How To Grab 2025 By The Horns Like A Boss!!!

Welcome to the social group podcast. My name is David. And my name is Donnie. And we're here and and just completed the my first million conference.

Anybody remember when we were in that room and had that idea? Do you know? Do you remember when that was? Um, let's see. I actually have the footage. You have a footage? I have the footage. Okay. It's in one of these phones, but I remember we were recording when we had the idea, then we started calling people. Who was the first person we called? We called somebody. What do we call? They called somebody. So I don't know.

We call it somebody. I think we call Drew first. No, yes, Drew was the first person to call. Yeah. Praise God. Oh, I tried to touch her a little bit with that joint. She would have been disgusted. I would have been disgusted. But yeah, we started calling people. And I think we wound up calling.

Can we call Mike Whitley and ask him to get us some money? No, we never made that call. No. We asked, well, Mike Whitley called us about potentially having clients involved. The very first call we made was to runway. Run runway. How do you know? Because I remember being in that room, but I just pulled up the notes.

Do you have the day that we made that call? October 16th. October 16th. Listen, we have an idea. October 16th, December 13th, we did an event. Two months, two months, 600 people. That is the textbook example of execution.

But we didn't, we came up with the idea and made the decision that we were going to do it, right? We had a conversation. We were actually supposed to, we were coming into the studio to record a social proof podcast episode. And that day, it just, that was the first time in the history of ever that you and I both just did not feel like recording.

We were up a couple of episodes. We had some episodes recorded. And we said, we need to meet anyway. Let's just do our meeting instead. And we were talking about our birthdays coming up, right? And Dave mentioned that he had never had a birthday party. And I'm like,

I never had a birthday party. I was talking about how I don't, I never really like celebrate my birthday. Like my wife would do something for my birthday, but I'm not like, yo, let me do something for my birthday. I've never had a birthday party. I've had birthday dinners and people come in and birthday celebrations, but as an adult, as an adult, we've never had a birthday party, right? And so we were thinking about having a birthday party, but

How do we make it for our communities? How do we serve in the birthday party? And we're like, how do we just have a birthday party full of people who are aspiring entrepreneurs? And that's where the conversation started. And over the course of the next two weeks, we were really just mapping out, well, what would we do? How would we make this look, right? And then we called...

We called Runway and said, hey, we know we're going to do something. Just start putting up like a page and we'll fill in the details later. And we didn't start actually, we didn't put out the event and start actually marketing the event until top of November. Yeah. And it's been such a beautiful journey. And I will say, in terms of information delivery, this was my favorite.

Listen, I don't put a bunch of presentations together. And I know you didn't put a bunch of presentations together, but it was something about the just letting us teach without a frills, without a smoke. Yeah, we didn't have a host. There was no host. I mean, it was, yo, we, okay, we were at the restaurant looking at like our walk through where we're going to do our birthday party.

We get a napkin and this guy has a pencil for some reason. Like who walks around with a pencil? It was constrains to me. But he gave me a pencil. We're like, okay, what are all the things they need to know in the roadmap to make a million dollars? So we start writing sales and marketing and branding and funnels and relationships and network. We just start writing all this stuff on a napkin.

And we simply decided that we are going to, I take half of it. She take, Donnie takes half of it. I do three presentations, wrapping in this roadmap. She does three, we come together, then we start putting it together, say, okay, if you teach this and I teach this, and we came up with a roadmap to a million dollars, no hosts. It wasn't, it wasn't, um,

a whole lot of fancy decor. It was nice. It was nice. But it wasn't a whole lot of fancy decor. It was information, information break, information, information break, network, go to lunch. And it really felt like the most powerful calls we have is like, you know, like your Zoom call with your community, right?

Teaching a thing and they like alright. I got it. That's what it felt like it didn't feel like a conference. It felt like it was a zoom call on stage Just delivering the information on how to do it and the the the replies Overwhelming mm-hmm. I mean for someone to say for a multiple people to say yo, this is the first time I actually see me making a million dollars mm-hmm and it's simple I got it

I did a call with actionable CEO last night before we even get to that. We did a takeaway call. Well, we did a not only did we do the conference, it was a one day conference. We had nine hours to help people do what we helped them do. And the result was seeing themselves

having the ability and the capacity to actually earn the seven figures in 2025. That's what the result was.

