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Steph Crowder
Foreign welcome to the Courage and Clarity podcast. I'm your host, Steph Crowder. I'm a former sales training director who's helped thousands of entrepreneurs earn a living doing something they love over the past 10 years. On your journey, you'll need the courage to be bold, to take risks, and to do what looks crazy on paper. You'll also need the clarity, the brass tacks, simple strategies that actually work. And on this podcast, we deliver both in equal measure. Oh, and by the way, we've got absolutely no time for bs, gross marketing tactics or get rich quick schemes. Just sustainable business strategies for good humans with big dreams. If that sounds like you, you're in the right place. Let's go. Hello CNC listeners. Welcome to the podcast. This is episode number 112 and today we're going to do a little year in review. We're going to talk about 20 as we wind things down and head into 2025. I have been sitting with this episode for a little while now, just kind of gathering my thoughts and it's such an interesting episode to record. There's a few things that come up for me. The first one is this temptation to kind of blow right past this episode without doing it. And I see this all the time, especially in my Mastermind clients. So for those of you who are in the Mastermind, I'm talking to you. We talk so much in that about celebration as a sales strategy. It's part of the culture, actually. It's true in my other program, Same Day Sales as well, where we really hammer home the importance of celebrating your wins big and small. Not just to make me feel good, your coach, or not just to check the box on celebrating, but because truly, I actually have pulled multiple pieces of research around this. There is significant documented research that shows us when we celebrate our successes, more success comes, right? And this is not a touchy feely like woo woo thought. This is not even about the law of attraction or anything along those lines, although we could certainly have that conversation too. But this is really about, you know, showing yourself the evidence that what you are doing is working and having the thought that I'm making progress or good things are happening or I'm really doing this or I'm legit, right? Showing yourself the evidence gives you the stamina to keep going when you're doing really, really hard things. And I know everyone listening to this podcast is asking themselves to do hard things. You know, life is already full of hard things. And then when you add the journey of entrepreneurship on top of that, it's just even more difficult. Right? And so when we take a moment to celebrate, even in a world that tells us maybe not to brag, to not make other people feel bad with your success or any flavor of that nonsense that's been fed to us over the years, you know, especially as children, taking all of that into account and kind of giving all of that a big middle finger by taking a moment to celebrate and acknowledge and, you know, not just. And honestly in this episode too, like, not just acknowledge the good, although there's been a lot of good for me this year, I hope there's been a lot of good for you as well, but also, like, acknowledge the challenges and how you overcame those and just kind of taking a moment to honor everything that's come your way in this year before turning the chapter, before turning the page to what 2025 will bring. So that's what we're going to do in this episode. It's really casual. I am just going to kind of mentally comb through my archives in terms of what's happened this year. One thing I'm really glad that I did at the beginning of last year, maybe actually it was at the end of 2023, and I'm going to do it again for 2025. If you're at the year on the wall, you can see how we got there. My year at the on the Wall training helps you develop really concrete goals. You can go to yearonthewall.com if you wanna take that training and learn more about it. But I have a note. I think I told you all about my note about this note last year. I don't know what episode it was, but I remember telling you that I had kind of distilled my goals down and was keeping them front and center in just a basic note on my iPhone with like little check marks boxes. And I checked off quite a few of these goals. And so I'm just going to share. I'm just going to share what and part of the reason I want to share with you. The power of setting your intentions, the power of decision. The power of deciding and even having the boldness and the courage and the audacity to say, like, I want that. I don't know how that's going to happen. I don't know when that's going to happen. That seems really unrealistic. That seems like, how would that even come together? All of those thoughts can be there. I have a couple of goals like that that I wrote down last year thinking to myself, like, is that really gonna be something that I do. And I'm really pleased to say that for some of them, they did happen. And I think that comes down to in no small part me just having the courage to even write it down and claim