Show Information
Episode Number: 68
Date: January 6, 2025
Duration: 23:36
Host Contact Information
Host: Justin Deese
Website: JustinDeese.com
Contact: Justin@JustinDeese.com
Free Gift: copy of my eBook: www.FreedomBluePrintPodcast.com/ebook
Summary
In this episode, Justin Deese welcomes the new year, reflecting on personal and family experiences over the holidays while emphasizing the importance of setting and reviewing goals for 2025. He discusses the significance of being proactive in life, learning from past experiences, and the necessity of writing down goals to make them tangible. The conversation encourages listeners to embrace challenges, learn from failures, and take ownership of their paths to success in the new year.
Takeaways
- Happy New Year and welcome to the first episode of 2025.
- We call it the mansion, which is a man shed.
- Are we ready to crush 2025?
- Goals that are not written down are just wishes.
- Fail early, fail often, and fail forward.
- You got this. You can crush 2025.
- Be aggressive, be aggressive.
- Magic happens when you have a plan.
- Take ownership and make sure that you are doing your part.
- Keep setting those goals and watch your business transform.
Chapters
00:02 – Welcome and New Year’s Excitement
02:15 – Building a Studio on the Farm
06:45 – Family Holiday Traditions and Military Son
15:30 – Holiday Routine Challenges
18:45 – Preparing for 2025 Goals
24:00 – Reflecting on 2024 Goals
30:05 – Approaches to Goal Setting: Passive vs. Aggressive
34:20 – Learning from 2024’s Successes and Failures
Keywords
2025, New Year, goal setting, reflection, personal growth, leadership, motivation, lessons learned, success, planning, When Your Business Partner is Your Spouse Kristen Deese and Justin Deese
Transcript
Justin Deese (00:02)
Happy New Year and welcome to the first episode of 2025.
I’m excited to kick off this new year and I’m ready to kick this year in gear. And I’m super excited to be able to do this hanging out with you today. pretty cool stuff going on already in 2025.
in my new studio and for those of you who follow
who follow me on social media, you know that I’ve had a new studio I’ve been working on. And a little bit of a backstory, my wife and I, I don’t know, four years ago or so bought some land up north of where we live and we’re slowly making transition to live on what we call the farm. We don’t farm anything unless you’re the IRS, which then we farm rocks,
kidding.
But seriously,
yeah, so our plan all along has been to move up here and live here full time once our daughter graduates high school.
And we’re, man, we’re almost there. I mean, it is, it is January and she graduates in May, which is crazy to even think about, but we’re slowly starting to make our, our move up here being her senior year. She’s, she’s in school less and less. so anyways, but I had to have a place to work and I had to have a studio here. I have one at my, at our other house that we’ve lived, but now I have one here. So now I can spend more time here, which is really exciting. So yeah, so we call it the mansion.
which is a man shed, but my son thought we called it a mansion. So pretty awesome. We met with a builder, had it designed to match the house, and then it came out on a tractor trailer. somebody moved this thing with one guy in this dolly looking thing. This is a 32, like 16 by 32 foot building is huge, but it was really cool to watch.
to watch that happen. But again, what’s exciting is now I get to spend more time up here on the farm and I built this specifically to be an office and studio, is really great. Being that this is the first episode of the year, that means we’re coming right off of the holidays. I love the holidays. Like the kids make the holidays so worth it. It’s always great. We all…
still talk about what Santa’s going to bring. And we have a tradition in our home where Mrs. Claus comes to our home Christmas Eve evening and delivers a gift to the house every year. And it’s a game and we all play it. And this year is the first year that Zack was not able to be here with us. Him and his wife, Sabrina, Zack’s in the Marines. He’s located well, Christmas. He was located in
Camp, Lejeune, North Carolina. So we had a game online, which is really cool. We got to play this board game online. It was actually a lot of fun, but it was again, not awesome that he wasn’t here, but it was, it was pretty cool to kind of somewhat keep that tradition. And now the time this episode is actually coming out, Zack has now been.
deployed so he is on his first deployment. which he is really excited about. Man, he’s pumped up and fired up and all the things and as a parent I’m not but different conversation for a different day. Obviously you know with kids you want to keep him close and protect him and that’s as a parent what you feel like your job is but.
you know, they fly the coop, so to speak, you know, they’re, they’re adults. So, and, he’s in the Marine. So you don’t get to make the decision of where you go or don’t go. They say, go, you go. Great. Yes, sir. I’m gone. but yeah. So, if you’ve, if you’ve got any prayers, please send them towards him for a safer turn home. Hopefully he will not be there very long. and then for, for my, my wife and daughter,
They actually were in London over the holidays. My daughter’s a cheerleader. Again, she’s a senior and she got to cheer in the London day New Year’s like London New Year’s Day parade, which how cool. I mean, she made All American this year. She got to cheer. I got to watch her on TV. I got some screen. You know, I got some pictures of her like with Big Ben behind her cheering. It was really cool as a parent. Holy cow.
