Hey, radicals, welcome to the podcast today. Today's episode will be very short. This is essentially an audio Christmas card from me to you. Just wanted to simply say thank you for being here. Thank you for listening to the show. I am in the process of shutting things down for the year.

As I record this, it is Friday afternoon, December 18 at 1 o'clock PM, and I'm shutting down the computer and I'm going to go and spend some time helping my wife clean up the house. I'm going to come over tonight, going to hang out and sing some songs, play some music together.

So I'm looking forward to that. So I'm going to go help my wife clean the bathrooms. The very glamorous life of a podcaster, right? But as we close the show today, I had intended to do a kind of state of the show for you and tell you about the changes that are coming next year.

I'm not quite ready to do that today. So you can expect that early next year. But I just wanted to record a thank you message from me to you. The last year of my life has been a truly amazing year. I love to sit down and think about the year in retrospect.

My life is in some ways very orderly in this sense. My birthday is in June and New Year's is in January. So every six months I have a beautiful opportunity to assess my progress, assess how things are going and see what things need corrections. And considering the calendar year of 2015, it's really been an incredible year.

We sold a house, continued growing a business. The business has started to really gain traction and some attention. Just last night I got a link from a reader letting me know that Radical Personal Finance had been mentioned on Lifehacker, which was cool. That's a good week for publicity of the show, a New York Times article and Lifehacker.

So that was exciting. The show was starting to gain traction. It's been a great year, over one and a quarter million downloads of the show over the however many episodes we did. It's been a great year personally for us. We had another baby, which was awesome. Also it was a very challenging year because she was sick, sick, sick for the first three months and that combined with selling my house at the same time and all of those things made for a very challenging three months.

I appreciate all of you who've stuck with me. The fourth quarter of 2015 was my least productive quarter in terms of show content and it was primarily due to taking care of my daughter. I'll share more about that in the future. But it was a challenging time. But she's doing great now.

She's been doing very well for the last month. So things are really looking up around the Sheets household and I tell you, just being free of the house in the last couple of weeks has made a world of difference, like a giant weight lifted off my shoulders and allows me to plan and execute without having to deal with that component.

So 2016 is going to be a very exciting year. I've got big plans, big dreams, big plans, all kinds of ideas. I've got to keep discipline to actually execute on the ideas. I'm very good at coming up with ideas. But like many people, executing on all my ideas is much more challenging and ideas are a dime a dozen and execution is incredibly valuable.

But by making some exciting changes in my personal life, exciting changes in the business life as far as streamlining some of the – getting rid of some of the bottlenecks that have really affected the show. So I'll share those with you in the new year. We're going to be doing new formats, new types of shows, lots of plans.

So that will be coming next year. For now, I just want to simply say thank you. Thank you to each and every one of you who listens to the show. I can't tell you how much it means to me. Your time is valuable and I recognize that. And frankly, I walk away from every show and I think, "Man, was that worth it?

Was that good? Did it make sense?" And thank you for those of you who email me with your little notes of encouragement and tell me the things that were helpful. And I just want to do a good job for you. I want to share with you ideas and content that is going to make an impact in your life.

So thank you for listening. Thank you for your dedicating your time to me and to the ideas that I have to share with you. I hope they have been impactful. I hope this last year for you has been a year of growth. I hope you're making measurable progress or how did Jim Rohn used to say it, "Meaningful progress and measurable time or in reasonable time." I hope that you're experiencing growth in every aspect of your life.

As we go into the end of the year, just a couple tips for you. If you have some time over the holidays, if you haven't done it yet, spend some time reflecting on the past year. Spend some time reflecting on the next year and consider some little changes that might further help you to move towards your goals.

The most important thing is spend some time thinking about your goals. If you've not taken the time ever to sit down and write down goals, just do it very simply. Make a list of 10 goals you'd like to accomplish in the next year. And then here's the key to actually making things happen.

Start figuring out what types of actions, specific actions and ideas and specific things you would need to do to make progress toward those goals. This is a really great time of year to do it because you can map it out. Now if you're like me and you enjoy the hardcore process of having every little detail written down on paper, then go for it.

But if you're not a nerd like me, then just do it big picture and think about some goals, write them down and put them on a paper and just look at them from time to time. If you want to take it up a notch, think about the projects, try to break them down into quarterly projects for example.

