Create Your Best 2021 – A Process for Reflecting on 2020 to Plan 2021 (FSFS232)

FSFS232_Javan_YearEndReview

Diego: [00:00:00] 2020, maybe the year wasn't as bad as you actually thought it was today. It's all about doing a year-end review. Why you should do it, how you should do it, and some tips for getting it done. Stay tuned for all that coming up.

Happy new year. Welcome to 2021. I'm your host Diego, DIEGO. Today on the podcast we are talking year-end review and by we, myself and my good friend, Javan Kirby Bernakevitch. Today, we're going to be discussing a process that Javan has outlined in their recent workshop, a workshop that's still available about doing a year-end review. It's all about looking back at the year that was, look at the events that happen, how those events made you feel and how you can then adjust future behavior to reproduce those results or come up with different results.

While the process of doing a year-end review might sound really easy. There's actually some nuance to it. And ironically, the easiest part of doing a review might actually be the hardest part: sitting down and actually doing it. So hopefully this podcast will give you a kickstart and some motivation to do your year-end review so you can have a great 2021.

And this show we'll be talking about the Envision 2021 workshop that Javan has available. If you want to learn more about that, you can do so by visiting the link in the show description below. With that, let's jump right into it with Javan Kirby Bernakevitch.

I started thinking, a year-end review, like how hard can that be? You just think about the previous year, but then when you actually sit down and do it. It can be a little daunting. It's one of those things that I think sounds easy, but without a framework, without some guidance, without narrating your journey of review, you can either clip the tops, clip the bottoms and focus on what you think.

So when it comes to year-end reviews, how do you view them as a tool that is actually useful? Not just an exercise that you go through just to say you did it, but you actually don't get results from?

Javan Bernakevitch: [00:02:25] I think when we look at society en masse at large, currently the biggest problem we're facing is that we are a society that doesn't reflect on the past and doesn't intentionally set ourselves up for the future.

And the lovely moniker of, if you don't learn from history, you're bound to repeat it is there for exactly this reason. I would say the majority of the problems that we face today in modern society are because we don't reflect on what was, and we don't set intentions for the future. So for me, for the last six years, six, seven years, I've made a conscious choice on.

The Gregorian new year between solstice, between winter solstice and the Gregorian new year and my birthday, which is roughly seven months, after to sit down and to reflect and to create intention. Now, what I've come up with is not the only way to do it. and I'm sure it's not the best way for every single person who's out there, but it's the way that I've used.

The idea, the meta cognition of what has happened and what's going to happen to good effect. And the reason why it's been successful is: we are not single points in time. We've have previous conversations. We have future conversations. There are so many conversations that are happening at any one time. If we don't take stock of what was, and if we don't envision what will be, we'll be blown by chance.

We'll be blown by the winds of whatever our society, our friends or family tell us to do. And we'll end up as we've talked about a bunch, having our lives designed for us. And I think a lot of people did in 2020. I think there was a lot of. stories and narratives that came from, news and friends and family and society at large that said this was the year that you had.

And when I ran this workshop a couple of weekends weeks ago, and we went through this, one of the major pieces of feedback I got was. 2020 wasn't as bad as I had it in my mind. And actually there was a lot of good that came out of this year. and instead of just the knee-jerk reaction of 2020, there was a pandemic and there was a closing down of movement and of businesses. And thus it was a bad year. If we don't challenge that narrative, chances are we'll continue onto the next year with that in mind.

Diego: [00:04:50] Yeah, it's interesting thinking that. Cause one thing I hear on a lot of podcasts, I see it on people say it on YouTube is, good riddance 2020, there's all these socks where they've made 2020, into like a middle finger.

And they're just writing it off as though the whole year was bad. and I get very bad things happen to different degrees to everybody, but. I don't think it's fair to also say like good riddance and ignore any and all positive that you may have taken away in 2020, because through the pandemic, through the social unrest, I think a lot of people actually grew stronger.

I think a lot of bonds grew stronger and if you just. Wipe the stains of 2020 across that backwards looking glass you're missing any of the growth that these potential negative issues, problems, events taught us. you're just leaving it back there and just saying that was a terrible year. Goodbye.

Javan Bernakevitch: [00:05:50] Yeah, it's broad brush strokes. It's, that's what it was. I'm not going to think about it. I'm going to look forward and our society loves to do that. We do that almost on a daily basis. Let's not think about what happened. Let's not think about who we were and let's just be in the moment and listen to whatever anybody is saying to us.

and that's a problem. That's a really big problem. And as I've seen the same thing as you and. Blog posts and YouTube and podcast and media and social media. It's just this lamb basing of a year. And I got to tell you the first, first couple of months of the pandemic, I was so enthusiastic because not because of the death and not because of the suffering that some people were going through, but because we were finally getting a sense of the feedback loops.

On our planet. There are a number of these feedback loops that come towards us, and we have lots of different systems in place to keep us from understanding that those feedback loops are there be it wildfires, be it, issues with pollution, be it, animals coming back to areas. Once we finally reduce the amount of human traffic, there was all of these feedback loops that we finally got a chance to see and hear because.

Nobody would voluntarily stop airline traffic or boat traffic, or all the rest of it. We wouldn't slow down to the point of going okay, what's important now that we're not leaving the house or what's around us or what's that thing I've always wanted to accomplish. I've found on sites like Reddit.

Probably the most inspiring because you see all these people who have done a huge amount with the time they had in 2020. So I completely agree with you. if you just take the broad brush strokes of 2020, or of pretty much every year, every year I see, 2019, at least it's gone at least 20, 20 Oh 20 eighteens gone.

At least it's 2019. That's a real mindset. That I would say anybody who has that knee jerk reaction to look at the past year should actively challenge it because reality is perspective plus context. The context of 2020 was a pandemic and economic shutdown, social unrest. But if your perspective isn't then challenging that and saying, okay, what can I do here?

What can I create here? what's the possibilities here. Then you're actively allowing the context of your situation to define your reality. And once you add perspective in now you have agency again. Now you are, and again, that's

Diego: [00:08:06] the danger in saying it's such a bad year. you let the calendar write your life, as though January 1st, suddenly your life is going to become that more, much more miraculous on its own without you actually doing anything. so we have this process of reflection and setting intention. How do you view this similarly or differently than the standard goal setting, which a lot of people do at the beginning of the year.

Here's what I want to be in a month, six months, a year out from now.

