Why Most People Quit by January 20 (And How to Finally Break the Cycle)

Goals don’t change us—identity does.

Most of us set big targets, get hyped, then fall off by January 20th and feel like quitters. In this episode, we get painfully honest about why that happens and how to build the kind of life that lasts. We replace “set a goal” with Be → Do → Have: become the person first, take the smallest daily action next, and let the results follow.

We talk about identity over resolutions, grace without excuses, and the simple rule that saves momentum: no two days lost. If you’re working hard and going nowhere, this is your reset—less pressure, more progress, and a faith-first lens for leading your home, work, and money.
We get practical: tiny habits that actually stick, how to measure what matters (leading measures, not vanity metrics), and a simple decision filter to buy back time and income—no more “either/or” traps. We also share how to think like an investor before you own a single asset and why consistency beats “perfect” every time.

📌 Key Topics:
 ✅ Identity beats resolutions (Be → Do → Have)
 ✅ No two days lost: stack wins, never break the chain
 ✅ Do less but daily: small steps, compound outcomes
 ✅ Leading measures only: track what moves the needle
 ✅ Investor before investments: act the part, then own the part
 ✅ And, not or: buy time and results
 ✅ People before profits; time over money; faith over hustle

If you’re stuck, tired, or behind, choose the next right move today—then repeat it tomorrow.

Chapters: 
00:00 Why New Year's Resolutions Fail
01:30 The Be-Do-Have Framework
02:21 Identity-Based Goals
04:05 Simplifying SMART Goals
06:17 The Importance of Small Steps
09:06 Consistency and Habit Stacking
14:03 Setting Business Goals
18:01 Balancing Time and Money in Business
27:43 Understanding Fixed Costs and Margins
28:46 The Importance of Tracking Metrics in Real Estate
29:45 The Truth About Numbers and Context
31:59 Setting and Achieving Personal Goals
34:11 Biblical Context of Goal Setting
36:03 First Principles and Goal Setting
37:01 Balancing Personal and Professional Goals
39:38 The Importance of Intentionality
43:41 Consistency and Habit Stacking
48:44 Final Thoughts on Goal Setting and Improvement

Transcript

Tanner 2026. And goals suck. People go in, they say, I'm gonna do X, Y, and Z. They. And they fail. I've done it time and time again. I'm gonna work out five days a week. I'm gonna lose 20 pounds. I'm gonna make a million dollars. I'm gonna whatever en enter the thing. And then I forgot the statistics, but something like, by the 20th of January, people quit their New Year's resolutions.

They failed their goals, they're off track, they think they're a loser. They all this stuff. What is the honest to goodness solution if you know? For goals and how can we make, how can someone listen to this, make goals work for them in 2026 without falling off track? Yeah, no, I think people used to always do New Year's resolutions, right?

It's always been a thing. And then they tried to create the smart goals to replace the New Year's resolutions and, and I just, I haven't found that working. And now there's people doing, you know, other variations of smart goals and I think that. I mean, what what's worked for me is the be, do, have, and I, I've heard that spoken in in different sermons.

I've heard it spoken from motivational speakers, and the the be do have is if you start with the end in mind, what you really want by those fitness goals is to be in shape. And if you define what in shape is for you, then. What is the do steps for becoming in shape? Well, I need to go to the gym regularly.

Well, what's regularly, maybe three days a week, five days a week. One day a week is more than I'm going right now. And then be first. So I'm going to be the type of person that goes to the gym three days a week because I take my health seriously. And then I'm gonna do the steps by going three days a week.

And then I'm gonna have the fitness that I, that I want. And it starts with that identity is becoming that type of person. It, it's like we've talked about before, is I, I really felt like an investor when I started calling myself an investor. I didn't have any properties yet, but I said, I'm an investor, so I do investor things like underwriting properties and walking properties and putting offers on properties.

I didn't wait until I had the properties to then start doing the action steps. So I think creating the habits of the type of person that you want to become is the first step. And we've, we've talked a lot about atomic habits and the compound effect. It's not from these drastic measures of, I, I went from all of 2025, gonna the gym four times.

So now I'm going every single day and then two weeks into January realize it's a lot harder to just change my behavior to, to do, you know, a daily gym routine, but I can become the type of person who takes my health more seriously. Does the action steps of going to the gym more frequently than I do do right now, and then I have the life that I want.

So be, do, have. Yeah. So I think, well first of all, I'll back out. How does that differ from, uh, we were just on a call a week and a half or so ago with Brandon Turner, and maybe it was on Friday. I don't remember. I think it was last week. Yeah. Yeah. It was right before Christmas. It was Friday before Christmas.

Mm-hmm. So Christmas is throwing me off. Uh. But we're on a call with Brandon Turner or Zoom call going over goals. How does what you say differ from what Brandon Turner? 'cause he uses, he takes the smart goals, it smarter and added the ER to it. Mm-hmm. To make it smarter and, but he talks about identity and identifying as that.

It almost seems like you took. Took it and just condensed it down some. What is the difference between the two if someone's watching this and then they watch Brandon speak about it? Yeah, I, I think that the only real difference is he has a different framework to it. He's, he's trying to be specific and measurable and achievable and all that stuff.

And what I'm saying, uh, uh, probably one of the things I got from him, from listening to BiggerPockets for all those years has he talked about. Um, he realized how unhealthy it was to eat sweets all the time, so he just said, I don't eat sweets anymore. The same thing works with people who are trying to quit drinking and the same people trying to quit smoking cigarettes.

If you say, I don't like smoking, then eventually you're programming your mind into that. I'm the type of person that doesn't like smoking. And he said this, uh, this about eating. He said he would have a bowl of ice cream after every dinner until he started saying, I don't eat ice cream after dinner anymore.