We did that conference for nine hours. Dave and I came back to the drawing board and we said, hey, we just want to make sure like I warned everybody at the beginning of my first million live conference. I said, this information is going to overwhelm you. You are going to leave here positively overwhelmed, meaning you should have pages and pages and pages of notes, information. I got all these steps. I have clarity here, but it'll highlight some problems. It will expose me. It will do the things.

But also at the conference, I said, and because I'm aware of that, right? One of my sales strategies is to overcome objections in the pitch without you having to present the objection. So I don't want you to get to the end of this conference and say, I'm overwhelmed. Instead, I am going to guarantee you that you're going to be overwhelmed. So let me teach you how to actually take this information and make it useful for you.

You're going to be overwhelmed if you take all these notes and you try to do all the things that we're telling you to do immediately. I want you to identify where you are in your business right now. So we got to start with an actual business audit, right? We started with the business audit so it can reveal to you where you are in your business. Now that we know where you are, what the current state of your business is, you can sift through these notes and say, this is where I am, this is where I start.

And so on this, because we had this nine hour day, David and I wanted to make sure that even though I told them, even though we shared with them how to leverage the information, are you taking action right now? So two days later, we did a Zoom call.

with the attendees and they're fired up. There were people who delayed their flights because they wanted to get to work. They met people who are here and they delayed their flights because they wanted to network and mastermind with each other. There are people who started delegating to their teams right away. There are people who actually shifted, had a shift in how they're operating their business and what they're going to offer going into the new year.

And so we did that call and the feedback that we got consistently on that call was this is the best conference I've ever been to for a learning experience. And then follow that up. Yesterday I did it. Last night we did our call with actionable CEO and we had a lot of actionable CEOs attend this conference, which I was really proud of. Like that's one of the first times I got to see them show up in a large number like that. We usually city to city, but like everybody traveling here was overwhelming.

But on that call, because so many of them attended last night's call was about, what action are you taking right now? What was the piece for you that stood out about the conference? And what action steps? What execution steps do you have? Are you responsible for? Have you already done?

And I literally have the notes from it. Everybody was really excited, like that business audit was mind-blowing, that content and community conversation was mind-blowing, the strategy, the funnel that we built out really blew people's minds. There were some mindset pieces that really blew people's minds, but what stood out to me the most, David?

Everybody was clear on the action. Nobody came on that mic and said, well, this is what I learned. This is my takeaway, but I'm still really confused. Everybody knew next step. 100%. I think it's cool because we have a formula. We've been through it. It's not like we're just teaching theoretical stuff. This is what we've done. And I thought this was really special too, that we packed out this venue.

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or we do big events, we do that. It's nothing wrong with it. I'm just saying, I thought it was cool that we have a tribe of people that have been following us and will travel from around the country when we get together to do something. And it was incredible. We didn't meet anyone else.

to sell people on coming. And I think that's what people are missing. You got to really start building your tribe, person by person, year by year. But nobody wants to go through the last decade of building community and building an audience and teaching and teaching and teaching. We want it right now. And it simply doesn't work like that. We truly have a tribe of people that trust us and we've gotten them results. So they show up for us. So that's what I was most proud of.

And you know what else stands out for me? There was a number of people who planned to be in that room and couldn't be in that room, right? For whatever reason, their flights were delayed or whether in their area, we had a young lady who traveled from Ghana.

who got stuck in the airport one in some airport. And so she didn't make it to Atlanta in time. And by the time she made it, she was able to just tap into the live stream from like her hotel or something, but she caught the tail end of it. So there were so many people who paid to be in that room that didn't come in that room, but you know what didn't happen?

They didn't charge back. They didn't request refunds. What they did instead was send emails and said, I was not able to be in the room, but I heard about it. Can you please send me the live? Can you please send me the live stream? I heard about what was happening in that room. I caught the tail end of a live stream because the live stream went out to the people who bought the live stream, right? Who purchased that ticket. Everybody else didn't get the live stream because you're supposed to be in that room. But the moment that these people who were unable to make it didn't make it.

They didn't say, give me my money back. And some of these people are VIP ticket holders, which came with on-site perks. They understand that the information is so powerful. They trust you and I so much with the information that we delivered that they said, I just want the information. How can you package this up? And for those of you who are watching and you were there, or you did purchase a ticket, we'll be able to provide that live stream. You'll probably get it before this episode drops.

