Jeffrey: Welcome to the light and your launch podcast today. We're talking about where to put your focus as you end the year. So stay tuned.

Katie: We are alive.

Jeffrey: All right, we're live. Hey everybody. Today, we're doing something a little different. We're actually recording our podcast live in our light in your launch Facebook group. If you're not already a member head over to the light and your launch, a Facebook group, that's the launch squad lab.com forward slash Facebook and join the conversation.

We're in there every week, answering questions and helping our community grow one launch at a time. So let's dive into today's episode. Katie, where do we begin to end our year?

Katie: Yes. So it's funny. I've been noticing a lot of banter on Facebook. That's where I spend the majority of my time. Some people are like, You know, we're closed for the rest of the year.

Like, don't talk to me till after January 1st and other people are, you know, like I don't have the luxury of doing that. And you know, I'm taking this time to, you know, do all I can do to, you know, get to the bottom of my to-do list before the end of the year. Like I will get to the bottom of my 10 is by the end of the year.

And we're really here to say to you, like you do you. I know that this month for me was, you know, I thought it was going to go differently than it did. And sometimes when stuff happens in your personal life, it just impacts your business and impacts your creativity or your ability to just show up a hundred percent the way you were planning on.

And so you really need to give yourself the grace to just take life as it comes. And if this isn't going to be your most. Productive month. Let that be okay for you because really taking care of you and doing all the things you need so that your body is optimized and your mind is happy, is what's most important.

And you know, you've got to remember in the Maslow's hierarchy of needs. I have a really hard time with that word for some reason, I think as I'm from Boston and we don't say that many RS ever. So, you know, it's, I have to. Hi hi AQI but at the bottom there, it's, it's your stability. It's your home, it's your security.

And if anything, you know, if you're moving or if you're shifting relationships or anything going on that may make your psyche a freed of that stability at that bottom of that triangle. Impossible to do anything above it. So the creativity and all that stuff is not going to come. So you just have to give yourself you do you, and if you need to take off time, go ahead and do that.

And if you are ready to go and get to the bottom of your to-do list, do that too. Right. So just to, to make a grandiose decision one way or the other for other people seems. Counterproductive. I'll just say that. Absolutely. Oh, Jeffrey always reminded me to put on my headphones now you're making me look like a total dork.

Jeffrey: I can't be the only one. I can't be the only one that lives a good door since we're doing this live. We both have to mean we

Katie: you're right. You're right. Yeah. Somebody get me a new pair of headphones for Christmas, please. Okay. I gotta turn it up. Okay. So I just wanted to kind of get that out of the way, because we are going to make some recommendations of things that you should.

Quote unquote or courage, and that you'd be happy next year, if you did take the time to do that this year. But you know, if you're somebody that just cannot churn out content for 11 more days, because you're just kind of done skis, as we say at the launch squad done you know, that's okay too, but yeah, there I just, I want you to feel okay.

No matter what that choice is for you and no matter how you're feeling, because Yeah, mental health is a big deal and the holidays make it really difficult for some people. And usually that's the case. I struggle around the holidays every year, even though I have a loving family and I have somewhere to go, I still struggle.

So for people who don't have the loving family, or don't want to go to their loving family or whatever else is going on you know, it can be a really hard time of year. And so I just wanted to reiterate you take care of you and whatever works for you is, is the right thing to do there. Yeah, we also want to dimension, you know, this is the darkest time of year.

Tomorrow's the winter solstice. It's the dark day of the year. And that, you know, reflection of how nature teaches us to live, right? It's like, we're not that the earth is not always growing, right. Parts of the earth are dying right now in this, you know, in north America, it is it's dark and. It's actually been so mild here in Denver, that my flowers actually still had flowers on them just a couple of days ago, but I just noticed, oh, now those are actually dead and I need to cut them and get rid of them.

So it's like, what can you cut from life? And can you allow yourself to be in the darkness and to not expect yourself to shine as bright as a full moon, 365 days. Right.

Jeffrey: And to acknowledge that this is all part of the cycle, it's all part of a natural cycle. There's times to be boisterous and bright. And there are times to be dark and soft.

Katie: Yeah. Yep. And, you know, even the full moon doesn't shine, its brightness every day, you know? So it's I think that we put ourselves on this pedestal of like, you know, I have to be this certain way or if I'm a leader, I have to be a leader all the time and yes, consistency is key, but taking care of yourself and your mental health is of the utmost importance and allowing.

