Are you ready for 2025?

Let's talk about some goals.

So let's get started, sir.

I will live with perseverance in the spirit of Taekwondo, courtesy for fellow students, integrity within myself, and to become a black belt leader.

Welcome to the ATA Nation podcast.

I was just talk talking to somebody at a event recently and they were talking to me about how much that intro kind of freaks them out because you're doing the oath in different orders and it's just a little confusing for them.

Welcome to episode 131.

This is the Ata Nation podcast.

My name is Senior Master Zach Hayden.

This is going to be our very last episode for 2024.

I hope you've been enjoying your year.

Got to see so many of you guys at Worlds and Nationals and events and things like that.

I've been sending out stickers left and right.

I've got a couple more I got to send out still and we usually take a break over the holiday season and I'm going to give you a little, a little input on what's been going on.

We missed an episode last week as well, and just some things going down that are keeping me extra busy and, you know, you just got to relax a little over the holidays.

We got Thanksgiving tomorrow.

I'm thankful for you, ATA Nation.

Really appreciate you tuning in each week, sharing this out there.

And we've got bigger and better things planned for 2025.

Can you believe 132 episodes?

That's nuts.

I can't believe it.

Hey, if you are going to miss my voice over the holiday season, go back and listen to some of those old episodes.

You can watch them, listen to them all online.

Don't miss it.

Now we're, we're broadcasting this right now live Facebook in our private Facebook group, which is just going to lead us to some cool things that we're doing.

Last week I missed an episode because it was the very first episode of a brand new podcast that I am hosting and doing, partnering with ATA headquarters.

It's their podcast, it's their show.

I'm just hosting and bringing my, I don't know, some people call them skills, but my voice to the platform.

So it is called Business beyond the Mat and it is just for ATA licensees.

ATA headquarters does just an amazing job of trying to find ways to support their licensees, the school owners, the instructors out there.

And this is a kind of an evolution of something that came during COVID During COVID we started these weekly for a while webinars that were just there to help licensees get through Covid and then this turned into Thrive, these monthly.

They were bimonthly webinars that we would do online.

And we basically Headquarters has been doing these, having guests on and presenting these webinars over the last, what's that like, four years now?

And I talked to them.

We, we worked together and just thought about evolving it into more of a podcast style show.

And so we are now doing business.

Beyond the Mat is the Evolution.

It's a live video show that goes to the ATA licensees only every other week.

We had our first episode last week, new episode next week, and then they, the licensees can download the replay on their favorite podcast player.

So if you're a student, sorry, it's secret.

It's top secret because we just want to bring the licensees some extra, you know, great education, good talks, things, you know, coming from headquarters, those kind of things.

And so that started last week and getting that ready has taken a lot of my time.

And there's another project that you might have started to hear about from your instructors.

They were introduced to it last week on that first episode and we're going to be talking about it in the next couple episodes.

And they've been putting, getting emails about it.

That's really neat.

Launching in January, some of the licenses, you guys will be hearing about it in December as well.

But I've been helping with some of that and the launch and creating some content for that.

That's been taking up a bunch of my time as well.

So it just has been a little bit of craziness out there.

Look at that, Alaska tuning in.

I love it.

Very nice.

And Tulsa Martial Arts, I love.

Thanks for tuning in live, guys.

I really appreciate it.

Now this is going to be a little bit of a different episode.

It's a solo show.

I want to give you an episode update, excuse me, on what I've been doing, why you've missed me a little bit.

And then I wanted to bring to you an idea that I got earlier this year.

I like to do this legacy retreat with my legacy students, my teen and adult legacy students.

We go, we rent an Airbnb, we stay, we train, we do different things.

And I like to do some personal improvement kinds of things there as well.

And so I have been a follower of a gentleman named Michael Hyatt for a long time.

I've used some of his materials in the past and he came out with this thing called Life Focus.

If you're watching the video, you can see I've got the box here, Life Focus and what this does is helps you make a plan.