it and say, you know what, I do wanna do that, I do wanna make space for that. So let's get into it. Starting in no particular order, 2024 was a really big year for me. We'll, I guess we'll start with business and we'll probably jump around. But 2024 was a really big year for me in business for multiple reasons. And if you've been following along, I'm sure you've seen it. For those of you that I coach directly, probably see it really have the front row to this. I'm sitting here right now and in front of me, I like, I use SamCart for payment processing. And if you're in SamCart or ThriveCart or any of these services, you, you might know that there is this ability to look at your all time revenue. Now. Quick caveat. I switched to samcart. I had been work I have revenue for in my business outside of samcart. Before I switched, I think I switched to samcart. I had. For those of you who've really been with me for a long time, I used to launch this course called Crickets to customers and I used to collect revenue through teachable and so I can kind of ballpark what that revenue was. I made my first six figures in business for sure outside of samcart. So this, you know, it does not account for all of my revenue. There's probably, let's say that there's somewhere between maybe a hundred to two hundred thousand dollars of revenue that wouldn't be accounted for in this payment processor. But no matter how you look at it, I think it would be safe to say that this 2024 would have been the year where this happened. That looking at my all time revenue, this was the year that I crossed $1 million in sales in total lifetime revenue. Okay, absolutely huge. Absolutely huge. I've been doing this, I've been out. I left my corporate job to go work for a company called fizzle in 2015. So next year is going to mark 10 years since I made that decision. I went out on my own, like properly in business in early 2018, maybe late 2017. So, you know, it's been a sort of a decade long journey and we hear, I know we all listen to podcasts from people who are doing, you know, multi million dollars In a year. And there are certainly people out there, plenty of people out there who have reached this number much quicker than I did. And that is 100% okay with me. Like I can honest, I would tell you all if it wasn't. But it really. I am just fine with the way my journey has unfolded in the past 10 years. I've had two children. I've had two pregnancies and two children. I've moved states. I've lost a brother. I have been through a lot. It has been a decade of growth. And I'm sure I'll probably do a whole other episode. I reach my 10 years since I left my corporate job in April of 2015. So we'll circle back to all my learnings. I won't get into all of that. But just to know that 2024 was the year when I officially crossed that million dollar mark is, I mean, honestly, like, I don't think it's even fully landed for me that that's the truth. I almost didn't even look at this and tell you all this. Like my think about that. My brain is just like immediately wants to discount it. My brain is like, well, yeah, but you know, I don't know, I don't even know what the, what the excuses are like, oh, well, you took a job at one point. Or oh, but this doesn't include all of your revenue. Or oh, you know, it's, it's a million dollars over the course of your whole business. It's not a million dollars in a year. And it's like I could just catch myself in that and be like, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa. Absolutely huge. Like a million dollars in revenue, a million dollars worth of value that I've created out there in the world. You know, that version of me in 2014 that wanted to become a mom, that didn't want to have the corporate life as a mom was not for me. Didn't see myself being a full time stay at home mom, frankly, not seeing myself as being cut out for that hardest job. I think the hardest looks to me like the hardest job in the world. And I knew that there, like, I just hoped and prayed that there could be another path for me, for me. And listened to podcast after podcast of people who went before me, who that was their reality. And just how surreal for me to be thinking to myself, like, I, I wonder if that could be me. Like, I have to try, I have to try. And I'm just so glad that I did. And yeah, it's taken a decade to get here And I wouldn't have it any other way. You know, like it's been terrifying enough to make multi multiple six figures in one year. I am sure I'll get to the point where I do a seven figure year. But I'm just like this, this is pretty exciting for me. This is getting into some of the things that happened this year. One thing that happened to me this year is I had this light bulb moment where I think going into 2024, I know I wrote down. So first things first. I know one of the goals I wrote down was I wanted to do $300,000 in the business in one year. I had never done that before. Last year I did 262,000. And so I was like, okay, I want to do 300. And then somewhere pretty close to the beginning of the year I was like yeah, but I'm going to stretch for 500, we're going