Kickstart Your 2025 CA Goals!

In this episode, Matt Brennan discusses the importance of setting goals for 2025, both personal and business-related. He reflects on his own journey of transformation through fitness and emphasizes the need for continuous improvement in professional practices, particularly in the architecture field. The conversation highlights the significance of writing down goals, utilizing technology like AI, and maintaining proper logs in project management. Matt encourages listeners to embrace the new year with enthusiasm and a commitment to growth.

Takeaways
Goals give you something to work towards.
Reflecting on personal goals can lead to transformation.
Using technology can enhance productivity in business.
Writing down goals is crucial for accountability.
Personal fitness can be a significant goal for many.
AI can be a game-changer in architectural practices.
Maintaining logs can protect against legal issues.
Consistency in efforts leads to growth.
Engaging with the community can foster learning.
Every new year is an opportunity to reset and improve.

Sound Bites
"What have you set for goals for 2025?"
"There's never a bad time to start."
"I want to pass it on to you."

Chapters
00:00 - Setting Goals for 2025
04:49 - Personal Goals and Transformation
09:57 - Business Goals and Innovations
14:04 - Reflection and Future Aspirations

🎙️Website - WhattheRFI.com

🍏Apple Podcast - What the RFI?
🎧Spotify - What the RFI?
🎥YouTube - @WhatTheRFI

Transcript

0:00

Happy New Year! think this is last time I can say this before it's gonna get really old. Today's all about goals. Let's get into it. Welcome to What the RFI. I'm Matt Brennan and this is the podcast all about CA. So we engage into a new year. 2025 is here. I'm excited. I've got some big plans. We're going to dive that right into it and happy new year to you too. So question is, what have you set for goals for 2025? I know we're kind of jumping late like New Year's resolution that was, you know, three weeks ago, but did you set any? Did you actually follow through with setting any of these goals? And, you know, why do we even set these as to begin with? And that's kind of always a question. Everyone's different in their journey, but you know what? Goals are really, really important, I find. It just gives you something to work towards too. And we're getting into good practices of writing them down and following up. But it does push you. It gives you a moment to reflect, prune, et cetera. And that's why we do them. You're never ever going to advance if you don't do it. So if anything you're to take from this is actually doing it. then you're 10 steps further than you were before. Okay? One of the things I actually, when I set my goals, it wasn't a New Year's resolution. I always kind of, what I did, I felt like my year actually started when school started back in September, right? When you take the kids and everything, it was a new school year, a new journey, then the summer would hit. And that was kind of what did you achieve during that work time because you go into summer brain and everything. So I think either do one or the other. Are you going to set your goals January 1st? Or like I said, you kind of set it for the new school year and you follow that, whatever you do. But the thing is get into a habit of doing it and that's what we're going to get into. And we will bring in both personal and business goals. So on that note, let's jump into the personal goals. What is your personal goals? I'm going to show a little bit of a journey of myself about last year as of January 1st of 24. I finally called it. went and got a gym pass and I meant to get a gym pass once I started my new role at my new company I'm at doing, you know, sales from, from, my desk and everything. And I thought this is great. I'm going have a more flexibility, more different hours. I can go work out. And that was back in September 23. So finally January rolled around and I said, that was enough. Made a decision over the Christmas break that I was going to walk into that gym and get it. And it was cliche. It was such a. funny, you know, the irony of walking into the gym first day saying, I need a gym pass, no excuse for doing it. And probably, you know, many others signed up for the same day because that's just the way it works. But I'm glad I actually did sign up for a gym pass because I worked at it it was way better than doing a leisure center where you had a drop-in fee or something like that. It allowed me just to get in there and get it done. And I worked real hard with it. You know, January, February, I really pushed myself because I was the heaviest I ever been. I was... around 215, 216. My face showed it. It was incredible. I was just looking at photos the other day and going, wow, what a different person I am today versus then. And I worked my butt off. I found the best way was I was running a minimum 30 to 40 minutes on the treadmill. That was my first workout. Throw some good music on, just book it. And then I worked on abs, know, a bunch of crunches, stretches, getting it all kind of loosen up. So again, that would be another 20 minutes. And then I'd go into pumping out weights and it was a really good thing. And just a little tip for me, what I found out really worked out well, I downloaded an app called Fitbot. I have no association with them, of course, and it's great. It just kind of tracks your works out. It tells you what you should be doing and overall really impressed for the like the 60 bucks a year. Happy, you know, or you just renewed it and absolutely money well spent in other words. But it was really cool to see the progress and I did. take selfie photos just for myself, didn't post them, but just taking photos in that respect. And what was really good is just seeing the progress and really seeing it. And then again, seeing it through photos, you know, over the last few years or this year and the last few months, I mean, I did a couple of conferences and I got the photos from people and I go, man, that person looks good. And it was me. It felt really good. felt special in that sense. Not being conceited or having ego in that sense, but... At same time, I've worked really hard for it and I am a different person because of that. So setting your goals, your personal goals, if that's one of them, you know, along with many others, jump onto it, right? There's never, never a bad time to start. Just get in and do it. And if you've done in the past, well, it's more just giving yourself a kick in the butt to get back on the horse and just book it and do it. So that was one of my own personal goals with it. You know, maybe that's yours and The other kind of goal too was reflecting on yourself. It's always a good thing. It's always kind of what can you do to be a better person? What can you do better in your day to day? Is your habits? Who do you need to call? You know, all those little things for it. So, you know, from the personal side, whatever, maybe it's a trip, you know, I've got a couple of trips, you know, I want to do this year. And yeah, so definitely some bucket lists in respect to that. But business goals. This is what the podcast is all about. What are we going to do in business? Okay. Like I said, I'm kind of pushing it back to you. What are you going to do in 25 as a business goal? Where does your firm stand at? Where do you stand it in your career? All these different milestones. Are you going to be gunning for a raise at that point? Are you going to be trying to get that association position? If those are kind of things, the goals that you want, how are you going to do that? And go in that in a minute. Maybe the big trends, what we're seeing on the markets. Are you planning on using AI this year? If you're, if you haven't even considered using AI, this might be the year to actually get involved with it. Start doing it, seeing what can you use AI in your architectural practice to really push your designs that much further, your productiveness, your renderings, your video animations. What can you do to be better in front of the client? And based on the channel about CA, what are you going to do in CA? You know, we've been living in past it feels like when it comes to CA that we're just stuck in the same rut. So we're doing the same thing over and over. We're doing our field reviews with our phone on site, which is great. At least you're taking a photo there. Maybe you're taking an old digital camera. Come back to the office, putting Microsoft Word, fighting with it. by the way, that report took a week to get out. Just these little things like really going back to that reflecting, reflect what you're doing in the business side of things. And what can we do better? What can we do? The company I work for, Part 3. That's the website. They actually just released a blog post about the top 15 tools in CA. Have a look through there. There's a lot of good scenarios. We talked about Planger, we talked about Fieldwire, we've been talking, you know, just some different tools, of course, part three, you know, in respect. What can we do better into that? I've got a talk that I'm going to release on this, on the podcast, probably in the next... next week or two or something like that. But it's basically where's CA and where is it going? And I think that'd be a really good episode to kind of look forward to, listen, and it talks about all the different tools out there in CA that are really changing the game from the architect's standpoint. stay tuned, check it out and you know that. But I would encourage you in respect to that, again, think about your firm. What are you doing different? Are you still doing everything manual where you're logging everything in Excel? Again, cheap sales pitch here, but part three, seriously, have a look at it. It will change your world. It changed my professional career in that sense. The other thing is too, like the day-a-day CA that we do with the contractors, they're running the show with Procore. And I've been speaking to so many architects that go, yeah, that's how we do our business and this. And then we get talking about the challenges that they find with that. Does it make sense to have the contractor in control? And there is other ways where you should be bringing your own logs back and forth with and taking control of the project. Having your own logs is critical because any job that goes sideways and the contractors on Procore, he's set, he's got his logs and data, but you've got your logs. And I've been talking to a few clients and everything where they had that scenario where they've been charged with a delay claim and, you know, was something like 2 million bucks. And because they had their own logs intact, that $2 million lawsuit dropped to $100,000 because they had their info. They had their logs all intact. They just gave it that to the lawyers. They looked at it and ran, well, of course, yeah, we know where the cracks formed and it clearly wasn't with you, it was with the contractor and so on. And then in this case, in this particular client, they actually went through it again. The contractor launched another lawsuit and that $2 million additional lawsuit turned into a $40,000 settlement. It's all about keeping track, keeping the logs intact and that, and there's a lot of power with that. So, you know, what are you doing for CA? Are you doing field reviews on the old school way? Are you still tracking everything through Excel? There is options out there and I think there's a better ways of doing this in respect of it. So have a look at that. And that kind of brings us out to the next point of write it down. Okay, you've brainstormed, we've talked about these ideas and that's great thinking about it. That's the first step. Having the conversation, the lunchtime conversation, water cool conversation in those leadership meetings that you do, very powerful. the most to take that from that thought to an actual action is grab that pen and paper and do it by physical. Don't just type it again. There's something to pen and paper, right? Write it down, write it in a journal that you can keep next to your desk. side table, whatever, it doesn't matter. Again, personal business, write it down and really reflect and pull that book out once a quarter. Put it your calendar, know, the reoccurring event every quarter, pull it out, check in, check in with yourself. How are you doing it? And do something with it, right? Set, kind of go from this goal, writing it down and how are you going to get there? You know, one thing My partner, she actually did this for the previous year and wrote it down. It was so cool sitting down and looking at all those goals that were written down and what she did achieve and what she was still working towards. And what a beautiful moment that is to just, you know, look what I've done. Look where I've come. You can actually track where you've been and where you've gone through this, right? It's kind of like a hike, but you're seeing on paper, you're seeing it through your career. So we get so lost with the busyness, right? you get beyond that. And this is just a way to really reflect on that. And again, just to continue to check in as well. So physically write it down and you won't regret it in that respect. So what are some goals of my own? Well, for this, for the podcast, big one, okay, it's consistency. I apologize. I've been so busy with life, with personal life and everything and things have been flipped upside down and I have not been posting regularly. That's all about to change. This is a new year. This is a big year of growth. I am beyond excited. I'm excited for the company I'm working for for part three with the plans that we have going forward with that. The groundwork was established in 2024 for this podcast. You know, we saw incredible numbers before, least to me I felt like we There's been over thousand downloads. So thank you to everyone that's listening on the weekly basis. It was featured in over 22 countries. Like, I don't know how, but it was, it reached a lot of people in that sense. And, and what a really cool thing to walk into a meeting and people already know who you are, being of this podcast. So thank you. Thank you for making, setting the groundwork, setting the foundation, continue to come back to this and listen, cause I want to change this. I really want to be. Take all the knowledge I've done over the last 22 years in CA and I want to pass it over back to you. I really do. And I want to hear topics that you guys are stirring on. Shoot me a note on LinkedIn. And yeah, I definitely want to talk about it. I want to get on to guest shows. You've already got a couple kind of lined up where I'm a guest on someone else's show. And again, just bring that knowledge, bring that awareness to CA that there is better ways as architects, project coordinators, engineers. we can do better, we can change the game, we can get time back in our daily lives and by just being more efficient and all the scenarios that we deal with. Everyone's got their stories, you you basically, you know, grab a couple of drinks, sit down with someone in the CA, then stories can just go on for hours because everyone has their scenario. There is no guidebook to this, but we're trying to do that right here. Okay. And you know, with with the podcast, totally. Just again, getting back to CA, just getting to those rich stories, talking about the experiences, what can we do better? How do we even prevent us getting to that story? There is better ways. And guess, guess, guess. I wanna have a lot of guests on my show. I've got a lot that have been reaching out, which is good, and I've just gotta get them scheduled in. So a lot of that's gonna come in. And I think that there's a lot of power to that. It's like not even just my knowledge, but now you share it with someone else. and we can bounce ideas, bring back good old memories, good times, talk about it. And just again, make this a central place for all these memories, central place for all the CA experience. And I want to pass it on to you. And again, whether you've been doing this for 40 years, you might learn something, probably not. You probably teach me actually. But, you know, even if you'd have been to do it for 20 or if you're brand new. I want you to basically get something out of this every time to encourage you to spur you on and take it to new heights and advance in that career of yours and just be that better person on site in the CA world. So in summary here, if you haven't set your 2025 goals, there is still time. There's, you know, there's never better time to start than now. Get onto it, get back, write them down, like we said, and yeah, make this a year to remember. We've had some really weird years in the previous year. I had a really bizarre last year personally. I'm excited. This is a new year. It's a new me. And this channel, this podcast, we're ready to rock it. So join me each Monday. I'm going to be posting as I normally do. I want to hear your feedback. And ultimately, we're just going to talk about CA and what the RFI. There you go, there's my inspiration speech for 25. I'm excited, let's do this. And of course, wrapping this up, architects keep designing and contractors keep making those blueprints a reality. And we'll see you on the next one.