Episode 96 Podcast Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:00):

Growth happens on that border of support and challenge. And if you can get that balance right, that’s where growth and expansion happens. And so you need challenge in your life to grow and expand and push you to be able to keep moving forward. Good day everyone Rob Kropp and Dan Stones here from Pravar Group and welcome back to another episode of The Trade Den. Good to have you back Dan.

Speaker 2 (00:30):

It’s always good to be back. Looking forward to getting into this one today. Rob. Hello everyone. Today is a pretty special episode. This is going to be an episode where we’re going to lay out a little bit of a plan for you to go and follow. We’ll talk more about that in a minute. But we’re talking today about reflection. And reflection isn’t just about looking backwards and having those sort of feel goods if you like, or getting to a bit of a rut where you beat yourself up. It’s about building forward momentum. And when you take time to really do this exercise right, in terms of reflecting on your year, your calendar year as a business as we are at the end of the year, what you’ll do is you’ll start to get a couple of benefits that a lot of business owners miss. The first one being you’re going to celebrate wins and most business owners skip celebrating wins entirely.

(01:14):

It makes sense because you want to make sure that nothing falls through the cracks if you are not looking at stuff who is so really important that you do that. But celebrating wins are so underappreciated. The other thing we’re going to look at is identifying lessons. Sometimes we’d get stuck up on the year and we sort of think, well, it’s been a shitty year. We’ll write it off. It’s a bad year. We’ll move on. Just put it in the bin, move on. That’s the wrong attitude to take when you can take lessons out of everything, gives you a lesson if you look hard enough. So being able to really stop and take stock of the lessons that you’ve learned allows you to improve and come back stronger in the new year. The other one is building genuine self-belief and confidence. When you mix the wins you’ve had and you take the lessons that you’ve learned, you get to see how you’ve been resilient, you get to see how you’ve grown throughout the year and that comes as a result of that.

(02:01):

It tells you that you can do this and whatever else is coming next year, you’ve gotten through whatever the challenges are and you’ve learned from them. So you’ve got a confidence that when these things happen again and in business, a lot of the challenges will repeat. We know it’s not a set and forget thing, so when they do come up you can tell yourself, Hey, I’ve done this before. I know what the lesson was, I know what to look for. So you can really get self-belief and confidence. And lastly, you get clarity. You get clarity on what you’re going to double down on, what worked really well, what did you do well that you think let’s do more of that. And then what do you need to let go of what just doesn’t need to enter into the new year? And being able to draw a line is really, really important. So I think it’s really a beneficial thing, Rob, that you avoid repeating some of the same patterns you end up. You don’t want to chase down the exact same problems that if they do come up, you don’t want to be stuck when they do. You want to be able to refer back to this reflection exercise as part of what will help you get through them going forward.

Speaker 1 (02:55):

Yeah, correct. I was talking to a business owner the other day and I always ask around where you’re at, what’s your challenges? What’s going on in your world? And I always ask the question going, how long have you been battling with these challenges before? And he’s like, Rob’s three years. I’m like, mate, why haven’t you done something about it? And he’s like, I don’t know. And then we had a bit of a chat about it, but this process stops you repeating year on year on year of things that may or may not be going your way. It’s a real stop, reflect, resolve type of moment and it enables you to round out and bookend that year and turn a new chapter and write your next chapter, which we can do in the new year. We’ll be doing that in future episodes, coming up the new year, talking about how do you set yourself up for a great year ahead? But there’s no point rushing into that process of thinking, well, what am I going to do differently next year or where am I going? What’s my outcomes? And strategic plays, don’t worry about that yet. You’ve got to first close this chapter before you start opening a new chapter.

Speaker 2 (03:58):

And what we want to do today is give everyone a practical set of questions, not just some sort of vague, let’s reflect on the year and have a little bit of a feel good moment, but really point you in the right direction as we head into the new year. So we build this process at Pravar into different intervals and times throughout the year. We have end of calendar year reviews like this one. There’s end of financial year, end of quarter, we even do it weekly. We invite and encourage clients to do a weekly reflection if you like. And I think, Rob, the other thing before we get into this, this isn’t just meant to be a set of questions you could use at the end of the year. Yes, we should at a minimum, but this is something they can do as often as they choose to.

