I think this is the year that Tiger Sisters goes mainstream.
I'm going to host a dinner party no matter what.
I'm going to host a game night no matter what.
I cried into my eggplant parm. It was really good though.
So good. Vision Board.
Maybe it's a little bit crazy, maybe it's a little bit intense.
I think it's just very organized.
Guys, dare to dream, dare to dream big.
I want to feel very present and enjoy the moments of like play,
like teehee, like banser through the grind.
So it just feels much more sustainable.
Is that why you're not wearing any pants?
I'm. Cherie, I'm Jean and we're.
The Tiger sisters. We are your Silicon Valley and
Wall Street Big Sisters. And we're a top ten business
podcast on Spotify where we talk about money, power and love.
The biggest mistake that people make in January is rushing into
the new year without reflecting or thinking about the previous
year. We feel so eager to get a start
on 2026, but really we're so much better served when we slow
down, reflect and think about what went well and what didn't
go well in the last year so we can set ourselves up for the
next year. This is actually backed by
science, because Harvard researchers have found that
taking a few minutes to reflect on your performance can improve
your next rounds of performance by 18%.
In this next 30 minutes, we're going to give you 3 questions to
reflect on for your 2025 and then three questions to think
about for your 2026. So remember, Sheree, how we
talked about William Bridges transitions framework in our old
episodes? So we're kind of back in that
framework again because right now we're in the neutral zone.
I'm sorry, but everything has to be a framework with us.
I love it. Can you remind us what the
neutral zone is? Yeah.
So the neutral zone is the part of the framework where you're
after the end, before your new beginning, and it's where you
slow down and you can really be intentional and think about what
you want to do so that you're really confident about your new
beginning. And science actually backs up
this idea that fresh starts work.
Yeah, it's a Wharton study, right?
It's actually famous. It's called the Fresh Start
Effect. And it shows that milestones or
landmarks like a birthday or a new year is a really good time
to reset and start anew. Temporal milestones.
OK, so let's get started on all of our own personal frameworks
on how we make goal setting fun and actionable.
Today's episode is presented by Sofi, the All in one finance app
that helps you bank, borrow and invest your money in one place.
OK, so something that Gene and I love doing is having a word or
phrase of the year. And I think this just really
boils it down to a very focused type of framework so that like
you. Don't have one word?
Framework, one word framework or phrase because like, I don't
know, I think just having like a lot of goals in the beginning of
the year can be overwhelming. So if you have just like one
word that encapsulates all of them, it can bring your focus
back to this one thing. So Jean, what is your word or
phrase of the year? Well.
Before we get into that, I noticed that this is getting
really popular because multiple people have asked me what my
word of the year is. So my cashier at Trader Joe's
asked me what the word of the year.
Was our Trader Joe's person asked us what are three goals of
the year? And I thought he asked me what
the word of the year. Was no.
He asked us what the three, your three goals are and I said
that's too many. I only have one word of the
year. Oh, I forgot.
This is a patented Sharif I. Misremembered.
OK, well same idea. OK, anyway, I don't have a word
of the year because I am obsessed with words.
So I have a series of words for the year.
They are fun, ease, joy, light, abundance, and breakout.
What do those words mean to you? And like, is there one that
stands out most to you or do they all have equal waiting in
your mind? I mean, I feel like they're all
part of this like broader vision that I have for myself for the
year where I mean, we'll get into this once we like go
through the questions for reflecting on 2025.
But I feel like 2025 was like a super heads down focused year.
And so through these words, I'm trying to bring in like a lot of
these things I want to bring back into the new year.
So like fun, ease, joy, light, abundance.
Those are not really focused on work per SE, because I think I
already am naturally so focused on work except for breakout.
Breakout is about breaking out. Like our breakout year?
Yeah, yeah, yeah. I think for me, my word of the
year for 2026 is play and it's informed by doing a lot of
reflecting on 2025 because looking back, I didn't have a
2025 word of the year last year. So like if I'm thinking now,
what would describe my 2025, my word is grind.
And I don't really mean that in a good way like I thought 2020.
Doesn't mean at the club. No, I don't mean at the club, I
mean grind. We're on the grind.
Set the grind. Set stone nose to the grind
stone nose. To the grind stone.
I think 2025 was really tough in a lot of ways work wise.
As you guys have been watching Tiger Sisters, it's been like so
fun, but also behind the scenes like so much work and so
grueling. And I mean that it's like a work
of passion, a work of love. And of course I love giving my
all into it. But like Jean and I are, by the
end of the year, we're like. Oh, we're close to burnout.
Oh my God. Yeah, so.
So I would say 2025 was really tough and it was grind, which is
why I was like doing all this reflection that we'll like talk
through like for 2026, I'm like play.
We need to, we need to laugh more.
We need to have fun and through the hard work.