Yeah, man, I'm just excited, man, and I'm proud of what we've done to be able to help this audience with people. And we are continuing the mission to help people become self-sufficient and become this success that you see in your head. But a lot of it needs to be broken because I think as I taught to entrepreneurs,

It's not that they don't have gifts or talents or they don't have the ideas. It's something about their understanding that needs to be changed or their perspective on seeing a thing, right? So we're just having a conversation about this and

It's not that we don't, it's not that I don't have the idea. It's that I'm so talented. My perspective is I'm super talented. I could do a lot of this stuff. I need to set up an umbrella company. And then eventually I'm going to have like three or four things under that. And then under those I have people. And that perspective is way off for right now. If we, we don't, we don't build it from top down.

For me, I built a focus that started to branch out into certain branches. It wasn't like you have this perfect structure. You got this organization chart. OK, I'm going to start with this business and I'm going to split these two off. It's so incredibly difficult to build one thing. Yeah.

So it's not that you don't have the right idea. It's just your perspective on how you're going to build this thing just needs to be shifted. Let's just build one right now. And what you don't know is as you keep walking, it will branch into something else. One, right now you can't even tell it because you don't know what's going to happen in six months or how you start on this path and realize something and make a little pivot and adjustment and you go to the moon with that one. So it's not that you all don't

have the right business is just your perspective. And I think we changed a lot of perspective. I do. And I think that we encouraged a lot of people to recommit to what they're doing because it's a perspective thing, but it's also a lack of commitment to what you're doing because you don't see the branches. Yeah.

You don't see the roots, right? And because you don't see it, you're constantly in search of that thing that you believe as soon as I see it, it already comes with the branches. I work with a lot of high level entrepreneurs and I work with entrepreneurs who are on their way to becoming high level.

And what I have learned is that 100% of the time, those branches come after they have done something great. That initial focus, it grows into something else, right? That t-shirt company turns into small business audits to help people start their own t-shirt company. But then it's like, well, this information really works for other types of businesses. And then it's like, well, you really got to start

creating content and then it's like I create content so well I can teach other people how to create content and then it's like well we create content so well we can start a podcast and then it's we start a podcast we've mastered that now we can teach people how to start podcast well now we've scaled that idea we can teach people how to scale a podcast it grows and when we're thinking about you mentioned org charts I've never worked with a business owner that has come in and we've started at an org chart

Never. I can show you the chart. I can show you my framework for an org chart, but 99% of the time, you don't have the pieces to fill in on that org chart.

So we don't start there. 99% of the time, you are the org chart. We can back this out and diagram it if you want to, but your name is going to show up in areas and it will just highlight more of a burden to you that it will scare you from the commitment, right? So we don't start at the org chart and never do we start with the branches.

You just don't. Even when you think about how you create a family tree, you start with a last name. You start with the foundation. And then that foundation gives birth. And then that piece gives birth. And then that piece gives birth. But you can't start the family tree with all the names that hadn't been given birth to you. Exactly.

And that's how it works. You've got to really give birth to your idea. And when you give birth to your idea, that comes with a responsibility to nurture that idea. You have to feed it. You have to nurture it. You have to change it. You have to clean it. You have to correct it. You have to discipline it. You have to study it. You have to rinse and repeat this over and over and over again. When you give birth to something, it doesn't stop there. You are literally making a lifelong commitment

to learn it, to develop it, to grow with it, to pivot when you have to, to come back to the drawing board, to go and seek counsel about it, to get some help about it, to treat it, to medicate it, to fix its problems. You're cooking. You're cooking. You're cooking. Yeah, let's, let's, let's give, do you already have an agenda for today?

for our meeting. I don't have an agenda for this. Let's give them the marching orders for 2025 or something. What needs to be important for 2025? So every single year I have like this theme. So I think this year, 2024, we were declaring war on 2024. And I said to myself in our community, we are going to fight this year.

that we are gonna fight. I was like, yo, this isn't gonna be the year that I work on my business and not in my business. This is the year where I started laying a strong foundation. I am going to fight. And I felt like after the pandemic,

There was going to be a lot of turmoil walking into a political season. It is going to be a fight and it proved true that a lot of people fought this year. It was a fight. We declared war on this year. And I knew, I just knew, I just knew it was going to be serious, but this year, this year.

I'll give out some words for the marching orders for this year. And my number one word right now, not in any order, but it's clarity. I want to get super duper clear and it's hard to build anything when you're not clear. It's hard to do anything. We're not clear. Like if I'm saying, all right, we're going to go to a party. It's a formal party. What do you wear? Where does your mind go when you say like, what do you wear?

