Transcript

How To Review Your Year (Without Being Hard on Yourself) | Tiago Forte

From Ryan Hawk · Episode page · Watch on YouTube

· 1 h 4 min · 11,685 words · 170 timestamped sections

This is the full, timestamped transcript of "How To Review Your Year (Without Being Hard on Yourself) | Tiago Forte", an episode of Ryan Hawk published November 8, 2026 (1 h 4 min, about 11,685 words). It mentions 55 people, works and ideas, including Annual Life Review, Tiago Forte, Life in Perspective: The Art and Power of the Annual Life Review, Ryan Hawk, Goal Setting.

What this episode is about

A personal shift toward reflection and deliberate goal-setting, framed as treating goals as learning experiments, prompted by a life-threatening experience in Brazil and inspired by Tiago Forte’s focus on curiosity, perspective, and meaningful daily practices. The discussion emphasizes how moments of danger or hardship can catalyze introspection, learning from stories we tell ourselves, and modeling a positive, curious stance for personal growth.

Key takeaways

  • Survival woke him up; disruption is often the loudest mentor, louder than self-help seminars.
  • Treat goals as experiments; the learning value outgrows mere achievement when feedback loops sting.
  • Curiosity as a leadership trait isn’t optional—it's the adaptive fuel for navigating rapid change.
  • Early-life trauma reframes success: ambition thins to sustainable impact when family shifts your lens.
  • Honest mind-changing is a leadership strength; rigidity is the quiet killer of influence and growth.

Who speaks in this episode?

What is discussed, and when

  1. – 10:00: Things, Apologetics, Ryan Hawk, Christianity
  2. – 20:00: Things, Goal Setting, Brazil, Past, Present, Future Framework
  3. – 30:00: Things, Annual Life Review, Goal Setting, Past, Present, Future Framework
  4. – 40:00: Forte Labs, Learning experiments, Goal Setting, Things
  5. – 50:00: Second brain, Things, Building a Second Brain, Pandemic
  6. – 1:00:00: Things, Brazil, Ryan Hawk, Evernote
  7. – 1:04:01: United States (states), Mexico, Long Beach, Annual Life Review

Notable quotes from "How To Review Your Year (Without Being Hard on Yourself) | Tiago Forte"

  • I think goals are valuable. There's a very different way of approaching goals, which is to treat them as learning experiments. The ultimate test of whether a goal is a learning experiment.
    about Goal Setting · at
  • Of this, but I appreciate you being willing to go all over the place. Okay, I actually before we started recording, I told you about I've grown to really love doing yearly…
    about Ryan Hawk · at
  • So, yeah, that's that's the prep. And then the overarching structure that I recommend is just past, present, future.
    about Past, Present, Future Framework · at
  • Action. This is the reason, by the way, that I put so much emphasis on the annual.
    about Annual Life Review · at
  • Online content creator is kind of again is so obvious in hindsight. Of course, our growth depends on the content we create, the audience we build, and the people we bring into our ecosystem, but somehow that wasn't clear to me at that time.
    about Forte Labs · at
  • Sent this book I go, oh okay. this is cool. I wonder what Tiago is doing. So how does this all flow together with this doing the reviews, the annual reviews, the second brain…
    about Tiago Forte · at
  • With AI it's sort of all been supercharged cuz now what is the most important thing in getting value from AI? The thing that AI cannot produce itself is context.
    about Second brain · at
  • What a cool experience for your kids. okay, the book's called Life in Perspective, The Art and Power of The Annual Life Review. Really appreciate you. Yes, man. Love it. Really appreciate you sending me a copy so I.
    about Life in Perspective: The Art and Power of the Annual Life Review · at

Who and what is mentioned in this episode?

People

  • Tiago Forte — Person · Main guest · 1 mention · first at
    Author and teacher who presents the ARC annual review framework and discusses goal-setting, reflection, and the second brain
  • Ryan Hawk — Person · Host · 5 mentions · first at
    Host of The Learning Leader Show conducting the interview and sharing his own experience with yearly reviews
  • Marc Andreessen — Person · Referenced commentator · 2 mentions · first at
    Referenced for a viral clip claiming top founders have no time for reflection; discussed and critiqued by Tiago
    Of this before we get to the kind of the present and the future, there were some or there was a viral clip that went around. I think it was Marc Andreessen who was talking about the fact that like big-time leaders, founders who are.
  • James Clear — Person · Referenced peer · 1 mention · first at
    Mentioned by Ryan as someone who stopped publishing yearly reviews; used as a conversational example
    Ohio, and so we've been fortunate to do some events together. And I said, James, you stopped publishing your yearly review, and that bums me out because I loved reading your…
  • Ali Abdaal — Person · Referenced peer · 1 mention · first at
    Mentioned as someone who stopped publishing income reports, used as an example in the discussion of sharing progress publicly
    My friend Ali Abdaal, the YouTuber, he stopped publishing he would do these like income reports. I remember, yeah, I watched them and yeah. Right. And I asked him the same thing, the.
  • Austin Kleon — Person · Referenced practitioner · 1 mention · first at
    Mentioned in passing as an influencer with an "analog desk" concept that aligns with Tiago's concrete-over-abstract suggestion
    Mhm. Yeah, I like that. I wonder if you've had the same feeling as I've talked to more people over the years, especially high performers who are putting a positive dent in the.

Books & papers

  • Life in Perspective: The Art and Power of the Annual Life Review — Book · Media product (book) · 1 mention · first at
    Primary product being promoted and discussed; the episode centers on concepts from this book
  • Building a Second Brain — Book · Referenced work · 2 mentions · first at
    Tiago's earlier bestselling book referenced as part of his background and expertise in PKM
    Well, you became known as the second brain guy. I think you're still known as that probably to a lot of people online.
  • Welcome to Management: How to Grow From Top Performer to Excellent Leader — Book · Referenced book (host authored) · 1 mention · first at
    Full title of the host's first book, included in episode context to establish host credentials
    I'll say pick up the book for sure.
  • Welcome to Management — Book · Referenced book · 1 mention
    Mentioned in the episode context as the host Ryan Hawk's authored work (host background)
  • The PARA Method — Book · Referenced work · 2 mentions · first at
    Referenced in episode description as part of the guest's prior authored work and background
    Tiago Forte wrote the bestseller Building a Second Brain and The PARA Method.
  • Atomic Habits — Book · Referenced work · 1 mention · first at
    Mentioned as an example of a bestselling self-help book used as a comparison for potential viral success
    You put out into the world, the more likely it is that your demand will be higher. For example, if this book sells a million copies within the next 6 months, your demand is…
  • The Psychology of Money — Book · Referenced work · 1 mention · first at
    Mentioned alongside Atomic Habits as examples of books that went viral and greatly increased demand for the author
    You put out into the world, the more likely it is that your demand will be higher. For example, if this book sells a million copies within the next 6 months, your demand is…

Companies & orgs

  • Forte Labs — Company · Company owned by guest · 2 mentions · first at
    Tiago founded Forte Labs; it is the organization behind his teaching and courses
  • X Corporation — Company · Platform referenced · 4 mentions · first at
    Ambiguity resolved by clarifying platform and canonical name
    Of this. There's books, there's conferences, there's YouTube channels and everything.
  • Fiat — Company · Referenced company · 1 mention · first at
    Used as an example client while describing design-thinking workshops the guest participated in early in his career
    Boutique consulting firm in San Francisco for a few years. And it just amazed me like we'd have clients that were big automakers like Fiat or like big multinational corporations, Toys R Us, AT&T. And I swear half the time we would.
  • AT&T — Company · Referenced company · 1 mention · first at
    Mentioned as an example of large corporate clients the guest worked with in design-thinking engagements
    Boutique consulting firm in San Francisco for a few years. And it just amazed me like we'd have clients that were big automakers like Fiat or like big multinational corporations, Toys R Us, AT&T. And I swear half the time we would.
  • Toys R Us — Company · Referenced company · 1 mention · first at
    Cited as another example of corporate clients during the guest's consulting work
    Boutique consulting firm in San Francisco for a few years. And it just amazed me like we'd have clients that were big automakers like Fiat or like big multinational corporations, Toys R Us, AT&T. And I swear half the time we would.

