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Hello CEO teachers. Welcome back to the show. This week we're going to be talking about 2024 wrapped. We're going to talk about what worked for our company and what didn't. So stick around. You don't want to miss it. Remember sitting in class stressed out about the pop quiz that the teacher was going to give? Well, this is nothing like this, friends. We've been working on this for so long. I love a good quiz that's going to tell me about myself and help me be a better version of me. And that's exactly what this quiz is all about. It's just for teachers. And in case you're tired of grading papers until midnight or feeling undervalued and underpaid, or tired of sacrificing your work life balance, we get it. If you are looking to not lose time in the rabbit hole of googling and looking for answers to just sell your lesson plans or start your teacher business online, let's flip the script right here. Today I got a personalized path that will help you figure out exactly what you deserve based on who you are and what you do best, which is teaching. Would you finally feel confident enough to go all in to dream big and regain your passion for education in a brand new way? If so, let's take the two minute quiz together to reveal and discover your custom step by step CEO Teacher fast track to starting or creating and selling your offers online as a teacher. It starts@caseymorris.com quiz it'll only take you about two minutes and the results will come flying into your inbox. And remember, it's not one size fits all. This is your gear to shine. Casey morris.com quiz is your customized lesson plan for business building teacher style. Head on over to K A Y S E M O r r I s.com quiz to get your hands on this brand spanking new personalized syllabus. Quick start today. Katherine Pulsifer said goals are like a map. They help us determine where we want to end up and give us a personal direction on which to focus our energy. And Charle Noble said you must have long term goals to keep you from being frustrated by short term failures. So I want you to think about reviewing your 2024 year. You should do this personally and professionally because reviewing your year not only gives you the chance to pinpoint issues and kickstart a new year with solutions, but it also creates solid strategies for growth in the future. And I am looking to grow in 2025. I don't know about you guys but it's been a year, y'all. It has been a year between divorce and a major hurricane that caused catastrophic damage to my hometown. Finding myself losing myself, not being the best version of me all year, I am so ready to get back to it. If you are a solopreneur, meaning that you do things on your own for your business, you have to take into account that you have a busy life, you have a personal life, you have maybe full time teacher status. And every aspect to truly grow within the new year is going to come down to your planning for 2025. But I want you to remember, give yourself some grace. Understand the season of life that you're in and what you can actually manage. Because if I'm being honest, there is absolutely no way I could have managed this year without my team. My divorce was finalized in early January of 2024. We were separated before then, of course, but managing four children as a single mom and understanding pickups and drop off practices, my children have mostly my undivided support. And so it's been a challenging year. I had to be selfless in moments, but also selfish in moments. And I put them first a lot, but I also put myself first. I was struggling to just trying to figure it all out. So think about the season of life that you're in and give yourself some grace. We all start somewhere. Whether you are someone who's been doing this for a decade like me, or you are just now getting started, I just want you to remember that progress is just one step at a time. I have a tattoo of a butterfly on the back of my arm and it's been a really beautiful reminder that there are seasons when we have to grow in our life and we have to kind of go back to the basics of being in a different form, like a caterpillar into the version of a beautiful butterfly that we have to become. And that's just the up and down of life. So let's break down those big goals into smaller, more manageable steps. Let me share with you what worked and what didn't for our, our business in 2024. What no longer served me the 5am Club. And I hate it. I actually, I actually love. I tried to go back this week and I try or last week I went to the 5:30am class and I freaking loved it. Got up, struggled to get up at 4:45, but I got up, got dressed for the gym, got to the gym, was so happy, left the gym, best mood ever, got the kids up for school. I was vibing, I was like, yes, this is it. This is everything. And then the reality hit me about 3 o'clock in the afternoon when I started pickups for the four kids. And then we had swim practice and then we had guitar lessons and we also had batting lessons and I was trying to cook dinner. My boyfriend started working a new job and so he's been so helpful with me all year long. To know that someone can just come in and help you with your kids is insane. So it's just such a blessing. But he started a new job and he's working in the evenings and I, I can't. I can't do it all. I can't manage it all. That was my puppy, my new