Javan Bernakevitch: [00:08:34] Yeah, the difference in this process is one it's heart and it's mental center. So it's not just, okay, what were the facts? But it's also the emotions. How did I feel over the last year? how will I feel in the coming year? And once you start working on your emotions and being open to them and actually allowing them to come forth, all of a sudden you have access to another, like 30, 40% of your total intelligence that you didn't have before.

And that's an exceptionally important part that doesn't necessarily come up with goal setting. if you're working with smart, specific, measurable, actionable results oriented in time, if you're working with that way of building goals, you don't know if that's a goal you actually need to be.

Working towards, and as we've talked about previously in life design, what we want to do is get a sense of what do I want to be true about who I am and my family and my business and the future as a value, as a quality. And then what are the goals or the house that will lead me there? So the goal is never the point.

And if we just sit down with our, what are we going to do for 20, 21 journal and saying, okay, I want to be 20 pounds lighter. And I want to have, $20,000 more of income on, I wanna be able to run up and down the mountain. fair enough. But at the same time, where does that lead you? And could there be other paths there that are not exactly what you've written down because time and time again, the goal that you've written down may, for some reason, some context of 20, 21 not be possible.

I can't run up the mountain every single day cause I hurt my ankle. Okay. what else are you doing for fitness, for movement, for mobility, for flexibility. What are you doing for the qualities that will bring you out to that value? And so this process like. Almost all my processes are about what is the value I want to have?

What is the quality of life I want to have and then backtracking and saying, what did it happened in 2020? That was positive. That was useful. What can I just immediately put into 20, 21, be it business processes or how I felt or what I did or the relationships. And then what else potentially, could I experiment with that would bring me about that quality of life or those values?

Diego: [00:10:45] Yeah, I think the danger in a goal, and it's great to put something out there, like a North star to walk towards. But if you say, no, I want to start a business by the end of the year. Okay. that's a great goal to go

Javan Bernakevitch: [00:10:58] towards,

Diego: [00:10:59] but you do miss a lot of that context. And this is what I've found from talking to people through conversations like you, and just talking to people who want to be, have this goal, as you say that your goal, but then you're ignoring well, What am I displacing in my life to go after that goal?

let's say I have kids and a spouse. Okay. If I'm going to go after this goal, does that mean I have less time with the kids and my spouse has to now pick up some Slack where I'm stepping away and are they okay with that? So there's all these trade-offs and then it goes back to that. why, why do you want to start a business?

I just want to be more financially independent. Could you be financially more independent by becoming a contractor in your given field, by going for a promotion at work, cutting down, spending, and investing something else and going a totally different route. But. The, I think the danger in goal center is it's like looking through a catalog and making a wishlist when you're a kid is you're like, the world is my possibilities.

I can be anything, do anything. I'm going to pick that and go for it. And then you start going for it and you miss the context and the planning part. So when you do it, You're maybe struggling. Like I don't have the time to start this business. And now you're setting yourself up for this future failure.

Will I try to, it didn't really work. It fizzled out. Maybe you told somebody and you feel a little bit ashamed or embarrassed cause you didn't go after it. And now you've torched this whole dream because you just, some stuck something out there that while admirable and it's thought. The path to get there wasn't thought out or the intention or the reasoning, why wasn't there.

So I love the idea of planning for that in the one way you plan for that is I think you back cast on what you've done previously. What did I enjoy? When was I really stressed out? I'm stressed out at work when I'm really busy. Why am I not going to be stressed out and starting a business on my own, type thing.

Javan Bernakevitch: [00:12:57] Yeah. Yeah, exactly. Yeah. It's the number of people I work with one-on-one who have gone through a process who have gone through a, I'm going to start a business. I started the business and they lose all their quality of life, starting the business, or they're going to do a project and they lose all their quality of life because they went towards that project or that idea.

And now they're thinking, Now I'm the bad person. I don't know what I'm doing. I don't know who I am. It's not true. It's just, you've in a society that's based upon merit. We're constantly forced to think we have to go and do a thing to be a good person and doing the thing doesn't inherently make us a good person.

And more importantly, doesn't necessarily bring us the quality of life we want. So this society put goals above quality of life. So you go off and you're like, great. I'm going to. And not to bring up old wounds, but I'm going to make a conference. That'll be the thing. And knowing you and talking to you through that process, lots of quality of life was suffered underneath that.

Now, if you flip that, if you flip that one 80 and all of a sudden you've got, okay, what's the quality of life I want to have. I want to have a happy life, a happy wife, happy kids. I want to be financially stable. I want to be excited about the work I'm doing now, all of a sudden we're testing all the things that we're thinking we might do against those quality of lives.

will that bring about that life that we want? Will we feel like we're in a good place about that? And as people come into this reflection process, either your own, or just take some tidbits off of this podcast, or if you want to jump in and do the workshop. We already have all of this great data, which is called our life.

That's already happened. And life design can be really simply boiled down to take stock of what promoted wellbeing take stock of what promoted suffering do more of what promoted wellbeing and do less of what promoted, suffering, rinse, and repeat double down on the good stuff that could be as simple as it need be.

And that is really the crux of what this process was about. And

Diego: [00:14:59] for as simple as that is what caused suffering, what caused the enjoyment, thinking about that in the past, I w I'd be willing to bet a lot of money that, that the majority like 90 plus people out of a hundred, don't sit down at the end of the year and do that.

They might have while there was five events that just immediately they're flashbulb moments, they stick out as awesome. And there's another five that were just terrible, but. Those are the outsides of the bell curve, the fringe, you truncate those off, and then you have the rest of life.

within the rest of life, where did you feel the best? Where did you feel the worst? And when I went through this process and started thinking about it, that's where. I started to really notice some trends, like maybe stuff that I had in my mind of okay, this is an area that needs improvement, but then I started to notice, okay, if I'm really busy, I tend to get stressed.

That means I'm maybe quick or snappy or not as present as I want to be. So I can make those adjustments more and it's not just be, don't be snappy. Be present. It's. Have to be less busy. I can have the back off on my stress level, my busy level to correct that. So while it does sound remarkably easy, just to think back, I think the benefit of going through a program, whether it's yours or somebody else's is.

It's if you go to a movie you've paid the money or you've committed the time to sit there and watch it. You're not going to go to a movie and start playing checkers in the movie. You're there, you've set an intention on why you're there and it forces you into this mindset of at least doing it.

