Breaking Free Of The Calendar: How Periodization Transforms Goal Setting

Today, I sit down once again with Steve Wright, a dear friend and fellow podcaster, to explore how a single book reshaped his entire approach to time, goals, and success. Mr. Wright walks us through the concept of the 12 Week Year, a system that compresses annual goals into manageable 12-week cycles. He shares how this periodization helped him not only stay accountable but also create life-changing experiences—like taking his mother to Paris for her 80th birthday.

We dig deep into the psychology behind why shorter deadlines work, discussing Parkinson’s Law, Gates’ Law, and the pitfalls of procrastination. Along the way, I share insights from my own experiences in the Navy’s nuclear program, where discipline often outweighed raw intelligence. Together, we highlight why consistency, grit, and realistic expectations are the foundation of long-term achievement.

Beyond productivity, Mr. Wright emphasizes the importance of community and accountability. His cohort model shows how shared journeys can keep people motivated while still allowing space for unique goals. We also talk about his coaching practice, his Managers Who Lead Facebook group, and his podcast The One-to-One Thing. This conversation is equal parts practical strategy and authentic storytelling, offering listeners the tools to rethink their own approach to goals, time, and personal growth.

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Transcript

 Ladies and gentlemen, welcome back to another episode of Couple of Nukes. As always, I'm your host, Mr. Whiskey, and today is no ordinary episode. Not at all. In fact, watch this, we are here celebrating partying, vacationing with Steve Wright. I've got my Hawaiian girl Loha shirt on. 'cause when I think of Hula girls, I think of Steve Wright.

And so what, or vice versa. Actually I should say I'm in Jamaica. 'cause you have a hat that says Jamaica on it. And you are the man as discussed on a restream event called the you know, the water cooler drop. In event, you did share with us how you liberated Jamaica by yourself. And when we celebrated Jamaica Independence Day, you shared that heroic tale.

People can catch that replay in the managers to lead Facebook group. But yeah, Steve Wright, ladies and gentlemen, he was on my show. Probably a year ago at this time, it's about one year. Exactly. Almost one year for me. Five years for him. We'll, the rest into that year plus four years, so almost five years.

By the time this episode comes out, and we're gonna explain what that means. If you read the title of the episode or you just clicked outta curiosity, you're gonna find out. We're gonna get into Mr. Wright, who is here with us. He read a book that he reads a lot of books actually. He reads a lot of books, which is important, and I have talked about being lifelong learners.

But he read a book that changed his life and changed his year into four years. It's not a paid promotion for this book. I'm actually quite broke, but we're gonna get into it. So, Mr. Wright, just a little bit of background on you first before we get into the book that we have so foreshadowed and alluded to here.

Well, I want to start by saying a big thank you to you, Mr. Whiskey. It's not often I go on a podcast with a hat on, so I did put on the Jamaica hat. Yeah. Can I take it off? If you want to. It's, it just, it just, it cast a shadow on my face, so. 'cause of my lighting, so I just didn't wanna, well, yeah.

So basically what you've revealed now by taking your hat off is ladies and gentlemen, we have, I, sorry, I should have done the introduction probably ladies and gentlemen, we have a very handsome, talented guest today. Bald by Choice, Steve Wright, but the last time you were on the show, ladies and gentlemen, check out the YouTube for that.

'cause you had on a sporty hat courtesy of Justin Workman from Oklahoma. Yes. Unless that was a different hat, you have quite the collection. No, it was a very stylish kind of trilby hat that I bought in, I wanna say in Oklahoma, Salem, somewhere in Oklahoma. We were, yeah, really nice.

Went to a proper ary store. Store that just did hats, and it was absolutely fantastic. Very thoughtful gift by Justin and one of my other coworkers. Yeah, a former guest at the Ka Nukes podcast, parenting with Faith Teaching Deaf. Check out that episode. Mm-hmm. Very cool.

I love Mr. Whiskey. You always got a show on there, but yes, this is me Steve Wright. I'd like to think that I'm a good friend of Mr. Whiskey now dear friend. We've been compadres in the podcasting space for as long as I've been podcasting, so kudos to him for being an inspiration in that space and for the work that he does.

And my background I have a strange accent a little bit. I'm a Londoner by birth. Spent formative years in the US within California for. About 16 years in total. A couple of trips back and forwards. Raised my family there. Two daughters, one American, one British and I have strong ties to Jamaica.

So, my mother is there and dear lady to me. So I'm looking forward to seeing her at Christmas. Are you gonna do a holiday interview with her? Ooh, I probably will actually. I will have, it will be a three generation, it will be a three generation Christmas, my daughter is coming with me, the American one or the British one, or in other terms, the better one or the worst one. I hope they don't hear that. You never, never have a, never have a father choose between his daughters. Oh, yeah, but it's my younger daughter. Who is the, who is the us?

The US who's favorite? Oh, okay. No, the US born one. And so yeah, we're looking forward to that three generations around the dinner table in Jamaica, which will be absolutely a blast. So I think I will probably set up something whereby we, yeah, I'm already here waiting for you.

I mean, you can see the backdrop. I'm already in Jamaica. That looks like Ochoas right there. A little north island. That's exactly where I am. You guessed it. Right on, right on the north. Oh, I'm glad. No, I have no idea where this is, but you know. Yeah. Is that your daughter who was a podcast guest?

Who does the, the furniture design you mentioned once before. Oh, it was, that's the older, that's my older daughter. She's in, she's based in Cambodia now. No, she's doing great. She's doing, she's doing great. Adina, Wright Design. A DA right design. Yeah. You know, it's, it's funny, I was gonna give you a hard time for saying Londoner.

I was like, is that a word? But I realize I've called myself a new Jerseyan more than one time. So, you just, you just add letters on to the end. You know? I'm a Georgian. A Floridian, right. You just, you kind of a Californian, you know, you just add stuff on. So yeah.

Londoner, we, Londoner works. And if you want advice on how to navigate the streets of London, the previous episode with Steve Wright is a little gold mine for that. But we're here today to talk about, we mentioned Steve, that you've lived four years, this year.

You've had five birthdays one, two days ago that I posted about on Instagram that you didn't respond to. And then also the four mini birthdays within your four year. So tell us, what is this book that we've kind of hinted at? We're all in suspense. I'm in suspense. Yeah. I wanna know what this book is.

Okay. And you, and you ju you've just bastardized the whole thing, the whole setup for the book. But actually it's called the four Week. It's the four week year PP Moan and another author. And the four week year is really about, I thought it was 12 weeks. It talks about compressing. I thought it was 12 weeks. What'd I say? Four week? You said four week.

I thought it was oh four, 12 weeks. That's, that's the other, that's the other, that's the other book. That's that's Tim Ferriss. That's the different book. You got so many books you own on right now. No, I did actually mean the 12 week year. Okay. Which talks about periodization. It's touted as being the way to compress 12 months into 12 weeks.

And that's very catchy and a little bit beaty, but that's a fair assessment. In essence, without sort of going into the book too much, it really speaks about periodization of thinking of things in the appropriate period to get something done. That was my biggest takeaway from reading the book.

And actually it's not exclusively my thinking around the timeline and I have a cohort group that, that follows a 12 week cycle. Of working together and formulating goals. It's not exclusively the 12 week year, so I don't want to necessarily just land it all on one premise, but looks at a lot of things that come into tying in vision and beliefs and setting outcomes that are much more in line with achievement.

So for me, it was a matter of working in 12 week cycles with a week in between to review, reflect, reenergize, and any other odd I can think of that will start revitalize and really just have that break in between the 12 week periods to kick off the next one. So it does mean that it's similar to quarters of a year, which is fine.

And I happen to start at the beginning of 2025, so I am about to start my fourth. Year, 12 week period within 2025. And it really speaks to the opportunity to set resolutions, to set goals four times in the year rather than once. And we all know what it's like to set New Year's resolutions.