puppy, in case you heard him. I'm working from home now and I have a dog, so if you hear of a dog in the background, that's what it is. So I, I couldn't manage y'all. I was at swim practice, like in tears, picking up my 14 year old waiting in the parking lot. I had my dinner in my hand, eating, and I could barely keep my eyes open. I probably ingested a thousand milligrams of caffeine that day, easy. And I couldn't make it. I don't, I don't have time to take a nap in the middle of the day like I used to when I was the 5am Club. And so this season of life means I have to figure it out. My workout schedule is all over the place. I tried 7:30am and then I couldn't just get my work done. I'm making excuses right now, but I need to figure out a better workout routine and a better workout schedule not only for my mental health, but also for my physical health in 2025. Something else that's been a part of my life for a long time is my church schedule. And I went to church every single Sunday with my kids. And then as I've gotten a divor, I can't, I can't manage going to church every other weekend. And I'm probably making an excuse for that too. But I get really sad when I have to go to church without my kids. And so I do church here at the house on those Sundays and I put on praise and worship music and sometimes I watch some online church services. And I haven't done a very good job of keeping up with my spiritual self as much as I need to. So that's something that didn't work for me in 2024. That has worked for me the majority of my life. And I Want to make sure that I can get back to that as well. Something else is that didn't work for me was being available to everyone as much as I could be. The past couple of years I have gotten really slack on answering messages such as emails, Instagram messages, text messages, phone calls. And it was just a season in life where I was just trying to survive, not necessarily thrive. And I am trying to find out a better way to communicate with people that I love and still prioritize that, but also make sure that I am there primarily for my family. Now let's talk about what did work for us in our company. That is something I think you might can take with you in 2024. What worked for us was data driven decision making. Things like making informed business decisions. So making changes that get you off of that same old same old wheel for us, being able to shift our Instagram strategy into one that was more real focused and implementing something like ManyChat in 2024 that was able to send those direct messages when I was not available to do that and get people on our email list. We had more free leads this year than we've ever, which helped us with our ad spend and allowed us to grow when it came to our email list. So I want you to think about why you should try to find free ways to add people to your email list. But this is a constantly evolving world in the online marketing space and manningchat worked for us for so many months and then it started to deteriorate because it started to get flooded. Instagram kind of caught on to what was going on. And so while that did work in 2024, that's not our main focus and our main strategy for next year. What also worked was exp expanding our offerings to meet our audience where they were. So we only offered our membership for the last two years and we realized that it may not be the best decision for some people in the beginning of their businesses at the price point that we had increased it to because a lot of people weren't ready for the large library that we offered inside of our membership, which was about $79 a month. Like if you're just starting your business, you can barely afford to buy Clipart, much less to purchase a $79 membership that's going to help you make money. So we tried to make our decisions by expanding our offerings to meet our audience exactly where they were and creating offers that our people needed, even if that means that we weren't making as much money or we had to do a little Bit more research on our end. It was well worth it because at the end of the day it allowed us to grow our community and as our online space grows and AI starts to make a bigger impact, I want you to remember that you got to carve out spaces for people to connect more in real and not just kind of do the same thing only on a different day. Next is we got really clear on our priorities. We created a flexible work week. We really allow our employees, including myself, to teach and connect and work around life, not the other way around. We are very busy during our launch seasons. We are working probably close to seven days a week. We are in the thick of it as much as we can. But when it's not launch season, we are very, very considerate of how we want live our lives, what that looks like on a day to day basis. Our employees get paid, quote unquote hourly. But I don't check their hours. I have no idea how many hours they work. I just know that they get the job done and that is a beautiful thing. We also encourage them to get travel getaways, things that are for work and personal. This year I did a lot of travel when it comes to seeing concerts and going out to find myself again. And I'm really happy that I did that. I took my kids to a lot of concerts, but I didn't necessarily travel as much this year as far as going to do things and finding adventure as much as I would have