What is Your WORD for the Year?

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. Joined as always with my trusty co host Tyson Franklin. Tyson, how's it going today?

Oh, fantastic. You're doing big Jim. Good to see you again and I'm looking forward to another episode of Podiatry Marketing.

Yeah. We're about two and a half years, a little over two and half years in. It's been quite the ride, and they just keep on rolling along.

I didn't we've going that long. Yeah. I suppose. Hey. We're in the one thirties now.

So it hasn't gone fast.

It has.

So they reckon when you they always say when you're enjoying something, time just sort of moves along so quickly, which is probably why retirement, when people retire and they go, oh, I've been trying for ten years, it's because they're just enjoying life.

Yeah. Exactly. They're just doing what they want to every day and just like we are on this podcast.

It is. Okay. I'm gonna dive straight into this. Today's topic is what is your word for the year? Now a lot of people go, what the hell do you come up with these titles?

But anyway, this is a concept that I've been doing with my coaching clients for a number of years now, and I've been using myself for can't remember how long. It's been a long time. And the idea is to think of one word that pretty much just sums up the direction that you wanna take your podiatry business or yourself personally over the next twelve months. And and when you think of it, you think, okay, what is all I wanna do in the next twelve months? What do I wanna achieve in the next twelve months?

You try and find a word that will actually encompass that. And it needs to be written down somewhere. You need to look at it every day. And I write mine in the front of my brain book every year. Now, I don't know if I've spoken about my brain book.

I think I have. I've mentioned my brain book on this podcast a few times.

You mentioned it, but maybe it's a good just a refresher for maybe some of the the new listeners.

Okay. So my brain book is just it's a book I start at the beginning of every year, and and this one actually has big cheese written on it because a friend gave it to me and that's their nickname for me. So I start a new book every year, and in this brain book, I write all my ideas, all my thoughts, any webinar that I go on to, any recording. I've listened to a podcast, I wanna record some notes. If I go to a a conference, I write everything down in the one book.

So at the end of the year, this is like every thought, every bit of new information I've taken in all gets captured in one place. I don't wait till I fill the book up before I start another one. I just start a new book each year. And then I might refer to something in a future book, and I'll go, oh, look back in twenty twenty one page, you know, 44. And all the books are sort of then talking to each other as the years go on.

So at the front of my brain book, if you can see it there, I my word for 2024 is evolve. And I do this every year. I've been doing it, like I said, for as long as I can remember. This is my 2021 book. It just happens to be here, and it was simplicity.

Oh, can you see the simplicity word there? Simplicity. There's also my postal address if someone's watching the video if you wanna send me a gift. So but the thing with the word for the year is it must align with your goals for the year. And it also must you must take on board when you're looking at that word because you're looking at every day is what actions do you have planned this week that are also gonna fit in with that particular word.

So how how are you gonna evolve in 2024? I'm curious.

Okay. So if I look at my way for 2024 is evolve, then I must think about that each time I'm doing it. So as a person, you know, like, just myself personally, how do I feel like I need to evolve this year? As a business coach, how do I want to evolve? So some people might say, oh, could you use the word improvement instead of evolve?

Evolve. Yes. If that's what you wanna do. So to me, evolve was just I always look at and I've been I mentioned the word towards the end of last year when I said a lot of podiatry businesses don't evolve over time. And those that don't evolve will end up like the dodo bird.

They will just they'll be extinct. Because all the newer podiatrists coming through are taking on all the new technology and are embracing change. So that you've got to embrace change. You've got to evolve with that change. So at the moment, I'm 58.

Now I know there's a lot of people that are my age. If you mentioned to them about certain technology or AI or using computers and and other tech gadgets, absolutely no idea. I got no idea how it works. But for me, it was something I was interested in. So as things have evolved, I've evolved with them.

So I have to keep reminding myself all the time that I'm trying to evolve as a person, a business coach, as a father, as a husband. There's all these different areas of your life. So every day, I pick up my brain book. Every day, I read my goals for the I review my goals for the year, the quarter, and what is I wanna achieve this week. I look at my word for the year and I use that to actually drive me.

Yeah. I think that's a good approach. It just kinda simplifies it it kind of makes it cohesive but also simplifies, you know, when it's one word, it's just something to focus on as opposed to you know sometimes we get so many goals and so many ideas and if it's not tied to something or some kind of mantra or a single word it can kind of get lost. So I like the idea of the the word for the year. I don't have one myself but I definitely think evolve is a you know, with AI and all the kind of new stuff and technologies kind of coming out this year, it's a pretty apt and and smart word for 2024.