Like, yes, that's still going to be there because I love what I
do. But like, I want to feel very
present and enjoy the moments of like, play, like tee hee, like
tee banter, and also just like, put more time into like,
relaxing, enjoying, Yeah through the grind.
So it just feels much more sustainable.
Is that why you're not wearing any pants?
Hello, this is a shirt sweater dress so no pants are needed.
Nice. So who?
Who, Who makes it? Where's it from?
I don't remember. You'll have to ask my stylist,
Emily Tyra. I'm not concerned with such
details. OK, she's all about play.
She's not worried about the details anymore.
Yeah, I think it's also cool how our words are sort of aligned.
For 2026. Yeah, 'cause my first one is
fun. Yeah, which is when you play,
you have fun. No, I think so.
I think so. They are really related.
You and I felt similarly, that 2025 was a lot of work and very
rewarding, but it could be more fun.
Yeah, it could be more fun, Ease, joy, light and abundance.
Yeah, you good? Those are.
I like those words, but I'm like you.
Thank you. Thank you.
Okay, I will be good in 2025. I'll be great.
I'll be fun. 20262026, yeah. I'll be fun, ease, joy, light,
and abundance guys. I love that.
I love that for you. I wish that for.
You thank you. So we actually have all these
different frameworks and we ordered them in kind of like
order of simple to more complex so that you can build up and you
can sort of choose, pick and choose which ones you actually
want to do. And you can just only do the one
word or you can do you know, there's, there's more you'll
see. There's like a lot of different
exercises that you guys can think through.
So this the first one word of the year like that can take you
30 seconds to like 3 minutes to be like, what do I want to focus
on? Yeah, now we have a little bit
more a step up in complicated. You need a piece of paper and a
marker. And so our next framework is our
bingo card of the year and this. Is a Cherie special?
This is a Cherie. Special and so we'll talk about
our vision boards later because I think those are complimentary.
Yeah, I think a bingo card is if you guys have played bingo, it's
usually like a 5 by 5 and this is something that you can make
yourself. So I will show the camera now if
you guys are listening, I'm putting my 2025 bingo card up on
screen. It's a 5 by 5 grid.
You know, we used to play bingo as kids.
So I'm like, this is kind of fun.
And the idea is not so much that you need to do everything on the
bingo card, like hitting bingo like you're trying to get five
in a row vertically, horizontally or diagonal, but
it's kind of fun if you do fill it out.
But basically these were just like a mix of activities that I
wanted to accomplish in 2025 and what looked like a very full and
complete and balanced life for me.
So you can see on this bingo card, there's a couple of things
that are work related. There are milestones there that
are, you know, personal. Like I have one that's like, oh,
I wanted to fall in love in 2025 and oh, it's colored in.
I did fall in love in 2025. Did everyone?
Has make kimchi at home. I made kimchi at home that's
still in our our fridge, slowly eating that.
But like you can see like those are two very different random
stuff. And then I have like host a
dinner party, ski a new mountain.
And then I wrote down all the new mountains I skied this year,
which is actually a lot. Go to a concert, read 12 books,
volunteer three times, go to the gym 30 days in a row, speak at a
conference. Like these are all such random
things, but like from my brain and my head that I'm like, this
is what a very full life for me look like in 2025.
So why did you make this bingo card?
I wanted it to. Like so Gene and I vision board,
which is basically like we try to manifest and see what we want
to accomplish. The bingo card is more tactical.
It like is activity based so that I can be like, yes, I have
a vision to make Tiger sisters podcast a success, but what is
the metric behind that? And that would hit that would
mean like hit 100K Subs on YouTube, for example.
So, you know, I have in my mind a manifestation to like spend a
really nice weekend in this like snow chalet.
Oh, what does that mean? Ski a new mountain?
Like, you know, so like I might have all these visions, but this
makes it much more tactical and I guess precise and real of
like, what am I actually trying to do?
You know? So I love my 2025 bingo card.
The first time I've ever done it.
I've never done it before this something that I did realize
that I'm applying to 2026 bingo card, which I haven't made yet.
But like, this was kind of an intense year, you know, like if
you look at all these things, they're all like go, go, go
activities like host a game night, host a dinner party, go
to the gym 30 days in a row. Like I've learned from doing my
bingo card that 2026 is actually going to be a year of rest for
me. Like relax at the spa.
This was needed. And I will be doing more of
this. And I'm going to be like get a
massage like 5 times this year. I'm going to put that on my
card. Like you'll see.
And maybe I'll share it with you guys.
Thumbs up in the future. But I'm like, I'm naturally a
very active person. And so I'm going to host a
dinner party no matter what. I'm going to host a game night
no matter what. Because like, I want to do it,
but I need to kind of force myself to slow down more.