The chance to say, oh, this is a cycle for me to get quiet and to just spend time alone. So it's not like I'm not working right now, but I'm not coming out full force in promo mode right now, either. I'm doing things that matter to me that I know that need to get done by the end of the. And those are just as important as promotion.

So sometimes it's just, you got to push the pause button on certain things because you just can't do it all right.

Jeffrey: And if you're taking and if you're taking nothing else away from this conversation, it's that it's okay. Whatever you choose it's okay. Whether or not you're diving into work and you're, you know, putting your head down and you're being productive as possible because maybe you don't have clients calling right now, or this gives you the time to do it.

That's okay. Yep. If you're putting down work and you're saying. Fully committed to my family. I am taking the time off. No, one's calling me. I'm not doing anything. That is okay, too.

Katie: Yup. Okay. So we did want to talk about a few things that we do recommend that you do before the end of the year. And these are things that we've been doing.

And so what we're recommending is what we've been doing and you know, with some guidance along the way. So we've got four things that we wanted to share with you today. The first one, and it's just like, literally the first that comes to my mind because it's end of the year. And so we are at this end of the year tax prep, and I don't know about you, but I pretty much would want my dollars to go anywhere.

The government, I don't mean to be like anti-government or anything, but it's like, I would way rather save money on a tax liability by donating, or I would rather save money on my tax liability by hiring someone, even if I'm not ready to get started, just making that purchase before 1231. So that's reflective on my taxes.

I would rather put money in. Investments. In fact, I just funded an HSA account. I've had a health insurance plan with an attached HSA, which stands for health savings account. And it's really good for self-employed people because it's, pre-tax. So you can put $3,600 a year into an HSA account.

Pre-taxed and you can use it on doctors, visits, acupuncture, chiropractor, massage, like anything related to that alternative health care that I like can be paid for out of this $3,600. So that was one of the things I did was open up that account and get that in there. So these things, you know, a lot of people say, oh, but Katie.

Stays in until four 15. Right. And lots of people like to wait till the last minute, but what you're missing out on is an opportunity to save on your tax liability by making some of these very important decisions before 1231. And so we've been you know, in the eyes wide open membership with alley cats, we can't recommend it enough, check it out, Google her.

And that has been, I used to call it CEO school. But that has been a really great way for us to really get clear and understand some of these things that I blew off before kind of thinking on, I don't have to do that till later and put it off, put it off. And this is the year she's like, you know, in November she was like, get your end of the year.

Stuff in ask questions. And then of course being in a membership where you hear other people's smart questions, lets you yeah.

Jeffrey: Or putting it off because you don't think you're making enough money or you're not as big yet, or, you know, you know, just making decisions based on where you are, not where you want to be.

Katie: Yeah. So yeah, so that is a huge, a huge one. We just want to help you save money or invest it in other ways. Somebody in the membership had even suggested, Hey, this is a time where you can put an offer out there and say, decrease your tax liability by hiring me before the end of the year. I thought that was clever too.

So if you know that you're looking to. You know, get some more expenses into balance, the the money that you made. Yay, yay. For making money. You know, then this is something, you know, you still got 11 days to figure that out and figure out where can you put some money that makes the most sense for you and your family?

I loved this idea. I saw this and we are going to do it. We haven't done it yet. I saw a meme of someone doing this, where for every month of the year, they wrote a win for their business. And then they made a meme of it. Like here's what happened in 2020. And I think that so often we look at the bottom line, you know, like how much money did I make this year, you know, and was my business profitable.

And then we make decisions on whether or not we had a good year or a successful quote unquote year, just with that, like one number and how important it is to go back to January 20, 21, where we were barely. We were still in COVID. Right? Like it's like, we all, oh yeah, it's going to be a new year, but it's like, but in reality, there's a pandemic still happening right before from December 31st to January 1st, it wasn't like this magical thing happened where, you know, COVID.

And so whatever you, you know, were able to do this year for example, I got new headshots or I, I updated my website or I finally got my drip campaign or automation set up for my free gift or I updated my free gift or I created a new offer. I enrolled so many people in a program. So for each month, really look at your calendar.

And I do this every year. I always look at my calendar because I want to look at where my sales case. And often, you know, you can discover, oh my gosh, that came from a lunch connection that I had with somebody that I networked with. Right. And then either that person became a client or it became a referral.

