 What's up everybody once again, it's Brandon man, Sean and this video right here. We're really talking about some strategy, some goal settings, the way I personally approach the way I set my goals because I'm going to talk about my goals for 2019. Just some of them, the way I'm thinking about things, how I strategize and hopefully at the end of the day, it's helpful. The biggest thing just to start things off is the fact that this is January 26th when I'm recording this video and at the end of the day, the month is almost over. I'm just now solidifying my goals for 2019. I know most people get it done before they want to have it done by January 1st, but I wasn't ready. This year has started off pretty dead on tough. I had a lot of things going on and I had a lot of stuff that ran over from last year that I needed to get done. The biggest thing when it comes to goals for me is not letting other people's timeline affect your goals. January 1st would have been amazing, would have been ideal, but it didn't happen for me. I had to wait, I had to dot some I's, cross some T's, get it done, keep that in mind for yourself. Stay in your lane as I always say and get your goals done on your own timeline. As a matter of fact, some years I might have my plan for the next year and start it on like December 1st or the end of November. Personally, before I get into my goals for the next year, I always got to reflect back on the previous year. So for me, 2018, it was a lot going on. I mentioned some of the things about just my personal life and prior videos, people passing and things like that, things in business, a lot of things going on, a lot of balls in the air, a lot of success, a lot of failures, a lot of just trying to figure certain things out. But there was one period where I really got to a point where I said, you know what, I need to chill. That period was, as many of you have known, was the period when I stopped posting videos on the channel, right? I had to actually figure out all these things that I'm doing. I have these goals or these things that this direction that I want to go. And these things that I'm doing, some of them aren't getting me in the direction I want to go. As a matter of fact, some of the things that I thought I wanted, I do not necessarily want anymore. I need to stop just taking on things, right? I've been taking on a lot of things just for fun, or some projects have been getting bigger than they previously were supposed to be, or maybe they always were going to be that way. But I was just ignorant on the amount of effort that they took. Either way ago, I had a lot of things on my plate and I was being stretched thin and I need to figure some things out. That's just a general statement. Then at the same time personally, I had to figure out some things as far as the direction I actually wanted to go. In a period like this, you have to do painless, ruthless self-reflection. You need to understand what you want or if you don't know what you want, you need to be able to acknowledge that and don't allow other people to push you in certain directions, but also don't try to convince people or place your rage for people to rely on you when you don't even know if you can deliver. At least that's the method I handle things in. And when when you give yourself that period to kind of just chill out, figure things out, then you can slowly start adding things back on. The channel was something that I added back on. However, I honestly didn't know about what would be doing the channel for a long time, right? I actually just committed to three months and said, let's see how it feels because I got all these other things. Some of the things that I cut out, I cut out the Adventure ATL Fest. There will be no Adventure ATL Fest this year. I could talk about that in another video. This video isn't for that, but there's a lot of other things that either had to get cut out or I had to remove myself because I was going to become a bottleneck for it because of what I needed to do. And not to make it much deeper than it is, but it can be very hard. A difficult thing to do to, for one, look deep in yourself, reflect and be honest with yourself and what you can do, what you want to do. And also what you need. That's just a part of, I guess, getting older. Sometimes you realize the things that you need that you don't even think you need it. But even after that, it's even harder to execute because sometimes those things that you said that you were going to be doing or you start to do involve other people. So there might be letting some other people down. Sometimes it's just an ego thing. It had to involve nobody else because that's how it is for me. Right? It might involve nobody else. It's just a me thing. But to say I'm not going to do any more of it can feel like quitting. And I don't like to be perceived as a quitter because I don't think of myself as a quitter. But you have to remember that if you are playing the wrong game, even if you are winning, you are losing. You got to remember that. Like a lot of people start winning on somebody else's game. You got to realize a lot of people are winning and they're playing somebody else's game. What does that really matter when at the end of the night, inside or whatever thing they got going on, they really are losing. That's why we always talk about what's going on behind scenes. You don't know what somebody's life is like. Well, it's the same thing. Right? So those are a lot of things that I had to consider. Just a lot of the minds that a lot of the reflection I had to go on to even get me to start to think about 2019. So for 2019, one thing that I had to really think about was the fact that since my channel started, I've been doing a lot of experimenting. Yes, some videos have done very well. I've gotten up to like 50,000 subscribers. All that stuff is cool. But in terms of how I really wanted to scale the channel and what I really wanted to do with it, I have been doing a lot of experimenting on a small level, on a big level, because just like I mentioned to artists so much experimentation, that artist development period is a real thing. And for me, I go through those same things. A lot of people just want to get followers out the gate. That's just not how I personally move. You can definitely do that to each his own. That's just not my process. And that's not the process I want to move in. So when people ask, how come you're not way, way, way bigger? How come that you're not trying to push yourself or market yourself in that kind of way? It's just not what I'm doing in the process. So with all that in mind, my goal for this year, just like my mantra is more so invest, invest. What are my resources and how do I want to allocate these things? Because now I have a better understanding of what I want to do. I'll be able to invest in specific actions, energy, maybe it requires money. I can invest money in specific things that'll get me to where I want to go with this particular area of life. And now in list form, here's seven things that I do want to change or just attack and achieve this particular year. Number one is get more organized. Now I went through this whole experimental period. I did all these things and try certain different video