Detailed Notes
The Building Better Developers podcast closes out the year with a reflective and inspiring New Year’s Eve special. Hosts Rob Broadhead and Michael Meloche guide listeners through the process of wrapping up 2024, offering insights, lessons, and actionable strategies to prepare for a successful 2025. Here’s a look at the key takeaways from this episode focused on reflection, planning, and progress.
Read More... https://develpreneur.com/wrapping-up-2024-building-better-developers-new-years-eve-special/
*Additional Resources*
* Achieving Goals – Setting A Milestone And Hitting The Mark (https://develpreneur.com/achieving-goals-setting-a-milestone-and-hitting-the-mark/) * Year-End Success – Finish Strong (https://develpreneur.com/year-end-success-finish-strong/) * Maintaining Focus At The Year End (https://develpreneur.com/maintaining-focus-at-the-year-end/) * Making The Most Of Time Off and Holidays (https://develpreneur.com/making-the-most-of-time-off-and-holidays/)
*Follow-us on:*
* https://develpreneur.com/ * https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCZOuFN_LhczvGyT2KSItH_g/featured * https://facebook.com/Develpreneur * https://twitter.com/develpreneur * http://linkedin.com/develpreneur
Transcript Text
[Music] hello and welcome back we've been playing around with video effects so if I look better than normal it's just because I look that good it is not video effects at all we are into the end of the year and so we are going to have this will actually come out this is the New Year's Eve episode and then we'll have come out New Year day after so yeah let's see I guess I sort of like to we'll keep both of these as a special we'll do sort of New Year special and do two of them again and I like um while forgive and forget I think is a it's a little aggressive of kind of thing because it's a year that yeah there's a lot of people should there's a lot that everybody should be forgiving and forgetting but um I like it I think we can work that in actually but I really liked the where did I put that in podcast ideas um yeah sort of like I like the whole like wrapping up and then goals for 2025 because those like work perfect for us so I think we'll which has sort of been the traditional yearend stuff so we'll we'll dive into this one we'll just talk about wrapping up um good thing bad thing we'll sort of go into the normal stuff and take my sip of tea and we'll get started on that we'll just do that and we'll come back on the other one we'll do a little three two well hello and welcome back if you've noticed that we've got because Michael needs to do this is edit the audit the audio so that you've got your little yearend cheering or Bells I forget what it is but it's there you just heard it that thing that was all due to him doing some extra editing work not a lot but hey it's there anyways we are building better developers we are the developing we podcast and we are at the end of another year this year happens to be 2024 mindblowing in itself from somebody that was born last century so it's been a while and it's like wow but we are wrapping this thing up we're wrapping up the year and as always we want to do our yearend specials and we're going to have a year beginning special in our next episode this one I want to look back a little bit on the year and talk a little about like looking back and then sort of like what are the things we need to do as we close this year out sort of closing out now some of it it may be a little too late but we'll talk a little bit about some of those things that you're going to want to do and that'll also help prep you for the next year 2025 before we get into that I guess I should introduce myself my name is Rob Broadhead I'm one of the founders of develop andur I am also a founder of RB Consulting where we come in we help you manage technology we help you take whatever it is that you got take a look at your business and find the best way to leverage technology to do your bu business better whether that's through simplification automation integration any of the shuns that are out there we're going to do them in a way to help you be function better and do better and and make more money in the year ahead good thing bad thing let's see good thing bad thing good thing bad thing good thing bad thing good thing Christmas just got through Christmas it's actually the bad thing was getting to Christmas was exhausting we there was just too much stuff going on and I didn't even do as much as Natalie and yet I got the blowback and was exhausted by just watching her do all this crap and deal with all of this stuff the good thing was Christmas was awesome we had a great time we did family games the loved it even the the people that normally wouldn't like it or the The Grouchy old people that are like get off my yard they were still having a good time so hey it was a win all around so very good way to sort of get towards the end of the year for us and another good thing is I get to have yet another episode that I get to record with Michael who is going to introduce himself hey everyone my name is Michael M I'm one of the co-founders of developer I'm also the founder of Invision QA where we help technology companies with little or no software uh quality assurance or problems with their software we bring to the table a test driven approach uh unit testing functional testing integration testing and we help you turn your software around we take you from essentially chugging along having bugs and problems to cleaner more productive more streamlined software so essentially you go from uh once the velers are done you can tell if the software is ready to go out without any guess work good thing bad thing uh good thing again like Rob said Christmas is finally here gone passed and I actually was able to disconnect from a computer for 24 hours shocking uh I I am glued to this thing well over 100 hours a week which is scary but anyway uh that's the bad thing the bad thing is leading up to Christmas you have all that uh to get things done rushing around getting bills paid things of that nature and then you see the Christmas Bill and then it's like crap uh we spent a lot of money again this Christmas so I had to write those checks so that was the bad thing um with that I am looking forward to this episode and working with Rob and getting us through to the end of the year so year end we have always talked about planning and following up on plans and you accountability and a lot of that kind of stuff and so as we wrap up the year I think I once again I'm going to share some of the stuff that I do and and hopefully these are some things that you know that you've done already and are