Diversifying Beyond Amazon: Our Business Growth, Outdoor Adventures, and Embracing Health in 2023
Dec 26, 2023Season 1Episode 209
Firing The Man
Ever wondered how a business can pivot from reliance on one major platform to flourishing across multiple revenue streams? Join us for a candid exploration of our very own transformation in 2023. We're not just talking shop; we're giving you the nitty-gritty on how we've spread our wings from Amazon US to international marketplaces, direct-to-consumer websites, and the untapped potential of B2B sales. With a sprinkle of successes and a dash of lessons learned, we're serving up the real story behind product launches and the strategies that drove an overall 11% portfolio growth.
Now, hold onto your hats because it's not all boardrooms and balance sheets. We're also bringing you the heart-pumping tales of archery bear hunts in Manitoba and family trips in Wyoming, drawing astonishing parallels between the focus required for outdoor exploits and the grit needed for business success. Plus, I'm giving you an inside look at how the discipline of Jiu Jitsu has been a cornerstone in developing perseverance and resilience that translates to the remote work environment.
As we wrap up, listen in on how personal health strides have intertwined with our professional milestones. I'm getting real about the highs and lows of tackling sleep apnea, embracing fitness, and how a health-focused mindset has been a lynchpin for thriving in business and life. And, as a festive bonus, you'll get a peek at the peculiar and delightful Grinch Christmas tree that's taken up residence in my office. Come share in our reflections, victories, and a bit of Christmas cheer as we gear up for the new year.
Ever wondered how a business can pivot from reliance on one major platform to flourishing across multiple revenue streams? Join us for a candid exploration of our very own transformation in 2023. We're not just talking shop; we're giving you the nitty-gritty on how we've spread our wings from Amazon US to international marketplaces, direct-to-consumer websites, and the untapped potential of B2B sales. With a sprinkle of successes and a dash of lessons learned, we're serving up the real story behind product launches and the strategies that drove an overall 11% portfolio growth.
Now, hold onto your hats because it's not all boardrooms and balance sheets. We're also bringing you the heart-pumping tales of archery bear hunts in Manitoba and family trips in Wyoming, drawing astonishing parallels between the focus required for outdoor exploits and the grit needed for business success. Plus, I'm giving you an inside look at how the discipline of Jiu Jitsu has been a cornerstone in developing perseverance and resilience that translates to the remote work environment.
As we wrap up, listen in on how personal health strides have intertwined with our professional milestones. I'm getting real about the highs and lows of tackling sleep apnea, embracing fitness, and how a health-focused mindset has been a lynchpin for thriving in business and life. And, as a festive bonus, you'll get a peek at the peculiar and delightful Grinch Christmas tree that's taken up residence in my office. Come share in our reflections, victories, and a bit of Christmas cheer as we gear up for the new year.
Welcome everyone to the Firing the man podcast, a show for anyone who wants to be their own boss. If you sit in a cubicle every day and know you are capable of more, then join us. This show will help you build a business and grow your passive income streams in just a few short hours per day. And now your host serial entrepreneurs David Shomer and Ken Wilson.
Speaker 2:
Welcome everyone to the Firing the man podcast. On today's episode, Ken and I revisit the 2023 goals that we set on episode 164. For each goal, we're going to go through it, talk about why we made it and give you an update on our progress, on whether we accomplished it or not. Ken, what's?
Speaker 3:
going on, man, David, hey, I'm excited to share our year-end goals, kind of do a wrap up and see which ones we accomplished, if we didn't accomplish some. And yeah, I'm just kind of reviewed these. I think it's important to set goals, revisit them and then, you know, assess how you did at the end of the year. And so I'm excited for this show.
Speaker 2:
Absolutely. I do think in the whole goal setting process, the area that people oftentimes fall short on is not on setting goals, it's on revisiting them and checking back in, and so I think that this episode is critical. You and I were brave enough with our goals out to the public, and we're going to be brutally honest on whether we met those or not. And there are some that we didn't, and that's okay. They may be rolling into 2024. We may be exiting them off our list for a strategic reason, but yeah, let's get into it. So what was the first goal that she set?