It's kind of like goal setting.

So we're getting ready to hit the holidays and we hit January.

We want to look at our own go as martial arts instructors, as martial artists.

I know for myself, I just hired a personal coach to make sure that I am working on a trainer that's giving me programming to help my martial arts skills, you know, improve my speed, my reactivity, you know, my springiness, strength and power and those kind of things.

But we need to be looking at the goals that we want to set for ourselves and having this life focus, this plan.

So let me.

Let me just talk you through this a little bit, and I'll tell you what I really like about it is it's got all of these cards.

So what you do is you get this box.

I'm going to.

I'm going to lean over for a second in my fancy podcast room, and it's got this box with all these cards in it.

If you watch the video in our group, you can see it there.

And you start with, you know, a direction book that goes through this and what you can expect.

Let me read this to you.

It says, life focus addresses four primary questions.

Who am I?

This addresses your personal values.

Why am I here?

This describes your personal mission.

Where am I now?

This captures your current reality.

And where am I going?

This charts your future course.

You know what made me really think of this too?

I had done this a little over the summer with some of my students, and then at world championships, ATA announced their core values.

And I was like, wow, this really goes right to kind of the.

Some of the stuff we work in personally with my legacy students.

And I went back and actually used this box with these different cards and the values and things to work on coming up with some of the core values for my business, my school as well.

And I'm still revamping that.

I haven't announced those or anything yet.

I'm doing some work on that.

But I think this is a valuable tool because a lot of times you don't have the.

The words or there's just.

It's easier to say what you're not than what you are.

And this gives you an opportunity to leaf through some things and really it helps you define some goals, some thought about yourself.

So let me, let me give you a little walkthrough about how this works.

So you start with who you are.

So you take these, this deck of cards that are just value cards.

So each of the cards has a value on it.

And then four words that kind of describe that value.

So empathy is on this card.

And the other describing words are tolerance, caring, respect, kindness, advocacy is the next card.

Engagement, empowerment, education, activism.

And they go on.

Curiosity, entrepreneurial, faithfulness, simplicity.

There's a whole giant stack of cards.

And what you do is you go through those cards and you lay them in three different piles.

You lay them in three different piles.

You have the powerfully resonant.

These are the ones that like, oh, they call to me a little bit.

They like, oh, that's a word.

Yes, I totally get that.

A maybe pile and then a less resident.

They might matter to you, but they're just not as motivational to you as usual.

And then you come back and you kind of shuffle through them and try to rejigger and go through.

And you end up coming up with how many do you end up picking at the beginning?

I think like five of them in the end that you.

You end up picking.

And these, these end up being your core values.

And you use these as you work down, like more and more specific in how you go.

So you start with more of them and then you whittle it down and then you refine the words a little bit as you go with who you are, those core values.

And then why you're here has your mission, and there's a role, there's an impact, and there's an activity.

So that you have this whole stack of cards that have impact on them.

So these are the impact ones.

Have a kind of a neat setup.

So it's like, promotes justice, combats iniquity, promotes dignity, combats self hate, promotes clarity, combats confusion.

It's just a really neat way to phrase these goals.

Your role might be humanitarian or.

And it gives examples like leader, mentor, coach, that kind of thing.

And then your activity is something like this one says, identify one unconventional solution you are positioned to create, or let's go to another.

Identify people or communities you can access to join you in your cause.

So it gives you these really great phrasing where you might not be able to come up with these thoughts yourself, but once you read it on the card, you go, oh, yes, that's.

That's me.

That's what I want to do.

And it takes you through a whole process where you get to do that.

And then from there there's just these more ways in which you redefine it, kind of simplify the wording so it really works for you.

And then you go through and take a little quiz about how, where you are now in these different areas of life.

So your body, your mind, your spirit, love, family, community, money, work, hobbies.

And then you see if you like where you are and where you're not.