I start thinking about what I'm wearing. It goes to my closet first. Yeah, for sure. You know what narrows the clarity when you say, yo, it's all black party.

Now I know exactly what I have to choose from. Oh my gosh, but the stress of what to wear, and I don't know the theme, and I don't know what everybody else is wearing, and we're in like, we're in the middle of a season, I don't know if it's gonna be a hatercoat. That stuff weighs so much on your brain, and you get so frustrated, and you start to feel anxiety, and you feel feelings of, oh my gosh, I wanna fit in, and maybe my outfit isn't going to be enough, and I'm gonna be underdressed, and all these thoughts start to creep in your head,

It's frustrating. But I don't want us to be in 2025 frustrated. We need to get cleared. There's some questions that you need to ask yourself. What is the goal for 2025?

And what needs to happen for me to hit this goal? So for instance, if we're saying our goal is to make $100,000, what needs to happen to make $100,000? Well, you need to make $8,400 a month, right? Well, that's one layer, but the question is, how do we make $8,400 a month? Well, I have a $100 product. I need to sell 84 of them every single month. Well, how do you plan on making a hundred sales of an $84 product every month or

or 84 sales of $100 product, how do you do it? Oh, I need to be more on social media. Well, what the heck does that mean? There needs to be like, we need to start peeling back the layers of how am I going to have somebody comment in the chat, how?

how, how, how. I know you're set on the fact that you're going to do it, but once you get clear on how I'm going to do it, this is going to be an avenue. This is the product. This is the book. This direction. These are the type of content that I'm going to create. It allows you to walk faster and more confident in this roadmap because you are clear. So one of my, one of my words for 2025 is clarity and I'm focused on being clear.

Yes, yes, yes. Clarity was actually my word in 2022. This year, for 2024, my word was intentionality. Just being very intentional about the decisions that I made. And I made some decisions intentionally that took a toll. You mentioned fighting. People are fighting for their lives. Listen, I'm in a full-on brawl this year.

This year, you said that you, what was it that you said you were in war with 2024? 2024 was in war with me. You hear me? I was out here. I was getting jumped at a certain point. I felt like I was getting stumped out. You know what I mean? Like I was getting tossed around in 2024.

And so for me, my word for 2025 is rebound. 2025 is my rebound here. And it's my rebound here because I've already had the ball, right? I'm already in the game. I've already had the ball. I already know how to make the plays, but I fumbled a little bit. I fumbled just a little bit. I had a few hiccups. I had a few obstacles that came and just hit me out of nowhere and sat me down. And it's now time for me to take my ball back so I can score.

And that's what 2025 means for me. So what does that actually look like practically in order for me to rebound? Number one, that means that I am significantly tuned in at a very high level to working on my own personal development, right? Because when you're in a fight and you're just taking hit after hit after hit, sometimes it can be just really overwhelming or unrealistic for you to even say, I'm still motivated to

tune in and get the personal development. Sometimes it feels like no matter what these things aren't working. So we're being very, very intentional. My first step, I don't, I don't believe in saying January one starts. If I've already identified what my theme for the next year has to be, I'm already working on that, right? So I've already implemented, I know that personal development has been a struggle for me this year. So we have or not even personal development more so motivation to just do and to

to do the things that I know I need to do. So I have started a 645 AM 15 minute daily prayer and motivation call. We're on it. Like I'm not playing games. This is my year where all the defenses are coming out. I see a problem. I'm putting a defense in place. So we are doing our 645 AM.

a prayer and motivation call every single day. What does that do for me? That gets me up, that gets me going, that gets my blood flowing. I have to get up now and I'm already up. I might as well go ahead and get into my morning routine, right? So it's taking me, I don't get the opportunity now that I'm committed to something. I had to commit to that because if I just randomly said,

You guys can do it and I'll join. I have to lead it because if I said you guys do it and I'll join, I would have stopped joining. But now that I'm responsible for it, it's making my blood flow earlier. I have to get up and I have to perform. So now we go straight into the morning routine. Well, what that what happens now is I'm starting my day, maybe two hours earlier. So I have that much more time in the day to be productive. Well, now I'm wide awake is seven o'clock a.m. By the time we're finished with this call,

What do I do? I've prayed. I've meditated. I've done my journaling. I've got this extra window of time. I'm usually at this place at 9 a.m. Now it's 7 15 a.m. And I'm at this place. So now I'm finding myself structuring what has to get done in the day. So I'm just writing out all the things, every little thing that I want to get done in the day. And I'm going to show you guys because I am a practice what I preacher.

