naturally wired to that. And so I think the key thing here is not traction working or not working for you. It's that you've found what does work for you after trying a number of things. And that's really important. And by the way, I have a lot of clients I've worked with over the years where one thing worked really well for them for a season and then we had to change the tool in a different season and then change the tool in a different season. And I think that's also fine. Like just recognizing that what works for you today works for you — Yeah. And by way let me let me say — well traction worked for me. I just this other thing works better. Sorry, Anthony. Go ahead.

[56:24] — Yeah. No, that's okay. The the um one of the tools of traction, you know. So, again, it's like John said, there's, you know, hundreds of different tools, but one of the what what I where I where I have made errors in my in my my life personally and professionally, and I see it all the time in people running businesses, they they schedule a goal, right? And in the case of traction, there's the annual goals and the quarterly to, you know, quarterly things that you want to get done. They find suddenly you find yourself doing something that has nothing to do with those with those particular goals in mind. And that is a real danger of in running a business for one thing for people being misaligned. You know, you find someone's working on a project that has absolutely nothing to do with where we're going as a company or where you're going personally. And again, it takes me back to what I said earlier. There's so many damn distractions in this world that it's re it's really easy to get off the rail and take a right-hand turn when you're supposed to be going in this direction. So, you need back in the day of programming and for they used to call it a self-checking digit. There were 16 numbers, zeros and ones, and there was always a self-checking digit to make sure that the program was going to run the next card and the next card. And I and I think that's really important here that you continually go back and say, "Okay, what was it? What is it? Where am I going? What town am I headed to? Am I still on that track?" And and is what I'm doing today relevant to that particular goal? So important. And I I just see it in business personally. Um you see it in people in the gym all the time. You, you know, I love going to the gym because you're watching people in all different states of of health and the exercises that they're doing make absolutely no sense to what their goal should be. You know, it just doesn't — But again, and I think that's the thing, right? Pe people are going to have different goals for different reasons.

[58:24] You know, I remember being in therapy years ago and the therapist was talking to me about like the life of an artist, kind of how different that was from the way that I viewed life. And I had a real appreciation for the fact that my way wasn't the way. My way was a way. And and I and it really that that certainly would not have been an approach I would have taken before that. And so I think finding my way for today and then recognizing my way may evolve over time, but also giving lots of room for there to be, especially with goal setting and success. Like gosh, there are so many definitions of success in the world. There are so many ways to become successful in the world. You know, for me, it's like the the thing that I that people are looking for is generally what's going to give them the satisfaction they're looking for in this lifetime. And that's going to be defined probably as many different ways as there are people on the earth. And so, I think this is where I try to be really careful and say, "Here's a tool. Here's how you use it.

[59:27] It may work for you, it may not. And you know, in my consulting practice, my job is to have enough tools that I can help people find the one that works for them in this moment. And sometimes that means going out and finding more tools. But I I really don't want to project my should onto them, if that makes sense. — And I would suggest very very much as you as you prepare and you look at what your goals are, ask the question, who does this impact? And if if it impacts another human being in a material way, you need to have a conversation with that person or that group to let them know that the train is coming and that light is a train coming through the tunnel, not the end of the tunnel. So, and I don't think, you know, I don't think enough of us do that often enough. Um, so it's something that, you know, I've become much more conscious of in my in my, uh, later years, you know, um, told the story over the weekend up in Ohio about buying our first house in and 6 months later I met my wife on the doorstep and said, "Hey, we're moving to Cincinnati." you know, didn't talk to her, got a promotion, and just, you know, showed up and you have a literally standing on the porch with a suitcase.

[1:00:47] And that's not a very good way of doing things, I would say. So, that's an extreme example, but you got to be careful who you're impacting with your — Team goal setting is a really different approach. And I found that like I used to have a need for perfect effectiveness in my life earlier in my life that wasn't good for relationships around me. And so I learned that uh it was you know the adage someone gave me that was I didn't write this but I've certainly said it for lots of years and that is if you want to go fast go alone. If you want to go far go with others. I have found life to be much more enjoyable with others. Mhm. — I agree. — Let's pivot here a little bit. — AI. Do either of you use AI in your goal setting and your planning? — Go ahead, John. — I do. — And tell us more. — Anthony, do you thought I see if Anthony does too? — So, I had long conversations this weekend. I was with a bunch of different a very diverse group of people this weekend, which was great. And um they I was amazed at some professionals in the room that are still using uh monthly planners. You know the old planners that you put on your desk, right? They're still using them. They do task lists and and they've integrated their AI with their calendars, with their memo writing, with their sorting of emails and so forth. So the and the these are all 40 35 to 45 year old people that are much smarter than I am.