And then each of those have their own set of cards then too, that you go through and do some work with.

So there's like, I stay young at heart by playing.

I leverage my hobbies to meet new people.

I try a new hobby every year.

I have a hobby that energizes me.

And you go through these.

There's a whole process.

Anyways, I just wanted to bring this to you guys because I think it's a really neat resource.

I really enjoy doing it.

I think it's really cool to do with.

For one, it could be for your business, definitely for you as an individual, but then even more for like the students you're in, your staff, your instructors, things like that.

And as we get ready for the new year, defining, instead of just setting these random goals, setting, you know, these.

I want to lose this many pounds.

I want to do that which you need actionable goals like that, don't get me wrong, but you've got to define, like, what's your mission?

That's where you really get excited about things, is your, your mission, your purpose, who you are, those kind of things.

And I just, I just thought this was a great, a great product, a great thing to check out.

They've got a lot of neat organizational things over there for you as well.

Michael Hyatt's really good at this leadership, this kind of planning, your life, those kind of things.

So I did set up a short link and this is an affiliate link for some of these things.

So I did, because I bought it and whatnot, like it.

If you like it and you buy it through my link, I get a couple of bucks.

I don't know what the deal is exactly, but if you go to atanation podcast.com focus@anation podcast.com focus, you can check out all of their stuff there.

And right now is a great time to do it because, you know, Friday, all those things.

But I just thought this was a neat resource that you might want to use for your planning of 2025.

I know I'm going to be going through it especially for my, My business, my stuff.

And, you know, we want to continue to grow.

We want to go beyond the belt.

That's what we're.

We're doing as martial artists is going beyond the belt.

And I think this is a tool that you can use to help you with that process.

So I invite you to check that out.

It's called Life Focused.

I love the way it's set up because of the cards and stuff.

It's very tactile.

Makes my ADD brain happy when I do it.

So atanation podcast.com focused.

If you want to check that out now, ladies and gentlemen, that's going to about wrap it up for our 2024.

We've had some amazing time, some neat things.

We're going to be.

You're going to see some lives from the AtNation podcast next year.

Don't I can't give you too much but we're going to be doing some lives.

We're going to some some neat things coming.

We're going to continue to work on the business beyond the Mat podcast for licensees.

So if you're a licensee, make sure you check in that out.

Feel free to send me any messages and we want to just encourage you, inspire you to continue to work beyond the belt, become the person you know you could be outside of that regular.

Just like I do more than kicking, punching, I'm a martial artist.

What's that mean to you?

And maybe you know that that Life Focused box can help you with.

Ladies and gentlemen, that's going to wrap it up for us today.

It's been a privilege to get to speak with you each week here on the AtNation podcast in 2024.

I really look forward to 2025 continued training.

I'll see some of you guys in Little Rock next week for Camp Jiangsu.

Say hi to me if you're a podcast listener.

If you're not a podcast listener and you see me there, you can still say hi, but you should have been listening to the podcast and then we'll see in 2025.

I plan, I think to go out to Dallas.

You'll see me at Worlds as always, use this time over the holidays, you know, be, you know, express that gratitude to each other, to your family, to your friends, to your instructors as you go through, you know, the holidays where you can, you know, just express that gratitude for them.

Take some time to rest, take some time to think about your journey, where you've come from, where you're going and what kind of plans you've got for the future.

We look forward to an awesome 2025 until we speak.

Then get out there.

Go beyond the belt.

Thanks for listening to another episode of the ATA Nation podcast.

Be sure to subscribe and share with your ATA family.

Secret part.

Bunch you guys already you're on the part.

And if you're watching the video.

Obviously, it's not that secret because, you know, the video's not over yet.

Hey, if you've got guests you would like to hear from in 2025, let me know who they are.

I've got a couple of planned.

I know.

I'm talking to some ATA guys, some non ATA guys, people we want to talk to.

So let me know over the holidays and we'll see you in 2025.