Like I'm literally writing out all the things, every single thing. Like this was, make sure there's nothing too personal in here. This was yesterday. This is my to-do list for yesterday. These are all the things that I, and you see the check marks there, right? These are all the things that I am responsible for in that day. And it just keeps going and going and going. And I went back to that. So I started taking notes and putting my to-dos in my phone. And while it's extremely convenient, there's a different energy when you have this note.

There's just a different energy when you have this notebook. And just for clarity, I've had this notebook for a very long time. This notebook, I've had... Look at this chance. This notebook, what's the date on this?

Uh, December 4th. What's the year? 2023. This notebook I've been using since December 4th, 2023 and only this much of it is used, which means that I was really off this year, right? I should have blown through this notebook by February, right? So I'm back to my notebook because I know that this is what puts the battery in my back. So we're here now and I've gotten all these things done. So I'm playing defense as much as possible. I'm clear in what I want to do. Now I don't believe in creating a to do list.

filled with things and you're trying to overwhelm yourself to get a bunch of stuff done. But right now what's working for me is writing down everything. And then I prioritize what has to get done versus what I want to get done. So after I'm finished with what the has to get done are I go to what I would like to get done waking up and starting my day actually starting my day two hours earlier has made it so that I got what I had to get done done plus the once as well.

And now I'm up at midnight typing agendas for me and you to meet today, like I am just on top of it. And when I am approaching my day from a place of being on top of it, it's hard for the mental enemy inside of me to control me. When you wake up and you don't have an action plan and you're already struggling with motivation, you're already struggling in mindset, you're already struggling with personal development,

Maybe you got some spiritual warfare attacks that you feel are happening in your life. Maybe you feel like you're fighting for your life. If you don't already have a plan for your day while you're being stumped out, you're not going to create the plan for your day. Facts, bro. You know what? That's so crazy because this whole week, like in the morning, we were actually changing one of the things that we do in the morning for that specific thing. Because it's like, how do you know what you're supposed to accomplish

We're reading traction. My favorite book is fire. My favorite book. It's so crazy. And we do like the reading of that. But before the call starts, that is the mandatory thing that we are doing every single day. Like we need to have the list. It's just wild that like that's in alignment because we are on the same page. Yeah. My next word was focus. So the reason

We've implemented this because my question for him was, what is your goal January? We know we know the big goal in for the year, okay? You're going to make X amount of dollars. But this January, right? We need to focus on the clear goal that we set because if you're not clear, there's nothing to focus on. So set the goal and then we focus. I told Kate other day, I said, bro, we are focused on this one company.

And if the thing that I decide to do doesn't support that company, make sure you remind me of this conversation that I'm saying I'm focused on something. You know, we come together, we just be excited. We're like, yo, we going to do this. We're going to do that. We're like, oh, it's a good idea. Just how does a vet we pulled off in two months? Let's just do it. We don't really think about it. We know it's an alignment. What we're doing.

But we have to have that certain level of focus. So Abion said something to me the other day yesterday, actually. So we're setting up for this. We doing this live stream, Monopoly thing. And Abion was like, hey, does that have anything to grow more than me up? And I had to think I said, well, this is going to be a fun thing for me because I love to play, which means I can't focus on growing it.

You know, we do stuff to grow it. For sure. I'm intentional on not growing it. This is the thing. This is the time I spent time with my friends. We had some fun. And my man words like, no, I want to grow it. I'm like, cool. Be my guest. But don't ask me on strategy or growing it. That's not what I'm here for. Yeah. Because my focus is somewhere. So the book we're reading traction and Charles Swab.

goes through this, they're working out a steel mill or something like that, but the manager isn't growing the business. He's like, they're not getting production done. So he walks in, he asks the guy, he said, hey, how many, I think they call it heats, heats. It's like, how much work did you get done or whatever? And the guy said, we got six heats done. So Charles Schwab goes, he said, he asked the manager for some chalk and he writes a six on the floor, because the guy said, yeah, we got six done.

He said the night shift came in and they saw the six on the floor and they said to themselves, they said, well, what is this six for? And so they got to talking in the office. I was like, Oh, that's how many the morning shift did. And Charles Swab came in the next day and he saw that his six was a race and someone wrote a seven on there because the night before they did seven, but the only reason they did seven is because they saw the six.