Then, so he became the type of person, he did the step of not having ice cream anymore and now he has the better health that he wanted. It's be, do, have, and I think that what I'm doing is simplifying the the six step framework of smarter goals or the five step of smart goals down into just do the action steps of the thing that you want.

Smarter would be seven. You're right. Just wanted make you smarter. Thank you. Mr. MBA. It's funny 'cause you said, you said six then you, when you went to smart you said five. So I, I had to, if you hadn't said five, I probably wouldn't have corrected you, but we'll just let that one go in the comments. That's funny.

But yeah, I, I agree that. Everything should start with identifying and I mean, you throw out a couple books, comic habits, uh, compound Compound Effect, but. Also start with why would be another one I'd add there. Like, start with your why, why do you wanna lose 20 pounds? Why do you want to go to the gym three days a week?

Is it for yourself? Is it to look good on the beach? Is it for your family? What is it, you know, to play better with your kids? And, and you've, you've brought this up many times before, is that you don't necessarily like the concrete measurables of, I wanna lose 20 pounds because if you reach 19 pounds, did you fail?

If you get to 21, did you over over succeed? Like, it, it, it's hard. I believe more in, in creating the lifestyle of I want to be healthier and the, if, if I'm focusing on this, I want to lose weight. I can go starve myself for the next three weeks and I'll lose weight, doesn't make me So what people would argue though, and, and that's I think where the issue comes into play with goals is.

What is healthier? How do you measure that? How do you, but in the same token, to your point, like what is SU success? Mm-hmm. If, if you set it at 20 pounds and you lose 19, did you fail? Mm-hmm. If you say, I wanna go to the gym 250 times in 2026, and you hit 220 when you've done it 20 times last year, so you increased by 200, but you didn't hit your goal, did you fail?

And that's I think where people start becoming disgruntled, I would say.

Really, in my opinion, what matters is identity. Identifying as someone that works out, someone that doesn't eat sweets or doesn't need ice cream after seven o'clock or whatever it is that you wanna identify as and try your damnest to stick to that. And if you fail once, just don't fail two days in a row.

Mm. So, and, and I would also say don't fail two meals in a row. And I, I'll use food for that because people are like, well, I already screwed up for today. And so they go out and bitch, you know, binge and, you know, make it, you know, you're compounding it, you know, don't have that mentality. So that would be the, the two things I would say 'cause uh, who is the comedian?

Um. God, I can't think of, I can't think of him, but he said like, I'm just gonna write a joke every day. And then he called it Don't break the X. Mm. And so on the calendar he would put an X January 1st, boom and did it. And they had like four years or, yeah, he had like, and so his only goal, I think Seinfeld, Seinfeld, that's who it was.

Uh, that was his only goal was. To write a joke every day. And then he started and he wrote it on the calendar, X, x, X, and he just kept going, kept going. And then his only goal at that point in time was don't break the X. Like I just think sometimes we overcomplicate things, we let ourselves get down on things and at the end of the day, like you're still better off even if you fail once, you know, 75 hard's a great example.

Like you just start off, you just start over again. Like I understand like the goal is to make it 75 days in a row, but. If I didn't work out or I didn't drink my gallon of water or whatever it is, you could just start off at day one. Like it just resets. And so you just try again and try again. But, and I, and I get your point that that can be discouraging is that when you're trying to go 75 days straight, you break a day, you gotta go back to day one.

Eventually people just give up. But I think that the habit stacking they, they talked about is tying your habits to something else. Like if we, we said if you want to start every day with scripture. Then just tie it to brushing your teeth is right after I brush my teeth, I go read some scripture. If it's, you know, I want to exercise more, what I've found that works is if I say I'm gonna do one more pushup than, than the day before and every single day.

And I've heard jokes on TikTok where they say like, I, I gave myself this challenge, you know? For every day that I miss of running, I'm gonna run an extra 15 minutes the next day. It's like, so far I've got three months and 14 days of running to do like I get it. But if you just give yourself achievable, which goes back to the smart thing, is I'm going to do a little more exercise than the day prior.

If I did three pushups today, then tomorrow I didn't do any the day after I do four. You're still doing more activity than you did the year that went by. You did nothing. Instead of holding yourself to this higher standard of, I'm gonna go to the gym for two hours every single day. I mean, it's not realistic.

Yeah. And I think, I think that's the biggest thing is what is realistic, and I hate to say it, but don't get down on yourself. Like I, I think we live in an environment, in a world that people. Feel like failure and they don't want to admit failure. And so we only wanna put on the, the rose color Instagram glasses and, you know, post on social media that we're doing well.

But say you had a goal of working out five days a week and you, you only hit four days. It, uh, is it criminal to put that on social media? Hmm. You know, like, Hey, this was my goal. I didn't quite hit it. Like, I would say that's more honest, that's more forthright and it, if more people did things like that versus, uh, for example, I seen, I think it was today, uh, Chris Pratt, the actor.

Yeah. Jocko Willink has his, I think he calls it Dev Reset or something. It's basically the whole month of January he puts out workouts for people to do. And so there's certain criteria and Chris Pratt's in shape like he did, I forgot what it was. It was a hundred burpees in 20 minutes or something like that.

Like most people can't do that. Mm-hmm. And he's like, all you have to do is. Just get up and try. No, like I would be throwing up all over my house if I tried to do, uh, a hundred burpees in, in 20 minutes. It just, some people it does, that doesn't work far. So maybe it's 20 burpees in 20 minutes. You know, one burpee a minute.