Then if I leave myself freely open to just sit down and say, we'll do this whenever it's usually never. And it won't happen. So the, I think just a benefit of a structured process, a schedule, a process, if you pay for it, then you're even more committed to doing it gives you some additional motivation to actually go through this whole thing.

Javan Bernakevitch: [00:17:11] yeah. now we're into, the problem with access to information and Derek Siver had said it best, if information was the only problem. In the world, we'd all have six pack abs and be millionaires. If that was actually the problem. But the problem is motivation, dedication, setting aside the time, scheduling the time being dedicated to a process to go through it.

And that's why having a process be it mine or somebody else's to sit down and go through and have somebody else walk you through. If you don't have it yourself, if you don't want to build it yourself, that's the value of it. Is that there? Somebody else who's going to sit down. Who's already. Precog had already had a pre cognition of all of this and said, okay, I've done this for seven years.

It's been super helpful in my life. I've passed it on to a number of clients. I've gotten good feedback. And now we're at. Whatever the iteration is. I think there's been so many changes to this process over the years, that it's a process that anybody can do. That's really accessible and is really simple.

you reflect on the previous year, you go through every single month, you pull out your calendar, you take a look at every single thing that happened in those months. The work, the life, the personal explorations, the personal experiments, and you give it some kind of rating. I'm easy on rating system.

So plus is positive. Minus is negative. Equal is just had to happen. And you just, you get a sense about why each of those things was. Positive or negative. And some things like a review process that I was asked to engage in were positive in that I learned a ton, but were negative in that I didn't really like how I was interacting with that review process.

And so I can look at that and go, yeah, I'd be open to reviewing somebody else's situation next year, but I will not be available for weekly Skype meetings. And I will not be doing written feedback that isn't paid and I will. So all of a sudden, I'm not even saying, Oh, the event was a total negative or total positive same issue with saying the last year was.

Garbage and thank goodness. We've got another one. It's what was inside of that. That was problematic. And now all of a sudden we're doing a really specific inventory, almost doing a post-mortem of the year. What was great, what was amazing? What do we love? What wasn't and why? And that why part is really important?

Diego: [00:19:27] I don't think there's a lot of trends, potentially. At least there was for me, I started to notice certain times certain events that triggered something else, either a positive or a negative. And the negatives were where now I need to start to look at to say, okay, how can I, maybe they were. Quad negatives, as, as five negatives and I, and maybe the best step isn't going from five to zero, maybe it's just, I have to back it off to a four.

And then the next time I have to go to a three and two, just to unwind the process. but I think if I don't, I didn't do that, then I am somebody who will find myself engaged in life and then triage it. Like you're dealing with it and saying, okay, this is a mess. a fire happened. I need to get myself out of this and then you get out of it, but then you leave it behind.

And I'm trying to now say, okay, I need to avoid more of those fires that they could potentially be controlled in the future. So I'm not triaging them as much. I'm just, there, there never was a fire to begin with. And I think. The workshop that you did the envision 2021 linked to below helped me at least review the year in a way that honestly, I wouldn't have done this process before.

Javan Bernakevitch: [00:20:56] And you bring up a really good point. Is we a climatize so quickly? It's one of the things that humans do better than almost any other species. If the situation has changed, if we've had a calamity, we addressed it and we move forward. We forget almost immediately the specifics of that. we forgot how it made us feel or what we did to improve it or what we might have done to avoid it in the first place.

And that's what I love about this process is you, do you see these trends? You see these arc, you see these melodies. Over the year about when inherently energy was up, when I was making poor decisions, when other things came up and when we have that process, whatever it might be mine or others to go through and look at and experience all of a sudden you can see the year as a phrase of life.

You can see it as Oh interesting. In between year 40 and 41 of my life. I had this interesting arc. And if you do this long enough, phrases over five years in 10 years. So you see these phrases of where you were at a certain place and what you're striving for. And then sometimes if you do the review, you'll look back and go.

I was striving for the wrong thing, but if you don't do any sort of reflection process, how are you going to know. You're not going to stumble on it. Nobody's writing a book about you that you're going to read. You have to write the book about yourself and that book includes review and understanding and interactions.

And I love that you brought up that there were trends. What are the kinds of trends came up for you?

Diego: [00:22:26] The one. So I will find myself getting stressed about projects that don't move the needle or that nobody cares about. So I'll flash some sort of idea. Wow, that'd be cool to do that. And that could be a podcast, a written thing, a video, something, and then I'll find myself starting to commit more of my, myself to that project and then feel guilty when that's not advancing.

Feel guilty when it's not moving along. And then maybe eventually I just jettison it along the way and nobody cared or I do it and it, nobody cared. And I never stopped in the beginning to say, is this worth attaching any of my mental well-being to in the first place? So it's just more just chasing kind of the excitement of that might be cool.

Without stopping to say in the beginning, okay. We're not going to do this. And it's this, it goes back to a different question. We, or topic, we talked about offline one time of, like you can do it because you could, or you can do it because you should. And there is a lot of, I find myself sometimes I do it because I could not because I should.

So I'm trying to refine that down.

Javan Bernakevitch: [00:23:53] Yeah, it's a trend. I think a lot of people find a part of humanity's growth and evolution as a species has been. We've really succeeded with novelty. When something new came up, when we tried something new chances are we had more adaptation and generally had more calories around us, generally had borrowed, more options.

So we are all hardwired for new. We are all hardwired with the dopamine and the serotonin of anything, new book, new, this new that, there's a reason why people like me have six or seven books at the go. Because every time you open a new book, you're like, Oh, this is going to be exciting. Now that can be tempered by some cognition.

And part of that cognition has to do a bit with some emotional intelligence, which is. Checking in and seeing what you want to be true about the following year and the way I do it in the workshop is we do a guided visualization of you wake up a year from today and it could be any day, you wake up from a year to day and what's true.

Everything that you wanted to come true in this year has come true. So what does your life look like? What does it feel like? Who you're talking to? Who are you working with? What is your daily routine look like? What does your diet look like? all of those things, we get that picture. And as we do a review, starting from tomorrow, all the way through the future of the first season, the next, and then finally ending up at that day.

You, you wake up at you then come back to the center, come back to where you are, wherever it is that you're listening to the workshop and you, okay. So what was true about that world? That. It's a quality of life. And so if I think about your situation, it's probably, I don't put energy into, things that don't matter, or I follow things that have, multiple values for myself, my business, my life.