Okay cool, do you see what I make more goals around slowing
down and play? Slowing down play and like doing
nothing. And ease, perhaps?
And. Joy and light and joy.
And break out. That'll be me, yes.
So that's my bingo card. OK, now I get, I get it.
We actually never talked about. This.
Yeah. You've never asked me.
You never. Cared no, I saw it I was like oh
cool bingo card but I get it because this is your version of
what I do which is I'll tell we'll tell you guys we'll.
We'll get into that teaser teaser.
This is cool, right? I also, OK, I also like that you
just mentioned you're like, oh, I haven't done my bingo card yet
and we're well into January again.
That is like another reminder that we are in the transition,
right? We're in the neutral zone.
Yeah. There's no rush.
And like, one thing I've adopted this year is, OK, have you
noticed that there's so much content now about the Lunar New
Year and like how we're leaving the Year of the Snake and
entering the Year of the Fire Horse?
Yes, I have seen. So I feel like that's new in
culture, like nobody, it never used to be a part of like
Western popular culture that people are always talking about
like, well, I think. Astrology is is like Western
astrology is having a moment and so I think it's stern and then I
think it's pulling in the Eastern Zodiac stuff.
Yeah, Oh, so, but the reason I bring that up is because the
Lunar New Year is not until February 17th.
So technically according to the Eastern calendar, the new year
has not started yet. So that's why I like, really
love this idea of like between January 1st and the Lunar New
Year, which this year is February 17th.
That is your very well defined transition, your transition
zone. So this is the month and a half
where you can think about all the ways you want your next year
to be and do all these exercises so you have plenty of time.
Absolutely. I actually don't feel stressed
at all. I think the old me five years
ago would be like, Oh my God, it's January 1st.
I need to have all my goals ready and like blah, blah, blah,
blah. But now I'm just like, it'll
happen when I'm ready. I'm being very deliberate.
I'm thinking through. I'm like, I don't want to rush
my bingo card, you know? Like I want to make sure
everything on my card is what I want it to be like.
It has weight because it determines what I do with my
ears. So I want to be very
intentional. She writes it in Sharpie.
Guys, I write. Not in pencil.
Exactly. So I don't know, just allowing
some time for me to, like percolate on it.
I came up with five things to be on my bingo card last weekend.
Yeah, but I'm like, I got 20 more to go.
Like I don't need to. Give us a preview.
What's 1? Get it?
Get 5 massages this year. I that was not a joke.
OK, OK. And like go to a Korean spa and
get like a scrub down. Oh my God, I'm doing that.
Yes, next, next weekend. So, like, more of that next
weekend. More of that, yeah.
And less like, also like go to the gym 30 days in a row.
Quite honestly, that was not really healthy.
OK. I said that when she set that
goal, I made that comment. If you guys remember, we talked
about it. You know what, it was a like a
Canon event for me, OK? I needed to go through it to
realize that it was #1 very hard.
But also too, I was like really straining myself.
You need time for rest and recovery.
She literally hurt her back like so like.
You see, I didn't need to do that.
Yeah, I didn't need to do that. We need periods of rest and
recovery and restoring ourselves, and that's gonna be,
what, 2026? Is and also now we're doing
exactly what we said we would do at the beginning of the episode.
You're reflecting on your goals and what you did in 2025 and
using that to inform 2026. Absolutely.
Now you're not gonna have a goal of going to the gym 30 days in a
row. Hell no.
I need a rest because everything is so busy as it is and if I
don't rest I will be running 1000 mph.
Yeah, OK, now let's get into my version of the bingo card.
You know, I think people don't realize how much mental load
you're carrying day-to-day when your finances aren't in order.
I mean, we talked about this on multiple episodes, and it's a
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Now back to the show. Can I see it or is it a secret?
It's not a secret, it's just like guys, it's how many pages
is. This.
Yeah. Why do you have a PhD thesis as
your bingo card? It's literally. 1.
It's literally 2A silly like 5 by 5 map.
And yours is five. It's 6 pages.
A multi page paper. OK, so guys I do this thing that
is this year is going to be called 37 things to do while I'm
37 and so it changes every year. So last year was 36 things to do
while I'm 36 and I got the idea from a friend of mine and it's
basically you list out 36 different things and they can be
totally trivial or they can be really serious or they can be
recurring things or they can be one time.
Things. Give us some examples.
OK, so the first thing I have, this is kind of similar to
yours. So OK, what I've done is I write
down this entire, I write, write out first a paragraph of like
what I want the year to be about, right?
And then I also write last year. This was for the first time I
did it. It's like you do a scripting
exercise, which is you write a script of like how you feel in
an average day in your new year. So I did those two things and
then I. Created or read them for us or
or excerpts of them. If they're not too personal,
please share with the audience. All right, sure.
So the theme, oh, I also have a theme for the year.