Most of us don't even call it that anymore. We kind of shy away from that whole premise of, I'm going to promise the world something that I'm going to deliver in 12 months and I will forget about it within three weeks and then excuse the rest of my time for the year and put things off. We often put things off because we think the timeline is given us plenty of time to get it done.

And then it becomes a time where we didn't get the inertia to get it started, therefore we start late and then we question whether we are going to do it. Before you know it, you're halfway through a calendar year and you're thinking, well, it's too late to get started. Then you're in the backend of a year like we are now of 2025, and you think, oh, I just haven't got the time to get to it.

It's holiday season's around the corner. I might as well just get started in 2026. Let me just, I'll bump it out a year. And the opportunity to break those periods down into smaller chunks whereby you work at a faster cadence allows you to reflect and to plan to iterate more often. You go through things more often and it allows you to sort of think of things in a better cycle, a smaller chunk, which means like I said I get four Januarys, I get four Easters, I get four Christmas.

Opportunities to actually think about what I'm doing throughout the year in a way that's manageable and achievable and actionable. So it's been great. And the power of a cohort in that setting is not to be underestimated to people on a similar journey. Not necessarily the same destination, but on the same journey.

And that allows us to share our wins, our lessons, our hopes and dreams, values, beliefs, goals in a way that allows us to really support each other in a powerful way. And it's getting results. It's putting things out there, whether it's a health goal, a financial goal, a business goal somewhere in something to do with your wellbeing relationship.

Having that focus. In a way where you size the goal, you right-size the goal for the period is much more conducive for that goal to be achieved rather than having this thing where you look at the 12 months of the calendar of the year and you go, oh, I hope I can get it done by whenever.

And you're not always sure on the steps to take. So this is a much faster way, a much better way to work through the year and less stress. It's nicer that way of course. And I think it's interesting that we, in the same amount of time, given let's say a month we can somehow overestimate and underestimate how much time that is.

You know, it's all about perception. I think what's interesting is you look at studies and a lot of them say actually as a teacher, if you give too much time in advance notice for a deadline. Everyone will wait till the last moment because they continually say to themselves, I have more time. I have more time.

I'll get to it, and then creeps up on them. And I do wanna to a little bit of my background as a nuclear operator in the schooling and the pacing of that. And it was a big wake up call. Unfortunately, the smarter and more successful you are, the more ability you have to procrastinate and it kind of enables you to become lazier, which what I'm trying to say is, my caveat is if you're smart and successful, you need more discipline.

Here's why. At least what we saw in the nuclear program, we were a 4.0 GPA scale, and people in the fleet would say, I'd rather have a two five or two five stay alive kind of guy, right? That's the, like the cutoff. Two, five, stay alive, have a two fiver than a guy with a 4.0 GPA. Here's why. The people who were at the bottom of the barrel, so to speak bottom, bottom of the torpedo shaft, however you wanna say it, you know, the plus side was they had mandatory study hours.

So on top of the classes, which were, you know, sometimes six hours, sometimes eight hours, these are long days with the same instructor. Sometimes for that whole time. It's an intense school. After that, they had to, they were militarily ordered to study, to maintain or improve their GPA. The people who were smart, the smartest people, voluntary study hours, right?

So they would just, go home, go home, play video games, you know, you get to the fleet, now you have to work, you're on the ship. You gotta do this maintenance. Well, the two five guy's like, well, this is nothing to me, man. I'm used to working long hours. I'm used to working hard.

They developed a work ethic. Mm-hmm. The people who were smart, what I heard was people were afraid of working with the smartest people because they were more likely in historically would take shortcuts that went around the manuals that would lead to people getting in trouble, people getting mastered to write-ups, right?

Mm-hmm. Because their thinking is, I'm smart. How do I maximize my time at work to maximize my time of not being at work? Yeah. So it's interesting how, you know, when you take what you have and how you can use your time with it. Again, like I mentioned that teaching, if you set a deadline too far out, everyone waits till last minute.

Yeah. I think it's interesting because I've been in that same mindset you mentioned like, oh, I'm gonna start next year, or when the time is right. And a lot of us are chasing a time that's never gonna happen. The times are as right as you make them to be. Mm-hmm. And I say that because on a recent episode, he shared a saying that really stuck with me.

He goes, the best time to plant an oak tree was like 50 years ago. The second best time is today. And I heard that and I said, that's so amazing. I continually pushed off going to the gym. I said, you know, I'm such a skinny, frail guy. Back when I was 120 pounds my whole life. I said, I really don't want to be caught.

Weak or tired or sore and you know, I don't want to go to the gym being so scrawny, I'll just wait till I'm heavier and more muscular in life somehow. Like it's just gonna magically happen to go. And I realized if I had started that day, that I push off where I'm at now and where I could have been or, so it's really sad to think about, you know, people always push off and it's like, I should have started this so long ago.

Okay, well then start today. Because just waiting for that ideal time is just not gonna happen. And I can relate to whether it's a 12 week year or a four, I couldn't imagine a four week here. That's too, that's too much. But I was given a month to get in, you know, special forces shape for the charity I was participating in.

And all I could think was a month is nowhere near enough time, you know, so. When you're put in a deadline you really look at things. So what really changed for you, Mr. Wright? Like, did you set your goals instead of saying, all right, I've got five months, six months, you said I need to finish this in the next 12 weeks or the years over, and like the project has to be scrapped.

Like what was the mindset you kind of had around how you set your goals because of the pressure of the time period? Like, did you restrict yourself to It has to be done this year. I cannot do this in the next 12 week year. It has to be done this year. Mm-hmm. So now I only got 12 weeks. What am I gonna do?

Yeah, before I answer that, there was a few things that you said about the, study. And when a deadline is extended, you work to the end of the deadline. And it made me think of the two typical laws around time. Parkinson's Law says that work, will expand to fill the time.

If you give somebody three weeks on a project, they will take three weeks on a project. If you give another team with the same resources a week on the same project, they will take a week to deliver on that project. Because people will find ways to think that, like you said, they'll either start late, which is a typical way in schools.

You'll start the project late 'cause you'll work back from the deadline back rather than from today forward. So that's a well established law if you like Parkinson's law, which is ironic to me. It's ironic to me. 'cause I don't know about you Steve. I'm the kind of guy. Let's get it over with so I can enjoy my free time with no stress, nothing on the back burner.

Like it's done. It is finished. And it just reminds me of the tortoise in the hare, right? Just thinking of like, the hare is that successful nuclear operator who has the smarts and not even nuclear operators, whatever you are, if you're an IT guy or anything else, right? You're smart, you're successful, you can get stuff done faster.

So you, you start, you stop, you finish. Whereas as the tortoise is like those nuclear operators with the 2.5 GPA who just worked, worked, worked consistently, you know, and I love that metaphor just expands to fill the whole time. Yeah, it is just so true. The other law associated with that is actually attributed to Bill Gates, gates Law, which says that people

Overestimate what they can do in a year and underestimate what they can do in a decade. I think that speaks more to building things of value and worth. And you think you can get a lot of stuff done in a year, and in actual fact, it takes a longer time to build those deeper qualities.

And and your story about about the operators again speaks to that mindset of grit, that grittiness being able to stick at something even when it's hard. Or being recognized for the effort that you put into something rather than the outcome. The GPA, the 4.4 0.0 GPA folks tend to be lauded for their smarts, for their outcome, rather than working hard necessarily.

If smarts naturally comes to them, then they just getting the results, the accolades for being a 4.0. The 2.5 that is working on their grades is working hard. And like you said, that translates into once they finished school into deployment or their actual assignments. It's like assignments.

