Dan Martell - If you want 2026 to be the best year of your life, please watch this video…

00:00:00.000 Picture this. It's December 31st, 2026. You're looking back at the year and you finally stuck

00:00:06.080 to your goal. Your income is higher than it's ever been. You're in the best shape you've been

00:00:10.140 in years. You've built habits you actually kept. And you're surrounded by people who push you to

00:00:15.980 level up, not hold you back. Does that sound unreal? Let me tell you, it's not. As someone

00:00:21.400 who's been able to create the life of my dreams and help many people do the same, I want to share

00:00:26.600 with you the exact blueprint you can use to achieve any goal you have and more. So you can

00:00:32.200 look back at this moment at the end of the year and think, hell yeah, I actually did it. So let's

00:00:37.480 get into it. Step one, define the direction. Direction for me is the big picture. See, most

00:00:43.880 people get stuck because they have no clarity. The reason why you're having a hard time deciding

00:00:48.160 is because you don't know what you want to create. You watching this, this year coming up, it's your

00:00:53.400 near. And without a clean North Star, even productive days can take you the wrong way.

00:00:59.500 Imagine you've got a bow and arrow. You're trying to hit a target. If you can't see it,

00:01:03.620 how in the heck are you supposed to hit it? So this is how you define your North Star,

00:01:07.380 and I do this every year. First off, write one big goal. And we're going to call this your vision.

00:01:13.840 You have to make it smart. S-M-A-R-T. Specific, measurable, attainable, realistic,

00:01:19.680 and time-bound. And if you want my pro tip, we have to visualize it. Our mind doesn't think in

00:01:25.120 words. It thinks in pictures. So we take that picture of that one big goal, okay, that vision

00:01:29.820 we want to create for our life. We put it at the background wallpaper of our phone. We put it at

00:01:33.440 the background wallpaper of our laptop. We print it off. We put it in the bathroom mirror. So we

00:01:37.280 have to look at it every day. That's what the pros do. They visualize their outcome. So then what I

00:01:42.900 do is I define 12 projects for the year. These are things that I want to accomplish that are aligned

00:01:47.680 with that vision i call those power goals and then i save them on my phone so they're easy to access

00:01:53.120 and then next and this is what most people never do i pick one with the biggest impact the one

00:01:58.880 project that i know if i don't get anything else done that that one will lead and unlock the vision

00:02:04.480 i want to have for my life and then lastly what i do is i take that one project and i turn it into

00:02:10.080 daily actions essentially i call those mins most important next step each day i ask myself what's

00:02:15.840 the most important next step to move that project forward that's aligned with my goal i believe most

00:02:20.880 people mess this up because they don't understand the 300 rule it's something i came up with a long

00:02:25.680 time ago that makes the idea of attracting things into your life incredibly easy see if you have

00:02:30.720 100 clarity and then you have 100 belief around that and you can hold that 100 of the time that's

00:02:36.640 how you attract your ideal life into existence today and that's what we need to define our

00:02:42.400 direction. So once you know where you're headed, it's time to figure out exactly where you're

00:02:47.460 starting because a direction without awareness is just a guess, which takes us to step number two,

00:02:53.580 audit where you are today. When people ask me, Dan, what is it that you do to be successful?

00:02:59.340 I always say, it's not what I do. It's what I don't do. I don't gamble. I don't drink. I don't

00:03:04.700 do drugs. I don't sit there and waste my time. You can't eliminate the distractions that are

00:03:09.260 pulling you away from your ideal life until you know what those are. Back when I was in my early

00:03:13.460 20s, I had a company and I had big ambitions, big goals, big dreams. Problem was is that I had more

00:03:18.660 things I had to get done than the week was going to allow. And I remember talking to somebody and

00:03:22.420 they said, hey, Dan, I think you just need to figure out what you got to stop because adding

00:03:26.020 more stuff isn't going to make the problem go away. So what I did is I sat down and I actually

00:03:30.380 audited my calendar. The amount of waste that I found in my week where I thought I was being

00:03:34.960 productive was wild. That taught me how to do a time and energy audit, how to hire a virtual

00:03:41.920 assistant to start managing my inbox and my calendar. And that gave me the time to focus

00:03:46.960 on building people, developing relationships, on working on the projects that would create the