not like scrambling at the last minute to do now one of the things if you've got a side hustle or anything like that uh or or a business this probably is a time that you're going to be doing some wrap-ups of some yearin things it is a very good time from and this is whether you're doing a sideous and this is even probably in your personal life you're probably doing some some level of or at least it's going to be helpful I think to do some level of like an annual Financial your your personal business your household and stuff like that and how that runs and take a look at it and make sure that you're sort of positioning yourself to pay those last bills that you need to to make sure everything gets paid on time particularly when you're in this like holiday season where banks are closed like all but three hours a day and random days and all that kind of stuff is making sure you get those things in and get those things covered and get your bills paid on time and all that goodness but also it's a good way to look at where am I spending too much time or money or resources of other sorts where do I need to make some adjustments looking back like were those Investments of time and everything else that you made did they pay off the way that you want them to and and really spending some time like a retrospective in a in a develop Sprint is basically saying like what did I do right what what went right what didn't go right are there things that I should start doing more of and there are some things that I should maybe stop and a lot of this people do I think more with a like a New Year resolution bent of just like oh well I should lose weight everybody always should lose weight and it's just like that seems like that's always the thing to do but if you just do it at the beginning you say oh I'm going to lose weight and you spend two days in a gym and then you give up like most people that it's not going to work I think what you need to do let take a look at like what have you tried and maybe all the way back to New Year's last year what are some of those resolutions what's stuck what didn't how can you do that better in the year ahead what are some things that or maybe there's things you don't want to maybe you made a resolution at beginning of the year to become a I don't know a worldclass violinist and you realize you hate playing the violin and so like all right Nick that off of your list or is there things are there things that you do on a regular basis are there there habits that you have or even Hobbies maybe that you have you're just like it's not I'm not feeling it it's like I'm it's just like you know professionally maybe you're burned out a little bit so maybe you should look at seeing if you can change your approach to work or maybe the projects that you're working on or the focus that you have or depending on what your ability is to to drive those kinds of things or maybe it's like your your side hustles are wearing her out maybe you should pick a different side of hustle or maybe you shouldn't side hustle at all maybe you should spend some time just chilling and relaxing and allow yourself to just just you know recharge a little bit these are kinds of things that I think are very helpful as you get towards the end of the year because it is just while it is just another you know day on the calendar to some extent it's also an excuse for us to pause a little bit and look back and say where we at like do a little self assessment this is I think where people that are truly uh content and happy and and things like that these are the things that the habits that these people have is that they look at the things that are out there they say these are the things I like to do and they find ways to get to that and these are things I don't like to do and they find ways not to do that now sometimes that is it's not as easy as it sounds sometimes there are things where there's like there are shades of I like it and I don't like it or like for me there are things that I like to do but I suck at them and so I really shouldn't do them it's a waste of time it's like you it'd be like being a professional singer that would be sort of cool but not for me so I'm not going to go waste my time trying to go do that and we're you know we're now adults so it's not like kids when you're like yeah chase your dreams it's like let's tie our dreams back to reality a little bit because we get to we get to go try some of this stuff out and make sure that what you're doing and what the path that you put yourself on at the beginning of the year or the beginning of your career that it's still working out because it's never too late to maybe to Pivot or to make some adjustments and say you know I really thought this is where I wanted to go and I found out it really isn't that I want to do something differently and don't be afraid to just like roll the dice but and try something a little different and it's funny because this was as I was sort of like starting into this episode and doing the introduction that's one of the things that I found that like I switched last year I said we we started I think right at the beginning of the year well I guess it was more like February March we actually started doing video recordings as well so if you're if you're just listening to the podcast like you always have we also have this out on YouTube and so now we are recording this as we're doing it from a video as well as an audio point of view and it very much changes for me it has very much changed how I see this how I approach this and so for somebody that had done 700 plus episodes of nonv video podcast pure audio podcast it's actually been a little bit of a rebirth because it's something it's like oh hey I just tweaked this a little bit and you may not hear anything different this is the same audio thing that you've always had uh it's probably done a little better because now Michael's doing the editing instead of me but other than that same thing yeah we've changed the format around stuff like that but even in the past when I would record and do it with the interviews because almost always I was actually seeing the person I was interviewing those didn't go out anywhere and just changing that perspective of like now I'm not the only one that's going to see this has changed stuff and has really changed like my focus on just this thing that I've done it is I guess pretty much it is a labor of love I've been doing this for years so obviously I'm must enjoy it so those are kinds of things you can do is take a look at like what you do what do you like what don't you like because I think those are those are our wise those are what really drive us it's like