The question is, why did the first morning shift only do six? It's just we woke up and we just did it. We just did some work. What happened was the next morning, when the morning shift where originally wrote six on the floor, they saw that the night shift did seven. The next day they say, yo, we gonna show them they did 10. Now, why did they do 10 the second day, six the first day?

Because there was no focus, there was no number to go after. And if we don't have something to go after, we're just waking up and we're just letting the day, day. And we start saying stuff like, man, life be life and I say it all the time. But life is life because we don't have any intentionality for our lives.

We just wake up and live the life with no focus. So 2025, I am very intentional on not building all the cool stuff that I have in my head that I know for a fact will make me some money. I'm not doing it. Yeah. Yeah.

Another word that I could take into 2025, and this has been a word for me every single year. I always add a word to it, but it's becoming, right? It's becoming. What are you becoming, Don? Talk to me. I am constantly becoming the better version of myself, right? And so this year, I feel like I went through a stripping season.

I feel like if we're looking at a building, we can all think about a building that's just old and it's got some old ways. It's got a strong foundation. The walls are sturdy, right? The stilts that are holding that wall up, they're pretty sturdy. But the things that we can add to it and move around, those things are a little outdated, right? It's an outdated version of what we can work with. And sometimes we have to go into those buildings and we have to demo those buildings. We have to do a complete demolition of certain parts of that building in order to

reconstruct. So that word would be, for me, reconstruct. I feel like I went through this stripping season in 2024. And I feel like it was spiritual. I feel like it was God saying, Hey, don't forget about me in this process. Hey, you need me in this process. Hey, talk to me about it before you talk today about it. Talk to me about it before you go and talk to your mom about it and talk to somebody about it. You don't want to talk to anybody, anybody about what you're

You're going through because you're always the person who's serving. You're always the person who's solving problems. Maybe you don't feel like you can talk to anybody else, but I am going to strip you until you realize you have to talk to me. And so because God has stripped me down to what I feel like are my bare bones in this season,

I've realized it and I believe that it's a really healthy place to be in mentally when you realize what's happening. Like, okay, I see what you're doing. I see what you're doing and I raise you one. I see what you're doing and I'm going to start talking to you. I see what you're doing and I'm going to make sure you're included in this process because we can't play around.

In 2025, this is my year to reconstruct. This is my year to build on the foundation that's already here. I've already done it. It already works. It's already standing. It's already great. But there were some little tweaks that had to be made to my mindset.

to my physical muscles, to my business muscles, to my spiritual muscles, to my mental muscles. I had to rebuild and reconstruct in these areas. I had to become stronger. I had to remind myself that these things are not because of me. They're happening through me, but not because of me, right? I am just a vessel.

And because of that, I am going back to the basics of what actually worked and we're putting the walls back up. We're rewiring the whole thing. We're putting the plumbing back in place. We're getting the electricity back in place. All of the components that make the foundation actually function. We're reconstructing. That's strong. We got two minutes. I got one more and you can end it off. And this is going to be

If I had to pick one last word for 2025, it would be me. I think for this year, this is gonna be the first year that I intentionally focus on.

me. Yes. My well-being. Yeah. My life is so full of the needs of other people. And I'm not complaining about it, but I'm always trying to consider other people, whether I have my family. And my family is my wife, my daughter, Corey, my daughter, Sarai, and my son, Salm. And

It's not like group time for them. They all require their individual time with me.

and I am dedicated to giving them their individual time which spreads me thin and then we gotta focus on the business and the multiple businesses that I have and like the partnerships and I gotta make sure they're happy with our partnership and I gotta make sure my staff is cool and we gotta make sure that the business is working well and everything about me is about other stuff outside of me.

huge spiritual responsibilities with my church, which all these things matter. And I think all these things is what give me the life that I have. But I don't think it's bad to spend a little time with me to do something for me. Without feeling guilty about it.

