RPF0400-First_Two_Weeks_of_December
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00:00:29.800 | Welcome to Radical Personal Finance, the show dedicated to providing you with the knowledge,
00:00:36.720 | skills, insight, and encouragement you need to live a rich and meaningful life now while
00:00:41.880 | building a plan for financial freedom in 10 years or less.
00:00:44.960 | My name is Joshua Sheets and I'm your host.
00:00:46.400 | And today we have a coaching call, a very timely, focused, poignant, date important
00:00:53.400 | topic.
00:00:56.280 | See today is Thursday, December 1st, 2016.
00:01:00.800 | And today I want you to make a plan for the next year of your life.
00:01:11.160 | The next two weeks of December are some of the most valuable planning time, some of the
00:01:17.920 | most valuable planning weeks in your annual calendar.
00:01:23.280 | And it took me a few years before I learned this.
00:01:25.960 | I always used to get excited about end of the year planning, doing an end of the year
00:01:29.080 | review and reviewing my past calendar year and thinking about, okay, what are my dreams
00:01:33.720 | for the next calendar year?
00:01:35.200 | I would often get excited about that.
00:01:37.480 | And then I would start to think about it towards the end of December.
00:01:40.400 | And then I had first week of January, I would sit down and I'd be making my plans, but then
00:01:46.280 | I lost my momentum.
00:01:48.320 | And roundabout, you know, usually January 1 comes and if it's a weekday, it's the following
00:01:53.080 | Monday that you wind up back at work, that you wind up back in front of your desk ready
00:01:57.960 | to get to it.
00:01:58.960 | This year, January 1, it looks like it's coming on a Sunday.
00:02:01.960 | So Monday is January 2.
00:02:03.360 | So it'll happen quicker this year, but often it doesn't happen in that same way.
00:02:10.280 | And in years past, that's always resulted in my feeling like I'm running, but I'm running
00:02:16.960 | behind because I wasn't ready to go on January 1.
00:02:20.680 | And I learned that in order for me to be ready to go on January 1, I need to start my planning
00:02:27.680 | on December 1.
00:02:29.600 | December is a very important month for you in terms of your finances because it's still
00:02:34.960 | part of the calendar year, of the current calendar year.
00:02:38.440 | There are many year-end things that you can do.
00:02:41.640 | You should pay special attention to your year-end investment planning, your year-end tax planning.
00:02:46.600 | The tax year for most of you is on a calendar tax year, and so December is the time where
00:02:52.020 | you still have time to make any purchases you need to make or make any investment changes.
00:02:56.920 | If you'd like some ideas on end-of-the-year tax planning, go back and listen to episode
00:03:02.040 | 121 of Radical Personal Finance titled "Last-Minute Tax Planning Ideas to Save You Money."
00:03:07.920 | That show was very focused on the tactics, some specific tax ideas.
00:03:13.880 | Today I'm just talking about personal finance, which by the way, for those of you who are
00:03:17.520 | new to the show, I use these two terms to mean different things.
00:03:21.520 | Personal finance, I use that term usually to refer to the fundamentals of personal financial
00:03:28.400 | management as in talking about how you earn money, how you spend money, budgeting, couponing,
00:03:35.640 | bargain shopping, details on just those basics of personal money management, keeping a checkbook,
00:03:43.240 | et cetera.
00:03:44.240 | I use financial planning to refer to the more technical topics such as insurance choices
00:03:50.200 | or asset allocation, et cetera.
00:03:52.640 | I don't know if that's right, wrong.
00:03:53.760 | I don't know if anyone else does that.
00:03:55.080 | That's just what I do.
00:03:56.320 | So you'll often hear me use a distinction between financial planning and personal finance,
00:04:03.040 | and that's what I mean.
00:04:04.120 | So for financial planning topics, go back and listen to episode 121.
00:04:07.840 | But recognize this, your end of the year tax planning strategy is not going to make or
00:04:13.880 | break your finances, but your personal financial planning strategy may.
00:04:23.280 | Your end of the year assessment of the previous calendar year might make a huge difference
00:04:31.400 | for you.
00:04:34.400 | The end of the year planning process needs to start – we'll get to the process in
00:04:39.040 | just a second.