If you have a goal of accomplishing something, break it down into the steps that you can accomplish in a quarter, break it down into a month if you can and then those things, make sure they're on your to-do list for each day when you get started working. But this really is a great time.

I get sick and tired of the jokes that people make about New Year's resolutions not working and you're going to see a flood of those articles. Making resolutions on things that you don't actually intend to follow through on, yeah, it doesn't work. But setting goals and creating a plan and then working on that plan until they happen, that does work.

And this is a great time of year to do it. Specifically financially, here are just a couple of quick tips for you. Financially take a look through your budget. Review your transactions for the past year. You need to do that for taxes anyway. If you haven't done some end of the year looking to see if any final tax transactions that you can make, make sure that you do that before the end of the calendar year.

Or even if you're not worrying with end of the year tax planning, just sit down and take a look and see. Try to review your budget. If you don't have detailed records, don't worry. Try to look at your credit card statements. Many of the credit card companies will itemize your credit card expenditures for you in some kind of way that you can see them in the aggregate.

If nothing else, sign up an account with personal capital or Mint. Use my affiliate link for personal capital at radicalpersonalfinance.com/personalcapital. Both of those are totally free. But set up an account. Enter your accounts and what they will do is they'll auto populate the transactions back a certain amount of time.

Just take a look. Try to get a grasp on what you're spending and see if you're happy with it. One thing that you can do is pick one category that you want to work on in the next year and try to see if you can trim some expenses. Think through what's the best place for you to focus on first.

Is your income low? I was just this morning working on my budgeting for 2016 and the major goal for me, the major hiccup in my financial plan is not my expenses. My expenses are very tight and very low. The major hiccup for me now in achieving my financial goals going forward is my income.

For me, 2016 is not about how can I cut expenses. I did that this year with getting rid of the house and that brought a lot more certainty. Now it'll be time for me to be launching projects and products and things that I can sell to you so that I can increase my income and finishing through on some of the projects that I've already got started.

So that just simply comes from me sitting down and taking a look at my finances and saying what's really the key. So remember the Radical Personal Finance five-part framework. These are the only things that you can do to massively affect your results. Number one is increase income. Number two is decrease expenses.

Number three, invest wisely. Number four, avoid catastrophe. And number five, optimize lifestyle. So consider those five things and even now if you're driving in the car listening to me, I'll be done in just a couple minutes. Flip it off and just have some time in silence and think through that.

You should be able to remember those five things. Increase income, decrease expenses, invest wisely, avoid catastrophe and optimize lifestyle and think them through. If your income is anemic, if it's just not getting it, then focus there. That's usually an area where you can make some wins. If your income is just not all that great, think about how you can increase it.

Is this the year that you want to switch to a new job? Is this the year that you want to start a side business? Is this the year that you want to pick up an extra job just to be able to break free a little bit? Come up with some ideas and just see if you want to follow through on any of them.

Number two is decrease expenses. So do you earn well but you don't have a great handle on the expenses? Well in that case, start building a system. Build a system of some kind for yourself. Start tracking your money. Just go back and listen to the budgeting show. I won't repeat it here.

Number three, invest wisely. Let's say that you're in a situation where you have a good income and you have low expenses and you have a good rate of savings. Well now the key is going to be for you to focus on your investments. It's silly to focus on investments and what rate of return you can get on your 401(k) when you're making $35,000 a year and spending $34,500.

It doesn't make any difference what rate of return you earn on your 401(k). Your big wins are not in investments. But if you're doing well with income and your expenses are substantially below your income, now is the time to look at investments and ask yourself, "Is my investment plan appropriate for me and my lifestyle?" I've shared with you in the past on past shows, this is where I've made dramatic changes and even here at the end of the year I'm making more changes in my own personal finances to align my investments and investment accounts with my changing investment philosophy.

So do you need to do something similar? Number four is avoid catastrophe. Think through your risk management plans. What are the risks that you're likely to face in the coming year? Do you have people that are depending on your income? Well in that case, make sure that you're properly insured.

Do you need to get some life insurance? Probably the majority of you do. If so, make that a goal. Get some life insurance and make some calls and here's a great way to kickstart your goals. Make a couple calls to some insurance offices or insurance agents now and set up an appointment for January.

Insurance agents, inside knowledge here on the business, the big push for insurance agents is always end of the year because what happens is at the end of the year, that's when insurance agencies close their books and so your rankings in the office for your production numbers are always going to come end of the year.