Products & tech

  • Things — Product · Digital product (task manager) · 26 mentions · first at
    One of Tiago's tools for collecting snippets year-round to build his annual review
    I have a project in my task manager.
  • Evernote — Product · Tool referenced · 1 mention · first at
    Mentioned as Tiago's primary note-taking app for collecting review material
    A memory, an idea, a question, I just drop them in there. And then at the end of the year, I pretty much just go through what's I've collected there and that's that's everything.
  • Google Docs — Product · Referenced product · 1 mention · first at
    Mentioned as an example of the digital tools people use for note-taking and organizing ideas
    Note-taking systems and Google Docs and everything that get to the analog desk and don't My thing is like you got to have the patience, though, right?

Concepts & topics

  • Annual Life Review — Concept · Core topic · 2 mentions · first at
    Central framework of the episode — a structured yearly reflection process (ARC) for learning and goal-setting
  • Goal Setting — Concept · Key argument · 5 mentions · first at
    Discussed as integral but should be informed by reflection; Tiago frames goals as learning experiments
  • Past, Present, Future Framework — Concept · Framework · 3 mentions · first at
    Tiago's recommended structure for the annual review (study the past, reflect on the present, create the future)
  • Second brain — Concept · Referenced concept · 4 mentions · first at
    Tiago's earlier work (Building a Second Brain) and his teaching on externalizing knowledge informs his view on reflection and AI
  • Learning experiments — Concept · Strategy · 3 mentions · first at
    Tiago's recommended mindset for goals — treat goals as experiments where failure yields learning
    Very different way of approaching goals, which is to treat them as learning experiments. The ultimate test of whether a goal is a learning experiment is very simple, which is I love the book. I've I've become a much bigger fan of.
  • Personal knowledge management — Concept · Underlying discipline · 1 mention · first at
    Domain of Tiago's earlier work (second brain) and relates to how he collects review material year-round
    So the two kind of main places that I capture on my are my task manager, which is called Things, and then my note-taking app, which is mainly Evernote. So I just have a project in.
  • New Year's Resolutions — Concept · Contrast / common practice · 3 mentions · first at
    Mentioned as the common but often weak way people set intentions; Tiago contrasts it with structured annual review
    Management consulting culture that is has flaws or limitations. The other big one is New Year's resolutions.
  • Christianity — Concept · Personal background · 2 mentions · first at
    Part of Tiago's personal history; he described leaving the Christian faith and how that shaped his worldview
    Think the big one in my life, and this kind of relates to my parents as well. The big one was really leaving the Christian faith that I was raised with.
  • Imposter's Journey / Hedonic Treadmill — Concept · Psychological observation · 1 mention · first at
    Used to describe the feeling of emptiness after achieving goals and the chase being the reward
    All along the with the journey. It's kind of a cliché, right? It was the journey. So, he So, he enjoyed that feeling all along the way, which is the main reason he achieved it.…
  • Corporate performance review — Concept · Contrast / caution · 1 mention · first at
    Used as an example of a flawed model (self-criticism, grading) that people mistakenly apply to personal annual reviews
    [clears throat] There's this idea, which I think comes from corporate performance reviews, which is most people really most people's main exposure to something like this,.
  • Apologetics — Concept · Referenced activity · 3 mentions · first at
    Tiago described studying apologetics in college, which led him to question his faith
    The initial spark was I really got into apologetics, which is the the practice of defending Christianity using science.
  • Mindfulness — Concept · Related idea · 3 mentions · first at
    Related to presence and appreciation practices discussed during the review process
    Do you have any tools, mantras, rituals that help you be good like living in the moment, being appreciative of the moment, whether it's family time or other? Like what do.
  • Evangelical Christianity — Concept · Personal background · 2 mentions · first at
    Describes the religious environment Tiago was raised in and later left
    And I had been raised in this evangelical megachurch in Southern California, like the hardcore ones you hear about. I wanted to be a missionary all through my teen years. I.
  • Paradigm Shift — Concept · Descriptive idea · 1 mention · first at
    Tiago describes crossing paradigms (conversion/deconversion) as a key developmental process
    To have it shatter and break and then to step into a new paradigm.
  • Catholicism — Concept · Family religious background · 1 mention · first at
    Referenced as part of Tiago's father's background and the dynamic of religious transitions in the family
    That all sounds very familiar. It's exactly how I felt when I became a Christian. It was like my deconversion was just an exact reversal of his conversion. And what that made me think to finally get to answering.
  • Delayed Gratification — Concept · Related concept · 1 mention · first at
    Mentioned as a benefit of future orientation when setting goals
    They're so clear. Like with the future, it's very positive. There's a clear upside to being future-oriented. You're good at delaying gratification. You're good at envisioning and planning and.
  • Design thinking — Concept · Method / influence · 1 mention · first at
    Cited as an influence on Tiago's recommendation to make things concrete (visual/post-its) during reviews
    Yeah, where this came from, too, was design thinking. I worked for a boutique consulting firm in San Francisco for a few years. And it just amazed me like we'd have clients that.

Places & events

  • Rio de Janeiro — Place · Incident location · 2 mentions · first at
    Location of Tiago's near-death/held-up-at-gunpoint incident that catalyzed his reflection practice
    I was 23 years old and I was held up at gunpoint and sort of briefly abducted by this drug trafficker. I was living in Brazil, partying a lot, drinking a lot, and it just kind of woke me up to start.
  • Brazil — Place · Setting / personal history · 7 mentions · first at
    Tiago recounted being held up in Brazil at age 23; he lived and volunteered there and anchors some reviews to New Year there
    I was 23 years old and I was held up at gunpoint and sort of briefly abducted by this drug trafficker. I was living in Brazil, partying a lot, drinking a lot, and it just kind of woke me up to start.
  • United States (states) — Place · Context / origin · 5 mentions · first at
    Mentioned as Ryan's country and as part of Tiago's family background and residence plans
    We'll go home. We'll go We kept our place in Long Beach. So, which is also where our families are.
  • Pandemic — Event · Contextual event · 4 mentions · first at
    Pandemic accelerated Tiago's business growth (and later contraction) and illustrated limits of demand-led growth
    Then the pandemic started and the business like 10x from one year to another, from 2019 to 2020.
  • Mexico — Place · Current residence / family context · 2 mentions · first at
    Tiago and family live in Mexico to give their kids cultural/Spanish exposure and for a stronger social environment
    We moved for a whole variety of reasons.
  • Southern California — Place · Cultural background · 2 mentions · first at
    Tiago describes being raised in an evangelical megachurch in Southern California
    And I had been raised in this evangelical megachurch in Southern California, like the hardcore ones you hear about. I wanted to be a missionary all through my teen years. I.
  • Long Beach — Place · Residence / family ties · 2 mentions · first at
    Clarified as location rather than generic term
    We'll go home. We'll go We kept our place in Long Beach. So, which is also where our families are.
  • Ohio — Place · Referenced location · 1 mention · first at
    Mentioned to establish Ryan Hawk's and James Clear's connection to Ohio in conversation
    Way. I don't know if you do, too. But, I had this conversation with James Clear. We He's an Ohio guy. I live in Ohio, and so we've been fortunate to do some events together.…
  • San Francisco — Place · Referenced location · 1 mention · first at
    Mentioned as the city where the guest worked for a boutique consulting firm early in his career
    Yeah, where this came from, too, was design thinking. I worked for a boutique consulting firm in San Francisco for a few years. And it just amazed me like we'd have clients that were big automakers like.
  • Philippines — Place · Referenced location · 1 mention · first at
    Referenced as part of the guest's family heritage and one of the countries ancestors migrated from
    And the and so we know quite a bit of their stories. We know the story of coming over from China to the Philippines, the story of immigrating from Italy to Brazil.
  • Central America — Place · Referenced location · 1 mention · first at
    Mentioned as one of the mission trip destinations during the guest's youth
    California, like the hardcore ones you hear about. I wanted to be a missionary all through my teen years. I went on mission trips. One to Central America, one to Africa, one to…
  • Washington, D.C. — Place · Referenced location · 1 mention · first at
    Mentioned as the city where the guest organized an apologetics event while in college
    But, I like I like organized a whole event at my university in Washington D.C.
  • China — Place · Referenced location · 1 mention · first at
    Mentioned as an ancestral origin in the guest's family background
    And the and so we know quite a bit of their stories. We know the story of coming over from China to the Philippines, the story of immigrating from Italy to Brazil.
  • Italy — Place · Referenced location · 1 mention · first at
    Mentioned as part of the guest's maternal ancestry (Italian descent through Brazil)
    And the and so we know quite a bit of their stories. We know the story of coming over from China to the Philippines, the story of immigrating from Italy to Brazil.