you can you can point to things like you know you need to you want to be successful whatever successful is or things like that that you know or you want to earn money or you want to be wellknown or you want to be you know ethical or giving or whatever there's all these things that are very positive in themselves but it boils down to We Can't be everything to everyone we really need to be true to ourselves and understand what we like to do because we don't want to be in a situation we are doing something we don't like because it helps other people or makes them happy unless the primary thing for us is to make other people happy in which case great you can go be a Mother Teresa or something like that but if like it comes back down what really do you enjoy doing and try to do more of that in the year ahead and this is a perfect time to sort of Look Back spend all the time and say huh how much that I really have this year and if it was a ton cool let's just do more of that next year if it wasn't then what are some things I can avoid now caveat you can't avoid some of the things that is the rest of the world so if you hate advertisements if you hate the fact that like election years where you get like advertisement advertisement advertisement sorry can't do much about that well or maybe you could stop watching TV or maybe you're like I'm gonna earn more money so I can have a subscription streaming service that doesn't had advertisements there's almost always a way out another way out for me is so that I can go drink my tea I'm going to pass this over to Michael and get some of your feedback and your your thoughts on this so it's interesting um kind of reflecting on the year you know we're talking about wrapping up closing out the year and I just kind of want to look back at the year because this has been a kind of rebuilding year for my business and for me uh late last year I decided uh I went through a marketing campaign uh marketing manager and kind of re-evaluated where my company was going you know we're coming out of covid the world's kind of reset we're kind of back to where we're going what does business look like today how do we currently work in today's market because it's ever evolving and with in that conversation I basically realized that my company was not on the path it needed to be I was not happy I was doing too many things that I didn't like so I went into this program called co-starters and kind of went through even though I've been running businesses of many Natures over 20 some years it was time to kind of just do a reset hey what am I doing right what am I doing wrong what is business look like today and that kind of carried through into March and at the end of uh February first start of March I finally rebranded and decided to relaunch my company as Envision QA uh I'm more focused on what the company is going to be I'm more happy with the path I've chosen for the company and with that I very quickly found my first customer kind of went through the fun process of of you know working with the customer doing something I loved and it turned into a blossomy relationship we have a new project out of it and having a lot of fun but it's not all bells and whistles so there was things going on this year that weren't always that great some things in your control some things out of your control the biggest thing out of my control is Health uh we've had some family health issues uh we've been working through trying to figure that out and it it it's a struggle you know it can drain you so as you're looking to next year uh it's kind of funny we've talked about many different things this season of building uh better habits and one of the big things that takeaways I have especially with working in different projects and back in agile as fluently as I have is it comes down to kind of some concepts of priority you know what do I need to do to be happy what you know what is important what uh so it's kind of you know what do I need what do I want what is you know a few a goal you know what is something to reach for but isn't really as important to be done today it's you know kind of like a stretch goal and a lot of things as I'm reflecting at the end of the year is there was some things I wanted to do that weren't priority that weren't needed to be done so as I work through these things it's like oh I'm really burning out I'm kind of struggling to get through these things and you may as well and stop look at where you're at and determine is this something that is really necessary is this something that I need to do to be happy or I need to do to get something done or am I just being busy or am I wasting time if it falls into the ladder pivot find something else to do you know I do like playing video games but I don't like it when video games basically make it feel like work the games as a service when you have to log in every day and basically go do all these microtransactions it's like no that's not fun talking to you Diablo uh well not so much Diablo but um the first descendant microtransaction hell great story microtransaction hell Diablo a little bit better but the new one that came out Path of Exile too really well done I got lost on Christmas Day playing probably about six hours of that just figuring out the game and I'm back to loving it you know Diablo 2 style it's like great I found something I liked so look at these things you know in the intro pre-show we had I briefly talked about you know uh paying the bills off you know it's kind of that time of year you know we had all the Christmas expenses finances is important make sure that you are kind of living within your means yes we have emergencies so maybe one of your goals for next year might be hey put aside 20 bucks a paycheck put a little bit of a nest egg into savings so if something does happen you don't have to panic if the credit cards are maxed you have some extra cash to go pay for for that emergency to go to the doctor or you know maybe take a short vacation to reset your mentality you know it's the end of the year it was a rough year election years are always rough because they're so draining and like Rob said you know it early on it's like okay who are your candidates going to be sure you kind of need to pay a little bit of attention but it's like you know at some point you need to go on a media fast and just take up right cuz it mentally drains you so as you look towards the end of the year as you're looking into that next year stop and take a moment and make a list look at what things drained you what things you didn't like what things brought you down and then right next to that the things that you did like to do what things may