It's like if you have someone with lived experience and someone who just has seniority because they went to college and got a degree in whatever it is, but they don't have the lived experience. You know, like in the military, I could have been on the electrical operator watch and I could have had an engineering officer to watch who was an officer who, yeah, he went to college and he's supposed to know more than me, but he's never stood this watch before.

And he could tell me, Hey, do X, Y, Z with a submarine. And I, because I was in this situation you know, he said, do X, Y, Z, and I said, X, Y, Z is stupid and dangerous for all of us. Let's do A, B, C, because that makes sense. And he was like, you know, it was kind of like, I'm the officer, right? So you're like, all right, officer, whatever you say I do X, Y, Z.

Even hiring a guy comes busting in a room, why did you do X, Y, Z? I said, well, I wanted to do A, B, C, but you know, a guy back there said X, Y, Z. He goes, who's standing to watch you or him? I was like, okay, okay, okay. I'm just like, I'm just like a freshly 18-year-old, you know, going on 19 year guy who's somehow in a mock submarine being yelled at by a lot of people.

I mean, but I think you talk about, yeah, I like that example too, of lived experience versus just having read all the books and having done it, you know, such a big difference. And that's why you could have someone with a college degree and you could have someone who just did all the work, two different mindsets and Yeah.

They preface nuke school with that. They give a big speech. They said, everyone sitting here, all y'all nuclear operators in the making, listen. All of y'all are the kind of people where you went to high school. You barely paid attention. You got a's on everything regardless. You just are naturally smart people with good memories.

This isn't that place, this, even the smart people like you, you have to show up, you have to do the work. You cannot just get by. By being naturally smart. And the amount of people we lost who didn't listen to that, myself included, I mean it was great. I had that revelation much sooner than some people.

Some people they were proud of was like, no, I'm not gonna study. I was like, oh shoot, if I gotta study and make notes for the first time, no, no shame in it. But you know, some people want to always show, you mentioned the outcome over the effort. Some people wanna show all the time, Hey, I got the outcome with no effort.

You know, and they take more pride in that than the actual quality of the outcome. Yeah, and I think that's part of the ESOP's fable about the tortoise and the here is the impression that the, here was thinking about how fast it could run the journey and worked back from the end and said, I'm so fast I can start this much later and still beat this animal.

You know, that beat the tortoise and music instead music instead of lemme do it, let me just do it and then take my nab instead of, instead of just do it. Like you said, it's so stupid if, if it literally just did it, it would be sitting at the finish line. It'll be sitting at the finish line waiting for the tortoise to run the race actually.

And you know what, that's a very much of a story. I've run three marathons in my life. And one coming up this year for, no, none, none recently. But the interesting thing is that the whole premise of starting as you mean to finish and. Setting that pace. You start when you start and you go on as you mean to finish.

As opposed to some people I saw athletes that burst off, you know, their times were probably similar to mine, but they went off burn off guns blazing and guaranteed the marathons are the greatest leveler for an athletic run. It's a great leveler. Everyone gets through and actually at the end of the race, everyone's cheering for everybody else.

It's not one of those things where you're trying to compete unless you're an elite athlete, of course, but the rest of us are just trying to get through this major life milestone of completing a mouth. And then those guys ran off too fast.

So they burned out so quickly. The elites on a run. They start first, which is right. They have to start first because they would be behind everybody. They will be passing everybody else. By the time I finished my marathon, the winner of the San Diego Marathon was already on a plane to go home to Kenya.

Wow. I was still running. I was probably still running while this guy was on a plane. That's the hair that starts off and runs the race that they're supposed to run. Yeah. As opposed to taking your time and not finishing. But you asked me about what this meant about goals in terms of the concepts of the sort of the 12 week year, the 12 week window, and what The biggest lesson for me having done this, a number of cycles in 2025, is that it's made me value the work of setting appropriate goals and, having the goal that is so rich and tangible and palpable in terms of how it feels in your body, how you envision it in your mind how you imagine how you're going to be once you've achieved the goal. What it means in terms of your value your outlook, how you represent what you do.

All of those things come into play when setting the goal. It's not as trivial as saying, I'm going to meet quarter three revenue target and I'm gonna get it done, this sort of way, right? Not to dismiss financial or goals in those arenas. But on a personal level there for me, there needs to be a strong attachment to the goal so that you are pulled through the 12 week year as opposed to being pushed, feeling like you're struggling.

You're pushing a bold uphill because you're not really aligned with the goal. And you won't think outside of the box to get the resources together to make the goal happen. My favorite goal of 2025, and it's interesting 'cause I've, I'll do four 12 week years in 2025 and I'll be in Jamaica at Christmas and I'll be recounting my year 2025.

And the highlight that will probably still be the highlight of 2025 was taking my mother to Paris on her 80th birthday. That was a 12 week goal. That I'd set at the end of March and we brought it to fruition in April. She turned 80 and we were on top of the Eiffel Tower.

I saw that clearly as day as I'm looking at you, I saw that image before it happened. I felt what it was gonna feel like. I imagined it very clearly. I worked with a coach and we talked about this. We shared that. We worked on beliefs around making it happen. What are the fears about it? The fears of success, the fears of failure.

What needs to be put into place? Who are you going to be? How are you going to show up as a person that has achieved this goal? What does it mean to your mom? You know, what does it mean to you? What does it say about you? And all of those things culminated in. Having the things, the resources, it took time, it took money.

It, they took moving things around in terms of schedules. It took focus. All of those things came together. And on her birthday, we were at the top of the Eiffel Tower, even to the point where at the day when we were lining up, we were queuing up at the bottom of the Eiffel Tower. The top level was closed because of the weather wasn't good, the weather was kind of cloudy, and they closed the top part of the tower.

And the line was so long that we were in line for maybe an hour and a half and. By the time we got to the ticket counter, they'd opened the top level. Amen. So we were able to go to the top and just thinking all of these things came to fruition, and we were on top of the Eiffel Tower on her birthday, and I called my coach.

You know, it was that powerful in terms of having somebody alongside for the journey. That's the power of the cohort. And having someone hold you accountable. Believe what you believe and share that vision with you. So for me, the big thing is the vision. It has to be sized appropriately for a 12 week window because it's not that, it's no point having a goal bigger than the window.

'cause sometimes you're working on something that takes many stages, but making sure that it fits and that it's close enough to you for urgency and clarity. But it's far enough out so you can track it and it's a worthwhile goal. Getting up and making breakfast may not be a 12 week goal unless you've got some impediment and you're working through something that a health issue, whereby your goal would be to walk unaided or to have a lifestyle choice or a lifestyle change.

Again, I don't wanna dismiss anybody's goal at whatever level, right? But the thing for me is the big, big alignment of the vision. The other things can all fall into place and you'll be surprised how many resources and people will align with you when your goal is very, very clear. So would you say that with the 12 week year, what you did wasn't double your work ethic in risk burning out or just work much harder, but you changed the way you manage your expectations to be more realistic in terms of fitting that goal.

So would you say, if you don't do the 12 week year again, let's say you just do a regular year, do you feel like you are now much better suited for goal setting and expectation management because you had to do it on such a smaller, more confined and realistic scale? I think, good question. I think that the.

The book, it talks about this, it is the power of periodization. It's the period that makes it work. A lot of people live their life according to periods, whether you are, you know, you could be a financial analyst and you work to the tax year and the tax year in the US and the tax year in the UK may be different.

You know, we start out in April and some companies start with the calendar year, so they start their tax year in January, for example. You may be an educator, so your academic year is a different periodization than the calendar year because you've got a long summer and you've got semesters and so on.

I petition this, this has always bothered me, Steve. The calendar year should start in September. I have always felt that way very passionately. If I ever become president of the United States, I'm gonna make calendars great again because I'm gonna make, September should be the beginning of the year.