Media & podcasts

  • The Learning Leader Show — Media · Podcast · 1 mention · first at
    The program hosting the interview; Ryan Hawk is the host and interviews Tiago about his book
    Over the years, written work, videos, and I've I feel like I've learned over the 11 and 1/2 years of doing this podcast that I don't want to stack rank like attributes that you need to be an.
  • Ali Abdaal's Income Reports — Media · Referenced media · 1 mention · first at
    Cited as an example of a creator who stopped publishing income reports once they became less widely applicable
    I watched them and yeah. Right. And I asked him the same thing, the exact same question. He was dude, once you're like at like 5 million, no one There's no one that can relate…

Sponsors

  • Allstate — Sponsor · Sponsor (mentioned in episode metadata) · 3 mentions · first at
    Detected as a sponsor reference in the episode context (episode page mentions Allstate in sponsor content)
    This episode is brought to you by Allstate.

Full transcript with timestamps

I was 23 years old and I was held up at gunpoint and sort of briefly abducted by this drug trafficker. I was living in Brazil, partying a lot, drinking a lot, and it just kind of woke me up to start asking things like, "What do I want to do with my life?" I had not really been a reflective or introspective person.

There are no failures until you stop telling stories. This is a great way of understanding why this book exists.

How do you personally set goals? What do you do? I think goals are valuable. There's a very different way of approaching goals, which is to treat them as learning experiments. The ultimate test of whether a goal is a learning experiment is very simple, which is

I love the the book. Um I've I've become a a much bigger fan of I guess reflection. Maybe that sounds weird, but I think um you've done a an incredible job on a deep dive of that. But I want to start with um maybe a more personal part, and I want to make sure I pronounce this right, but you dedicate the book to Deia, my greatest teacher in the meaning of perspective. What made you dedicate the book to her?

That's my daughter. That's my uh just about to turn 4-year-old daughter. And uh I think it's dedicated to her because she has the most joyful, light-filled, positive attitude. Definitely of of anyone in our family.

Really? But just generally, she's just I don't know I don't know how she does it or what it is, but she just, you know, even when it's hot or it's, you know, she's thirsty or she's skinned her knee at school, she just always sees things from a certain perspective, from a certain lens, and just has the most incredible positive attitude and enthusiasm for for life.

I love it. Another family member you mentioned as both of your parents, and you said, quote, "You set in motion the stance toward the world that led to everything I am today. A stance of curiosity, introspection, and a search for deeper truth. Really cool words, man. What was it What is it about your parents that set that up for you?

I just trace everything everything that I consider important or the major aspects of my personality, my outlook on life I just always trace those back to my parents. As I get older, there were there were things that I thought, "Oh, no, I didn't get that from my parents or I'm not going to be that way, you know, similar to how my parents are." And as I get older, I just realized, "Oh, I just hadn't reached that life stage yet."

Oh. Uh and so I think I I just credit them with, you know, kind of the essence of who I am, just based on I mean, their profound influence on me raising me.

Yeah. Um I sense a deep intellectual curiosity when I've followed your work over the years, written work, videos, um and I've I feel like I've learned over the 11 and 1/2 years of doing this podcast that I don't want to stack rank like attributes that you need to be an effective leader, but a deep intellectual curiosity is really high on that list. I'm curious what you think about that.

Oh my gosh, yeah. Especially these days, I feel like where the pace of change has accelerated so much. Um if you don't have this deep curiosity about the nature of the underlying nature of things, how the world works, how people work, how all that is changing, then then then I guess you're going to be you're going to be too fixed. You're going to be too rigid. Uh curiosity is just another way of saying motivation for learning.

Mhm. And learning is the most important skill in a world of immense and rapid change.

How as far as mind-changing Um I also think that shows signs of curiosity, of being open-minded, of uh I think a lot of security in oneself because like in the in the political landscape here in the states, you know, if if they if you change your mind, you're you're like a flip-flopper. And I I think that is just so lame. Uh I think that's the the worst um things to say about someone who's willing to be curious and when better evidence presents itself, they change their mind. I think that is awesome. And I feel like again, uh you're you're on that wavelength as well when it comes to changing your mind. Can you think about things that you've changed your mind about, maybe over the past 3 to 5 years that's that's been helpful for you?

I often uh arrive at you know, things I'm changing my mind about through my my annual review. That's sort of the uh the moment that it crystallizes, but um I think you said, you know, over 3 to 5 years. Those That's exactly the range of time in which I became a father. And that has changed my mind about everything.

Everything from the importance of ambition, you know, the importance of, you know, always be pushing, always be striving, limitless, have limitless ambitions. I think I've largely just let go of that idea. Uh under the influence of my kids. Um at least like business ambitions, you know, like empire building ambitions. Um what else? I mean, going back, I think the big one in my life, uh and this kind of relates to my parents as well. The big one was really leaving the Christian faith that I was raised with.

Mhm. That was the That was the ultimate. That happened when I was about 20. Um and I had been raised in this evangelical megachurch in Southern California, like the the hardcore ones you hear about. I wanted to be a missionary all through my teen years. I went on mission trips. One to Central America, one to Africa, one to Europe. I was like hard like like as a teenager, like 15, 16, 17 years old. I was hardcore and my family was hardcore. Um and I can still I'll never forget I can still remember that feeling of like of letting go. It was more than just a belief. You know, when you're raised that way, it's a whole that's a whole worldview, a whole belief system. It touches every single aspect of reality.

Um and we can talk more about that if you want, but you know, what the the funny thing is I I later realized is I told my dad about, you know, this this sort of deconversion experience I had and what it was like and all these things. He's he's still a devout Christian. And he was like, "Oh, yeah, that all sounds very familiar. It's exactly how I felt when I became a Christian." It was it was like my deconversion was just an exact reversal of his of his conversion. And what that made me think to to finally get to answering your question is it was almost [clears throat] like we both what we needed at a similar stage of our development was to leave our current paradigm.

To have it shatter and break and then to step into a new paradigm. That was the value. It almost didn't matter which paradigm we were going from and to. We just needed to cross that threshold. And I almost wonder if that's true of others. If we if we all need or at least would benefit from just leaving some existing paradigm to understand viscerally that there are other paradigms.

Was your dad upset with you? No, that was the weird thing, too. He completely understood.

Really? He completely understood because he because he had done the same thing. His He was raised Catholic and his transition was to evangelical Christianity. Which to a Catholic family was as much of a sort of like like extreme radical act as going from an evangelical to like atheism.

Real quick, 94% of you watching right now are not subscribed. I interview world-class leaders every week. If this is worth your time, subscribe below and I'll see you on next week's episode. What made you do that?

I mean, the the the initial spark was I really got into apologetics, which is the the the the practice of defending Christianity using science. Like defending it. It's a whole subfield of this. There's books, there's conferences, there's YouTube channels and everything. Um I was in college, and I was part of like an apologetics group, and we

It's called apologetics? Apologetics. Um yes. Okay, never heard that phrase. Okay.

It's a It's a niche of a niche. Like only only a hardcore evangelical Christian would even would even know about this.

Okay. But, um I I like I like organized a whole event at my university uh in Washington D.C. about apologetics. And like I had I had people like arguing against us, and it was like this this this big deal. But, anyway, um I just dug deep enough that I just realized it it just did not make sense. It was like I kept trying to research more and dig deeper and deeper and deeper to try to find this like evidence that the Bible was true, and I just I kept uncovering more evidence that it wasn't.