brought you Joy what things you know were you happy on you know what is the correct path and then as you go into next year look at okay where can I pivot you know can I change some of this course one of the things could be simply find another job the job you're in could be you know life sucking Soul crushing time to find a change you may not be in a position where you can change but start looking it I I don't know the proverb but you know take that first step don't just stand still don't just be motionless take one step forward then take another step and eventually you'll be far down the path to happiness yeah that's the thing is this is where we don't have to make we don't have to make big changes sometimes sometimes it's a little bit of a change now sometimes it's a uh it becomes a big change I think like a perfect example is you know Michael was sitting there like I'm going to maybe think about my business and the next thing you know he's completely rebaring branded and he's gone into you know done a lot of stuff but it's it's one of the things I was reflecting a little bit uh earlier today it's like the difference a year can make and in my life there's a whole lot of change there a whole lot of stuff that has been is dramatically different than what it was um part of that is because I have with when you have a lot of kids and there's a lot of CH and they're in that level of they're at that age where there's like a lot of change where you've got graduations and all kinds of stuff going on but even with myself then going to in empty nester mode is obviously big change there's things like that but there's all these little things too there are it is amazing to me now looking back a few years ago one of the changes that I made as I realized that I enjoyed reading just reading fiction and I hadn't done it in decades I had always I was just there was always work stuff there's all these things I was doing and I said you know what I'm going to just read 15 minutes a day and my goal was actually just read you know before I fall asleep into of the day I'm going to I'm going to shut stuff off I'm going to read for a little bit and through that time I have ended up you know I mentioned I think earlier this year I ended up reading all of the shanara series all like 40 books or whatever that thing is and I'm going back into some other series and things like that that I hadn't touched in I haven't touched in years and years and it continues to be something that is just a really good way to end my day really has been a way to help me you know fall asleep better relax chill let go of stuff that's going on during the day and you know all the drama and the work and all the other crap that goes on and to be able to just like enjoy life a little bit and so something like that may be all you need it may be like get up 10 minutes earlier and like just have a quiet 10 minutes with your morning tea or coffee or something like that or going for a walk or like a little bit of exercise or try like a Pomodoro or something like that and just doing a little thing you're like hey I'm going to actually take a break for five minutes after I do a little bit of a a work push and just see how these things go it doesn't have to be huge but I think you'll find I know because we talk about all the time the value of incremental Improvement will eventually get you there like Michael said like if you're if you're just saving 20 bucks a paycheck and you get one you know twice a month well by the end of the year that's 40 times that's almost 500 bucks that now you have in savings as you did in a year ago you know and then of course if you start adding interest and all that kind of stuff it grows there are so many so many places and directions you can go that's like if you start incrementally you will be able to achieve some really huge goals along the way nothing's done in one shot it's always going to be like you you get moving there you start making that journey and you will get to where you know often you will get far beyond where you ever thought you were going to be we are not going to get further Beyond where we thought we were going to be we're going to go ahead and wrap this one up want to wish you from all of us our families and everybody else to the Grand you know audience that we have out there happy New Year en hopefully you have a a great one you have a safe one that you go out there you get to enjoy some time with your family friends and all that kind of good stuff that you do get to relax a little bit you get to celebrate some it's like hey we made it through another year and hopefully with a lot of optimism for the year ahead uh if you want to shoot us an email you can always shoot us an email about that and be as optimistic or pessimistic as you want just let us know info@ develop ur.com you can also check us out on the develop ur.com site we're on X develop andur we've got a Facebook page you can leave us comments and feedback wherever you are watching this video or listening to this podcast always happy to hear from you because we will do a next episode we'll come back with another special and then we'll dive back into building better habits and wrapping up that season and then stepping into whatever the next one is and we haven't figured that out yet so feel free to throw us some suggestions that being said go out there and have yourself a great day a great week a happy New Year and we will talk to you next time bonus any bonus thoughts on that only thing I will recommend and I'm bad at this it's the end of the year it's New Year's Eve if you're watching this watch this watch whatever News podcast you need turn off your email turn your you know do not disturb on go have a great day you know relax read a book have some champagne watch a ball drop music drop wherever you're at spend some time with family and friends and the hell with work take a break it's okay it'll be there tomorrow that is probably the best one I was thinking about that just the other day we were talking about like because we RB has New Year's Eve and New Year's Day off I've had officially I've had New Year's Day and New Year's Eve off most of the last I don't know 10 years and I was just thinking about how many times I was still working on New Year's Eve though uh a couple of times out to like 8 9:00 at night on New Year's Eve and so my partying didn't start till very late because I was working too late and it's one of us like yes life is short you're not going to you know if if you end up dead next year you're not going to be going back saying God I'm so glad that I gave up my New Year's Eve for doing whatever that work thing is so you know best you can enjoy it you take some time do you there's always like some of the daily things that we do to just stay healthy and keep going but the rest like go actually take a day off and have a good time and I'm trying to tell myself that as well hopefully I will do it I'll probably get up and do a little bit of work but I'm trying to figure out what my cut off is going to be so that if I sleep in late oh well I guess I didn't get any work done that day that being said we'll let you guys go uh enjoy your time as well and uh next time you see us it will be a New Year have a good one everybody [Music]
