Week 1 of 2024 has arrived. How lucky are you??? 52 weeks, laid out before you,  just waiting for you to make a masterpiece.

Time to walk over to your 4K Weeks poster and fill in another square. Done?

There is a rhythm to the seasons that I didn't really notice or appreciate until I was in my late 30's. It's interesting to think about how many cycles of anything you need to witness before you realize there is a pattern. It's a comfort to know that the waves...

just... ...keep... ...coming... ...over and over... ...and over again.

Thank you. Sincerely. So many of you reached out to send your condolences after last week's email.  I can't tell you how much I appreciate each one.  Anything worthwhile that I have done was built upon my dad's foundation of love and support. So, thank you... Now, onward!

If you need something to aim at in the New Year... our Year Goal Posters are a good start.  I'll send you a 10% off code if you email and ask for it.

Take a listen to the audio version of the weekly newsletter. Usually coming in at around 15 minutes... try listening! If you enjoy it let me know and subscribe, rate it, and review it! (There is a bit of extra context on goal setting in there this week.)

Spotify  Apple.

Thanks for being here and reading! These blogs help me "Sharpen The Saw" and hopefully help you to sharpen yours!

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The 4K Weeks Brightsider-A Multicolor Extravaganza!

The 4K Weeks Long View-A Different Horizon

Remarkable Weeks

Week  1 of 1947,  Mahatma Ghandi begins his march for peace in East Bengal. He was 4030.71 weeks old. (77.30 yrs)

Week 1 in 1777, General George Washington's army defeats the British at The Battle of Princeton. He was 2341.00 weeks old (44.89) (That seems old to be fighting a war if you ask me.)

Week 1,of 1969, John Lennon and Yoko Ono's album "Two Virgins" is declared pornography in New Jersey. He was 1215.00 weeks old (23.30 yrs).  

This Week's Quote

If the stars should appear but one night every thousand years, how man would marvel and adore. -Ralph Waldo Emerson

True, but... then, after some amount of time, probably between 30 minutes and 4 hours, almost everyone would say "welp, time to get some rest" and then go to bed... knowing that when they woke up the next morning the "once every thousand years" stars would be gone. 

I have been thinking about this exact thing in the wake of my dad's death.  We had lunch together every few weeks over the last three years. My dad would come to this restaurant right by my shop and I would drive over and we would chat and eat for about an hour.  

But invariably, I would get restless and say, "I should get back to work." Then, I would walk him to his car and go back to work. 

And, while I would love to have lunch with him again, at some point that lunch would end too... and that's ok.

It's all impermanent... all transitory... what matters is how we walk through it, how we treat people who walk along the path with us for a while, and that we notice the miracles while they are happening. Everything is a miracle, some miracles appear every night forever, and some miracles are lunches that have to end. Maybe time running out is a gift. Maybe time running out is a gift. Maybe time running out is a gift.

What I am Consuming This Week

It's been a light week again... there is just so much to do after a death. (Even an orderly death of an organized person!)

Which brings me to two things I wish I would have been consuming this week...  If you have a spouse and kids, or, frankly anyone that would have to pick up the loose threads if you die, there are two things you can now that will make the grunt work easier. (I am going to assume you have a process for password and account number management... put the master password in a book, and tell the people in the video which book.)

How do you do it all? Make a screen capture video of the daily/weekly/monthly things that you do that make the household run... Or, if they are all autopay, go through those in a screen capture video as well.  You can't guess how many things you take for granted when you do them that someone new won't know. I spent an hour trying to figure out which website to use to pay one of my dad's bills. He is super organized... I had all the account numbers and passwords... just not the website. A screen capture video would have fixed that. Update annually.

Write your obituary.  Even if you leave all the context for the folks left behind and just create a timeline of your life... I know my dad's story, but it took a good long minute to gather all the accomplishments, jobs, dates, etc.

Freakonomics Radio #569 Do you Need Closure? This one is a bit on the nose, but I just happened to see this in my mastermind buddy's journal.  It was great... and perhaps the way it all went down, with 100% closure, is one of the reasons my dad's death has been bearable. No open loops.

Insta Nuggets: I have been trying to boil these down to good content that pushes you forward... but sometimes a hysterical meme will sneak through...

• I saved this for my daughter... might be good for you.
• FYI, I bought my 4KWeeks poster a year before we bought the company!
• Fill the gap.
• Is it murmuration?

What I am Thinking About This Week

Imperfect starts.

We all want to close the checking account and start fresh. ...just bag up the old clustermess, and start with a new zero balance, and ...this time... keep after it so that you don't feel overwhelmed. Or, clear the schedule for two weeks and focus on the one big project with no distractions.

But that rarely happens.  Almost all of the time, you are building the new lifeboat while sailing the old lifeboat.

My wife and I are getting ready to start on a new initiative that will take a few months, and a substantial portion of our focus each day.  I want to get everything in order so there are no distractions, to get our schedule perfectly lined out and stick to it 100 percent, but that is a pipe dream. There are already things that I know will impose on the days, and who knows what else will pop up. And that's ok. We just need to make our best shot at preparing and then START!

You have to be ok with an imperfect start. You have to laser focus on your goal while still fending off and plowing through all of the INEVITABLE distractions. It's more important to be resilient and persistent than it is to be perfect.

It's reasonable to create some space and to try to set off on the right foot, but we are talking about weeks, not months of preparation. For nearly everything, more than three weeks of preparation is actually just procrastination.

What are you going to start imperfectly this year? I would love to hear about it.

I hope you have a happy New Year.  It's up to you, so you might as well! Have a great week! 

Thanks for being a part of the journey with us! Please tell me if you liked/disliked the blog this week. Ask my wife... those are the only emails I like to get!

Spencer, Owner of 4KWeeks.com

Dad Joke O' The Week

What did the seal with a broken flipper say to the shark?

"Do not consume if seal is broken!"