Man, I did not expect to talk about any of this, but but I appreciate you being willing to go all over the place. Okay, I actually um before we started recording, I told you about um I've grown to really love doing yearly reviews, and I publish them. And before we get into it, I want to dig really deep into all of the review stuff because, again, it's um it's it's become something not only do I love to do, but I love reading other people's in a weird way. I don't know if you do, too. But, I had this conversation with um James Clear. We He's an Ohio guy. I live in Ohio, and so we've been uh fortunate to do some events together. And I said, "James, you stopped publishing your yearly review, and that bums me out because I loved reading your yearly review. I have for like the first I I started reading him, you know, 15 years ago. And uh he goes, "At some point, dude, it it comes across as bragging or

like putting in people's face when things are going really, really well. And I thought, yeah, it's it's a good point. What do you What do you think of that?

I've encountered this a number of times. My friend Ali Abdaal, the YouTuber, he stopped publishing he would do these like income reports. I remember, yeah, I I watched them and and yeah. Right. And And I asked him the same thing, the exact same question. He was like, dude, once you're like at like 5 million, no one There's no one that can relate to that. And And the lessons that you're trying to share don't apply to hardly anyone. So, he just stopped. I I think there is something to that. At least when it comes to like like in both these cases it's content. These people are producing content for their audience.

So, maybe that's part of why it sort of tops out, but it is it is true. The way that I try to counteract that is just sharing the the the failures and the mistakes and the and the the downturns, you know, the business downturns just as much as the successes.

So, let's get into the process because your most recent book is focused entirely on on this. Okay, you have these three stages, past, present, future, and some prep beforehand and you call it ARC, A-R-C, appreciate the past, reflect on the present, create the future. Can we Can we start high-level and then I'll start drilling down so that we can actually make this something that people start doing like immediately after this, read the book, and then do it for yourself.

Totally. Let's do it. Okay. High-level, break it down. Like what's your mindset on just as a whole, reflection, yearly reviews, planning for the future, goal setting, you know, let's just start high again and then we'll drill down.

Yes. Okay, so this is a great way of understanding why this book exists and what it's trying to accomplish. The The way The way I always think about it about it is just like the landscape, the cultural landscape. So, in this case you could say it's the cultural landscape of like productivity, personal development, and achievement, right? And you can just like look at the landscape. You just like know, if you read if you read and you're active in this in this genre. And one looking across that landscape at what what project I was going to do next when I was first deciding what book to write, um I just think this this is the big gaping hole. There's a big missing piece here. Most people when they think about just the future, let's say, they think goal setting. There's a bunch of problems with goal setting. It's it's a quite old idea rooted in the 1950s management consulting culture um that is is is has flaws or

limitations. The other big one is New Year's resolutions. It's good to periodically revisit what you want to change about your life, but most people just don't put anywhere near as much structure and intention into it. And so I'm kind of trying to simultaneously fuse those ideas, like tie goal setting to this annual cycle, but then also address all these these flaws and pitfalls that I see um drawing from from my experience of doing these for the past 16, 17 years, and then my teaching and coaching.

Okay, so um let's start with the reflection of the current year. So, we get to whatever December of 2026, let's say, and somebody has never done this before or maybe they've done like a little bit of thinking and maybe a New Year's resolution, but that's about it. So, if you're you come across a group of those types of people or those that that is a a group, where do you start? What what's the process?

It starts with really the preparation, things like setting aside the time. Mhm.

Um if you don't set aside the time, you don't protect it, then there will just be no no time and space for this to happen.

So, like put put 8 to 16 hours on your calendar, do it right now so that it's set, and do this in December, you think?

December's the most the end of the calendar year is the most common time. Okay.

Uh I talk about in the book some other, you know, common options, but I would say there's something about the end of the year that just has this kind of personal significance.

So, right, yours is the end of the year, your wife's is different though, is that correct?

She does the end of the lunar New Year. Okay. Okay. But you're a December guy, right?

Okay. Yeah, I guess I don't know what I guess I just conventional. I just like the end of the year. I feel like work kind of winds down and before it winds up again in January, I want to I want to use that moment.

Okay. So, what what are we doing? What questions are we asking? What are we thinking about? How are we structuring this?

Yeah. So, um the other thing with preparation that I would note is just gathering your stuff. For most people it tends to be just kind of all over the place, right? So, um you know, getting your calendar if it's digital, just synced to your device so you can just look at your calendar like all at once. If you have any project material, gathering that in I don't know, folder in your computer. If there's anything on paper, journal entries, just like get just literally just gathering it together because you don't want to be at this moment of beautiful reflection and then be like, "Oh, shoot, where where is that one, you know, that one thing?"

So, yeah, that's that's the prep. And then the overarching structure that I recommend is just past, present, future. It's kind of straightforward. Study the past. Really try to to to extract those lessons and those memories. Then move into the present. What's alive for you now? What's exciting? What open questions do you have? What needs attention? And then move to the future, which is usually where people start. They just like launch into these goals and New Year's resolutions while ignoring the past. To me, you want to start in the past and then build and and create this momentum toward the future.

When you're doing the reflection, what are the questions you're asking so that you can reflect and understand how the year went, what you loved, what you didn't, what you did well, how you could do better, or what you could do better at. Like, what are the the specific questions you like to ask?

Yeah, a lot of the ones that you you just said. Mhm. Especially [clears throat] the past-facing ones are largely about just like cataloging what happened. It's incredible how you just forget.

Yeah. You just completely forget most of what happens. So, yeah, what were your your wins, or the areas that you grew? What were the risks you took? Uh what were any mistakes that you made, and what did you learn from them? What were your top five memories? Who were the people who most influenced you? It's really just like It's like a self-questionnaire to pull out of your mind, or out of your notes, or journal entries, whatever, the answers to these questions before they disappear.

What got you started on this? The very beginning what as I as I talk about in the prologue to the book was a near-death experience. [gasps]

Um I was 23 years old, and I was uh held up at gunpoint and sort of briefly abducted by this drug trafficker in a favela, or a slum, in Rio de Janeiro, in Brazil, where I was studying abroad and volunteering.

Mhm. Um and I just It was this waking up moment um of just having a having a brush with my mortality and starting to ask deeper questions. I I had not really been a a reflective or introspective person. I mean, I was living in Brazil, like partying a lot, drinking a lot. Um and it just kind of woke me up to to to start asking things like, "What do I want to do with my life? Where do I really want this all to go? Where do I want to end up? What I What do I want to look back and say that I did?" Um and the natural venue for the It just happened to be the first time this this really went down was the new year. I was was a beach in Brazil on on the morning of January 1st. And so maybe it just got kind of sort of anchored to that end of year, beginning of year period and I just followed it thereafter.

While we're still on the reflection part of this before we get to the kind of the present and the future, um there were some or there was a viral clip that went around. I think it was Marc Andreessen uh who was talking about the fact that like big-time leaders, founders who are building big things, they don't have time for reflection. They're just charging forward. That's all they're thinking about and I I again I thought it was insane and stupid because I've done a 700 whatever 15 of these now and a commonality among the greats over the past 11 and a half years in my conversations is they all have some sort of process to reflect and think about what they did well, what they didn't and how they could get better so that they could grow and improve. Literally like all of them.

What do you think of that when you saw that clip? I'm sure you saw it when you saw that going around that no, the the big founders that make things happen just charge forward and never stop to reflect.

Yeah. Yeah, I I I was around for that too. I'm I'm pretty active on X. And I mean on the face of it completely ludicrous, completely ridiculous. But you know, I think I think from having been on X so many years, I have sort of a a lens that I use for moments like this that that I find helpful, which is to ask instead of trying to put it into the two categories true or not true. Nothing is fully true or not true practically. I like to ask like what is the truth in this or what truth is this pointing to?

Mhm. Or even if it's just 1%, 0.1% and I think if I if I apply that lens, there is something that Mark is pointing to that I think is interesting, which is like if you if you reverse if you reverse it, um I think you can do too much reflection.