What a proud moment. know I say this a lot on the podcast, but my kids are amazing and I am ridiculously proud of them and the people that they’ve become. And I blame their mom. Their mom is amazing and she’s done a great job. I’ve just been the supporting role, but the kids are, God, they’re so good. Anyways, so part of the challenge with the holiday season is routine.
I don’t know about you, but I’m a very routine person. So the holidays typically tend to be pretty difficult to stay in a routine. And this year, both Christmas and New Year’s were on a Wednesday, which really, I’m not sure there could be a worse day. I don’t know. I think it’s pretty crazy to be on a Wednesday, because you got like right in the middle anyways, but.
but it is very difficult to be in a routine. So not only was it the holidays, but I had the whole house to myself for like a week and some change and create, I got a lot of work done. That was good. I got a ton of work done, which is always exciting. I don’t sleep and I just lock in the office and work. But yeah, it was fun. I got to prep for 2025 and you know,
That’s really what I wanted to talk about today, right? So now that the holidays are really, in the rear view mirror, are we ready to crush 2025? Now, before we jump feet first into 2025, I think it’s really important that we look at 2024. Like think of it like the year-end review. I don’t know if you guys watched any of those, watched any of those shows, always liked those year-end review shows. I was like, I forgot that thing happened and.
But you know, think about it like from a little bit of a year in review with yourself and with your goals, Because really, before we can crush it, we have to know what the goal is. Like, what are we even going to crush? So you have to have a really good clear direction of what it is. And as you’re doing goal setting, they’ve got to be smart goals. And I’ve done an episode on smart goals. You can go back and listen to that one. You can…
do a Google search, smart goals is a pretty popular term, which really stands for specific, measurable, attainable, relevant, and time bound. Anytime you’re setting goals, that’s a really, it’s a way to do it. It’s a way to set your goals and to write them out that way, which for me, when I started first doing that, it was really pretty amazing how it happened, because it really helps you take each goal and break it down.
we get into that, let’s talk about like goals from last year, So if you look at what your goals were for 2024, how did you do? Like overall, are you happy with the results that you got in 2024? I certainly hope so. If you look at 2024 as a whole, are you disappointed? Are there some things you didn’t hit or there?
things that are the majority of things that you had were your goals that you didn’t hit. When you when you think about 2024, you kind of look at it and you go to your results, which, you know.
if, you hear those things in your head and you’re thinking, I’m happy about it, then that’s, that’s great. and I think it’s a good opportunity to, to, you know, keep it and enroll with it. And if you’re, if you’re disappointed with it, then I would say, you know, let’s, let’s take a little bit of reflection on what caused you not to hit those goals. And honestly, if you’re thinking like, meh, then I gotta tell you there, there’s an issue and I’m bummed for you.
I’m bummed for you because that means that those goals did not mean enough to you, which probably is why you didn’t hit them,
There are two ways to go about goals. And really this is goals and life. You can either be passive or you can be aggressive.
passive people, when they wake up in the morning, they have zero plan and they just go through the motion and life just sorta happens. Like it just happens. Everything is a, it happened to me. This thing happened to me. That thing happened to me. We’re aggressive people. They get up in the morning and they have a plan of attack. They own the day. And I got to ask, which are you?
Now, my guess is if you’re hanging out with me here, I’m guessing that you’re more of the aggressive person. And if you’re not the aggressive person, I am betting that you are wanting to become more aggressive, which is fantastic. Being aggressive means you’re going to own the day and own all your things and you’re going to go after it and you’re going to get it. And that’s just going to lead you to win more.
As you do your year end review, be thinking about like overall, what are some of the wins that you had in 2024? And listen, if you’re like, I have any one. Yes, you did. There is something. There are some wins that you had, and I would make sure to have some gratitude around that. Make sure to celebrate what the the wins were for the year. At the same token, what were some of the losses?
