Transcripts for Episode 163

These transcripts were generated by robots, not writers.

Stacy: Hello friends. I want to tell you really quickly, before you listen to this week’s episode, that it was recorded on election day, but it’s in Europe, so I have no idea what’s happened. And it’s this is getting released the day after election day, but I have zero news, zero context as I’m recording this. So as you’re listening to me talk about dreaming and planning for 2025, please note the recording time of this podcast. I am over here in Europe setting all my love and hoping, hoping that we have a decisive victory that is in support of women’s rights and that shows our humanity. So with that said, onto this week’s episode.

Stacy: Welcome. Welcome. I’m so happy to be here with you today for solo episode. I love these episodes. I love getting to connect with you one one. And today I’m going to be talking about dreaming and specifically Dream Week. Dream Week is a concept born from learning that other major entrepreneurs and thought leaders take time away to think at least once a year, often twice a year. And Bill Gates, for example, calls this Think Week. Now I’ve been doing a version of this for probably seven or eight years at this point, and the way that I do it evolves every single year. It also gets impacted by what’s going on in my life at the time. And so this week I want to share a little bit about my Dream Week 2024 in preparation for 2025 and give you some insight into what I did, what worked, what didn’t work, and what I’m planning to do next year.

Stacy: First, in full transparency, because I don’t want to show up and pretend like, oh, life is perfect and I had the dreamiest week and everything was fine. This was actually one of the worst weeks I could have picked to do this work without going into detail. We have a lot of stuff going on at home, some challenges that we’re navigating. And so this, in many ways, was the hardest dream week I’ve ever done. Because in the past, when I have taken this space, I really was in the mental space that I needed to be. To be able to fully engage with this work. And this year, it really took a lot of effort for me to get into that mindset. And so I did a lot of exercise, a lot of meditation. I have taken it a lot slower.

Stacy: So whereas I would have probably done what I’ve. What I’ve done to date in just a few days, you know, I do. I do try to set aside a full week, but in the past, I have taken three, four days, sometimes even two, three days. And I have really leaned in and gotten so much productive visioning and planning done. I’m probably actually about a week and a half at this point. So my dream week and a half. And, you know, this is real life. I am a mom. I am a business owner. And not just a business owner, but the sole earner for my family. I am a human being in a real life with real challenges. And yet, as all of these things, I don’t get a push pause, and life continues to move on. Stacy:
And so I can either choose to move on in life intentionally and make active decisions and dream and plan, or I can kind of throw my hands up and leave it to fate. And I just refuse to do that. So as I communicate to you this week my process, I want you to listen to it through a lens of imperfection, through, or I guess, expect, not expecting perfection. I don’t know exactly how to phrase that, but I guess my point is it’s so, I think, ridiculous to expect a, you know, aura of peace to surround all of this work. Actually, there is a lot of grappling and a lot of tugging and kind of like working to find clarity and to create a strategy and to build the tactical plan to fulfill that strategy.

Stacy: And so that is really what I’ve been doing over the past dream week and a half. So let me talk you through that week. I want to give you first some, I guess, intention behind it. I gave you a little bit. A little bit of information. But let me tell you my. When I go away, what my intention is. So my intention with this week is to revisit my vision, get super clear about my vision. What shifted, what’s changed. Where am I right now? Where do I want to go? Where do I want to go in one year, five, 10 years? And really not just dreaming about that vision, but virtualizing that vision. This is something my dad taught me. Virtualizing that vision, meaning I put myself into that future as though it already exists.

Stacy: And I see it through my own eyes and hear it through my own ears. I try to really kind of place myself not just in a, in my mind, but in my body as well. And so I do a lot of work around that of just trying to not just imagine the future, but embody the future, feel it, and really kind of integrate it into my body now. It sounds very woo. And I assure you I’m not a very woo person. I actually there are certain like, woo ish practices I guess that I have brought into my life, but generally I’m quite skeptical. I’m not, you know, I’m not a person that tends to like, yeah, just be very woo. But this works. This really works. So when I go in, my intention is partially that getting really deep clarity.