And so you just get to see, oh, is this networking group I'm a part of helping. Or not right. Like where did my sales come from? So I always audit my calendar, but I love this where you actually take note and celebrate something from every month of the year. And that you can see you had a well-rounded year where you got a lot done, and it also helps you set up for the goals that you'll set, which we'll talk about next.

And you can

Jeffrey: even, you can even count taking a vacation. Right celebrate that you honored yourself, you honored your calendar and you took a real vacation. That could be for some people that can be as you know, a very motivating for next year and getting into kind of the next to lead into this next item.

You can take this reflection on each month and kind of project and plan. For future wins, you know, so as far as going into the next one is goal setting for next year. What if you could create a goal for each month to, to win something each month? Right. And it doesn't always have to be a sales goals. It doesn't always have to be, money-oriented or maybe new clients or something, but that could be.

You could say, I'm going to update this website page on in January, then I'm going to tackle my offer and clean that up on in February. And then I'm going to create some sort of lead magnet in, in, you know, on and on and on. Yeah.

Katie: Yeah. One thing just popped in my head now I just lost it about that.

But. Yeah. Oh, one of our wins, Jeffery, I think this month is when we started our podcast last year. Yeah. So this is episode 54. And so we, you know, stuck with our commitment to do a podcast every week. Yeah. Even if we're delivering it the day that it was due, we did it.

But you know, just little things like that, like consistency, if you get two a month and you're like, oh, I don't have a win for this month. Then it's like, well, backtrack back to January. Count how many months and say, you know, I'm still in business celebration four months into the year. Right. I kept up my newsletter.

I mean, there's all these things. The small wins that I think we take for granted. And I think the more you acknowledge them and acknowledge yourself for how far you've come and how much you've learned. In fact, I just looked over somebody hired me. I don't know. Maybe in April of last year we worked together for six months, so we just wrapped it up a couple of months ago.

And I just recently opened up the document that had all of her goals of what she wanted to do with me. And I was like, I think we accomplished all those. Let me double check. And I read through, she did every single thing that she said about. I just feel so good, you know, and it wasn't a huge list, but it was just things that were bugging her that she knew she wanted a business coaches help with or feedback on.

And we got every single thing done. So, you know we just talked about someone today that in her own words said, you know, she needed a babysitter to do some of her work. And so she hired an accountability coach. It's like, whatever you need to do. To get it done. That's what you need to do, right. That's okay.

So we all need help. That's why they make personal trainers. Cause none of us want to go to the gym and work out by ourselves. Right. Don't you worry if you need accountability. All right. So we've already kind of mentioned this. One of the other things we highly recommend you do is two goals. Do some goal setting, at least for the first quarter.

What happens if you don't do that? Is you come back in January and you're like, maybe uninspired, because you don't have like a project that you're working towards. If there are no dates set, it's kind of like. I don't really know what should I do? So if you, if you set up a plan in December and say, when I'm back in the office, January, whatever day, you decided to come back to the office, this is the project I'm working on.

And these are the dates that I'm going to host a live event. Do a webinar, do a challenge. Write your book, like whatever. Right. Like maybe you're going to design a new course and you're going to set a date for that, but it's just plan that first quarter and set dates and revenue goals. And then figure out what are your steps that you're going to take to get there.

Right. So, you know, I want to remind everyone to because we're the launch squad. We talk a lot about launching. You do not have to wait to make money. Because of a launch, you can make money any time you want to, you can book sales calls. Anytime you need to, you can ask for referrals. So anytime you're in a downtime, don't make the story up in your head that you're not going to make any money because you're not loving.

Right. So there's lots you can do. Before the days of launches even existed, people may,

you can to amen. Yeah. Anything on your mind, Jeffrey about this goal setting for first quarter, I know.

Jeffrey: Well, I was going to say that first quarter, really, I think that the inspiration for that goal could largely occur when you're taking the downtime in December. Right? When you let go of work, when you are just hanging out and relaxing in a different mindset, hanging out with family or whatever, allow yourself to spend a few minutes and let your mind wander to.

What do I want to achieve next year? And let it come.

Katie: Yup. Yup. I love that. You said that. Cause I think it's a really good segue into the fourth and final thing that I personally love I lived in Taiwan for a year and I learned that their Chinese new year tradition, which is obviously different date than this coming new year that we're having.

