Sam and Shaan's New Year's Resolutions
I would say that the last 24 months of yours have been the best ever.
Yeah, they've been dope. Can't, can't lie. And that's great. And I share that because, you know, it's okay for things to be good.
I feel like I could rule the world. I know I could be what I want to. I put my all in it like no days off on the road. Let's travel, never looking back.
Where do you want to start? You want to start with some New Year's Eve stuff and then we go from there? Yeah. All right. So you— it looks like you do resolutions or something like that.
So I posted that in here. I don't want to mention all the numbers, but are you a serial resolutor?
Like, do you do this every year or no?
And where'd you get that from? That doesn't seem like you. That seems like you got that from somebody.
I made that up.
Oh, you did? Okay. All right. I like that.
Why?
I thought like, I don't know, like Ramit Sethi or something. I thought like, that seems just like very frameworked out. I feel like you would borrow that.
No, that's mine. That's mine. And the reason I keep that, I keep that thing at the top of my, of all my notes. So I, yeah, I'm always using that. So yeah, yeah, I hit it and I, I usually always—
So the ones again were body, money, mind, adventure, and random. Is that right? Yeah. All right. So walk me through, and by the way, do you usually hit these? Because I think there's this famous thing, like January 18th is International Quitter's Day because that's how long most resolutions last, about 18 days or something like that. It's like 28th or 18th, 20th, 21st, something like that. Most people don't even make it 3 weeks. And that's why, you know, resolutions are a little bit— there's something, there's something underneath it. That's, that's a crumbling foundation, but you seem like an achiever who actually—
I hit— I don't hit all of them. I hit 70%, 75%. I hit most of them. Like this year I wanted to do some athletic stuff, but I got hurt. And so getting hurt was the only reason why I wasn't able to get it done. But other than that, yeah, I'll get them done. So I'll say them. So body, 12% body fat, 20-minute 5K, 35-inch vert, and then my first real boxing match. Money, I want to hit a certain amount just in index funds. I want to invest a certain amount via my syndicate. I want to make $1 outside of my main core competency. And I, I want to understand my spending, dude. I struggle to track how much I spend each month and I want to figure that out. Do you struggle with that?
I don't struggle with that, but I struggle with, I've just learned the value of bookkeeping in this past year. Like now that, now that my business life is a lot more complex because it used to be all in on one startup and we had somebody who did payroll, books, managed books, all that. And then it was like, okay, then I've had a job before and we have a job. You just get your W-2. To, and that's it. You go on your way. And now that I have like multiple businesses and things like this, I'm like, fuck, a bookkeeper is like actually one of the most critical hires cuz it tells you about your spending and what's money in, money out. But more importantly, it's like prevention rather than the cure. You prevent having problems when it comes to taxes and/or cash flow planning because you're on top of things rather than trying to reconcile shit at the last minute.
So it's, yes, I agree with all that. It's just hard for personal stuff because It's hard for a bunch of reasons, so I gotta figure that out. And then for mind, I, I, I want to pick one thing to focus on. I gotta figure out a little bit focus. I, I, I tend to read a lot, but often I read stuff just to make, to improve my life. But really I just, I wanna read for fun a lot more than I have. I want to get, become far more comfortable with money. I think I've got a pretty unhealthy relationship with how I view money. I have somewhat of a scarcity mindset and I wanna focus more on creating a schedule. I've been real loose with my schedule lately. And then finally have more fun. I don't think I have enough fun and I need to lighten up for After I do these 15 goals and tasks, I will have more fun. I'm pretty like uptight. And then finally, adventure. Alright, so I'm gonna go to a self-defense gun class. I'm gonna take a motorcycle trip in 2 weeks. I want to go hunting for the first time. I want to camp more, and I want to take a rally car class. That's what I want to do.
Those are good. I like that you have these 2 categories, adventure and random. I don't think most people have adventures that they want to go on and random in their life, which is— they should. I think it's a miss. Yeah, if you don't—
so my random one is I've got a really bad tattoo on my upper thigh. I want to get covered up. Hmm, it's a homemade tattoo, and depending on which way you look at it, it either says wow or mom.
Is your mom flattered by that?
No, of course not. It's a dude. It's fucking awful. It's the worst.
Okay, so what do you want to talk about with this? So where do you want to go with this?
This— what is yours?