Speaker 1 (04:36):

Yeah, correct. And what we’re going to do today is go through five questions to be able to round out and reflect on the year that’s been. But the benefit of these five questions, it gives you a bit of structure to reflect on. Otherwise if you sit there and go, well, let’s just reflect on the year, how’s it been? And you kind of don’t have any guardrails to be able to help you through this process. And that’s what the essence of today is a bit giving you a bit of structure around this reflective and round out process so that you can methodically work through this to be able to really look at all the good, the bad and the ugly from the year and really give it your best shot to go to depth on this exercise. And Dan, I think it’s really important that the listeners really, really dig deep on this because we say this to clients all the time that they’ve got bloody short memories like goldfish, that they forget what they did three months ago, let alone at the start of the year. So in this process you’ve really got to dig deep, don’t you, to be able to reflect on not just what’s happened recently, but all the things that have happened throughout the year.

Speaker 2 (05:40):

Yeah, going to depth, really important. The way we’ve structured these questions is going to help. So we’ll highlight that depth and how you get there as we go through this. So let’s kick off and give an example. I think the first one’s a great one of this. So question number one as you do your last year in review, let’s start. Question number one is what were your wins, achievements and learnings and why were they a success? Do you want to break that one down for us? Rob?

Speaker 1 (06:04):

This one’s a really important question that you look back on the whole of the year. So you think from, it’s almost taking yourself back into where you started, the frame of mind, what your business, your relationship your life looked like at the start of the year. It’s almost like you’re teleporting back in time to the start of the year and you’re almost going backwards in time, looking forward to where you are today. And it’s your ability to look holistically, not just in business but across life as well. And I think we see this a lot for business guys is that they only reflect on the business element because business is a really big priority in their life, but it’s really important that we somewhat look across all areas of life, don’t we?

Speaker 2 (06:49):

Yeah, it is. And I think this is where you start to get that appreciation and the depth and how things link up. So again, it’s not to race through these questions, but to sit with it. What was a win in one area and why was it a win? What did it allow you to do or to become or create as a result of that? The little offshoots where you sort of see it because that’s how you start to stack those wins. I think the other part of this question that’s really important is why were they a success?

Speaker 1 (07:12):

Yeah, it’s huge. And I think this is actually the most important part of this question is the why. And so for an example of this, you might go, well, this year I put on a bookkeeper and I got real clarity around starting to get real clarity around my numbers. Okay, well that’s a good win, but why? And then you can then go, well, it enabled me to really understand and to start getting an appreciation from my numbers. What did that mean to you? Well, I made better decisions. What do you mean by that? Well, I actually realised that I wasn’t charging enough. Okay, well there’s another win. Let’s park that. What do you mean by that? Well, we actually started charging what we were worth and we started winning jobs at the right price and the right margin. Okay, so why is this still a win for you?

(08:03):

Because we started making more money than we’ve ever done this for a year. Okay, well what do you mean by that? So you can keep asking the questions why? What do you mean why? What do you mean by that? And in sales, that’s called depth level questioning, but in this process what you’re really doing is depth, depth, depth. And you want to get to the point where it’s almost like you get the hairs stand up and on your arm to be able to go, oh, I can really see why this was a big win for me. Because the first answer that you write down will just be the surface level win, but you want to really draw in the emotion to be able to go, why was that a win for you? And you’ll feel it when you get there, but this is what we mean by going to depth on this question around the why.

Speaker 2 (08:49):

Yeah, absolutely. Alright, let’s move on to second question. So we’ve done our wins, achievements and learnings. Now we’re going to tackle number two, which is what challenges did you face and what did you learn as a result of facing those challenges?

