At a Glance:
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Reflect, Reset, and Design Your Life Intentionally – Closing out 2025 with honest self-reflection helps you recognize wins, identify gaps, and assess progress across health, relationships, income, and net worth. Moving into 2026 with a clearly defined “One Thing” shifts you from drifting through life to actively steering it.
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Build Protection Against AI Through Passive Income – AI is reshaping careers and threatening many traditional jobs. Real estate both active and passive offers a practical way to reduce dependence on active income. Each dollar of passive income acts as a buffer, creating financial resilience in an increasingly automated world.
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Enrich Life Beyond Money with Experiences and Joy – Travel, food, and shared experiences like exploring Lyon or celebrating with good food and wine are just as important as financial goals. A well-designed life balances wealth-building with adventure, connection, and simple pleasures that make the journey meaningful.
Exercise 1: Closure for 2025
Take a few minutes today to answer these questions:
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- What am I most proud of accomplishing in 2025?
- What was my greatest bucket list adventure this past year?
- What did I say I was going to do in 2025, but didn’t follow through and complete?
How do I rate my progress in these buckets of my life?
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- Health
- Relationships (family, romantic partner, friends, etc.)
- Active Income
- Passive Income
- Net worth
Take your time and do it right, writing the answers out.
But if you know you won’t do that, then at least spend 10 seconds now pausing and answering the questions in your own mind.
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Exercise 2: How You’ll Change Your Life in 2026
Most people drift down life’s river, occasionally sticking an oar in the water to avoid a rock or tweak trajectory.
You deserve better than that. But it requires you to actually row and steer your own course.
Here are a few questions to start cranking your creative engine:
- Imagine your future self on NYE 2026, one year from today. What do you most want to congratulate yourself for accomplishing this year? What’s your “One Thing” this year?
- Who’s going to hold you accountable for your One Thing? This could be an individual accountability partner, or it could be a mastermind group. (We’re hoping to launch a mastermind group this year for people looking to design their lives intentionally. Stay tuned!)
- How can you declare and commit to your One Thing right now, today? Share it with three people whose opinions you care about, right now via text message.
- What’s your top bucket list adventure for 2026? Can you book a portion of it (like a flight or accommodation) today to commit?
To help program your mind for change in 2026, write a letter to your future self, to open on New Year’s Eve one year from now. Write it in the past tense, celebrating all the wins you had in 2026, all the challenges you pushed through. Then enjoy reading it on 12/31/26.
Can Real Estate Shield You from AI Stealing Jobs?
As someone who still writes for financial blogs like GoBankingRates and BiggerPockets, I’m keenly aware of the threat AI poses. It feels like writing sits squarely on the AI chopping block.
Fortunately real estate can help, as Deni and I discuss this week on the Buck$ Outside the Box show. That goes for both active income and passive investments.
I’ve built up thousands of dollars in monthly passive income from real estate, by participating in Co-Investing Club investments as just one more member. Every dollar of passive income is one less dollar I depend on active work for, buffering me from a job AI-pocalypse.
For anyone considering a career change, we walk through a series of real estate business models which require no formal education. Some ideas to chew on entering 2026!
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Real estate investments? Awesome.
Being a landlord? Less fun.
Learn how to earn 15%+ on passive real estate investments in our free video course.
Travel Corner: Lyon, France
Given the food feature below, I couldn’t resist digging into Lyon.
It’s the food and wine capital of France, which is itself arguably the food and wine capital of the world. It’s within an hour or so of three famous wine regions: Burgundy (Bourgogne), the Rhone Valley, and Beaujolais.
It also boasts one of the largest intact medieval districts in Europe. It suffered no lasting damage from WWII.
There’s a free zoo, and rivers split the city in a charming, old France sort of way. The restaurant scene is incredible, and you’re sure to find plenty of snails baked in garlic herb butter in addition to the steak frites, coq au vin and moules marinières.
Good Mood Food: Escargots
Every New Year’s Eve, Katie and I get together with another couple who loves good cooking and good wine. We make a many-course meal, each paired with a fancier wine than we’d ordinarily drink.
Tonight for my course, I’m making escargots. And it’ll be the easiest dish served.
I don’t have a special snail baking dish, nor do I have shells to bake them in.
I’m just throwing them in a glass baking dish with butter, garlic, and herbs de Provence, baking them for 10 minutes, and pouring a handful into serving bowls (with the butter of course). I’ll slice some sourdough bread and Voila! C’est fini.
I’ll serve it with a white Burgundy (a Pouilly-Fuisse), which only seems right. But you do you.
Oh, and lest you think I’m spending a fortune on snails, think again. I bought a can of them for $12. This isn’t the exact same can, but here’s two dozen escargots on Amazon for $15. Bon appetit!
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What short-term fix-and-flip loan options are available nowadays?
How about long-term rental property loans?
We compare several buy-and-rehab lenders and several long-term landlord loans on LTV, interest rates, closing costs, income requirements and more.
Crystal Ball: Co-Investing Club in 2026
No Zoom call tomorrow, given that it’s New Year’s Day. Enjoy sleeping in and hearing the U2 song being overplayed by DJs around the world.
Deni and I have tentative deals that we like the look of, for us all to vet together as a Club in January and February. We’ll be in touch next week, and we can’t wait to keep building wealth and passive income from hands-off real estate investments together as a community in 2026!
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