Again, everybody’s got losses, but you know, take. Take a moment and just kind of set on that for a second and think about what are some of the losses in here is the biggie. Are you ready? This is the biggie. What? Are your lessons that you learned from 2024? And I think that’s probably one of the biggest. The biggest ways that you can separate.
Um, wins and losses is, is really taking it from a lessons learned perspective. And it, and it doesn’t matter what the goal is. It could be, you know, most people, um, as, as we talk about 2025 and new years and new year’s resolutions, you know, people were like, Oh, I’m gonna, you know, health is a big one. like, Oh, I’m going to lose 50 pounds. You’re like, okay, well, what do you, you know, what, how many did you lose last year? None. gained 40. Okay. Well, what are you going to do differently?
So let’s look at from a business perspective. If your goal this year was to grow your business by 70%, did you accomplish it? And if the answer is yes, that is awesome.
I would make sure look at how did you do it? And how do you keep that flywheel moving in 2025 and beyond? Because that’s a huge accomplishment if that’s what your goal. This is obviously a hypothetical goal. I don’t know what your goals are, but from a business perspective, most people have a business growth plan. And if you hit it, great. What did you do to hit it? If the answer is no, you didn’t hit it, then the question is easy. What stopped you?
Like what got in the way? What was a roadblock?
Now, if you have the same goal for this year. And you your goal was 70 % and let’s say you hit 10. Then I think you realistically have to kind of look at the goal and say it is it realistic, right? And if it is what in the world are you going to do differently to change the outcome this year than you did last year?
Which, by the way, I want to say this too. Goals that are not written down are just wishes. And that’s a famous quote. A couple of people get credit for that one, but I think it’s a good one. Goals that are not written down are just wishes. And you think about that, because really what the bottom line comes down to is if it’s not written, it’s not real. And I think whatever goals you have,
And whatever it is you want to accomplish, you have to have them written down. There’s like this weird connection that happens when you write it down and you review it on a regular basis. There’s like this crazy, amazing thing that happens to where you’re, I don’t know, putting it out in the universe, putting it in God’s hands, whatever you want to look at it, however you want to look at it. But there’s just this thing that happens. Plus, not to mention there’s this whole self accountability that now happens when you’re
writing down your goals because now you have to sit down and go, you have to be honest with yourself. That’s you know what? That’s one of the hardest things about self reflection is that you have to be honest and you have to say, hey, did I did I did I do this right? What did I mess up? Was it me? Which by the way, if you’re if you’re a leader, it’s always you. So there’s there’s the bad news. The good news is you can you can you can have some effect on that. But again, you have to be intentional about it. You’ve got to be aggressive about it.
And listen, losses happen, right? They’re a huge part of being successful. Really, there’s no way to be a great leader without losing. Actually, there’s no way to be a human being really without having some losses. And so some everyday examples that you can kind of think about is working out, because I know everybody listening, I know you guys work out every day with me. We work out every day, right?
So so when you’re working out, you’re like working out your your muscles. They break down their sword. They hurt right like that is failure. That is your muscle failing and from that now you get a you know sweet dad bod or whatever you’re whatever you’re going after right. That’s part of it. Think about it from a sports perspective. Can anybody name me a single team that has never lost a game? No, it’s part of the game. Losing is part of it. Here here’s a good one too. Here’s a good example.
Think about as a for anybody who has small kids or grandchildren or whatever, like think about learning to walk. Like what if the kid, what if the kid just like fell down once and was like, I’m good. I tried it. I didn’t like it. Like, no, you, fall down, you get up, you fall down, you get up. You know, another example is riding a bike. You know, it’s Christmas. I bet a lot of kids got new bikes, which is pretty sweet. get a sweet Huffy. I don’t even know. The kids even ride bikes anymore. I don’t even know.
But you know, riding a bike, right? It’s difficult when you first do it, And you have to set the goal and you got to ride it. And then once you do, it’s an easy thing. Now, I spend a lot of time in Nashville nowadays, which by the way, I love Nashville, such a cool town. But think about from musicians that are there, So how many times do they have to go pitch to people and get shot down? I mean, good Lord, can you imagine? You hear a lot of stories about
really, really famous musicians nowadays that are like, yeah, I got turned down about 400 times. thinking, I didn’t even know there was 400 different record labels that you could do. I guess there is, but right. it’s, it’s, it’s not, it’s, you gotta get back up, right? John Maxwell has a really good quote about fail early, fail often, and fail forward.
I think that’s, I think it’s such a, mean, John Maxwell is just, he’s, he’s amazing, but, you know, fail early, fail often and fail forward.