00:04:40.040 | Here's why these two weeks are so important.
00:04:42.400 | It's because there's time between now – you're kind of in that end of the year
00:04:46.280 | wrap-up season – but before we wind up in Christmas.
00:04:49.720 | You've got to get this done in the next two weeks before you go into the actual Christmas
00:04:53.840 | holiday or if you're traveling, et cetera, or any kind of last-minute Christmas rush.
00:04:58.560 | Many of you might buy Christmas presents to give to people and so there is a little bit
00:05:01.840 | of a shopping rush.
00:05:02.840 | A few years ago, my wife and I decided that the phrase of, "Oh, I'm so busy.
00:05:07.960 | It's such a busy time of year.
00:05:09.400 | We're so busy.
00:05:10.400 | We're so busy," is more pontificating to sound important than it is actual reality.
00:05:15.160 | We're not that busy in December.
00:05:16.800 | It's not like we're that socialites that we have a Christmas – oh, we have so many
00:05:21.120 | Christmas parties to go to and I would guess that you're probably the same.
00:05:24.400 | Now if you're an exception, fine.
00:05:27.000 | But remember, you choose how many parties you accept invitations to.
00:05:30.320 | You choose how busy you are.
00:05:31.440 | Don't buy into that nonsense.
00:05:32.720 | You're not that busy in December.
00:05:35.640 | You choose to become busy because you either allow yourself to be or you just allow yourself
00:05:39.600 | to have the feelings of being busy because it's a bustling, fun time of year.
00:05:44.640 | So focus on the next two weeks and here's my coaching tip and we'll get to how in
00:05:48.120 | just a moment.
00:05:49.120 | The coaching tip is this.
00:05:50.600 | Schedule some time today and that's going to be the action step.
00:05:53.160 | Schedule some time today in your calendar for you to sit down with a notebook and reflect
00:06:00.520 | back on the past year, what's gone well, what hasn't gone well, what's gone well
00:06:06.000 | for you personally, professionally, financially.
00:06:09.560 | It's time for you to think back and to consider what you'd like to be different.
00:06:18.040 | If you're up for it, you can do more categories.
00:06:19.760 | I just finished – right before hitting record here, I just finished taking Michael Hyatt's
00:06:24.480 | life score assessment.
00:06:26.400 | Michael Hyatt is a popular – he calls himself a mentor, business mentor, online guy.
00:06:32.600 | He does this course that he does called The Best Year Ever.
00:06:35.600 | My brother has done it.
00:06:36.800 | I've never done it personally but my brother has done it and had a great experience with
00:06:41.960 | it.
00:06:42.960 | But he goes – went through his – as part of his best year ever running up to his launch
00:06:48.560 | for the course, he has published this life score assessment.
00:06:51.560 | It's pretty cool because he goes through his – the domains and he goes through your
00:06:55.640 | intellectual assessment for your intellectual life, your marital situation, how happy you
00:07:02.160 | are with your job and your chosen vocation, your emotional life, how you feel you're
00:07:08.440 | doing as a parent with your parental role, your hobbies, your avocations, how you are
00:07:15.480 | with your spiritual life, your physical well-being, your social life and your financial life.
00:07:21.520 | I thought just his list of 10 areas of assessment was really, really valuable and I wrote down
00:07:27.640 | and took screenshots of – as I was going through the assessment of his actual questions
00:07:31.400 | so that I could reflect on them more myself.
00:07:35.040 | If you want to check out what he's doing, I'll post my link.
00:07:37.000 | It's an affiliate link for you to participate and read.
00:07:40.440 | The assessment is free.
00:07:42.180 | But I'll post that link for you in the blog post for today's show.
00:07:48.560 | And check it out.
00:07:49.560 | It's worth – just for the price of admission for the questions, it's free questions.
00:07:53.080 | It's awesome, really, really good.
00:07:55.400 | But sit down and think about what's gone well and what hasn't gone well and do that
00:07:59.480 | yourself first.
00:08:02.080 | Then if you're married, schedule some time today, schedule some time over the next couple
00:08:06.760 | of weeks for you to get together at a minimum for a few hours over dinner, over coffee,
00:08:13.640 | for a minimum few hours with your husband or wife.