That's when everyone's off of summer vacations, schools back in session. The fall happens. Why do we start in the middle of the year in a dead, cold, disgusting heart of the winter of January? No offense. All the January people does it, it makes more sense to me to have September be the beginning of the year.

I could ask and I can answer that. It's the simple answer is that the Roman Empire set our Gregor, I'm not a Roman calendar, I'm Italian Irish. Okay. So written on me. I don't, I'm not, I'm not a Roman. They're gone mostly somebody had to set it. Somebody had to set it and, and I'm gonna reset it and I'm getting rid of daylight savings times.

We're, we're doing all the stuff. Oh, you got me on daylight savings. That's, and I'm gonna make Monday the first day in the calendar, physically and Sunday, the last day in the calendar, physically, instead of most people's rest day being the first day of the week that when you physically look at a calendar, it's the last day.

Do you know what I'm talking about? Yeah. No, I don't. Does this stuff not keep you up at night? I can't sleep Steve. I can't, Steve. Well, yeah. You know what, everything that, everything that you're saying is, is a, is about the aesthetic. The perception. The perception. The perception of a period. Yeah. And, and.

People work to the period that works for them. If you're an academia, if you're a teacher, you work to an academic school year. There are a, you know, a woman's cycle may follow the lunar year, the lunar month, for example, rather than a calendar month.

There are things that are just either in nature that have their own sort of set period. And there are things that we have for organizational purposes. We have 12 months, we have seven days. We have, you know, we work the week as is seven days, like I said. So there are things out there that set the period.

The question becomes, does everything that you do have to fit into that box? Just because the box is there, the box is arbitrary, right? The mindset of thinking of 12 weeks. Like we think of 12 months is really just a matter of mindset. People say, oh, it's like agile. You're just messing with the calendar.

You're just making four week years into four quarters of a calendar year. Sure. But when I post on LinkedIn every week as if it was the month of that 12 week period. Yeah. So I have a January, which is the first week of the 12 week year, and I have a December, which is the 12th week.

Of the 12 week year. Yeah. And it may just be me, but for me, I think of that period, and I liken it to being able to condense in some ways. Sometimes you're compressing time because it feels like you are conducting a week. Calling it a month and you feel like there's some compression. Other times you just can't make things happen quicker than they can, and that's totally fine too.

But periodization is a focusing tool, and that focusing tool helps you align and assign an appropriate goal to the period that you're focused on. It's Parkinson's law with a little twist, a mindset twist that says, I'm treating my January as a week, because then I can focus more on what I want to get done.

I can assign activities or assign a goal in accordance to the period that I have, and I'm just choosing to make it feel smaller. Feeling smaller is important. How you feel about a period is very important. 'cause we do this with a calendar year every year. The world does this with New Year's resolutions.

They do this with the ball drop on New Year's Eve or the fireworks. And everyone celebrates a new year. And ironically, like Gate says, we overestimate what we can do in it by setting all these big fantastical. Yeah. And sometimes not well aligned goals. Once people stop asking us about them normally second week of January, I think the 17th of January is the day where most resolutions have been forgotten or given up on the gym.

Membership starts to lapse. All of those good intentions start to go by the wayside. That girl you kissed at midnight is gone. Yeah. Missile toe is gone. All the shops they've got Valentine's Shop. Yeah. That's coming up. You gotta get a new girl for Valentine's Day now. And you Right.

Get an episode on how to do that. There you go. And before you know, you're stuck on the Hallmark treadmill. I mean, hallmark have their own periodization. They go from event to event To event Yeah. Throughout the year to make you forget what you wanted to get done.

And it's important to think about something in a period that works for you. I'm not saying 12 weeks is the ideal for everybody or anybody I know people they do a four month. Sprint. They split the year into three, so they'll have a four month window and a four month window and a four month window.

To me, it's really the period, the periodization, and the focus. If you have your goals, values, and beliefs aligned, and you have it within a container that works, then you have a chance to iterate on that the first time you do it. You might be off the second time you do it, you get better the third time you do it, life gets in the way and you have a crappy period.

You know, my year three was good. Year two was a bit strange for me, but that's okay because I've got a chance to iterate. I've got a chance to go through this again. I will be calling my 12 week periods, years moving forward. I've done it for this calendar year, and again, I'm confusing people by switching years and months and days and weeks.

But for this calendar year, 2025, I would've done four cycles for iterations. Mm-hmm. I won't, I won't properly evaluate the value of this effort until I've done at least seven. Yeah. So it'll be until middle of next year, towards the end of next year, 2026, where I'll go, well, is this been good for me or not?

Because you need to give things time. To work before you evaluate. Sometimes we have knee-jerk response. We do it once, it didn't work. We are podcasters. We know what that's like, you know? Yeah. First show doesn't go anywhere. And then the second show you're struggling and then the third show you think, well, it's not for me, and then you're done.

We know the power of consistency. We know the power of grace. Having something work long enough so that grace can show its, you know, grace and faith. I dunno who she is, can show its power. I dunno. She sounds great. Well, Steve, what I wanna say is, what I realized is really what you did, what that book is about, what all these other books that have periodization is about.

It's about breaking free from the constrictions of what our society is already built on. Which is, like you said, we all feel this pressure by next year. It's kind of like you're a loser if you didn't meet your goals this year. Right? Because people have said this 12 month window for us, if by 2026 you didn't publish that book, or get that job or get that girlfriend, or whatever it may be, people are like, dude, you had a whole year.

What a loser. But to your point, we aren't saying, well, hey, is that really attainable? You know rather than breaking our lives and our goals set on periodizations that are actually attainable for us and aligned with us, we are so constricted to the 12 month. What you did is you broke free of that and you actually shortened it.

You said, Hey, I wanna set goals more frequently, keep myself accountable more often, and have shorter years. Mm-hmm. What I've started to do with my periodization, yes, I still focus on like 2025 to 2026, but mine is actually based off of podcasting conferences and events. So I say by the time I go to that same conference next year, I want three more books, you know, a hundred more episodes, whatever it is.

I base my periodizations off my public appearances at conferences, right? Because when I do my goals I don't feel judged on a year to year basis if I'm doing stuff, I don't have a lot of people in an inner circle who are like, Hey man, you had a year to do that.

What I do have is, Hey, I haven't seen you since the last conference. You know what's new? Mm-hmm. Every time I come to, I attend this virtual event on Wednesdays. It's pretty cool. I don't always make it, but the goal is like, Hey, what's new? 500 episodes? That's what's new, you know? Mm-hmm. Or a book I think.

One of the things with this is I feel like it's gotten you to kind of focus on yourself and your expectations rather than what others want for you, and you've been able to really hone in on that. Yeah, that's very powerful observation on that because you want to have cycles that work for you, and like you said, that's great.

To have. Milestones or mile markers that make sense to you, rather than just arbitrary mile markers because everybody's got them at the same, you know, the same distance apart or the same length of time or whatever. So again, you know, typically calendar year, sometimes businesses talk about quarters of the year.

And that's fine. Interestingly enough, they are just fractioning off the calendar year. My argument is that I'm thinking of a 12 week year as its own entity. It's 12 weeks. Yeah. With a week for review.

The upside of what you shared it's your best way to get the outcomes or work towards the outcomes that you want. And you will set reasonable expectations based on past experience or bandwidth or resources that say, between this event and this event, this is gonna happen and you'll set it accordingly.

And that's you in your space and that's perfect for you. You'd have to do a few iterations before you kind of get it down, but you know that in terms of this event to this event, I'm gonna get this done. The 12 week year, especially around a cohort is a little bit more standardized in terms it's in terms of it's always 12.

Yeah, yeah, of course. And I bring around the power of accountability and the cohort, because the analogy is that it's a similar journey, like we're all on the same plane or train and. We are fellow passengers on this journey. And you, like you would on a plane, you sit next to somebody and you struck up a conversation.

