Hey Y’all,

It’s February, and 2024 no longer feels so new.

This is the time of year that’ll make or break most people.

A study performed for the Time Magazine article, “How Now to Fail at Keeping Your New Year’s Resolutions,” revealed that by February, 80% of people had abandoned the goals they set on January 1st.

While that 80% figure may sound disheartening, the way we see it is that 20% of the population has kept up with establishing new habits, bettering themselves, and bucking the status quo.

We expect you’re likely in that 20%. As such, we want to encourage you to keep going. Keep progressing. Keep fighting for healthy, sustainable change! That’s what this newsletter is all about.

Perhaps you see yourself in the 80% who’ve reverted to your old ways. Well, this newsletter is for you, too. Let this be a reminder and admonition not to give up. You can achieve the abundant life you desire. But it’s a journey, and you gotta keep walking the path.

The good news is, no matter where you’re at or how motivated you’re feeling to press on, you’re not alone! The Abundant Journey community is proof of that.

So, let’s take a few more steps ahead together.

On Tap Today:

• Wisdom From the Week:

  • Visualizing the Good Life

  • Personal Market Fit

  • Contrarian Advice on Fear

• Some Housekeeping

Wisdom from the Week

1 // Visualizing the Good Life

In setting goals, it’s all too easy to miss the masterpiece for the individual brush strokes.

In other words, you can get so focused on the little things that you lose sight of the bigger picture.

Our goals often sound like: “I’m going to hit the gym four times, make 50 cold calls, and take my wife out on a date every week.”

That’s great. And we could get even more granular by running each goal through the SMART framework. That’s even better.

But!

Goal setting (much less goal achieving) will never work if we lose sight of The Why.

Another way of defining your why is to visualize ‘The Good Life.’

We all have a picture of what our ideal life looks like. The problem is, for many of us, that picture hangs crooked on the walls of our subconscious, hazily out of focus.

Your task is to take a moment and consciously consider what ‘The Good Life’ consists of for you.

If everything went your way, what is your life filled with 20 years from now? What are you most proud of? Where do you live, and who do you live with? What are your friends and relationships like? How do you spend your time? What is your reputation? What kind of legacy will you leave?

Once you’ve got 4K, ultra-high-def level clarity of that vision, save it and set it as the lock-screen image for your mind. Revisit that picture often and remember, “This is where I’m headed. This is who I will become.”

Keeping your vision of the good life clearly in focus gives your goals the proper context so that your efforts towards fitness, business, or relational growth don’t feel like random brush strokes on the canvas of your life. Instead, you’ll see them as necessary elements to creating your masterpiece.

Or, if that last line was too ‘touchy-feely’ for you, try this one on: It’s only by clearly defining your vision of the good life that you can set your goal/habits/trajectory to live into that future reality.

2 // Personal Market Fit

You’ve heard of Product-Market Fit, but what about Personal-Market Fit?

This idea came to me through a conversation with a previous manager.

His advice was simple: “Identify your strengths and lean into those. Then, find a market where your strengths are in highest demand.”

As an entrepreneurially-minded individual, it’s easy to fall into the trap of thinking you must offer something ‘new’ to achieve real success. That’s not the case.

Instead of feeling like you need to reinvent yourself, realize the value of your current strengths and focus on reinforcing those.

Are you good with people? Double down on creating the most valuable, vibrant network possible.

Are you good with sales? Figure out the combination of psychology, market knowledge, and personality traits that are key to your success.

Are you good at building systems? Seek out opportunities to creatively and efficiently solve even more challenging operational deficiencies.

Whatever your inherent skill set is, there is a market fit for the value you provide. Rather than waste valuable time and energy trying to round out your weaknesses, play to your strengths.

Trying to be good at everything ensures you’ll be great at nothing.

The market rewards greatness.

If you’ve got a great network, people will pay for access to it or pay you to learn how to create their own.

If you’re great at sales, people will pay for you to market and sell their products or pay you to teach them how to sell.

You’re you’re great at building systems. . . well. You get the idea.

There will always be a market for what you’re great at.

3 // Contrarian Advice on Fear

A few weeks back, we sat down with Casper Bahlmann.

Casper is awesome. He’s an accomplished Ironman, has started multiple companies, and is now a pioneer in converting old buildings into self-storage.

If you missed the podcast episode, be sure to listen to it here.

One quote in particular struck us. Casper said, “If you’re absolutely terrified of what you’re walking into, there’s a good chance that you shouldn’t be doing it.”

On the surface, Casper’s words run contrary to the advice of many other guests on the podcast.

More commonly, we hear encouragement to embrace discomfort, face down fear, and “do it scared” to achieve success.

On the other hand, Casper sees fear as a good litmus test of whether you’ve done your due diligence and the degree of confidence in your plans.

The key to Casper’s advice is his qualification: “If you’re absolutely terrified.”  

I hear in that a bold caution not to turn off your brain/rationality in pursuit of a deal.

I think there are two types of fears:
1. Heart level fear
2. Brain level fear

Heart level fear says, “This deal/biz plan makes total sense, but I feel scared of the commitment and unknowns.”

Brain level fear says, “I love this deal/biz plan, but the numbers and odds of it all panning out don’t look good.”

Knowing which fear you’re experiencing is critical to good decision-making.

We’ve all “fallen in love” and made a terrible decision.

We’ve also all “known” something was the perfect fit but didn’t take action because we felt scared.

If you feel terrified because you love a plan but it just doesn’t pencil out, you should listen to your fear and reevaluate before moving forward any further.

If an opportunity makes good sense and the due diligence checks out, the likelihood is much higher that you should swallow your fears and do it scared.

Some Housekeeping

1. Entering Year Two of the Abundant Journey Podcast, we want to continue building on the list of incredible guests we’ve featured.
   While we’ve got several guests lined up this year we’re thrilled about, we know some of you are connected with folks who’d be a good fit for the show. If someone comes to mind who has a story of success and wisdom you’d like us to share, would you kindly send an introduction to [email protected] 

2. We’re opening up a few sponsorship spots on the podcast this year.
   We want to ensure that our sponsors are highly relevant to our audience of emerging entrepreneurs and investors and fit the mission and vision of Abundant Journey. If you’re interested in partnering with us and advertising on the show, let’s get the conversation started. Reach out to Nick James at [email protected] 

3. We want to hear from you!
   Everything we’re doing here, we’re doing to benefit you on your journey towards abundance. To that end, we’d love to know how we’re doing! Please reach out to us at [email protected] with any feedback you’ve got. What’s helpful? What isn’t? What do you want more of? How can we help you specifically?!

That’s all for now, folks.

Thanks for coming on the journey with us!

More content is cooking.

In the meantime, you can keep up with all the latest by visiting AbundantJourney.net.

Onward & Upward, Friends,

Nick & Nick