00:08:17.320 | Ideally, perhaps an overnight or even a weekend away, meaning two nights away and one entire
00:08:24.440 | day.
00:08:25.440 | It's what my wife and I are trying to do.
00:08:28.800 | My daughter is having some – I don't want – concerned about inducing separation
00:08:33.240 | anxiety.
00:08:34.240 | We're planning to take her away here in the first week or two of December.
00:08:36.920 | But at the moment, I think we might just do the shortened version of that this year.
00:08:41.880 | But this is the perfect time to do it and schedule those couple of nights and sit down
00:08:47.040 | with your husband and wife.
00:08:48.200 | Have them go through and do some journaling exercises.
00:08:50.760 | Have them go through and think through some of the things that have gone well and things
00:08:55.520 | that haven't gone well and what you'd like to do different.
00:08:57.680 | What do you want 2017 to look like in a perfect world?
00:09:02.080 | What do you want it to look like in each of those areas?
00:09:04.600 | Go take Michael Hyatt's life score assessment.
00:09:06.520 | There are tons of great resources out there.
00:09:09.560 | Pick something and start reflecting.
00:09:13.720 | Start considering it.
00:09:15.640 | Start considering what – consider the scope of your life.
00:09:24.880 | With regard to how to do it, don't be scared to face the honest facts.
00:09:29.840 | I'm working on a course and my goal is to get it launched here in a couple of weeks
00:09:35.000 | so that it can be for 2017.
00:09:36.960 | We'll see if I can make it happen.
00:09:38.440 | I just have been setting up the software and I'm working on the outline and I'm diligently
00:09:41.800 | working to try to set up a course for – I haven't decided if I'm going to pursue
00:09:45.560 | it monthly or weekly but basically it's going to be Joshua's 52-week financial boot
00:09:50.760 | camper or I don't know, some better title than that.
00:09:53.800 | But the weekly – the things that you can do every single week and I'm going to put
00:09:57.040 | it together as a paid course and sell it to you all.
00:10:00.400 | And so I've been working hard on that outline.
00:10:02.880 | And one of the – so step one at the moment is the first lesson is simply to write down
00:10:08.880 | where you are.
00:10:09.880 | So I've been thinking about that as I was working on the outline of what I want to teach
00:10:14.120 | where you begin by recognizing here's where I am.
00:10:18.960 | And with finances, that means you make a list of all of your assets and all of your liabilities.
00:10:24.480 | You write down the amount of money that you have in the bank.
00:10:26.480 | You write down the value of your cars, the value of your house.
00:10:29.760 | You write down how much credit card debt you have.
00:10:31.840 | That's where you start is by taking an honest assessment of where you are.
00:10:37.120 | Now my experience as a financial planner having done even extensive work with people who are
00:10:40.960 | in financial crises is that they just don't simply want to face the facts.
00:10:47.120 | I can relate to that with regard to weight.
00:10:50.240 | Someone who's been overweight for practically all of my life, you often don't want to
00:10:54.400 | go stand on the scale and see the numbers that are there.
00:11:03.320 | You got to start with actually understanding and facing the facts.
00:11:08.480 | You got to face the facts no matter whether you're happy with them or whether you're
00:11:14.200 | not happy with them.
00:11:15.200 | If you're happy with them, great.
00:11:16.720 | You need to know what's working.
00:11:18.420 | What can you keep doing?
00:11:21.040 | If you're not happy with them, great.
00:11:23.060 | You need to know what's not working and what you don't want to keep doing so that
00:11:27.640 | you can figure out how to get out.
00:11:32.240 | To begin with an honest assessment of your year.
00:11:37.440 | For me as I'm doing this, I have to confess I cheated.
00:11:40.880 | I started before December 1.
00:11:44.120 | But it was because I was so frustrated with my entire year.
00:11:47.640 | So I probably started back around November 1.
00:11:52.560 | For me there's been a big change even in regard to my own process.
00:11:59.280 | As I went through this process, episode 379 where I talked about, it was the one titled
00:12:06.480 | The Perils of Success and Why I'm Taking the Filter Off of Radical Personal Finance.