Mm-hmm. But it's starting where, where you are like, I always won't go to church. They're like, they wanna meet you where you're at. Like maybe you haven't been to church in 20 years. Showing up once is, is a win for you. Mm-hmm. Versus someone that goes to church every day or every week. Maybe starting a small Bible study is the next step for them.

So it, it's your goals need to be representative of where you are. Like you said, you can't step in the gym on January 1st and work out for two hours. It just doesn't work. You're gonna fail. You're setting yourself up for failure. Well, but the, what I've learned is that I continuously fail because I try to do that.

So I try, I mean, maybe when I was in high school, I could go for two hours and I'd be fine. I'd go back the next day, two hours, and I'm just fine. I mean, now I try and go to the gym for two hours. I'm sore the next three days. Then I'm like, ah, gosh, I can't work out like that. But doing just gradually more activity.

And for me, last year it was stretching. I started out the year really good, just stretching every single day. My back felt better, my knees didn't hurt as much. Like I was more flexible. And then towards the end of the year, you see it start to dip. And I'm like, well, why am I sore all the time now? Well, 'cause I stopped doing the things that that worked.

And if I just kept on doing it a little bit more, a little bit more every day. Then I would have a lot more results than trying to do it all at once. And I think that, I dunno if you call it virtual virtue signaling or, or walling and self pity. But p, it's easier to not try and succeed at not trying than it is to try and fail.

I, I, I think that's the, the number one thing, uh, people like. Yeah. I just, I can't even, I, I want to add to that, but like, people are scared to try and fail and we come up with a culture that it's okay to not try and to confidently not try. Yeah. And it's just, it doesn't make any sense to me. Mm-hmm. So all this is great for personal stuff, be it reading the Bible, be it working out, eating better, um, you know, dates with your wife, all that stuff.

How do you look at goals when it comes to business? Yeah, I mean, I definitely have my revenue targets and, um, my net income goals, my net worth goals and all that stuff, but it's, it's not the, the money, it's the lifestyle it provides is we're, we're pursuing this life of freedom and I know what benchmarks I need to hit to reach that.

And I, I think being okay and giving yourself the grace to, to fail there. Is important. I mean, obviously as long as we're somewhat net positive, then that that's still a good year. But if I say that my net income goal this year is 500,000 and I fall short of that and I make three 50, it's still a pretty good year.

And so I, I mean, when I'm, we're going through that worksheet, uh, my wife and I started doing it together. Uh, actually last night and just setting the goals, I, what I really like about it is it talks about spirituality, your relationship with your wife, your relationship with your kids, um, business, the mindset growth, all that stuff as their own.

Where do you want to be in five years and how, and just seeing how it all ties together and then also putting it on paper and seeing, comparing my wife's to mine, they're very, very close. Like, we have the same goals. We just have different ways of getting there. And so I think to, to answer your question, with business, it's more of how does this serve the ultimate end goal?

And the ultimate end goal is the lifestyle that I want to live. And basically, if I'm. Trying to buy a a hundred acre ranch in, in the middle of the boonies, but I'm, everything I'm doing is, you know, it's gonna keep me in the business in the next 20 years. Then it, what I'm doing, the action steps, the be, do have is not gonna give me the have that I want.

So it's like, granted, I still believe that some kind of movement is better than, than nothing. 'cause you could move in the wrong direction. It's easier to course correct, but to a certain point, if I'm moving down this path. What I want is over here. I'm wasting time. So you're, what you're saying is more on new endeavors is from what?

From what I gathered from what you just said. Well, I guess my specific question is for things that you're actively working in, so, uh, real estate, property management, uh, uh, trucking company, stuff like that, how do you set goals for those things? Specific to something that you're already doing versus new endeavors.

Yeah, and, and that's one thing we talked about in the previous week is I, I had a meeting with our business coach and he talked about we, 2025 was a year of, of, or for us is does this bring money to our house? Or does it give us our time back? And we made decisions in business based on one of those two things.

And he said, 2026 is your year for, and is every decision you're making, does it bring more money into your house and give you your time back? And so if I'm using that as a litmus test for every decision I'm making, maybe in the trucking company I can go out and drive three weeks outta the month, four weeks, you know, a month I can be on the road constantly.

It'll bring more money into my house. That's an or. It brings more money into my house, but it doesn't give me more time with my kids. So what's the decision where I can bring more, more money into my house and I can get more time back with my kids? Well, for me, it's hiring on new drivers. Hiring on new drivers and scaling up the business more from the, the, um, conductor perspective or the, what do you call it, the orchestrator of it, instead of being a worker in the business.

I mean, coming from middle class, my, my dad, he worked until he was 62 and you know, whole nine. It's all I ever known is just trade your time for, for dollars. And even owning a business, it's very easy to fall into that trap. You could very easily become a one man shop, go make a bunch of money, but you're choosing or instead of, and so if, if, if that answers your question, it's the, and is finding things that give me more money and more time.

So I guess what I'm gathering from what you're saying is your goal in business across whatever business you're doing. Your goal is to buy back more time. So to, like for me, for example, my goal is for my business is just revenue goal. Yours is a time goal. How does what you're doing buy more time back in your family?

Is that accurate? Yeah, I think so. And, and. For me, it's all around opportunity cost. I'm constantly looking at opportunity cost because there's so many, so much opportunity out there, and if I go drive for, you know, we can, we can work 60, 70 hours a week and I can make another two to three grand a week driving.

You divide that up by the amount of time I'm gone, because if it's working time, sure I might be making 35, $40 an hour of active time, but I'm gone from the, from my kids 24 hours a day. So you divide that up. That's maybe $16 an hour. So can I make more than $16 an hour by hiring on drivers and working from home where I can be around my kids?