[1:02:24] So the answer is no. But I've got a class I'm going to take and I'm going to figure out I'm going to try to get as good as those guys. But I think the lesson I learned was it's an and it's not just get AI and it will solve your problems. It is having the monthly planner on your desk. It is having the weekly task list or to-do list at at hand and it's using technology to coordinate all that to send reminders to do invitations and all kinds of cool stuff that they're doing that I'm not. So, I'm kind of excited about that um to learn more about it. So, I may be calling on you guys for some help — in addition to this class I'm going to — John, how are you using it? — I think a lot of things. So I think research is one of the things I do a lot and in planning. So like if it's like hey I want to do this thing what are all the steps I have to get done to get it done or hey I know what the steps are but you do too so make a list for me as fast as you can and and um generally I try to use AI in places where I have a little bit of knowledge so that I don't worry as much about uh hallucination today. Um and so but um I I particularly use it when I'm trying to accomplish a goal and there's some heavy lifting that needs to get done. Um, for example, I wanted to run, one of my goals was to engage my interns at the company I work with in the marketing funnel more effectively for next year. And so, we had a kickoff meeting this morning and I wanted to show them a visualization of what a marketing funnel looked like and then what the revenue cycle looked like inside of a business and then uh draw that back to the company goals. And so where that might have taken me hours of prep before AI spit out some really nice infographics in a period of about 10 minutes today so that I could go through and deliver that content really easily.

[1:04:15] So it's about um planning, you know, I find AI is a very helpful project planner for me and so it can help me on those things. And then um it's also good in places, you know, I have a little bit of expertise in like coaching. So I can ask it to coach me and think outside the box without feeling like I'm going to get taken off the off the rails — Yeah. So I have been using it a ton for that. I have been I think you guys know I have been building a Randy clone which just what we need is more of me but I have been [laughter] teaching it to like I literally told it here are my beliefs here are my values right so a lot of the things John has on that document I may not have them written down but I did write them down I put them in AI um I went so far as I gave it my disc profile and I gave it a disc profile from 12 or 14 years ago and I gave it the new one showing it that I just took six months — So for listeners that that's a styles behavioral styles profile that tells people you know it gives people a map for how people behave better communication with one another generally — And by the way before I did that I thought about that specific step for days because I wasn't sure I wanted to give the AI that info. Like there's a there's a level of vulnerability because I didn't just give it to it. But I said, "Look, you want to understand me and how to motivate me and what buttons to push?

[1:05:41] Here you go. I gave it the I gave it the fuel it needed to know how I think and manipulate me." And I'm still not 100% sure that that was a smart decision, right? Like I am training our future overlords to, you know, — motivate Randy. So that's that's beyond a Randy clone, right? That that's a that's like a Randy a Randy life coach, which is great. So, what I do now every morning, this has become one of my habits very quickly. I log in and I check in and I give it I've got it. It asks me, "What did you do yesterday?" I usually just start out by telling it and it's like, "Great, you knocked these three things off your list. You you got halfway through this one, whatever." Um, and it goes through just a whole bunch of process, but it knows what are my main focuses. What is it that I want to accomplish? And, you know, there's things there's there's my day-to-day business, there's the book, there's the podcast, there's all these things going on. And it helps me prioritize and figure out what is it today like I want to walk away. It tells it tells me and then I say yes, that's okay or no, it's not okay. Sometimes I change it, but it's pretty accurate, right? And I have I have trained the living crap out of this thing. Um, it has access to my email. It has access to my calendar. Um, even one of my habits as I'm driving down the road or doing something or out for a walk and I think, I will write a text or more often an email to myself. Now I've literally got it where I send the email to Randy clone in the subject line and it knows to go in and apply that wherever it is. I mean I it really has become a coach but it's really become very very quickly very instrumental in my planning.

[1:07:33] — Okay. We we need an episode on just setting up AI support systems for professionals like we got to do that soon. Okay. — Yeah. It's great. So, I mean that's a it's a complex topic, but yes. — Love that. — Let's put a bow on this thing. Um, any last takeaways or advice or things that you say, "Oh, we should have talked about this." — Plan something small. Do something small. Like, change the inertia to be pointed in the direction you want your life going. Do it small. Doesn't need to be big. Just do it small. What do you want to get done this week? Just make it make it a little bit. — Mr. Mareno, — you know, have a sense of have a sense of, you know, where where you want to be in whatever time frame works for you. It can be in the next 20 minutes. It can be in the next 20 days or 20 months. Whatever works from you, but be consistent. Build on it. Take your time. Don't, you know, beat yourself up if you if it's not perfect or it doesn't look great. And the last thing I would say is, and I've had this luxury over the last six or seven years, talk to somebody else. You know, get out of get out of yourself and just find one person. Not you don't have to find a group. Just find a person and run some stuff by them and get some feedback.

[1:08:51] And I think my I think my final thing is just find something that excites you, something that gives you a reason to get out of bed in the morning and and just figure out how to get that done. So just find something you're passionate about. So gentlemen, this has been great. Listeners, as always, thank you for Thank you. Download, subscribe, tell your friends. I want to do a special shout out. I was looking at numbers and we're growing fantastic. So all of you people subscribing it the [snorts] viewership is growing and growing and in particular in the Netherlands 20% I don't you guys don't think know this 20% of our audience is in the Netherlands. We are growing faster there than we are — anywhere else. I don't exactly know why — whatever we're doing working working in — thank you very much. We appreciate that. — They've had uh they've had they've had legal marijuana for a long time. So, I'm not exactly sure if there's a correlation or causation there. — How about just how about just just thank you. Just thank you and keep listening, — Keep telling your friends, tell your neighbors. Again, there'll be a couple of tools from today's episode that John is kind enough to put on the website that you can download. Uh go to talesofabundance.com. And uh everybody have a blessed day.

[1:10:07] — Listen and subscribe to the podcast wherever you get your podcast. Click follow for more content like this or go to talesofabundance.com to join our community and get free tools.