A Simple Planning Framework for 2022

Creating Environments For Success

How I create environments that help me succeed.

I've lived by myself for most of this year, which has given me more mental space for self-reflection.

This has helped me pick up on trends contributing to me achieving better outcomes personally and professionally.

One I've noticed is my lack of willpower or, more accurately, my lack of dependence on willpower.

Many people say willpower is the key to success. But I've found relying on willpower alone only gets me so far.

Creating environments that reduce my need for willpower has been more effective for me.

• I use Newsfeed Eradicator to stop me from looking through social media.

• I use Inbox When Ready to stop me from seeing emails before I need to answer them.

• I turn my phone on after 10 AM, and when I do, I have BlockSite installed as an app to stop me from looking at news and social media sites.

• I don't have "junk food" in my pantry because I'll eat it all if it's there.

Like Jim Rohn's observation, "You are the average of the five people you spend the most time with". We are the products of our environments, so creating ones that support what we're trying to achieve makes sense.

As I write this, it's 11.37 AM on a Saturday morning, and I've yet to see my inbox today or check my phone.

I've been to the gym, restocked my fridge, written this newsletter and put in a couple of hours of work.

The only willpower I've exercised is not pushing the button "Show Inbox" or turning on my phone.

Notes: Willpower is a finite resource; sustained success comes from creating a conducive environment.

A Simple Business Planning Framework

How I outline quarterly and annual business plans.

This past week I've started working on 2023 annual plans for my businesses.

I like to keep these as simple as possible yet with enough detail to provide a clear picture for my teams and me to follow in the coming year.

Here's what it looks like.

I create a google doc, then outline the following.

Mission & Vision

At the top of my doc, I restate my business mission and Vision. Generally, my Vision is long-term, like 3 - 5 years into the future, and my mission is for the current year.

Ex: Mission = Become the gym for local athletes, Vision = ……

Goal

Then I set our goal for the year, which is a single north-star metric.

Ex: Help our members hit 500 member achievements this year (goals & PBS).

Strategy

Next, I outline in a couple of sentences our top-line strategy for getting to this goal and why it will work.

Ex: Refurb gym and up our customer service to specifically help athletes achieve goals. A better training environment will encourage members to train more and harder, and better customer service will help them train more purposefully.

Strategic Pillars

Here, I lay out the biggest bets we'll make to realise our goal and strategy.

Ex: #1 - Refurb gym with athletes in mind, #2 - Introduce personalised service, #3 - Build a community.

Strategic Pillar #1

And finally, I dive a little deeper into each strategic pillar. I explain what exactly it is, why it's important, how I'll know if it's been successful & what projects I think we need to complete to get there.

Ex: We will adjust our gym layout, decor and experience to meet our athlete's needs. This is important because we want to make our athlete's chances of succeeding as high as possible. We will know we have succeeded if we grow our athletic membership base by 100% and a higher percentage of athletes hit new achievements. We will need to redesign the gym with the help of an architectural designer and...

Once complete, I send this out to my team to review, and then we jump on a team call to discuss it at the start of each year or quarter.

If you’re interested you can view my live 2023 plan for World Fitness here.​

Notes: Failing to plan is planning to fail.

ENTREPRENEURS CORNER

The Midwit Meme

My favourite meme explained.

The Midwit meme gets my vote for the meme of the year.

Born on 4chan in 2013 and in popular use since about 2017, the midwit meme has reached the peak of its powers in 2022.

As 100's of new current things have made their way into everyday discourse, the midwit meme has provided some encouragement to those willing to rise above their deeply held beliefs and think objectively.

And, of course, poke a little fun at those that can't.

The general premise is that the dummy and the intellect come to the same simple conclusions (but by entirely different reasoning) about things. At the same time, the average person has an entirely different and either overly simplified or complicated one.

So one, angle midwit meme creators have enjoyed taking the piss out of the average joe, who likes to make things overtly more complex than needed.

Take getting fit, for example.

The dummy might say you must get in the gym, lift heavy and get that pump. Because that's what looks good in a mirror, and fit = big muscles.

The midwit might say you need to track 30 different metrics on your Fitbit, follow the paleo diet, sleep 7.5 hours, train only between 4 - 6pm and do 8 - 12 reps per exercise set at the gym. Because they've read 300 books and blogs on training and now know precisely how to get there and as you might have guessed - it's complicated.

The genius might say - you need to exercise regularly a few times a week, do activities you enjoy, and eat a balanced diet. Because that is the common through-line of most fit and healthy people.

We can be the dummy, middle or genius, depending on the topic of conversation. And it's not IQ or whatever version of measuring intelligence you prefer that decides where we fall.

It's our smarts.

Too smart for your own good leads many intelligent folk to the uselessly complicated middle. Keeping the midwit meme in mind helps me catch myself from ending up there.

Notes: Don’t overcomplicate it.