to stretch for 500k. And I think I got it in my head that I wanted 2024 to be a 500, 000 year and then I wanted 2025 to be my first million dollar year. And I would say I walked through probably the first seven or eight, let's call it eight months of 2024 thinking like with that mindset and I can't tell you what changed this or what light bulb flipped off in my head that brought me to this thought. But I do remember driving one day. I remember what I was doing. I was, I was sending a voxer message to my good friend Claire Pels and I just had the thought I don't need to be in a rush, right. I do desire the. I want to hit that milestone. I want to have a seven figure year in my business. I want to become the person who's capable of that. I want to create enough, I want to touch enough people's lives that that's the value that I've created. I want to push my capacity to become the CEO of a business that reaches that level. Like that is a goal for me. But I just had the thought like life is really good where I'm at now. It's really, really good here. My business is doing great. My clients are amazing. I am deeply involved in my clients businesses. They tell me every week that they're amazed at the level of support in the mastermind that I'm able to give them. I know what they're doing, I know their messaging, I know their offers. And I'm not saying I won't be able to do that when my business Scales to that level that will absolutely be non negotiable for me is figuring out how to scale what I do now. But it's good here. You know, My kids are 8 and 5. They each have their own sort of needs. Some of those needs are extra, if you want to say that. And you know, I have a marriage to tend to and I have a lot of exercise goals and body goals and fitness goals and life is good here. I work five hours a day. Do you all know that? Five hours on a good day, I mean, I have between 9:30 and 2:30 Eastern Time. That's when I work. And I've still been able to create what I've been able to create. It's funny, my friend Claire likes to tell me sometimes that I. I'm the type of person who kind of tries to have her cake and eat it too. And I don't think she's wrong, right? Like, I want to be highly, highly available for my kids. I want to be there when they come home from school. I want to be the one picking them up. And I want to run a hugely successful business that is changing people's lives and helping them create massive results. Right. I want to be able to go to the gym. Like, there's just so many things that I want to do and I have to give myself credit for doing all of them. I think there have been times, a hundred percent where it feels like I'm doing all of them not as well as I want to. But isn't that life, you know, at this stage? I think for the stage of life that I'm in, there's just a lot of different hats to be worn and I really want to take a minute to just acknowledge that. It's, it's. I'm speechless in terms of what I've been able to create. Now, make no mistake, I've had to stretch myself and be pushed and push myself and get coaching. So much coaching. So this was definitely a year of support, support in my business, which I'm for sure going to share in this episode. Just how much support I've invested in has made all of the difference. But I'm very happy to report that my goal was. That's what I wrote down in my note. I have it in front of me right now. Very first thing on the list was 300k and looking in Samcart right now on December 13th. There's still, you know, half a month to go and I have some recurring revenue, but I have. The business has done 355 315. Wait, did I say that right? $355,315. So 355k, essentially. So that's my best year in business so far. And I know we've, you know, there's a lot of conversations about economy and it not being the easiest time to sell, and there have definitely been easier times and all of that. And so I share that number with you because, first of all, I know I like hearing, like, the real stuff, but I just, you know, Brooke Castillo likes to talk about being an example of what's possible. And that's always deeply inspiring to me. And so if I can be an example of what's possible, then I will do that. I will choose to do that 10 times out of 10. So I share this to keep it real and keep you posted on my progress. So that's what happened for that goal. Other goals that I have written down here that came true, that I achieved. And let's. Actually, you know what, some of a lot of these are personal and I'm going to talk about those. But let me. I want to, let me stay on the business topic while we're talking about business. Like, how did I create this? What happened? So this year, there were a lot of big changes in my business. This was a big growth year. You know, 2023 was my first full year back in business since I left my job with Mariah. Cause so if you've been here a while, you know, I went out on my. I used to work with Fizzle. I left Groupon. That was my corporate job. I went to work for Fizzle. I left fizzle in about 2018, late 2017, early 2018. I did that until I went to work for a mentor of mine, Mariah Cause as her marketing