Leadmore Podcast · 2025-07-11 · 17 min
At the midpoint of 2025, John T. Meyer walks through a practical framework for pausing, evaluating, and recalibrating your year before it's too late. The Reflect phase involves taking an honest inventory of the first six months - looking at scorecards whether financial statements, fitness metrics, or relationship milestones - to understand what you've accomplished and where you've fallen short. Meyer shares his own vulnerability: a $25,000 revenue shortfall, a broken 535-day exercise streak during a Spain trip, and delayed progress on his book about momentum. The Refresh phase emphasizes the need to unplug, get perspective through travel or time away, and refill your cup before making decisions - Meyer credits his recent two-week trip to Spain with enabling genuine reflection despite the professional cost. The Refocus phase challenges you to audit whether your goals are still yours (not false goals chasing external validation), whether they're a "hell yes" rather than a "meh," and to prioritize inputs over outcomes. Meyer's three second-half projects are finishing and publishing his momentum book, rebuilding the LeadMore community for past coaching clients, and becoming "John version 40" as he turns 40 in August, focusing on habits, health, and family relationships. This framework applies across entrepreneurs, corporate employees, and anyone seeking to finish strong rather than coast or panic.
The 3R framework consists of Reflect (audit the first half honestly using scorecards like financials or fitness metrics), Refresh (unplug and gain perspective through travel or time away to refill your cup), and Refocus (recalibrate your goals, cut false goals, and decide what's a "hell yes" for the second half).
Use the "hell yes or no" heuristic - if your goal feels like "eh, I guess" rather than a clear yes, it's likely a false goal driven by external pressure (keeping up with the Joneses) rather than genuine priority, and should be cut.
Focus on inputs (actions, habits, and projects that matter) rather than chasing outcome numbers; Meyer is prioritizing finishing his book over adding more revenue streams because the book will unlock bigger growth long-term, even if it costs short-term revenue.
Meyer recommends doing a refresh and reset at the midpoint of the year (July) to look back at the first six months and recalibrate for the second half before you're too far along to course-correct.
It can be a long weekend, 48 hours alone, a vacation with your spouse, or even a conversation with honest friends - the goal is to unplug from work, social media, and email to gain perspective and refill your cup before making decisions.
Computed from the transcript - who did the talking, and the words that came up most.
How’s your 2025 going - really? Mid-year is the perfect time to hit pause and check in with yourself. Are you on track… or just hustling in circles? Here’s my simple 3R framework for getting back in the game: 1️⃣ Reflect. Be honest about what’s working (and what’s not). 2️⃣ Refresh. Unplug & recharge. You can’t pour from an empty cup. 3️⃣ Refocus. Double down on your real goals (ditch the “shoulds”). I’m a little behind on my revenue and just broke my 535-day workout streak - so trust me, you’re not alone. This is halftime. The first half is over. What matters is how you finish. What’s your refocus for the rest of the year? Drop it below!
Transcribed and scored by The B2B Podcast Index.
