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The following podcast is a dear media production.
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She s a lifestyle blogger extraordinaire.
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Fantastic.
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And he s a serial entrepreneur, a very smart cookie.
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And now Lauren Everts and Michael Bostic are bringing you along for the ride.
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Get ready for some major realness.
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Welcome to the skinny confidential him and her.
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How to upgrade your life in 2024.
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I am going to teach you in this episode in 10 minutes how to do a personal annual review.
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This is such a good way to kickstart the year on a positive note and really just reflect on what s working, what s not working.
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So I actually got this idea from Sahil Bloom, who was on our podcast.
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If you haven t listened to that episode, it is such a good one.
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I was literally taking notes during it.
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And he mentioned something called a personal annual review, and I dove into it, and I used his format, and it was incredibly helpful.
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So I am going to share that format, but I m going to give you some twists and turns and edits that I did to refine it, and I think you will find it really helpful.
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So the first thing that you re going to write down is, what did I change my mind on this year?
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So what is something in the past year that you changed your mind on?
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Really have an honest conversation with yourself from a non-judgmental space.
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And really think about something that you were so maybe hard-headed on that you ve changed your mind on.
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I think this is an exercise, just this question, in self-awareness.
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And really being able to be like, OK, what is something that I was ride or die for that I ve changed my mind on?
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And write a list of that.
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So I did like six, OK?
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You could do as many as you wanted.
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The second thing you re going to write down is what created energy this year.
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So look back on your year and evaluate what was giving you energy.
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That could be a person, a business dealing, something that happened at work, a special day, an activity.
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Write down every single thing that you felt lit you up.
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And that one is an important one.
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We re going to go back to that.
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The third thing that you re going to write down is what drained energy this year.
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Maybe there were certain events that you had to go to or family members or friends.
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I don t know what it is, but you can literally write down anything that drained your energy.
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It could be like, I woke up too early and I just feel like I should be waking up at seven, not six.
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It could be anything.
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You can literally write down anything, but you just want to be able to see it so you can do that personal annual review.
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The fourth thing you re going to write down is, who were my boat anchors in my life?
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And this one is important because relationships, friendships, all the things, they ebb and they flow.
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And I think to be able to reflect on last year and see who was really in it with you and who was someone that you went to in times of crisis is important.
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I like to do this list every single year because it really puts things into perspective of who has been there, was there, has been there for a long time.
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I just feel like it s a good question.
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So whenever you have anything bad happen to you in the next upcoming year, two years, five years, you really know who you can turn to and it s right on paper.
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Number five is what did I not do because of fear?
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I am obsessed with this question because this again asks you to have a really honest conversation with yourself.
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And I think so much of our time is spent scrolling and on external things and going out and just doing things that are outside of ourself.
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And these questions actually really
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cause you to stop, take a beat, think, and go in.
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So anything that you didn t do because of fear would go on this question.
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Number six is what were my greatest hits and my biggest misses?
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I also love this question because you can just get really clear on what you hit on and what you missed on.
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And then what I like to do here is I like to double down on what my greatest hits were for this upcoming year.
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So my word of the year, one of my words, I have like a couple, is impact.
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I want to do things with my time when I m away from my children for work that have impact.
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And so I think when I wrote out my greatest hits, it was really easy to find that word because I noticed the things that I wrote out had an impact.
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Things that you or me missed on could be anything like you wish that you didn t do A, B, C, D, and E because it took away from your family or your kids or it took away from your peace of mind.
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I think it s really important to look at what brings you peace.
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And if something was a big miss, it probably didn t bring you peace.
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Number seven is, what did I learn this year?
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This question rounds out your personal annual review.
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And I think this is just like a huge list.
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Write down everything you learned.
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What I like to do is I have a Notes app in my phone that I write things down all the time.
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I ll write down quotes, things I heard on podcasts.
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I ll screenshot things I read in books or Audible.
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I ll put it in my Notes app.
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And then this page, I just fill up with everything.
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So when I m feeling like I need sort of like a compass, I can go back to this page and I can sort of just like read all these really inspiring, motivating, incredible words or quotes or phrases on one page.
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And then I added a couple of things to this is I added what my focus is for 2024.
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And I think this should only be one small page.
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I don t think you should go crazy.
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I think we overwhelm ourselves when we write too much or when we write like 30 paragraphs or pages and pages like just focus on the things that have the impact.
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So on this page, I wrote down
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things like my kids, my marriage, and then I really went granular with my business on what the focus is, but I didn t go crazy.
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So think of this almost as like an Ivy Lee method for your focus for 2024.
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I would say write down like seven things.
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Keep it simple.
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Don t overwhelm yourself.
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And then what I like to do is I like to take my seven things that I m focusing on for 2024 and I like to write each one at the top of the page.
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So now I have seven blank pages.
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And underneath each of those seven things, I ll write out how I m going to get to these big goals.
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So an example of a goal could be I am launching a unique product, bringing it to market, and I want it to make a splash in a very specific way.
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What I would do is I would write down what I need to make that splash, what I need to execute the launch, whether that s social assets, doing a photo shoot, doing a B-roll shoot, getting user-generated content, hiring creators, shooting myself in it, getting it on the website, getting the description.
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making sure it s in stock, making sure the packaging s done.