Speaker 3:
Yeah, absolutely. So the first goal that I've got here I've got them all logged down and this one's going to kind of go from the top. The first one was diversify 30% of total revenue off of Amazon US. I'm looking at my sheet here and so I'm going to kind of break it down by brand and then overall. And so brand number one this was accomplished. It is 33% diversified year to date, so we still have some more time. But Amazon US year to date is only making up 67% of the sales, and so this was achieved by brand number one. Brand number two missed it by 2% and so really close, but year to date, 72%. So, depending on how cute the rest of it, we have two more weeks. We're taping this on December 15th. Maybe it hits 30% diversity or not, but it's really close. And brand three 77% sales came from Amazon US, and so it was close, 23% off of Amazon. And so, if you summarize, we're hovering right at around 28% across the portfolio, so pretty close. And I would say, comparing that to the previous year, I believe it was in the single digits, and so going from single digits to bonus, to accomplishing that goal, is really good, and some of the key pieces here that I have written down on things that we focused on email marketing. We focused a lot on email marketing on one of the brands. The other two brands we did pull back on email marketing due to catalog issues, but one of them we went pretty heavy on B2B sales. We actually we ran a project for B2B sales but we did not scale that project and so B2B sales did not help us on this. And then our D2C websites. We were getting. I think our D2C website sales and traffic has doubled year over year. So definitely websites are helping. I would say our international marketplaces are exploding. Canada is exploding, uk is really strong, walmart has doubled year over year and so, yeah, we've seen a lot of stuff. So, goal number one almost almost 30. What's your first one, david?
Speaker 2:
Absolutely so. My number one goal was also row off Amazon revenue, off Amazoncom revenue by 30%, and so I'm not going to go through the numbers, as Ken and I are managing these brands together. But there are a couple of things that I do want to talk about as it relates to this goal. One is why we set it, I would say first and foremost as a layer of protection, should listings get taken down. We've had that happen before, where we'll have a key listing and the US get taken down, for pesticides is one that's hit a lot of people this year and we've definitely been impacted by that, and when that goes down in 100% of your revenue or in the high 90s for percent of revenues coming from that, it hurts. It really does hurt. That was one of the primary reasons was to add a layer of protection, and it was also for growth. Now you know, when you're looking at growing a business, you can do one of two things you can either launch our products or take your existing products into new marketplaces, and we opted to take our existing products into new marketplaces for several different reasons, but to name a couple, we already had the supplier relationship, we already had the listings, we had done most of the work. It was just now kind of shipping them to a new place, and so there was certainly a lot of legwork needed in getting companies registered in those companies and getting our VAT set up and our GST set up in Canada. But I do think that it was faster way to grow than launching products which may not pan out. And so and the second thing I want to talk about is just to add a little bit of flavor on our experiences in these international marketplaces Canada was easy. That was generally very easy. You don't have to worry about that. All you have to have is a Canadian business number which is fairly easy to get. Importing there takes about the same amount of time and effort as importing into the US, and if you have any inventory on US soil, it's a very easy move. And so if people were only selling in dot com and we're looking to expand to one international marketplace, you know, obviously do your own research, but Canada was, I would say, fairly easy. On UK, one thing that we found for the UK is that we enjoyed higher profit margins on a couple of other products by the to the tune of about 10%. Now, that wasn't across the board, but on those particular products we seem to enjoy higher profit margins and, as we know, amazon's a tight margin game, and so that was. That was really really nice. We also had and this is an isolated example, so I don't know if this is going to be true across the board it seems like in dot com, if you're not running PPC, it is hard to get any type of velocity, and we did send some products into the UK that took off on day one and we knew if we ran PPC that we would go out of stock, and so what we did to slow velocity was we turned PPC down to a dollar and we had 99% organic sales, strong organic sales, which is something that is kind of unheard of in the US. Now, that could have been an isolated event, and I don't think that we've been operating in UK long enough to know that. But I would say overall big thing in Canada, big thing in UK, expansion into Germany. We've had some challenges, and I think one of those is it's in a non English speaking country, and so that we got listings rewritten, we translated all of our infographics, but in terms of work it did require a little bit more work to get into those markets. Now remind me what, if you rank all the Amazon marketplaces, how, where does?
