🖐 Happy 2025!

Issue #71 is a 3-minute read...

🎉The Most Awesome Insane New Year’s Eve

My girlfriend and I did not agree on how to celebrate New Year’s.

“I wanna see the ball drop and go dancing,” she laughed.

I admit it.

Times Square, New Year’s Eve, and the epic after-hours parties downtown are a ‘must’ when you live in Manhattan.

Still, I wanted a break.

“We did the ball drop and dance parties the last two years,” I responded. “Remember that dude who threw up all over your boots?“

You said, “Never again!”

“Now you want to go back into the vomit pit?”

“C’mon, Erik,” she pleaded. “It’s New Year’s, and we’re in Manhattan!”

🍏 When you live in the Big Apple, you learn to love-hate New Year's.

It has a scene all its own (mad respect to Athens, Rome, and Paris) when you want to party ‘till 5 am.

Yes, you have to fight the subway crowd, absorb the out-of-towners, and make friends with the cops who guide you along the endless metal crowd barriers.

So here we are at 11:38 p.m., with the perfect spot on Broadway & 42^nd Street.

I scouted it out earlier when Times Square was reasonable. If that’s even possible during the holiday craziness (hint: it’s not).

To land this prime spot, I (kindly) elbowed 21 people and blocked out 17 drunk tourists from Little Rock.

🎆 We’re in position A—all so my girlfriend, Bridget, can see THE BALL.

It looks better than Venus.

Perched 70 ft. up that flagpole, against the 22-degree, black December sky, it’s an intense neon blue.

Times Square’s a gold, bright planet that makes the party crowd on Mars take notice.

(I’m convinced aliens fly in from Mars to Manhattan to celebrate New Year’s because, well, there’s nothing to do on Mars).

“It’s spectacular, right?” says a guy over my left shoulder.

I turn.

He’s got on a tilted New Year’s hat, two winter parkas, and mittens, and he’s gulping from a New York Jets travel mug.

We stare into the abyss.

“Yeah. She talked me into it. Again!” I say, looking at my girlfriend laughing with her gal pals. “This is the most insane one of these I’ve ever seen!”

“My wife, too,” he echos back. “She thinks Beyoncé’s gonna show up. I told her this year is our last. I can’t take the elbows in the ribs and the 2-hour wait for the subway back to Brooklyn.”

“So why do we do it?” I asked him. “Every year, same chaos. We live here. We should know better.”

“We do it for them. It matters to them,” he says, looking at his wife and her gal pals laughing and pointing up at THE BALL.

And that’s just it!

When you care about someone, you push past your own BS and put them first.

When you help clients, you’ll have a ton of New Year’s Eve moments when you want to say, “Nope, not doing it.”

Most business coaches tell you to only work with clients who love you and who you love.

Well, that’s not possible 24/7 when you run a premier firm (which you should).

Sure, clients that never pay or wake you with texts at 3 am have no place in your lineup.

All the rest?

You go the extra 101 miles and give them your very best.

Make the impossible possible for every one of them.

Warren Buffett said it…

If that means you elbow a few tourists and hang out on the subway platform for 3 hours watching college kids puke on the rats in the tracks, well, you do it.

Have a fantastic 2025—and make your customers love you by doing more than they expect.

Stay curious and keep opening doors for your business.

Erik

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P.P.S. If you dream of getting to $150K of sales, it’s time.

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