What’s Your Word of the Year?
The Amplified Impact Podcast
February 8th, 2023
Unpack the science of success with Anthony in today’s episode of Amplified Impact.
Explore what it means to be truly successful and discover the power of creating a theme for your year.
Anthony shares a practice he learned from Austin Lenny wherein you select a single word that represents your focus for the year, which will help guide your decisions and actions.
Anthony talks about how this idea has been useful for both his personal and professional life.
TWEETABLE QUOTE:
“Sometimes you just need to be in a different place in life to receive a message a little bit differently. It just hits differently depending on where you are.” – Anthony Vicino
LEAVE A REVIEW if you liked this episode!!
Let’s Connect On Social Media!
instagram.com/theanthonyvicino
Join an exclusive community of peak performers at Beyond the Apex University learning how to build a business, invest in real estate, and develop hyperfocus.
Learn More About Investing With Anthony
Invictus Capital: www.invictusmultifamily.com
Multifamily Investing Made Simple Podcast
Passive Investing Made Simple Book: www.thepassiveinvestingbook.com
Episode Transcript:
Anthony: [00:00:00] So about a year and a half ago I met this guy named Austin Lenny on a podcast. I went on his podcast. We had a conversation and we were there to talk about real estate. But within the first like three minutes we got on the topic of mindset and personal development, which were conversations near and dear to both of our hearts and within like, 20 minutes, 30 minute podcast.
Anthony: We , we were there to talk about real estate. We ended up not talking about real estate at all. And we sparked off this kind of like bromance and I think it was the beginning of 20. Hmm? 2021. Yeah. It must have been 2021. January that we launched the brain dump. And so this was a podcast where Austin and I, we tried to unpack the science of achievement.
Anthony: The science of success, like what’s it mean to be a successful person? And so we brought on all these really badass, awesome people from all different walks of life. We had artists, we had entrepreneurs, we had athletes to ask them like, how do they define success? Like [00:01:00] what’s it mean to. And we had a ton of really awesome conversations.
Anthony: We ended up doing about 60 episodes, and we still do, a couple every now and then, like maybe once a month we get together and do a, do an episode. but one of the, I wanted to share with you guys one of the, one of the more impactful, concepts that came from that, that period of time when we were doing those podcasts together, Austin shared something, which I had heard other people doing before, but for whatever reason, Sometimes you just need to be in a different place in life to receive a message a little bit differently.
Anthony: Like it hits just differently depending on where you are. So you can hear the same thing, you know, at different points in your life and it just doesn’t resonate. And for me, like a lot of my life was the fact that, I wasn’t learning new things. I just was like finally having mess, certain messages penetrate my consciousness.
Anthony: You know, like the idea that discipline equals freedom. This is something that I’d heard a lot growing up, especially with ADHD and like trying to struggle to figure out like how to get my life. but there was a co There came a point then in my late twenties, you know, [00:02:00] when finally that message, discipline equals freedom just hit different.
Anthony: And it was the same with this concept that, that Austin shared with me. And at the time that I’m recording this, it’s actually December 13th, 2022. So we’re, we’re rounding out the year here, we’re, we’re entering into this new period where we’re going to start fresh with 2023. And that’s a lot, that’s very exciting for people because it like delineates this, very natural starting stopping point for a lot of goals.
Anthony: You know, I, I think there’s, there’s nothing wrong with setting annual goals or anything like that, but I, I like having this, this concept of a theme, and this is what, this is what Austin shared with me is that each year he creates a new word or like a new word that signifies the theme for that year, and it kind of influences everything that he does moving forward.
Anthony: I thought that was really cool in the sense that you kind of like brand the year and say, this is what we’re focusing on. And we had done this actually at Escape Climbing. We, each year we’d sit down with our annual plan and lay it out and say, okay, what’s the objective? What are we trying to accomplish this year?
Anthony: And we’d bring it to the team and say, [00:03:00] here’s the, the next operation. And we’d give it a fancy name. So for instance, the very first operation, this was a two year operation, was called Operation Cannon. Which was like borrowed from this idea of like back in the nautical times, not nautical times, but like in the pirate days when you know people were roaming the open seas, if you saw a boat coming at you from like across the, the way you wouldn’t just start shooting your cannon balls at it because if you do that, like you haven’t triangulated the distance, the wind, or any of the waves, any of that stuff.