Yeah. But you might think, oh, I wanna be better at doing videos this year. Then evolve into that. So like I said, that that's my word for the year. Last year, my word was abundance.

And when you think about abundance, I think what people gonna realize, the opposite of abundance is scarcity. So right through 2023, I just kept saying abundance. Everything was about abundance. That it didn't matter you you could have another 15 coaching organizations set up. I don't care.

I don't care how many of them are in the podiatry market because as far as I'm concerned, it's abundant. There's plenty out there for everybody. The people that wanna work with me will work with me. The people that wanna work with the other companies, they'll work with them. Because if you have a scarcity mentality, you're gonna think, oh, everyone's trying to take everything from you.

There's only a limited amount of resources. So the word abundance kept reminding me that it is unlimited potential. And I had used the word abundance back in because sometimes you don't have to come up with a new word every year. So that was my word for 2023. The last time I used it was 02/2016, I think it was.

And a good friend of mine, when he knew that I was doing this, he said, you know what? I'm gonna use abundance as well. So every time we saw each other, we would scream out abundance to each other. I had it was 02/2015, best year I ever had financially, and he said it was the best year he ever had financially. He had a printing business.

Two completely different businesses, but we just kept using that word to actually drive us along. And you can start the word anytime. You can start it tomorrow.

Yeah. For sure. Think it's good to hear. It was like I had an accountability buddy or you had an abundance buddy to kinda help reinforce that behavior and that mindset.

Well, it's funny. We'd be there might have been a workshop or something in Cairns, and we'd turn up not knowing the other person was gonna be there. Soon as we saw each other from the other side of the room, we yell at, abundance. And he'd yell at, abundance. And everyone just looked at us like, what the hell are you guys going on?

By the end of the day, I reckon we'd have 20 people chanting, abundance. It was sort like the revolution. And it just it just became fun. So my word in 2022 was discovery. I just went, I just wanna discover new things.

What was something I don't know about that I find interesting? So my whole year was all sort of pushed around discovering new things, which which was fun. In 2021, it was simplicity. That's what I showed you the word before. And and that was like looking at everything that I was doing and thinking, how can I simplify this?

Do I really need 10 steps to do this? Can it be done in seven? Can it be done even what? Do I even need to do it? How about I just eliminate that from my life altogether?

So there were a lot of things I was doing that I just went, yeah, I'm not doing that anymore. And then I was looking at what my what my goals, what my plans were for the year, and just thinking, okay, is what I'm doing now fit in with that? No. It doesn't get rid of it. They simplify everything.

And becomes becomes a lot of fun too when you're doing this.

Yeah. There's a lot of different tasks and different activities you can do around those different things. I know, obviously with Simplify or you know, you can optimize, you can improve your processes. There's so many there's no shortage of things to do even with a one word goal for the year.

Yeah. I'm wondering, I'm trying to think about my 2020 give me one sec because I know all my books should be over here to my left.

For sure.

I'm trying to see what my 2021 was leading into the COVID years. Ah, it was connection.

Connection.

Yeah. Because it was during that time where we all became disconnected. Sure. So at the beginning of the year, I think I had a different word, but then as the year progressed and it went downhill a little bit, all of a sudden connection became I I switched. So you can change a word.

You don't have to have a word and go, that's it. I'm gonna stick with that. I'm not gonna change it. If it's not working or something happens and you need to change it, just just basically change it. So your word must also align with what your purpose is in life, what your vision is, what your mission is with yourself and your business.

And when you think about your business, think about your ideal patient, your patient avatar. Because if I had a podiatric clinic now and I was evolving my podiatric clinic, I'm expecting my patients to evolve with me. So what do I need to do to help my patients evolve and then we all evolve together?

That makes total sense. Think like you talked about at the beginning, if you're not kind of changing and evolving over time, you're gonna be kind of left on the sidelines and it's one of those things where you know when you have that word or something that kind of connects some of your actions that you performed during that year it just it just like I said it's like a mantra you can kind of repeat on a daily basis over those 365 to kind of get you in the right mindset so you can move forward and and you know, whether it's simplicity or evolving or discovery. Yeah. It's nice to come back to that that single mantra.