But a similar time of year is to literally clean out the cobwebs of their house. They do a deep clean on their. But it's this energetic, you know, out with the old energy out with, you know, any money issues that may have come up, right? Any stagnant energy, broken relationships, all that stuff. They're physically and energetically cleaning their space and they're leaving the door open.

To allow for like the air flow and things. And I love that now. I don't know about leaving my door open. Although practically spring here in Denver, so I could but truly opening up windows and just moving some of that. So. For me, it's always my office that just needs, you know, I'm a piler. I have an addiction to buying journals and notepads and stuff, and all of a sudden I've got like a corner of my desk piled with all the stuff that doesn't need to be there.

And I'm scraps of paper that remind me, you know, ask Jeffrey to dah, dah, dah. I, I have one right here that has Jeffrey's name on it. And so what happens is when you make the commitment to clean your desk to eliminate the little papers. To maybe set up a new system, see have no more little papers ever again, or maybe like your little papers, but some sort of system where it's like, this is either going to be done or thrown out.

Cause if it didn't get done in the year that it's been sitting here on my desk, like there's the most important, right? Maybe it was just an old idea or I lost creativity. Or something overwhelming about it, but sometimes I'll find something and say, no, that was a good idea. I just never did it. So now this can become a quarter, one thing for you, right?

So it's, it's like either get it done, throw it away, or put it on your quarter 1 20, 22 planning and get it done. But that's, so I love the cleaning up of the desk because it just reminds me of all my brilliant ideas that are on little sticky notes everywhere. And I just love the concept of cleaning and refreshing your office.

Sometimes that feels stagnant. In fact, I have a vision board and I've had this like internal take that down and throw it away a couple of times. And then I go. It didn't all come true. And I don't want to throw it away, like as if I don't want, you know, these things, but it feels old. I know I've done it. I did it a couple years ago.

It feels old. So just things like that, it's just like, what do you have on display that you could make. You know, recycle, move through. Could you get something else? Could we declutter something ma and I think that's what's happening for me is the vision board feels cluttered and I would like more blank white space on my walls.

And I would love to reconfigure my office and things like that, but it starts with cleaning and organizing, and then you can kind of get refreshed and get some new ideas or yeah, some, some. That you need, like, I need new headphones, so I don't look like a complete dork.

Jeffrey: We need a freaking new desk cause I've been wanting to rearrange your office since we met.

Katie: But you did get me to get, if I'm going to create my month of when my monthly wins you had me get a second monitor monitor. I fought tooth. I don't have the room. I don't need it. Meet, meet me. And you just

Jeffrey: tiny little desk

Katie: got up and now, but you know, and you helped me pick the right one. So I bought it.

And I love it. And I, every time I work on just a laptop, if I'm not home, you know, I'm like, ah, where's my second screen. So I love it. You know, I got the podcast set up, I've set up my studio in a couple different ways. And so just trying to figure that out I think I'm going to upgrade my mic, but my biggest thing was upgrading my computer and that was one of my let's avoid a tax liability by spending money.

On equipment that I've wanted for a long time and I'm upgrading my mid 2014 MacBook pro. So it's time. It is time. You know, but anyway, yeah, just knowing what are things that you're using that are driving you nuts? And start making a list of things that you would like to upgrade when you have the money, when you have the time in order of importance, you know, if you want to do a podcast and you're talking out of a mic with your AirPods, that's not going to cut it.

Right. So then that would get kind of bumped to the top. But yeah, it's, it's the permission to upgrade. Your office and it's true. I do need a new desk, but I need an office. If we could expand the room itself

Jeffrey: pant, you need Pandora's office. That's what you need.

Katie: I'm going to move in about six months.

So I'm just not worried about it until then. Yeah. But by hearing him, I would love an L-shaped desk. Oh,

Jeffrey: that'd be so nice. A sit-stand L-shape I've wanted one of those for a long time. Anyway, I digress. And every time I think about like cleaning and stuff like that, I'm set. I'm a big Miyazaki friend, anybody who knows me knows I'm a big Miyazaki fan.

And one of my favorite Miyazaki films is Todaro. And they have this beginning scene where they're this little families moving into this house. And the little, little girl, the story is always about the little child, little child in the story is. Discovers these little sprites in their attic and they clean them out and they make it a kind of a fun thing.