Yep. It's a funny it's a funny thing to say after having written this book, but it's like, you You we all know the person who's constantly in therapy and never changing anything about their relationships. We know the person who constantly Maybe we've been that person at times. I know I have. Who reads every self-help book, but makes no tangible changes in their habits. Who, you know, who journals endlessly, but doesn't seem to do anything with those insights into their inner life.

Yeah. So, I think I think there is something to the idea that there are times for action. This This is the reason, by the way, that um I put so much emphasis on the annual.

Mhm. Uh some people like to do quarterly or monthly or weekly, you know, reflection. I don't really. This is a weird thing to say, but I hardly do any structured reflection all year long.

Mhm. I feel like I'd rather just move forward what I'm committed to. And what that means usually is by the time I get to the year, I have a backlog. I have a whole year of sort of psychological cruft that needs examining, but great. I'll set aside several whole days to just work through that backlog.

Mhm. Yeah, I I like that. I I you know, I wonder if you've had the same feeling as I've talked to more people over the years, especially high performers who are putting a positive dent in the world, I think it's one of the biggest We talked about changes earlier. One of the biggest changes that I've personally made is at the beginning of this, I kind of viewed the world as it's either this or it's that. It's black or it's white. There's rules. And as I've talked to more people and got exposed to all these different sets of life experiences, I realized the world is super messy. It's really gray. And it makes you a more reasonable person that even if maybe there's parts of what they said you don't agree with or you think it's just flat wrong, you start becoming more reasonable and ask a question like that of what's the truth in this.

And then you find some of that. And that And that I think that makes you a more open-minded person who has a chance to learn and improve. But you're right. Then you also have to be a someone who has a bias for action because the people who make things happen, the leaders especially, who are putting a positive dent in the world, have a bias for action, probably mixed with a a good reflection process, again, which your your book can can help with.

Yeah, you need both. It's a balance. You need action and you need introspection. They each inform each other.

Yeah. Okay, let's get to You said past, present, future. Let's get to the present. What What are we focusing on when it comes to the present moment when you're doing this review?

Some of the internal elements that um often go overlooked, your emotions, your feelings, your intuition, your your inner voice, what's what's alive, what's exciting, what is emerging inside of you. Um I think that looking to So, there's each of the three dimensions of time has an upside, a certain unique benefit it provides, and also a downside. They're so clear. Like with the future, it's very positive. There's a clear upside to being future-oriented. You're good at delaying gratification. You're good at envisioning and planning and strategizing. The clear downside of of future orientation is you're not present.

Mhm. You're constantly projecting yourself into these imaginary scenarios and not enjoying the life you have now. Um with the pa- the past, similarly, the the upside is that you gain all these lessons and all the the you know, you see all the patterns and you extract insights. The downside is you can obviously become too anchored to the past. You can weight the past far too much. Uh and so, the three elements, they balance each other. Each one addresses the the weaknesses of the other. Um and so, often, so if you only look at the past, you might think that that's all there is, or that all you can do is just continue what you've always been doing, and just continuing the past.

But, I often find when you turn your attention to the present, which is just this narrow slice of time, there's a whole 'nother world available to you.

Mhm. You know, you find [clears throat] you're excited about a new relationship that is brand new, but it's like just consuming your attention. Or you you're just feeling or sensing that something that was right for you in the past is no longer going to work for you. And that information, it's really just information, is only available in the present. And so you you you got to it's its own stage, it's own world to to zoom in on is is just the present.

Do you have any tools, mantras, rituals that help you be good like living in the moment, being appreciative of the moment, whether it's family time or other? Like what what do you do to make sure you're present, fully alive, like in the moment and appreciating it?

In the context, I mean, I I definitely I definitely do for life in general, but in the context of a of a review, um [clears throat] I do as well. So, the the past is very like material-focused. I'm like look I'm always trying to look at things, not just like sit there and remember. I'm looking at materials, photos, my calendar, my journal, all these things. The present is almost the opposite. I try to get into nature, get away from all screens, all technology, uh which sort of inherently reduce presence. Uh try to spend time with people. It's the most social time. The the other parts of my review are intensely solitary. The present is the time to talk to people. Cuz the people in your life, your colleagues, your business partners, your your family, your friends, the there's something that about conversations like that that automatically brings you into the present. I mean, a conversation is like

the definition of presence, right? Um but then they also have this tendency to surface things. They just surface if you ask them, and I I have some examples in the book of questions you can ask them, you know, uh things like uh what can you depend on me for and what can you not depend on me for is a great one. Is a great one. Because people will have answers for both. Uh and so I would say, yeah, the presence presence sometimes is talked about as this sort of mystical thing that is oh presence it's like the spiritual concept. But I think there's a whole series of very tangible things you can do. You can proactively bring your attention into the present through all those things I mentioned.

And then once you do there's there's I keep coming back to this there's information. There's literal information available now in this moment that's passing that's not available in the past or the future.

[clears throat] Okay, let's get to the future. Um New Year's resolutions goal setting, right? These are the things that we hear about normally. Uh what is your process to think about and to prepare and to um figure out like the best way to set up your future for to for it to go how you want it to go?

Yeah, this is sort of the culmination of everything. Uh it's where most people start but it's kind of where I like to end. So there's a couple things. Um one is the goals or resolutions or whatever you call them are going to be so different when they are built on the evidence of the past. When they when they come from all the insights and realizations you gain from the past and the present. Um sometimes it's the same goal. Like I'll sometimes work with someone in my coaching they have a a goal to grow their business so much percentage. They might have arrived at that very same goal. This the goal is no different but they understand it in such a different way.

Like for example I I have this one this one coachee in mind um as an example who I won't name but you know in this situation I had him look at goals he'd achieved in the past both recent in the past 6 months, 12 months, and long in the past, and really had him try to return to the feeling that reaching that goal had provoked. What feeling did you expect? It's usually something like fulfillment, satisfaction, pride, empowerment, uh meaning, happiness, and then what did you What did you actually feel? And the conclusion that he came to uh which kind of funny how universal it is is that the the feeling actually seeking was far more present in the chase.

All along the with the journey. It's kind of a cliché, right? It was the journey. So, he So, he enjoyed that feeling all along the way, which is the main reason he achieved it. Not because he worked so hard and had so much self-discipline and grinded himself to dust, but because he enjoyed every little moment of the chase. And then but the the paradox of this is once you achieve the goal, the chase is over, and thus the feeling turns off. And so, there's this this very common feeling of a sense of almost disappointment.

Like you reach the goal, and it's like, "Oh, that's it?" Which then inspires the creation of a new goal to restart the chase.

What do we do about that? I think this this is a very common thing in high achievers, high performers is it doesn't feel like you thought it would. Becoming a best-selling author is one where you it kind of comes and goes when you fought for it for years. I mean, there are other ones. Winning a championship in sports even some It's cool with your buddies. I know that feeling. But then it's almost still like, "All right." Um maybe it's better on a team actually now that I think about it. But the individual goals, I know not are not nearly as gratifying as I as I ever like as I always thought they would be. Is this just a thing? Like what What do we do about that?

Yeah, I I think there's there's nothing inherently wrong with it. Yeah. Um I mean, we sort of depend on the progress of human civilization on people who go out

Yeah, I mean, keeps us hungry, right? Like we get the thing to eat and and give it to our family and we're like, all right, well, we got to go get something for for tomorrow, you know.

Yeah. What's that quote? All progress depends on the unreasonable man, on the person who can't be satisfied, who's just Yeah, exactly. Who's always hungry. What I would say though is what's important is to just learn from that moment.

Yeah. Uh to look back on it. So, you you did the chase, you reached the goal. Take a moment. All right, it could could be right then as you achieve the goals at some later point, at the end of the year, during your review. Because you can come away with and people do come away with very different conclusions. Some people's conclusion is, yes, this this is how I made up, this is my psychology. I'm just going to embrace it. I'm just going to expect that the chase is the reward. There's going to be a sense of disappointment when I achieve it. Just It's just embrace it, which has value in just like accepting that side of you.

Um but often there's other conclusions. Like sometimes people conclude and this is the reason I I the course that I teach on annual reviews is live, delivered over Zoom, is I I want to hear these stories. This These stories are the best, right?