director in 2021. And I left at the end of 2022. It was an amazing, amazing experience. Really glad I did that. Learned so much. One of the main things I learned is like, entrepreneurial life is just keeps calling to me, right? Like, there's just been multiple times where I've left that I just keep coming back. And even that in itself is such. Is so insightful. And so 2023 was my first full year back in business. And it was. That was a bit of a getting my feet under me kind of year. I started working with my business coach. I really started. I, I got certified as a Life coach in 2023 as well. And so 2024 was really building on the support that I put in place in 2023. I think in 2023, at the end of 2023 is also when I hired my operations assistant. And I want to say, Was it late 2023 or early 2024 that I hired my co coach, Cami? So 2024, that tees us up to 2024, right? That this has really been the year of expanding on the support that I had put in place. And just like, you know, 2023 was kind of like waking everything up and bringing a lot of things back, revitalizing the Mastermind and filling it. At the end of 2023, I launched same day sales. And so then In January of 2024, I made all of that curriculum brand new and brought that first group of clients into that program. So we're. We're not even up on the year, one year anniversary of my same day sales program. So really I did so much in 2024, starting in January, I made a whole new curriculum brand new for same day sales, brand new program, got that program off the ground. And then in March, April, ish, I launched, I did a big launch of the Mastermind. Had a nice successful launch of the Mastermind. And then summer 2024 is when the rubber, like really started to meet the road in terms of pushing my own capacity and doing, to be honest, like, really scary stuff in my business. And that looked like making more investments. I had already invested. Like I said, I am in a coaching mastermind, a business coaching mastermind. I had invested in an operations assistant, a co coach. Like, I definitely had more support and was paying for more stuff than ever before. And so in the summer of 2024, it felt scary to invest in even more stuff. And it was not small stuff. So the biggest thing I invested in in 2024, in addition to renewing my coaching mastermind, which is 15K. So that's a big investment that I make that I've been making, you know, I've made twice now. I invested in my rebrand and so if you scroll back in my feed, you can listen to my episode with Jasmine Haytilani of High Flyer Powerhouse. She is, I met her, met her in my Mastermind and she is the person that I hired to run my rebrand. Total website overhaul. Like, if you all haven't been here through that journey, like, it has been a ride. And at one point I did the math on that investment and for like everything, you know, the redesign, the website, the photo shoot, the clothes, the. We went to Nashville for that shoot. We had three locations, like six or seven outfit changes. It totaled up to about a $25,000 investment for me, Easily the most I've ever spent on anything in the business other than help, you know, like, contractors over time. And that was definitely terrifying, if y'all think. I mean, I've been talking to my clients a lot about this lately. The truth is, I keep really healthy business reserves, which I encourage my clients to do as well. Like, I had the money in the bank, so I keep telling my clients, like, when you're hearing financial objections, even when people have the money, it's still really hard and scary to spend money, right? Like, $25,000 is always $25,000, whether you have it or not. Like, it's never fun or easy to just, like, watch that leave your bank account, especially when you feel like you worked really hard, right, to put that there in the first place. And so that decision, I think, is one of the. It's probably, like, the banner decision for the year that just kind of, like, I think when I look back, I'll always remember that 2024 was the year that I rebranded, and it was so much more than a rebrand. I've told Jasmine this multiple times that for me, it was really about stepping into my true, like, coach identity. Like. Like, finally, I feel like stephcrowder.com and my visuals and my branding and my photos, they actually match my experience and my reputation in this industry, because I've been here for 10 years, right? And this industry has taken a lot of people out, and I'm still out here. And my old website was absolutely just, like, it was outdated. It was not me. It was, like, you know, giving 2016 vibes. And the truth is, like, I've grown up so much, like, we all have. And so to have, you know, the visual, like, my presence online reflect the way that I want to see myself and the way that I want to carry myself, I for sure underestimated the impact that would have on me. It has changed everything. It has made me so much better than my clients or for my clients. I think I have increased my coaching chops so much. I think I've become a much better coach, a more confident coach. 