Transcript Segments
[Music]
hello and welcome back we've been
playing around with video effects so if
I look better than normal it's just
because I look that good it is not video
effects at
all we are into the end of the year and
so we are going to
have this will actually come out this is
the New Year's Eve episode and then
we'll have come out New Year day after
so yeah let's see I guess I sort of like
to we'll keep both of these as a special
we'll do sort of New Year special and do
two of them again and I like um while
forgive and forget I think is a it's a
little aggressive of kind of thing
because it's a year that yeah there's a
lot of people should there's a lot that
everybody should be forgiving and
forgetting but um I like it I think we
can work that in actually but I really
liked the where did I put that in
podcast
ideas um yeah sort of like I like the
whole like wrapping up and then goals
for 2025 because those like work perfect
for us so I think we'll which has sort
of been the traditional yearend stuff so
we'll we'll dive into this one we'll
just talk about wrapping up um good
thing bad thing we'll sort of go into
the normal stuff
and take my sip of tea and we'll get
started on that we'll just do that and
we'll come back on the other one we'll
do a little
three two well hello and welcome back if
you've noticed that we've got because
Michael needs to do this is edit the
audit the audio so that you've got your
little yearend cheering or Bells I
forget what it is but it's there you
just heard it that thing that was all
due to him doing some extra editing work
not a lot but hey it's there anyways we
are building better developers we are
the developing we podcast and we are at
the end of another year this year
happens to be
2024 mindblowing in itself from somebody
that was born last century so it's been
a while and it's like
wow but we are wrapping this thing up
we're wrapping up the year and as always
we want to do our yearend specials and
we're going to have a year beginning
special in our next episode this one I
want to look back a little bit on the
year and talk a little about like
looking back and then sort of like what
are the things we need to do as we close
this year out sort of closing out now
some of it it may be a little too late
but we'll talk a little bit about some
of those things that you're going to
want to do and that'll also help prep
you for the next year 2025 before we get
into that I guess I should introduce
myself my name is Rob Broadhead I'm one
of the founders of develop andur I am
also a founder of RB Consulting where we
come in we help you manage technology we
help you take whatever it is that you
got take a look at your business and
find the best way to leverage technology
to do your bu business better whether
that's through simplification automation
integration any of the shuns that are
out there we're going to do them in a
way to help you be function better and
do better and and make more money in the
year ahead
good thing bad thing let's see good
thing bad thing good thing bad thing
good thing bad thing good thing
Christmas just got through Christmas
it's actually the bad thing was getting
to Christmas was exhausting we there was
just too much stuff going on and I
didn't even do as much as Natalie and
yet I got the blowback and was exhausted
by just watching her do all this crap
and deal with all of this stuff the good
thing was Christmas was awesome we had a
great time we did family games the loved
it even the the people that normally
wouldn't like it or the The Grouchy old
people that are like get off my yard
they were still having a good time so
hey it was a win all around so very good
way to sort of get towards the end of
the year for
us and another good thing is I get to
have yet another episode that I get to
record with Michael who is going to
introduce
himself hey everyone my name is Michael
M I'm one of the co-founders of
developer I'm also the founder of
Invision QA where we help technology
companies with little or no software uh
quality assurance or problems with their
software we bring to the table a test
driven approach uh unit testing
functional testing integration testing
and we help you turn your software
around we take you from essentially
chugging along having bugs and problems
to cleaner more productive more
streamlined software so essentially you
go from uh once the velers are done you
can tell if the software is ready to go
out without any guess work good thing
bad thing uh good thing again like Rob
said Christmas is finally here gone
passed and I actually was able to
disconnect from a computer for 24 hours
shocking uh I I am glued to this thing
well over 100 hours a week which is
scary but anyway uh that's the bad thing
the bad thing is leading up to Christmas
you have all that uh to get things done
rushing around getting bills paid things
of that nature and then you see the
Christmas Bill and then it's like crap
uh we spent a lot of money again this
Christmas so I had to write those checks
so that was the bad thing um with that I
am looking forward to this episode and
working with Rob and getting us through
to the end of the
year so year end we have always talked
about planning
and following up on plans and you
accountability and a lot of that kind of
stuff and so as we wrap up the year I
think I once again I'm going to share
some of the stuff that I do and and
hopefully these are some things that you
know that you've done already and are
not like scrambling at the last minute
to do now one of the things if you've
got a side hustle or anything like that
uh or or a business this probably is a
time that you're going to be doing some
wrap-ups of some yearin things it is a
very good time from and this is whether
you're doing a sideous and this is even
probably in your personal life you're
probably doing some some level of or at
least it's going to be helpful I think
to do some level of like an annual
Financial your your personal business
your household and stuff like that and
how that runs and take a look at it and
make sure that you're sort of
positioning yourself to pay those last