I've created this. This is a lot guys, but this is
this is what I'm like. So the theme last year was
making big moves and believing everything will work out in my
favor. And then little star emojis.
I'll read a little bit of the beginning.
So I wrote, 2025 is when one, I tap into my energy of exactly 10
years ago, which is when I was entering HBS with massive
excitement, hopes, dreams, a hypothesis and a plan slash
experiment to execute. And two, I apply all that energy
with the wisdom and hard fought lessons I've gained over the
last 10 years to do and achieve my current goals in a much
happier, healthier and more successful manner.
Similar to 10 years ago, I'm fully entering a new phase of my
life. Last year was focused on closing
out the last phase where, like HBS, the possibilities really do
feel endless dot dot dot. Whoa, there's a lot more
sentences. Yeah, I know.
They looks like I've. Yeah, I know term scripting.
I'll just read you guys the first couple sentences because
then you can get idea of how to do your own scripting.
So scripting. I wake up feeling refreshed
after a highly restorative sleep after going to sleep before
midnight the night before. Did not successfully do that
this year. Major win already.
I'm so cheesy. I'm energetic and looking
forward to a day that has a healthy mix of exercise, working
on Tiger Sisters, and progressing on my personal and
relationship goals. dot dot dot. So those are like the first two
giant paragraphs that I have. Then you write down all your
different goals. So 1 I had was go to the gym or
exercise at least three times a week consistently.
And then I created all these little boxes where I had 156
boxes where I could fill out the days that I went to the gym.
So at the end of the year or at the beginning of this year, I
went back and I did that sort of accounting.
I like went in my calendar. I looked at all the days where I
went to the gym and I filled it out.
So you have that or I have that's health.
And then I have a section on relationships, have a section on
career, family, growth, mindset and creativity.
And then the last thing I'll meant finances, personal care
and fun. And then the last section is I
write out all the months of the year and I write out some fun
things that I'm looking forward to or events or activities for
each of those months so I have something to look forward to.
In like 2026. For the next year.
So the other thing to mention is that I know I said it was like
37 while I'm 37. One way I've revised this over
the years is that I used to feel a little bit like dissatisfied
when I would do the review at the end of the year and I'd be
like, oh, like, well, they're 36, but I only achieved 20 and I
didn't feel good about that. So instead now I have like 69 so
that I can so that I can achieve 37 or so it's more likely for me
to achieve 37 and give myself 100%.
That's great. Yeah, I love that.
Yeah. Like, shoot for the moon, 'cause
then you'll land among the stars.
Yeah, so last year for 2025 I literally had 69 items and like
some of them are super boring. Like 1 was file file personal
taxes on time. But that's.
A win A win is a win a. Win is a win, guys.
But did you do that on time? I did.
I checked it off. Oh, I thought we got an
extension. That's still on time.
On time with an extension, yeah. One is like donate clothes and
shoes after closet clean out. Like it doesn't have to be, you
know, crazy things or like some of them can be crazy things
because the idea of having so many is that you don't have to
achieve them all. Like you can make some of them
really crazy and out there and very aspirational just so that
you like write it down somewhere and you can.
You can go back to it, you can have it carry over for the next
year. I mean, even I have like go to
Dartmouth, 15 year reunion, I did it.
She was going to do that anyways.
I didn't do that anyway. That was like a one of my like
my Gimme block in the middle of my bingo square.
That was going to happen anyways.
Exactly. So you can write because you
have so many that you can do. You can also write ones that you
know will for sure happen. That's part.
Just make it however you want to, however you want to make it.
But that is what I do. Maybe it's a little bit crazy,
maybe it's a little bit intense. I think it's just very
organized. Yeah, I think that's the word I
would use, and it's very intentional.
Yeah. And you put a lot of thought
into it. I like how you have all these
different categories that you named out so that you can think
about your life very holistically.
I tried to do that that with my bingo card with the activities,
but I like how you've even broken yours down into
categories so that you can like think through each one, come up
with, you know, a few in each bucket.
Right. And this is also how it's
evolved for me over the last like 5 or so years.
I didn't used to have different categories.
I didn't used to have 69. I used to, you know, I didn't
used to have, I don't know because is it 2037 * 36 * 2?
No, just it's a good number, just a good number.
I didn't used to have the scripting like I just added all
these things. So don't feel like you have to
do all this stuff because it is a lot.
You can even just start with like, OK, let me write down 15
things. Let me write down 10 things.
Like, you know, they're just options, different ways to go
about it. It's a sliding scale.
You can do as much or as little as you want, but know that you
Jean does a lot because like she likes doing this stuff.
But if you want to do, you know, just 10% of that too, I would
say that's a good place to start.
And you can keep evolving it and see what you like and don't like
year after year. OK, so Sheree, what is the last
method that we're going to talk about?