Absolutely. Now, granted, I'm not gonna make two to three grand a week. It might be more like 800 to a thousand dollars a week, but of my active time, that frees me up to do the other ventures. Like I can start going after more real estate deals. I can buy more trucks, I can hire on more staff. And my hourly rate is worth more.

So to me that's the, and is the time that I'm actively working is worth more than it was when I'm gone 24 hours a day. Yeah. And I think it's just, what's nice about this, and if someone's listening to it, we're in different seasons, if you will, like as far as business goes, uh, I mean, everybody's in different seasons as far as everything goes, but.

I, when I bought my business, I bought a business that realistically, if I never went to the business, I'd have been okay because I wasn't the, the operator, I wasn't the, the master plumber. I didn't, I had an office staff. I could have basically kept it the same as it was without growing it. Um. And still met revenue or met, uh, debt service and all that stuff.

So that's kind of how I initially set it up or I forced myself to buy something. In that situation, you are a little and a little different because you bought it as a owner operator. Mm-hmm. And so there is a little bit different there. My only involvement in the business is. You always get a term working on versus working in.

So I'm only working on the business. Mm-hmm. I spend 10, 15 hours a week, whatever it is over there working on the business. Uh, some other stuff that, you know, I do, I mean, it's podcast. I, I think, helps me from a, a growth standpoint. You know, there's other things I do within my week that uh, could be you could associate with, you know, business 'cause we're.

We were talking before this about a podcast with Paul, and so obviously that helps my business even though it's not necessarily working on or in or anything with the business. So it's, it's just a matter of, for listening to this is deciding or figuring out exactly what season you're in and making the best decision.

This goes back to one of the things like on my phone, they got my phone on me, but uh, I have. On it, just on my main screen. Like just basically, I forgot what podcast we did, but someone was talking, oh, he is your neighbor. I can't think of Oh yeah. Setting our, our life purpose. Our life, yeah. Our life goal thing.

So that's like, so everything I have, I don't read this every day, but it's right there every time I punch in my phone. Mm-hmm. It tells me exactly what it's, well, we talked a lot about having a North star. That's basically it. Yeah. Well, and, and if you're paying yourself a thousand dollars a week from your business.

The, if you put double the amount of hours in your business, you don't make double the amount of of money. It just cuts your hourly rate in half. 'cause you're still only paying yourself a thousand dollars a week. And so that's where the opportunity cost comes in, is if you can find a way to get everything you need done in 10 to 15 hours, you're worth a hundred dollars an hour to from that business.

That means you can free yourself up for other ventures. Maybe it's another acquisition or another real estate deal where you can keep that hourly rate higher and. So where I'm at in my business is the same concept, but what's hard for people is to take that leap into working on the business. And it's especially hard for me to, you know, I'm gonna be missing out on dollars deposited into the bank, but it's gonna free up my time so much that my hourly rate goes up significantly.

Me. Yeah. And I would say. Uh, that's kind of the difference why there's different areas of buying, of business buying. I mean, we're going off on a tangent with this, but you can be the owner operator, you can be, uh, uh. Kind of where I'm at and it kind of, I would call it the middle ground. And then you can buy large business that you're already a hundred percent out of and you just do a couple strategic things and read some KPIs.

That's basically what private equity and venture capital do. So I'm in between, like, I'm not businesses big enough for venture capital and private equity yet, but I'm not an operator in there. And so that's kind of, yeah, the, the different, the different areas of that. What. How do you manage, or how do you quantify, I guess, your time?

Do you, you said you want to buy back more time with your family this year. Are you, is that something you track? Do you, do you put KPIs to everything? Like, for me, I said I have a revenue goal. Um, I, I would say I, I have two goals. When, when it's not personal, one is revenue goal for the business. Another one is my real estate.

I wanna buy enough real estate that I don't have to pay any taxes for my business. Mm-hmm. So those are my two goals. Like whether that's how much real estate that has to be to be determined, but that's my goal and that's how, you know, given my CPA, okay. Mm-hmm. Uh, you need a bite. A single family home or you need to buy a million dollars property or wherever that falls, I don't know.

But that's basically my two business goals. Um, and then obviously personal stuff, but where does, I forgot exactly where I was going with that, but that's what I was asking. How do you quantify time? Is that a KPI that you track? For your time or where do you go with that? So for, for my time in particular, not necessarily right now, it's, uh, in that kind of middle stage of just trying to, I, I have a goal for how much revenue I need to create in order to keep my employees fed and.

My goal for them is to make $2,000 a week. That, that's a difficult feat, but I can control that directly by booking better loads and getting better contracts and, and everything that I'm doing in the backend, I can provide them with more opportunity to where they can make more money. And when they make more money, they become lifers.

And then I will, you know, as a, um, a third or fourth, you know, effect of that I will start making more money. So. My, my focus is more around building the systems, and I do have revenue goals, like for, if I'm, if I'm bringing in right now 15,000 per truck and I, and I have two trucks, then I'm bringing in about $30,000 gross per month, you know, total.

But I know that by removing myself from the active time, I can be more efficient with that time and I can probably get that to 20,000 per truck and they can net more money, which then makes the business grow. And so. That, that's kind of more what I'm tracking on a revenue goal, but not necessarily what I'm bringing home.

I know that what I bring home is an after effect of that, those efforts and I, and I guess that, I think it's. Comes down to tracking, leading and lagging measures is if you're only tracking what's my take home? That's a lagging measure. It's hard to find the steps that go into that, but I know that the leading measure is how much revenue am I generating per truck, or what is my revenue per mile?