Speaker A: How's your 2025 going? Be honest. Today on the Lee More podcast, I'm going to ask you to pause and ask you to reflect, have some time to refresh, and then lock in and refocus when we take a look at, ah, 2025. Looking backwards, looking to today and looking forwards on, um, today's episode of the Leave More podcast. Hey, friends, I'm your host, John T. Meyer. And today, what I realized here in July of 2025, we're halfway through the year. It's been flying by, and it's a big year. It's a big year for me. I think it's a big year for you. Certainly been a wild year, crazy year. I was just talking to somebody the other day. I was like, I just kind of waiting for boring. When can we have, like, a boring week? Boring day maybe? The truth, of course, is that's probably never going to happen. So let's let go of that idea and lean into it. Become antifragile, get better, and just embrace the chaos, right? And figure out how to get better every day. So what I want to do today is my three, uh, R framework. It's a solo episode of Lean More Podcast. I'm going to walk you through my 3R framework on how to take a halftime review. Right? This is the, uh. If you're the New England Patriots in the locker room at halftime, down 28 to 3 to Atlanta Falcons, how are we going to get back on track? And maybe your year's not off the track, but wherever you are, if you're exactly where you want to be, if you're ahead of where you want to be or feeling a little bit behind, these three Rs will get you back on track to win in the second half and really make 2025 finish strong. Because the truth is, everything. The first half is done, it's history, it's in the past. We should learn from it, but we can't change it. So it's time to move on. Let's finish, make 2025 great and set ourselves up for, uh, 2026. So the 3R framework here. Today's episode, Lean More podcast. And I'm going to give you my answers live as we work through it. All right? Number one, reflect. We got to look backwards so we can get better moving forwards. So what I want you to do is take a brutal, hard, honest look. The first six months, uh, what would you say you did? What got done? Where did you show up like the person you wanted to be that you promised you Would be where did you maybe drop the ball or ghost on yourself? Whatever inputs we can take. If, uh, you're an entrepreneur, business person, that's your scorecard, your financial statements, your balance sheet, your bank account. Uh, if you have fitness goals or health, uh, objectives, it could be the scale, how many push ups you can do, your mile time, your weight, your average resting heart rate, whatever it might be. If you're a husband, a wife, a parent could be like, when's the last time you took your spouse on a date? When's the last time you hung out one on one with your kids? When's the last time you called your mom or dad? Whatever scorecard data inputs you need, some are really easy because you can look up a bank account and see a number. Some take a little bit more time to stop and think and really consider. When was the last time took my wife out on a date? When was the last time I had a heart to heart? My parents. So we need to take inventory. Now. When I do this as a coach, when I'm inside companies doing like a workshop or at a conference event, I call this the momentum model. Three simple questions. Past, present, future, looking backwards, what are you proud of? Looking today and the present day, what are you confident about and looking forward in the future, what are you excited about? So this 3R framework very much mimics that where right now we're just looking back, we're reflecting. So I want to give you a little breakdown of my year. We're sitting here in July. A couple of my goals. So revenue goal, I'm down, I'm off by 25,000. Not a lot, definitely able to make up, but more than nothing, right? It's going to take a little work. The challenge of course is in the second half of 2025. My goal, uh, is to keep going, to grow. The numbers get bigger, the targets get a little bit larger. So that makes me a little bit nervous. I think I need to do some true reflection on what am I building. One of the things I've learned, looking back on my first half, I made money a lot of different ways. I do one on one coaching, I do group coaching. I lead a program called Leadership South Dakota. I, uh, do some paid speaking, I do some workshops. Uh, I have a couple of people who are kind of taking parts of my old coaching. Like just the, I just want that one part and paying me for that. Uh, I have like a course that doesn't sell very well. Like just a lot of different things. And yeah, sure. Entrepreneurs want diverse revenue Streams or lots of ways to make money. But I. It's messy. There's too much going on. I want to simplify. I would rather make more money in less ways. So that's something that I'm thinking about as I move to the second half of the year. So that's where we're at on the business standpoint. A little bit short, very much in line or at pace with last year, 2024. But because you know me, my goal was for it to be bigger in 2025. Currently behind on that pace. Number two, this is a big one. So if you follow me online, you'll know I'm big about consistency, habits, discipline. My goal, my big, uh, Asogi for 2024. My big challenge for the year was to exercise every single day. And I did it 366 days. It was a leap year. At least 30 minutes every day, accomplished it. Sitting here in July of 2025, I can finally report that, uh, I broke the streak. 