Speaker 1 (09:02):

I really love this question because this is almost then the other side of the equation because it’s very easy for us to be able to go, well, here’s all my wins. I had a record year and I put these three guys on and I transitioned off the tools and I dialled in my job management system and I won three new builders and started doing work for them. So it’s very easy to be able to rattle off those wins that they have. But we say in coaching all the time, is it success somewhat blunts you? And so what you’re actually doing here is you are staring challenge down in the face and staring it down and going, well what challenges did I face and how did I learn from that or how did I grow from that? Or how did it make me a better leader? Because it’s always the challenges which make us better. And so it’s your ability to look at the other side of the equations from the win to be able to look at these and go, what were the challenges? What were my learnings and how did I grow for them? And take them as a blessing, not just as a negative thing that happened to your world throughout the year.

Speaker 2 (10:08):

Yeah, it’s how you take a challenging year if you’ve had things not go your way and on whole you’d be sitting around sort of moping a bit and being negative on your year, it’s a way to take that sort of feeling and turn it into a positive because you can take a lesson out of it. There’s a gift there. And it’s amazing how often in coaching we can take a client into, well, what was the lesson you learned? And all of a sudden it becomes a positive experience that they’re grateful for. Maybe not in the moment, but when you get into next year and you are planning your ability to bring that into the conversation, that lesson and what you’re going to do differently, it’s amazing how much people can get out of what is a tricky situation or a challenging year or a shit year, whatever you want to call it.

Speaker 1 (10:47):

Yeah, correct. And you’re right, it’s what you’re doing in that moment is creating hindsight and you’re opening your mind to see what’s the hidden blessing or the opportunities that are going to come from that. And so this is your ability to look at this and maybe you lost a really key person within your team, a real critical person, whether it be a leading hand or an operations manager or whatever it was, and you’re like, oh, it was really challenging that I lost my leading hand this year. Okay, write that down. But what are the great things that happened? What are the lessons from that? Well, what it meant was I was able to get really clear on the role we went to market and we actually found an even better leading hand out there and I was able to reshuffle my team and give this guy an opportunity and bring some fresh blood into the business and as a result we’ve, the customers are happy and we’re now more productive on site.

(11:41):

So as I’m talking through this, hopefully you’re seeing the path that I’m going down here is yes, that it was a shit situation that you lost your leading hand, but what of all the lessons and the good things that have come from that. So what you’re trying to do is balance out the lopsided perception in your mind that these were the challenges. You’re somewhat balancing out, creating hindsight and seeing all the blessings that have come from it so you can recognise all the learnings and lessons that have come from that moment of challenge that you’ve experienced in your time.

Speaker 2 (12:14):

Yeah, I love it. I love it. Number three, and this is an interesting one, we’ll really break this down, but if you didn’t achieve what you wanted to, what held you back? What did you allow to get in the way? What are you committed to doing differently next year? And for me, this is all about making sure that you are taking ownership of the results you got or the results you didn’t get. Either way, it’s your chance to really step up and put yourself into the frame for it. It can’t all be external factors and conditions that you are facing through the year. There’s a part for you to play in this and it’s important that we recognise it.

Speaker 1 (12:48):

Yeah, correct. There’s a word that’s repeated there the whole time, which is you. What if you didn’t achieve what you wanted to do? What held you back? What did you allow to get in the way? What are you committed to do differently? We really emphasise that word you because in business no one’s going to save you, no one’s going to rescue you, no one’s going to create the results that you want. You’ve got to step up and take 100% responsibility for the things that go, the good, the bad, and the ugly in your world. Are there times there where there’s external factors around us which prevent us from achieving what we want? Yeah, sometimes. But we have more influence on the results that we get in life more than most people realise. So that’s why I love those questions and the emphasis on you because it’s almost like a bit of a face the facts moment, isn’t it?

Speaker 2 (13:40):

Yeah it is. You’ve got to look at yourself in the mirror. It’s easy to deflect. You can say, well, I know what challenges we face, and you rattle off a whole lot of external things that are out of your control and you somehow think that, well, you’re just unlucky, but there’ll be a role that you played in that. Definitely. And when you start looking at what got in the way, what are you committed to doing differently? You’re starting to look at your priorities and your decisions that you made and how they impact the year. That was the good and the bad and the ugly, as you say, you’ve played a massive role in this yourself. You’ve created the year that was to an extent. Now you’ve got to sort of face up to that. And if you can get that right and you can do this exercise well, you’re going to get a whole lot of clues that will come into play when we start to plan out the year coming up.

