The most extensive end of the year review you'll ever read

Newsletter · Jan 11, 2026

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An entrepreneur's recipe for sweet success

4.5min Read

Another year in the books. One of my ALL time favorite things to do in the year is to take inventory at the end and set myself up for the next year to come.

I'll warn you, this is a long read. If you want to skip to the part that gives you the template I use, just scroll to the bottom ;)

If you enjoy a good long read, then buckle up!

The way that this is formatted— is from me, but all the variables involved have been cherry picked from some of the greats.

I’ve pulled from James clear, Jesse Itzler, Matt Ragland, David Goggins and so many more. I wish I could take credit for the cool stuff you’re about the read, but the credit belongs to them. I just copy and pasted their ideas in a fancy way.

The origin of this whole process for me is my obsession with getting better and better each year. If we don’t know where we’ve come from and the milestones we’ve hit along the way, it’s REALLY hard to see where you’re going.

Life is short. Our time here should be as intentional as possible. If there’s a dream that you have— pursue it. If there’s a job you hate— find another one. If there’s a lifestyle that you want to live— find a way to live that life.

None of this is easy. It’s all hard stuff. But guess what? We are capable of doing hard things. It’s what I tell my kids as often times as it comes up so that it soaks into their DNA. They tell me “but dad, that’s too hard.” And I’ll respond to them calmly but very sure— yes, but we are capable of doing hard things.

If you aren’t painting that picture for yourself, I would encourage you to do so. And if you have a family, painting that picture is even more important.

You need to SELL THE DREAM. First to yourself and then to the ones you love. And selling that dream starts with believing that you are capable of doing whatever it takes to accomplish it. And to believe that, you have to be WILLING to do whatever it takes. But to get to that point, you need to know what needs to be done. To know what needs to be done, you need to be intentional about what your year/ life looks like. And finally in order to know that, you need to have an understanding of where you came.

Not sure if you followed me on that one, but in order to SELL YOUR DREAM, and live that reality that you deeply desire, you need to be intentional with your life. And the best way that I have found to do that is through this framework that about to describe.

New Year’s resolutions generally don’t work. I won’t say always, but I will say generally. The reason they don’t work is because they are shallow. One thing is said, MAYBE written down, but then that’s it. They might be revisited half way through, but most of the time they are forgotten by February 3rd.

The future that belongs to you already exists. But you first need to believe that it’s possible and second that it’s just a matter of time. Third— you need to do everything you can to pursue it. Doing THIS falls into the category of “whatever it takes”.

With that, let’s do it!

The following is an overview of what I’m going to cover. I will share the format and template for you to do this as well as review my year and share with you how I am personally going to set myself up for 2026.

Here’s the overview of what this will look like.

Closing out the year
The Deep Clean
Impact Messages
Taking inventory
W R A P
Reset
Personal Landmarks
The Needle Movers
Daily Vitamins
Closing out the year —

THE DEEP CLEAN —
Before you can start the year fresh, you need to do some cleaning a head of time. I know this doesn't sound like the most fun thing to do, but don't treat this like a chore, treat this like an exercise. You aren’t just cleaning for cleaning sake. You are cleaning to “declutter” your mind. To physically AND mentally throw out some of the junk. We keep things pretty clean in the Bell house, but there is still stuff that piles up over the year. Take an afternoon and throw some junk away.

IMPACT MESSAGES —
These might be hard to do. These are simple, but very meaningful. Send a text, email, note, whatever format works best to someone that has meant something to you over this last year. Simple as that. Just let them know how much they’ve meant. You’re not asking them for anything, you’re just sharing the feelings that you have that most don't share. Things like that usually go unsaid. But you’re better than that. Life is short, dont miss your opportunity to share these things with the people you care about.

Now that we have those out of the way, we’re getting into the JUICE here. Taking inventory. The way I lay this out is through the WRAP method. Coined by my buddy Matt Ragland.

WRAP stands for

WINS - What went well? What am I proud of in 2025?

RESULTS - What were the results of my goals and intentions in 2025?

ALIGNMENT - Are my actions and habits aligning with the person I want to be?

PIVOT - Based on my 2024 review, what do I want to pivot—or plan—in 2026?

Doing just this is such a worthy exercise. Seriously if you are overwhelmed with this massive end of the year review and you want to do ONE thing that will have the most impact, do the WRAP.

Without further ado, the following is my 2025 WRAP. Pay close attention in the Results section. I’ll show you how I REALLY breakdown the categories of results that I seek.

[Wins]

What went well? What am I proud of in 2025?

This year was a year that will go down forever as being one of the most impactful years of my life. I guess I could say that about every year, however this one had some MAJOR life changes in it that will forever alter the trajectory of my life and the life of my family. I left my law enforcement career. For the last 10 years I was a police officer, but if I’m being honest, for the last 10 years, I didn’t want to be a police officer.

