The final Friday Footnotes of 2021 – where has the time gone? The last 2 years seem to have merged into one, and at times it is difficult to know what happened when, because we remember life with memorable bookmarks. We certainly managed more memorable bookmarks this year than last, and let’s hope trend continues.
I hope you find something useful in the ramblings below, and I’d like to wish you a healthy, wealthy, and happy New Year!
TRIBEathlon Podcast
Episode 61: Jackie Hering is a professional triathlete, mom of two, coach and race director living in Wisconsin. She grew up swimming competitively and worked up to focusing on Ironman but after having children she has focused on the 70.3 distance and has risen to the top of it. Winning her match in the Collins Cup, winning Clash Daytona and being a 5-time 70.3 champion, she appears to be going from strength to strength despite having to fit her training around parenting duties.
I wanted to chat to Jackie about her self-coach flexible approach to training, her race tactics in the Collins Cup and the benefits of snow shoeing in the winter.
Podcast I’ve Been Listening To
Over the last year several people have recommended the podcast Happy Mind, Happy Life, by Dr. Rangan Chatterjee, and I finally got around to diving into it this week. I started with Episode #226 The Healing Power of Community as it contains snippets from his other episodes around that theme.
There were some fantastic takeaways from the episode; one example is how we are currently described as being more connected than ever, at a time when we have never been less connected. We are in fact wired, not connected! Another incredible insight is that being lonely is shown to be as bad for your health as smoking 15 cigarettes a day! Incredible. I suggest you give it a listen and work out how you can boost your community in 2022! It has certainly got me thinking.
Tool I Find Useful
At this time of the year, you should be writing down your goals for the year ahead. Research shows that if you write down goals that scare you but won’t kill you, i.e., goals that make you step outside your comfort zone, you achieve a lot more. When you find that big goal, whether it is a 3-year or a 1-year goal, you then need to chunk it backwards, e.g., what do I need to do this quarter, this month and this week to be on track? Like eating an elephant, if you take one bite at a time, it’s amazing how much you can get through.
My team and I use a tool I have developed over the years that takes the time management and goal setting wisdom of Brian Tracey, Strategic Coach and Tony Robbins (to name a few) and combines them into one practical tool for planning your time; it’s called The Limitless Life Planner. If you want to give it a go, you can download it here. Remember, aim for the stars, and even if you fall short, you’ll still reach the moon! Also, if you want to hear me explain my goal-based system, listen to the TRIBEathlon podcast above, as I talk about it in the introduction with Claire Fudge of 4th Discipline.
TED Talk I’ve Found Interesting
Malcolm Gladwell is one of my favourite authors because of his fantastic story telling around education pieces. We learn so much better through stories, and that is what makes his books so compelling. In his TED Talk The unheard story of David and Goliath, he analyses the classic underdog tale of David, a young shepherd armed only with a sling, beating Goliath, the mighty warrior. The story has transcended its biblical origins to become a common shorthand for unlikely victory. But, asks Gladwell, is that really what the David and Goliath story is about?
Quotes of the Week
“A New Year’s resolution is something that goes in one year and out the other.”
- Author Unknown
“Losers have goals. Winners have systems.”
- Scott Adams
Finance Theme I’ve Been Considering
After all the excesses of Christmas, the huge Christmas feasts, the frequency of mince pie and alcohol consumption, or the Quality Streets for breakfast, you’ll likely arrive in January craving a detox. Cutting out the bad and focusing on the good leaves you feeling amazing, and allows you to approach the year in better health and with a better mindset. If you want to try our 2-week detox challenge, you can find it here.
It isn’t just our health that needs a detox though, it’s often our finances too. Clearing out the old policies and shares that are carrying a little too much weight and reinvigorating your money can make a massive difference over the long term. So, if you or someone you know needs to detox their finances and clean out the dead wood, the New Year is a great time to take the initiative, and we’d love to help you create a better future by doing so.
Let’s make 2022 the best year yet!