Speaker 3:
Germany fall last in terms of total revenue for a year to date. For just overall, amazon like into a big second, so it is the second largest, behind US.
Speaker 2:
the last time I looked, yeah, yeah, and so that's something that makes us really hopeful about this marketplace is that they have a lot of people using Amazon, and so the customer basis is strong, and so, as we go into 2024, that's going to be one that we're going to continue to work on and develop. But, as you know, goal number one for both of us was diversificationoffitcom, and we may not have hit that exact. What did you say?
Speaker 3:
the overall was About 28% across the portfolio.
Speaker 2:
Okay, we both said 30%, so I think that 30% was a lofty target and I'm really happy with landing at 28%. I can a little teaser for 2024 goals I would like to see that at less than 50% forcom. That's just. That's another episode, but teaser. Yeah, so anything else we want to talk about for goal number one?
Speaker 3:
No, I think that's good. What's your second one, David?
Speaker 2:
Yeah, so help three people successfully fire the man and a little bit of background on this goal. When I fired the man, when I actually experienced that it was outstanding to be able to have control of your time is is something that it's really. It's a shame that a lot of people will go through their entire working career and not know what that feels like Now. That's not to say that Ken and I have been sitting peonyclawed is on a beach. All these businesses run on autopilot. We have worked very hard this year. However, it's been on our own time and we've been able to have work that are scheduled as opposed to our schedule fitting work, and so I am a big fan of working after the kids go to bed, because from five to nine I'm playing tag and going outside with my kids and I really like that, and so that's just a little bit of background on this goal. So now I can think of two people that have successfully fired the man. Brennan Manns is somebody who lives in my hometown and somebody I've been talking to for quite some time. He had told me about this goal. He was working at an automotive company. Surprised me one day it was a Friday he brought over a card and a bottle of whiskey. In fact, I'm going to step away right here because I have this hanging on my wall. It's a card from him that says thanks for helping me fire the man today. David, all the best Cheers. I could not be more excited for Brennan and the future is very bright for him, and so I'm really excited about that. Second person who has fired the man is somebody named Renee who launched a marriage planning book. That's really doing well. That's really doing well, and I've known her for quite some time and she really has a knack for design and put together a really, really neat book. Although I'm already married, I have been a customer of hers and it's outstanding, and so she just put in her notice and will be exiting her corporate job at the end of the year, and that's awesome. That's really awesome. And so those are two people that I know of that directly reached out to me and said I fired the man, and my hope is that there are some silent people that may have tuned in or talked to and or I over the past couple of years and got some inspiration and have also fired the man or at least taken some steps towards that. Yeah, that's an update on goal number two.
Speaker 3:
That's awesome. Yeah, that's like a selfless goal. That's where you're helping others and it makes you feel good, and so congrats, david, on that one. That's really cool.
Speaker 2:
Thank you, thank you. Yeah, it really fires me up, because I know what gift those people are about to receive. I know that their life is about to change for the better, and that's awesome, and so I've got this card hanging up on my wall and it's going to stay there for a long, long time. So so, ken, what about you? What was goal number?
Speaker 3:
two Cool. So goal number two fully implement EOS out of traction. And so, for those not familiar with EOS, it's entrepreneurial operating system. It's kind of a structure, a way to run your business. It sets the environment for the entire organization. Every employee, or they're all everybody's moving in the same direction. And so we started this in 22 and in 23. I feel like we implemented it 100%. And so we're doing scorecards monthly, we're doing L10 meetings for all of our divisions and we have monthly, quarterly and annual planning. We just did our annual planning last month. I said this one has been accomplished. I would say this one I was kind of like on the fence of what it's a lot of work, L10 meetings, scorecards but I can. I can say one thing like like it's really helped everybody to stay on the same page and it's really helped for the leadership team to to strategize, make up goals, create goals and then filter them down to the entire team and then they know what they're working on is helping the entire organization move forward. And so, yeah, number two implementing EOS complete.