Anthony: And so what’s going to app end up happening is you’re going to expend all your cannon balls and probably miss 98%. And by the time you triangulate the target and hit them, you’re going to be out of cannonballs, right? So you don’t lead with cannonballs. In fact, what you do is you start firing bullets because bullets, you probably have a whole lot more of those on your ship than you do cannonballs.
Anthony: So you send somebody out to the front of the ship and you have ’em firing bullets at the other, at the other ship and triangulating based off of that. And then once you have your target and you know that you can hit it, then you [00:04:00] start firing cannonballs. So this comes to a concept fire bullets before cannonballs, which has been a very helpful, concept for, for us in business in general.
Anthony: At that point in Escapes lifecycle, we had been firing bullets for a number of years where these were like small attempts to find product market fit. We would launch this product and that product and see what hit, what didn’t. And we would do that on a small scale to kind of prove out the concept that, okay, there’s a market here and we have the capacity and the team capable of fulfilling on that.
Anthony: So Operation Cannonball was a very considered effort on our part to. Well, let’s start firing the cannon balls at the market. We know we can hit it now. Let’s try and sink it. Let’s try and win this war. And so we scaled up, we put about $2 million invested into the infrastructure, into the team, into the materials, everything that we were doing to like take the team, the operation to the next level.
Anthony: And then we started firing cannibals. Once we had started hitting at scale, when we grew very quickly from doing $400,000 in top line [00:05:00] revenue to about 3 million in the span of just two years, then it was a matter of, okay, we’ve hit, we’ve hit these cannonballs now instead of just pure growth.
Anthony: Now we’re entering into Operation Escape velocity. Where, okay. Now that we, we’ve pulled even with the team, with the industry leaders, now let’s try and reach escape velocity, which is, you know, the concept that when an A Rocket is trying to lead the earth’s atmosphere, it needs to be moving at a speed superior to the gravitational pull of the planet.
Anthony: Otherwise, you’re just never going to escape the gravitational pole. You’re always just going to get sucked back in. And so we viewed our competition, as you know, that gravitational pool. How do we escape them and get to that point? no return where they can’t catch us. We’re just, we’re gone. And so everything was focused on optimization and efficiency and productivity and getting the most out of all the systems and the team members that we had, instead of just trying to grow from four members of the team to 20, instead of trying to go from 20 to 80, we said, okay, with these 20, how can we get the same amount of output or like double or triple E output, but with the same [00:06:00] team?
Anthony: And so those were like the guiding principles, the guiding words of those years. When Austin brought this concept back up in terms of like his personal life, I had never really done that, honestly. Like it had never occurred to me to say like, okay, the, the theme of this year is going to be around this concept.
Anthony: And so I, I tried it out last year for the very first time in 2022, and my word of the year was hyperfocus, which I mean, if you’re hanging around these parts, you probably heard me say this thing a million times, but it meant something very particular to me at that, at the beginning of the year, which.
Anthony: With Invictus Capital, we were, we had been experiencing a ton of growth over the last couple of years, and one of the things that happens when you start to reach, like, you started achieving a lot of success is that, The, the opportunities that you used to say no to were, were pretty easy because there were small opportunities and they, they weren’t going to move the needle all that much anyway.
Anthony: And so in the beginning, you have to learn how to like, zone out these small, insignificant distractions and stay focused on the big opportunity, which was, you know, Invictus and scaling and growing, raising capital and finding acquisitions and all that stuff. And then [00:07:00] operations. And there comes this point where in the de like the, the, the shiny objects become very compelling, very interest.
Anthony: Right be. And so I knew coming into 2022 that there was going to be a ton of opportunities and that I needed to stay focused hyperfocused on what we were doing specifically because we had about 40 million of acquisitions in the pipeline, which coming into 2022, our portfolio size was only around 40, maybe 30 million.
Anthony: And so this one is effectively going to double us. So it was, we had a really big year lined up in front of us, and I knew. That if I wasn’t careful, my tendency was to get distracted, get off, get off, onto a tangent and start taking up other side projects and things that just weren’t going to move the needle move forward.