00:03:51.820 future that I needed to spend time on. So here's how you run a time and energy audit that's simple

00:03:56.540 and crazy powerful. The first thing is we have to look at your typical weekly calendar. Most people

00:04:01.400 don't put enough into their calendar so if you have it you're gonna have to go and set a timer

00:04:05.920 where it goes off every 15 minutes and you log it once you do that i want you to go and highlight

00:04:11.860 each energy block and i want you to either say it's in green yellow or red green means it gave

00:04:17.860 you energy yellow means that it's neutral and red means that it sucked your energy so then what i do

00:04:22.440 is i look at all the green tasks or projects and i'm like okay i got that then i've got my yellows

00:04:26.660 and i'm like okay how do i make those green potentially or are those yellows eventually

00:04:30.260 going to become red. And I look at the red stuff and make sure when you're doing your time audit

00:04:34.240 that you're doing personal and professional time. I don't care if it's, I woke up at seven on

00:04:38.880 Saturday morning. What did you do for the first 90 minutes? Write that down. Once I have that,

00:04:43.460 I have a clear focus of all the red things that take my energy that doesn't add to my life.

00:04:48.420 And I try to find ways that I can get leveraged. When I first did this, I was looking at stuff like

00:04:53.320 cleaning, cooking, shopping, running errands, bills. I mean, it's all the busy work that

00:04:59.740 actually doesn't move your life forward, that doesn't take your specific energy and focus.

00:05:04.880 We either want to start by just deleting it. Most of the things you can just stop doing,

00:05:09.160 renegotiate with the people you make commitments to and just delete it out of your calendar.

00:05:13.080 The second thing is we want to ask ourselves, can we delegate this to somebody else? Can we ask for

00:05:17.320 help? Can we get an intern? The goal is to maximize the green and give you the space to execute on

00:05:23.360 your power goals. When you look back on 2026, I want your calendar to be full of green, not the

00:05:30.120 yellows and reds. That is the mission. And now, if you're already running a real business with

00:05:34.660 clients, maybe a small team, and you know your 2026 goals needs a stronger version of you,

00:05:40.560 one that's not stuck in daily tasks, listen up. I spent the last few weeks refining my

00:05:45.820 scale your business workbook to help entrepreneurs buy back their time, delegate tasks, and scale

00:05:50.700 in alignment with their goals.

00:05:52.260 And today, I'm giving it away 100% free.

00:05:55.260 So if that resonated with you,

00:05:56.480 hit the first link in the description

00:05:57.880 or scan the QR code and grab it now

00:06:00.040 before your 2026 goals turn into another, maybe next year.

00:06:04.180 Now that you know where you stand,

00:06:06.300 it's time to build the habits and routines

00:06:08.580 that turn your yearly goals into consistent daily wins.

00:06:11.840 Step three, create daily systems.

00:06:14.780 Big goals are built on small, consistent wins.

00:06:19.620 Systems stand for save yourself time, energy, money, and stress.

00:06:23.360 And those beat motivation every day.

00:06:26.220 Just like recently, my friend Kinsey, who travels with us and works with us,

00:06:30.340 I mean, she has a big vision for her life.

00:06:32.680 She has races she wants to do. 0.63

00:06:34.120 She has travel she wants to do.

00:06:35.740 She's got to manage a lot of projects for my wife and I. 1.00

00:06:38.300 And she was just feeling overwhelmed.

00:06:40.140 So we just sat down, wrote everything down that was on her projects list.

00:06:44.140 And I showed her how to use her calendar to actually create the systems

00:06:47.780 to get out of her head and into a digital form

00:06:50.720 that is repeatable.

00:06:52.020 This is exactly what I did with her

00:06:53.700 that you can do for yourself

00:06:54.900 to make sure that 2026 is your best year ever.

00:06:57.740 First off, we have to design the next morning,

00:07:00.540 the day before.

00:07:01.700 Like truthfully, on Sunday night, I plan my week

00:07:04.580 and I have those three key projects or tasks

00:07:07.380 that I wanna move forward in the morning,

00:07:09.340 the first 90 minutes, as soon as I wake up,

00:07:11.580 I wanna attack the day.