So I don't do resolutions for two reasons. One is if I decide that I want something, I just immediately start to pursue it. So what that means is by the time January 1st rolls around, I don't have like unstarted adventures that I need to decide on. Because if it was December 14th and I was like, ah, I really need to lose weight, I would start December 14th. I might not finish the goal or whatever, but I just start goals as soon as the— I kind of have that mindset of inspiration is perishable. It expires. Inspiration's like an avocado. And so you want to you want to strike while the avocado is still green. And so that's, that's the first reason I don't do resolutions. The second is they frankly didn't work well, very well for me. So when I did do them, I was more like the January 18th quitter's day guy and I wasn't great at sticking to them. And so I was like, well, this is a stupid system then. So the system that actually works for me is two things. I do an end of the year reflection. So I, I basically just go through these five categories similar to yours.
Yeah.
Uh, I have this life dashboard that I do. It's basically health, 1 to 5, where am I at? Wealth, 1 to 5, where do I feel? Play, so that's kind of like your adventure. So how much fun am I having? How much am I enjoying my day to day?
And you just rank these?
I don't rank these. I got a 1 to 5 scale, 1 being I'm totally dissatisfied with this area of my life, 5 being I'm so proud of where I am in this area of my life. Where would I rank it? So for many years, if I was really out of shape, my health was just perpetually a 2 out of 5. I was like, well, I don't have a fucking disease, so it's not a 1, but I'm not proud of where I'm at with this. And so it was like a 2, 2, 2. And now it's like a 4 because I'm really proud that I've switched my habits up. And so I just do a reflection because what I've found is you just, it's like what gets measured gets managed type of thing. It's like if just by shining a light on this area of my life, I ended up with way more clarity about what am I doing? What important things am I neglecting? What unimportant things have I been over-optimizing? And just being aware of it is like the first step. And I try to be just, if I try to focus on the awareness rather than coming up with a solution and a fix right away. So that's the first part. That's the first exercise I do.
So, all right, so what, what, what were the rankings this year?
Okay, so I'll go through and I did this last year. So the, the first thing is I look at the change. So I try to see, okay, how much has changed between last, last year, this year? So, uh, health is now at a 4. Work is at a 4.5 out of 5. So that's almost perpetually my highest ranking one is work. Play, play is now at a 4.5 also. Kids made it a lot more fun and working out with friends every single day made it more fun. So that was a big boost to the play because kids just make you be silly. You can't be serious around kids. They're bored. So you have to be a goofball, or at least that's for me. I have to be a goofball.. And in doing so, I'm just having actually more fun myself. I'm doing it for them, but then really I get the benefit. The last two categories are love. So, you know, relationship with wife, with, you know, my mom, my sister, stuff like that. And then the last one is self-respect. And so self-respect is the highest it's ever been. It's a 4.5 now. So this is the, honestly, of my life dashboard, this is the highest it's ever been. So I, you know, this would be like a peak year, I guess I just had for, you know, as long as I've been doing this, which is about 5 years or so.
That's crazy. What was the lowest?
Uh, lowest was love because I really— like, me and my wife are just like not spending much time together because it's like she has one kid and I have the other kid, or if she has both kids I'm like, great, I'm gonna get some work done. And then same thing if I have both the kids, she's like, great, I'm gonna go shower for the first time in 2 days. Like, we just are not hanging out much. And then all these other things I'm doing, like work or working out or all the stuff that takes up a bunch of time, and I realize like we haven't spent too much time together in the last, you know, year. And so that's actually like the lowest one on my, on my board. I don't know what I've scored. I think maybe it was like a 3 or something.
For the last 5 years, though, what was the lowest year?
What was the— oh, what was the worst year? Probably when I first started this, which is like why I started it, because I was like feeling down. I was like, I need to like— what is it really down? I need to like check the scoreboard and then I need to make the scoreboard better. But like, let me check the scoreboard. I remember it was at the beginning. Health was super low. Work was low because I felt like I was in this 5-year slog of my startup and I just didn't see a light at the end of the tunnel. It was like, is this shit ever going to work? Like, am I actually a dumbass? And like, I think I'm smart, but I'm actually a dumbass and that's why this is not working. I was just— health was low, work was low, play was low, love and self-respect were fine back then. And, and now, you know, things have all shifted.
Good. Well, I would say that the last 24 months of yours have been the best ever.
Yeah, yeah, they've been dope. Can't, can't lie. And that's great. And I share that because, you know, it's okay for things to be good. I think we live in a, in a, in a culture where you are supposed to be sort of like ashamed of being happy, uh, in a way. It's like, it's like it's a bigger status signal to be like vulnerable about how depressed you are than open about how happy you are. You're like obnoxious if you're happy and you're like, you know, a vulnerable hero if you're sad. And I just think that's silly. Yeah, like, it's— you're fine, be whatever you are, but just celebrate when somebody is what they actually are and are aware of it. You don't give points for one or the other and like celebrate one or the other. And especially this weird reverse thing where we celebrate people who are like, you know, in the dumps.