Yeah. And all my coaching clients at the beginning of each year, the ones that have been with me for a while, I actually it's the first thing I ask them. What's your word for the year? And they all go, oh. And they they actually have a bit of fun thinking about it.

The best one that happened this year was somebody came up with the word butterfly. And I went, what the? Butterfly? And it was just brilliant. When they explained to me why butterfly, I it was brilliant.

And I've told a few other coaching clients about it. Now everybody in the world is hearing it. And they said, it wasn't just about yeah. Because the butterfly will start from a cocoon and then, yeah, spreads its wings and all that. But what they decided to do, instead of just having the word butterfly, they made it a symbol.

So their idea was get all these little butterfly stickers, a little butterfly emerald, and they stick them at different parts around their clinic, around their home that every time they saw it, that was to remind them that they were trying to evolve. So instead of using the word evolve, they were using a butterfly to make them realize that they're in that growth phase of their business. And I went, that is brilliant. So so they took a symbol. They didn't have to see the word.

And they said they could stick little butterfly stickers anywhere that nobody else would even probably notice it there, but they would see it and remind them, yeah, we're evolving. We're growing, yeah, into something beautiful. So I thought that was a fantastic use of the word.

Yeah. It's very cool. I think, yeah, sometimes people like visuals or just more visually driven and definitely the the symbol of a butterfly is a great a great way to kinda symbolize evolution of a practice or or some other aspect of their life.

Yeah. And you might think, oh, okay. This year, I wanna be motivated. So instead of thinking, okay, just the word motivation, could you have another symbol? Could you have a flame, which is like, yeah, being fired up?

And therefore, you could use that flame as a symbol in different areas just reminding you to keep motivated, to keep fired up. So I thought it was great to actually evolve it from a word to actually a symbol that had a meaning that they could then do something with it to just keep pushing themselves along. And the main part with it is always, like I said, from the beginning, is how does it fit in with your goals for the year? And then we're looking at your yearly goals is what are they for this quarter. And then when you're looking at each quarter, what have you got planned in your diary this week?

What actions have you got planned that are going to move you closer to those quarterly goals, which will move you closer to your yearly goals and and then beyond?

That's awesome. It actually makes me kind of wonder what my my word of the year is. I've done a lot of conferences and a lot of, you know, in conference speaking and such. So it's like in person connection, maybe it's two words, but no. It's it's a really good topic.

I think it's even though it's the middle of the year, it's not too late for someone to, you know, think about what they wanna achieve for the the last half of 2024 and, you know, incorporate your kind of word of the year or word of the half year Yeah. Into the second half of twenty twenty four.

But you could start at any time. Like I said, like, if I take on a new coaching client, once we've gone through some of the stuff, I will then get them, say, hey. What's your word gonna be for the rest of this year? So you just start it whenever you want. But, yeah, it it doesn't have to be just one word.

It could be two words. Yeah. Be more. I'm pretty sure somebody else who's who uses that be more? Isn't that a big company at the moment?

I can't not in not North America, Lisa. It doesn't ring. I don't watch enough TV commercials maybe to know which one

I've seen that recently, some of be more or I've seen another one be useful.

There you go.

And I think that is fantastic. Like, if you thought about that just that that term be useful, how can you be more useful in your practice to your family, to your friends, to the world? And I I think the important part is is to have it written down somewhere where you know you're gonna look at that word every single day so it just keeps reminding you that is your word for the year, and it fits in with everything else that you're trying to If you just go, oh, my word for the year is gonna be joyful. You don't write it down anywhere, and it's just you just said it in your head. How how are you gonna prompt yourself to be joyful?

So will you come up with a symbol for it? Will you come up with a balloon sticker? Put balloons everywhere to remind you I could be more joyful or be more happy. That was one of my words one year too. It's just happy.

It was a constant just look for the happiness and everything that was basically around me.

Yeah. For sure.

So your homework this week, Jim, is to come in next week with your word for the rest of this year.

I'll take you up on that.

Okay. So that's it for me. I hope everyone got something from this. Take it on board. I know some people are gonna go, oh, this is what a silly episode.

This is just I'm not gonna come up with a word that's gonna drive me for the rest of the year. Then you don't have to. You can be a miserable bugger and just don't have a word. But for the rest of years who are nice people, just come up with a word and and have a bit of fun with it. That's that's the idea.

It's just have fun with the word of the year. Alright. Okay, Jim. I'll talk to you next week.

Sounds good, Tyson. Okay. Bye. Bye now.

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