bills that you need to to make sure
everything gets paid on time
particularly when you're in this like
holiday season where banks are closed
like all but three hours a day and
random days and all that kind of stuff
is making sure you get those things in
and get those things covered and get
your bills paid on time and all that
goodness but also it's a good way to
look at where am I spending too much
time or money or resources of other
sorts where do I need to make some
adjustments looking back like were those
Investments of time and everything else
that you made did they pay off the way
that you want them to and and really
spending some time like a retrospective
in a in a develop Sprint is basically
saying like what did I do right what
what went right what didn't go right are
there things that I should start doing
more of and there are some things that I
should maybe stop and a lot of this
people do I think more with a like a New
Year resolution bent of just like oh
well I should lose weight everybody
always should lose weight and it's just
like that seems like that's always the
thing to do but if you just do it at the
beginning you say oh I'm going to lose
weight and you spend two days in a gym
and then you give up like most people
that it's not going to work I think what
you need to do
let take a look at like what have you
tried and maybe all the way back to New
Year's last year what are some of those
resolutions what's stuck what didn't how
can you do that better in the year ahead
what are some things that or maybe
there's things you don't want to maybe
you made a resolution at beginning of
the year to become a I don't know a
worldclass violinist and you realize you
hate playing the violin and so like all
right Nick that off of your list or is
there things are there things that you
do on a regular basis are there there
habits that you have or even Hobbies
maybe that you have you're just like
it's not I'm not feeling it it's like
I'm it's just like you know
professionally maybe you're burned out a
little bit so maybe you should look at
seeing if you can change your approach
to work or maybe the projects that
you're working on or the focus that you
have or depending on what your ability
is to to drive those kinds of things or
maybe it's like your your side hustles
are wearing her out maybe you should
pick a different side of hustle or maybe
you shouldn't side hustle at all maybe
you should spend some time just chilling
and relaxing and allow yourself to just
just you know recharge a little bit
these are kinds of things that I think
are very helpful as you get towards the
end of the year because it is just while
it is just another you know day on the
calendar to some extent it's also an
excuse for us to pause a little bit and
look back and
say where we at like do a little self
assessment this is I think where people
that are truly uh content and happy and
and things like that these are the
things that the habits that these people
have is that they look at the things
that are out there they say these are
the things I like to do and they find
ways to get to that and these are things
I don't like to do and they find ways
not to do that now sometimes that is
it's not as easy as it sounds sometimes
there are things where there's like
there are shades of I like it and I
don't like it or like for me there are
things that I like to do but I suck at
them and so I really shouldn't do them
it's a waste of time it's like you it'd
be like being a professional singer that
would be sort of cool but not for me so
I'm not going to go waste my time trying
to go do that and we're you know we're
now adults so it's not like kids when
you're like yeah chase your dreams it's
like let's tie our dreams back to
reality a little bit because we get to
we get to go try some of this stuff out
and make sure that what you're doing and
what the path that you put yourself on
at the beginning of the year or the
beginning of your career that it's still
working out because it's never too late
to maybe to Pivot or to make some
adjustments and say you know I really
thought this is where I wanted to go and
I found out it really isn't that I want
to do something differently and don't be
afraid to just like roll the dice but
and try something a little different and
it's funny because this was as I was
sort of like starting into this episode
and doing the introduction that's one of
the things that I found that like I
switched last year I said we we started
I think right at the beginning of the
year well I guess it was more like
February March we actually started doing
video recordings as well so if you're if
you're just listening to the podcast
like you always have we also have this
out on YouTube and so now we are
recording this as we're doing it from a
video as well as an audio point of view
and it very much changes for me it has
very much changed how I see this how I
approach this and so for somebody that
had done 700 plus episodes of nonv video
podcast pure audio podcast it's actually
been a little bit of a rebirth because
it's something it's like oh hey I just
tweaked this a little bit and you may
not hear anything different this is the
same audio thing that you've always had
uh it's probably done a little better
because now Michael's doing the editing
instead of me but other than that same
thing yeah we've changed the format
around stuff like that but even in the
past when I would
record and do it with the interviews
because almost always I was actually
seeing the person I was interviewing
those didn't go out anywhere and just
changing that perspective of like now
I'm not the only one that's going to see
this has changed stuff and has really
changed like my focus on just this thing
that I've done it is I guess pretty much
it is a labor of love I've been doing
this for years so obviously I'm must
enjoy it so those are kinds of things
you can do is take a look at like what
you do what do you like what don't you
like because I think those
are those are our wise those are what
really drive us it's like you can you
can point to things like you know you
need to you want to be successful
whatever successful is or things like
that that you know or you want to earn
money or you want to be wellknown or you
want to be you know ethical or giving or
whatever there's all these things that
are very positive in themselves but it
boils down to We Can't be everything to
everyone we really need to be true to
ourselves and understand what we like to
do because we don't want to be in a
situation we are doing something we
don't like because it helps other people
or makes them happy unless the primary
thing for us is to make other people