You ask them where they're going and they're telling you they're going to a conference, they're gonna see family, they're gonna see are you're free there tonight. That doesn't happen in my cohort, but Oh, yeah. In the analogy. You could, you could conversation. Sorry, I, I just heard we're sitting on a plane and you strike up conversation.

Like, what? Hey, what do you, what do you think of this first class? Food is pretty good, huh? So you totally, or I take you up a steak tonight. You totally derailed my, my analogy there, but my metaphor, that's not what I say when I sit on a plane next to someone, I always say, do you listen to podcasts?

And if they say yes or no, either way, I say, well, there's an amazing podcast called The One-to-One Thing with Steve Wright. And I say, I'm currently doing a 12 week year, and by the end of this 12 week year. I plan on guesting on that show, and then they're like, well, I hope you make it. And that was a couple years ago.

So, so, so all of that to say the metaphor, the metaphor of taking a journey with fellow passengers with different destinations means that you are not determining where they go. You're not telling them where to go or what they should do when they get there. You're just sharing the journey with them and the ability to strike up a conversation and have some camaraderie along the way is so powerful because it helps you consolidate what you want to do when you get there.

It helps them find support in their goals and dreams and aspirations when they get there. And you are working within that same construct of a 12 week period, but you are actually driving towards your own personal goals and outcomes with your set of beliefs and values. So it's not a matter of group think you're not just there because you're trying to get to the same end result.

This is not, it's not a get rich quick. It's not about trying to find a million viewers on. Yeah, don't start a podcast if you want to get rich quick, I'll tell you that. But yes. Yeah 

One thing I wanna talk about, you mentioned authenticity, transparency, and I think one of the downsides I would see with this 12 week year is people burning out, right? They're pushing themselves too much. Setting unrealistic goals. We kind of talked about that and it made me think of the ship I was on.

So my ship American side the aircraft carriers, they're built, they go out for x, y, Z amount of years, they go back, they get worked up on go back out X, y, z amount of years, do it again. And then, you know, that's it. Pretty much my ship was in the yards when COVID happened. So that was a time where like, Hey, can we even have all the sailors, you know, working?

How many people can we have working on a ship? Then you have shipyard, which is civilian owned and run. So we can't say, Hey, y'all gotta come work on this ship. If big civilian world says no, they're not allowed to. It became a very, how do we do this operation? But there was a milestone after X, y, z amount of time in the yards.

The ship is supposed to be in a livable condition where sailors can move back on out of the barracks. Ideally, the sooner you have all the sailors on the ship, the more work that gets done. That's the idea and it is just how it's supposed to be. You're filling up the barracks, X, y, Z because of all the COVID delays.

My ship from what I've heard, was not livable, but instead of telling Big Navy, we didn't meet this quota or this mile marker, they moved everyone on into hazardous conditions. With electrical hazards, hot work hazards, toxic gas hazards with not working water, with not working ventilation. And people got injured and sick people killed themselves.

We had three suicides in a week. We had a multiple in a year, and the ship went under investigation. What happened is the Mick Pond came and gave a speech in response to the unlivable conditions and his suicides. This was a speech he gave, quote, I'm paraphrasing, but he said lower your standards.

You're not living in a foxhole. So he gets removed and then it was a big public lashback, all this controversy but let's look at it from the very basic level. If Big Navy, or I guess Little Navy, my ship right, had been honest with Big Navy, big government and said, we did not meet this milestone.

Instead of trying to. Forcibly turn in, not ready results at that milestone. It could have actually prevented death. People killed themselves. There were relies taken and injuries had, right? Mm-hmm. So when you talk about transparency, authenticity, not comparing yourself, setting these goals, I think it's important for anyone doing a periodization that you don't make it, so to speak, a matter of life and death

at the end of the day, like, yes, you should try to meet it, but we talked earlier about 12 weeks might be too soon for you. Maybe your periodization is three, four month quarters. Maybe you just split the year and a half. Maybe you're a six month kind of person. So I think it's important if you don't meet those goals, one, don't try to forcibly cram it into that 12 week and then it results in something bad.

Maybe it's a podcast episode or a book that wasn't ready. You put your book out and now it stinks. You get a one star review from Steve Wright online. Right. That's not a good thing to do. He would never do that. But my point there being is like it is trial and error and, and exploration. So I would say be gracious for yourself until you find that cadence that you can work at.

And I just think that's a real life example of they had a periodization of at X, Y, Z amount of times in the yards, you will now be in livable conditions. Right. And that has historically been the relative standard, but when conditions come in the way, you have to accept those. Right. So they should have said, Hey, this whole COVID thing, like there's no handbook for this.

This is new. Yeah. So let me use this to pivot to, you actually had a death in your family, Steve, and I mean, how did that throw your 12 week cycle off track? Or how were you able to. Deal with that. Was there any part of you that you were like, Hey, forget this old week year stuff. Like, I need to sit back and reflect.

I know you posted about it on LinkedIn and everything, but I just wanna unpack that a little more. Yeah. You know what and as you said and I've heard you tell a part of that story about the ship not being ready. And I think that the two things, again, I'm banging this drum really hard with regards to the vision being in place so strong that you get pulled rather than your pushing the reason for that is that when you are pulled through your vision Mm, you are in alignment with it. The alignment of the vision is much more sustainable and it's much more complete. It's holistic.

It encompasses lots of things. Me getting my mom to the top of the Eiffel Tower is a bold statement. It's something I can share. It's something that I can actually mark off as being complete or not complete, which is important in a goal. It must have a criteria of completion or satisfaction.

It needs to be met or not met. No judgment. If you don't meet it to the point in your ship. If you set something and you don't meet it. Be upfront and say that you didn't meet it, you might have to go back and do your root cause analysis. You might have to go refresh something, but be real. Don't pretend that you could do something when you actually couldn't do it.

And that's leads to people being maligned to the vision and actually causing injury or hazardous environments for people. So in my case I had an uncle that passed and it was a difficult time in the sense that it was close enough, but a little bit of strange, but still close enough in terms of immediate family.

And it's not one of those things whereby something comes up well, anything can come up on the journey. Yeah. That make, that could make you question the validity of the journey and. Sometimes you just gotta mitigate for that. You either gotta take a detour, take a stop. If you're driving somewhere and you have a flat tire, you don't go back home.

You fix the tire on the side of the road, or you call recovery services. You get the car towed, you get it fixed, you get back on the road, you take an overnight stay and you get to where you're going a little bit later. There's things that you mitigate to get to the goal. The thing is, if your vision for the destination wasn't strong enough, you'll go home.

You, you know, you, you can, the vision, your can, the goal. Mm. I think the important thing is that with a period that aligns the drive and the outcome to the goal, it means that. There are fewer things that are going to derail you, and if they do, you're dealing with a shorter period and potentially a shorter goal if you like

something could derail me for a 12 week period, but it won't ruin my year. It wouldn't ruin 2025 because I'm not looking at it in the context of 2025. I'm looking at it in the context of this period, and I'm much closer to the goal. I'm much more aligned to the goal.

I'm being pulled through the period with the goal, and as things come up, they're mitigated according to what needs to be done. I don't question turning around or not doing something. So, it's sad if it's a loss. Of loved ones and family members could be major illnesses.

Life we're made to suffer. You know, there's an element of suffering in life that is just part of living. That doesn't mean you don't set the goal, it doesn't mean you don't think of the period. It doesn't mean that you don't strive to be better and do things that support you and your values.

So you gotta do what you gotta do. Right. And with you coming up on your last year of this year, what are some goals, if you don't mind sharing that you're looking at that, you know, like has this changed the kind of goals you set or are you still setting the same kind of goals just within a different frame?