Speaker 1 (14:22):

A great example of this is we’ve got a client who 12 months ago was about to really kick off a big project. It was a $2 million project and he got that project pulled from him right at the last minute. And I remember talking to him and he is like, Rob, this moment will not define me and you watch me, I will fill this, I will fill that hole in my pipeline. And his mental resolve around it and belief around filling, it was second to none and he doubled down on BD business development. There was no tomorrow, and he filled that and he filled that hole in his pipeline and he went on to having his best year yet and made over a million dollars in net profit. Yet you’ve got other business owners who are somewhat moping around and they’re like, well, I didn’t have the best year revenue was down, our customers weren’t spending as much.

(15:22):

Our sales were a bit slower. And then you ask that those guys that question going, well, what have you done about it, mate? Tell me a bit about your BD. What have you improved around your sales process? How have you moved into new markets? I haven’t done that, Rob, you don’t understand the market’s depressed. So I know I’m using the same scenario which is sales and pipeline, but the difference is one did something about it. The other person is whinging and bitching that the market is depressed. And that’s why this question is so powerful because this is your opportunity to really have that face the facts moment to be able to go, well, if you did do what you said you’re going to do awesome, give yourself a pat on the back, but if you didn’t, well mate, what are you going to bloody do about it next year and what are you going to do about it going forward so that it doesn’t happen again? Because this is where you can step up and take ownership for the results that you may or may not have got in life.

Speaker 2 (16:16):

Yeah, absolutely. Alright, let’s go to number four. So we’ve now looked internally and seen what we’ve done. We’ve got a really good appreciation of that so far. Next question number four is who are the people, the situations or the events that I’m most grateful for in the last 12 months? Really good way to broaden out the year that was, but who are the people, situations and events that I’m most grateful for in the last 12 months?

Speaker 1 (16:42):

I really love this question because it’s your opportunity to demonstrate gratitude for someone or something and it’s the people, it’s the people around you. In business, we can’t achieve everything by ourselves. We just can’t do it. It’s a team effort. And so it’s being grateful for your team, it’s grateful for your customers, it’s grateful for the people in your power team. It’s grateful for our family and friends and people in our community around us that have helped us to be able to achieve what we have throughout the year. So I really love this ability to be able to really write down the people who have had an impact on us this year. And it’s your ability to demonstrate a bit of gratitude, whether you send them a text message and say, Hey, thanks very much, or make a phone call and really say a few nice words to them or even write a letter and maybe you don’t give it to them, but it’s your ability to just acknowledge those people around you. And I think this is that one strategy that’s so underutilised to show appreciation isn’t it?

Speaker 2 (17:52):

It really is. And I think what people do, again, they’re so attached and we’re so accustomed to attaching the negative to people, to situations and events and we remember those because our brain’s trying to protect us and tell us, hey, be wary, be wary. And we’re always on guard. And I think this part of the exercise as well as just sharing the fact that you’re grateful for people, it actually, it changes internally when we move and shift that gear. So when you really do this question well, you feel that sort of sense of, hey, this was a positive year regardless. There’s things that I’ve got to be grateful for. Even if there were things that weren’t great and there was some pain there or there’s some challenge with it, the ability to go back in and say, I’m grateful for that. If you’ve done the lesson question well, you’ll be able to link that up and you’ll start to be able to get to a point where you are grateful for a challenge and you’re starting to rewire your brain as you go into the new year that hey, this is going to be worth it.

(18:47):

The struggle’s worth it, the lessons that I get are worth it because there are people and things that I’m grateful for this year, even though it wasn’t all roses, but the benefits were definitely there and I’m really grateful for that.

