At the end of each calendar year, between Christmas and New Year, I sit down and spend a full day without distraction taking stock of the year that was and looking toward the year that will be. I have been doing this for almost 2 decades now and find the return-on-investment to be phenomenal. See more at: http://orrenprunckun.com/2017/01/24/lessons-from-2016/

1. Lessons From 2016
Orren Prunckun

2. About Me
I graduated from Flinders University of South
Australia with a Bachelor of Arts and a Bachelor
of Laws and Legal Practice and is admitted as a
barrister and solicitor in the Supreme Court of
South Australia.

3. About Me
I won the Australia Day Citizen of the Year
Award for Unley in 2015, was recognized as one
of the “Top 50 Australian Startup Influencers”
and “Mentors you should know in the startup
space” by Startup Daily. Prunckun received an
Honourable Mention in Australian Anthill's “30
Under 30” award.

4. About Me
I am a member of the Unley Business and
Economic Development Committee. I have
spoken at Microsoft, BDO, Piper Alderman
Lawyers, Flinders University, University of
Adelaide, University of South Australia, The
Inventors Association of Australia, Social Media
Adelaide, Pecha Kucha and South Start
Conference.

5. About Me
I am a Director and President of Startup
Adelaide Inc., a not-for-profit organisation that
exists to foster and support Adelaide based
technology startup sector. More at:
http://orrenprunckun.com

6. Who Is This For?
At the end of each calendar year, between
Christmas and New Year, I sit down and spend
a full day without distraction taking stock of the
year that was and looking toward the year that
will be. I have been doing this for almost 2
decades now and find the return-on-investment
(not strictly financial) to be phenomenal.

7. Who Is This For?
During that time I do the following:
1. Reflect on Lessons Learnt for the year across
different 4 categories;
2. Reflect on what held me back for the year;
3. Capture a Word Cloud from various data
points for long-term states of mind;
4. Capture health metrics across 10+
categories;
5. Account for goals for the past year;

8. Who Is This For?
6. Account for behaviours to maintain, start
and stop (AKA resolutions) for the past year;
7. Plan goals for the upcoming year, the next 5
years and the next 10 years;
8. Plan behaviours to maintain, start and stop
for the upcoming year;
9. Revise life purpose, vision, mission,
personal brand promise, 50 year metrics for
success;
10. And a few other things…

9. Who Is This For?
This routine usually produces 25+ pages of
insights and the process is a deeply personal
exercise - for my eyes only, but I decided that
the Lessons Learnt part may be useful to other
people, so this presentation shows only a small
sample of that yearly reflection and planning.

10. Who Is This For?
The Lessons Learnt are divided into different 4
categories:
1. Life;
2. Health;
3. Wealth; and
4. Relationships.

11. Who Is This For?
Just like I used “return-on-investment” before, I
use these categories in the very board
definitions of the terms. I also sub-divide the
categories further into internal and external
categories.

12. Who Is This For?
For example, health is not just physical health
(external), but emotional etc. health (internal).
Wealth is not just financial wealth (external),
but intellectual etc. wealth (internal).

13. Who Is This For?
Relationships are not just capitalized
“Relationships” – romantic, but any relation
with another person etc. (external), and with
myself etc. (internal) and so on. I strongly
believe this categorization is important to be a
balanced person.

14. Who Is This For?
You may be thinking, how did this list come
about? I simply captured things as they came
up throughout the year to reflect upon or recall
and ritualize the implementation of these rules.

15. Who Is This For?
Many of them are not new realizations for me,
but very good reminders on things to focus on. I
hope you find it useful. To your success in
2017,

16. Life
Don’t be stubborn and resist things that have a
social stigma. What people think (usually
people you don’t care about) doesn’t matter
one bit.

17. Life
Getting clear on personal preferences for thing
such as investing, communication, risk and
learning is very valuable. These areas are high
leverage and have high “lifetime value.”

18. Life
Being bold and going for what you want is
under rated. Even if you “fail” you’re still better
off than not trying.

19. Life
Writing undoubtedly refines clear thinking and is a
valuable form of Intellectual Property as a side
benefit.

20. Life
The vocal minority is not reflective of the satisfied
majority, even though they want you to think that’s
the case.

21. Life
If you want someone to do something, appeal to
self-interest not gratitude (not my quote). “Coffee
to pick your brain” is not a good value proposition as
potential value for both parties is diminished.