Speaker 2:
And just to piggyback off what you're talking about, I think that this has been one of the best things that we've done as business owners and I think if there's anybody listening that is on the fence about it, they owe it to themselves to at least read the book. Whether they implement it fully, that's up to them, but I can say that that has had as a positive ROI activity and I think our team members like that. They know what's expected and we lay it out by quarter and in. Now. I think that's been outstanding and, like a fine wine, it gets better with time. This was year number two and our planning session was a lot better than year number one because we learned a lot from doing it, and so I think that will continue to develop like fine wine and get better with time.
Speaker 3:
Now I agree, year over year, definitely, it's definitely an improvement. Cool David, how about goal number two? Oh wait, sorry, this is your goal number three.
Speaker 2:
So I launched 15 products across all portfolio companies and I'm going to go through each portfolio company and talk about these. I'm also going to give a couple updates on whether they were successful or not. Company A we had four product launches. Two of them are products that we are going to keep in 2024 and two of them are ones that we are going to retire or kill, and the reason was that they just did not take off, and I think that that's. I want to mention this, because if there are people out there that are launched a product and it didn't go well, that should not make you feel bad. Ken and I have been doing this for seven years and we batted 50% this year for this particular brand, and we're okay with that. So four on portfolio company A. Portfolio company B we did eight in total. Now, one of these was very was a lot more involved than just buying and ordering products. It required us to develop a software and form a relationship with a US based supplier, and so I think it really should count as three. Although it is one product and I guess it's it's there's four variations. So, yeah, no, that is true. So four variations. So on this one, if you're counting variations. We launched 11 and I would say two. Two out of those 11 will probably retire, but we did pretty good here, and the one thing I want to point out is for this particular brand, one thing that we did was we have an email list and we asked our customers what they liked before we launched them. We came up with a list of 50 ideas and we picked our, our, the best seven, and that was a really. I think when we're looking at folio company A versus B, one of the main differences is that we asked our customers what they wanted and then we delivered that, Whereas on portfolio company A, we were kind of guessing, and I'm not disappointed with how we did in portfolio company A, but this is just. I think there's a lesson here for our listeners. I wanted to point that out. Portfolio company C we launched one product. We brought one product to market and we made significant steps in launching a second one, and that one, I would say instead mediocre results, definitely something that we're going to continue to sell into 2024. So when I add all those up, we've got four plus 11, plus one, we're at 16, which does surpass the goal of 15 products across portfolio companies and I really proud of of those, and there was a lot of work that went into them.
Speaker 3:
Absolutely that's. That's not a bad percentage Out of 16,. Three or four you know, were unsuccessful and the rest were, and so 2024 is looking looking good too. I think a teaser is that number will probably go up for you, david. On on for that goal. So goal number three on my side increase revenues by 20%. And how how did we do that? Launch new products. Yes, david just went over that. We launched 16 new products. Optimized PPC we made a really good move. I ran PPC for about five months of the year and it was not not that good. We hired a new PPC manager and he is crushing it. He's, he's amazing. And then the third one is some scale B2B and D2C sales. And so Dirk's consumer are on our websites. We doubled sales on our websites. It's still a very small percentage. It's growing. It's doubled year over year. B2b we tested it this year. We we backed off on it and then maybe we test it next year. It's kind of floating out there. We need to find the who for this one. But increase revenues by 20%. That is the top level goal. So let's, let's go over it. So on on company A, and this is total global revenue. Company A did not achieve that. Company A actually decreased by 8%. This one is as as I, as I dive into it, by the market. Amazon US went down by 35%. Then the rest of the marketplaces we went up 700%, 900, 5,100 and on Walmart we doubled. Our website sales went up by 50%. Germany, uk and Canada went up by a lot, 100s or 1000s of percent, and so Amazon US we went down by 35%. And so this one, the recent four, this was mostly due to Amazon's, and then Amazon came out, and I think