I follow things that. I excitedly moved towards, or I lean towards, I say yes to things that I'm already leaning towards across the 50 Mark line. All of those would be, values that I'd be playing with and finding the one that really hit you and went yeah, I hear that. And that makes sense to me.

And then that value then becomes a filtering mechanism where as you're looking forward to 2021, it's like, Oh, I've got this idea for this new podcast. Wait a second. I'm working with these values this year. Does this yet? All these values. Am I leaning towards this? No, I think it's just a neat idea.

Okay. Will this advance my business? No. My business is really in these two areas and this is just a Lark. Okay. Will this allow me to have more time with Kim and the kids? Nope. This is more time spent away from them. Okay. Cool idea. Interesting idea. And for me, I've got an intern hire a notebook filled.

It's a digital notebook, but, a notebook filled of back burner, ideas of ideas that I'm like, that's an amazing idea. And it's going to go here. And then at the bottom of that. That idea I'll put what needs to be true of either the context around me or for me personally, to go forward on that idea.

So I've got maybe a dozen, two dozen workshops in there. I have two or three personal projects. I have at least a dozen professional projects. I have so many projects that are there, but they're just not the right time. And they wouldn't help with the values that are true for me. So that's the nice thing about.

Really thinking about where you want to be in the future and the values you want to be true is that they could become a day tool, a tool you can use today to filter out any new idea that might come to you and help move. What was a trend from last year into a trend that you don't really see in? Yeah,

Diego: [00:27:25] and it's tricky because, I think those values.

I would want them to behave as though I'm a slot car on a track, like the values or the track and on the slot car. And I can not move off of it where I'm more, somebody who spilled the Coca-Cola over the slot car track, and it's just, it can flow over. And I have this, flexible, fantastic beasts and where to find them suitcase, where it's I'll fit this in there and it, it's just push it into this the time I have.

And there's always more room to stick something in there. And it is really the task I'm going to have to do is hold myself more rigid and put some of these hard boundaries up and say what am I getting out of this? Because I'm at the point where I'm very full and I feel like I'm very mentally full.

I like, I can't take much more on without negative happening. and I think this hardwired for something new as an interesting thought, it's like, why is that? That we look forward. It's so exciting yet. Nobody looks back. You think about any purchase. Most people have made, they will research the heck out of something.

They're going to buy shoes, a TV, a book, whatever, and then they'll get it. And it's it's okay. Or it's a gimmicky product and they'll just trash it. And 0% of those people who did all that research. Ever go back and say, why did I even want this thing in the first place? what did I get wrong in my research?

It was just like, we'll just donate it, pass it on, give it to somebody else, sell it. And it's off only to repeat that same buying problem. Later on. And I think this is, can be a super chronic problem for a lot of people, but for most of us, even who are, who don't have a spending problem, that's the thing we're always researching upfront, never dealing with the backend and weather life stuff, the same thing.

We're always excited to plan this new thing. We want to build out in the garden or on the farm or this thing we want to do. But when that thing. We build it and it doesn't work very few of us ever sit back and say, why didn't it work? Did I need to do this in the first place? Was this a waste of time?

What did I actually get out of it? And then also it's also like where do you limit your being human? like part of the enjoyment of life is just, I'm going to do this. I'm going to, I may explore. I'm going to be free. How do you reconcile that with, okay. Yeah, you want to be free, but you also have these values at your core that you need to adhere to.

So you're not so rigid that you're just plotting through life.

Javan Bernakevitch: [00:30:16] Yeah. it's a really good question. I think your first point though, about research is we're very much focused on. foresight research. We're very much focused on what's the best thing that I can buy right now. And going through all the research to buy the very seldom lead, do we do reverse research?

Do we look at our purchases? It was over the past year and go, what of these actually brought any joy into my life and what of these are actually useful to me? And what of these was I excited about? What am I still working with? And what's what was the value? And. I hate to be that guy, but I am that guy that goes back and goes through the Amazon list and goes through the credit card list.

That goes, what did I buy? And what was the value of it? Did it support anything in my life or no,

Diego: [00:31:05] that guy's a Kaiser associate does not exist.

Javan Bernakevitch: [00:31:08] Yeah. and it's probably a bit of the OCD that I, that just came into me when I was a kid. And it's part of the OCD that I've supported. And it's part of the fact that I have had a positive feedback loop in this process of just I finished the garden this year. And I immediately went into review, okay, cool.

What, and I did it in a celebratory way. I pulled out a bottle of cider and sat down and I was like, okay. So what was great about the garden this year and what was problematic and what would I do again and what would I not do again? And yeah. Why did I make so many kale plants for the love of all that's Holy who eats that much kale.

and why did I not put them in the same place? So I could put a one row cover over a 30 foot bed instead of three, 15 foot row covers. What was that idea about? that process for me has been so beneficial because it reduces my total expenses. It increases my total enjoyment and it just means that I'm ready for the next year.

And how does one develop that you start today. you go, okay, great. I'm going to reflect on what was, I'm going to set an intention for what is, and I'm going to re remind myself that this isn't a one and done situation. You're building a skill. And so if you only do this once a year, that's one rep once a year, chances are, it's not going to be a great skill, but if you get into this habit of, okay, I finished this project as I've just doing now, I'm wrapping up.

Two projects with Oregon state university and a couple of editing projects. And I keep a running list of what I loved about these projects and what I didn't. And immediately that creates the confines of one. I go back to create another contract with any of these entities. Okay. I'm going to go back to that as those boundaries and it's great.

Cause they don't really think about them as boundaries. I think about them as. molds, if you will, these are the molds of the future job and I want to be, and if I want to be him, I'm going to have to make sure that this project fits inside there, because I know how off I get, if I have to have project that lingers for three or four months after, initiation.

And that's a big trend for me this year. Is that right? I do really well. If I take a work location, grab a hotel room for three to four nights. Get a project to pretty much launch be done with it and then move on to the next thing that works phenomenally well, for me, what doesn't work well for me is the 10,000 browser tabs.

So if I have two or three projects that are still lingering and still moving on, that doesn't work for me. I learned that again this year, and I hope to listen to myself this year and changed the way that I'm working. And then the last thing that was really interesting for me is that, I don't work really well if I'm learning multiple new things at a time.

I work really well if I'm learning one new thing or two new things, but after we get to four, I have a hard time. Something about the neuroplasticity of my brain. I'm at four or five new things. I'm like, no. So like Darren Dardy of the agrarians likes to say, he's, he tries to help.