Stacy: I’m also looking at what I want to shed and what I want to birth in the coming year. And I’m asking myself some exciting and hard questions about what the future looks like. And I’m not just doing this for my business, I’m doing this for my personal life too. So when I get all of this deep work done, then I’m looking for a word or phrase to encapsulate that year for me. And I will share my word in a moment. But that word is really meant to be my guide for the year. It’s meant to be anchor to be a North Star. As I move through my year from there, I then build out my high level strategy and I start looking at numbers. I start building out my revenue goals by revenue stream.

Stacy: I start considering what we want to build, what we already have that’s working. What maybe I tried last year, do I want to keep trying that or do I want to try something new? So I’m really working through these various options and building out a high level revenue strategy. I build out the time horizon first. So I actually build out metrics for one year, two to three years and four to five years in the business. Then I build my one year 2025 revenue, high level map. Then I build out my calendar for the whole year. So from January to December. And I also define what we need to finish in 2024. Four to be able to accomplish all these things in 2025. So I build this all out in a format that I can then share with my team.

Stacy: So on as I record this, it’s a Tuesday. Next Monday, I’ll be meeting with the team. We will have an opportunity to reflect on all of this. I’m going to get their input, I’m going to make some adjustments, and then at some point, probably in the next week after that, we’ll tie a bow on our strategy for now, but we will revisit it every single quarter as we move through our year in quarters. Now, this is way different than what I used to do when I was a solopreneur. So if you’re listening to this and you’re like, okay, cool, but I don’t have a team, don’t worry, you can do everything I’m about to share with you just by yourself. And in fact, I did that for the first 10 years, probably, yeah, 10 years of my business, just me.

Stacy: And even really, it wasn’t as re. It wasn’t until about two to three years ago that I started integrating other people into that process. I would, when I was a solopreneur, meet up with a friend. We would go on a retreat together. I need to do that again. I really miss that. It is on my radar for next year, but it really is about the intentionality. So with all that said, let me walk you through what I did in my dream week. And it’s. I planned mine around actually four days. It was a full week, but four days because we had a birthday in there and not my birthday, family member birthday.

Stacy: And so I’m going to walk you through what I did and in the show notes to this post, I’m also going to link you to an Instagram post with everything in it. So you can go and actually grab that whole everything that I did and follow me on Instagram because then we can be connected there. So go to Instagram, the link that I put in the show notes and grab the day by day, everything I tell you is written out for you. So you can grab it there, you can follow me, and then we can be connected on Instagram. So that’ll be amazing. So let me just walk you through day one, two, three and four. So day one was all around meditation and mindset.

Stacy: I work on vision writing, so I will also drop in the show notes, a free life visioning guide that I use every year, I use with my clients to help really build that vision. So you can use my guide and take that on your own solo retreat, your own dream week to guide your vision work. This year I did my vision writing. Now I’ll likely use my visioning guide at another time, but this year I used a Desire Map workbook which was recommended by somebody in our Author Influence Circle community, which is awesome. I love getting these resources from our Author Influence Circle community. So I used that this year. And this is all around how you feel Now. My part of my personal growth is really more somatic connection because I am very type A and very practical. Stacy: I’m not always kind of in my body a lot of the day. I’m kind of like in my head a lot and doing and thinking about doing and I’m very cerebral. A lot of things going on up here. So I really wanted to think about how I wanted to feel not just in my brain emotions, but also my whole body. So I worked through that Desire Mat workbook that is really cool because it takes you through a whole different journey than I’ve ever really done in this type of work before. I’ll be sure to link to that in the show notes as well. I also worked on finding my word of the year, which this year my it’s actually a phrase, luxuriant harmony. Luxuriant harmony. And I’m not going to go into detail about what that means right now. Maybe I’ll do another episode.

Stacy: But I spent a lot of time thinking about this phrase and in fact I picked a different word, went on a run with a friend and changed it and then I combined it with last year my word of the year was flourish. And part of the definition of flourish, what flourish was luxuriate. I loved that word. So I pulled it through this year and so it’s luxuriant harmony. And I love the feeling of that word. I’m excited to kind of pull that into next year. And then I also walked a lot that day. I always try to work in some movement, something fun. I didn’t get to do a fun activity this week, but I will. I’m going to work it in this month and I am going on a trip to Scotland and London to England later in the month.