Unfortunately, insurance agents can't give you a discount. It's illegal to rebate commissions and things like that. So they can't give you discounts on stuff at the end of the year. But insurance agents hustle, hustle, hustle through the end of the year so that they can get good business on the books.

And then January's are usually very slow. So if you know somebody who's in the life insurance business or maybe you need to review your property and casualty business, something like that, make a call and set up an appointment for January. They're very happy to hear from you and you'll get lots of time and lots of attention.

So think through your risk management planning. Do you need to check out your homeowner's insurances? Do you need to focus on some emergency funds? Do you need to review your investment allocation? So it's my opinion that this next calendar year could be challenging for many of you. So do you need to review your investment allocation in the next year?

Finally optimize lifestyle. This is the blanket statement that goes across everything where you need to consider every aspect of your life and say, "Is this optimal?" And here's the example I always use. You can earn $50,000 at a job you hate and you can earn $50,000 at a job you love.

The net impact on your financial plan from a $50,000 income is identical. But the quality of life, working at a job that is well suited to you versus a job that is poorly suited to you is dramatically different. So do you need to optimize your income in some way?

Some of you probably need to leave your for-profit job and go work for a not-for-profit. Some of you probably need to leave your not-for-profit job and go work for a for-profit job. Optimize your income. Optimize your expenses. Frankly, you can spend $1,000 a month on rent in Chicago and you can spend $1,000 a month on rent in Aruba.

Guess what? The net impact on your financial plan is identical. But you know, the lifestyle is very different. Some of you need to leave Aruba and move to Chicago. Some of you need to leave Chicago and move to Aruba. That's not my business to tell you what to do.

I just simply point out to you that even when the net effect on your financial plan is identical, it's not actually identical in terms of quality of life. Third, optimize your investments. Here's the deal. You can get rich putting money into publicly traded stocks inside of your company 401(k) and you can also get rich starting a horse farm and training and breeding championship horses.

Now, is that risky? Yeah. In fact, the IRS has a special classification for horse farms indicating how risky they are. My point is, you expand the vision of your investments and invest in a way that's optimal for you and for your lifestyle. Some of you are really well suited to working a job for a large corporation, investing money through your 401(k) and mutual funds and going home and forgetting about them at night.

And some of you would be much more suited by taking money out of your 401(k), signing a lease on a corner store there on Main Street in your town and starting that little business that you're convinced is going to really succeed. Some of you are well suited by taking some money from your mutual, your stock account, your mutual fund account and going and buying a camera and starting to take pictures of your friends and building a skill as a photographer or doing videos or expressing some artistic interest.

Only you are going to know that. But I'm convinced that if you consider that framework then as an outline for this next year then you can coach yourself to make regular meaningful progress and towards your goals. I just gave you my best stuff. That's what I got. If you'd like a more detailed version that framework for wealth, that is the outline of the book, that is the core organizational format of what I'm writing, that's my deal.

And I'm convinced it's a great solution for you, a great way of thinking. If you'd like more details on that, the video that's a bonus video for patrons of the show has more details and then we'll be doing lots more in this next year. And then as soon as I can I'll get the book written and finished so that you all can read it.

So special thank you as I close here, special thank you to each of you. Big thank you to each of you who listens. Special thank you to those of you who support the show on Patreon. Special thank you to those of you who patronize the sponsors of the show.

Big thanks to the sponsors. I'm excited for this coming year. If you'd like to connect with me through the holidays, this will be the last episode of 2015. If you'd like to connect with me through the holidays, connect with me on the social media stuff. You can find me at facebook.com/joshuasheets, twitter.com/joshuasheets and instagram.com/joshuasheets.

So those are all great places to connect with me. I'm going to be spending some time with my family. We're going camping for a week here over Christmas and New Year's and we'll be back at it in January, first week of January. So Merry Christmas. I hope that 2015 was a tremendous year for you and may 2016 be a year of incredible growth.

May it be a year that you look back on for the rest of your life with fond memories and just a clear understanding of how great a year it was. Life is a gift. Life is short. I know people that I know died recently and not people that are close to me but I just was thinking about that recently.

Life is short. Take time this holiday season. Turn off the phone. Turn off the distractions and spend time with those you care about. It's a beautiful time of year to do that and I wish you all the best. Be back with you in 2016. Are you ready to make your next pro basketball, football, hockey, concert or live event unforgettable?

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