My passions were elsewhere from the beginning. I have entrepreneur and business running through my veins, but nothing was at the level that I needed it to be at to comfortably make the jump… or at least that’s what I was telling myself. The truth was, I just wasn’t ready to make the leap. I didn’t believe that I had what It took to really make it outside of the golden handcuffs and comfortable salary. These were lies that I told myself for far too long.

But I’m glad that I waited as long as I did, because timing is everything and the Good Lord knew when that timing was. 2025 came along and the feeling that I was meant to do something else and be out of my police career weighed on me more and more. Of course I knew the feeling was there, but what else was I supposed to do. I had been building the bridge out, but it wasn’t finished yet. My businesses weren't where they needed to be… but I KNEW that I needed to be out… then HOW?

At the right time, with the right person, and the right numbers, I was given an opportunity that I knew was meant to be. It was working with someone that I have looked up to and aspired to be like for years now and HE wanted ME to work with him. This was it. It was a HUGE risk, but it also felt like the most right thing I’ve done in the last 10 years.

I took the leap and I’m happier now than I’ve ever been. THAT within itself is my biggest win. I feel like I am a man free from jail (ironically, my career was spent putting others in jail) and now I can finally live and build the life that I was meant to have.

That is a VERY tangible win for me this year.

While I’m on the subject of careers and business, I’ll share an overview of those specific wins**:

Community consulting —

The opportunity that I mentioned above falls into this category here. I have been following and working to get into Chris Koerner's inner circle for a couple of years. He was my “white whale” you could say. To understand that more, this is a video of Chris explaining white whales in life and business. This was no easy feat. But it worked. And this is what led to the opportunity. Chris asked me if i 1) wanted to be his Twitter page manager and 2) would want to be the director of his community.

At the time I was still working as a cop, but I KNEW I needed to find a way out. And this was it. I jumped in with both feet into positions that I genuinely feel like I was meant to do. And this is just the start.

Because I’m never short of ideas for “what’s next”, I had a realization with this opportunity from Chris. There is an underserved audience here. High level creators, entrepreneurs, influencers and business owners who want to grow a community around the audience they already have. Communities are NOT easy to do well. I’ve been in dozens over the last several years and most of which don’t exist anymore. It’s just so hard to maintain that energy, engagement and secret sauce. Doing just that is my role as the director. And it’s something that I can help others with.

This role with Chris has ignited the start of a community consulting company of mine. It’s early stages right now as my focus is on what’s ACTUALLY making me money, but I'm pulling from my experience over these last several years as well as being able to leverage the name and brand of Chris Koerner to give me more authority in the space.

You have to use what you have and play with the cards you’re dealt.

I don’t know if this will really take off the way I want it to, but what I do know is that this falls into my “zone of genius”, there’s a need for it, it’s something I love to do and it’s high ticket. There’s a lot of great points here that would make it silly for me to not at least try.

Twitter —

Twitter has been an engine of growth and opportunity for me. Connections, networking, opportunities, friends, and cutting my teeth with copy writing on a larger scale. I’ve been crawling along bit by bit increasing my following now to a little over 1500. It’s not about the followers though. It’s genuinely about how much value I can pour out. I am deep in the trenches right now and I haven’t “made it” yet like you could say about Chris, but the stories I share and content I create is honest and real. If I’m being honest, I don’t think I’ve totally found my “hook” or as Shannon Jean calls it, my “sex” yet. “Sex” is a fancy way to describe the subject that I talk about that grabs people’s attention and brings them into my world. I talk about a ton of things because I DO a ton of things, but the ONE “hook”, I don’t think I’ve figured out.

I sometimes feel like the younger less successful version of Chris. I could 100% talk about all these wild and crazy business ideas like he does, I just haven’t found my own personal “success” where people would really listen. I’m in process. Which in and of itself might actually be a good angle. I’m still trying to figure that out though. You’ll be the first to know when I do.

Home services —

It’s wild to think that I’ve now been in this space for a few years. I had NO intention of messing around with home services of any kind, but this is such a great industry and one that is RIPE for people with tech experience to optimize ancient systems and processes. We’re doing a ton right now with different home services, these are the main points

we’ve been running a business model where we have local and trusted sub contractors for a handful of different services. We build the whole backend, website, google profiles, SOPs, everything and run the show while they go and do the operations. We take 20% off the top and call it a day. This has been going OKAY, but there’s room to grow
We are in the process of expanding to Southern California with a lawn and landscaping business. No subs, just a home grown team where we own everything. Hoping to launch in March at the latest.
All of this digital marketing experience has led us to pick up additional clients just on the marketing side. This was the foundation for a digital marketing company I’m running now called Operator Marketing. More on that in the next point.

Overall, home services have been a GREAT path for us. Monetarily it’s not where we want it, but it will be. The overlap between old school blue collar and new school tech is a place that we really excel in. 2026 will be an incredible year for us. I know it.