Stacy: So I’m kind of continuing my strategy planning at an event in London. So I’ll make sure to have some space for fun then too. Okay, so that was day one really around vision and feeling and my word or phrase. Day two, I start again with meditation and mindset and then work through reflecting on wins, challenges and opportunities from the past year. I also set key business and personal goals for 2025, including metrics. Now, this time I didn’t actually get to my personal goals. It was on my plan. I have a couple of ideas, but I didn’t articulate it. I really focused on the business, so that’s next in my journey is getting that really clear. I also spent some time drawing my vision for the business and actually there was some personal integrated into that. I.

Stacy: I haven’t mentioned this on the podcast, I don’t think, but I have training as an artist. I. I studied visual art in university and it’s something that I want to do more of. So I’m integrating that into this week. Okay, Day three, again, started with meditation and mindset and then reviewed numbers. So I’m taking the numbers from the previous year. I’m pulling that against, okay, what are the revenue streams that I’ve set targets in and really analyzing that and having a good sense of what this goal is for 2025. I also did some revenue mapping and quarterly planning. So I worked on that timeline that I mentioned, and then I planned by quarter, and then I planned by month, and I guess I missed that step when I explained earlier.

Stacy: So I do the year horizon, then the quarter horizon, and then the month horizon. So. And then in the month it gets much more nuanced and I discover problems when I do it that way. Because a lot of times when I do the year, I’m like, oh, I want to do all this stuff. And then I get to the corner, I’m like, oh, I need to trim down a little. And then I get to the months and I’m like, oh my goodness, I really need to really think through this. And it forces a simplicity and clarity in the planning process. And I. So I love that process of kind of bringing it all together. And then day four, the last day, again started with meditation and mindset. Spent some time kind of thinking.

Stacy: I also met with a friend along this process, and actually that was on day three. Three, but it fed into day four. We went on a hike, we masterminded together. But day four, I was really also pulling everything together for the team. So I have a template that I have been using for years from a colleague of mine that I really like because it helps me pull everything into a presentation. And that’s the presentation that I’m going to deliver to my team next Monday. So I start with vision and feeling, and then I start to build out very high level. And then I build into nuance and I bring in data and I analyze and then this is where for me this year is so exciting. I get to bring in the team to make it happen.

Stacy: In the past when it was just me, it was actually kind of hard sometimes to build these out because I just knew I was going to do everything. So as I’m building out this strategy, I’m also like, oh my gosh. But I also have to execute all this stuff. This year I was like, dang. I am so excited. I have so much support and community around it. So that for me is just such an exciting place to be. If you’re by yourself right now, I hope that you will build some community around this process. I hope you’ll connect with a friend who you can have fun with, remain accountable to mastermind with, and really grow with. Because for me, that was so important. Having that community, having those relationships that continue to push me and drive me forward.

Stacy: Be sure to snag my day by day, play by day. Day by day, play by play on the Instagram post that I’ll link you to. And if you do something like this in your own day to day life, will you leave me a comment on that Instagram post so I can learn from you? I’m always looking for new strategies and ways that I can grow and continue to improve my own process. Wherever you are, whether you’re planning your own dream week or you’re thinking about when to plan it, or maybe this is totally new for you, I really hope that you’ll take some space in your life to set intentions for the year ahead. Know that I am cheering you on and I know you’re going to make 2025 the very best year ever.

Stacy: So with all that said, thank you as always for joining me in today’s episode. I really love getting to connect with you. If you love getting to connect with me, will you do me a little favor? Truly? It takes one minute. Leave me a five star rating and a very short review. It truly makes a difference in helping me reach more people with the message of living a life that is beyond better. And I have to thank as always Rita Domingues for her beautiful production of this fine podcast. I could not do without her. Truly, truly. And I am so grateful and I will be back with you before you know it.