Because when I do stuff for me, I feel guilty about it. And that's going to be an intention for me because I believe the stronger I am, the more I can help in these other areas, which are my responsibility. But make sure you hold me to that. Like just check on me. I am. I am. We're checking on each other in this season. I am. And to your point,

And I'm going to get to my last word. It kind of drives into it. I feel guilty. I don't feel guilty when I do for me. I feel guilty when I do for me and I don't do for the people who I'm responsible for as well, for the people important to me, the people that I love. It's like I'm good at doing for me, but I always feel like I have to do for me and everybody else too. If I do something for me and don't do something for them, that's when

the guilt kind of sets in for me. And so the final... Hold on, that's crazy. I'm starting to enjoy getting my nails done. Okay. I'm starting to notice that my nails appeal here. It just looks crazy. I'm starting to enjoy it. And I was thinking about the other day, I was like, yeah, I'm about to go down the street. They do my nails really, really good down the street. And I just get the buff, I just get them cleaned or whatever. And I thought to myself,

Is my wife, no, is her nails done? And I don't know if her nails were done. And I was like, ah, I can't get my nails done. If I come home and my nails look good and hers aren't done because I feel like she may not, right? But I feel like she may say something about her nails not being done. And this is small, right? But I thought this was a big reflection.

on who I've become. Why can't I just consider doing something nice for myself without considering what someone else is going to feel about? Nice thing I did for me. So, yeah, we got, yeah, I think you might be a little better because you'll take some time to, yeah, you're like, yo, I am on Do Not Disturb for the next three years. Last three years, not even on Do Not Disturb.

Yeah, but it's still, I'm not on Do Not Disturb from the people that I'm talking about, right? So there, there's still a group of people. There are still like, even when I'm on Do Not Disturb, I still have the ability to be disturbed by certain individuals. And again, I don't want this to come off just like I'm sure you didn't regarding Dre. This is, this isn't a complaint. It's just

There is still a guilt. It's a very real thing. There is still a guilt of not being available to other people the way you are available for yourself, right? Which brings me to the final word. No. It's a strong word. The word no, it's a strong word, but it's a word that so many people struggle with. No, just no, no. No, period.

There is no no comma. There is no no but no no and no no dot dot dot. It's in oh and period. I am moving into this season of having the ability to say no without feeling the need to explain why. Right? Because.

I thought that I was good at saying no. I say no to stuff, right? And I've realized it's not even necessarily that I'm great at saying no more than I just avoid the things that I would say no to. But if those things happen to creep up on me, if they happen to come into my environment, sometimes I feel guilty for saying no. And we have to go into 25, even though I say no, I mean, I say yes to things.

and I found myself in 2024 even though I was fighting for my own life. I found myself saying yes to other people's struggles, yes to helping other people think through their situations, yes to being the shoulder for my friends to lean on, yes to making sure everybody has everything that they need. I was saying yes because I have the ability but what I lacked was the capacity.

I didn't have the capacity for all the yeses that I gave out this year, right? And so now that I realize that, it's the concept of putting your own life jacket on first. If my life jacket isn't on, I can no longer save you. I can no longer drown at the expense of saving other people.

And that's what was happening for me, this just drowning and drowning. Yes, I'll do it. Yes, I'll help. Yes, I'll show up. Yes, we can talk. Yes, even though I've worked 12, 14 hours today, I can still sit on the phone later with you tonight and talk about what you're going through in your own life. Yes, I'm falling asleep on the phone. I'm really exhausted, but I'm going to be that good friend and make sure I'm here to talk to you. No more. The answer is no. Can we talk tonight? No.

No, and I don't have to follow it up with an explanation because following up with an explanation is an indication. Sometimes that you feel guilty is an indication. Sometimes that you think you're doing something wrong and everybody doesn't have to know what's going on with you for you to say no. It doesn't have to be, you know what? No, I've been working 18 hours a day. I'm really, really tired. Otherwise, girl, you know, I would be there for you. Otherwise I'm going to show up.

I'm saying no to certain invitations that are not in alignment like you talked about if it's not toward building that one business. So if it's not toward the goals that I have on my vision board for 2025, I have to check out of some things because I realize I often have the ability, yes, I can show up or yes, I can afford to or yes, I have the time to.

But also on the other end, I'm dealing with my own mental enemies. I'm struggling with my own lack of motivation. I am struggling with feeling the depression that I've created for myself. I don't have the capacity to handle yours. I'm dealing with some things on this end that I can't figure out. I don't have the capacity to figure yours out.

Yes, I have the money to do X, Y, and Z, but if we're being honest, the way that we work this year was a little different because of all the things that we had going on. I have the money today, but based on the revenue that's coming in, I don't have the capacity to do certain things anymore. The answer is just no. And I feel good about the answer being no because the answer has been yes for so long. Yeah. Here's the problem. How do you go get your yes back though?