People make farming boring again, make it simple, make it something that you can come back to. Similarly, I want my life to just be the hits from last year to give me space, to find the new hits of next year. So that way I have that space. And that way, if there are some maintenance pieces, there's some things I do anyways.

How do I refine those pieces? But that's really what I'm trying to do on this year to year.

Diego: [00:34:21] I think they doing this review and just maybe internally, a lot of people will know. What type of person they are too. are you somebody who does start too many projects at once not finish them and that leads to pain.

And then once you, or are you somebody who tends to just rush into stuff and whether you get it done or not, you can start to temper. Some of those nuances that are internal or intrinsic to you, if you're a buyer of things, like I just love to buy a Wolf. Okay. let's back off on the buying.

If you're a project starter, Hey, let's try and start less projects and work there. And another thing I noticed a trend that came out of this year was I tend to get overly stressed sometimes relative to the pressure meaning. If somebody was evaluating this from the bird's eye view, they would say, okay, Diego's dealing with the stress pressure right now, five, but for some reason, when I have these fives, if the right life mix hits me, five feels like 50.

And then suddenly it's okay, nobody talked to me. I'm holing up in the office for a whole bunch of days. Like just stay away. I get nasty. I get distance. And then I'll get that project done. And it takes a fraction of the time. I thought it was I'll get it done and feel like that's all I had to do.

And I'm, overblowing some of these projects up in my head, which leads to stress, which trickles outside of me to the other people around me. So I'm trying to go into this year when things. Look bad. If I can avoid them. sometimes life just happens and a bomb gets dropped on you. Oh, what do I have to do here?

How bad is this with the systematic way to get out of it? And let's just have an emotional reaction to it initially, but then boom, that's it. Let's get to work. Let's solve it and move on. It's not as bad as I think. And that's going to be the motto when I get to some of these things. Like it's not as bad as you think it is because honestly it never really is.

In hindsight, but when it happens, it always seems worse than I think it actually is.

Javan Bernakevitch: [00:36:35] Yeah. and that tracking of a theme or that tracking of a trend for me in life design goes, Oh, there's interesting. there's a part in you that really connects with. Crisis. And when it happens, they're like we have to take care of it.

It has to happen, et cetera, et cetera. and that process I think brings up or that situation brings up another process that we've spoken about before, which is labeling the feeling inside of you as the feeling inside of you. Oh, interesting. A part of me is getting really stressed by this. And immediately when you do that, you step back and you go, Oh, there's a part of me that feels stressed about this.

Interesting. And that gives you opportunity to go. Great. What do I want to do about this from center? Not this part, stress part, this part that goes the world's collapsing. This will lead to babababababa bop. How do I from center go great. There's that part? It's doing what it's doing. What do I want to do about that?

And that for me would point towards, Oh, I got some work to do with that part. Some more interpersonal work, some emotional work, to, to figure where that part lives in me and how it operates, which

Diego: [00:37:41] is it's interesting. when you start to pick it this, then you start to see parts of you that like, I'll say I'm more aware of them.

Like I'm not super introspective in the sense, in some ways I am, in some ways I'm not like, like dealing with stress thing, like what you just said. I think that. That's interesting. No pun intended. And like me looking at, why am I getting as stressed out as I am when these situations develop? Why is that?

I don't know, like that, that would require me to sit down and say like, how can I think of that? So it's not just dealing with it when it comes up, but just getting to, why am I such a crisis? Solver. Why is there so much urgency around some of these things and in handling that? and maybe it's, it comes into layering things like another trend is, Sam already stressed.

When that stress thing happens, you're already at this weekend, emotional state and then something bad happens. And it's there's one week rotted leg left on the table. And now somebody is trying to put, a pallet of bricks on top of it. if all four of those legs were super strong and brand new, they could maybe hold that palette.

But when they're already widdle the way and termite eaten the pallet heads and this thing just collapses to the floor. so part of it might also, I think be. It's not necessarily just dealing with the situation. it's that situation hit at a time when I was already vulnerable. It's like the whole COVID

Javan Bernakevitch: [00:39:17] thing.

W you were, if

Diego: [00:39:20] you had some other immuno compromised disease, like you're weakened from that disease. And then something like pneumonia comes in and then it's really bad because you've already been weakened.

Javan Bernakevitch: [00:39:32] Yeah. Yeah. There's an inside out and outside in response. So the inside out is somewhere in your history.

There was a situation where you saw that if somebody had taken more care or more situation, potentially. There would have been a better outcome in a crisis. And somehow this part of you was created and this part is there and it's alive and all the rest of it. And so exploring that part, working with that part, finding out what that part's about.

And every single time it comes out. Watching your language. And instead of saying, why am I like that going? Why is there a part in me that's that gives you more and more space. And then when you get into either voice dialogue, like we've talked about before or another interpersonal modality, you can look at it and understand it and then create awareness of it so that we went and it's come up.

You're like, all right. It's okay. Looks good from the outside in though. How then do you create space as well? So the outside in is, at what capacity do I run myself? Do I run myself at 60%, 80%, 90%, a hundred percent, 120. Are there any boundaries that I use or filters that I use to make sure that the load is low anyways?

So that way the stress in the other areas of my life is low. And that happens both physically, mentally, emotionally. if you take a look at cortisol, for example, There's a number of different foods that immediately drop cortisol. We don't talk about that. We don't talk about that. That there's foods that we eat that increase inflammation, which increased cortisol, which inherently put us in a stress state.

So there is that opportunity to put us in a resting, calm state in a state that feels, loved and liked and calm and all the rest of it. And then there's also the work that we can do internally. There's a part of me that loves new. as there's a part in all of us, and I recently picked up an editing rig for, for video editing.

So I, I get to give Todd's computer back to him. I've only had it for eight months. It's not a big deal. And I just got it. It's literally sitting beside me and in the communication with the seller, I had assumed that it would come with a wifi card and he never asked it. So here's this thing sitting beside me.

And I'm so excited to load the Adobe creative suite on it, but I don't have a wifi card. So I've got like another two weeks to wait then getting it back down to this office that I ran to hooking it up. And there's a part of me that can get really down and go, man, like you didn't ask enough questions. you always just think it'll work out.

And yet if I take the space to go cool, a part of me feels bummed out by this. I immediately have space to then go, okay, I'm going to go get ready for Diego's podcast. I'm going to go work on some of my client work and go, yeah, there is a part of me. There's this little giddy part of me, like a kid. That's looking at this thing going, like, how do I make this work?