Vision boarding. Boarding.
OK, so Gina and I are nerdy sharing our vision board on
screen right now. Yeah, it's pretty nerdy.
If you're listening to this, we've pulled up our massive
posters of the vision boards we've made for 2026.
These are the biggest vision boards we've ever done.
It's because we've, we have big visions for 2026 and don't
worry, we just did this like 4 days ago.
This was one of the things that we wanted to do some fun just
last week. So yeah, with vision boards,
basically the whole idea, there's not that much structure
to it. But what you want to do is get a
blank poster board. It can be small, medium, as big
as ours. Ours are like kind of massive.
But you just want to take some magazines you have and go
through those magazines. It's not that deep.
Flip through the magazines. Whatever speaks to you.
It could be words, it could be an image.
You can see from our vision boards.
We have jewelry, we have words. We have vacations scenes.
I have fruit, I have veggies, I have flowers, a girl doing a
cartwheel, a bicycle ride. As I said, word of the year for
me for 2026 is play. So I have the word joyful, that
girl having fun. It's the year of the fire Horse.
So I have some horses on my vision board, but you want to
put them all together. And then I like having this in
my room so that every single day I wake up, I can kind of see the
scene of what am I 2026 is meant to feel and look like.
Yeah, and that is actually the like science behind it is the
ideas that you're looking every single day at your vision and
what you want the, you know, your year in your life to look
like. And then you subconsciously are
working towards that. So that's the.
Manifesting. Yeah, that's the idea behind it
of why you create this vision. And also also your vision board
only has to make sense to you. It's actually really funny
because I showed my vision board to our friend Michael and he was
like, oh, an iceberg. And I was like, no, it's not.
It's not. Like it's an iceberg, but.
OK, I guess. But it's Antarctica and it says
what if there was another world out there?
And it's just, it's what speaks to me.
Yeah. Like it's not an iceberg, but I
guess it is a iceberg. But it's really not that deep.
Like, not that deep. It's not that.
Deep if it if you feel a pull towards an image or like a
feeling towards a color like I have just like a lot of orange
in the middle of my board. I have juices, fruit and citrus
and books. I want to do reading, but like,
I just like the orange color in the middle.
Like, that's that's all it is. Yeah.
And of course, we got to have some jewelry.
I don't know. It's also, I will say it's kind
of a nice balance between the previous exercise that we did
where obviously I wrote this like dissertation of sorts of
how I want my year to be. Yeah.
And this is just all visuals. Yeah.
So I'm a very, what is it called when you're a person that's like
about like words and writing? That's ironic that I don't know.
Yeah, that's ironic that I wouldn't know the word and I'm
trying to describe myself as that word.
But then I'm also a very visual person.
So that's why I like doing both of these exercises.
It's using different sides of your brain, I think.
And different sides of your like manifestation.
And different sides of your what?
Why are you laughing? Like we're so desperate to
manifest 2026. We're doing all these tools.
We're like we need to do. We need the visual, we need the
paper. Like we need whatever we can
get. Like fucking works.
It like works. It works.
It actually works. It actually works.
Hello tigers, have you seen or 2025?
Have you seen? Like.
This is scientifically. Perfect tigers.
This is just like nothing. It was like a speck.
It was like a A well, it was like a deck that we made.
Yeah, it was one year ago. Yes.
So, yeah, this is our vision boards.
It's oddly very personal, but like Gene said, it means
nothing. But it also means everything.
Yeah. So try out, try it out.
Try out the exercise. It doesn't have to be obviously
as gargantuan as this. I have a massive poster board,
but also know that Gene and I have been vision boarding for
the last decade, literally for the last 10 years.
Yeah. So like, this does not
intimidate us. We started out much smaller and
built up from. There I have forced many a
friend to vision board with me. Oh yeah, I've actually held
division board parties at Stanford, like for about.
Stanford. Well, for like my girlfriends,
like multiple times. And actually if you ask anyone,
like, they will say that. Yeah.
And they enjoy it. Yeah, it's fun.
And also, you don't have to do it this way.
You don't have to cover every piece of, you know, empty space.
You could just have like 4 photos on it.
Yeah. Just use your creativity.
Lean into your creativity. It's a very like this is this is
nothing. It's it's fun.
It's nothing, but it's everything.
It's nothing but everything. OK, so vision board is another
tool you can use and try out. Yeah, highly encourage it.
OK. So just a really quick rundown
of all the methods that I guess we use.
We use a lot of methods. So Word of the year, bingo
board, the 37 while 37 and vision boarding.
Yes, those are our methods. Again, I feel like we're so
desperate to manifest shit that we have to throw everything at
the wall and see what works. No, but it's fun.
It is fun. It is fun.
It's like future planning, but make it fun.
