Durable Dad with Tommy Geary
The Durable Dad podcast gives men the skills and tools they need to be rock solid for their family, their work and their community.
Durable Dad with Tommy Geary
111: Schedule Your Future
Your calendar already tells the truth about your priorities.
This episode is about using that truth to shape the year ahead—on purpose.
Most men stop at reflection. They do a year-end review, get clear on what mattered, and feel good about the insight. Then nothing changes. In this short follow-up, Tommy breaks down the missing step: deciding the next action and putting it on the calendar so it actually happens.
In this episode:
- Why insight without action quietly keeps you stuck
- The difference between wanting change and planning for it
- How one calendar entry can shift your relationships, business, or health
- Real examples: brothers’ trips, client strategy, training plans, and family time
- Why discomfort is often the signal you’re doing the right thing
Practical takeaways:
- Choose one insight from your year-end review and name the very next action
- Assign that action a specific date and time
- Let your calendar reflect what matters to you—not just what’s demanded of you
Look at your calendar for the year ahead. If it doesn’t show what you say is important, change it. That’s how different years are built.
For high-achieving men, effort is rarely the issue. Most are working hard, carrying responsibility at work and at home, and trying to show up well. The problem is alignment. Without clear planning, even disciplined men end up reacting to their weeks instead of directing them. This episode of The Durable Dad Podcast focuses on calendar-based planning as a practical leadership skill.
This is the Durable Dad Podcast. I'm your host, Tommy Geary. This show is gonna give you the skills and tools you need to be a rock solid man for your work, your community, and most importantly, your family. Alright, what's up, episode 111, 111? Alright, what's up, episode 111, 111? I was talking to a buddy that I ran into the other day, and he was catching me up on some of his work stuff. He said he had listened to podcast 108, Unfamiliar Territory, and that episode, it was just a couple episodes ago. It was about taking some time for yourself, breaking the way that you normally attack your work week and doing something new. And when I said in the podcast for yourself, it wasn't go get a massage, go take a day off of work and get some R. It was looking at your to-do list. What's been hanging over your head that you haven't attacked? It could be a house project. The client that I was working with, it was training his dog. Anyway, ran into this buddy a couple days ago, and he said that he had been wanting to implement this leadership development program at his work and that it's existing. It's an existing program that has a few modules and it's ready to use for any leader in the company, and he's been wanting to do it. He just hasn't had the time. He wasn't making the time. So he listened to the podcast, and at the same time, one of his employees came to him telling him he was feeling a little burnt out, a little worn out. Not that he wanted to quit, but he was just, you know, reaching for help. And it seemed to be the perfect time for this guy to implement this leadership development stuff that talked about how to have more ownership in your job, how to be more productive in your job, what it meant to be a leader. And he did it. And I mentioned that because I'm gonna talk about taking new action today. It's a follow-up from last podcast. So the last podcast taking off the pressure for 2026. It was all about a year-end review. What I missed at the end of that podcast was what do you do with that year-end review? And I was talking to Brenda, my wife, and telling her that I had just recorded this podcast and it was a year-end review and telling guys how to do it. And she was like, Well, did you tell them what to do next? Did you tell them how to take action on that year-end review? And I laughed and I was like, No, I didn't mention it. And she was like, Well, that's the most important part. So here it is. This is going to be a short episode telling you what to do next. So you listen to the last podcast, you spend an hour and a half doing your year-end review, and then the last half hour of it is getting ahead of 2026. What you want to do as you went through that year-end review, there are insights that you get. For example, the client that I was going through, one of the as he was looking at the people that he spent time with, who does he want to spend more time with? His brothers. He's got two brothers. They don't live in the same town, but they have solid relationships. He's like, I want to spend more time with them. I see us taking a fun golf trip in the summer. So you write that down, and I had him write it down. And then after we were done with the whole review, I went back and I was like, all right, what's the next step on getting your brothers on a golf trip in the summer? I got to text them. