Tyson's Word for the Year & Why You Need One

You're listening to podiatry marketing, conversations on building a successful podiatry practice with Tyson Franklin and Jim McDannald.

Welcome back to podiatry marketing. I'm your host, Jim McDannald. Join us always with my trusted co host, Tyson Franklin. Tyson, how's it going today?

I am fantastic today, Jim. I've had a few chuckles before we got in here. So I'm feeling the energy. I'm feeling the energy for this episode.

Yeah. It's you know, we're kinda rolling into this new year, and hopefully everybody's off to a good start there amongst our listeners.

Well, I hope so. If they yeah. Well, look at this. After they listen to this episode, the year is just gonna it's just gonna the trajectory is going to be upwards.

I like the way that sounds for sure.

So today, we are gonna talk about my I'm gonna mention my word of the year, what it is, gonna tell everybody it is. Because last week, we sort of hinted that we were gonna talk about it, and I reckon everybody has been sitting around all week. I wonder what the word is. But not only I'm just gonna explain what mine is, I'm gonna tell you why you need to have one yourself. But also, I wanna mention that we did talk about this on episode one thirty four about midway through 2024.

I think it was July, actually. And we spoke about word of the year, but what I'm gonna talk about today is just taking it that little bit further. So you don't have to have listened to one thirty four, but I recommend going back and listen one thirty four, one 30 three, one 30 two. I think they get the idea.

Yeah. They get the idea.

You can't listen to all more. So I won't tell my word of the year. I'm gonna I'm gonna work my way up to

it. Sure. That sounds good.

Yep. Other things to talk about first. Having a word of the year, the whole idea of it is it sets your intentions for the year, and it gives you directions. That's the first thing about creating a word for the year. And I'd personally, I think it's important that your word of the year aligns with what your goals are for the year as well.

And it's important to look at your word of the year every day because that's what keeps you on track. If you don't look at it every day and you forget about what the word of the year is and this word of the year is supposed to give you some form of direction, then you'll very easily go off track. So since you should be looking at your goals every day, this is why I too I think the two actually align really well together.

Yeah. I think that's a great idea. I mean, sometimes if you have a lot of different goals, right, it's sometimes hard to go through all of those, you know, every single day. But, you know, when you have that one word, it's something you can wake up and see, and it can kind of, you know, you can reflect on that, and then maybe the goals come back to you more easily. It's kinda like a almost like a trigger, like a positive trigger in a way to help you kind of start the momentum during your day.

Well, it's probably no different to and you might think, oh, if you're on a I think I I wanna lose weight. And and that's a common thing. I wanna lose weight. I wanna get healthy, but whatever that particular goal is. It's very easy to go off track because it there's just I don't know.

There's just indulgences that are that are always around you. So sometimes it's a constant reminder. Sometimes it might be a friend that says, hey. I thought you were trying to lose weight. It could be your wife.

Speaking from experience. Do you really need that chocolate bar? I thought you were trying to lose weight. Thank you for that. So my wife can sometimes be my word of the year.

But anyway, so my word of the year for 2025 is contentment. And everyone's gone, oh, they've almost had to pull over their car and go, wow. I have to take that in. And and what contentment is, it's a state of being happy and satisfied. And and I don't mean excited, happy, like, yay, that sort of happy.

It's more like just peace, a ease of mind type contentment. And it's like a lot of people will will make like a a New Year's resolution. But by the February 1, it's usually been totally forgotten about. They'll be there in New Year's Eve with all the friends and they go, oh, this year, I'm gonna do this is my resolution. I'm going to do this.

And a few weeks later, life gets in the way, and then it's totally lost. And this is why the word of the year is it's not a it's not a word that you use it as a resolution. It's a word, like I said, that is gonna constantly give you that nudge to sort of keep moving forward. And since you were reading it every day, it's reminded to make sure that your daily activities align with it as well. So to give you a perfect example, in my brain book, and I mentioned this on episode one thirty four, I have my word of the year at the front of the brain book.

I also have the word of the year right next to what my goals are for that quarter. So I'll I'll look at my goals for the year, and then I'll break it down into to, like, quarterly goals. It's a little bit more technical, but I'm not gonna get into the details. But I have my word of the year there. So as I'm reading my goals, the word of I look at the word of the year and I go, okay.

What have I got planned today? What am I doing today that aligns with my goals, but also that word of the year is gonna push me along to to do it at the same time. I hope this makes sense to people. It's is it making sense to you, Jim?

Yeah. I mean, I think like we talked about it helps kinda trigger like certain actions. Right? Like it can be like you said, went to get to February, March, or April sometimes, you know, if you don't have clear goals and kind of a way to trigger some action or or for you to kind of realize why you're doing what you're doing within this this word can be of help of doing that. I think it's a it's a pretty powerful thing.

Yeah. Well, one of the things that I think is really important, it helps you with the decision making. So if so say for example, if an opportunity all of sudden presents itself to you, your word of the year will guide you whether you should or should not do that. So for example, if someone's word of the year was simplicity. So they just went, oh, this year, I I want simplicity to be a word.

I wanna look at everything. Instead of everything being so complicated and so many moving parts, I wanna break it down. And that was my word of the year a few years back. Then all of a sudden, if simplicity is your word for the year, then anything that is presented to you that looks overly complicated, it's really easy to make a decision. So if you were if you were building your current, say, podiatry business and all of a sudden, somebody, oh, this is opportunity to have another podiatry clinic in another town.

And you're gonna go, okay. Does that fit in with my goals for this year? And does it fit in with my word for the year? Because you already had goals set up for the year, and one of the goals was not to go and open up a second practice, even if it's a great opportunity, then that word of the year may help you make that decision. Or you might change the word of the year and go, you know what?

I'm gonna change it to being overly complicated. Stress. I want more stress. So that's gonna be my word of the year. No.

You don't want that. So if simplicity is the word, you know what your goals for the year, an opportunity arise in front of you, you can then use the word and the goals that you set on whether you do it or whether you don't.

No. That makes sense. You know, just kinda helps you maybe break things down a little bit into to smaller steps, you know, by having that word and and kind of kind of retain your focus on what you're trying to achieve that year, then they can extrapolate that to some of your more lofty goals and how you can apply that word to achieve some of them.

Yeah. But it's not my word, contentment. If it's a state of mind of being, like, happy and satisfied. So if I'm considering attending a podiatry event or I'm gonna run a workshop or I'm gonna take on another coaching client, For me, I need to ask myself, will this help me be more happy and more content? Or not more happy, more content.

Will it help me be more happy and more satisfied? Because that's part of my my word about contentment. So if all of a sudden there was a coaching client that approached me, I know this person's gonna be a right rule pain in the ass. Because sometimes you just yeah. You meet people, you just know they're a pain in the ass.

Or they're gonna be a lot of work. Yeah. They pressure you go, oh, I've got eight clinics and they're they're just raving on all the stuff and you go, this is just not gonna be fun. And then I wouldn't take it on. Or if somebody said, hey, Tyson, we want you to speak at this conference in Bangladesh.

And I'm like, and I have to get there, and then they work out the flights, and you gotta do this, and it's gonna take three days to get to wherever, you know, some small little place. I'm like, I don't wanna do that because I'm I'm not gonna be I won't be content doing that, and and I won't be happy, and I'm not gonna be satisfied. That's why it's important to just keep looking at the word, keep looking at your goals.

That makes a lot of sense. With some of the people you've worked with, some of the coaching clients, is there any any examples you could point out that you thought were pretty good?

Yeah. Well, one that was really good is I had one coaching client, and their word was butterfly. And when they said butterfly, I went, butterfly? And they went, yeah. Because when they thought about butterfly, it was like it's like in a cocoon and then it sort of breaks out and it spreads its wing and it's yeah.

They told me a beautiful butterfly, not a moth. And spreads his wings and he goes out. But what was what was brilliant about that word because I thought, okay. Yeah. That makes sense.

Because that's the part with the the word of the year. It only needs to make sense to you. I was reading a website and it had these, like, 50 words of the year that people can have. And when I went through them all, they were they were more like values and, you know, they were like beliefs and values where to me, the word of the year just needs to make sense to you. Nobody else needs to understand.

So your word of the year could be pen. Now other people might go, what the hell does pen mean? But for you, it might be for you, it's writing down your thoughts. It could be, yeah, you wanna write that which could align with, yeah, a book that you wanna write, or it could just be remembering things. So pen means something to whoever would come up with that word.

And so the word butterfly, when they explained it to me, went, oh, yeah. That's really cool. But what made it even better was they said, we had this idea of getting little stickers, little butterfly stickers, and putting them at different places around the clinic, on the computer, in their car to remind them what it was they were trying to achieve that particular year. Because my word of the year in 2024 was evolve, which aligned perfectly with my goals for that year because I wanted to wanted to evolve myself as a coach, and I wanted to help my coaching clients evolve. And I think when I shared my word with you about evolve, it's how butterflies sort of got sparked because a butterfly also changes from a cocoon into a butterfly.