Yeah, yeah. And then you can kind of use it
like as an opportunity to go crazy, just like think about
like what are all the things that can happen that are
positive? And then you just put them all
down and then maybe they'll happen.
It's true, guys, dare to dream, Dare to dream big, and we'll get
into our end of year reflections right after this break.
Before we start, just a quick moment.
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here. Now let's get into the show, OK.
So what we're going to do now is we're going to do end of your
reflection questions where we have three questions that we are
going to talk through ourselves and they're to reflect on 2025.
And then next we have three questions that are for 2026.
And the reason we're doing this is to kind of to do the exercise
ourselves and then to also like show you guys how it can be
done, like an example. Yeah, and it's like it's not
that deep. Like it's, it doesn't have to be
so serious. I think a lot of people put a
lot of pressure and weight on themselves to be like, Oh my
God, let me sit down with a pen and paper and like meditate for
an hour and a half. Like it's not really like that.
It's a conversation between the two of us.
We're going to talk through these questions.
Hopefully they can inspire or spark something within you and
you guys as we're talking through it, like think through
your own, you know? Yeah.
And these are actually I picked the three from each out of a
longer list have questions that are for reflection, but so you
can do just these three or we'll share the longer list in our
description so that you, if you really want to get into it, you
can. If you want to be an A+ student,
there's more. There's more where this came
from. OK, so the first question is one
word to describe 2025. Mine was grind, grind set.
I shared that in the beginning, so it informs my 2026.
But yeah, I thought 2025 was kind of hard.
Good, but hard. What's your word?
Maybe my word for 2025 was building.
Why are you laughing? OK, please say.
More OK, OK. Building Building yourself
Building Tiger Sisters. Building, yeah, both of those
things, but it was also really tiring.
She she's Barbara the Builder. I'm Barbara the Builder.
She's. No, I was Barbara the Builder in
2025, but going to be different in 2026, you'll see.
Well, I kind of I like the word building.
Building is tiring, but it's like also building the
foundation of what needed to happen.
I do believe in sweat equity. Like you cut you like there's
this doesn't happen for no reason, right?
Like we were working really hard.
Hopefully we can bring more joy and fun into it.
But like we were building, it was the grind and like we set
the foundation for 2026 where we can like run full speed and
hopefully be more efficient at our building and enjoy more.
OK. My additional commentary on
that, because I am a Smith, is that I would say it was both
building and rebuilding. She thought she did something.
There. What are you talking about?
Rebuilding What? Myself.
OK, OK. She's sure.
Sure, Sure, sure, sure, sure. I see that.
I see that guy. Sorry, which is why I was so
tired because I was building and rebuilding at the same time.
Say more. Just like kind of rebuilding
myself as a person, you know, like I used to be partnered and
was for a really long time, like almost a decade.
And so now coming into this new life in my mid 30s where I'm
single and an entrepreneur and like a Co founder and working in
media, just sort of like rebuilding my concept of myself.
Like think about I'm a totally different person now at the
beginning of 2026 than I was at the beginning of 2025.
Like I rebuilt my entire freaking identity.
Like who am I? Who am I?
Who is she? I don't know.
She's she's still rebuilding. I'm still rebuilding.
So she'll figure it out in 2026. Q Jean Valjean.
Who am I 24601? Sorry, we're getting a little
loopy now. OK, so our next question for end
of your reflection is your biggest failure.
So Jean, what was your biggest failure for 2020?
Five. OK, so I think my biggest
failure was not having balance. And I know that is such like a
cliched word, but I really do think so.
For the first half of the year, I was doing a really good job of
balancing work, but also having fun and having a social life and
working on like personal goals and like going out to different
social events and making new friends and like dating and all
that stuff. But then I feel like things
really took off around summertime and then after that I
was just like you said, grind, right?
I was just like heads down working, working on Tiger
sisters all the time. And we really, really pushed
ourselves. And I even knew like, remember
we had conversations towards October.
We're like. More dangerous.
Little dangerous to burning out and crying.
Yeah, yeah, yeah. Currently by the end of the
year. By the end of the year, like one
of our friends and mentors was in LA and we had this
celebratory dinner with him where I literally cried at John
and Vinny's in the middle. She had, she had like tears.
I like tears. You couldn't hold it back it.
Couldn't. It couldn't.
Too much. You were holding everything in
it, kind of. It wasn't an explosion by any
means, but it you just couldn't. It was just like a waterfall,
like you couldn't stop it. Yeah.
And I had been holding it in for a long time.
I know because there's just, I mean, I'm so proud of what we've
done and I, I don't know if like I would really change the way we
went about it, but I can change going forward.
So we'll get into that with like 2026.
But that's why I think it's good to to think about this question
was your biggest failure because it's something you can change
now, right? Like you don't have to repeat
the past. You can do something different.
I love that. But yeah, it was.
But it kind of my answer is a little bit like they're like,
what's your biggest weakness? I'm like, I'm too much of a
perfectionist. She works too hard.
My biggest failure is like, work too hard.
She can't. Stop working.
Can't stop working. I'm just.
She worked to the brink of crying at at lunch.
The brink of and I went over. And I cried at lunch.
And then she did cry at lunch. I cried into my eggplant parm.
It was really good though. So good, yeah.
Yeah, I do. Tell me yours.
My biggest failure, it kind of goes into the next one, what we
have. OK, so I'll answer my biggest
failure, but it does dovetail into the third reflection
question, which is one thing you want to leave behind from 2025
and mine, my biggest failure is kind of answering it in the
similar way. I'm too much as too much.
Too much of a perfectionist. No, I'm too much of A softy.
And what I mean by that is I'm thinking about my friendships
and personal relationships. And I had a couple of like light
bulb moments in 2025 where I was really tested in these
friendships that I've had. And I guess the thing I want to
leave behind in 2025 is fake friends.
Dude, That's actually not really what I mean.
But I mean, just like I put a lot of my love and care into my
friendships. I love so deeply guys.
And when I have these friends or people that I meet, I give it my
all. And like, it's kind of like a a
pattern for me. And like a whole I keep falling
into year after year where like I'll meet someone I'm like, Oh
my God, they're my soul sister. And then like I give them so
much of my time, energy and love.
And then when I, I guess, ask for it to be reciprocated in
some way, it's not. And then it becomes very clear
to me. So honestly, I think my biggest
failure in 2025 is like falling into that pattern again with,
you know, some like a friend, someone who I thought was like a
very close friend. Well, your first mistake, OK, is
that you only have one soul sister.
Oh yeah, true. Well, I have one real sister.
You. That's true, but that's why I
say. Already your soul sister, but.
That's what I mean by a soul sister.
They could never be my real sister.
Oh, your soul sister Sista. 'Cause you're my real blood
sister connected by DNA. Yes, genes.
So yeah, I don't know, like, yeah, that was a really hard
learning and a lot of reflecting on like how to think about
friendships, how closely to hold them into my heart and how
closely to trust people who haven't demonstrated that they
can be trusted. I'm just naturally a very much
like, Oh my God, we're going to be besties type of person.
I tell people stuff, I I invite them into my life, I let them
meet my family. And then when I like kind of
expect that sort of love back, it's like not met with that.
And so I guess I'm kind of rambling on now because it's, it
is a topic that does make me uncomfortable still.
But like, I want to leave that in 2025.
I hope I am much more wiser for it.
I want to protect my heart a bit more.
And I mean that like still be a loving, kind person.
But I am, I do want to be more discerning because there are
lovely people in my life that I do hold close to my heart who've
shown me so much love. But it's taken a lot to, like,
get there, to know that, like, I don't have to give it away to
people who aren't going to love me back.
I actually, it's crazy 'cause I have a similar sentiment and we
haven't talked about this at all.
We don't talk to each other except for when we're in these
seats because we need to, we need to keep it fresh.
You know we have no communication.
Otherwise. We only.
Text, so maybe you have a similar sentiment.
Yeah. Well, but I was going to answer
it for the third question, which is the third question is what is
one thing you want to leave behind from 2020?
Five fake bitches. Yeah, I mean, I kind of was
going to say that in a different way.
Well, I was going to say that, but in a more me oriented way of
like something I can leave behind of my myself, which is
OK, I guess. I, I don't, I haven't thought of
the perfect word. I was going to go with like
insecurity, but it's not so much insecurity.
It's more so like worrying about what other people are thinking
and doing or like thinking about me, which I know seems kind of
ironic because I basically like bare my soul and my heart and my
brain and like everything and your framework.
I mean, at least I'm wearing pants, but I'm just kidding.
But like I bare my soul on this podcast.
But it's different because this is like.
For some reason, it just feels like it's a safe space, right?
Like I feel like everyone here who's watching, You're opting
into this, right? You want to be a part of this
tiger family. You, you care about learning and
improving yourself and like being in this sort of community
with us. I think it's more so where I
feel insecure honestly, is like certain friends of mine, I
think, or like acquaintances, where, as I mentioned, I have
really then evolving and like rebuilding myself over the last
year and a half. And I'm not outwardly the same
person that I was, you know, a year ago, two years ago, three
years ago, four years ago. And so, OK, I saw this, this
video clip of I can't remember who it was, but it was a
different podcast. And they were talking about how
this one guy was like, I just know that two of my friends send
each other clips of me and like making fun of me because he was
a creator or a podcast. He was like, I just know that
they do that. And like he was like, what do I
do about that? And the other person was like
fuck them. They're not your friends if they
do that. I know, I know, but they're like
acquaintance. I don't know this for sure, but
I'm just, you know, when you have a feeling about something.