Speaker 1 (18:59):

Yeah, I like what you said there around being grateful even for the challenging, challenging situations and events. That’s what we mean by situations and events. I know that zooming out bigger picture, there’s been some big milestones in my life where I’ve experienced extreme challenge in my world, but I know that those moments were like course correct moments for me. They kept moving me into a path and I look back and if you do this process correctly, when you look back and create hindsight and look for the real blessings in the challenge, you ask that question going, well, would I be here today if I hadn’t have experienced that question? And more often than not, no. And then you go, well, would you trade for where you are right now? It’s like, hell no. It’s like, well man, I’m so grateful that that thing happened. I could see that I was going down this road. I experienced that challenge. It put me onto this different path and look what I’ve achieved from that as a result. And so it’s not just about being grateful for all the good things and all the good experiences and events that have happened, it’s sometimes going, you know what? That was a bloody shit thing that I experienced this year, but I’m so glad it happened to me because look what’s happened as a result. And so this gratitude thing, a two-sided equation, isn’t it?

Speaker 2 (20:16):

Yeah, it really is. I had a mentor once and I can’t remember exactly who it was, but they talked in terms of diamonds and saying, A diamond doesn’t come out of the ground fully formed, A diamond is cut. And they said, every time you get a challenge or something like that and you’re able to acknowledge it and the benefit of it, it’s almost like, Hey, thanks for the cut was what they used to say all the time. And it’s always stuck with me, Hey, thanks for the cut. When there’s a negative, where’s the gratitude for that little bit that got chopped off? That little bit of challenge, it wasn’t great, but that cut, it helps build you into the person you need to be to handle the next round of challenges that come up as you grow and develop.

Speaker 1 (20:50):

We talk a lot in coaching around, I really like that we talk a lot in coaching around your relationship with things, whether it’s relationship with time, your relationship with alcohol, your relationship with whatever it is. But this is what we’re doing here is we’re trying to help you change your relationship with challenge because most people try to avoid challenge at all costs. Whereas what this question does is it enables you to be able to go what are you grateful for? The people, the situation and events. And what we’re asking you to do is not just be grateful for the good things, but we’re asking you to look for the challenge and be grateful for them because we’re trying to help you see what that challenge enabled for you and what it does is it changes your relationship with challenge because growth happens on that border of support and challenge. And if you can get that balance right, that’s where growth and expansion happens. And so you need challenge in your life to grow and expand and push you to be able to keep moving forward. So this question really helps you overcome that relationship, that negative relationship you might have with challenge to maybe going forward next year. It really helps you look, seek out challenge and embrace more of it because that’s what’s going to put you on a big journey of growth and expansion in 2026.

Speaker 2 (22:07):

Yeah, it sure is. Alright, one more question to go number five. Now by this point we should be feeling nicely balanced. Let’s put it that way. You should have a really good perspective on your year. You should be have a depth there. There’s a lot of stuff that you should have covered after if you’ve gone through the questions. So as we get to this last question, what we’re trying to do now and the question is number five, what are the lessons, reminders, or commitments that you want to take into next year? So these are the hit points, the highlights of the answers that you’ve got through going through the exercise. What do you want to make sure you’re holding onto as you carry it into the new year? And this Rob could be something that’s positive, it could be something that’s a lesson, it could be any of the answers that you’ve got that mean enough for you to you want to onboard and carry into the new year.

Speaker 1 (22:51):

Yeah, absolutely. And like we were saying, coaching to clients all the time is success leaves clues. So it’s almost like what you’re doing is before you start to turn a corner to be able to go right, well let’s enjoy Christmas and then let’s start thinking around what we’re going to achieve next calendar year. You’re almost just grabbing those little clues. Maybe it’s a positive success habit you’ve had in your world, something with your morning routine or the way that you manage your priorities throughout the week around with time or maybe something a little clue you’ve got around your management and leadership or all the other topics we’ve done here on the podcast over the last 12 to 24 months. Maybe there’s a few little clues in there that you just want to hold onto to be able to go, you know what? My commitment is to make 2026 an even better year than 2025. So what are all those little things I’ve just got to carry forward with me as a little reminder that I’ve got to stay true to them to be able to continue down this path and set myself up for an even better year ahead. It’s just the little handful of things, isn’t it?