And yet there's a rational part that I can now access because I can't go cool. I need to buy this thing and I need to buy a few other things. So I'll buy them. I'll put this away. I'll be ready for this in a few weeks. And I'll focus on what I have to do. And this is the process of growing up. This is the process of being responsible humans and being responsible for our emotions and how they come up and how they come up throughout the year.

So this process, if you want to think of it that way, it's really us taking this level, this little filter throughout the past year and going, who was I? Where was I at? How do I want to change? And how do I want to be more responsible for this by saying. So I know I get stressed and I know if there's multiple things coming at me that I can get overly stressed and this affects me and Kim and the relationship and the kids and all the rest of it.

So great. What am I going to experiment in January, February, March, what's going to be the three month experiment that I can play with and go that worked. I did less. I took on less. I just said no to everything. I said yes, to the things that made me move forward. I worked with some of those values that you have, and I talked about whatever it is, but treat it in a way that you are building a skill instead of, Oh, this is a one and done situation because if you're building a skill, you'll come back to it.

Diego: [00:43:33] Yeah. And I'm definitely somebody who like, I like to get it to the point, whether it's what I eat or how I. No exercise where it becomes a skill, a habit is a built in, it runs on autopilot and there is a lot less, thinking about it in the moment where, if I'm thinking about it all, it's easy to lapse.

And I know one thing, example that is, so this weekend, I rarely sleep in, Not really. I infrequently sleeping and one day this weekend I slept in and I was like, I got up and I was pissed because I slept in and I was like, damn, I want to do this and this morning.

And I was just grumpy and the kids and everybody's let's go out. We went to a walk in a park and I was whatever, I don't even want to go. And then I ended up going and I was cranky on the way there. And I started to think what are you going to do here?

are you going to be mad about the plans that you had made in your early Hayes of potentially waking up early? And so at four in the morning in your head, I want to do this, and then you decided to go back to sleep. Those didn't get accomplished.

Javan Bernakevitch: [00:44:48] Or,

Diego: [00:44:49] and you're going to expense a real experience that you could just enjoy because you can't go back and change it anyway, but you might have union on.

Now, here you are the chance to have fun, or you can just say that was just something I made in my head. It didn't mean anything down out of it and just move on. And it was really me having to work through that of The morning. Wasn't how I initially planned, but that doesn't mean it still can't be great.

I can't miss what could be great at because of what wa was just some imaginary plan that I had that didn't happen. And I'll tend to do that. Sometimes myself is make these plans. And then they don't get done for whatever reason something goes wrong, something breaks, life happens and then I'll get pissed and be like, Oh, I didn't do any of that stuff that I wanted to do, but I'll put that, but not doing those little things causes me to miss actual, real life on the backend of that.

So in a way I'm more upset about what didn't happen instead of enjoying what actually is happening. And I'm over that at this point in my life.

Javan Bernakevitch: [00:46:15] I think everybody's over that the moment it happens, Yeah. and that's very common. It's very common where there's a part of us. the critic, the discipline, the protector, that's saying, if I make a plan, I get it done.

And it happens a lot with guys. I made a plan. I'm going to get it done. There's something about that part that's wrapped up in identity and masculinity and all the rest of it. And you have this blowback when you don't do it, because that part's you're an idiot. You didn't get anything done.

You were doing anything. And almost immediately, if somebody who I work with has a problem, like you were talking about where it's I almost never sleep in and I did. I was pissed. It's okay, guess what? the work is sleeping again and activating these parts and working with them part.

So that way it doesn't matter what comes to you. Doesn't matter what co slept in slept the whole day. Wasn't able to do anything. You are not at the whim of these parts that were created far right earlier than today, sometimes today, but sometimes far earlier than today in our lives, that then come up.

And they own us. They run us, they grabbed the steering wheel of Diego and be like, we're going to be mad. We're going to go over this way. We're not going to be present to the kids. We're going to go over this way. And you, when your cognition comes back after that emotional response, come back afterwards, go, Oh, that was dumb.

Like that. Why did I do that? Why did that come up? And so this is a process even. as we're taking a look at ourselves that if we don't reflect on all levels, okay. What were the emotions I had today? How did I feel today? If we don't reflect on what happened, we're destined not only to repeat them, but they've become stronger.

if we keep repeating these habits, they become stronger every single time. My main theme, when I go through the questions from this last year, you know what it offended my soul. What delighted me? What are the changes I want? What made me go if I did that again for the rest of my life, that would be a horrible life.

All these questions that we talk about in the workshop. The thing that really came up, that really hurt was as we were getting the garden going, this year, the part of me that just gets or done the part of me that grew up with my dad. And as we were doing construction, it was like, just do it.

you cut off your finger, bandaged it up, get going nerves, come back. And I'm working with Todd, I'm working with my bonus daughter. And. And I'm becoming that person. And luckily I have these two loving people in my life who then turn around and go, we really don't like working with you.

This is really not enjoyable. We'd like to stop. And we'd like never to talk to you again, but we love you. So we're going to give you this tense, not to be a complete idiot here. And I had such a problem with these. Putting up the fence is turning over the material, putting in, the ground cover, putting in the plant, like all of these moments where it was like, just get her done.

And I realized looking forward when I did the envisioning of the next year is I want somebody who's very conscious about who is the me that is speaking. Is it, the me from center, that's aware of all these parts and then speaking, and I hear these parts and it's okay. Yeah, that part of me that freaks out that nothing's done perfectly is yelling.

Great. And I got to live with these people every single day, every single week. So the other big part of this work is coming down to a singular thrust and it usually has to do with whatever the major issue was in the past year, a singular thrust that comes down to a word or two words that give a impression or an intent.

It isn't a resolution. it's not, I will do this it's this is what I want to be true. And what I've known about this way about me is people have said it to me in so many different ways over the years, Oh, it's really interesting. When you teach, you become somebody else, or it's really interesting when you work with people and life design, you become somebody else.

And as I was talking with both Ryan and Todd, and just saying, this is something I really want to change, I came up with this idea of who's speaking. So that way, when I come to speak to you or I come to speak to them, or I'm working on a project, I'm really aware of what's the energy inside of me.