2024. I've told my clients this is also the year that I became more interested in their results than their feelings towards me, and that is absolutely huge. I tell them this all the time, that when you are optimized, I should do a whole podcast episode, actually, on client results versus client happiness. So don't get me wrong. I'd prefer they be happy. I would love for Everybody to think I'm great of like I'm a human being, right? But when you make decisions from a place of just getting people to throw roses at you, at you, or like, try to, you know, just say whatever it takes to make them like you or bend over backwards in a way that violates your own boundaries and burning yourself out just to, you know, client says jump, you say, how high? In a way that's not even helpful for them. At the end of the day. 2024 is really the year that I learned that when I draw boundaries, when I take vacation, that was also the first year that I used my co coach appropriately to be able to take time off and be able to take a vacation. I'm going on a birthday trip next week, actually where I am going to be off. We're closing the company for the holidays. Like, those were decisions that would have had me shaking in my boots a year ago. They're going to be so mad at me. We're going to get so many complaints. And don't get me wrong, I still don't love the thought of that, but I am just so much more confident and self assured that like, even if I ever make a decision that maybe isn't a client's like, favorite thing in the world, right? Like, it's okay for clients to have feelings about us. It's okay for them to wish things were a little bit different. It's okay. It's okay, right? Because I know and I think at the end of the day, my clients know. My clients are like so understanding and amazing. I think my clients know at the end of the day that me not taking care of myself is not actually in their best interest. Me not resting, me not taking the time to celebrate and, you know, get to do some of these amazing things in my life that I get to do that I come back and I'm 5x10x the business coach that I could be because I'm taking care of myself. 2024 was really the year that I embraced the idea that a full cup, when you fill your own cup with rest, with nourishment, with abundance, your cup runs over and can fill other people's cups. Right? We've all heard the expression, you can't pour from an empty cup. And it never really resonated with me. I don't know why. It just never really super landed. But this year I heard the idea of the that, you know, that phrase, my cup runneth over. It's really about your cup is running over because you're taking the time to fill yourself and take care of yourself. Like, the ruthless commitment that I've made to taking care of myself, even when it is scary. Like, in a lot of ways, it would be easier to just burn myself out. Oh, let me just get back to this client really fast so they're not mad. Or let me just, like, not take a day off so that, you know, in case somebody needs something. Right. Not realizing that in the end, the person that I'm hurting the most with that decision, actually my clients. Because I lived that life for years. And you know what happened? I had to close my business. I had to close my doors, and I couldn't help them anymore. And so the more I've owned my need to take care of myself and to rest and to have an amazing life, the better my clients are doing in their businesses. I got more client results this year. I helped my clients get more results than any other year. We started measuring results much more closely, which, in a moment, that brings me into another investment that I made. But, yeah, this became the year that I really leaned into. I want to know how my clients are actually doing. Not if they're happy, not if they love me, not if they think I'm the best, although that would all be great. But the number one thing I want to care about is what's my report card looking like? How am I doing if y'all hire me for a job, which is to help you figure out how to get more clients in your business, you hire me for that job, I make it my business to know how I'm doing and how you're doing and how we're doing together. And so with that, another big investment that I made this year was into the operation side of my business. So I already mentioned that I hired an operations assistant that was incredibly helpful, like, game changer, for sure. And then I also hired Ashley at Systems Over Stress to help us set up operations systems on the back end, using airtable to track client. Everything my clients are doing. So we keep records on everything our clients are doing, every question they ask, every time they post in our community, every time they get coached, every time they submit for feedback, how much money they're making. Right. All of that stuff is tracked in my system. So again, I can know for sure what my client results look like. Right. I think Ashley calls it having the receipts. We got receipts over here. This year, 2024, we've got receipts. And we know that on average, in the mastermind, our clients are making back their investment four to five Times on average. Right. And so