The Ultimate 2024 Recap: Looking Back at the Year

Do you ever wonder if you're learning from your experiences or just living them? Want a simple way to extract wisdom from your year? Want to review without getting lost in complicated reflection exercises?

This is a quick but powerful episode. Discover a clever exercise transforming how successful entrepreneurs review their years for nearly two decades. Listen while enjoying that holiday beverage or stealing a quiet moment between festivities.

Key Quote: "What if we stopped seeing December 31st as a deadline and started seeing it as a chance to honor how far we've come?"

In this episode, you'll learn:

• A simple two-step process for meaningful year-end reflection

• How to identify patterns you might be missing in your business

• The secret to turning experiences into actionable wisdom

• A practical way to document your year that survives even floods

Plus, hear real examples of lessons learned, both personal and professional. Shape your approach to 2025.

Next steps: Ready to grow and learn even more in 2025? Join our Wealth Wisdom Financial Community for just $97/year. Access our complete library of resources, monthly group coaching sessions, and our success dashboard mini-course. Join at https://www.wealthwisdomfp.com/community.

 

Watch on YouTube HERE: https://youtu.be/ZnfMuWYue0Q 

Episode Transcript

(00:02):
Happy holidays.
There's all kinds of emotions this time
of year. I hope you're feeling
happy, joyous, content,
but there could also be frazzled, busy,
burned out, ready to just
plop down and do nothing after a
busy season, wherever you're at,

(00:23):
however you're joining the conversation
today. I want to give you a
helpful exercise that
Brandon and I have been doing for
over a decade. We can't even remember how
long ago we started doing this, maybe
closer to 20 years ago or
18 or so. And it's help us close up the

(00:45):
year, start the new year really well. So
I'm going to be sharing that with you
today. It's going to be a quick, easy
episode, and the exercise is something
you could literally do while you're
listening within the with 10 minutes,
or you can stretch it out to be longer if
you'd like. So we'll do
the normal intro and then we'll jump
right in.

(01:07):
In a world where chaos seems to reign
supreme, where uncertainty lurks around
every corner and financial markets are
now more unpredictable than ever. There's
one place you can turn to to find clarity
and control. Welcome to the Wealth Wisdom
Financial Podcast. Hey, I'm Brandon.
And I'm Amanda. Join us as we dive deep

(01:30):
in the world of personal and business
finance to assist you in navigating
through the chaos and building the
financial future you deserve. We believe
when conventional financial thinking
doesn't get you where you want to go, you
need wealth wisdom. So if you're ready to
take control of your financial destiny.
Tune in to the Wealth Wisdom Financial

(01:51):
Podcast because in a chaotic world,
your money shouldn't be. Subscribe now
and never miss an episode.
OK, so this is
something that you could do with pen and
paper if you want to grab a quick journal
or, you know, blank sheet of paper.
That's how we started doing this before.

(02:13):
But as our loyal listeners will know,
we've been through a couple floods and.
One of those floods destroyed all the
papers that we had done this exercise on.
So we have thankfully moved to
electronic and you can use an app on your
phone like a notes app or open up a
Google Doc or however you want to do
this. And it's very, very simple. You

(02:35):
ready?What we do is
we just list the months of the year,
January, February, March, April, May,
June, July, August, September, October,
November and December. Just listing them
out. And then we go back through, and
under each month, we list the
things that happened that we want to

(02:55):
remember. Good, bad,
neutral, adventures we
went on, things that happened to us.
We try not to do anything that's like
news, right?That would be like national
or world news, but more how it's
impacted us. or what our
family has been doing, or you know

(03:17):
different things that happened in the
business. And you can just go from
memory. That's what Brandon does.
You can also like go through your planner
or your calendar and kind of review,
okay, like what am I forgetting?What
happened that I want to remember
happened, okay?So that's the first step.
Very simple, right?Just write down the

(03:38):
months of the year, and then underneath
the month that it happened in,You write
down the thing that
happened. Of course, if it bridges
multiple months, maybe do the month it
started in, the month it ended in. No, no
like rules here, right?Just you're
reflecting, writing things down as you
go. OK, I love doing this

(03:58):
with another person like Brandon, right?
Because he remembers things I forgot or
gives more importance to things that I
forgot. But you could totally do this
just on your own. Whatever comes to mind,
write it down. That's the first step.
Easy. The next thing,
and this is where the magic really
happens, is to go back
through the different things that have

(04:19):
happened. And I like to do those below
December, but you could do it above
January, right?Somewhere, or maybe it's
next to the events that have happened.
Again, no rules here, but we like to do
at the end kind of as a summary. What are
the lessons you've learned this year from
the things that have happened?And we just
have some bullet points and we write down
in a sentence or so. What are those

(04:41):
lessons that we learned that we want to
carry forward?And it's really fun to go
back and look at, you know, past years
and oh, like, are we still living with
that lesson?Have we learned something
different?Those kind of things. But it's
also just really helpful to to cement
how you've grown this year, the things
that you've learned, the things that have
happened that have changed how you

(05:03):
view the world or. How
you exist in the world. There can be all
kinds of lessons here. I'll give you 2
examples, real examples from us from
2024. I'll do one personal and one
business. So personally I
was like, I want to be involved somehow
in our son's, you know, after school