22. Life
Anything worthwhile takes time.

23. Life
People don’t see value even when it’s slapping them
in the face – repetition and plain-English is the
name of the game.

24. Life
It’s really hard to debate nuance and detail,
especially with hard conversations, via text. Pick up
the phone or talk in person.

25. Life
People need to call a spade, a spade. There are
plenty of charlatans that embellish or hide facts
- everything from anabolic steroid use to
financial backing by parents and partners –
remember in marketing, being believability is
your biggest hurdle. People want evidence and
plenty of it. This is about being authentic.

26. Life
The best teachers don't know everything and
the ones who know it all are not the best
teachers. Education is not about fact transfer.,
it’s about empowerment and coaching
students.

27. Life
Sometimes you are at the wrong place at the wrong
time and you get blind-sided and caught in shit
storm. Don’t beat yourself up about it, we are less in
control of life as we think we are and there are
millions of factors that influence us that outside our
control or sight.

28. Life
Social and communication skills are learned.
There is a common myth that extroverts are
better at social and communication. This is not
true - they just get energy form people and thus
spend more time around people, exposing
them to more social and communication
opportunities to learn and get better than
introverts.

29. Life
A Law Degree is a useful degree. Law is the
building blocks and foundation of modern
society.

30. Life
The Law is an as close to a common
denominator of ethics as we’ll practically get.
Someone’s subjective (usually judgemental)
beliefs are isolated and are not close to the
common denominator at all. No one has the
right to shame you based on these subjective
views, so call them out on it.

31. Life
We never have perfect information or insight.
You may wish to have your time again, but if
you did, you'd still be in same position of not
having perfect information or insight
(remember you start from zero hypothetically).
Knowing this means regret become
meaningless - the grass looks greener, but
never is in this context.

32. Life
If you are not where you want to be in life,
you’re not communicating with others enough.

33. Life
Living your life exactly as you want, is the best
type of revenge.

34. Life
If you have great ideas and make them reality,
people are going to copy you and if they are a
nice person they will credit you, but most of the
time this will not happen.

35. Life
Always be the first to report something –
Reporter Psychology is weird and the first
mover always has an advantage.

36. Life
Undersell yourself and you’ll always over deliver.

37. Life
When you find something rare, don’t mess it up
by projecting your insecurities on to it.

38. Life
The majority of people are flakes at everything.
It’s far easier to say yes, than say yes and follow
through with their word.

39. Health
Intermittent Fasting is a force multiplier and
impacts many facets of life outside of Health.

40. Health
Calorie deficits are underrated.

41. Health
Sleep is important.

42. Health
Being “huge” is not the best differentiator in
terms of looks. It’s not your size that matters;
it’s your proportions that matter, particularly
your shoulders to waist ratio.

43. Health
Drop body fat first to get ripped, rather than
start with gaining muscle. Look good as quickly
as possible and you’ll look good while you
gaining muscle mass later.

44. Health
“Spot reduction” doesn’t work.

45. Health
Losing body fat is easy, but takes some
patience. Gaining muscle is harder and takes
even more patience.

46. Health
There are three ways to lose body weight:
 Consume a calorie deficit;
 Burn excess calories consumed; and
 A combination of one and two.

47. Health
Your body knows muscle is valuable for survival
and should be preserved, so when you are in
calorie deficit energy has to come from body fat
not muscle.

48. Health
The time when your body receives calories does
not affect your body composition all that much.

49. Health
If you are getting stronger, this means you are
putting on more muscle.

50. Health
If you are losing body fat as well as getting
stronger, you are increasing relative strength.

51. Health
If you are losing body fat as well as getting
stronger, you are increasing relative strength.

52. Health
The quantity of calories only really matters over
a longer term such as a week. This is because
the body is not very accurate in how it deals
with calories.

53. Health
You get to consume chips, chocolate and
cheese and lose body fat if you can adopt the
following mantra: IIFYC – if it fits your calories
(rather than IIFYM - if it fits your
macronutrients.)

54. Health
It doesn’t matter if you eat “clean” or “dirty”
food. Only calories matters.

55. Health
If you eat a calorie surplus of “clean” food, for
example vegetables only, you are still in a
calorie surplus and will gain weight. Likewise, if
you eat a calorie deficit of “dirty” food, for
example chocolate only, you are still in a calorie
deficit and will lose weight.

56. Health
Consistency is the most essential factor in the
body you want.

57. Health
Relative strength increase is the ultimate
metric of body composition progress.

58. Wealth
Freelancers are the same as employees, just
with less work security and more actual work
(sales & operational) as opposed to just in the
case of employee. A freelancer better be
asking clients for pay that is reflective.
Regardless both are hourly output which is a
losing game.

59. Wealth
Personal brands are valuable.

60. Wealth
Meetings are generally a waste of time for
everyone. Extroverts seem to be the instigators
of them – make them mutually beneficial for
all.

61. Wealth
Unless it’s the first meeting or the stakes are
high/confirmed, there is no need to meet in
person - A 1 hour meeting turns into 3 hours if
you include preparation and travel time. This is
2016 - use a technology that makes life easy.

62. Wealth
Clients don’t realize that the reason they are in
the situation they are in is because they
continue to do the things they have always
done.

63. Wealth
Clients get an expert because the client doesn’t
know to get out of the bad situation they are in.
Micromanaging and questioning every step,
rather than trusting the process and expert
should be a client’s default.

64. Wealth
The majority of people want to be decision
makers but no one wants to do the actual work
that makes a difference. Many are passionate,
but not willing to step up.

65. Wealth
No matter how “cool” being a strategist is, not
everyone is a strategist and if you call yourself a
strategist, you aren’t one. That’s not a good
strategy for a strategist.

66. Wealth
Expertise is the best form of exposure and
branding.

67. Wealth
People don’t value anything that is free.

68. Relationships
Honesty, vulnerability, authenticity and
transparency are under rated. In fact they are
required to get you what you want.

69. Relationships
No one likes rejection, but rejection reveals in
compatibility fast. Seek it out. Yet, most
people’s ego can’t handle rejection even when
you give them zero consequences and the
ability to save face.

70. Relationships
At first sight, what seems to be inconsistent
behaviour is because people have different
criteria for different things, times, environment,
value propositions etc. Behaviour is not
inconsistent after all.

71. Relationships
Just because you have opinion doesn’t mean
you are objectively right.

72. Relationships
If you are going to bring up the past, then
mention it at the time it happens (or close to)
otherwise you look manipulative and trying to
saving face.

73. Relationships
If someone is giving you advice that is related
to you and them, by default they are being
slightly manipulative to get what they want out
of you.

74. Relationships
Sometime people do the equivalent of coming
into your house and graffiting on your walls, yet
when your call them on it, they felt entitled to
do it. Stay clear of them.

75. Relationships
You can’t change people but you can change,
people.

76. Relationships
Don’t feed the trolls.

77. Relationships
People will do anything for those who
encourage their dreams, justify their failures,
allay their fears, confirm their suspicions and
help them throw rocks at their enemies. (Not
my quote).

78. Relationships
Giving or receiving unsolicited advice never
works to change someone’s mind. Life
changing events have that sort of epiphany for
change.

79. Relationships
Most people can’t or are unwilling to have hard
conversations.

80. Relationships
Most people don’t know what they want/need.

81. Relationships
It easier to complain than to take action to fix
something, so unless you are willing to make a
difference, keep your mouth shut.

82. Relationships
Most people never reply or say thank you. They
aren’t rude or bad people, they are disorganized
or don’t have experience with understanding
how much small things like that mean.

83. Relationships
What you say about others when they are not
around say more about you than it does them
(the content). Beware of the “looking through
the fish bowl effect” that happens to you when
doing so.

84. Relationships
Give people what they want – you can’t change
their minds, only they can do that.

85. Relationships
You can’t control who likes you, just find those
who do and who you also like.

86. Relationships
Look for those looking for you – no matter how
different you think you are, there are plenty of
people out there just like you, who are also
looking for you. Find your people.

87. Relationships
Go for what you want. You statistically have 85
years to live, why are you wasting it.

88. Relationships
People love gossip and rumour.

89. Relationships
People who are hurting lash out in hostile ways.

90. Relationships
1% of people are going to hate you and what
you do, not matter what. This says nothing
about you (as the majority of people usually
respond well or great) and says a lot about
them – they are driven by what’s going on in
their world view: fear, insecurity and jealousy.

91. To Your Success In 2017…
Contact me at http://orrenprunckun.com