535 days long, almost a year and a half in late June. June 20th to be exact. On the 19th, I got up and ran. But then on the 20th, uh, or on the evening of the 19th, we flew to Spain on a family vacation. Just recently got back, uh, we were delayed, had kind of a mess getting the rental car. The trunk popped open. Driving on the highway in Spain, we had to pull over and like, make sure our bag didn't fall out. Uh, some windy roads. My daughter got sick in the back of the car. We eventually get to this resort, ended up being two days later than what we had planned initially through some travel delays. Um, anyway, long and short is it was the Evening on the 22nd, I believe it was. And, uh, I just couldn't do it. Was not able to get, get it done. I looked at myself, I was like, I don't want to work out right now. And all of all the things I've said about momentum and streaks and discipline, I just didn't have it. Nothing left on the tank, and I lost the streak. And here's the interesting thing. It was okay, you know, it had to end probably at some time. Um, and now I got to start over, which is kind of hard. One thing kind of interesting, I went 535 days, no misses. And since then, I've missed twice. So in that next seven days, I actually missed one more time. And I think that was just a mental, like an honest mental, um, lapse isn't the right word, but it was almost like freedom to miss or you know, it was like, at this point now I've had, you know, this happen. So I guess it can happen again. That, um. And so, I don't know, I need to lock back in and get in on that because it was never about again, a fitness goal. It was about becoming the type of person who will do what they say they will do. I think it goes back, honestly, to the revenue part. Just trying to do too many things. My calendar is busy. I own it, I'm in control of it, but yet give it up to a lot of different people and a lot of different causes. You should give up your calendar, you know, to your family, to your spouse, to your kids. But I'm giving up to a lot of other people outside of that circle. Got to protect that. So the workout streak is still. The goal was 365. It's now going to be 363 because I've missed two. I won't miss again. A couple other things. The big my Masogi for 2025 was my first year not doing a fitness goal. It was to write a book. And I'm going to write a book about momentum. I would also report that I'm a little bit behind on this goal. The irony is that the exact medicine, uh, I need to accomplish this goal to create momentum and build like a daily writing habit is what's in the book. So I got to give myself my own medicine. I have started, I've outlined, I've even written a couple chapters. But I got a lock in here over the last part of Q3. The goal is to finish this manuscript. Uh, so game on. We're right in it right now. That's my big goal for the year. I think it will not only define my year, but it will shape my business and my professional life in 2026 and hopefully beyond. So that's a big focus right now. So that's my sort of audit. Those are high level. I track a few other metrics in terms of fitness. Uh, making sure that, uh, I date my wife every month. Doing well on that, making sure. We take. We try to take a quarterly family trip. We've already taken three. Um, and we're just starting the Q3. So we're looking good there. So that's my reflection. I would urge you to do the same. Ask yourself. Take inventory. Grade yourself. That's a simple way to do it. On a scale of 1 to 10, personal, you know, family, kids, uh, self. How are you doing taking care of yourself? That's mental health, physical health, work, Whether it be, you know, at your job, in your company, entrepreneur, corporate, whatever you are, like, grade yourself there. Uh, and then I like, you know, the fitness, your faith, whatever, other metrics. Grade yourself on those. All right, Number two are after you've reflected or probably this one. These ones really combined. One of the best ways to reflect is to refresh. And so for us, this worked out so perfectly. I think we might even try to do this again. Taking a trip right at the end of June was a good time professionally with my wife and I in our jobs and our girls being home for the summer, out and out of school. But, uh, we just took this two week trip to Spain. So, yeah, it cost me my fitness goal, but it gave me a really amazing time to reflect, to be in a different place, different country, different culture, a different way of life and really sit and observe, just be there. We have family, friends there that we got to sit around the table and spend time with them. And me trying to speak in a second language. I haven't really practiced much since high school. Um, it was really great and really special. Unplugging my phone, getting off of social media, not looking at my inbox. I can say it's probably slowed me down over on the revenue goal because I'm in, like, catch up mode. But it was totally worth it to unplug. You can't have a real clear reflection or the next R looking forward without a refresh. So get some perspective. This could be a long weekend. This could be 48 hours by yourself. Uh, it could be a, ah, long, uh, a quick getaway with your spouse, um, a conversation with real, real friends who give you honest feedback. But take time and space to refresh. I, uh, try to do this every year and I really like doing it here at halftime because it's just a great, you know, middle point to look back and then look forward. So that's the second R. Remember you. You can't pour from an empty cup, so you got to refresh yourself. Refill. All right, R, number