As I think I get, I, it is the bite of the cherries. I get four bites of the cherry. I literally, is that like a British thing I'm looking for? I'm looking for, it's a British thing. Yeah. I guess four bites of it's, I get four times to make goals in a calendar year. In 2025, I've got four chances to make goals.

Sometimes the goal that you set in a period doesn't get realized until another period. So for example my final part of the year, I've mentioned the three generations that my mother, my daughter, and myself in Jamaica.

That goal was set for year three. The period that just finished. And so I am now looking at. For this coming final 12 weeks of 2025, some of my goals are around. Some value creation in my business activities. I have a coaching practice with the cohort that I want to develop more.

So right coaching things are, sorry, I said so right. Coaching, I'm just plugging your sa, right? Sa right coaching.com. Oh, I say sa but you, it's also spelled, it's also correct Soul. If you say Salt Wright coaching, it's the same spelling. So it's the same spelling. It's the same spelling. When I read it, SA Wright flows faster than SA Wright coaching.

So that's why I always say, I always say, I always say sa, right? Because it's my first initials and my last name. Yeah. You created it. That's why. Well, well, and you could argue that if it's confusing for people, then it may not be the best marketing, but. Anyway, I'm not gonna go there with that.

I'm not changing my marketing Well 'cause right. Has a right within it. So that's, that's, that's where the next is. WI Yeah. WI You'll always be right. Yeah. So, so twice as right to ask your to. So to answer your question about goals that I've got, I've got some specific outcomes around income and value creation.

And those two marry together because for me the goal has to have an element of input goals as opposed to output goals. I can't necessarily control what the output is, but I can control or actually influence the input to my goals. So that will tie into sort of my work activity, marketing activity, things that I can do.

And then I will have metrics around that. So, that's broadly where my goal set for this final 12 weeks of the calendar year 2025, is going to focus on this is the second time now that we are having a cohort. Last 12 week period, there was a group of us that were together and it was the first time doing it in that format.

And it was totally game changing in terms of, again, the passengers on the journey and just having that energy of accountability clarity, urgency, and tracking, you know, making the cut to CUT, which is important in a group program. It's not group coaching. Yeah. It's a cohort, true cohort, we're passengers together.

But we do have tools. We do have strategies. We bring learning in that space. So there is learning to be got from being together. But I don't think of it as you walk up and you just get coached. It's not. You know, it's not that, that you got pasty for that. You gotta, you gotta DM him on LinkedIn and ask how much he charges for that one.

There you go. Well, again, or it's free for you if you outperform him in jump roping. I have heard that sales pitch before, you are such a se, you are still are master of segues. You are. I am. I've never actually rode on a segue. But I do know how to skydive, which is what you and I do. You know, if we were in a WE wrestling competition, you and I would skydive out of the ceiling together.

I would, I am looking forward to another skydive, but not this time of the year. Too cold. But but yes, not in a different periodization. Different period. Well, same periodization, same periodization, just different part of the, of the at least for the next two. Well you said, right. 'cause you said you need seven total to make an assessment, but if you do it two years in a row would be eight altogether.

Yes. And why not just finish? I mean, Steve, I'm the kind of guy you should just finish that year, that last year's year. No, I, I, I feel to the point of being sustainable, I'm comfortable with the cadence of a 12 week period. I don't want it to become rote and mechanical, like the calendar year has become for so many of us In terms of, it kind of loses its purpose then of keeping you on track.

Yeah. So the beauty of that having a period that you can check in on and a period that you can have some agency in, is that you can assess whether it's working for you. Set the goal at the right tempo, at the right phase, at the right level. To make it a comp, to make it achievable. Have people in your corner that are supporting you, cheering you on.

Sometimes the comparison can be healthy in terms of, in terms of giving you a stretch, right? But ultimately you are, this is something that it needs to be sustainable. I don't want one and done. You're not gonna do this once and be done. It should spark an interest in working out what kind of goal you want in 12 weeks or what kind of period you want to achieve a goal.

Sometimes you change the period to the goal. Sometimes you change the goal to the, to the period. And again, it's the mindset that says, I can achieve, I want to achieve. I'm going to set the environment in order for me to achieve. And I'm not gonna shoehorn myself into a 12 week four quarters. Two week sprint, four week sprint.

If you're, you know, if you're in those sorts of agile spaces, that's fine if you do that. But there's a mindset game around periodization. So you definitely need to be focused on that. It's not a challenge, it's a lifestyle. When you say one and done, it's like some people are looking at like, oh, I just gotta complete this.

Well, no, you're supposed to learn from it and use it. It's not like a can I do this? Well, I mean, you put anything in your mind to relatively, you can meet certain goals unless there are time sensitive things in any periodization, depending on how much I like it. You said input versus outcome, especially for the line of work that you and I do, but yeah, I think it's not a challenge.

That's a lifestyle. But I gotta backtrack Steve, 'cause I got a big question for you now completely unrelated to anything. Go for it. You said you get four bites of your cherry now I've eaten cherries very rarely. I'm not a big cherry guy. In terms of the fruit, what cherry have you found that you could actually have?

Four bites of cherries are like this big, you know, they're like smaller than a golf ball. How do you have four bites of a cherry? There are some, no, there's some large cherries that you can get that, that are on the size of a tennis ball, not the size of a tennis ball.

I mean, it's talking about an apple here, but you can, it is a turn of phrase. So the the literal element is not that it's I the right, but then I would've said four bites of cake. I mean, make it make sense, right? I'd love to have four, four times the amount of cake, but a cherry, like you couldn't even bite that four times.

I mean, you'd have to like take a little nibble. I'm say it doesn't make sense. Like it, I understand it's not literal or physical, but it should still make sense canonically. You know, like if you say. I can't think of any sense. It could be four. Well, it, well, let me you, you're taking this down some sort of rabbit hole here, but you, it could be four cherries that you bite that you take a bite out of.

The idea is that there's something sweet and appealing and you get four opportunity, like you and thank you Mr. Whiskey like yourself, and you get with a, with a 12 week year within the calendar year of 2025, you get four opportunities to set the goal to work towards. Its accomplishment to feel the seasonality of a calendar year within a 12 week window.

So you, you get, and I, that's why I liken it to months equaling weeks because I talk about them as if they have that seasonality within a 12 week window. The book doesn't do that. The book is pretty much, basically it is carving up quarters in a sense. Right. I'm giving you that. So you're even better than the book.

I'm not, I'm different. I, I'm, it's not, it's not about being better than anything else. But, but I wanted to, I wanted to say that the, your comment about one and done I'm over 60. So one and done. One and done. Doesn't work. One and done isn't good enough. If you're gonna be around for a while, you've gotta be doing things that have an eye on longevity.

You have to do things that have an eye on legacy. You have to do things that have an eye on. Helping generations, one and done doesn't cut it. Because that is sometimes too myopic. It's too shortsighted. It's too selfish. It has connotations of who cares? I'm just getting what I need now.

And that's it. At any cost often? Not usually, but often. So the whole idea of having things in place that are sustainable, things that feel that have value in themselves I'm all about agency and mastery, right? Not mastery to Lord over somebody, but mastery of yourself so that you can show up.

The best way you can be. So whether it's podcasting, whether it's playing the cajon, whether it's salsa dancing, there's two words that come to my mind when it comes to self-mastery and discipline. I'm not gonna share them here, but what I'll say is, Steve, I do wanna say congrats on turning 64.

You'll be turning 65 in your next period. And I think that's amazing. You can almost do they have social security in Britain. You can start collecting soon, I think. Right? I, my birthday was my six, my 62nd North. You are, you're making me older than I am because of the 12 week year. That's because of the 12 week.