Like I, I want to be between two and $3 per mile. If I'm booking loads that are a dollar 50 per mile, I'm taking 25% off of my top line. That's gonna trickle down and there's not gonna be as much left over and that. That's a great point that I don't think people realize for every penny that you, so if you know what your break even point is, every penny that you add to that top line past that go straight down to the bottom line.

And so a lot of times I think that gets missed whether for me, in a plumbing business, so we charge for just a residential service call in Omaha, we charge $150 an hour. If I increase that to $155 an hour, percentage wise, it's not that big of a leap. Mm-hmm. But if my cost is fixed, that $5 an hour falls straight down to the bottom line.

Mm-hmm. Which helps us buy more trucks, do more marketing, whatever, whatever the case is. However, we wanna, uh, pay more taxes, whatever, however we divide that up. But, uh. Well, that's what the math is, those things. Yeah. I mean, so it's, it's 3.2% more gross. So a 3% increase in your cost, but if you're operating on 50% margins, uh, that's 75.

So the $5 divided by your 75, that's a 6% increase to your, to your bottom line. Yeah. I, I think this basically doubles anything as percentage wise, I think is the. The general math numbers, I could be wrong there, but for every dollar to increase the top line, say it's 1%, that's 2%. So the bottom line I could be if, if you're running 50% margins Yeah.

Or 50 50% expense ratio rather. Yeah. Yeah. So I, I think that goes back to what you track matters. And if you're in, in the real estate side, if you're tracking what is my physical occupancy today, you might have a 99% physical occupancy. What does that do to the bottom line? We have no idea. If you don't take into account what's my expense ratio, what's my economic occupancy, an economic meaning, how many of my tenants are actually paying, because if you have 80% economic occupancy and 99% physical occupancy, that means you have 19% of your tenants that are not paying the rent.

So we, we found in some portfolios that the properties would be performing better if those units were vacant. Because we're having to, to take on all those, um, eviction costs and the, the unit turns maintenance and the Yeah, past due, um, utilities and all that stuff. So the way that you track numbers matters.

Just saying I have a 99% occupancy, like that doesn't tell me anything. And that's a great point. Like, I like the saying, but I dislike the saying of people lie numbers don't. Numbers don't lie if you use the right numbers, if you use 'em in the right context. But people, I remember I was interviewing a, uh, property manager one time and I asked, I asked all the right questions, if you will, but.

He answered them in a way that wasn't what I intended. So like in my head, I'm asking all the right questions, but I didn't lock him into a time period, you know, like I think I asked him like, what's your occupancy rate? And he's like, oh, we're at 97%. Well, he's talking about that day when he sent that email and I was talking about over the year.

Mm-hmm. What is your. Your average rate and, and, and what, the way that I did it, so when I was in the Army and I had a fleet of vehicles, we, we call them possible days and available days. And so if we have, uh, and an available days means if you have downtime because the units, uh, uh, piece of equipment's in the shop, you take the, the number of, of equipment that you have.

So if you have, um, call it a hundred pieces of equipment or a hundred units. That's 365 potential days, right? So possible days is how many available are there? So for a hundred, that's 36,500 possible days. If I have one unit that's vacant for a full year, that, that's a 99% physical occupancy, 99%, you know, is how I, how I read it on a year.

But if you have 10 units that are vacant for six months. That's a drastically higher, you know, even though you're at 90%. So anyways, just getting back to the way you track the numbers matters, and, and that's what I'm getting at. Like people, people make the numbers work for them. Mm-hmm. Versus it goes back to what we're talking about, about being realistic with your goals and being truthful with your goals.

You need to be truthful in how you track 'em and. How they move the needle in your life. So if you're tracking how many times you go to the gym in the, in the, uh, in the year, that might be a good KPI, but it also might not be a good KPI for you. It might be something that's totally skewed. Like if you wanna lose weight, say go back, you wanna lose 20 pounds.

Well, going to the gym 250 times in a year might be good. If you're not tracking how much you're eating, you might be, uh, substituting one for the other. So I think making sure you have the right numbers, the right KPIs if you will, like maybe revenue's not the ideal situation for your business based on your goals.

So, but it's finding that number and being truthful with it, and I think that's one step people miss a lot when it comes to goals and. At the end of the day, it's, it's a performance indicator. It's not do or die. Mm-hmm. So, yeah. Absolutely. And I like that you tied it all back because starting with the end in mind is that be, do, have, and if the have is I want to net more money.

I mean, you're right that that is too vague to, to be able to get any kind of concrete results from. But if it's, I want to net a million, what does that translate into on. The gross revenue side. Maybe it means that you need to have your plumbers find a way to get a 15% upcharge on all jobs. So can you introduce a product like maybe it's a drain cleaning, you know, Hey, we're here already for an extra $15.

We'll go clean out all your sinks. You know, I, I don't know what that looks like for your industry, but if there's a way to get that 15%. Um, increase on the growth side, it will trickle down into the net. And the same is true with your fitness goals, with your health goals. Spiritual, financial is finding what are the leading indicators that I can measure, and that should be your goal.

And that's what I'm saying. I don't think that tracking, I wanna lose 20 pounds is as effective as I'm going to go to the gym for 15 minutes minimum, you know, 15 minutes minimum. Um, more per week. Yeah. So I wanna go back to your be do, have when you, you mentioned it earlier, and this came to mind, but I dunno if you said it or if it's just in my head, but it's, it is a biblical context and it comes from Genesis one.

So Genesis 1 26, let us, let's make mankind in our image. Uh. The do is from Genesis 1 28, be fruitful and multiply, fill the earth and subdue it. And then the half, uh, is Genesis 1 29. So within, what is that, four or five verses? I give you every seed bearing plant. So that's the half which you have. And then.