So like, even if that is the case or isn't the case, I'm
putting it more upon myself to be like, who cares?
Like what does it matter, right? Like if someone, you're either
someone that talks about ideas and concepts and growth, or
you're someone that talks about people and if you're just always
talking about other people in a negative way, then you're just
kind of in a different category of person than I am.
I don't know, I'm just kind of like talking to.
Myself, she went off. She she ate with that.
Did I? She said yeah, she said keep my
name out your mouth. Or keep it in your mouth and I
won't care. Yes.
So that's what I want to leave behind is kind of caring too
much about what other people think of me, 'cause what does it
matter, right? We're just.
Living our best life. Well, you just, I'm imagine
hating us. We're living our best life.
I'm not wearing pants. We're recording this podcast.
All we try to do is like help other people by making this free
podcast. So imagine hating us.
Yeah, so that's one I want to leave behind.
Mm Hmm. OK, Now really quickly, we're
just gonna do the three questions for 2026 and you're
supposed to write or say your responses as if it's the end of
2026. So it's kind of like projecting.
We've ended 2026 and everything has happened.
What will have happened? Yeah.
How would you answer these questions?
I love that. OK.
So the first one is what was your headline for 2020?
Six, OK, I'm going to refer back to my word breakout.
I think that's going to be the headline for 2026.
I think this is the year that Tiger Sisters goes mainstream.
I'm putting it out there, guys. I'm putting it out there.
I think it's our breakout year. If you're watching this right
now, say Tiger Sisters is mainstream, because then we'll
have that many more people manifesting it with us.
Say It with us Tiger Sisters is mainstream.
Like, comment and subscribe. Yes, share with your friends.
Yes. And then the next question is
what resources did you need to support you this year?
I love this then 11 resource I definitely need was therapy.
Yes, it's something that I've been doing consistently for the
last year plus and will continue to do so.
Let's say it's end of 2026. I am so proud of myself for
continuing to do therapy consistently this year.
It's something that I need to work out my brain and work out
my emotions to help me get through the fake bitches.
And also like, I'm really, really proud.
If it's the end of 2026, I've been journaling every morning
and that's just another method. I have to get all of my like
stuff in my head down on paper. So it's not like bogging me
down. And if it's the end of 2026, I
am so proud of myself that I've continued my journaling habit
daily, weekly, but it's consistent.
Great answer. Thank you for me for the
question. What resources did you need to
support you this year? I would say like a lot of
different resources. I think in 2025 one thing we did
not do enough is bring in other resources.
I think we were very self reliant just because we're Tiger
sisters for Tiger sisters and just for like life stuff.
And I think 2026 is all about us growing and in order to break
out, we need help. That's been something like we've
known, but we haven't had time to execute.
So looking back on 2026, like what resources did you need to
support you this year? It would be a really long list
of like all the different people that we have helping us both in
our life and in our our business.
So even like I don't know for example.
My outfit brought to you by my stylist family Tyra, who is a
new addition into our life, A recent addition who is now
helping us look better and feel better.
Yeah. And just not have to think about
that all the time, Yes, or on our own, not have to do it on
our own. So that times 1000.
And finally, the last question, where did you shift how you
spent your time or energy this year?
What did you say no to in 2026? I said no to a lot of things in
2026. And actually I think that's
where my power lies in the ability to say no.
I think obviously saying no to things that distract from the
focus of what I'm doing with Tiger Sisters, but also saying
no to myself, which I think is actually a good thing because I
think my natural inclination, I said before, is to do, do, do,
do, do a zillion and one things. I want to go out and meet people
and travel and like travel every other weekend and I need to say
no to myself. I need to sit down and relax.
I need to be on a beach, I need to be in a massage chair and I
need to be with myself. Wait, I have a idea.
What if, like another framework exercise, you do is you write
down all the things you won't do in 2026?
I won't to do the dishes in 2020.
I'm just kidding. I don't know why that came to
mind. Yeah.
So yeah, I think that's what I'll say.
No a lot. And I hope to say no more,
honestly. Yeah, Yeah.
Now that we've gone through these six questions of what
you've reflected on for 2025 and then also looking forward to
2026, what you have already accomplished, take this time to
sit down. I don't know if it's 5 minutes
or 50 minutes, but set. Spend some time doing these
exercises. And hopefully all of this was
really helpful to you guys. Again, you don't have to do all
of it, but this is just stuff that we literally do in our own
lives. Like, we showed you the vision
board. We showed you Cherie's bingo
card. I read you my scripting from
2025. Yeah.
We never thought we'd be doing that.
Did not think I'd be putting that out into the world.
But if it's helpful, hopefully it's helpful for you guys, yeah.
So thank you guys so much for tuning into this episode.
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We'll see you next time. Bye.