That's okay. Well, I thought you were turning 61, I guess I watched you turn 61 last year then. Yes. Oh well happy on 62. I told everyone I knew you were 61, so, oh, I'm not gonna correct it. I'll just leave it as it was. Thanks to you. I was remind, well, LinkedIn told me it was your birthday. Which told me that it was my other friend's birthday who shares the same birthday as you.

Yes. Tweet. Who has also been on this show. Yay. Call me Yama. Brain. The Belly. Yes. Go check it out. Good episode. Lot of sustainability there too. Good? Oh yeah. Good content. Yeah. But Steve, you told us just to summarize about perception, work ethic, you know, periodization not you in your personal life, did the 12 weeks.

For those of y'all listening, whatever you find is your cadence. I think that's important. Goal setting. You talked about the benefits of it. I think. Like you said, really harping on that importance of not having it become just a new routine. You know, I think the point is to break out. So if you're someone who easily falls into routine, you might need to change your periodization every year, every two, three years, whatever it is to keep you kind of active and in that new work environment.

So I think that's important. I do wanna do a little bit of shameless plugging for you to that's my job. So the managers who lead Facebook groups still going strong. Tell us about that, why you created it. You already talked about within the 12 year year program cohort and accountability.

This is obviously a place for that, for idea bouncing and all of that, but, you know, tell us a little bit more about it. I, the, the solar p the solopreneur journey can be very lonely in that respect. Yeah. And also the social media landscape is often pushing the, finding your tribe.

And for me it was an opportunity to build a space. The managers who lead is a nod to my IT management background. But not exclusively manages in a occupational workplace environment, but also people who manage their households, manage their homes. We all have an element in that role of manager and also leader.

Some of these things are very synonymous to each other. So the Facebook group is an opportunity for people to connect on there. So I post my regular drop in. Content into that space, people can watch , and follow along. So there's the managers who leader, there's a Facebook group.

I also have a presence on LinkedIn. LinkedIn's my sort of platform of choice whereby I have a weekly live drop in event, which is like a virtual water cooler. And it's very open. It's great 'cause I have sort of, my most trusted people show up there when they can, how they can, and we discuss whatever's on our hearts.

It's, it really is sometimes, as I said in Steve's birthday post that he never looked at, that I made for him specifically I told everyone to buy you vegan, jam filled donuts for your birthday. You know, so that is something we talk about in the drop in event.

But no, like I said, on the on the post, we have a lot of serious conversations as well on sexual assault awareness, men's mental health current issues. And you know, it just depends. And sometimes we're just laughing, having a good time, like you said, never know who's gonna be there. But it's very refreshing, you know, from the doing the one-on-one thing.

Oh, the one-on-one thing that we do as you do as a podcast host and as I do as a podcast host to then. Meet up with other like-minded individuals, bounce ideas off of each other, conversate, do standup comedy, all, all that. Yeah. And the thing is it's important to keep the human in the social media circles that you operate in.

Yeah. It's too easy to for prey to looking super glossy and having everything automated or AI assisted with you. AI assistant is fine. It's when it's starts to replace you with. Replace your voice, your persona that it becomes a potential challenge. I love the drop in.

I, I love the fact that I literally walk up on a Wednesday afternoon, my time, four 30 and turn on go live, and I'm sitting here in front of a screen and I literally don't know if someone's gonna show up or who's gonna show up. And for me, that's, that speaks to just being human. It's like walking into a room and you're the first one there at an event, and you're not sure what's gonna be, what's gonna be going on.

It's important that we still have that connection and we show up. We show up in spaces where we can show up authentically as who we are. So it's very important only. Unlike when you show up at a room as the first guest at an event imagine you had to start just like giving a speech to no one.

You know, because that's what it's like. 'cause I've, I've caught Steve on there by himself talking to himself, hopefully talking to us. You know, but yeah, it's Wednesdays mornings, I've, I've, I've changed my calendar now, Steve, I've blocked out that time slot. I had a lot of people kept booking that time and I said, I don't wanna miss my event anymore.

It's my social outing of the week. I roll a bed throwing a shirt and a hat, and then I'm there. Sometimes that's TMI right there. Yeah. Well, I, I, I, I sleep with pajama pants on. I mean, now that you've confessed. Okay. Okay. Thank you. Hey, clarification. There are people there. I was podcasting with a gentleman one time.

Maybe you can relate to this. I was podcasting, right? And he's in like a very nice dress shirt. We're having a good conversation. The wifi started going in and out and he was like, hold on, lemme move to a different room. He picks up the camera and everything, and you just, I just get a flash of like turquoise booty shorts.

So I was like, oh, okay. Well then camera's on your, camera's on, you know, there's a lot of, and you could look up on social media, like Zoom fails and stuff. Luckily, I haven't, haven't had anything too outrageous where someone stands up, it's like, oh, Sarah, you don't have any pants on at all. You don't even have underwear on, you know, and I haven't caught no tidy whitey or brown stained, you know, underwear.

Luckily it's been pretty, pretty tame, just a glimpse of shorts that I didn't need to see. But I don't know if you've ever had I've, I've not, I've, I've never, I've never had that. I mean, I always dress as if you were going to meet me.

In terms of, I've always, I'm fully clothed in that respect. It's interesting because it can be so easy. I mean, I've got a decent lighting, I've got a nice microphone and a nice camera. I'm on those things. Enough for me to invest in having a decent camera and a decent microphone.

But I wouldn't beautify things there has to be an element that says I am presenting my best self. I want to respect the audience that are looking at me. And at the same time, I don't want to be rocking up, made up to the nines or super, not super groomed, but you know, that sort of impression, if you met me

you see me as you see me now, as opposed to thinking, oh, who is this guy? And it's interesting, I've met people I've talked to on Zoom calls in person. That's my plan. I'm trying to meet you, Steve. It's yes. I just booked a flight as we were podcasting. I actually booked a flight to Jamaica for the for, no, I'm just kidding.

Oh, I would, so I have, I've got, I I'm meeting, I'm meeting some my my coach and his wife in Jamaica. They're gonna be there. They're leaving just before Christmas, but I think they're gonna, that is he coaching you on having a Jamaican accent? Is that, is that what you hired him for or No, no, no.

He is, he's, he's American. He's he is, he's got his, he's got his US accent, but it's the opportunity to meet in person and, and be Well, you, me and Justin are gonna meet up for a competition of physical sorts. I that sounded very anonymous. Very vague. I mean, like a, maybe not a marathon, but maybe something, something different.

We def all three of us had to meet up for a podcast at some point. That, that an episode that gets streamed on your podcast. My podcast. And by that time, his podcast. There you go. Well, will Otero is in New York and he's another mutual podcast friend. And, and one could say he's a wise guy.

Wise Media, yeah. Wise and, and he's putting on something on the East Coast not too far from him. He's looking to put an event together. Man, I'm, I'm a pull for that. I would love to, I would, I would love to fly out. It wouldn't make it, it wouldn't make it to this 12 week, year cycle, but it would be something that.

Would definitely be on the radar for 2026 is to have some, I don't do any in-person podcasts. I did one with my mom when she was here last year. And. That was the only one I've done in person. I'm looking forward to do another one with her, which would be just great just to follow up.

But it'll be ni it would be, oh my goodness, that would be such a blast, has been four years having, since I last saw you in my time, in my world, in my time. It's like interstellar. If you ever seen that movie, it's like we were only gone for a day. It's been 20 years. You know? That's, that's what, that's compression.

That's a whole messing with your head with time as well. Yeah. But, but Steve, yeah. You completely ignored the, well, I mean, I guess you answered it, but are you wearing pants right now? That was the question we were getting. You, I'm not gonna stand up to show you, but I am definitely, I'm wearing tracksuit bottoms and, and track pants.