it was February or March, and said hey, we're going to have this new fee if you have more than X amount of storage. And so we went into lightning mode and we sold a bunch of our inventory. And then this brand peaks in the summertime, and then our, our second batch of inventory was late and so, and we also had some listings taken down due to pesticide claims, like David mentioned earlier, and so we've had a couple of struggles with this one, but 2024 is looking way better. So company A negative 8% in revenue. Company B 32%. And so company B had a spectacular year. This is one where we launched several new products that did really well. And so Amazon US was up 11%. Canada was 5x. Uk doubled. Germany was up 50x. Walmart was about flat. It was up 1%. And then our website sales went down by 57%. I think that was due to B2B 2022, we had a lot of large orders from B2B, which we did not have this year, so but overall, 32% and we're still going like we still had two weeks of the year. This might be 35%, because we're in peak season for this brand and so excellent, excellent job on this brand. Brand C was up 10% total, so excellent results. Us marketplace was down 6%. Canada tripled. Uk went up 2000%. Germany went up 500%. Walmart went down 35% on this brand. That's interesting. And then our website sales went up almost 3x and so finishing off with 10% solid growth for that brand. Altogether, 11% across the portfolio. We had one brand really struggled, one brand did really well and one brand did good at 10%, and so a total of 11%. So didn't quite hit the 20% revenues across our portfolio, but close. One did, one did not, one well, two didn't, one did, and so we've got room to work on. We've identified some gaps and some areas we can improve on and just get better overall, and so not sure what the goal will be next year, but it might be a similar goal and it might be even more. Overall, I feel strong. I feel strong about that one. Any thoughts about that, david?
Speaker 2:
Yeah, I mean I would say that 20% growth rate was lofty at the beginning of the year. I would be interested in taking a look at profitability because I do think that we're likely up. However, we didn't analyze that for this episode, so I'm not gonna go down that path. But yeah, I think if you're not growing, you're dying, and I think we were pointed at getting things, getting growth, for next year, and I think that we executed pretty well on it and so we had some surprises pop up this year. You had mentioned that stock out. We had an AGL shipment that should have been 45 days, go to about 110 days, which is for those of you using AGL. It's usually old, reliable, unless you ship out of Taiziant. That particular port has been very slow for us and not one that we're gonna be using. It's learned. Yeah, I'm happy with how things went and, as we look to next year, I do think that we can increase revenues by 20% with what we have planned and it'll be a challenge. But I, like I said, if you're not growing, you're dying Absolutely, and you made a good point.
Speaker 3:
I think one that's missing off of my list I'm not sure if I didn't see it on yours was profitability, and so I'll be adding that too. One of us should add that to our goals list for next year. I mean, revenue is great, but at the end of the day, profit is what we work hard for, and so, to all the listeners, focus on profit. Revenue is revenue. Profit is where the rubber meets the road, so next year we will have that goal on there.
Speaker 2:
All right. Goal number two for, excuse me, goal number four for me was to go on two out of state hunts which I accomplished, so give you a little update on those. My first trip was in June. I went up to Manitoba on an archery bear hunt, which I ended up harvesting a bear. It was spot and stock. It was awesome. I had a lot of fun and I met a lot of really neat people, and so that was an outstanding hunting and it was fun to do with bone arrow. And I've been eating bear and it's good. I like it. I do like bear and I've been telling my boys if you eat like a bear, you'll be strong like a bear.
Speaker 3:
And so they eat it with me too. That's awesome, was it the blueberry bear?
Speaker 2:
It was. It was. This particular area had a ton of blueberries. This bear, when we dressed it out, had purple fat and when you cook it in the crock pot it makes the house. It's like a sweet meat. It's hard to describe but I really am a fan of it and it was a lot of fun. Yeah, I've got said sneaking in on a 300 pound bear. At eye level. I'll tell you it got my heart racing like nothing else.
Speaker 3:
I was nervous when you went on the hunt. You were like, yeah, I'm going bear hunting, great, in the Canada. And then, like right before you left, you said it's with a bow or something. And I was like, wait a second, how are you gonna bear on the bow? Then I'm like, oh man, david's gonna go up to Canada and get eaten by a bear. And I was like, holy shit. So that, how close were you when you took the shot?