The dad makes it so fun. They're cleaning out sprites and they're open and they're doing it. They're, they're opening the doors. They're sweeping things out, they're washing everything. And like it's such a, it's such an event, right. They make an event out of it. And that, that is in itself. Putting your energy into the environment and you're energetically moving energy out and putting your energy into it.

And that alone can create creative space.

Katie: Yup. Yup. I love that. And so much of it is energy. That's what we have to remember, you know, and if you're feeling stagnant and not creative, It's just it's okay. It's just energy, you know, it's not like it's not going to be like that forever. And you know, I'm not somebody who follows astrology too much, but I, I, I dabble in it a little bit and this month has been kind of a cake chaos, I think is the word that I read in, in the projection of what was happening with the planets this month.

And I would agree for me, it was a very, very chaotic. 20 days so far. So you know, but anyway, it is, it's all energy. And so anytime I I'm feeling uninspired to do like writing content, for example I just I'm like, okay, but what, what can I do? And cleaning is something that just makes me feel better.

It really does. It's just helps to clear that that clutter and that energetic space and get ready for that. So we are, you know, we've got this new year coming up, we've got lots of changes coming your way from the launch squad. And we are, you'll hear more about it, but Jeffrey, I would love for you in the interest of time.

I know we've got some more coming up here

Jeffrey: to wrap

Katie: this up, make the announcement of what's coming down the pike, because I want people to be applying now to get one of those.

Jeffrey: Okay. So we are so excited about this. We've got some goals of our own that we're setting this year for next year. So special announcement to everybody here starting in January, we're offering free live coaching from both Katie and myself in our light, in your launch group right here.

So if you're not on the podcast, you're here. If you're here, live right here. Right in our Facebook group our goal is to help 50 coaches course creators and online experts gain complete clarity around their offer, their sales strategy, their customer's journey, and the underlying technology needed to make the whole things as hands-free as possible.

And we're having that live coaching in the group. So if you want to be a part of the. Head over to the launch squad, lab.com forward slash hot seat and apply there and be. We're going to break some break some barriers and help people throughout this coming year. Really excited about that.

Katie: Yeah. It's been really fun.

So you know, we have office hours for our current clients every week, and it's so amazing what you can get done in 30 minutes to an hour of coming prepared with questions and getting a business consultant, a marketing consultant, a tech person. Right. Tech consultant, like right there to go, oh, you can do this.

You could do that. And have you tried this? So it. It's our gift to you, you know, there's no there's no strings attached or anything like that. We just ask that you apply and make sure that we think it's the right fit. And you know, our team will reach out and get you on the schedule. And we just ask that you show up when you're scheduled.

And yeah, we'll, we'll deliver, you know, an awesome coaching session as if you were, you know, in our programs. So we're really excited about this. We've been talking about it for a while and we finally, it was like one of those sticky notes on one of our. That actually got attention. And we took action and I have this tech guy that got to do the tech part, so it made it easy.

So yeah, so we're really excited about that. So that's just one of the changes coming your way. Stay tuned, you know, we're going to be a lot more active in this group in you know, the months to come here. And we, we want to hear from you, you know, so I've started reaching out to some of you already sent you some private messages.

Just getting to know you a little bit better. Jeffrey's going to do the same thing. You know, just don't be afraid if we send you a message, it's just, you know, saying, Hey, human, human to human, looking to humanize this social media experiment called Facebook. So love it or hate it. Here we are. So we want to know you as humans and we want to connect with you and know and learn how we can support you in this next year.

That's that. All right. So we are going to stay rather quiet for the rest of this month, as we're cleaning our own cobwebs and doing our own stuff. But we're here, we're available. So if you've got any questions, you can always tag us in the group or send us a message. You can always send us an email at success at the launch squad, lab.com.

And we're here for you, but we will be coming back with a bang in the new year. That's how we roll. We wish you all happy holidays, whatever you may or may not be celebrating December solstice, Hanukkah, Kwanzaa, Christmas, all the things. Oh, the things we celebrate you and your culture and customs. And we hope that you just have a lovely time with family or friends that feel like family or hanging out by yourself.

Cause that's what. Enjoy every minute because it's all. Okay. All right, everyone be well,

Jeffrey: see you in the new year. Happy holidays.

Thanks for joining us. If you enjoyed this episode, please leave us a five-star review and hit that subscribe button. You can check out all the show notes at the launch squad, lab.com forward slash episode 54. See you next time.