I think about football, Cause it’s, we’re in the midst of the football season and playoffs and all that kind of good stuff, So when they’re running the ball and they go to get tackled, what are they trying to do? They’re trying to fail forward. They’re getting tackled. They’re trying to get that one extra yard, that one half a yard. It doesn’t even matter, right? Like they’re failing forward to get a little bit further than what they would have gotten if as soon as they got hit, they fell backwards.
Like there’s so many stories, there’s so many stories out there of a very wealthy people that lose everything, They lose everything and they have to start over. And what’s really incredible is a lot of times they become even more wealthy than they were and they do it in a shorter period of time than before. And you have to ask the question why? And it’s one, because they’ve done it before and two,
They’re taking the lessons from the past and they’re creating this whole new path that’ll get them there faster. And that’s really the thing when it comes to when it comes to setting goals is learn from the past. You have to look at last year in order to get a really good game plan for this coming year. You just have to write. You have to be. You have to look at your goals and you have to look at what you want to do and you have to be realistic about.
Am I able to do this? The answer, by the way, is yes, you can. There may just be half. There may have to be sacrifices that you’re not willing to do, which is fine, but the answer is always yes. If there’s a goal you’ve got, my guess is if it’s in business or personal, you can get it. Now the exception that rule might be something like let’s say I decided I wanted to be an NBA basketball player. I’m 5 foot 6 and I can I can dribble, but that’s about it. I’m not going to.
make the NBA. So if that’s my goal, it’s probably not realistic. I probably need to reevaluate. It’s fine. I got, I got a couple of other things going for me. So basketball is not really my favorite sport anyways, but doesn’t matter. They rejected me first. So you know how that goes. losses and setback are really just, they’re, part of it. Right. And the biggest thing again is what are the lessons that you’ve learned from it?
So as we start to really lean into 2025 and get dialed in and focused, we really don’t want to harp too much on the past, but it is really always important to look at the past so we can get a game plan for what the future is going to look like. Like John Maxwell said, always fail forward. Thomas Edison had another good quote. He says, I have not failed. I have just found 10,000 ways that won’t work.
And obviously this is a pretty famous quote. You’ve probably heard of it, but he’s talking about the light bulb and he’s talking about, you know, cool 10,000 ways to not do it, which aren’t we all glad that he got this whole light bulb thing, especially you electricians that are listening. You’re like, good job Edison. Now it’s not to say that we wouldn’t have figured out the light bulb after Thomas Edison. I’m sure we would have. but again, it was that him being a pioneer and him having that crazy vision and goal and going after it relentlessly.
They got us to wear wear with the with the light bulb. So here’s what I want to say to you. You got this. You got this. You can do this. You can crush 2025, Plan your life and your business on purpose. Do not be a passive participant in life. Be aggressive. As my daughter and her cheer team would say, be aggressive, be aggressive.
So be aggressive, right? So a couple of things. Make sure you review your 2024 wins, losses and lessons learned, but don’t dwell on them. Learn from them. Make sure you have a written plan for 2025. Again, if it’s not written, it’s not real. So make sure you have it written down. Share it with someone that will help you be accountable. You got to share that with somebody who’s going to
Hold your feet to the fire a little bit, right? There’s gonna be days you’re like, eh, I don’t really wanna go to that goal. Yes, you do wanna get after that goal and you need somebody in your life that will hold you accountable to help you drive that forward. Review your plan often. And depending on what your plan is, depending on what your goals are for 2025, I would highly recommend write them down, put them in your, somewhere that you will see every morning, whether it’s your bathroom mirror, whether it’s by your coffee pot, whether it’s on your office.
Look at that thing often, make it part of what you see on a regular basis. Because again, there’s something magical that happens when you have a plan that is written down and you’re looking at it on a regular basis. Magic happens, man. I can’t explain it. I know I talk a lot about vision boards. I have one and I’m telling you, I put things on that vision board and I make it a goal and it’s amazing. The things that come after that.
Last is be honest with yourself and take ownership. If you didn’t hit a goal because you were being lazy, fine, own it, but fix the problem. Take ownership. If you’ve got to have a different team, a bigger team, whatever, again, you’re the leader. You have to take ownership and make sure that you are doing your part, Be intentional and be on purpose.
and together let’s dominate 2025. Thank you for hanging out with me today and until next time, keep setting those goals and watch your business and leadership transform. This is Justin Deese signing off from the Freedom Blueprint podcast. Stay motivated, fail forward, and as always, keep crushing it.