Speaker 2:
I was 40 yards and I'll share a little good hunting story. The night before in camp this was we were sitting around a fire and somebody said so we were hunting for boars, which is the males. And they said if you ever, if they're ever facing away from you and you wanted them to come closer, you do something called a challenge growl, which is where you go, like this Roar, roar, roar, and they will sink. It's another boar and come to fight you. Well, I had snuck in on it and he was facing away from me and I could not. His vitals were not exposed and so I drew my bow back and I did this challenge growl and as soon as he turned, I let my arrow go and made a good shot and the hunt was over. But I should have had a heart rate monitor on, because that's ballsy. I could hear my heart beating, but it was on day five of the five day hunt, one hour left, and I wanted to make it happen. So, yeah, it was a lot of fun. Thank you, thank you. So that was out of state hunt number one. Out of state hunt number two was an antelope hunt in Wyoming, and this was a new one for me Me, my wife and my two sons loaded up in an RV and went out west for two weeks and it was had a really good hunt. I had my son Henry with me there and he was really enjoying the outdoors and we saw a lot of antelope, eight marshmallows around the fire and had antelope steaks around the fire after a successful hunt and so it was a lot of fun and it was. I don't think I probably would have ever traveled to this part of Wyoming but for an antelope hunt because it was very rural and there was not a lot going on. And so, yeah, a lot of fun and it was fun to have my family there with me.
Speaker 3:
Now that one sounds pretty meaningful to do that. That sounds like a great experience.
Speaker 2:
Absolutely so. Then what's number four?
Speaker 3:
Awesome. So number four, chi Brown Belt in Jiu Jitsu, trained three times a week. Do not get injured and have fun. So I definitely have had fun. I haven't sustained any big injuries. That's kept me away from training and I've trained two to three times a week consistently all year. So it's been a great year of getting back into Jiu Jitsu. So I took three years off, started back last November and it was a struggle for a long time. Happy to say that probably three weeks I'll be getting promoted to Brown Belt and so that'll be my next journey in the process of filling out that Brown Belt. And so this one is not yet, but in three weeks it'll be achieved. This is, yeah, probably one of my more, one of my favorite ones, I think.
Speaker 2:
So for our listeners, Ken, how has Jiu Jitsu helped you with your e-commerce businesses?
Speaker 3:
Yeah, so I think for me Jiu Jitsu is. So I'm not a really big competitor. I don't travel out on competing tournaments. I usually do maybe one a year or maybe two a year. For me, jiu Jitsu is kind of like troubleshooting, and so if you have someone that's basically trying to choke you out unconscious or rip your limbs off, like you have to figure out ways to stop them from doing that, and then you have to figure out ways to do that to them, and so it's just a series of like troubleshooting problems, big problems and so, and it's also a great stress relief. You know, as entrepreneurs we're kind of holed up in our house or traveling or whatever, and so for me it's a really good outlet for exercise and stress relief. Yeah, I would say that is it. Also there's really good people. You meet a lot of really good people on the mat. It's like normally someone that's training Jiu Jitsu. I'll generalize probably 80 or 90% of people that I meet that trained Jiu Jitsu, that are trained for a while, really good people and people that like reminding me of kind of entrepreneurs. There are some entrepreneurs that trained Jiu Jitsu with me, but not all of them. But this is something where you can't give up. You just have to keep showing up. You know, literally getting your ass kicked every day until you get better. This is the same way as being an entrepreneur You're getting kicked every day, you know, whether it's Amazon, whether it's your P&L, whether it's your employees. You're getting kicked right in balls every day and it's like keep showing up, keep getting better a little bit each day and it adds up over a long period of time, and so it translates to well, I think.