formats, all these type of things. Now I want to bring it in to a more professional field, right? A little bit more cleaner aesthetic with certain things, more professionalism on certain things on the back end, just so I can run a more efficient operation and it doesn't take as much as my time as well. And by the way, number two is professionalize some things. They go hand in hand in different ways, but if the organization part is just more about efficiency, not taking as much as my time when I'm acting things out. And then the professional is how I talk and communicate about the channel, how I talk and communicate about certain things that I want to achieve when it comes to the channel, not that I understand and know what I want to do. And of course you have some aesthetic on top of that. What's the feel that you want the channel to achieve? You guys have seen the new intro, right? The intro and that it's on everybody's videos. That makes things a little bit more professional and consistent in terms of the channel at the end of the day is really going to be about just getting together the small things. Number three, I want to introduce more just great content and more great people to you guys through the channel. You know, I've done interviews, right? We've added dope other people like Corey and Tuko, they do constant videos on the channel. I would just want to make sure you guys get great information. I want to make sure we have some interviews that have all kinds of gems in it. There's a lot of dope stuff that I want to bring to you guys. And I want to make the content even better. How I make the content better. I'm not 1000% sure what that is yet, but as I work on that and let's say next year as I achieve it, or maybe even beforehand, then I'll, you know, kind of walk through how I made it better in this particular case. It might not apply to you guys, but you'll at least be able to see the process and what I did. But again, great content, great people. Shout out Corey, shout out Tuko for the consistent value. You guys have also been bringing through the channel. If you guys haven't seen their videos, check them out. I don't know how you missed them. Now, number four, though, there's two products that I want to bring to you guys this year. I've been working on them since last year and that's all just to not want to get too heavy with it, but I want to make sure they're done where there's very, very, very, very, very, very serious value involved. So it'll take time. Whenever they come, they'll come. If it doesn't get to a point where I'm happy with it, then, you know, they won't come out, but I got a goal for two products just to bring like tremendous value to you guys. We'll talk more about that later when the time actually comes. Number five, I want to go ahead and hit that 100,000 mark with the channel. It was no point of me scaling super quickly, as I said, just the way I move for certain things. However, that is a goal now. So 100K follows on YouTube. Let's make that thing happen. Number six is I want to do 100K followers on Instagram this year. Is that really what I want? Kind of not. I actually had a goal for like 20K, but I said, let's do a stretch goal. If Instagram is easier to actually gain followers in a lot of cases anyway, let's just try it, but it's not going to be a super, super, super top priority. So consider that kind of a bonus. I only started giving my Instagram series attention like two months ago. And number seven is I want to read one book a month this year. I actually used to read a lot, maybe like four or five years ago, maybe less than that. But there was a period where I actually created a goal not to read anymore. I know a lot of people are trying to read more. My goal was the opposite for then until now when I stopped because I felt like I was reading too much and not taking the time to apply. I know that you should be able to do both. A lot of people can do both. That is something that I know I can do. But at that period, I just felt like it was necessary. I was like, you already got enough in you. Just go ahead and get a feel for things. Get into the action because you're just reading too much in the same way. Some people might be watching TV too much. I was like, I'm reading too much and not doing it. And when I think back, you know, in hindsight, I wasn't necessarily applying to things that I already knew or whatever I happened to be reading because I didn't have anything to apply it to. I wasn't completely sure what I wanted to do with the information that I had. So more so, I guess a better way to say it was I forced myself just to get into something to get those reps in and to stay sharp and learn it not only, you know, theoretically, but practically. So with all that being said, you kind of got an adjust of the way I've thought about some things, the way I might self reflect on a year before. It actually goes deeper and it's a lot longer process for me and you got a sense of some of the goals that I have for this year. The last thing that I'll just mention for this video is I'm going to do quarterly reviews on myself. I pretty much have already done something like this, but I plan to be a little bit more disciplined about it because it might not be exactly a quarter. I'm going to stick to stricter deadlines. What I like to do is have things I want to achieve monthly and have things I want to achieve weekly. I've spoken on that before, but I also want to make sure every three months I sit and reflect seriously on how I've achieved what my goals were or if I didn't achieve and what things might need to change because at the end of the day, I might need to change some of the goals in real time. Really, when we talk about this marketing stuff for real, for real, just like this life stuff and so many other things, you don't know what certain obstacles might occur. You don't know what challenges are going to happen. So you can mastermind things before you start all you want to. But the real game, like as little as it said, like the sweet spot is actually being able to make changes in real time. The audible is where the game is won. So you need to be able to have a sense of direction, but be able to swerve around that pothole or if a deer gets in a roll, stop for a second or go around it. Whatever you want to do, maybe you got some kind of car that can hop over a deer. I don't know what I'm talking about, but you get the idea. You have to be able to self-reflect and you also have to be able to stay aware of what's going on and see if it changes needed, whether that's what's going on in the marketplace, whether that's what's going on in your personal life, what's going on inside of you, whatever that may be, you got to stay in tune with it. So with all that being said, I would love to know what you guys think. What approach do you guys take towards your goal? Do you have any specific planning methods I'm really interested to learn and even if you have some books to recommend, do that because I got a book that I'm going to read every month. Y'all put me on or something. Other than that, if you like this video, go ahead and hit that like button if you like it, might as well share it and if you're not subscribed, you know what to do. Hit that subscribe.