It repeats itself in Genesis two, uh, Adam's form giving life in Genesis seven or two, seven, then two 15, and then two 16 and two 17. So anyhow, it's a biblical context all the way from the start mm-hmm. In the first chapter of the Bible. But I, I listened to a, a Myron Golden video yesterday where he talked about this in depth and it was just bone chilling, just how spot on it was.

And he was talking about, um. Like the creator created us in his image and he's like, does that mean that I look like God? No. I look, I look nothing like God. There's so many different, you know, looks that we have. He's like, but I, I am creating the image of God and what is the image of God? He told us in Genesis one is he created the, created the universe, and he's like, well, why do you have to do that?

He's, he's a perfect being. He, he has no need for any of this. It's like, because his nature is to create, and he created us in his image to be creators. So looking at how we're setting our goals, I, I agree. It should be what are we creating? Yeah, I'm, I mean, we could go off on a whole rabbit hole of this, but tangent.

It's, yeah, I, I, I go back to the beginning. First principles, uh, I know, uh, Peter Till Elon Musk, all these big guys, like there. Very big first principles per people. Peter till, um, Elon to some, some degree, I guess. But he, he always, Elon goes back further than first principles. He goes back like, what, what does this tell us?

That we have to do it this way? Then why did they decide that this needed to be that way? And so he, he tries to unpeel the onion even further. Mm-hmm. Um, very interesting standpoint, you know, but, uh, yeah, I, uh, that's what I do, you know, that's what I try to do. So how, for me, it's how do I live my life? Like I said, I kind of have two, two goals and a revenue goal for Macintosh.

I have. Uh, real estate goal of pay, no taxes from Macintosh, just based on my real estate stuff. Use the tax code to my advantage. And then personal is where I've been really struggling this year because every year I say I'm gonna lose 20 pounds every year. I don't lose 20 pounds. Matter of fact, I've gained about five this year.

So I went the, I went the wrong way, uh, you know. A better spiritual life. What, what does that really look like? Uh, you know, better relationship with my wife. What does that really look like? You know, so I have all these things that they're really, I think they're hard to quantify 'cause I can say. Read the Bible every day or something like that.

And I mean, I do a pretty good job most days, but, well what, so, but I, I think that that's kind of getting to my point is if your end result is more qualitative than quantitative, you want to have a better relationship with your wife, well, what are the leading indicators that will get you that end result?

And if the leading indicator, maybe it's part of that be, do, have, is. In order to have a better relationship with your wife, she needs to feel more appreciated. Well, what would the type of person that appreciates their wife do? Well, maybe that's every day I'm gonna set a timer on my, my phone that says I'm going to make sure that I send a text to my wife that says, I appreciate you for doing this today.

Or something. I don't know how long you've been married, but women change daily minute, you know, monthly. You know, it's, you know, I, I'm being funny, but like. I don't know if there's a leading indicator for women that will, and, and that's what I'm saying is it's not the leading indicator for women, it's the we leading indicator for your efforts.

And let's say that you take one of the, the five, uh, love languages every single day and you say, well, today I'm gonna get her a gift. I'm gonna get her flowers tomorrow, it's gonna be a, um, um, words of affirmation. And then the day after it, it's gonna be quality time. I'm just gonna put my phone down. I'll go sit next to her.

Just sit. If you say that every single day, I'm gonna do one of those steps. Do you think it would lead to the end result of having a closer relationship with your wife? My 2 cents is no, because on a day that I give herself that, she's gonna want me to sit down with her and I'm gonna screw that up anyway.

So I mean, I, I say that half jokingly, but. That is my struggle. Do you think that if the end result is, or the the end goal is to have a better relationship with your wife, that making an active effort for five minutes a day for 365 days a year would give you a better relationship? Yeah, I mean, I, I see where you're going.

The, I'm making jokes and the on the spiritual side is if your goal is to be more in touch with the spirit, what is the one five minute activity that you can do every single day? Even if it's the, I'm gonna change my routine from, the first thing I do when I wake up in, in the morning is just say, thank you, God, for letting my eyes open today.

Would you be more in touch with the spirit than you were this year? I got that. How do you compound that? I, I guess is what I'm getting at. So I've talked about this multiple times. Eight or so years ago, I started reading the Bible. So I have, I can't say I do it every day 'cause I think I missed it both days this weekend.

But I have solid footing that, that, that I stand on there. So now, before I was talking about meeting, meeting where you're at first for church, someone that never went to church, just going to church is, is a win. Someone that's been going to church every day, maybe leaving a Bible study, taking the next step.

So. What is those next steps and how do they continue? Because you have to continue compounding, so you, it's not like business where I can, I have a million dollar revenue goal this year. I have a $3 million revenue goal. Next year. I have an $8 million revenue goal. The year after that, I can continually raise the bar in a quantitative way.

How do you do that in life? How do you do that? Like. Working out. Okay, I want to be a he live a healthier life. What does that look like this year? Okay, well, if I wanted to live a healthier life for my family in 2025 or 2026, chances are I wanna do that in 2027. How do I continue to do that? How do I without just stagnating and and losing?

'cause I think that's part of the other issue is once you get somewhere. Sometimes it's easier to reach a destination than it is to stay a destination. Yeah. It's kinda is what I'm getting at. But do you think that's a complacency problem? 'cause, because I think what I'm saying is if you went from last year being unhappy in a certain area, whether it's fitness to spirituality, your relationship with your wife, if you cannot allocate.