Speaker 2:
All right. Goal number five for me was to live four weeks as a digital nomad, working somewhere else other than my office, and this is something that I did accomplish. I was trying to tally him up, and it was probably either three or four weeks. This is something that was important to me because me and my family do like to travel, and when I was working for the man, this was a dream of mine to be able to work from anywhere. I've tripped down to Florida and have spent a good bit of time in Kentucky, and that has been a good setup One. This is a little bit of a miscellaneous point, but one thing that I think prevents me from wanting to do more of this is I've got a sweet setup in my office. I've got I'm running 234 inch monitors. Everything's here. I've got a stand up desk. It's hard for me to leave this. This is where I'm at maximum efficiency. However, you know, father's Day my wife's got me, and for those of you who are tuning in on video, I will. You can see this and for those of you who are on audio, I will share this with you. This is two 13 inch monitors that connect to my laptop, so I really like having multiple screens when I'm working. I do think it increases efficiency. This is one thing that is made working as a digital nomad easier is being able to go out of town or roll up to the coffee shop, still have three monitors Now they're not 34s, but they're 13, and that's good enough for me. And so one thing I, as I look to 2024, one thing that I'm going to try to work on. It is not necessarily going out of town, but just working from different places. I find myself. You know, I was sitting on my back porch the other day. It was really nice weather and I was like, why don't I bring my laptop out here? So I think you know whether it's rolling into the local coffee shop or working outside. That's going to be something that I do in the next year, because I do like my office, but I do like getting outside of my office as well.
Speaker 3:
No, I think that tidbit of your monitors and like that's something that you've learned over time, where you have taken extended periods of time and all that, or go to the coffee shop or go to remote places to work and I'm the same way, like I have my laptop, but at home, you know, it's like man, I've got this sweet setup. But when you go away it's like so that is a pretty cool thing to share. I don't have that. Maybe I'll add that in, but I definitely prefer multiple monitors. I'm just more productive when I have something like that I can use.
Speaker 2:
So last point on that 250 bucks on Amazon not as expensive as as someone would think. For anyone wanting to be a digital nomad that likes big screens, look into it.
Speaker 3:
All right, number five on mine. Take another 30 day non work vacation. A recap of last year. Last year. So last year I took a 30 day trip to Europe with my family and it was amazing, had a lot of fun. We visited I think it was seven countries. It was crazy fun. And this year I did not. Did not do that, so we had a, unfortunately had a death in the family and could not travel for 30 days this year, but I did have. I went for two weeks to Puerto Rico with my kids. It was a really good time. I might have taken one meeting or I don't remember. I don't think I did work. That I think you covered, david. I don't think I worked when I was in Puerto Rico. So two weeks of non work vacation. This one will definitely be on my calendar for next year Because I think it's really crucial to take that time off, flex the wings a bit, travel, see how the team does when you're gone. It exposes gaps, it exposes things, and so I think it's good. And so this one was not achieved, but it'll be a repeat on my goals for next year for sure, because I think it is definitely crucial.
Speaker 2:
All right. My sixth and final goal was to attend at least 100 Jiu-Jitsu training sessions. So a little bit of background at the beginning of 2023. After listening to Ken talk about Jiu-Jitsu for a while, I decided to give it a try and I really liked it and was in a routine of going two to three times a week and had a lot of fun. And February so not long into this I injured my back. I did not go back, and so this is a goal that I did not achieve and I'm not sure if it'll roll into next year or not. I did really enjoy it. I did really enjoy it. I set this goal and I didn't accomplish it, and that's that. And I'm not blaming it on the industry or on the injury. My back is just fine right now and I drive by it on my way to the grocery store and I think, gosh, should I get back into it or not? And so it's there. I mean, maybe something that I do get back into, but yeah, I would say I probably did 20 out of the 100 classes that I intended on doing.