00:07:12.920 That's why most productive people attack their mornings

00:07:15.780 is because when they have the most energy,

00:07:17.520 the most disciplined. They want to build that momentum. Next, I like to break those outcomes

00:07:22.620 into 25 minute what's called Pomodoro Spritz. I use a simple timer on my laptop and I hit play

00:07:29.660 and I got 25 minutes to get as much work as I can get done. I also listen to no word EDM. You can

00:07:36.200 find this for free on Spotify or whatever tool you use to listen to music that focuses my brain

00:07:41.600 on the outcome. 25 minutes goes by, the timer goes off. I got five minutes to stretch, get some water,

00:07:48.480 move my body, then boom, sit back down, hit start again. I mean, this works so well that I even have

00:07:54.500 my son, Max, who's 13 and has to do his homework as we travel the world, do this on his own,

00:08:00.600 productive every morning, three hours, school's done, on with his life. If you don't move your

00:08:05.320 body, you don't reset things, creative work is never going to come from it. And finally, this is

00:08:10.060 where the whole process makes it impossible for you not to transform your life is to review your

00:08:15.160 12 power goals three times a day. I have triggers where I sit down and I review my power goals.

00:08:20.640 They're on my phone. I just have them on my notes. I want to remind myself what my focus is.

00:08:24.960 I want to ask myself, does my calendar reflect my priorities? These are my priorities. Have I

00:08:29.480 had the conversations with the right people to start these, move these things forward? And am

00:08:33.440 I keeping the most important thing, the most important thing? Too often people get really

00:08:38.760 productive, focused on a direction that isn't aligned with what they said they wanted to create.

00:08:43.560 If every time that happened, you just kind of reset and went forward, reset and went forward,

00:08:47.600 reset, went forward three times a day. Then when a person calls me and says, hey, Dan,

00:08:52.000 I've got this thing this afternoon. Any chance you can stop by? Unfortunately, I can't. I've

00:08:55.540 already committed my time. The power of saying no is one of the most powerful tools you have

00:09:00.520 to actually change your life. And if you want 2026 to be your best year ever, that's going to be

00:09:06.120 absolutely crucial. Now, creating systems that make it easy to stay on track is awesome. But

00:09:11.880 if you really want to hit your goals in 2026, you're going to need to take this and multiply

00:09:16.720 it. How? Step number four, create leverage. The most successful people in the world, they don't

00:09:23.700 work harder. They just know how to pull bigger levers. See, Archimedes said that if you give me

00:09:29.040 a lever long enough, I can actually lift the world. Leverage means small inputs, a little bit

00:09:35.240 pulling big outputs, the whole globe lifting up. That's the game changer. It's the person that

00:09:41.540 understands how to use leverage that will create the most in their life. When I look at an Elon

00:09:46.040 Musk, a Jeff Bezos, et cetera, those guys just have massive leverage points. If I want to do

00:09:51.920 more in my life, I got to understand how this stuff works. It's things like automation and AI,

00:09:56.720 just as example, that multiply your efforts so that progress literally compounds over time.

00:10:01.620 So in 2008, I decided to move to San Francisco and I had just sold my company and it was such

00:10:06.800 a crazy experience of overwhelmed working 100 hour weeks. It was so bad that I almost decided

00:10:12.600 to never start another business. And if I didn't meet this guy, Naval, who shared with me these

00:10:18.020 four ideas around leverage, I probably would have never started another company. I would have just

00:10:22.520 kept investing as an angel investor. But these are the four C's and I want you to write them down.

00:10:26.920 The first one is code, understanding how to use software automation and today AI to get a bunch

00:10:33.180 of stuff done for you. The other C is content. How do you create a repeatable checklist, an SOP,

00:10:39.400 standard operating procedure, or even just a video teaching somebody how to do something so you never

00:10:44.220 have to teach it again? Massive leverage. The third was capital. How do you leverage money to get more

00:10:49.980 done? That's where the idea of buying back your time really started at scale. Then the fourth C

00:10:54.560 is collaboration. If you learn how to lead people, communicate, having other people support your

00:10:59.580 dreams, incredible leverage. And what that unlocked for me was the idea that I only had four things

00:11:04.420 get really good at and I could create anything. And the best part is that it allows me to do less

00:11:09.900 and actually get more. That's how you're going to make 2026 the best year ever. See, you can't give

00:11:14.580 your life more time, but you can give your time more life. These are the three strategies you can