Speaker 2 (23:53):

Yeah, it is, absolutely. Alright, there are five questions. Now all that’s left for us to do now is go through the challenge and the challenge is to simply give yourself, and we’re going to recommend give yourself the gift of an hour. It might take longer than that, but just set aside an hour as we come into the end of this year and stop, put it in your calendar to stop, reflect and round out the year that was properly. Go back and listen to this and go to where we’ve outlined the questions and do it as if you were in a room with us and interactively doing it. So replay the podcast, pause it at the end of question one, do that exercise properly, then hit play. Go back and do question two and really work through it like a workshop type exercise that you’re going to give the time to and the benefit to because as we come into the new year, like we said, the ability to have a different year, a different footing to start from, that’s what gives you the momentum into the new year.

(24:44):

That’s what makes you have a different year, but you won’t get that. You’ll miss out on too much if you just gloss over it and front up and go, well, fingers crossed, I hope it’s not the same shit year it was this year. It can’t be any worse. Those sort of attitudes just mean that you are locking yourself into repeat the patterns that you’ve had in the past and you’ll sort of be limiting or capping off pretty much the boundaries of where you can go. So if you do this exercise, you’re going to start to see things differently and as you see things differently, you’ll do things differently. So really this is the start of the new year process.

Speaker 1 (25:14):

It is. And it’s your ability to really just lock it in, round it out, and then give yourself permission and then to enjoy the festive period because such a fun time of the year, there’s a good vibe around the place and it’s just a nice moment in time to look back on the 12 months it’s been and really celebrate the year that’s been, as you said, you got to give yourself this gift, don’t you?

Speaker 2 (25:36):

Yeah, you do. And it is a gift and it’s probably the best one you can give yourself in a business and personal sense. The ability to do this well, you can’t help but feel different in terms of how you go into your break and how you pick it up when you come back in the new year.

Speaker 1 (25:53):

The little thing that I want to remind you listening here of, and I say this to clients all the time, is that the more success that you achieve, the more that starts to become the norm. And as you start stacking year on, year over year of great things that are happening in your world, you start to become a little bit dull or a little bit blunt to the good things that are happening in your world. So make sure you take this process seriously. Make sure you actually sit down and really look back over the last 12 months and look month by month of month of where you started, the year where you’ve ended up and look for the good, the bad, and the ugly in your world and go to depth. That’s the biggest advice I can give you is go to depth and make sure that you really get that process done so you can look back and go, you know what? That was a year. Look at 2025, what a hell of a year it was. And then you can close that chapter and start and make the resolve to make it better in 2026. But just go to depth and make sure you really look inwards to be able to do what you need to get done.

Speaker 2 (27:05):

I love it. Okay, so we’re almost there. Before we round out this episode though, Rob, I know it’s towards the end of the year, but we really want to just take a moment and thank everyone for tuning in this year to the podcast.

Speaker 1 (27:19):

Yeah, it’s been one hell of a year and Dan and I are super, super grateful for you coming to tune in week in week out with us here on The Trade Den podcast. Dan and I have absolutely loved the opportunity to be able to get in and get these episodes recorded. We’ve covered off so much ground this year around so many topics, from time to management to leadership, to understanding your numbers. Boy, we’ve had so many great guests of Pravar to be able to come and share their stories, but Dan, I’ve been very honoured to be able to be your host this year and we’re really grateful for being able to share some great stories with you and we really appreciate the feedback that you’ve continued to give us throughout the year. And make sure you tune in next week. We are going to drop a little merry Christmas message on your plate next week. It’s just going to be a nice short little message to wish you and your family are very Merry Christmas from Dan and I and the whole team here at pava. But thanks again for a great year. We are getting to the pointy end of the year. Be safe over this time of the year and looking forward to talking to you next week for a nice little Christmas message. Until then, we’ll take care.

Speaker 2 (28:29):

See you soon.