Speaker 3:
But, yeah, no injuries or injuries happen and they sideline you for a while, then you definitely have to be 100% to train Jiu-Jitsu or it just doesn't work. I remember when I started back, my back was in a bad shape and it was not good. Cool, what about you, ken? So last one says here lose 30 pounds and then I've got some bullets train Jiu-Jitsu, meal prep and planning and better sleep. So I'll go through the bullets so better sleep. Yes, I've been getting way better sleep. So I was diagnosed with sleep apnea this past year, which I never knew I had. You know people always complain oh, you snore so loud, blah, blah, blah Like. But I didn't really think anything of it. And then I found out my father has a sleep apnea and he uses a CPAP machine and I was like holy cow. So I did a sleep study and they're like my levels were like 500% higher than what the normal level was and they're like you have really bad sleep apnea. So I've got a CPAP machine. I've been using it for probably four or five months now and it is like night and day Like I feel normally if I don't use a CPAP machine. At like two or three o'clock in the afternoon I'm starting to get sluggish and tired. When I use a CPAP machine it's eight o'clock at night and I'm like what's next? So like it really, really impacts me. Meal prep and planning. I'm going to give myself a grade of a C on this one. The meal prep I do probably want some month planning. Meal planning is like it probably wants them off as well. So there's some definitely improvement there and that will roll over to next year. And then train jiu-jitsu that one there definite two to three times a week all year, no major injuries. And so that one was accomplished. So lose 30 pounds, and so this one. I guess I'm going to say that it's accomplished, but I'll explain more to it. So, on a scale, I'm down 15 pounds. From beginning of the year I've also been not only training jiu-jitsu. One of the things that I started doing early in the year is lifting weights. So I go to a gym to sometimes three days a week and just lift weights for an hour, and so that's really given me a ton of strength for jiu-jitsu. And also I've gained 22 pounds of muscle, lean muscle mass, this year according to my Renfos scale, and it's like an electronic resonance scale, and so I'm down 15 pounds on the scale, but also I've gained 22 pounds of muscle, and so that's like I guess it would be 37 pounds difference, and so I'm going to say it's accomplished in different ways, but overall I feel amazing. Definitely more goals next year, but a huge improvement this year. So that one, that one makes me excited. I have more energy, stronger and, yeah, just feel better overall. And health, I think, is man, if you don't have your health, you don't have anything, and so I think health is really crucial.
Speaker 2:
As we go through here, there may be someone listening saying wait, I tuned into a podcast about business and these guys are talking about vacation and jiu-jitsu and meal prep. What's that have to do with business? I would say everything. Jiu-jitsu, problem solving it's basically training your brain for problem solving in your business. I'd also say, if you're, it makes big problems seem smaller. You know, in terms of taking care of your health and your body, that makes things. That makes everything better and pleasing, Including how many RPM your brain can run at. And I would say the last one, vacation. That's when I personally have the best ideas, when I'm unplugged and detached. Can I think you probably agree with me as well on that?
Speaker 3:
Yeah, it's kind of weird. I don't know why. I think maybe it's because your brain is not on the day-to-day fires and on the day-to-day grind and it's kind of like free To float around and come up with ideas. But yeah, I do come up with some really good I I think her great ideas.
Speaker 2:
But no, I agree, definitely so that's a recap of our goals for 2023. Be looking for another episode where we set out our 2024 goals and now some to the world. We would encourage anybody listening to write down your goals and go through a similar process Of this is set them in in revist a mid-year and then at the end of the year. I think it. It makes a big difference and if you can tell somebody about it, that's great. I think that level of accountability is huge and if you don't have an accountability partner, email us Ken at firing man and David at firing the man and and will help you. Help hold you accountable to those.
Speaker 3:
Absolutely. Those are really, really important. What you said, david, share with someone. You could start your own podcast and share the world, or you can share with your friends or family or whatever, but sharing with someone I also. I like to print them out and keep them close and then kind of just check in on them. Some people put them on the wall. Some people, you know, do whatever, but go back to them Periodically throughout the year, see where you are, because you'll fall behind or you'll get ahead and then. But you'll just remember hey, you know I've got these things to accomplish, and so let me continuously remind myself to check in. Do status awesome? Yeah, I want to give a shout out to my girlfriend for giving me this Christmas tree from my office. So, anybody on the heart of YouTube channel, it is a a Grinch Christmas tree. I said, hey, how come I don't have a Christmas tree my office, and she's like I'll get you one, and she got me this one. I'm like that's awesome. So, yeah, go to the YouTube channel and check it out. It's a Grinch, a Christmas tree. Yeah, this, I believe this podcast is airing right around Christmas, new Year's, and so we hope you have a great Christmas holiday, whatever you celebrate, and a happy new year.
Speaker 2:
Absolutely. Thanks everyone for tuning in to the firing man podcast and we'll see you next week.