For some people, a moth. Jeez. But I know. I just think about what you would like more of in your life, and then write it down. And you'll probably find your word of the year will be somewhere in there.

So it could be abundance, it could be simplicity. Had abundance has been one of my words of the year. And I had a friend. I think it was like the first year we ever came up with word of the year. It was a long time ago.

And I said, my word of the year is gonna be abundance. And he went this friend of mine said, me too. I said, okay. So every time we bumped into each other, anywhere in Cairns, because we saw each other a lot, We would just scream from once we could be at a shopping center and all of sudden I'd hear, abundance. Getting screamed out and I'd look around and I'd wave at him and go, abundance.

And I'd scream it back. People would look around us and think, you guys are idiots. That year, both our businesses had this massive increase. And at the end of the year, I remember saying to that was the best year we've ever had in our clinic. He said, it was the best year we ever had in the sign writing business as well.

And it was because we just kept throwing that word out there. And that's why I said it's got to align with your goals. Like, if you look at your goals for twelve months, just don't overcomplicate things. A lot of people don't set goals because they just I don't know. They they try and think about it too much.

Just write down what you bloody want this year and just break it down. It's it's not that hard.

No. Absolutely. I think you said like you said, sometimes people overcomplicate things. You just gotta keep it simple and kinda go after it.

Yeah. And just to sort of finish up, one of my words in 02/2018 was connection. And if you read the thing on my back on the back of my wall, that's when that went up there. Yeah. The next connection might be the one that changes your life.

Because it was in 02/2018, I was really starting to connect with a lot of people overseas because of the other podcasts I used to have, and then it was leading up to doing the podiatry legends podcast. And the the the final thing I wanna say is you can use the same word twice. So if you have a word that, oh, I just really got you fired up that you use it, there's nothing saying you can't keep using that word. Your word for the year could be the same word every year for the next ten years. You don't have to keep changing it.

But I like to change to change it because I feel I'm a different person every twelve months. So therefore, I feel my word needs to evolve with me, which evolved was last year.

That's a great way to end it,

I think. Yeah. So, yeah, I hope everybody who listens to this sits down and seriously goes, Tyson and Jim are pretty smart. I'm gonna have a word of the year. And and they write it down.

And just, like I said, look at it every day. Put it somewhere where you will go to it with because mine's in my brain book and because I know that I use my brain book every single day. I put my goals in there, read the goals. And to point something out to everybody, there's something that's really interesting. In 2024, I looked at my word of the year every day.

I looked at my goals every day. First quarter, I hit every single goal, smashed them. Second quarter of the year, read my goals every day, look at my word of the year every day, smashed every one of those goals. Third quarter, repeat. It was like rinse and repeat.

Read my word of the year every day, smashed, hit every single goal. Fourth quarter, October, November, December, I got slack. I didn't read my word of the year every day. I didn't look at my goals every day, and I did not hit one of them. Missed every single one of them.

And my whole attitude and just how I felt about leading towards the end of the year wasn't as good as what it had been for the first three quarters of year. And it wasn't because I was tight. It's because I didn't look at the goals. All the goals that I'd set for that last quarter didn't motivate me enough to actually wanna achieve them. And then therefore, I didn't look at my word of the year.

I didn't evolve as much as what I wanted to in that last quarter. So I think it's it's just imperative that you you look at it every day. You've gotta have it somewhere where you look at if you like tattoos, get a tattoo diarme. You might have a big list of words of the year all the way down that will only mean something to you.

I don't think we're gonna get tattoos, but I really did enjoy this this topic. Is there anything else you wanna add before we sign off?

No. No. It's just that, like I said, not not hitting on that last quarter of twenty twenty four just proves to everyone that we're human. I was listening to a guy on this podcast. He he he's a coach for billionaires.

This guy just smashed he's worth so much money. And he said that he has a coach that contacts him. It rings him every morning. Been doing it for twenty seven years. And he said, why does he ring me every every day?

He said, because I'm an undisciplined human being. Because if I'm not if someone doesn't keep me on track, I won't do the work. So if if that applies to him, then I I won't you know what? That applies that applied to me, and it applied to everybody. So that's it for me, Jim.

I look forward to talking to you again next week.

Talk to you, Tyson.

Okay. See you later. Bye.

Bye now.

Thanks for listening to Podiatry Marketing with Tyson Franklin and Jim Mcdonald. Subscribe and learn more at Podiatry Marketing. That's the website address, podiatry.marketing.