Mhm. Um sometimes people conclude that they sacrificed too much. Mhm. They sacrificed too much of their health, maybe their personal life, their relationships, their mental or spiritual life. And that's also important to just to just see and take into account. Maybe next time you could have the chase and get that feeling that you're going after without sacrificing so much. That might just be a decision you make. It require a different approach.

Uh let's get into goal setting. Uh let's again start high level. Where are you at? What How do you feel about setting goals?

Yes. Um I think goals are valuable. Uh there's 10 years, I'd say, uh going back 10 years of um either criticizing goals or attacking goals. You know, you hear people say sort of attack, you know, the hustle culture and the grind set and different things. And again, there's truth There's truth in those criticisms. But goals, I mean, just from a basic a basic mechanical perspective of just knowing what to do next, knowing what direction to walk in. Like, you have you have to have a goal. Um all the more so when other people are involved, and other people are involved in most significant goals, right? Um to just set the direction that the group is going, you need goals. I just think it needs to be balanced. Needs to be balanced with self-knowledge, knowledge of what's worked in the past, uh knowledge of your intuitions and your emotions, uh to sort of counterbalance that tendency to just like, you know, be too

much into hust- the hustle mindset. How do you personally like set goals? What do you do? What What are examples of of some of them, whether it's personal or and/or professional?

Maybe this this is also kind of answering the previous question. The main way that I approach different uh goals differently is if you treat There's There's a very different way of approaching goals, which is to treat them as learning experiments. And you know that the ultimate test of whether a goal is a learning experiment is very simple, which is you are just as happy for the goal to fail as to succeed. Because typically when an endeavor fails, when a goal fails, you learn much more. You learn much more in failure than success.

Hm. Um and what's odd about this is it kind of leads to goals that on the surface sound the same. You know, like like even the whole thing about being specific, which I which I agree with. I recommend being very specific with your goals. Uh with this lens of treating it as a learning experiment, the reason you want the specificity is because there's more ways for it to go wrong. So, for example, in my business, I'll often sit instead of saying, "Okay, we want to grow top line revenue 20%." That's not a very That's not a very helpful learning learning goal. A better one would be to make it much more specific. You know, we are going to launch a new flagship program, which is going to raise the uh the lifetime value of a customer by this much, uh lead to these margins, and it will be delivered by these facilitators that we're going to recruit. That specificity has so many ways of going wrong. It's

like five hypotheses wrapped up in that goal, each one of which could be proven wrong and teach us something.

Do you have a a uh a good example of a goal you set that you missed and you were happy because it was a good learning experiment for you?

Yes. Oh my gosh, so many. Most of our business goals, I would say, uh fit this shape. We always predict We We set a goal for how much we want to grow, which usually has to do with revenue or profit. And then we have almost like a list of assumptions, a list of hypotheses over how that's going to happen. And I would say most years, most of those assumptions are invalidated. So, an example, one year we doubled the number of cohorts. We said, "We're going to double This is a great one. We're going to double the number of cohorts that we run and therefore double revenue, right?" That's how That's how business works.

What instead we found was doubling the number of cohorts simply cut in half the number of students that we had in each cohort. We made no We had twice as much work and made no more money.

What How did that happen? Why did it happen that way? Well, it was the lesson that came out of that, which to this day is one of the best lessons I've learned, which is um the growth is completely gated by demand, which you don't control. Like demand, which which you could say is the number of qualified leads. To to put it in business speak. If you don't have the qualified leads, then no no amount of pitches and offers and new products and new offerings are going to make any difference.

Well, but growth definitely is gated by demand. You do have control over demand and that the more value you put out into the world, the more likely it is that your demand will be higher. For example, if this book sells a million copies within the next 6 months, your demand is going to be a lot higher. It already is high, but it's going to be a lot higher in 6 months than it is right now. And you don't fully know, however, your you've I assume, based on reading and prepping for this, you've worked really really hard for this book to be as good as it could possibly be on a topic that is very important that could help lots and lots of people.

You don't have full control over how many people choose to buy it, but you're going to go on podcast and do the you know, marketing type stuff to help get the word out. So that if somehow it goes viral like Psychology of Money or Atomic Habits, then your demand will skyrocket. So you do have you do have a a a say, even though not all of it is within your control, on the demand for what you offer.

Totally. Totally. Yeah. What I would say is at the moment of the launch, like right there, we're launching a product today, we have the demand that we have. On that day, at that moment, there's nothing that we can do to expand demand. But you're right, that realization

[clears throat] basically the the big realization that this this whole thing led to, which sounds so obvious in hindsight, it's incredible, is that our my company is marketing-led. I thought at the time that it was operations-led. That it was operations-centric. If we just increase our operational delivery, our operational excellence will grow, right? No.

We are a marketing-centric business. What Describe the difference between an operationally led business and a marketing led business.

Yeah, so so this led me down a rabbit hole and I I learned I can't remember where I learned this from, but probably a book somewhere, but that you can think of businesses as finance led, operations led, and marketing led. And as to do with I mean, they all matter. All businesses have all of them, but it's sort of like what is the heart of the business? What is the the bottleneck? What is the What is the main function that's going to determine the success of that business? Um and you see examples, clear examples, operational, finance, marketing. And I read this article and or book or whatever it was and realized that we're marketing-centric, which which as an online content creator is kind of again is so obvious in hindsight. Of course, our growth depends on the content we create, the audience we build, and the people we bring into our ecosystem, but somehow that wasn't clear to me at that

time. Why not? You know what I think it was? Um pre-pandemic, we were so tiny. Uh and grew so slowly. It's just like this perfectly even line cuz we were just so tiny. Then the pandemic started and the business like 10x from one year to another, from 2019 to 2020. And suddenly we were of a size that we had to think about things like this. We had to think of business I had to think of business in in a systematic way for the very first time. And I just had never had to. I would I was more or less kind of more like a freelancer with a couple contractors before that. And 2020 with the pandemic introduced me to business, basically.

Do you think it was just the shift that people were on screens more and weren't out into the world and that's that's why you guys blew up?

Yes, and that was another very painful lesson around 2022 when the business that had 10x started 10x in the other way and

collapsing. I'm glad we can laugh about it, but that's not not very funny in the moment.

It was not funny. Oh my gosh, it was a catastrophe. I had to let go. I had to hire this, you know, 2020 2020 and 2021 I saw this line starting to go exponential. And of course I just thought, oh that this is what you hear about in the startup movies and the stories. It just keeps going, right? It just

it just gets extrapolated, but I learned in 2022 and 2023 I had to I had to let go of this big team I had hired, unwind all these investments I've made. And the lesson there was I really saw how unique the circumstances were of the pandemic that had led to so much growth.

Well, you you became known as the second brain guy. I think you're still known as that probably to a lot of people online. Uh do do you like that?

Yeah. Now it's increasingly the This is sort of the direction that came out of that crisis period. Now it's the AI second brain. It's the same idea but with AI at the center.

Yeah, so it's this this book is like kind of of a departure from that. Like there's a little AI in here, but I've I've noticed the AI second brain stuff. Um I'm curious about it. I've dug into some of the work and then when your team sent this book I go, oh okay. Um this is cool. I wonder what Tiago is doing. So how does this all flow together with this doing the reviews, the annual reviews, the second brain stuff, the AI second brain stuff? Like how does it all flow together?

Yeah, it in my mind so clearly. But I think I have some work to do to kind of frame it all.

Okay. Um So something I noticed, you know, I spent about a decade focused on on the second brain.

Wait, can you can you define the second brain real quick? Yes, it's an external system at a piece of software where you offload and you externalize your memory, your ideas, your insights, the work that you do, your research so that your first brain, your human mind is free to be creative, to be present, to to to rest. Um and pre-AI that meant really digital note-taking or personal knowledge management, PKM. Um with AI it's sort of all been supercharged cuz now what is the most important thing in getting uh value from AI? The thing that AI cannot produce itself is context.

It needs context. Needs to know your knowledge, your expertise, your experience, the way you do things, your personal details. And so um over those years working on the second brain, uh I just noticed that people don't know what they want. And they don't know what direction they want to go in. They're all It's almost like they're creating all these technological systems in a second brain and AI and now AI to try to tell them what is important to them, where their lives or their career should be going, uh set their priorities for them, tell them what they believe. And that just doesn't work that way. Really doesn't work that way. I think with AI, AI has this ability to lead you down so many paths so quickly that it's be just become more important than it ever was to know exactly where you want it all to go.

Hm. And to bring that intention and that that goal or that uh that direction to AI so that AI is helping you go there rather than expecting AI to tell you, you know, the answers to these fundamental questions.

Got you. Um okay, I want to get back to to some of the review stuff. The um I I like these rules. I believe this is in chapter three. You call them PACE. Pleasure over sacrifice, appreciation over criticism, concrete over abstract, and emotion over analysis. Can you go a little bit deeper on PACE and these four rules for for all of it?

Those four principles are [clears throat] meant to counteract some of the biggest pitfalls that I notice in my coaching and in my teaching. Um you know, the the high achiever that who is who is really the person most likely to want to do something like an annual review in the first place tend to fall into this series of traps. Uh the first one sacrifice. They think, oh, everything worthwhile is the result of just hard grueling effort. And so they make this annual review into this painful, grueling, self-flagellating, self you know, self-critical thing. And that's just the very opposite of what makes an effective review.

Okay. So so we got pleasure over sacrifice, appreciation over criticism. Yeah, it's kind of related, but

Yeah. um in different language. [clears throat] There's this idea, which I think comes from corporate performance reviews, which is most people really most people's main exposure to something like this,

Right? Yep. So they get that idea that they were experienced or were subjected to as part of a uh corporation and they think, oh, now I'm just going to do that on myself. And then they grade themselves and rate themselves and essentially criticize and dissect their mistakes and failings, which again is the absolute opposite of what this thing is about.

I I have a I have a just got a little uh bubble popped in my head of of sitting with my manager after I was a sales rep for 12 years and manager and director and all that and um remember I had like a really really good year where I finished at the top of the stack rankings, all this and you got rated one to five and a one was the best you could do. And and I remember like every goal I would they were just destroyed, you know, number one in the company and he gave me a two um and I said based on every metric, you know, not only did I beat it, but destroyed it, how do you not like why didn't I get a one? And he's like, well, we just don't give ones. I go, well, then what's the point of having the number scale if you don't give a one?

And he's like, well, it's just how we do it. I I like, "This is the dumbest thing I've ever seen." Like I was so mad visibly and and let him know that I just if I ever had a chance to be in charge of something like that, I would never have a scale where you don't actually use the scale, you know? So, yeah, I like this idea of pleasure over sacrifice, appreciation over criticism. How about this? Concrete over abstract.

Yeah, that one [cough and clears throat] I noticed that people who especially people who who spend much of their day manipulating information on computers, which is a very abstract thing to do. Uh or they're very smart, and so they can create these these mental models and these structures in their head all up here, right? Uh that person especially needs to get out of their head. They need to get big pieces of paper and draw, and they need to put up Post-its. They need to uh just feel their senses and feel physical things or see them because there's just a whole another series of insights that are available through concrete mediums rather than abstract ones.

So, you're a big fan of like the Austin Kleon analog desk, right? He's got the analog and then the digital one.

Yeah, where this came from, too, was design thinking. I worked for a a boutique consulting firm in San Francisco for a few years. And it just amazed me like we we'd have clients that were like, you know, big automakers like um like Fiat or like um big multinational corporations, Toys "R" Us, AT&T. And I swear half the time we would just get everyone into a conference room and just make everything visual. Like what was that idea? One idea per Post-it. It's like childish almost, right? And then once you get everything tangible and visual, suddenly they all go, "Oh, well, the answer is clear. You just connect this to this pattern to that It's just like that's half the battle." I think it's just making things

I I I think I I personally need that as much as anybody cuz I'm so tied to my note-taking systems and Google Docs and everything that that get to the analog desk and don't My thing is like you got to have the patience, though, right? Like you said that takes a little bit of time to write one note on a post-it and then post a hundred of them and before you know at the end of the day though you look around and that your your brain's like alive because you've seen so much going on. I I like that a lot. And then how about emotion over analysis?

Yeah, this is this is the fourth pitfall. Um [sighs] you know, most of my most of my the students in my courses they're they're they're in tech or tech-adjacent roles, information-intensive roles, roles or or kinds of work that they have to use their analytical mind a lot. And I almost find that among that group uh it's almost like the analytical brain has become overgrown. It's become overpowered. And they get to their year-end review and they're trying to analyze and there's a place for analysis. It's not it's not wrong. It's just you know, you can analyze your life to death and not be any happier or not have any more wisdom about what's missing. You have to bring it to the heart level. The heart knows things. The heart um the heart is the is the place. It's the it's it's where the feelings are arriving that were that we're seeking in the first place. That's that's that's it. That's the ultimate

you know, thing to listen to around what we want out of life and how to So are you asking question like how do I feel about that or how am I going to feel or how do I want to feel? Like are you talking about happiness? Like what do you what what are you doing to get to the to the emotion over the the analytics?

Yeah, there's a whole there's a whole set of ways. Um I think it starts with the environment like music for me. I recommend music strongly. It it it's almost like and I think for a lot of people one of the main gateways to their emotions. Um stepping away from screens and getting more into your senses, more into your body, more in touch with nature. It's part of that too. Um And the funny thing is there's there's systematic ways of accessing your emotions, which is kind of a funny way of thinking about it. Such as the gratitude list.

The very first exercise I have people do at the very start of their review and and that I do. There's something so unique about making a massive list of all the things you have to be most grateful for. Like it's it's really funny. It's almost like like one or two you can be like, okay, yeah, I'm grateful for that. I'm grateful for this. But when you see them all in one place, it is almost this like overwhelming sensation of my God, my life is just overflowing with blessings. You can't At least I can't help but feel it when I see but there's something about the the comprehensive list, like full catalog where all the evidence, it's like my my rational mind can no longer deflect and avoid the feeling once it's all there in front of me. I have to feel that that appreciation.

Mhm. Um big time proponent of of that. Uh okay. The operating principles though and I I liked reading yours. I This is page uh 209. Um okay. Uh on failure, quote, "There are no failures until you stop telling stories." Can you say more about that?

Yes, that's that's one of my my personal operating principles, which is a step that I have people do.

Mhm. Uh it's funny they don't necessarily have to make sense to anyone else. They're really written for your personal benefit. So, maybe that's one reason they're not completely clear. Uh but that one to me really comes from the idea that the difference between success and failure is a story. It's it's a narrative.

[snorts] Uh and narratives can be retold. They can be edited. They can be reframed. It's kind of a It's kind of my own way of wording a familiar idea that that I think is, you know, has been around for a long time, which is it's not the event, it's what you do with the event. It's the meaning that you decide to take away from the event.

Mhm. And I I like stories because I'm a storyteller at heart. Most of what I do is telling stories, which also kind of reminds me that like my best stories, my best content always comes from my mistakes.

Mhm. So, there's like a part of my brain that like when I see the mistake or the failure or the shortfall, it's a little part of my brain that can just be like, well, this will make an amazing YouTube video or an amazing story in a future book.

Mhm. I love it. Uh, on your deepest relationships quote, always be discovering them, never knowing them. What does that look like in practice?

Yeah, that really um was something I discovered through my relationship with my wife.

Mhm. And I don't know exactly how we discovered this, but it was this idea that if I ever thought I fully knew her, if I ever started assuming that I I'd seen it all, knew all her stories, knew every part of her, there were no surprises left, nothing left to discover, I kind of feel like that's the day that the relationship would die.

Mhm. Or at least that it would become stale. Uh, without that sense of never-ending discovery, I think I I think that never-ending discovery is the heart of of the most alive and vibrant relationships.

Being genuinely curious about somebody else and their stories and what makes them them, I think and maybe I'm projecting a bit, I think it is one of the most purest ways to show love. Yes. When you're actually not in a performative way, but you're actually into them. And this could happen anywhere, anytime, everywhere, with anybody if you have a mindset of being, I wonder what their story is. I wonder just about And this again, I I think about this at my my my kids sports games when I meet parents cuz that happens all the time now with the stage of life that I'm in. And showing up with just a brief pause before I get to the sideline or to the court or whatever and say, you're probably going to meet somebody there or see somebody that you see kind of in passing. What if you approach them with like a genuine interest in what makes them them? It's wild how you could build genuine kind of really cool relationships with people

that you didn't previously know. That combined with yes, your wife or those who you are in a uh relationship you plan to be in forever, always uh being curious about them and their stories and what it is about them that makes them them. I think that's an incredible way to show love.

Absolutely. Absolutely. Did you have to learn that or have you been Are you more innately like that?

I had to learn it. You weren't innately You don't think you're an innately curious person?

I think I am curious, but that attitude of of like intentional curiosity towards people

Yeah. I I'm such an introvert that my all my attention and curiosity tends to be like inward directed.

Mhm. And I I have to be I have to remind myself like, oh yeah, there's other people who each of them is their own world and has their own reality.

Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. I'm with you. I'm with you. Um how about this one on your heritage, quote, you are your ancestors wildest dream. What what does that mean?

I saw that on a t-shirt one time. So you're you're you're totally allowed to borrow your operating principles, sure, from elsewhere. Um and the way that I interpreted it, uh I I have this multi-ethnic family. Like my My mom is Brazilian, but of Italian descent, like just a couple generations back. and then my dad is American but half Filipino. And even the Filipino is mostly Chinese. My mom is really into genealogy and so she's traced all the family branches. And uh the and so we know quite a bit of their stories. We know the story of coming over from China to to the Philippines, the story of immigrating from Italy to Brazil.

And the more I learn about these stories that in some cases go back centuries, I'm just like if these ancestors could see me today, we just live in a totally science fiction universe. Like they just couldn't their minds would just be completely blown by the smallest daily detail, you know?

Yeah. It's just a reminder to keep that in mind when I get discouraged or depressed.

That perspective is helpful, I think. Is is really helpful, especially when you're feeling sorry for yourself or something doesn't go your way or facing some sort of adversity. Um the time here flew by. I got a couple more questions here. One of them is what's the what's the the next step? People listen to this, they've got a high-level feeling of some of the annual review stuff that you write about in your book. There's, you know, we touched on like 3% of it. So there's so much more to learn and to then actually go and do. That's what By the way, that's one thing I really like about this book is it sets you up to be extremely practical. Meaning to go do the thing instead of just have this new idea uh or like an academic. It's like, "No, this is how you actually do it." So I think that's really good. So what would you suggest? What would you say to someone say, "All right, Tiago Tiago, I

got a good feeling. I'm going to read the book. What what's what should I go do next?"

I mean, I'll say pick up the book for sure. Uh and really it's what you said exactly. All the insights come from just actually doing your review. You can read all sorts of other people's reviews, all the concepts, the history, the lessons learned. None of that is necessarily relevant to you. You have to just go through the experience yourself.

Have you started collecting anything for yours or no? Do you wait all the way until the end of the year to do all that?

Oh, no. I'm I'm collecting it all year long. All year How do you collect it all year long?

I have a project in my task manager. Uh so the the two kind of main places that I capture on my are my task manager, which is called Things, and then my note-taking app, which is mainly Evernote. So I just have a project in each of those two places that is annual review 2026. And as I come across often it's like little snippets, a story here, a memory, an idea, a question, I just drop them in there. And then at the end of the year, I pretty much just go through what's I've collected there and and that's that's everything.

Love it. Um okay, it's funny I'm asking you this question because it applies maybe to you more than anybody I've asked it to, but I've asked it a lot now. It's called the champagne question. Have you heard of this by chance?

No. Okay. [clears throat] We're meeting exactly 1 year from today. 1 year, okay? And you are surrounded by the people that you love and everybody with you is popping bottles. They're spraying it all over you and everybody else because you guys are celebrating like crazy. I am curious, what are you celebrating?

It's funny. It's nothing to do with, you know, the success of the book or anything. I think it's my We just had a We just had a kid about 5 months ago. So I guess it would be their I'm just not quite a birthday. They're 1 and 1/2 1 and 1/2 years of just health, happiness, and thriving.

Your third, correct? Our third, yeah. How's How's adding a third to the mix? How's it been for you?

Insane. It's insane. Do you guys Do you think you'll move back to the states? Yeah, we're starting to to think about this. I think we'll probably spend another 2 years in Mexico. Which means we would return back to the US in the summer of 2028.

What What made you move and what makes you want to come back in a couple years?

We moved for a whole variety of reasons. Um the main one was to give our kids an experience of just feeling Mexican and learning Spanish. My wife is Mexican-American, but wasn't raised speaking Spanish. So, she always had kind of this like hole in her soul. Like she was Mexican, but didn't truly have access to the culture. Uh and the fact that we can work remotely meant it was, you know, much easier. Uh the other the other reason was I just find maybe this is just Southern California or just the suburbs of LA, but we lived for 4 years there. We made no friends.

Wow. just hard to make friends in the US or at least in in Long Beach where we lived. Uh not through the school, didn't meet neighbors. Like we just found the social environment there so uh difficult. Whereas in Mexico I mean Latin America and Mexico is just like every day you see like five people you know. There's just the social life is at a whole different level. So, that was that was the other thing that we were looking for was a more active social life.

Hm. Um and the the main reason to go back honestly is just to do it again. We're going to spend the summer in the US and then, you know, if everything turns out leave within a few months to Brazil and do the whole thing. Spend another three or four years living in Brazil.

Oh, wow. So, go back to the US then go to Brazil? Yeah. What part of the US you're going to go to?

We'll go home. We'll go We kept our place in Long Beach. So, which is also where our families are.

Okay, got you. Wow. What a what a cool experience for your kids. Um okay, the book's called Life in Perspective, The Art and Power of The Annual Life Review. Really appreciate you. Yes, man. Love it. Really appreciate you sending me a copy so I could prep as well as um I I write a review, but it's going to be much more in-depth. Personally, I won't publish all of it, but the but but I'm still going to publish something similar what I've done in the past, but the life review because of this book is going to be much more in-depth for me and I'm going to be doing it with my wife uh coming up uh when I have normally just done it by myself. So I really appreciate this work Thiago. It's been cool seeing all the stuff and how it's just kind of honest and transparent open you've been over the years. I I remember started following you pre-COVID stuff. So it's crazy that it's it's been this long but

really appreciate this man and would love to continue our dialogue as we both progress.

Incredible. Thank you so much for for taking that on and for for having me on. It's been It's been a pleasure Ryan.

Same man. Thank you. I interview world-class leaders every week. If this is worth your time, subscribe below and I'll see you on next week's episode.

Questions about this episode

Who speaks in "How To Review Your Year (Without Being Hard on Yourself) | Tiago Forte"?

Tiago Forte (Guest), Ryan Hawk (Host).

What is "How To Review Your Year (Without Being Hard on Yourself) | Tiago Forte" about?

A personal shift toward reflection and deliberate goal-setting, framed as treating goals as learning experiments, prompted by a life-threatening experience in Brazil and inspired by Tiago Forte’s focus on curiosity, perspective, and meaningful daily practices. The discussion emphasizes how moments of danger or hardship can catalyze introspection, learning from stories we tell ourselves, and…

What is mentioned in this Ryan Hawk episode?

55 people, works and ideas are mentioned, including Annual Life Review, Tiago Forte, Life in Perspective: The Art and Power of the Annual Life Review, Ryan Hawk, Goal Setting, Past, Present, Future Framework. Each one on this page links to its own page with every episode that mentions it.

How long is "How To Review Your Year (Without Being Hard on Yourself) | Tiago Forte"?

The episode runs 1 h 4 min; the transcript is about 11,685 words in 170 timestamped sections.

More from Ryan Hawk

About this transcript: the episode's spoken words as captioned on YouTube, split into timestamped sections. Reclip.Me locates every person, work and idea in the text, keeps the time it is first named, and quotes the words around it verbatim. Last updated November 10, 2026.