A minute, five minutes, 10 minutes a day towards that one thing, then you're just saying it. I mean, you're gonna make excuses for why you're not getting the results that you want. And whether, I mean, if it is fitness saying I'm going to every hour for my workday do one pushup, and on the hour I do one pushup, if you can't do that one minimal effort, then you don't want it that bad.

And the two best pieces of advice that I've, I think I've ever received for that is the, show me your calendar and I'll show you your priorities. I guarantee you have your work meetings on there. You have your lunch meetings on there. You have, you know, whatever, but you don't have anything for send my wife an I Love You text.

Or on Sunday, you know, did I set time aside to just be still, you know, if, if it's or meal prep or or meal prep, whatever it is, whatever, whatever it may be. And then the other one is the success that you're seeking is in the thing that you're avoiding. And one thing, like if they'll, they'll talk realistically.

One thing that is on my list is to be better connected with my wife. Well, what's the one thing that I'm avoiding that's avoiding me, that's restricting my ability to be close to my wife? It's praying with her daily. I, there is an active resistance to praying with my wife and I know that, but I'm not putting anything on my calendar that's fixing that.

And I'd make excuses that, oh well she was tired. She went to bed at eight 30 and you know, I wasn't, I was still, you know, down with the kids and whatever, whatever the excuse may be. But I'm not doing the action daily of, well find the time, put it on the calendar. So the things that I'm saying, I'm also not doing, but I know that I'm not doing 'em.

And so if it's, if the result that I'm seeking is qualitative, then I find a quantity, which is five minutes a day to allocate towards my wife five minutes a day to just be still and be in the word five minutes a day, to just do a couple pushups. And if, like you said. Eight years ago, you maybe didn't pick up the Bible at all, and then you started doing Proverbs every single day.

And if that slipped, then that there's your answers, just reintroduce that, of what's the discipline that you have to do to reintroduce that? And when that becomes consistent, maybe reevaluate after the first quarter of of 26 and say, well, I've found it easy to do that. For me, it was doing a devotional every day.

I found it was easier for me to do a YouTube devotional, put my headphones on while I got dressed, got ready for the day, and I did that. I, I looked at my YouTube analytics, all right. My goal was to do that every day last year. I did it 212 times the year before, zero times. So I got closer with God just by making that a daily habit.

And then when that daily habit, if I make it consistent, maybe after six months, it's do the devotional and be still every day. And with my wife, it's pray every day when that becomes consistent. Pray every day and send a text of gratitude every day. So I think that's part of that habit stacking of you need to create the habits in order to compound on top of it.

I agree a hundred percent. I, I guess my pushback, and it's not intentional pushback, it's, I feel like people will run out of, I don't know what to do next. I, I think that's part of it. So I think that's part of what we're talking about is it's easier to, to succeed at not trying than it is to try and fail.

Yeah, but I, I would say we use health 'cause I, I think that's, that's a good one. I set the goal to work out 250 times in 2026. Maybe I get, uh, whatever you said, 220, 212, whatever you said.

Fairly close. I didn't hit it. But do I keep the same goal for the next year or do I. Add onto that. Say I just add onto it. Okay. I, I didn't hit it this year, but I got pretty damn close. I'm gonna hit it next year. So 2027, you hit that goal, then what, do you just keep doing the same thing or do you, like, do you add to it?

Yeah. And, and so that's kind of where like I, I get what you're saying and I think that that goes back to the, what you're measuring is you said that my goal is to go to the gym 250 days a year, but what if you change that to, I'm going to go to the gym. Four days a week minimum, and I'm not gonna miss four days a week.

And if I miss a day, then I go an extra day the next week, and then I go back to four like that. Will, that will get you to reach your goal? Well, my math is off there again, but Yeah, you, you get my point. Is that five times a week? Five times a week, yeah. If you say that I'm going to work out five times a week, then putting that in your calendar.

And for me, one of the ones last year is that I, I really want to work on the stress and, uh, being more at peace during the day. So I had, I prayed about it and I had a sermon that came up that talked about, um, I can't remember what the verse was, but it, it basically was a, I think it's um, uh, one Corinthians four six or something like that, that was just about God shining his light on others.

And so I set an alarm on my phone every single day for four oh six that. Reminds me to take 30 seconds to just pray for someone. It could be someone that I'm angry at. It could be someone who pissed me off that day. But if I just take that time, it just adds a little bit of gratitude into my day. And by doing that every single day, it became a habit.

Now it, it pops up. I just snooze the alarm. I could, I could close my eyes for 30 seconds, just say quick prayer, and then go on with my day and all. And if all that does is take my cortisol from here down to here. Then I'm making a little bit of progress every day and I, I can eventually have it stack on top of that and say, well, I, I've been able to do it for 30 seconds.

What if I did it for five minutes every day? I could probably find the time for that. And anyone who says that I can't find five minutes a day for the goal that I want, doesn't really want that goal. They just say they want it. 'cause they think that's what they're supposed to do. Yeah. And I agree. I, I just.

Like I said, for some of the things, I find it hard to come up with things, and maybe I'm just projecting my own, uh, issues onto, uh, this podcast, but I to the time thing, if it's important, you'll find time like. I'll go back to Elon Musk on this one. This dude runs like $5 billion multi-billion dollar companies.

If he's find time to run all these companies and do it at a high level. Now granted he probably sleeps two hours a day and you know his stress is pray off the charts and divorce 17 times or whatever, ask the kids to, maybe that's not the lifestyle you wanna live, but my point is if he can find time to do all this stuff.

You can find time to do what's important to you. So, so I, I think, I know we're gonna wrap this up, but if you look at the, the long term why of that qualitative and saying that it's, you can't measure what does a better relationship with my wife look at, look like it's a qualitative thing. Look at it when I'm 80 years old, why do I want this year to be the year that I have a better relationship with my wife?

And if this is the baseline that you're working at and this year you make it to here, and then next year you put another valiant effort in and you get it up to here, then every year it should be getting a little bit better. You say, well, I, I wanna be that 80-year-old guy that when my time comes, my wife says he bought me flowers every Sunday for 40 years.

Like that's how she felt appreciated. Now, I know we talked about the love dares and my wife's the same way. I never know which, which, uh, or not love, dare the, um, love languages. I don't know which one she is that day, but if I'm making somewhat of an effort to be better every single week for the next 50 years, like will I have a better relationship with my wife when my time comes?

Absolutely. So I think that it's a cop out to say, well, I, five minutes a day is gonna make a difference because five minutes a day is more effort than I've been putting in for the last however many years. Yeah, I, I agree. And this is, I'll get way off on, on it and I'm gonna just end it abruptly, but, uh. So one of my issues with that is why, why your wife?

Why my wife? Why my kids? Why, why do we single people out that I wanna have a better relationship with them, and why not be more like Christ and have a better relationship with everybody? I think, I don't know. That's one of my struggles. And like I said, I've been been going off on this for a while. Well, I, I think that the Bible calls us to.

Is the Bible doesn't, I mean, it says love your neighbor, but it doesn't say, love your neighbor before your wife. And if you don't know how to love your wife, how can you possibly know how to love your neighbor? And if you don't know how to love Christ, how can you possibly know how to love your wife? So I tell my kids all the time, like, there is a pecking order.

And when mom come home comes home from work, she gets the first hug. When I, when I come home from work, she, she gets the first hug. Kids can run up and like, Nope. Stiff arm wife. My, my wife comes first. But even before my wife, it's, it's Jesus. Well, and that's my point, I guess, is

go back to first principles. If you're doing the first thing first, all the other things will take care of themselves. If a 32nd text to your wife, if a 32nd prayer is important. What's the upstream thing that you can be doing that all those downstream items take care of themselves? So maybe that, maybe the answer is in the question there is if spending a minute with my kids just asking 'em how their day was and genuinely being interested, and two minutes with my wife asking how her day and how what I can do to be better to support her.

Maybe that means three minutes with God every day. I don't know. I don't know what that looks like, but if this year I said I'm gonna spend three minutes with God, two minutes with my wife and a minute with each of my kids every day, and I'm gonna have a better relationship with all of them, and then 30 seconds of just praying for strangers to help me love, you know my neighbor better.

Maybe next year it's 4, 3, 2, 1, you know, and every year I'm getting better at that to the point where I'm, I'm a Buddhist monk in the, you know, woods just praying for everyone all the time. Yeah. And I don't know if it necessarily has to be prayer is what I'm getting at, but I think if you're

discipling under, under Jesus, under God. Everything from being a leader, a better leader in business, a better real estate investor, a better husband, a better neighbor, a better podcast host. All those things, I think will just take care of themselves. Um, so I mean, that's kind of, you were talking about your struggles.

That's, that's kind my struggle. How do I, how do I do that? How do I, what's the one, KPI to roll 'em all, I guess. Hmm. Is, is what I'm getting at. Yeah. I think intentionality and, and being intentional with where your time is going. And if you say, I, I want this end result, how can you allocate one minute towards each of those areas every day?

And I, I can't remember who, oh, it was, uh, Ryan Serhant. He talked about the thousand dollars a day rule. Have you heard of that one? So he said, uh, actually in his interview with Cody Sanchez, he brought it up. That he started treating you. I mean, you, every human has an average of a thousand minutes per day, and so he started thinking about minutes as dollars.

And so if I have a thousand dollars a day and someone pisses me off on a phone call or a Zoom call, whatever, am I what? I throw $995 away for $5, never. So I'm not gonna let that bother me. The same is true with where your time goes is. If I, if I knew that for every five minutes that I pour into my wife, five minutes, I pour into, uh, my business, five minutes into my kids, five minutes into my faith, that's $20.

Is that gonna help me with the rest of the $980? Absolutely. So if you can't allocate five minutes a day towards the things that you say you want and you don't really want 'em, and I think that starting small, not giving yourself, I'm gonna give my wife an hour every single day. You're just setting yourself up for failure.

But if you can give her five minutes today and then get good at that for six months, and then maybe it turns into a half an hour a day, then that will trickle down into everything else that you're doing because you say you want this thing and then you hold yourself accountable to the bare minimum it takes to get that thing.

So I think it's doing the things that you say you're gonna do and giving yourself realistic checkpoints on that B do have of what are the B steps? I can do that will get me to this end result and then stick to it. Don't lie to yourself. And that's the biggest thing with why people, when they, when they say, I'm gonna go to the gym every day, and then they don't do it, or I'm gonna go to the gym tomorrow morning, and then you don't do it.

You, the, your first thought in the morning is, I lie, I lie to myself. Well, I think we should just leave it online to ourselves. So yeah, I appreciate it. I think, uh. I think if you take one thing away from this is come up with realistic, truthful things that'll move the needle in your life. Don't stop just 'cause you screwed up one time.

Keep moving. Don't, don't, don't break the eggs a second time. No two, no two days in a row, or two meals in a row or two, two, whatever in a row. Stack incrementally and, and just keep going. Put your head down, keep going. At the end of the year, you'll be a better person. You'll be a better husband, better neighbor, better business owner, whatever.

So yeah, Tanner, we'll do this again in, uh, 365 days and see where we're at. All right.