three, third R is refocus. So now if we go back to that momentum model, we asked what we're proud of. I was reflecting. During your refresh phase, you can ask what you're confident in. That's what you currently have. Taking inventory of your life and all that. Now it's time to refocus. So you've reflected, you've refreshed. Let's get a battle plan. Do we need to adjust? Are we on the right plan? Do we have the right goals or Targets. I think one of the biggest problems, I am a goal oriented person, but I'm guilty of this. We lock in for, you know, this was the goal. I said I was going to do it, so I have to do it. And maybe by July, August, September, you don't even care about that thing. That might even be true by April or May, right? So really ask yourself during that refresh and reflect time, do I still care about this? Is it a priority? Is it something I want to spend my time and effort money on? Um, and really, when it comes to refocusing, make sure you're chasing your goals and not someone else. I call those false goals. And false goals can really kill your momentum. You're just going down the wrong path. If you want to make X amount of dollars to buy some car that you don't care about, but you want to keep up with the Joneses, you got to take a hard look in the mirror, right? So let's make sure that we're focused on things that matter to you that you want to spend your time on that the people who love you most also think those are right for you. So that's part of the refocus. Um, one way to do this, a really good exercise is like ask yourself, is this thing a hell yes? Right? A really good heuristic is it's either hell yes or it's no. If you're looking at your goals and you feel like, eh, I guess I'll train for that marathon, I guess I'll keep grinding in this job just because, well, I want to, you know, buy that summer cabin or whatever it might be. I don't know. Just make sure you're chasing your goals and make sure it's a hell yes. Otherwise it's a no. A couple things on the refocus for me. Um, I'm not as concerned. Yeah, I do want to hit that revenue goal. And yeah, I did want to be higher than it was last year, but I'm focusing m more on the inputs than the outcomes. And what I mean by that is I don't want to just chase more revenue streams to try to hit a number if those revenue streams are actually slowing me down or holding me back on the things I actually want to build. So, like the book, for instance, is a long term project takes some time, some focus. I have to sacrifice things in my schedule, which probably means revenue dips or holds. But in the long term, that project, when done and when done right, when it's good, will open up and grow the things I Want to grow more. Right. So I'm going to focus more on the inputs. We'll see where the number and the outcome gets in the end. But I'm focusing on inputs. So my three big projects that I wanted to share with you on the back half of 2024, trying to 2025. Excuse me, keep it simple. One, this book, finish the book, edit the book, publish the book. We'll see how close we can get. I think we can get there. Um, it's going to be huge. And two, my second project, I'm rebuilding the lead more community. Um, and it's actually tied pretty closely to the book. So I'm really looking forward to this. I've had, I've coached now I think what's my number? 73 entrepreneurs in a couple years, some through one on one, some through group and some inside of a team. Um, and uh, I want to build something really cool and special for all of those people to move them forward. Not just a one and done situation. So the community. And then the last thing I'm calling John version 40 and what that means is in Q3 in the second half of the year in August I turn 40 and I want to really ask myself what does that John look like in terms of health, in terms of habits, in terms of putting my phone, you know, a recent thing. I can't believe it took me so long. I used to do this and got away from it. Getting my phone out of the bedroom. It's not my alarm clock anymore. Right. I leave it downstairs. Just what is the version of. What about the. What's the version I want my life to look like at 40 years old? Because it's rapidly coming. I just want to spend more time on becoming that version from a health standpoint, from a relationship with my spouse, my kids, my family, things I work on. So Those are my three big projects for the second half of 2025 as I refocus and lock in moving forward. So the 3R framework, we're going to reflect on the first half. What are we proud of? We're going to refresh sometime. Maybe you just did it. Do it. Don't worry too much about the calendar. If you haven't done it, plan it still in the month of July, long weekend, 24 hour getaway, some self time and vacation. This is the time of year a lot of people are taking trips. So refresh. Fill up your cup so that you can refocus. Chasing your goals, not someone else's goals. No false goals. Chasing your goals for where you want to be at the end of 25. So you not only feel like 25 was a win, but you're building and setting yourself up for 26. Those are the three R's, and I really want you to take some time to do a halftime reset. That's what I'm challenging here on the Lead More podcast today, is to do a halftime reset, get those three Rs done, and get ready for the rest of the year. I'm super excited. As always, friends, thanks for listening. Again, I'm your host, founder of Leanore Podcast and the Lead More Coaching company. And as always, friends, take care and be well.
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