being able to know that and see that has impacted my coach identity. You want to talk about confidence? All you guys are always telling me you want confidence. You need to have the courage to measure your client results. Okay. And if you're, like scared to find out that your clients aren't getting results, well, then you need to go and learn how to help clients get better results. You need to learn how to become a better coach. Right. You need to get some support in figuring out what can I do, how can I optimize my program, how can I coach them better, how can I train them better, how can I teach them better to help them do what they came here to do sometimes with my clients, and it's very common, they'll come to me and be like, I'm scared to promise client results because I can't promise that. And while we can't go to our clients houses and make them do things, I absolutely think that you can make it your business to see how your clients are actually doing. And if they're missing the mark, then you have to. I think this takes courage. You have to make it your business to make changes and figure out how to fix things to get them where they're going, to get them the results that they are trying to get. Right. So that was absolutely huge as well. That's impacted my coach identity, my confidence. It's helped me bring in, I think the clients that I've worked with this year. The client type is. Has changed a little bit in terms of we've had. If you had told me a year ago, some of the clients and their revenue level would have scared me to death a year ago. I coach clients who are making more money than me in their business, and they hire me over and over again. Right. And I am definitely a subscriber to the thought that even an Olympian needs a coach. Okay. Simone Biles coach can't do it as good as Simone Biles does it. Right. So I'm not out here saying that I need to have the most revenue in my business to be able to coach somebody. I have coached some of my clients who have a bigger business than me to have incredible years. Right. And again, they just continue to hire me. So having, like showing myself that I am the real deal, that I am able to coach CEOs who are making over 500k in a year is that has been huge for me to just like, I just feel unstoppable in terms of I'm. There's really no one I'm afraid to coach anymore. And that is a huge change. I used to kind of think to myself, like, oh, I don't want to get anybody who's too big because like, I'm afraid I can't help them. I 100% know that if there's somebody out there who wants to work towards having their program sold out every single time they offer them, I can help you with that. I can help you with that. And I'm, I'm super talented when it comes to figuring that stuff out. And so that has been absolutely huge. Last thing on the business side I think that I'll share right now is with the rebrand. This is, I can't go without mentioning this. With the rebrand came the decision to change my Mastermind pretty significantly. So the Mastermind was known as the Messy Middle. And it was a six month program that was 6K. It is now a year long program for 8K and it's called sold out group programs. And it's interesting because the Messy Middle, a lot of people love that name and I do too. I know it's a very sticky name. It's very memorable. And make no mistake, messy. I think about meth the word messy all the time because like messy is a big part of my identity. I am someone who makes takes messy action, bold action, and I tell y'all to do that all the time and I'll never stop. Right? So being in the messy middle of entrepreneurship is still a really big part of the Mastermind, but I made the decision to really make the program focus. The focus of the program is not about like being in the mess, right. Although the people who come to me feeling that messiness, right. That certainly is a big part of it. But the focus is on getting them to the other side of the mess, to having a sold out group program and working towards that ultimately. And that's really made a big difference. I think again, in terms of who's joining the Mastermind and in terms of the results that people are getting. I see people getting more results in the program because they are focused on the results that they're trying to get versus hyper fixating on. Oh, I'm a mess, I'm a mess, my mess, I'm a mess. And having that be the bulk of our conversations is kind of just like staying stuck in the mess. It feels like the focus is on moving towards the ultimate result. And so that's been a really big shift. But that was terrifying. I had to get so much coaching. I had to really go through months of sitting with the. I mean, I mean, I had helped, you know, probably over a hundred clients in the Mastermind with the name messy Middle. I've made multiple six figures with that offer. It was definitely scary and it felt like a risk to change the name of that program. And I've recorded episodes about how I made that change. So if you're interested in that, you can kind of go back in the feed and listen to those episodes. But that ended up being a really big and exciting