liked to. And I really want to get back to that in 2025. What also worked for me was mental health support. I started therapy this year and I am so grateful. I get to see my therapist every other week. And it was kind of a rough go in the beginning. I didn't love it. I was like, oh, I have to talk to someone about my feelings. And he is judgmental and I don't mean that in a bad way. He's just going to tell me exactly what he thinks about it. And that was hard for me because I was already struggling. I was already like, look, I wanted to play the victim, like feel bad for me. I'm, I'm really in a bad place. And he wouldn't let me feel that way. And so if you struggle with your mental health. I've talked before about being on medication and how it significantly saved my life over a decade ago. But I incorporated therapy this year and I think that my therapist helped me grow in ways that I would have never been able to do on my own. I also started implementing self help books Again, I was really good at reading self help books when I first left the classroom. And then I kind of just thought that I had my mindset under wraps and I didn't really need to do that anymore. But the reality is, is that we have to keep working on ourselves each and every day. Another thing that really worked for me is that I joined a mastermind. I found a community that really helped me grow. I am in Jeff Walker's Plat plus Mastermind, which is a dream for me. I'm in a group with about 30 individuals who are some of the most successful entrepreneurs in the entire world. I know you've heard me talk about it before, but I can't get over how amazing it is to be centered in a room full of energetically positive people that are working towards a common goal of making the world a better place by serving people instead of selling to them. And I have recognized that I am the dumbest person in the room and that feels so good for my growth. Here are four tips for reviewing your year that will help you make great, informed decisions for 2025. I want you to revisit your business plan and your values. I talked to one of my students this morning on Instagram, direct messages and she said she had hired someone that's helping her kind of flesh out what her core values are going to be as a company. And I think you need this for your business, but, but also your life. Some of our core values here at Team CEO Teacher are be a good human, be good to all people, family first, family always. But I want you to think about what your values could be that will help you get back on track when you're trying to make a decision like, should I do this or not? If I, if I go back to, well, let me just remember that I want to be a good human and I'm going to be good to all people. It allows me to make sure that our goals align with saying yes to things that we want to do and no to things that we don't want to do by remembering who we are, who we serve, and with that, we're able to make better informed decisions. I want you to also celebrate your accomplishments. Yes, even the smallest wins. I think that social media allows us to forget what we have done, what we have accomplished, because we're always looking to do something bigger and better than before. We're always looking to be just like someone else that we see on the Internet when the reality is, is that that's not life, that's not real life. I want you to be a good person in your home. I want you to make good decisions based on what's going on in your daily life and just say, you know what? I did the best I could do today. And when you give yourself a little bit of grace in that area, it's a lot easier to keep moving. Next, I want you to think about what didn't work. Like me, I had to kind of come to terms with, okay, Casey, what can you manage? What can you not? And how are you just going to be okay with it without feeling like you're a victim or feeling like you're making an excuse and just remembering it's just a season, it's just who you are right now, but it's not who you're going to be in the future. And then finally, I want you to set new goals for your future. I recently purchased an Erin Condren planner, which I have about five of them, but I haven't gotten one in the last like two or three years. And so this has been really good for me to get back on track for 2025. Whenever I plan my life, my life falls into place. Whenever I don't plan my life, life seems to have a plan for me. So I want you to create new goals for your future. Smart goals that you can check off throughout the year. And then you could see each quarter what's working and what's not. Let's be real. Success isn't a one step miracle. Whether you're building a business or mastering a new skill, it takes small, consistent steps. I want you to commit one step at a time to building the dreams of your future in the new year. And remember that each and every year is a new way to write the story to this thing called life. Thanks so much for listening to this week's show of the CEO Teacher Podcast. We're off next week on Christmas Day. We are going to take the week off and I hope that you will as well if you celebrate the holidays. Happy holidays to you and your family. I am looking forward to ringing in the new year and making sure that 2025 looks nothing like 2024 and I hope that you are as well. As always, remember your best is yet to come and I'll see you on the other side of.