As we roll towards Christmas, most speakers start coasting. They tidy up a few files, post a couple of end-of-year reflections, and they convince themselves that they'll sort everything in January. But here's the thing. January only feels fresh if you deal with that mess now. So when you come back, you're not facing a wall of emails and all sorts of other things that need to be done. Today I'm going to be talking about the questions you'd probably rather avoid. The work you've pushed aside because it's getting close to the end. The habits you need to break. And finally, the opportunities hiding right in front of you as the year winds down. If you want next year to be bigger than this one, it won't come from buying another planner or setting better goals. It starts with clarity of decisions and a bit of courage for you before you switch off for the holidays. So let's get into the five interview moves that can set you up for a real jump into January. Number one, your pre-Christmas reality check. Gotta love her a good reality check. Before you sign up for your holidays, look, ask yourself, what's waiting for me in January that I've been avoiding? Okay? It's bound to be stuff that's you should have done already, but it's getting close to the end of the year and you really don't want to do it and you're procrastinating a bit, and it's just push it aside. The problem is that's going to be waiting for you when you get back. It's not going to go anywhere, and you're not going to be able to escape it. Especially in some cases, it has to be done, or you're just not going to get to move forward because these things are hanging over from the previous year. It could be anything. There's so many things. Is there a book chapter you're stalled on? Is there a keynote you keep promising yourself you're going to write? Or is there a product launch that you're halfway through and you really should have it all set to go at the start of the year? There's so many things as speakers that we can do for ourselves, but sometimes the frustration of knowing what to do next, feeling like you've had enough, that you're tired, that you really need a break over the holiday season can have quite an effect on you. You might have been circling around some of these things for six months or more. Maybe now, this last kind of four weeks before Christmas, when many people do take a break, is the time to hammer down into those things. If you walked into the new year with nothing piled up on your rug when you walked into the room, would it make life just that little bit easier? We all know what it's like Christmas Day, for example. And for many families, that's opening lots of presents. There's stuff everywhere, there's people coming. Picture yourself walking into an office, it's like the same sort of mess when you come back. Because that's what's going to happen if you don't take care of things. It's all going to be sitting piled up on your desk. And if you've got staff, they'll be there too. So get all this out the road now. Have a reality check. Think about what needs to be done. Make a list, prioritize it, tick off the things that you can get done, and then have the list ready for when you come back because at least you'll know where to start. Number two, the stop doing sprint. Most people plan new courses and new talks for the new year and new books, but no one sits down and asks themselves what they should stop doing. This is really important. Just like having trees in the back, yeah, they need to be pruned regularly. If you don't prune them, they get out of shape, they don't grow properly, all sorts of things. And it is the same for your business. You really have to think about what do I need to prune back? Am I doing too many podcasts? Is it really leading anywhere? Are the videos I'm doing actually getting reached? Did my last book do anything at all? Or did I just waste my time writing it? What about that last speaking engagement? Is that audience really a good audience for me? Did I really help anyone? And go through. Think about what things you do that drain you. Okay? If you can get rid of those, that'll make a big difference to your life. Secondly, what clients exhaust you? When you're working with clients on a daily basis, the first thing you're going to learn is which ones to fire. And at some stages in your life, you don't have a choice on firing clients because you need clients. On the other hand, you will reach stages in your business where you have clients that, you know, are often paying quite a small amount but expecting a large amount in return. The expectations are way higher. So it can be worth culling clients that are difficult to work with or who are just hassling you all the time. Yeah, it's money out of your pocket, but the amount of relief you'll get is absolutely worth it. What habits have you got that are going to kill your momentum? We all have good habits and we all have bad habits. And as the year goes on and you get more tired, I think the bad habits grow bigger than the good habits. For example, procrastination gets worse the tighter you get. And it's just one of those things where you need to look at all your habits and work out which ones are really an issue. And can you fix them? Or can you hand that off to someone else and have them deal with it so you don't have to? One of the biggest mistakes is trying to do everything yourself. We all know that, and yet we do it all the time. The quicker you can hand stuff off to other people, the more clients you can take on, the more speaking engagements you can do because you're not required to do all the background work. Your growth next year depends on what you cut more than what you add. Okay? There's a really great book called One Thing. And once upon a time I started writing a book called the same title, and then found out there was a book already existing on that, which was very frustrating. But I'm a really strong believer in focusing on one thing. And it is a problem that I am really interested in lots of topics, and I'd love to talk about all sorts of topics. But what that does is it actually messes up my brand message. So one of the big things I've been looking at is my brand message and my brand story and where I'm going to focus going into the new year. And in fact, I've actually developed a new package for speakers that you might be interested in whereby I interview you. And through the interview, I'm then able to use a custom AI that I've developed to produce your brand story, your social media articles for your website. But it will show you what your true brand story is, what it is that you actually want people to know about your business, what you do, and how you do it. And I've done it on myself, obviously, for a test case as well as other speakers. It's a really powerful tool and well worth the investment. So think about what you need to cut, not what you need to add. Okay, the firewarden test for your business being a fire, kind of a fire themed thing, don't I? If your business hit a spot fire in January, in other words, something bad flared up, who or what will keep it running while you're still mentally on the beach or skiing or whatever it is you do over the holiday period. If things are going to go wrong, they'll go wrong when you're on the other side of the world. That's one thing most speakers understand. If you're going to have a nightmare client, the nightmare will start when you cannot do anything. And your biggest mistake is not that you can do anything, it's the fact that you don't have someone in place who can do something. So making sure you've got people who can cover you is really important. It's not always easy when you're a solopreneur, but you can hire staff by the hour to actually work for you. So think about that. What happens if something goes bad? Who's going to fix it? And do you want to come back from where you are or are you non-communicado while you're away, which I think is a brilliant idea. The best thing you could do is throw your phone in the bottom of the bin and put your computer away and not have any contact with anyone. But that's not always an option. So think about making sure your clients know you're going to be away, that if they have a problem, they are on their own. There's nothing you can do for them. I'm sorry. And while that may annoy people sometimes, the fact of the matter is they go on holidays and they go away, and they have to understand that sometimes, you know, things go wrong and they have to take responsibility and step up. But if you've used critical systems that people rely on, then you do need to have some sort of backup. Don't just leave people hanging. Do you have systems that keep things like leads that might come in over the holidays? Not the whole world is on holidays. So some people will still be doing business. And some people may come back earlier to start their business. So instead of waiting to say the 20th of January, they might come back on the 5th of January. So they're looking for that. Do you have any systems that actually follow up leads, send information out automatically and keep your audience growing? Or does everything collapse the minute you walk away? Which in truth is what happens to most people's businesses, especially speakers, who are operating on their own most of the time. We go away and it's just a case of if something happens, not much I can do about it. And honestly, I just don't want to know about it either. It's not the best way to be. I know it's truthful. We need to actually build our businesses in a way so there is systems or education of our clients, so they're not expecting anything from us during that time. So even things as simple as putting up an auto response message on your email to let people know that you're away. Number four, the quiet talent hunt. December is the perfect time to find or notice people who support your brand in small and unseen ways. For example, which followers keep engaging with you throughout that period. These are your really hardcore followers. They're really important to you long term. Which clients also refer without getting asked. Go back, review your referrals, look at which clients sent you who. And which collaborators, the people you work with, go the extra mile. There will be people in your life who go the extra mile to help you. And often we're very busy and we say thank you and that's about it. And that's normally enough. But maybe it's time just to look back and say, hey, you know what? I should give them a ring and have a chat and say thank you very much for the year. And apologize if you didn't have time to come back to them or whatever it is. But take the time to look at those followers, send them a message, talk, look at the clients who are referring and look at the collaborators that go the extra mile to help you succeed. You've got a little bit of time. If you've got nothing else on your plate, it may be a really optimal time in the spirit of the season to get in touch with them. Number five, the non-negotiable reset. Every speaker needs a reset moment. Before next year begins, define what you will no longer tolerate in your business. Now we talked about pruning off aspects of your business. Let's look at what we don't tolerate. And these are the things that make business hard to do. For example, late-paying clients. If you've got late paying clients, there's numerous ways to deal with that. One is that you can use a contract that requires them to give you their credit card or their bank account detail so you can charge them rather than them paying you. It may be a case of you have to cut them because it's just too annoying. Or maybe it's just a case of saying to them, look, I'm going to have to stop my services until my payment comes in. Or alternatively, send their invoice seven days earlier so that they do pay on your time. Unscalable services is another thing. You might want to get rid of those because you can't scale them. You're doing them all the time. There's no leverage there. Get rid of them. They're killing you, they're killing your business. Developing content that takes too long to develop. We all need to develop content on an ongoing basis, but it's really hard to create content on a regular basis. And if you're creating a huge piece of content, it can take a long time. Now, a huge piece of content can be broken down to small content. So therefore, if you're doing it once a month, that's great. But if you're trying to do it once a day or once a week, it may not be great. Very hard work, and the returns may be very low. So you need to examine that and maybe not do that anymore. Just say, okay, I'm going to go and do reels all year. I'm going to go for those 30-second bites because everybody's watching those and I'm getting more hits on those. And lastly, unclear offers. Go through your business and look at all the offers that you have and maybe decide: is it clear enough? Does it clearly state what I'm trying to offer? Or is it confusing for the buyer? Because these may be stoppage points in your business. Unless you have time to go back and look at them, you're going to miss that. So review your content, review your website, and think about whether you need to reset, rewrite, do those things. So now is time to set your standards. You either set your standards now or the new year inherits last year's chaos. And it just carries across and you can't live in chaos. So that's your end-of-year reset. Not big and glossy, but the real one. If you take anything from today, let it be this. Next year won't fix itself. Your momentum in January comes from the decisions you make before you switch off in December. So take a moment this week, run your reality checks, cut what needs cutting, spot the talent that you've missed, tighten the systems that always seem to break when you're away, and set the standards you want to carry into the new year. If you've enjoyed this episode, please like, subscribe, and share it with people. And if you want to support me, go to Amazon and buy my latest book, Microcourse Profits, Building Seven Figure Courses with Micro Learning, or AI Powered Profits, which is all about using AI in your business. If you're interested in the brand interview and brand story creation that I talked about in this podcast, please contact me directly. You'll find my email on my website or through social media. I'd be only too happy to show you what I've created and what it can do for your business. It's a fantastic tool, produces fantastic content for you, and it will change the way that you perceive your own business. I'll catch you in the next episode.