00:11:19.520 do today to get more leverage. First, we have to automate. You cannot keep doing the same thing

00:11:25.460 every day yourself. You have to automate that task. So find one repetitive task you can automate

00:11:30.560 this week. It could be your email processing. It could be pulling reports. Think about all the red

00:11:36.760 stuff that you probably pulled out of your audit. Those are things that I would absolutely attack

00:11:41.680 to automate so you never have to do them again. They still got to get done. You just don't need

00:11:46.200 to be the person to do it. Then we want to focus on delegate. I want you to look at your list of

00:11:50.560 things that have to get done and ask yourself, what's one thing that you can delegate to another

00:11:54.720 person or ask AI to do? And I know a lot of people, they're like, well, what if I give it to

00:11:59.380 somebody and they don't do it as good as me? Here's my rule. 80% done by somebody else is 100%

00:12:04.640 awesome. I also created this framework called the 108010 rule, which allows me to create the first

00:12:10.180 10%, which is the outcome, the creative part to collaborate with somebody. Maybe it's the

00:12:15.040 chat GPT prompts, and then have somebody else take over the 80%, right? That's the execution.

00:12:21.200 That might even be setting up the automation so I never have to do an AI does it or a person does

00:12:25.600 it. The last 10% is taking the output back that might show up as an email or a text message to me

00:12:30.780 and then massaging that for the final output. My philosophy has really moved from being a doer

00:12:36.580 to a director. I want to direct people. I want to direct the AI. I don't want to be sitting there

00:12:41.940 doing tasks. And finally, we need to duplicate. This one relates to your time. Think about finding

00:12:48.180 two tasks that you can stack on top of each other and do at the same time that allows you to get

00:12:54.220 them both done without taking any extra time. That's what's called net time. No extra time.

00:12:59.960 For example, I like to go on scooter rides and be outside in the sun next to the lake.

00:13:05.040 My team needs one-on-ones. I put those together. So all my one-on-ones I do outside on a scooter.

00:13:10.460 Another fun fact, I also enjoy being in a hot tub.

00:13:13.160 I also have to review my Slack

00:13:14.680 and make sure I respond to the things

00:13:16.180 that require my attention.

00:13:17.500 Guess what?

00:13:17.920 I put them together.

00:13:19.080 You can literally put a lot of stuff together

00:13:21.480 that gets the things done that requires no extra time.

00:13:25.780 So that's how you create leverage with your time.

00:13:28.360 Now that you've multiplied your time and your output,

00:13:30.820 it's time to level up your environment.

00:13:32.760 And we gotta start with the people around you.

00:13:34.940 This might be the most important.

00:13:36.440 Step number five, network,

00:13:38.320 specifically around people and boundaries.

00:13:39.680 This is what's crazy.

00:13:41.440 The people around you will shape your floor

00:13:43.880 and your ceiling.

00:13:45.300 The energy, the mindset, those are contagious.

00:13:48.460 You are a by-product of the people you spend time with.

00:13:51.920 You have to audit your circle.

00:13:53.560 The friendmentory, I call it.

00:13:55.020 Who keeps pushing you forward

00:13:56.460 and who keeps pushing you back.

00:13:58.580 Or worse, celebrates when you decide wanna give up.

00:14:02.100 So we have to build intentional connections

00:14:04.220 that match where you want to be, not where you are.

00:14:07.640 and most definitely not where you were.

00:14:10.280 When I look at my life

00:14:11.420 and those times that I've leveled up,

00:14:13.440 there's always been people involved, always.

00:14:16.760 Mentors, peers, advisors, groups of people, communities.

00:14:21.780 And that's just been the through line

00:14:23.680 for everything in my life.

00:14:25.080 And the reason why is because proximity of people

00:14:27.560 is fricking power.

00:14:28.680 And you hear this all the time,

00:14:30.140 but your network truly is your net worth.

00:14:32.980 So you need to make sure you ask yourself

00:14:34.500 these four questions about your friends and your circle.

00:14:37.500 Number one, are they on a growth journey themselves?

00:14:41.040 See, I don't wanna be around people

00:14:43.280 that have decided where they're at is good enough.

00:14:45.900 I wanna invest in relationships with people

00:14:48.000 that are also going places that I haven't been

00:14:50.520 so that as they go on their journey, I go on my journey,

00:14:53.260 we can share notes,

00:14:54.320 we can talk about what's working for each other.

00:14:56.440 That to me is a very simple decision

00:14:58.440 and most people have decided to just stop.

00:15:01.000 The second question you should ask yourself,

00:15:02.900 if somebody said to you,

00:15:04.560 you remind them of that other friend of yours,

00:15:06.940 would that make you proud?

00:15:08.620 It's a simple question, but it also talks about character.

00:15:11.560 The third question is,

00:15:12.660 would I let my child date someone like them?

00:15:15.860 One of my favorite compliments to give somebody

00:15:17.840 is to say, I would trust you to date my sister.

00:15:20.960 That to me is the highest form of compliment.

00:15:23.180 When I look at the people in my life,

00:15:24.960 do I trust that person with somebody in my life?

00:15:28.000 If the answer is no,

00:15:29.100 then why am I spending time with them?

00:15:30.760 And finally, number four, do they make me better

00:15:33.340 or do they drain my energy?

00:15:34.800 Are they energy amplifiers or are they energy vampires?

00:15:38.580 Do I walk away spending time with them going,

00:15:40.880 that was light, easy, fun, expansive?

00:15:43.480 Or is it like they made me feel bad about myself?

00:15:45.780 They made me feel like I wasn't doing good enough?

00:15:47.660 I either start with a,

00:15:49.260 hey, is this person I want to keep in my life?

00:15:51.180 Hell yes.

00:15:52.080 If it's not a hell yes, it's an easy no.

00:15:54.640 Now that might sound harsh,

00:15:56.000 but it's necessary if you want to protect your time,

00:15:58.380 focus and energy.

00:15:59.160 Because the people that don't value their time

00:16:01.200 will only waste yours.

00:16:02.340 You're doing everything you can to get time back, to cut stuff, to keep in the energy, to make 2026 your best year, and then they're just going to suck that out of you?

00:16:11.980 No.

00:16:12.760 You fight to keep it.

00:16:14.180 They have to earn the right to be in your life.

00:16:16.140 And I know the hardest part is family, friends you've known since high school, you're going to have to start setting some boundaries.

00:16:22.300 I can love a family member from a distance.

00:16:25.020 I don't have to call them every day.

00:16:26.320 I don't have to invite them to a barbecue this weekend.

00:16:28.240 I don't have to say yes to everything they invite me to.

00:16:30.180 You're allowed to set some criteria and say hey if this is how you want to choose your life

00:16:34.900 That's fine. No judgment. I actually love that for you. It's just not what I need

00:16:40.160 You have to put yourself first. You have to increase your self-worth

00:16:43.240 You have to let people know this is my new standard and that's okay

00:16:47.180 So making sure your friend inventory is filled with people who are pulling you forward

00:16:51.980 Not holding you back is a huge thing to hit your goal in 2026

00:16:56.920 Now you need to measure your growth

00:16:58.200 and stay accountable to it.

00:17:00.000 Step number six, you gotta stay on track.

00:17:02.480 To stay on track, you need two things.

00:17:04.400 You need to measure and you need accountability.

00:17:06.500 When you track progress,

00:17:08.160 it makes the invisible growth visible.

00:17:10.720 See, a lot of people are losing weight

00:17:11.900 and they don't even know.

00:17:12.620 A lot of people are making gains on their finances,

00:17:14.320 but they don't even know

00:17:15.080 because they don't measure anything.

00:17:16.220 That will keep the motivation high.

00:17:18.320 Accountability, that's next level.

00:17:20.580 I do that through partnerships, through systems,

00:17:23.260 through public commitments to my goals.

00:17:25.220 It creates follow through it creates what I call positive peer pressure without it

00:17:30.360 The willpower will fade out because you'll do 10 times more for somebody else than you'll ever do for yourself

00:17:36.080 So being accountable to somebody else saying hey, i'll meet you at the gym at 7 a.m

00:17:39.800 You will show up because they're going to be there if it's on you

00:17:42.720 Maybe not my favorite story is a woman that works for me named jen 1.00

00:17:46.900 She set a goal to get to 20 body fat. I think it was like 38 pounds. She had to lose in four months 0.79

00:17:53.100 She set the stake that if she didn't hit it,

00:17:55.460 she could no longer work at the company.

00:17:57.480 That became a non-negotiable.

00:17:59.300 That became a forcing function to execute.

00:18:01.800 And that transformed her into the person that hit her goal.

00:18:05.480 The stakes are high.

00:18:06.920 Most people don't have that level of accountability

00:18:08.740 and it's why it's easy to give up.

00:18:11.020 Here's why.

00:18:11.680 What you measure gets managed.

00:18:13.680 So these are three ways you can do this for yourself.

00:18:15.940 The first is you gotta find a North Star metric

00:18:18.140 for your goal.

00:18:19.200 And then you gotta attack that one metric 0.53

00:18:20.960 with the aggression every freaking day. 0.63

00:18:24.100 So for Jen, it was body fat percentage. 1.00

00:18:26.340 How'd she do that? 0.99

00:18:27.000 She had a scale every day she got on.

00:18:28.640 She reported it to her coach.

00:18:30.060 And then she also did a DEXA scan

00:18:31.700 to make sure it was super accurate.

00:18:33.340 For you, it might be revenue.

00:18:35.380 It might be amount of pages you get done every day

00:18:37.940 if you're trying to study for some kind of test.

00:18:39.800 It might be the amount of kilometers you're running

00:18:41.680 because you're training for a marathon.

00:18:43.460 Whatever it is, pick that one metric,

00:18:45.660 be obsessed about it and look at it every day.

00:18:47.920 Second is you build a scorecard.

00:18:49.940 And this is so easy with AI.

00:18:51.580 You can literally take everything in this video

00:18:53.240 and ask AI to do it and it'll do it.

00:18:54.860 You like give the link to AI and say,

00:18:56.560 help me design and implement what Dan just taught me.

00:18:58.820 Boom, done.

00:19:00.240 But with a scorecard,

00:19:01.520 and I really am a big fan of you tracking it

00:19:03.960 and putting it in the scorecard,

00:19:05.660 it creates this tactical accountability.

00:19:08.940 And then you look at it and you track it every day.

00:19:10.900 I learned a long time ago

00:19:12.080 that the more you look at something,

00:19:13.680 the more you talk about something,

00:19:15.260 the higher the probability of achieving it.

00:19:17.320 And last, get an accountability partner.

00:19:19.520 find somebody that you trust,

00:19:22.200 that you would care if you didn't deliver on,

00:19:24.100 that you would be accountable to.

00:19:25.660 Make a public commitment to stay consistent.

00:19:28.800 I mean, the easiest thing is to go and set your stakes

00:19:30.940 publicly on your Facebook page and say,

00:19:33.500 hey, I've got a vision for my life.

00:19:35.480 Here's what I accomplished by the end of the year.

00:19:37.220 I'm committed to it.

00:19:38.560 Here's the person who's gonna hold me accountable to it.

00:19:40.240 If you see me, please ask me about it.

00:19:42.560 That will make it a must.

00:19:44.420 And if you follow this whole process,

00:19:46.820 actually achieving your goals in 2026

00:19:48.760 won't just be possible, it'll be inevitable.

00:19:51.700 Now, I know this process might feel overwhelming,

00:19:54.460 but let me break it down to you really simple.

00:19:56.540 Simplicity beats inspiration.

00:19:58.800 If you can just take one goal,

00:20:01.460 break it down into projects,

00:20:03.160 and then what is the most important next step,

00:20:05.640 and you have clarity around those steps,

00:20:07.540 that is way better than the motivation

00:20:09.720 to do something massive.

00:20:11.260 Most people don't start because they don't have clarity.

00:20:13.560 Just keep it simple.

00:20:15.380 If you have that one thing,

00:20:16.640 then the discipline of execution

00:20:18.640 is the bridge that turns that vision into reality.

00:20:21.940 And remember, if you're a business owner,

00:20:23.740 download my Scale Your Business workbook.

00:20:25.680 I'll tell you everything you need

00:20:27.060 on how to take your business to the next level this year.

00:20:29.720 Just click the first link in the description

00:20:31.080 or scan the QR code on screen.

00:20:33.460 Now, if you wanna learn how to get so many customers

00:20:36.300 with AI it feels illegal,

00:20:37.920 click the video and I'll see you on the other side.

Dan Martell - December 27, 2025

If you want 2026 to be the best year of your life, please watch this video…

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