You're not wearing khakis. You're not, you're not wearing khakis. I'm not wearing. I'm not where, I'm not, where, I'm not where traction. I'm gonna do some, I'm gonna, are you going jump probing? No, I'm gonna do some, I'm gonna do some Pilate style exercises after this call. So it's late. It's, it's getting late.

I know it's late. 'cause I said it's already, we started at five my time. 5:00 PM And I was like, isn't this guy like five to six hours ahead of me or something? I said, why do he book such a late call? As we wrap up here, Mr. Wright, the one-on-one thing podcast, I shamelessly mentioned it a few times.

No shame because I love that podcast. I, last week I started following it officially, and I downloaded episodes officially. So, hopefully you get that backlog downloaded in your, in your stats there. But why did you start the podcast and who should listen to it? One-to-one thing it was and is still a passion project.

It was my stream of consciousness opportunity to share what I was thinking in the space of, conversations that we have in a professional setting, in an interpersonal setting, and an internal setting. Mm. Our biggest conversations happen inside of us by far. And they manifest themselves into interpersonal relationship type discussions and also into a work professional setting.

So we bring our two selves, the two discussions, the two people that are conversing inside us show up at our meetings. And the one-to-one thing was really a nod to the book. The one thing Gary Keller's book on the one thing, and basically a sort of a play on the one-on-one conversations. I was a manager for, like I said, for a support team and the power of the one-to-one conversations I had with my team.

And that really spoke to the importance of having those conversations understood. So it was an opportunity for me to delve into psychology and that sort of mindset space.

It started off as a single solo podcast, just me talking through some ideas and then pivoted into an interview style. And I love it. One of my earlier coaches I asked them what was one of the key things in the coaching space that is either underrated or we need to learn? And she said, the art of listening, the ability to listen not just active, but really listen.

Mm. And I used the show as an opportunity for me to listen to many voices from different walks. My mom's been a, a guest. You are yet to be a, you are lined up to be a guest. There's people that are in our spaces that, you know, whether they're coaches, whether they're business people, whether they're, they just have a story that resonates.

It's important that we have a space where we can. I can practice listening. I selfishly learn to listen to every show and I offer the opportunity for guests to really show their gold and show how they show up in the world and how they make things better. So I love it.

Coming up to almost a hundred episodes now and it's a great milestone to, to achieve. And it's still a project in work, in progress. It's sustainable. It's something that is definitely part of who I am. And long may it continue. So, very excited for it, for sure. Who should listen?

Who, who should listen? If you, everyone like to eavesdrop on conversations, my mom and your dad, your aunt, your uncle, your cat, your fish to houseplant everyone. If you, if you like to eavesdrop on conversations that are interesting, sometimes the accents are difficult. There's people from different parts of the world.

US uk Africa Caribbean. And I'm not saying that's not a problem if you've got an accent, but I'm just saying it's, it's, I want people to understand that this is not your show telling you how to get things, do things A to B, you know, it's not a, it's not a job to, it's not a podcast about finance or even about coaching per se, but it's an opportunity for you to eavesdrop on some interesting conversations.

Hopefully you'll learn something from the guest or from the interaction. You'll understand what it takes to listen attentively and what you can learn when you are sort of still enough to listen to the person in front of you. So, I enjoy, I, I really listen to some of my shows and it's good learning.

Your number one fan and listener yourself? No, that's how I feel. I listen to every episode of my show at least two or three times. You know, the initial recording progress, the editing it, or not editing it, depending how it was. And then, you know, listening back, making sure everything's good and all that.

And sometimes just to you know, there, there's, there's great knowledge to be had. And sometimes I'll go back and what I'll do if I don't feel like listening is, if I'm trying to find something for someone that I'm networking with or talking to, I just go to, into the transcript for it on Apple Podcast and I'll keyword search 'cause mm-hmm.

I'll remember. You know, something they said, or exact number they give. Like the other day I needed, I was like, let me double check for you. I can tell you exactly how many grams of opioids this guy was injecting in his intestines. And I went and looked it up. Yeah, that was a very specific example, but that's what I was looking up the other day.

Not to promote it. Don't do opioids unless professionally, medically described and you're gonna die otherwise. But yeah, don't just do them for fun. But Steve, I want to eavesdrop a little bit on your life. The last question. What movie did you and Tony Robbins watch many years ago together and did he cry?

Yes, he did. And it's, I mean, he didn't quite like a baby, but it certainly, it, it moved, moved. A lot of it moved a lot us, a lot of us at the time and cry to see. Did you cry? I teared up. I definitely, I definitely teared. There was a couple of moments there that I, they didn't roll down the face. They just kind of hovered it, it, it filled up, it filled up the, the, the, the, the, the ducts a little bit.

There was a little bit of seepage on the corner, so just allergies. But it wasn't, yeah, it wasn't a, it wasn't a full on, it wasn't a full on nose. Nose runny. Yeah. Bawling, bawling cry. But it was a, it was a few, it was a few of us, actually a few of the coaches that worked with Tony. And we've, it's, we were in La Jolla in, in California and we went to see Joe McGuire when it released in the movies.

It was 98 movie came, I think it was 98. The movie came out and we watched it so young, Steve Wright. Fit. Tall, handsome. Oh, it, it was fun. It was, it was a, it was a great, it was a, a great season. It was a great season in, in, in my life. A great period. Yeah. Great. Period. Periodization. It was more, yeah, it was a good number, good number of, good number of years.

And it stuck with me. And I've got friends, I've got friends to this day from just working in that space. And yeah. Tony. Yeah, Tony. Tony had his his big old eyeballs filled up like buckets. Yeah. Well, the reason I bring that up, ladies and gentlemen, is because if you read the, about for the one-on-one thing podcast with Steve Wright, it says all the way at the bottom.

Fun fact, I went to the movies with Tony Robbins many years ago, DM me on LinkedIn if you want to know, and I Oh, you, like I said, posted it said for the first time the other day, I was like, you know, I don't. Am I subscribed to Steve's show? 'Cause I'll watch the clips on LinkedIn and I've got so many podcasts in my directory from all the people I work with.

Oh. Subscribe to my podcast. Yeah, of course. You know, so I get notifications every I, I get some of these guys post three times a day, like the amount of podcast notifications I get. Right. So I had to go digging for your show and I was reading and I saw that little question, so I had to ask you 'cause I, I just saw it.

So if you want to see what I'm talking about, go check out the one-on-one thing. Podcast available pretty much anywhere you get your podcast check. We got that in the description below, along with the managers who lead Steve's LinkedIn, where he is most active, his Instagram, where he is not so active, and anywhere else you need to reach I'm gonna do better.

I'm gonna do better this year. Okay, you're good. Steve's Instagram, what I found out is if you actually wanna talk to Steve, Facebook and LinkedIn. If you wanna see how much he jump roped, you go to Instagram, it's like the only thing he posts. Sometimes he'll post stuff on his stories, but they're the same things you could see on LinkedIn and Facebook.

So you read it all sticky? It's my app. Yeah. It's, it's my, it's my jump rope app that it, I I normally do a, yeah, do a, do a little report and, and we call or does it automatically upload to your Instagram or Yes. Yeah. The app, the, the app gives me a little, a little picture and it just says share, and I press share.

Oh, okay. I don't do it. I don't do it. Every time I jump more than I report the highlights. Only because I don't want to feel like every time I jump, I have to report. I just, it's one of those things that my head doesn't like. No, no, for sure. Yeah. But I do, I do enjoy jump rope. Your call to action today.

Go jump roping if you took anything away from this whole episode, is to go jump rope. It's a beautiful thing. It's a beautiful thing. So Mr. Right. It's great to talk to you. Like I said, one of the funniest guys I know. It's great to have you back. I was really curious about the 12 week year. It is something that I'm looking at being a part of that cohort 2026 I am looking at doing puritization next year to set everything up and I appreciate you sharing it.