How do you go get your yes back? Imagine telling someone, yes, I'm going to do this. Oh, how do you say that? You realize, why am I doing this? Yeah. This hurts me to do this. The question is, how do I go get my yes back? And that's the one that gives me anxiety because now I got to choose between disappointing you.

and like making sure I feel good or making sure I appease you because you want me to do something and you've relied on me to do this. And I'm always that person that will do it. I need to get my yes back. How do you do that? How do you do that? Because I think that's the test. I think it's even it's easier to say it's hard to say no for sure. But what what about when you've committed but you realize that this

This doesn't serve you or the reason I say yes is because it was out of some sort of obligation. But 2025, I am a new me. I fit yes back. Yeah. I mean, so that's a catch 22. It goes both ways. So sometimes because of who you are and what you stand on, and I'm not talking to you specifically, just everybody, sometimes you got to own that yes, which is why you got to start qualifying what you said yes to. Sometimes it's too late to get that yes back. You've already committed.

But you have to see the lesson there. Like, I committed to this. This will be my last time. I don't feel good about it, right? And the way that you get the yes back is by holding on to it in the first place. But you've already got some yeses out there. And it's like when you... You already got some yeses out there. It's like when you call me on Monday and say, can we do dinner on Friday? And I'm like, yes. But Friday comes and I'm like...

It's a strong no for me, right? I don't want to do the dinner. Every now and then, I will just call you and say, hey, I'm so sorry I occupied this time on your calendar, but it's not going to happen. Sometimes I'm wishing and hoping and praying that you will call me in cancel. And then sometimes you just go through with it like,

If it's, you know, someone who's extremely busy and I know that they, I already said yes and it took a lot for them to make it happen just out of integrity, I'm going to go through with it. But if these are yeses that I can take back and it's not going to cost the other person too much and I'm not just talking about disappointment. But is this going to present a major challenge? Did you sacrifice

to be a part of this equation. Is this going to cost you some significant amount of money? Are you not going to be able to accomplish the goal because of my no? If that's not the case, it's a no scenario. Y'all booked the trip.

He done booked the flight. And you knew when you said, yes, we'll go on this trip. This is the most toxic relation, toxic, emotionally draining relationship you've ever been a part of. You know you didn't need to go in the first place, but now 2025, you said to yourself, I'm prioritizing me, but this trip don't prioritize me. It prioritizes you.

Listen, sis, go and get that yes back. Go and get it. Yes. And here's the thing. It's never wrong to take your yes back, right? If this is something that is, if this is something that is presenting

an alignment issue for you. If this is something that is presenting an integrity issue, if this is something that is causing you pain, whether physical or mental, like you don't feel good about doing it, you got to get your yes back, right? You have to get your yes back and you have to do because you're either going to deal with them or you're going to deal with you.

And which one would you rather deal with? You're either going to deal with them or you're going to deal with you. And some of us are just moments away from a breaking point and you have to consider your well-being in the equation. People have to figure it out for themselves. The same way we have to figure things out.

for ourselves but this is why it's so important for us to think through don't be quick to say yes when someone asks you for that commitment say let me see if I have the capacity to questions do I have the ability that was really easy but take some time and don't commit to an immediate yes before you have determined that you actually

have the capacity? Does this align? Do I have the mental space for this? Do I have the energy for this? How's my own mental energy right now? How's my own physical energy right now? Is this going to cost me more than I am willing to put out? Does this throw me off track of my own goals, my own progress, my own direction of what I'm trying to do? Is this going to pull me away from my family? Is this going to pull me away from my business? Is this going to pull me away from my routine?

And based on the answer to that question, you have to calculate risk versus reward. And is the risk worth it for you? Nine times out of 10, the answer is no.

Let's see how 2025 is going to be that year that changes everything for you if you are intentionally focused on making it happen, man. So Donnie and I, we have to meet right now because we've got some special things planned for 2025. And I hope that you let this be a moment.

For you, this is the first year that you actually have intentionality on building something special in a new year. You're not just excited because it's December. You're not just excited because it's the top of the year. But you look back on this moment 12 months from today and you said, I kept the commitment to myself. There's the most clear, most focused. There's the most intentional. This is the most I've said no all year and you will see the fruit from it.

Get your ball back. Rebound, baby. Yes, but oh, they need the rebrand. Listen, I don't care what happened in 24, 23, 22, 21, 20. I don't care. None of that stuff that you went through. Better rebrand, rebound. Let's get it. Somebody said social proof is not just a podcast. It's truly a lifestyle. And I think that makes us so happy. That's a fact. That makes us so happy. All right, guys, we're out.