What's the part inside of me, that's going towards it. And it was amazing to give that intent to these two people that I share a life with, that share a house with and to see the two of them go, are you kidding? That's what you're like, that's your thrust this year. It's not business systems. It's not, what has it been in the past business systems expansion, know your message.

Spread your message. Who's talking. It's who's speaking. It's the main issue you had with us and to see. The love in their eyes when I did that, that it wasn't just about me. It was about this behavior I had. That was not great. I notice I'm already talking about in the past tense because I'm working towards knowing who's speaking.

And so that way, when I'm, as I did this weekend, and I've gotten really good at doing this waking up and staying in bed on Saturday or Sunday until noon or one. And either watching, I know your face is amazing. I'm glad we got it on video. And. And just being with the parts of you that gets so frustrated with that.

And then the other parts that love it and luxuriated it. And being like, everyone can come to me for the next four or five hours, which gives Todd the opportunity to make me breakfast and bring it to me in bed. Because if I occupied that space of making him coffee and doing everything in the morning, there's less truly no space for him to do that for me.

if I never give that space, I never get that opportunity. And as I went through that this past weekend, and as I got into the afternoon and I was, we were bemoaning that we're getting back into work. I had all these parts that were like, Oh, I can't believe we have so much to do. And why didn't we do more over the holiday?

And I had to take responsibility for those parts and go. This is a learning process. I hear that these parts feel this way and there's always going to be stuff there's always going to be something out of completion. There's always going to be something close to, but not totally done. And as long as I'm aware of the fact that I'll always get it done.

I get to live a happier life. Day to day, I get a smile more. I get to relax more. I get to be more present to the people around me and they get to be more excited to be around me because I'm not there grumbling from one thing to another thing, like why isn't this done and why isn't this over here? it's such an important part to reflect and be present and then set intention.

Diego: [00:52:49] Yeah. I love the idea that I'm trying to think of. Of some words that

Javan Bernakevitch: [00:52:54] could describe

Diego: [00:52:54] where I want to go in 2020. I think it is like the be present because I think,

I think I am completion list dominated, meaning I view a project done as better than. Just sitting back, maybe enjoying life with a project undone as though I'll be judged at the end of the day, by whoever matters by the completion list for that day or that year. And then you think about that. at the end of the year, and I'm not talking random acts of kindness on talking.

Things that were done, fix it, projects, make it projects, those types of things. And at the end of the year, your partner, your kids, aren't going to come back and say, what'd you get done this year, dad, all Whoa, you did 800 yard projects. Good job. He don't care. it's did you spend five minutes?

I think just five minutes can matter to a kid in day. And, some days it's yeah, I did. And Sundays I could have spent more and some days I spent less and that's what will hurt them. And that's not what I want to do. And it is this, I do find myself getting caught up in that volume trap, whether it's with work or I gotta make, I got to put a podcast out every week.

or every two weeks, like there's, they got to keep that flow going that flywheel's got to keep going. and then it's like, why are you doing these in the first place? And there has to be a certain level, of, Hey, there has to be a reason to it. So you might need a minimum quantity to make it say financially viable or worthwhile.

But once you get to that stage, then it has to be, the point of doing this? Am I just doing this? Because I always could have. What am I doing this? Cause I want to, and if I'm doing it just to keep cranking them, is it causing me to not be present around other parts of life? That, that I'm just missing, doing things that are just like they're cranked out there may be consumed.

And then they just go in the stack of internet noise out there and just get pushed to the rear burner. And you're living your existence and putting all your worth into this. I hate to say it, but most of us are making stuff that is, this is not, writing the grapes of wrath.

That's going to be around for the next 500 years. It's something that, has a cool, just a flash in the pan of life and sure. It can make us feel good to make it, but when it just goes away that quick, how much stock. Should you put into that in terms of your life and how much other things are you missing when it is memories that have, we can go at any day, nobody's promised tomorrow, but if you go on an average lifespan, for kids, you might get 50 years with them with a partner, you might get 50 years with them.

So are you expensing these blips in the pan, not writing our own Magnum opuses for. Expensing all these years, these decades of time with other people and with ourselves. And so I need to be more present on things and that's going to mean dialing back in other areas because inherently, like I can't do it all.

It goes back to that ball juggling, right? there's only so many balls I can juggle. I know about where that number is. And if I'm trying to juggle more. then I'm just in hypnotic, juggling state, and everything else is just, just going by in the tunnel, like a flash

Javan Bernakevitch: [00:56:56] of light,

you brought up two good points there, one the juggling, and then one in terms of thrust, what's the thrust of the year. What am I working on? And years ago, I had this on top of a monitor and it was only recently I took it off the monitor. I've had the monitor for years and I just, I realize I'd moved past it.

And when I was frustrated with something I was working on, I find myself on YouTube. I'd find myself on, sites. I find myself on social media. And so I had this little thing on the top of my monitor with little arrows pointed down that says, does this matter? Does this matter? And it was amazing how many times I looked at that and looked at my screen and went, Nope.

And it was a really awesome moment here because as you were talking about being present, I remember that was my wording for being more present, being present in the moment was, does this matter. And I look at my screen right now and I have all of this information up. if necessary, it comes up in the podcast, I've just got it quickly.

you're in the center and I have all this around and I look at this, I go. That's no longer a problem for me because of this reflection process, you look backwards and you go, wow. I moved past that. I grew past that. that's a moment of celebration. That's a moment of taking stock and going fantastic work.

And then when we get to the juggling piece, we talked about this before, where, when you're juggling, understand what are crystal or glass balls and what are balls that can bounce. There are some balls that if you drop, they will be injured because of the drop. Our relationships are one. Our health is another, our connection to our local surroundings can be a crystal ball, but those relationship ones, their crystal balls.

And if we don't spend the time to connect, if we don't spend the time to be there the next time we come back, we've withdrawn some trust from that trust bank. we've withdrawn issues. That we will have to face eventually, whereas the rubber balls. Yeah, the business bounces people come back up.

it's incredible. How many emails I've missed over the decades of being a business or the weird Facebook messages or Instagram messages that don't quite come through. And they're held in a little waiting room and you're like, Oh, I never checked that. You go and look. And you're like, Oh, my goodness.

This was 24 weeks ago. Hey, I just saw this. Thanks so much for reaching out. If you are still interested, let me know. and also here's my email address, which is really good to use, to send to me. And then come back. If you wait 24 weeks not to talk to your kid or your wife or your husband, or attend to their needs, you'll know there that was an issue cause they won't be there.