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Like I write down literally every single thing that I need to do to execute on this one goal.
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And then I ll go to the next page on number two.
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And maybe number two says, focus on my kids and be present.
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I will write down a bunch of things that I can do
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with my kids to feel present with them.
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So maybe it s, like for me, it s putting my phone away when I walk through the door and focusing on them, getting on the floor and playing with them, coloring, baking.
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Zaza and I are really having a big baking moment.
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We re always, we bake things like every single day.
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We ll bake muffins, we ll bake cookies.
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Like it s just a really fun way to engage.
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Another thing that I wanted to do this year with my kids is make Crock-Pot or Instapot meals
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And so that went on my list.
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And we started this year making like fajitas and we ll make like chicken together.
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And it s like a whole mommy daughter thing.
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And I think that writing those things down helps me actually do the tactical steps to actually be present.
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So, yes, the goal is be present with my kids, but it s like, how exactly am I showing up to be present?
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What does that actually look like on a day to day basis?
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And I think the same goes with your business.
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Like that s great that you.
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have a goal to launch a product but underneath that goal needs to be all the things that you need to do.
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And then additionally what I added to this is I put a negative sign and a plus sign on a piece of paper and I drew a line and I wrote down all my habits that aren t serving me and I replaced them on the other side of the plus sign with habits that I want to focus on and lean into.
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So a negative habit could be
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Maybe you go on your phone at night at 8.30 p.m.
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and you don t get off until 11 p.m.
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because you re scrolling.
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So you write, I m on my phone from 8.30 to 11 p.m.
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and I want to get off.
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And then on the plus side, you would write phone in the other room on airplane mode.
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reading a Kindle.
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So automatically your brain knows that when you start to reach for your phone, nope, you re going to do the other habit that you ve created.
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You re going to crowd it out and you re going to do the new positive habit.
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I think you can do this with anything.
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So like, say you want to start meditating.
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You can say, I m going to wake up 5 to 10 minutes earlier than I normally do and I m going to use that time to meditate.
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So I m going to do that by getting a hatch alarm clock, and I m going to make it a point to make sure before anyone wakes up that I get 5 to 10 minutes to myself.
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Maybe you want to improve your skincare routine.
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You can say, okay, I want to improve my skincare routine.
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And then the plus side, you can say, after I brush my teeth, I m going to make it a point to take two minutes to invest in my skincare routine.
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How you build an extraordinary life is how you set up your daily habits.
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I have talked to so many different people on this podcast and so many of them are high achievers and they re high performers and all of them, and I mean all of them, credit their time and their daily habits to why they re so successful.
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If you notice that your days are filled with a lot of negative habits,
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I would really become a detective of your day and figure out what you can do to replace those habits with something positive.
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Because let s face it, habits add up, and it s so important to constantly be editing it.
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And I think with this personal annual review, you really can look and reflect on last year.
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You can leave it in the past.
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You can see what you learned.
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And then you can focus on this year, your seven things that you really want to invest in.
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You can write your systems of how to get those seven things.
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And then you can write your last page of your negative habits and what you re going to do to replace it with positive habits.
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So another good one is when I m working on a conference call, I am going to get on the treadmill, treadmill, never know how to say that, or I m going to take a walk outside for an hour.
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That is such an easy one.
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You re already on a call.
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Take a walk while you re on the call to get some exercise in.
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I think what separates really successful people from people who are struggling with that area is the people who are dedicated to making their time work for them.
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And there are so many ways that we can get creative, whether it s waking up a little bit early or putting our phone away before we go to bed and not having it in the room or walking while we take conference calls.
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or making healthier choices and adding more protein.
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There s just so many little tweaks that anyone can do that I think that if you re really committed to taking your life to the next level, that it s important to inspect what you do on a daily basis.
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And this is just what I did with my personal annual review.
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It really helped me.
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And it also makes you incredibly self-aware of what s working and what s not working.
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And I am not perfect with this by any means.
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There s a lot of things that I m constantly refining and tweaking and editing.
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So to be able to just look at last year and this year from a whole is really helpful.
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And I do want to say that this whole exercise probably took me 20 minutes.
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It s in my journal.
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I have like this cute orange journal.
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And I can go back and I can look at it and I can be like, OK, if I m getting off course, this is where I need to be.
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This is where my focus needs to be.
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This is where I m going to create impact.
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So that is how you re going to do your personal annual yearly review.
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You can also do this every six months.
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And then if you want something to help you track your day, what I do to keep myself accountable is I use the Skinny Confidential Planner.
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And this is tracking your habits on a daily basis.
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It s one page.
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It s not overwhelming.
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It just separates everything really nicely.
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And what I have found is these exact prompts that I use in this planner have helped me build the life of my dreams because I ve been able to look at my life from a day-to-day basis and make sure that I m doing the habits that I need to be doing to get me to an extraordinary life.
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I hope you guys are loving these micro solo episodes.
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I know Michael and I are obsessed.
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If you like episodes like this, I would highly recommend subscribing to our newsletter, tscpodcast.com.
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We have weekly him and her tips coming to your inbox.
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And then we also have a monthly favorites newsletter of all everything we bought, consumed, loved for the month.
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Thank you guys so much for listening and we will see you on Monday.