00:12:10.400 | That show came out of just a deep frustration with so many unrealized goals, with so many
00:12:18.240 | just deep frustrations.
00:12:20.040 | I started with an assessment.
00:12:22.720 | Why am I frustrated?
00:12:23.840 | Why is this not working?
00:12:25.240 | What is wrong?
00:12:27.560 | And so since then it's been fantastic.
00:12:31.720 | I just have given myself the permission to face things forthrightly.
00:12:37.840 | So I say that simply to convey to you that even when things aren't working, you've
00:12:46.600 | got to start by recognizing things aren't working.
00:12:49.480 | And it's not going to get better by ignoring the situation.
00:12:54.720 | Things aren't going to improve by not paying attention.
00:13:00.640 | Starting point is to recognize where things are.
00:13:04.040 | So I simply challenge you with that today.
00:13:07.160 | Today is Thursday, December 1, 2016.
00:13:10.440 | I want you to get a simple notebook.
00:13:14.200 | You don't need to go buy anything.
00:13:15.480 | Just find some simple notebook and spend some time thinking about what's gone well.
00:13:23.720 | Let's just do it this way.
00:13:25.240 | Write down what's gone well for you personally in 2016, professionally in 2016, and financially
00:13:32.200 | in 2016.
00:13:33.200 | If this is the first time you've done it, yeah, maybe you can go and take a 10-part
00:13:38.040 | thing, but maybe you should just start with those three.
00:13:40.760 | Write down what's gone well.
00:13:41.880 | Write down what hasn't gone well.
00:13:44.580 | And then to use Dan Sullivan's magic question, although he would put the three-year time
00:13:48.360 | frame on it, I'm just going to change it to one year.
00:13:50.940 | Write down this.
00:13:52.640 | If we were sitting down, you and me, having a cup of coffee on December 1, 2017, because
00:14:01.200 | remember you're going to be the pro at this and you're going to be reflecting back before
00:14:05.760 | the calendar year.
00:14:06.760 | It's the whole point of the show.
00:14:08.200 | So we're sitting here December 1, 2017, looking back over the last 12 months, what has to
00:14:14.960 | have happened for you personally, professionally, and financially for you to really feel satisfied
00:14:23.920 | with your progress?
00:14:27.080 | What are you working towards?
00:14:35.680 | I challenge you with that homework.
00:14:39.120 | It's December 1, 2016.
00:14:42.160 | It's a brand new day.
00:14:44.920 | If you are not feeling great about the last year of your life, remember this.
00:14:50.520 | It's my old buddy Zig Ziglar who for years kept me motivated and upbeat used to say,
00:14:57.640 | failure is an event.
00:14:58.640 | It's not a person.
00:15:00.200 | Me, Joshua Sheets, I have failed on most of my goals for this past year.
00:15:06.080 | I have utterly, absolutely failed.
00:15:11.120 | But I'm not a failure.
00:15:14.840 | I, Joshua Sheets, I'm not a failure and you are not a failure either.
00:15:21.560 | Failure is an event.
00:15:22.560 | It's not a person.
00:15:26.840 | This year is about to end, but yesterday ended last night.
00:15:29.480 | Today is a brand new day and it's yours.
00:15:30.960 | There's your Zig quote.
00:15:31.960 | I used to love listening to him say that.
00:15:35.000 | Be driving to work and facing, battling the monsters of that day.
00:15:40.920 | Failure is an event.
00:15:41.920 | It's not a person.
00:15:44.360 | Yesterday really did end last night.
00:15:47.040 | Today is a brand new day and it's yours.
00:15:50.400 | You can start afresh.
00:15:52.960 | 2016 is going away.
00:15:58.200 | 2017 is coming in.
00:16:03.920 | Take stock of the past year and make plans for the next year.
00:16:10.600 | So if you failed, join the club.
00:16:14.240 | Every person who's successful at anything has a long string of failures behind them.
00:16:22.520 | Failures are the stories that help you sell your story of success down the road.
00:16:29.600 | Nobody likes to hear somebody who's, that's what I tell myself anyway, it's true, you
00:16:32.760 | have to judge, but nobody likes to hear someone who comes in and says, "Hey, it was all easy
00:16:36.800 | for me.