You know that crystal ball, that rubber ball thing is so important to understand, because it changes the way we look at it. And that's another lens you could go through all of these elements, right? You could say, what of these elements was a crystal ball on what of these elements was a rubber ball?

And I imagined they would correlate. I imagine you would see this even a causation, maybe it's Oh, this was negative because this was a crystal ball. I didn't give it anything, any attention and,

Diego: [01:00:09] or, which ones are these. Mythical balls that you shouldn't even be juggling. thank you. you're pretending the ball's there, but really it's insignificant.

It's not even a ball that's there. that doesn't matter. The thing is interesting. and I, it makes me want to put something up on my monitor of, I think, okay, like I've imagined this there's a surveillance cam in my office. And at any time, like my kids or my wife can look at that camera.

And this doesn't exist, but I'm saying that this is the way you can think about this. And if they look at that monitor, are they going to say, okay, dad's doing that versus something they could do with them. And it's, you don't have to have them sitting there and watch it. And, random videos on YouTube.

We're like, why is he out there doing that? When, he said he couldn't play a game with us. And it becomes like this, like I imagine almost like a scale and you have, framed picture of something that matters here is this person, this thing, whatever it is a cause something you love and activity versus snapshot of present, So is the snapshot of what you were doing in this exact moment? Outweigh. What you would want to do or might resonate more with you or be more aligned with your values. And if it obviously there's, you got to do your taxes and things like that. Like we throw all that out, but the other parts of life, and if you're living too much, where that snapshot in time is losing to what's important.

Then that's a problem. And I think like all the days, sure, I'm not rigorously efficient. I probably need to be not more efficient to do more but more efficient to do more in the time that I've allocated to do the work that I said I'm going to do and get that done. So then that snapshot.

That bulk of time for that work becomes like this dense book of okay, that's a thick book at every snapshot in there that all mattered. And there wasn't any dead shots in there that lost against important shot. But if your book is filled with all this fluff, and if the people, watching that surveillance cam are just like WTF, like this is what.

You're choosing over us this, then there's a problem. And in the cell, another way, I don't think you brought this up, but this is the way I have always worked the end of the year is I like to ask what, how would person X describe me in a year? Because I think it can be real hard. Like I can bias how I'm going to run myself.

of course I was good at everything. But if I go back and say, okay, honestly, how would my wife say I was as a husband and write down some categories for that? Like, how would she rate me? And if I'm honest about that's a different perspective than how I would rate myself, probably in those categories.

How would my kids, honestly, a stranger said, how was dad this year? Tell me what words are they saying? And I have to try and envision how I think that they would say based on reality. So that is another, that's another tool that I don't think you covered that, but I like to bring to the end of the year.

And so just say these other people in my life, what do they think about me? And that sometimes helps me at least crack through that reality of The rosy glasses. I just view everything that I did on, even when I am critical, like I could probably dial up the critical level and be like, okay, no, let's get serious here.

And let's really be critical about some of these things looking through somebody else's eyes.

Javan Bernakevitch: [01:04:08] Yeah. Yeah. That's well said. And it's a great question. there's so many good questions about review and reflection. And I love that question of how, or how would ex view me as Y how would my wife view me as a husband?

How would my kids view me as a dad? How would my family members view me as a son or a nephew, or, how would they look at that? It's doing the, A bit, you Arie, right? This process of writing your own obituary, what would the world say about you if you died tomorrow? which is a really cool process to do, but that gives you such insight.

One about how you view the world. You think they view you, but also what potentially you might want to focus on and work upon yourself. Yeah. Great question.

Diego: [01:04:56] Valuable process for people that want to learn more, they can visit all points, design.ca/envision 2021. I've linked to that below for people that go there, what can they expect it?

And who's the type of person that you

Javan Bernakevitch: [01:05:10] come. Yeah, so the workshop is laid out. It gives you a sense of who's a good fit. And, what you can expect. It's a two hour recording with some pre exercises. some of them we've listed in this conversation today, and I think the people who get, who got a lot out of this workshop and it's always great.

Cause when you go back and you reflect upon the workshop and you ask good questions, you get amazing feedback is. The people who really got a lot out of this were folks who are open to a new way of looking throughout the year. They weren't just open, but they were open to growth, which means that you're open, opening yourself to failure and you're willing to experiment and try.

Those folks did really well in the workshop. The folks who didn't do really well were folks who were coming to it with a sense of it needs to be this. And I need to get this out of it. The folks that did that said it should have been four hours, not two hours, or they said it should have been 30 minutes, not two hours.

They had a sense of what it should be. And thus. They weren't open to what it was. the other folks that got a lot out of it were folks that wanted to deeply invest themselves in the process. it's a simple process, but if you dedicate yourself to it, you get something out of it. So the folks that said, great, I'm going to turn off my phone and I'm going to tell my folk, my friends and my family, which there's instructions for leave me alone for two hours.

I'm going to dedicate and work myself to this. They did really well. And some of the feedback has been, this is the most important thing I didn't in the last year because it lets me know what the last year was for me. So I think those folks would get a lot out of the way

Diego: [01:06:47] workshop. It's not a, a quick which Harry Potter house do I belong in, or a few questions, hit a button and boom, your answers solved and your future's laid out for you.

and I think that's what some people want. And easy thing. They want you to do the process like Javan ans do this for me. Tell me how my year was telling me what the next year and go for it. I don't think that's what this is. I don't think that exists out there. And if somebody does want to try it, I think it's a valuable, and I think it's well worth the time to at least getting started to thinking about this stuff.

And hopefully this podcast helps people kickstart on that journey of reflection, whether they do the workshop or not.

Javan Bernakevitch: [01:07:29] Yeah. Just remember you got to climb the mountain to have the view and in our society, there's a desire for quick. There's a desire for easy. There's a desire for cheap, but anything that's good that has come to me in my life is.

Taken work and we can change the way we go about that work, but it's work. So if you're keen to jump in, love to see in the workshop, and then there's a couple of followup workshops that we're working on one distilling values, and two is the specific planning for 2021. So look for those, if you're key and then you can sign up for the newsletter.

on the, on all points, design.ca Diego. Thanks so much for having a chat about this. I'm really happy. We did. I'm glad you got something out of it.

Diego: [01:08:16] Thanks for listening to this episode. If you want to learn more about Javans envision 2021 workshop, check it out by visiting the link below. Thanks for listening. And until next time be nice. Be thankful and do the work.