change. And I still love the idea of being in the messy middle. But overall, I am really glad we made the change to sold out group programs. I'm really loving knowing that I have a year with my clients instead of six months. Because what was happening is most of my clients would sign up for a second six months anyway. But a lot of times we would be getting to the six month mark and I'd be like, oh man, it's just getting good. It's just getting juicy. And now you're going to leave me, like, what a bummer. And so to know that, like that second six months with them, we can just really start to have some fun is incredibly exciting. So that is a lot of what happened in the business in 2024. Some other things that I just wanna share that I wrote down that I think are really fun that go beyond the business that happened were one thing I wrote down. Remember how I said that? I wrote things down without really any real idea how they would come to fruition. I wrote down, take my daughter to Disney World. So my daughter is 8, she was 7 at the time. And we really haven't done Disney. We went to Disney when she was 2 and then we had my son and we just like, haven't been. I don't know, we're just like. The whole thing was very intimidating to me and I knew it was gonna be very expensive and very overwhelming. So I ended up taking her. And you know what, I made that decision pretty quickly. Once the year started, I was like, you know what? We're just gonna do it. She had a February break from school. My son's at a different school, so he didn't have the break. My husband was happy to just stay home and work and have my son go to school like normal. My daughter and I went to Disney in February and had the best time. The best time. Like, absolutely one of my top, top, top memories of 2024. And like I said, when I wrote that down, I was like, what am I going to do that? Do that? How am I Going to do that. That doesn't make any sense. And I'm so glad that I just wrote it down, even with the doubt and skepticism, because it ended up happening. I worked with a Disney planner who was amazing and made it so easy. Did you know these Disney planners are free? You don't have to pay extra for that. Incredible. And she took a lot of the guesswork out of it for us, and we just had the best time. That was definitely one of my top memories for the year. Another thing I wrote down that happened that I am really proud of is I wrote down hire an interior designer. I think maybe I've shared this goal on the podcast in the past, and I did it. I brought in this amazing company that's local to me, and we did a few projects around the house. We finished out my outdoor space. We kind of spruced up my family room. I had these. This, like, shelving area that looks just really great now. It brings me so much joy every time I walk past it. And it just gave my home a bit of an up level. And it felt really amazing to be supported in this way of, like, you know, allowing these spaces to be finished. We moved into this house over three years ago now. I guess it's coming on three and a half years ago, and I just kind of felt like it wasn't done. There are still some spaces that feel that way, but that was a huge step to loving my home that much more and just allowing myself. I kept saying, like, we built this house during the pandemic. And I kept saying, like, I allowed myself to build this home, but I never allowed myself to, like, fully make it a home and to invest into the finishing touches. And so to do that has been really revolutionary for just how cozy it feels and how much joy I get at home. And then the last thing that I wrote down that happened that I am just so proud of, this one is huge. Coming in at the last minute, I just made this, this. This transfer in my bank account. But since I left my company in 2015, 10 years ago, I stopped contributing to retirement. I know it's really bad. Somebody out there is like, oh, no. My husband's been contributing to his. But I don't know. As an entrepreneur, maybe you identify with this, but I just. It's harder to watch that cash leave the bank account because I like to have good cash reserves. I always have the thought, like, I don't know what's coming. And so this year, last year, what ends up happening when you have that mindset is you End up with really high profit. And that sounds good, but it's actually not when you get your tax bill. And so 2023, I got pretty hammered on my profit from a tax perspective. And so this year, I had the courage to ask my accountant, what can I do from a tax strategy perspective to be a little bit smarter with this revenue that I worked so hard to earn, right? And so she said, well, you can max out your retirement. And so just this week, I maxed out a solo 401k and put what feels to me like a huge sum of money, $23,000 into retirement for myself. And just sitting with that, like, that's one of the things that people don't leave their job because of, right? You think, oh, my retirement, right? So it's always benefits in retirement. And it took me 10 years to get up the courage to do it, but I did it and I maxed it out. And I'm taking care of my future because one of the things I wrote down in my goal was to talk to my accountant about retire, like having. Having the option to retire early. I wrote down retire by 45. That's pretty aggressive. I think we're going to. In 2020. 