happy in which case great you can go be
a Mother Teresa or something like that
but if like it comes back down what
really do you enjoy doing and try to do
more of that in the year ahead and this
is a perfect time to sort of Look Back
spend all the time and say huh how much
that I really have this year and if it
was a ton cool let's just do more of
that next year if it wasn't then what
are some things I can avoid now caveat
you can't avoid some of the things that
is the rest of the world so if you hate
advertisements if you hate the fact that
like election years where you get like
advertisement advertisement
advertisement sorry can't do much about
that well or maybe you could stop
watching TV or maybe you're like I'm
gonna earn more money so I can have a
subscription streaming service that
doesn't had advertisements there's
almost always a way out another way out
for me is so that I can go drink my tea
I'm going to pass this over to Michael
and get some of your feedback and your
your thoughts on
this so it's interesting
um kind of reflecting on the year you
know we're talking about wrapping up
closing out the year and I just kind of
want to look back at the year because
this has been a kind of rebuilding year
for my business and for me
uh late last year
I decided uh I went through a marketing
campaign uh marketing manager and kind
of re-evaluated where my company was
going you know we're coming out of covid
the world's kind of reset we're kind of
back to where we're going what does
business look like today how do we
currently work in today's market because
it's ever evolving and with in that
conversation I basically realized that
my company was not on the path it needed
to be I was not happy I was doing too
many things that I didn't like
so I went into this program called
co-starters and kind of went through
even though I've been running businesses
of many Natures over 20 some years it
was time to kind of just do a reset hey
what am I doing right what am I doing
wrong what is business look like today
and that kind of carried through into
March and at the end of uh February
first start of March I finally rebranded
and decided to relaunch my company as
Envision QA uh I'm more focused on what
the company is going to be I'm more
happy with the path I've chosen for the
company and with that I very quickly
found my first customer kind of went
through the fun process of of you know
working with the customer doing
something I loved and it turned into a
blossomy relationship we have a new
project out of it and having a lot of
fun but it's not all bells and whistles
so there was things going on this year
that weren't always that great some
things in your control some things out
of your
control the biggest thing out of my
control is Health uh we've had some
family health issues uh we've been
working through trying to figure that
out and it it it's a struggle you know
it can drain you so as you're looking to
next year uh it's kind of funny we've
talked about many different things this
season of building uh better habits and
one of the big things that takeaways I
have especially with working in
different projects and back in agile as
fluently as I have is it comes down to
kind of some concepts of priority you
know what do I need to do to be happy
what you know what is
important what uh so it's kind of you
know what do I need what do I want what
is you know a few a goal you know what
is something to reach for but isn't
really as important to be done today
it's you know kind of like a stretch
goal and a lot of things as I'm
reflecting at the end of the year is
there was some things I wanted to do
that weren't priority that weren't
needed to be done so as I work through
these things it's like oh I'm really
burning out I'm kind of struggling to
get through these things and you may as
well and stop look at where you're at
and determine is this something that is
really necessary is this something that
I need to do to be happy or I need to do
to get something done or am I just being
busy or am I wasting time if it falls
into the ladder pivot find something
else to do you know I do like playing
video games but I don't like it when
video games basically make it feel like
work the games as a service when you
have to log in every day and basically
go do all these microtransactions it's
like no that's not
fun talking to you Diablo uh well not so
much Diablo but um the first descendant
microtransaction hell great story
microtransaction hell Diablo a little
bit better but the new one that came out
Path of Exile too really well done I got
lost on Christmas Day playing probably
about six hours of that just figuring
out the game and I'm back to loving it
you know Diablo 2 style it's like great
I found something I liked
so look at these things you know in the
intro pre-show we had I briefly talked
about you know uh paying the bills off
you know it's kind of that time of year
you know we had all the Christmas
expenses finances is important make sure
that you are kind of living within your
means yes we have emergencies so maybe
one of your goals for next year might be
hey put aside 20 bucks a paycheck put a
little bit of a nest egg into savings so
if something does happen you don't have
to panic if the credit cards are maxed
you have some extra cash to go pay for
for that emergency to go to the doctor
or you know maybe take a short vacation
to reset your mentality you know it's
the end of the year it was a rough year
election years are always rough because
they're so
draining and like Rob said you know it
early on it's like okay who are your
candidates going to be sure you kind of
need to pay a little bit of attention
but it's like you know at some point you
need to go on a media fast and just take
up right cuz it mentally drains you so
as you look towards the end of the year
as you're looking into that next
year stop and take a moment and make a
list look at what things drained you
what things you didn't like what things
brought you down and then right next to
that the things that you did like to do
what things may brought you Joy what
things you know were you happy on you
know what is the correct path and then
as you go into next year look at okay
where can I pivot you know can I change
some of this course one of the things
could be simply find another job the job
you're in could be you know life sucking
Soul
crushing time to find a change you may
not be in a position where you can
change but start looking it I I don't
know the proverb but you know take that
first step don't just stand still don't
just be motionless take one step forward
then take another step and eventually
you'll be far down the path to
happiness yeah that's the thing is this