Digital marketing —

Through all the work that we’ve had to do on our personal home service businesses, we learned a ton about what was needed to set up the digital marketing processes that actually work. From website building, Google profile work, Google ads, meta ads, SEO, all of it. We’ve learned through trial and error. I approached my good friend John who runs a successful marketing agency for storage facilities and brought this idea up to him. He was down for the cause. We have since launched Operator Marketing which focuses on digitally marketing for home service companies. We have one client right now and our goal is 10 by the end of the year.

[PERSONAL WINS]

Working with Chris —

This has been an absolute dream for me! He is where I want to be. And if there’s ANY way to get to where you want to be, it’s to get as close as possible to those that are already there.

Father of 3 —

More than anything I do in life, I take the most pride and enjoyment out of being a dad. It’s crazy to think that I have 3 kids right now! But I wouldn’t want it any other way. My oldest is 7 and one of the most creative thinkers I’ve ever met. She’s a book worm, athletic and super observant. My middle is a fire-y red head with more personality than she knows what to do with. She’s a ball of energy, spunky and her giggles light up a room. My youngest is our only boy. He’s a little over 1, can throw a ball further than any 1 year old I’ve ever seen and his smile is to die for.

Other notable wins, tangible and non tangible:

Tangible

I completed my Misogi, the 4x4x48. This was a BLAST. So gnarly, but also so much fun. The massive pizza at the end made it all worth it
I ran my first ultra marathon. I ran 32 miles which is a 50k in 6hours and 6 min. This might have been the hardest thing I've ever done!
I was given a lifesaving medal at work. This wasn’t anything wild. Just the right place at the right time. It’s part of being a cop and it’s cool, but it’s nothing that cops don't do on a weekly basis.

Non tangible

By the end of the year I got to the point that I’ve been able to take my kids to school or pick them up almost every day. The year didn’t start that way, but it ended that way. This is a lifetime dream for me pretty much!
I’ve had a special get away with each of my girls.
I am finally passionate and happy with the work that I’m doing
I had a goal for all of my income to be from activities outside of the police career. It finally materialized. It just took me leaving the police career to make it happen

[Results]

What were the results of my goals and intentions in 2025?

PERSONAL LANDMARKS:

HEALTH

Compete in two Jiu Jitsu comps ( just 1)
Two 30 day “cuts” ✅
Run Baker to Vegas ✅
Run 2nd marathon ✅
Annual physical/ blood work ✅
Sauna
4x4x48 ✅
Make a decision on TRT ✅

WEALTH

Make an extra 1k/mo. outside of police ✅
Write my first book on either storage or “entrepreneur launch pad”

RELATIONSHIPS

Two Bell ONLY vacations ✅
6+ date nights a year with my wife only (close, but not 6. It’s hard with 3 kids. Something we need to be more intentional about)
1 out of towns with each girl ✅

GROWTH

Read 24+ books (physical books)✅
Acquire 1 business (close, but not there)
Publish 1 newsletter a week minimum ✅
Delegate publishing newsletter ✅
Write first book

NEEDLE MOVERS

💎MISOGI
4x4x48

💎6 MINI ADVENTURES
6 completed

💎1 WINNING HABITS EVERY QUARTER
Fell short on these

💎1 SOLO WEEKEND WITH EACH CHILD
Completed

💎6 DATE NIGHTS ANNUALLY
4 out of 6

💎DAILY VITAMINS

Read 20 pages
Workout
ASL
Spanish
Wordle
Write something
1 post + 5 replies / day
BIG DAD ENERGY - Walk in each workday and don’t touch my phone for the first 30min I’m home x4 days

[Alignment]

Are my actions and habits aligning with the person I want to be?

They are. But I need to be patient. And that’s difficult for me.

I’m doing ALL the things. I’m checking ALL the boxes, but I want to be at the destination NOW.

Recently I’ve had the opportunity to be coached by a good friend of mine and mentor, Austin Linney. One of the things he reminds me of is that I’m already doing all the things that I need to do, time just hasn’t caught up yet.

So in order for me to really align with the person that I wan to be, more than anything I need to stay the course and be patient. While proactively building and putting the reps in.

[Pivot]

Based on my 2025 review, what do I want to pivot—or plan—in 2026?

I am beyond proud of what I’ve accomplished in 2025, but I’m not satisfied. This is only the beginning. I am now finally on my own and able to pour everything I have into building. I don’t have to do it in the background anymore, I don’t have to hide it. 2026 is the year that pieces start to fall into place. 2026 is the year that one by one all the projects I’m working on come to fruition and become something. 2026 is the year that will completely change the trajectory of our lives for the better and put us in a position to live where we want to, do what we want to and spend our energy where we want to.

None of this will be easy. None of it has been easy. This will take longer than I expect and I’ll probably end up in a completely different position than I imagined. BUT it will happen. We will succeed. And the lessons and experiences along the way and the obstacles that I figure out how to overcome, will one day become someone else’s survival guide.

Thank you for sticking with me on this wild ride! I appreciate you more than you know!

For your own use, this is a blank template of the end of the year review.

TEMPLATE