2025, we modified that to 50 to being work optional by 50. Even that is probably pretty aggressive. But that, you know, when I write down these goals, I want them to be aggressive. I want them to scare me. I want to not really know how they're going to happen. And so that I got to check that one off. I did, you know, take a step towards that, a bold step, a step that does scare me. And so I am really, really, really proud of that one. There are some other things on the list that I didn't quite get to. And that's okay. I'm still glad that I wrote them down. At the beginning of 2024, I thought I was like, I was hoping that a book deal would come my way. Funny enough, I actually ended up having conversations about a book deal and ended up sort of feeling like it's just not the right time in my life. It's gonna happen. I will. I have more to focus on in the business, in my family life before I get to that point. So I'm okay with letting that one go. But that was on the list. I wanted to take a trip abroad. I didn't make it abroad this year. There is sort of like a fitness and sort of a personal fitness and body goal. Not quite to the point. I'm working on some body composition changes for those of you who are kind of fitness nerds like me. I'm not quite where I want to be there, but I definitely made a lot of strength gains in 2024. And then this one's kind of funny. I had written, complete my home gym with cold plunge and sauna. I did not do that in 2024. To start the year, I worked out at home a lot. I think about halfway through the year, I got tired. It was September. I got tired of where I'd been working out alone in my basement or at my gym, just by myself, using the Madeline Moves app, which I've shared before. Love that app. I still have it, and I still use it sometimes, but in September, I actually went back to my favorite, my first love, Burn Boot Camp. So I've been back at Burn Boot Camp. So that goal didn't end up making the most sense. But who knows? I still would really like to have a sauna. Cold plunge. I don't know. I don't know if I can get on board with the cold plunge, but I would love to have that. And those are the. Those were the. The goals that I wrote down. So I ended up checking off half of those. And again, these were goals that were really supposed to scare me. And I looked at these goals, thinking, like, I don't know how that's going to happen. And I'm just really proud of what I've been able to create in 2024. It was a hard year. It was a busy year, and I feel like 2025 is really going to be the year. Well, we're going to do a whole episode about 2025, but 2025 is going to be the year about sustainability and creating more sustainability in the business. So I am ready to really scale to that next level. But I really want to encourage you to write down your goals like this in a note in your phone. I am so glad I did this, and I'm going to do it again for 2025. I'm going to share a podcast episode with you about that so that you just can look at this. I looked at this multiple times through the year, and I'd be like, ooh, that retirement goal. Like, let's look. We need to make some. Like, that wouldn't have happened if I hadn't had that written down. So that is the power of, you know, actually putting it onto paper, putting it. I like it in the iPhone note because it's right there in front of me. It's not hidden away in some drawer. It's not in some notebook I'm never going to open again. So put it somewhere where you'll look at it. And even if you quote, unquote, only check off half of them, the half that you check off are they're. It's going to blow your mind. It's going to blow your mind. So write them down and challenge yourself to write down some things that you're like. I have no idea how that would enter my life. Like book deal. I can't even believe I was having a conversation with people about book deal this year. Crazy. Like, I could actually probably check that off because those conversations came my way, which was incredible in and of itself. Like that. My inner child loved, even entertaining, writing a book. And so that's all I have for you for today, about 2024. Thank you for being here with this journey. On this journey with me. I have produced lots of podcast episodes. I've taken y'all along for the ride. Um, I'm just so grateful that you're here and that you're part of what I'm building here in the world and that you resonate and you vibe with me and you're part of my crew. I appreciate you so much. I can't wait to share what's in store for 2025. I'm only getting started 10 years in, $1 million in, and I feel like I'm truly just cutting my teeth. I feel like I'm just hitting my stride. So if you like what you've heard around here, I think you're going to really like what's ahead. So, my friends, I'm wishing you the courage and the clarity to go after what you love. I'll see you next time.