is where we don't have to make we don't
have to make big changes sometimes
sometimes it's a little bit of a change
now sometimes it's a uh it becomes a big
change I think like a perfect example is
you know Michael was sitting there like
I'm going to maybe think about my
business and the next thing you know
he's completely rebaring branded and
he's gone into you know done a lot of
stuff but it's it's one of the things I
was reflecting a little bit uh earlier
today it's like the difference a year
can make and in my life there's a whole
lot of change there a whole lot of stuff
that has been is dramatically different
than what it was um part of that is
because I have with when you have a lot
of kids and there's a lot of CH and
they're in that level of they're at that
age where there's like a lot of change
where you've got graduations and all
kinds of stuff going
on but even with myself then going to in
empty nester mode is obviously big
change there's things like that but
there's all these little things too
there
are it is amazing to me now looking back
a few years ago one of the changes that
I made as I realized that I enjoyed
reading just reading fiction and I
hadn't done it in decades I had always I
was just there was always work stuff
there's all these things I was doing and
I said you know what I'm going to just
read 15 minutes a day and my goal was
actually just read you know before I
fall asleep into of the day I'm going to
I'm going to shut stuff off I'm going to
read for a little bit and through that
time I have ended up you know I
mentioned I think earlier this year I
ended up reading all of the shanara
series all like 40 books or whatever
that thing is and I'm going back into
some other series and things like that
that I hadn't touched in I haven't
touched in years and years and it
continues to be something that is just a
really good way to end my day really has
been a way to help me you know fall
asleep better relax chill let go of
stuff that's going on during the day and
you know all the drama and the work and
all the other crap that goes on and to
be able to just like enjoy life a little
bit and so something like that may be
all you need it may be like get up 10
minutes earlier and like just have a
quiet 10 minutes with your morning tea
or coffee or something like that or
going for a walk or like a little bit of
exercise or try like a Pomodoro or
something like that and just doing a
little thing you're like hey I'm going
to actually take a break for five
minutes after I do a little bit of a a
work push and just see how these things
go it doesn't have to be huge but I
think you'll find I know because we talk
about all the time the value of
incremental Improvement
will eventually get you there like
Michael said like if you're if you're
just saving 20 bucks a paycheck and you
get one you know twice a month well by
the end of the year that's 40 times
that's almost 500 bucks that now you
have in savings as you did in a year ago
you know and then of course if you start
adding interest and all that kind of
stuff it
grows there are so many so many places
and directions you can go that's like if
you start incrementally you will be able
to achieve some really huge goals along
the way nothing's done in one shot it's
always going to be like you you get
moving there you start making that
journey and you will get to where you
know often you will get far beyond where
you ever thought you were going to be we
are not going to get further Beyond
where we thought we were going to be
we're going to go ahead and wrap this
one up want to wish you from all of us
our families and everybody else to the
Grand you know audience that we have out
there happy New Year en hopefully you
have a a great one you have a safe one
that you go out there you get to enjoy
some time with your family friends and
all that kind of good stuff that you do
get to relax a little bit you get to
celebrate some it's like hey we made it
through another year and hopefully with
a lot of optimism for the year ahead uh
if you want to shoot us an email you can
always shoot us an email about that and
be as optimistic or pessimistic as you
want just let us know info@ develop
ur.com you can also check us out on the
develop ur.com site we're on X develop
andur we've got a Facebook page you can
leave us comments and feedback wherever
you are watching this video or listening
to this
podcast always happy to hear from you
because we will do a next episode we'll
come back with another special and then
we'll dive back into building better
habits and wrapping up that season and
then stepping into whatever the next one
is and we haven't figured that out yet
so feel free to throw us some
suggestions that being said go out there
and have yourself a great day a great
week a happy New Year and we will talk
to you next time
bonus any bonus thoughts on
that only thing I will recommend and I'm
bad at this it's the end of the year
it's New Year's Eve if you're watching
this watch this watch whatever News
podcast you need turn off your email
turn your you know do not disturb on go
have a great day you know relax read a
book have some champagne watch a ball
drop music drop wherever you're at
spend some time with family and
friends and the hell with work take a
break it's okay it'll be there
tomorrow that is probably the best one I
was thinking about that just the other
day we were talking about like because
we RB has New Year's Eve and New Year's
Day off I've had officially I've had New
Year's Day and New Year's Eve off most
of the last I don't know 10 years and I
was just thinking about how many times I
was still working on New Year's Eve
though uh a couple of times out to like
8 9:00 at night on New Year's Eve and so
my partying didn't start till very late
because I was working too late and it's
one of us like yes life is short you're
not going to you know if if you end up
dead next year you're not going to be
going back saying God I'm so glad that I
gave up my New Year's Eve for doing
whatever that work thing is so you know
best you can enjoy it you take some time
do you there's always like some of the
daily things that we do to just stay
healthy and keep going but the rest like
go actually take a day off and have a
good time and I'm trying to tell myself
that as well hopefully I will do it I'll
probably get up and do a little bit of
work but I'm trying to figure out what
my cut off is going to be so that if I
sleep in late oh well I guess I didn't
get any work done that day that being
said we'll let you guys go uh enjoy your
time as well and uh next time you see us
it will be a New Year have a good one
everybody
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