Anthony: So hyperfocus was, was key. And so I hyperfocused on my health and I hyperfocused on Invictus, and we got to the point where we closed all those deals and in around September, October started becoming clear that, okay, we were going to get these things done. The operational team was in [00:08:00] place and. We’re good to go.
Anthony: And so then I could start taking on these side projects, and you’ve probably seen in the last couple of months, you know, our YouTube channel, this launch of this, this podcast, the hyper-focused masterclass, like the, the Hyper-Focused Entrepreneur newsletter. Just putting a lot of effort into building out these, these other, These other avenues of, of thought and of intrigue for me, things that I find really fulfilling, but I had to put them on the back burner.
Anthony: If you remember from like the early episodes of this podcast, I actually started recording these in 2022 at the beginning of the year thinking, okay, I’m going to release these and do a daily podcast. All through 2022. And I re, I re recorded the first maybe 50-ish episodes, 60 episodes, and then I pulled the plug in about May because I was like, okay, this is only going to distract me from the hard work that I need to do at Invictus to get it to the place where it needs to be to grow and to sustain and, and continue moving forward.
Anthony: And so, you know, sometimes saying no is the hardest thing in the [00:09:00] world, right? Like, there’s these things that you want to do your time, you know, maybe you find it very fulfilling, very reward. But you know, that was my word of the year was hyper-focus. And as we round out this year, I’m starting to think about next year and what my word of the year is going to be.
Anthony: And you’re probably going to be listening to this episode, I’m going to guess sometime in January, maybe February, depending on when it rolls out, because I like to batch, these episodes and make sure that I have like a whole month of recordings in the, in the tank so that, you know, with a daily podcast, I don’t fall behind.
Anthony: But the, the words that I’m currently thinking about, I just want to share ’em with you. One is Optimiz. And the other one is limitless and I don’t know yet which one I’m going to go with, and maybe it’s not going to be either one of these. so, you know, bear with me on this one, but I like the idea of optimization and limitless because one of the things I’m thinking about hard in 2023 is like, how do I take my health to the next level?
Anthony: How do I optimize it? How do I go, how do I become limitless with. How do I become limitless with my wealth, with my [00:10:00] skills, and with my mindset? Like how do I optimize for these? And so those are the words that I’m playing around with right now. And I wanted to share all this with you because, you know, depending on when you’re listening to this, you might have already missed the beginning of the year, so you might have lost a month, but it’s never too late to pick a word of the year or a word of the month even and say, this is, this is going to be my guiding focus for this period.
Anthony: And, I think it can serve you. It can be a really nice little guiding, north star, a compass to direct your actions and your activities throughout the year. So I. I’d be curious to hear from you guys, like what are the words that you’ve chosen for yourself and for your year moving? You know, as we move into 2023, let me know.
Anthony: I, I put that, you know, go leave a comment where, wherever you’re listening to this on social media, just shoot me, you know, if it’s Instagram, it’s the Anthony. If it’s Twitter, it’s just Anthony. Find me, share it with me. I’d love to hear what your, your words of the year are. And, as always guys and gals, like seriously, I appreciate the heck out of you being here and taking some time out of your day.
Anthony: I hope this brought you some value and I’ll see you in [00:11:00] the next episode.
This Week On YouTube
These 3 Daily Habits Made Me A Millionaire in 3 Years
Whenever you’re ready, here are 3 ways I can help you:
1. Unleash your hyperfocused mind to dominate life, business, and everything in between? Here’s how:
→ The Hyperfocused Masterclass: the exact system I used to overcome ADHD, write 12 books, build 4 businesses, and acquire $70M of real estate.
There are a handful of spaces left in The Hyperfocus Masterclass for those who want to snag the early bird preorder special discount of $49.
Email anthony@anthonyvicino.com to let me know you want on the waitlist.
2. Learn to passively invest in commercial real estate with better returns, less risk, and zeo hassle.
→ Invictus Capital: my real estate private equity firm.
→ Multifamily Investing Made Simple: Top Apple Podcast.
→ Passive Investing Made Simple: Amazon Best Selling Book with 100 5 star reviews.
3. Want more like this? Check out these 3 popular articles from the vault:
