The Long and The Short Of It

Episode 380 - 2026

Transcript:

Pete: Hello, Jen.

Jen: Hello, Pete.

Pete: So I got an email earlier in the week from yourself, actually.

Jen: Oh, you did?

Pete: And it was about the Name It To Claim It workshop, which made me realize it's around this time where we do our 202_, depending on what year it is, episode where we talk about our process or processes (or lack of) for reviewing the past year, setting intentions for the future year, and just having a general chit-chat (a chin-wag, if you will) about what some people call New Year's resolutions, what you call Name It To Claim It, and what I like to call intention setting.

Jen: Great. Well, let's fill in the blank. 2026, here we come. This is The Long and The Short Of It.

Pete: Do I call it intention setting? I don't even know. I just made that up on the spot.

Jen: You do now.

Pete: I guess I do. I guess I do. Oh, I tied myself in a knot with that intro. And anyway, we got there. We're here. It's the start of a new year. Well, technically, the end of this year, as we're recording this. But it's the start of the new year when this comes out. So in the past, we've sort of shared each of our reflections / processes, I mean, projecting into the new year. And then, we talk about if we've got any thoughts at this point as to what that might look like. I know you haven't actually run your workshop yet.

Jen: No, I did this morning.

Pete: Oh, you did? Oh my god, my dates are all over the shop. This is perfect timing. So, maybe we could start with you.

Jen: Okay.

Pete: How was your process this year? Was it different? Was it the same? Maybe for listeners that haven't heard before, what happens in this workshop?

Jen: Well, my process was the same because I always like to follow the same structure.

Pete: Yeah.

Jen: But my personal content inside it was a little bit different. Let me explain.

Pete: Okay.

Jen: So, I break the workshop down into three chapters: reflect, project, activate. And just real quick, the reflection is we look back on the past year, what worked well, what didn't work so well, what are the learnings, what are the new questions. We project into the future. And this is where some new content started to shake me up a little bit.

Pete: Alright.

Jen: We project five years into the future first, what I call “zooming out”.

Pete: I forgot about the five year. I just started getting the hives already, just thinking five years in advance.

Jen: Yeah. You want to really get hives? Guess what year it will be five years from now? 2031.

Pete: Oh my god. No. No.

Jen: Yep. So, we do that. We look at, what are your big visions for yourself five years from now? Then, we zoom in to what might that mean for the coming year, in terms of priorities and values and alignment. And after that, we do the third chapter, which we call activate, which is all about taking these big ideas and turning them into a very succinct action statement that is values-based, that you might use to help yourself make decisions in the new year about what goals to set, what habits to form, etc. So, Pete...

Pete: Oh my gosh.

Jen: What is a little exciting / scary is my lease on my studio is up at the end of September of 2026.

Pete: Okay, nine months time. Yep.

Jen: And for the last four months, I've been asking my landlord if I can extend my lease. And I don't have a yes yet. And it's possible I won't get one.

Pete: Alright.

Jen: So, this is the first time I've gone into a new year with a potential humongous question mark looming. And I know exactly what the question mark is and when in the year it falls. Like, it's not a surprise.

Pete: Yeah.

Jen: But this has really forced me to ground myself in the values of what I'm doing, instead of the literal, "What am I doing?"

Pete: And do you…? Oh my god, I have so many questions. I feel like firstly, for all the listeners out there that are regular attendees to the Jen Waldman Studio, they're like, "Oh my god, Jen, what are you talking about? Get the lease. Get the lease. Get the lease."

Jen: I'm trying. It's out of my hands.

Pete: Like, do you approach that with an Option A, the lease gets renewed, and Option B, it doesn't? Or how do you think about that? You mentioned going back to your values, regardless of where it is.

Jen: Right. What I'm trying to do is get underneath the hood of why I have a studio in the first place and what it's there for. And what I landed on today is that what I'm really trying to do is create opportunities for artists to grow and reach their full potential. And that is one way, is to give them a physical artistic home. But there are many other ways, too.

Pete: Yeah. It's not the only way.

Jen: Right.

Pete: Oh, I like where this is going.

Jen: So that was the first big like, "Woah, what is happening here?" And then, the second big shake up is last year, I landed on my phrase for the year, which was, "Build the fill-in-the-blank structure." And I thought I was so clever coming up with that. And it really did not work for me. That phrase, like I lost my love for it very quickly. But for some reason, I stubbornly kept coming back to it all year, even though I knew, probably within weeks, that I needed to replace it. So this year I was like, "No, I'm giving myself permission to change." And I'm trying to investigate the years past that really, really resonated with me. And to figure out like, what was the common denominator there?

Pete: Yeah. That just reminds me of the episode we did recently on books, where I was lamenting how I get three-quarters of the way through a book and I'm like, "I don't even like this book anymore, but I'm going to persist with it. I'm going to keep going."

Jen: Yes. And listeners, you'll get to hear that next week.

Pete: That's funny. That's funny. Okay. Alright. So, that's revelatory. And so, have we got said phrase yet or are we still working on said phrase?

Jen: Well, so this was less of an aha moment and more of a repeat call out from some friends of mine.

Pete: Ah, it sounds familiar.

Jen: And another time someone called me out on this very thing, I ended up responding by building the online studio. So, it's a good call out because good things have come out of it.

Pete: Right.

Jen: But basically, the call out is that I have a tendency to leave things on the table.

Pete: I feel like you've called yourself out about this a few times, in recent times.

Jen: Yeah. So that, plus, what the heck is happening with the studio? Do I have a physical space? Don't I have a physical space? My daughter is going to college in two and a half years. There's all this stuff in the air.

Pete: Yeah.

Jen: So what I landed on so far was, "Clear the table."

Pete: Ooh, I like that. "Clear the table."

Jen: I like it for several reasons. One, it implies that there's something on the table. Just a little reminder of the call outs from my friends.

Pete: Yeah.

Jen: And the other thing that I like about it is I've been thinking a lot, and I think I mentioned this in a recent episode, about how to reduce the mental clutter that I sometimes decide is really necessary and overcomplicating things. So finding more clarity and space, so that I can actually look at what I have and make cleaner, less complicated decisions. So that's what I'm working with right now, is, "Clear the table."

Pete: Clean and less complicated. I am obsessed with that.

Jen: And one of the reasons I landed on, "Clear the table," is because when I looked at past phrases that really worked for me, there was a visual representation of the thing I was talking about.

Pete: Hmm, nice. Yeah, you're very good at the visceral image that a phrase sparks.

Jen: Thank you.

Pete: I was also thinking, I think part of the reason I love, "Clear the table," for you...I'm just picturing your desktop on your computer.

Jen: Yep.

Pete: Our listeners may not know, Jen's desktop on her computer is so full of files and folders that you can't see anything other than files and folders.

Jen: That's right.

Pete: My desktop on my computer is...I think it has three files or three folders. It's the opposite.

Jen: And you also exist in inbox zero.

Pete: Yeah. So I'm a, "Clean the table," kind of guy. I like that.

Jen: Yeah.

Pete: So maybe this is just my own bias projecting onto yours, but I like that for you. It's like activating the call out. “Okay. I've been called out on this. What am I going to do about it?"

Jen: "I'm going to clear the table." Exactly.

Pete: Clear the table, baby. Alright, I like that. Okay. So process-wise, I haven't changed that much. Still very similar. I also do a reflect. I guess I would call it a reflect and project. I've not necessarily called it activate, but I think I did a version of that. I quite like that word. So the reflection process, for me, is...I mean, I've iterated and tried so many different things. The one I come back to the most is this version of, I think it's Tim Ferris who originally shared some version of this, where you open up your calendar. I like to look at my photo reel. And you just like make a note of experiences, things, times, people that brought you the most positive experiences. And then, the things, experiences, people that brought you the most negative experiences. And you look at the lists and you go, "How do I do more of the good stuff? And how do I try and do less of the negative stuff?" Notwithstanding, some of the negative stuff is totally outside your control. And so, you can't actually do less of it. What was funny for me in this process was the positive stuff. As you might imagine, it was like, you know, adventures with Ollie, going to the playground with Ollie, going to the beach with Ollie, this with Ollie and Tracey, this with Ollie and Tracey. And then, in the negative, it was like, Ollie having a tantrum, Ollie doing this, Ollie doing that, Ollie being a toddler. And it was like, well, you can't control that. And you can't have that without all the good stuff. So, there's a bunch in my...I felt overwhelmed, anxious, you know, like I was being a bad parent. That was just like a reality of being a parent, that you can't do anything about. So, that was funny. But then, there were things that I was like, "Oh yeah, I could do a little less of that, and try and do a little more of the good stuff." So what I do with the good stuff is I try and then schedule it, if I can. So for example, I had things like spending a week with my friends, Derek and Nella, with my wife and my son. We do this every year now, over Easter usually, where we book an Airbnb and we spend a week together or a few days together. So, we've already locked that in. My wife Tracey and I went to Japan for two weeks last year. So this year, we were like, "Okay, what are we going to do? Let's do a two-week holiday again. So, let's just put that in the calendar." We don't know where we're going yet, but things like that. What we've found is being intentional and putting them in the calendar at the start of the year means they'll be more likely to happen. In the past, we've kind of been like, "It's March. It's April. Should we go on a holiday this year? Well, we're all too busy now. It's too hard." And then, it doesn't happen. So, we're trying to do it at the start of the year. So, that's cool. And there's a few other things like going back to see my family and stuff that I'm just going to book flights for and go, "It's in the calendar. I have to commit." And I have to work everything around that, rather than try and sandwich it in later.

Jen: Yes. I love that so much. You know, I have this saying, "If it doesn't exist in the calendar, it doesn't exist."

Pete: That's good. I like that. So yes, I have a, it's almost a "do more of" and "do less of" kind of thing. I feel like I've done this process for so many years now, where there wasn't a major surprise perhaps. In that, I kind of know the things I need to do more of and less of. You know? The less of is always like less scrolling on social media, more time with the people that you love. So I have a like double down on kind of situation, where I'm like, "The things that I've already been doing that are benefiting me, keep doing those." And then, I have a like "do less of" column, which I've kind of articulated. And then, from there I have, I've called them like "possibilities", which I guess could be goals. But the reason I call them "possibilities" is because they're somewhat outside my control. So, I'm trying to focus on the process of doing more of the good things and less of the negative things. And if I focus on those things, here's what could happen. You know? You might end up doing a triathlon and getting a great time, or you might end up having an amazing three-week holiday that is, you know, a great experience with your wife, or you might end up with a certain new revenue target. I'm framing them as almost pre-parades, which I think we've talked about before, where it's like, "What's the best thing that could happen if you focus on these process-orientated things?"

Jen: Yes.

Pete: And some of them are really lofty, that there's no way I'll achieve them all. But I've popped them down as like, "This is the thing that you can work towards by focusing on your process."

Jen: Yes.

Pete: So there's like, yeah, there's time, personal bests for running and for swimming and for triathlons. There's, you know, the amount of days I want to have off. There's the amount of times I go to the beach. There's things that, yeah, like I said, sometimes lofty, sometimes in my control, and often outside of my control. But a result of a process. So, that's all pretty similar. And I feel good about most of that. The thing I then was noodling on was this activation part. I didn't call it "activation", but each year...I think this must have been inspired by you many years ago, probably during COVID. I come up with a phrase or some words that help guide me. Last year, I had, "Always add value," which I really liked. I will admit, at some point towards the last half of the year, I kind of just forgot that that was my phrase. I guess I didn't revisit my one-pager as much in the last half of the year, which can happen. But the focus of that was really around, in every conversation, every interaction, in every meeting or workshop, focus on adding value. And kind of, again, the same idea, the rest will take care of itself. The business opportunities will take care of themselves. You know? What can you focus on that's in your control, that then results in positive things? So for me at the time, it was, "Always add value." I think I did a pretty good job at that. This year, I heard this story in a podcast that just slapped me across the face.

Jen: Ooh.

Pete: Yeah. So it's the story about Dr. Chris Peterson, who was one of the founders and original researchers of positive psychology. And there's this (I don't think apocryphal, because I googled it) story that sort of sounds apocryphal, because of the way it's sort of framed. So, I'll do my best at explaining it. And I'll put a link to it in the Box O' Goodies. But essentially, he did this enormous piece of research, where he looked at all of the studies and talked to all of the experts. And it was like this piece of research that people were waiting on with bated breath, around, how do we maximize happiness and wellbeing and having a meaningful life? And it was like years and years and years of research. And he published this paper. And everyone was like, "Oh my god, what's the paper? What's the finding? What's it going to be?" And he published three words. And the entire paper was, "Other people matter."

Jen: Boom.

Pete: And that was it.

Jen: Wow.

Pete: And obviously, he went on to talk more about it. But what he found in his research was anything that focuses on building relationships with other people is going to make you happy. And that slapped me across the face. Because very intentionally, I have created a business, a life, and a schedule that is within my control, that is optimizing for me spending time with Ollie and Tracey, and includes working from home and working for myself and travelling to destinations for only a day at a time so I don't have to spend a night. And it's all of these great things, so that I can maximize my time with Ollie. And the thing I know and I've not done anything about is, the cost of this is I don't spend that much time with other adults. And there's a cost to that. Not that I'm sitting here as someone who's totally unhappy. But I have dialed in so many things in my life, like exercise and nutrition and time with family and travel. I've got so many boxes ticked. Which is me trying to get an A, of course, at life. And I realize, part of it is living in Brisbane, and part of it is the way I've structured my life. But I realize, I'm not as good at crafting a community as Jen Waldman. And I want to remind myself of that. And so, the way I'm going to remind myself of that is this phrase, "Other people matter," because of the story it invokes. Not because I need a reminder that other people matter, because I think I'm pretty good at remembering that other people matter. But I need to remind myself that while going to a cafe to buy a coffee is a little more inconvenient than making a coffee in your kitchen, maybe there's an interaction with the barista for five minutes where you don't scroll on your phone. You talk to the barista for five minutes, and that actually is just a little spark that you need for that day or the spark that they need for their day. And I just want to remind myself of that, every day this year. So, "Other people matter," is where I've landed.

Jen: I love that, Pete. That's so beautiful. I remember hearing some research that had been done on the New York City subway, where researchers had asked people to strike up a conversation with a stranger on the train. Which, if you've ever been on a New York subway, there's a lot of people and it's very quiet.

Pete: Good luck, yeah.

Jen: Yeah. And all of the participants in the study, but also the unsuspecting strangers who became participants in the study without their prior knowledge, all said...I'm sure there are exceptions, but the overall finding was that people were happier when they got off the train, when a stranger spoke to them.

Pete: Wild.

Jen: So, there you go. Okay, Pete, I want to add one final thought to this before we wrap.

Pete: Okay. Okay, okay. I'm sensing a call out, perhaps.

Jen: Well, I've decided that this year I'm focusing on turning my action statement into a habit.

Pete: Ah, yeah.

Jen: And so, my plan is that at the end of each day, I'm going to ask myself, "Did I leave anything on the table today?" And I'll really hold myself accountable.

Pete: Nice.

Jen: Which is not something I have done with any sort of particular discipline in the past. So that's going to be a new experiment this year, to see if that helps keep me on track.

Pete: I love that. I've written this as a note to self. I don't know if it's like, "Did I build a relationship today?" Because that might be too much expectation on any given day. But I love the idea of like...I mean, maybe it's just, "Did I socially interact with someone today, who's older than two-and-a-half?" Because I spend a lot of time talking to a toddler, which I absolutely love. But those that know, when you spend a long time talking to a toddler, you spend a lot of time talking to a toddler.

Jen: That's true. Alright, Pete, I think we did it. We're both ready to kick off 2026 with some serious intention.

Pete: And that is The Long and The Short Of It.