00:16:37.800 | This was great.
00:16:38.800 | I just always, life's just always been, I've been a winner since the day I was born."
00:16:42.240 | No, it doesn't work that way.
00:16:46.360 | There's always a failure and then there's a moment of transformation.
00:16:50.800 | So guess what?
00:16:51.800 | If you failed this last year, you're just building stories that you'll need in the future.
00:16:56.200 | And many of you didn't fail this last year.
00:16:58.360 | Many of you crushed it and that's awesome.
00:17:01.400 | You still need to reflect and you still need to consider back and you most importantly
00:17:05.600 | need to think about what was it that worked well because there is a tremendous danger
00:17:12.760 | in success.
00:17:16.680 | One of the major dangers is that you'll stop doing the things that made you successful
00:17:23.720 | in the first place.
00:17:27.040 | Consider a marriage, husband and wife.
00:17:30.640 | They're courting one another, they're not married yet.
00:17:33.120 | What do they do?
00:17:34.120 | They have all their focus and their attention on one another.
00:17:36.640 | They're so engaged and interested in one another.
00:17:39.520 | They listen to one another carefully.
00:17:42.640 | The man looks across the table at the woman and just thinks about how much he loves her
00:17:45.820 | and how much he loves listening to her.
00:17:49.720 | What can happen if you're not careful?
00:17:52.920 | The familiarity of marriage can breed contempt.
00:17:58.320 | Stop listening to one another.
00:17:59.320 | Now you have all these ridiculous jokes about men not listening to their wives and tuning
00:18:03.440 | them out, etc.
00:18:05.840 | Guess what?
00:18:06.960 | Not a good formula for success.
00:18:09.760 | You stop doing what made you successful.
00:18:11.360 | Now there are changes in the same way that you would never expect a healthy, successful,
00:18:16.880 | 10-year-long marriage to look as juvenile as the affections of a young courting couple.
00:18:28.840 | I would be concerned if I were interacting with a couple who's been married 10 years,
00:18:33.720 | I'd be concerned if their love was as immature as a courting couple.
00:18:40.640 | But I want to see the basic foundations continue.
00:18:43.000 | I want them to continue in my marriage.
00:18:45.440 | My wife and I are coming up on our fifth, this January 1 will be our fifth wedding anniversary.
00:18:51.920 | So I want to see the foundations are still there, but there should be a greater expression.
00:18:56.640 | It's the same thing with any kind of success that you've had in your life, especially financial
00:19:00.240 | success.
00:19:01.240 | There will be a growth, there will be a maturity, there will be a deepening, there'll be a growth
00:19:05.640 | to your life.
00:19:06.640 | But you want to make sure that you're identifying those basic things that have been working
00:19:11.400 | that you need to keep doing.
00:19:13.560 | Understand where the success came from and then what you need to do to sustain it and
00:19:18.200 | to grow it.
00:19:20.120 | That's my message for you today.
00:19:21.120 | It's a brand new day.
00:19:22.120 | It's a brand new month.
00:19:23.120 | I hope this is encouraging to you.
00:19:25.760 | Second step for today is set that appointment with yourself, with your spouse.
00:19:40.000 | Few hours, you in a notebook with your cell phone and a Facebook turned off.
00:19:46.720 | Spend some time thinking.
00:19:47.720 | If you're not a writer, get out the voice dictation system on your phone.
00:19:51.480 | If that doesn't work for you, just record voice memos.
00:19:54.520 | Get your thoughts out of your head and into some place that you can look at them.
00:20:00.280 | Think about what's gone well, what hasn't gone well, and what you want the next year
00:20:04.240 | of your life to look like.
00:20:06.520 | If you are just getting started, start with just those three areas, personally, professionally,
00:20:11.880 | financially.
00:20:12.880 | If you have done this before, maybe take Michael Hyatt's life score assessment.
00:20:17.480 | Use his questions, intellectual, marital, emotional, parental, physical, social, financial,
00:20:23.160 | vocational, avocational, spiritual.
00:20:25.560 | Use all those areas and do a more comprehensive form.
00:20:29.840 | The format doesn't matter.
00:20:32.440 | It's the action that makes the difference.
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