(05:24):
activities or with the school or
something. And the thing that like I
think fits into my calendar is when he
signs up for sports, I can volunteer like
help with the sports in some way, shape
or form. And in the
spring, he wanted to do a
baseball. And I was like, I'll help with
baseball. Let me know how you guys need
help. And I'd be getting roped into being

(05:46):
the head coach of the. T-ball
team, our son, first grade, right?And it
was very interesting. You know And then
in the fall, I was like, well, you know
that was an okay experience. I only hit
one kid with a ball
pitching a little bit, and it was
fun to like get to know some other
parents and to see my son's friends. And

(06:07):
so I'll throw my hat in, but I don't
wanna be head coach in the fall
with soccer. And so I just said, however
you need me, but I really don't wanna be
head coach. And they put me with
another coach that we were both sharing
the head coach responsibilities. And
so that was my first coaching experience.

(06:28):
I've never coached, you know, a sports
team before. And I, you know, did
baseball in the spring and soccer in the
fall. Good memories,
right?Things that we'll come back to. But
my lesson is that I never want to do
that again unless our son is like,
really, really, really wanting me to.

(06:48):
I'll bring snacks for after games, right?
I'll do the different things, but I don't
want to coach again. Not my strength. And
I think also as the kids get older and
better at sports, I'm not going to be
able to keep up with them and help them
get better at them. I'm not a sports
person. So that's my lesson learned.
Never coach sports again.
And then let's see the the business one.

(07:11):
So our business is growing. We're really
excited. We've added, you know, some
staff we've. like just
grown with the number of people that we
serve and all those kind of things. But
we always try to do more than we probably
should. And we can look, you know,
time and time again, the things that we
wanted to do that didn't get done or

(07:33):
goals we set that we, you know, got a
little bit under. And it's really like,
yeah, we're we know we shouldn't be doing
this much right all the time,
butWhat would it look like to do
less, right?And how, how could we do that?
So our lesson learned is just we take
John too much. And I think that lesson's
come up before, but we need to be
reminded of that and how could

(07:55):
we?And then right then no judgment there,
just saying we take on too much. That's
our lesson, right?And then we as we start
to look toward the next year, we can
think of, well, what are the things we
need to delegate, delete
or defer?And you know, put it
toward a longer term thing rather than an
immediate thing. So hope that inspires

(08:16):
you a little bit, both
in reflecting on the year. Quick little
thing you can do, right?You're looking at
your phone anyway, but you know, in bed
at night or in between
the conversations with people or
whatever. That's the thing you could do
right there in their notes app or
somewhere. Just write down the months of

(08:37):
the year, write down what you remember
that's happened, and then put some
lessons learned at the. the bottom.
That's it. Again, happy holidays. If
you're celebrating Christmas or Hanukkah
or Kwanzaa this week, we hope you have
great memories, times with
others, or even just some reflection on
your own to experience some peace,
some quiet, a break from all the hustle

(08:59):
and bustle, and
hope there's a good holiday drink. I've
got mine right here. I hope you've got
yours. And that you're
enjoying some some kind of festivities
right now. We'll look forward to talking
to you next week. Hit that subscribe
button so you don't miss it. And if
you're looking to OK,

(09:21):
so actually this is something I want to
talk about. Thanks for sticking with me a
little bit long here, a longer than I
expected. You might look back at the
last year and be like, I didn't do
a lot of things. I didn't learn
very much. I don't feel like I grew very
much. If that's you, I want to invite you
to grow, to learn,

(09:44):
to experience some things, and to
do that as part of a community of people
that want to do it together. And you can
do that through the Wealth Wisdom
Financial Community. You just go to
wealthwisdomfp.com/community.
And you can join us for the whole year
for the low cost of $97. We're gonna have

(10:04):
group coaching once a month. We've got
articles, deep dives that we publish
every week. Actually, this week
we're gonna be talking about if you wanna
wrap up the year in your business using
the Profit First
methodology, how might you use Profit
First to do this kind of review of your
business finances like we did here with

(10:25):
the the things that happened this year?
And we've got lots of great things
already there, a nice library that you
can, you know, search through and find
things to help you. And then we'll be
publishing a lot more in the year to
come. So again, that's
wealthwisdomfp.com/community.
Great for if you want to learn and grow
more in the next year, have a lot more,
you know, lessons learned at the end of

(10:46):
your list here. Or if you're like, I've
learned a lot about other things, so I'm
ready to learn more about building
wealth. And growing my
business and those kind of things, then
the community is perfect for you.
OK, wanted to make sure to put that out
there and I'll talk to you next week.
We'll be officially into 2025

(11:07):
then and we've got some really fun things
planned. But because the episode comes
out on the holiday, right on New Year's
Eve or New Year's Day, then we'll be
having another short episode kicking off
the year and then we'll get more back
into our normal programming. With Brandon
and me both here and some longer
episodes coming after then. So look

(11:28):
forward to next time. Another quick
action-packed episode coming your way.
I'll talk to you soon. Take care. Oh, and
live long and profit.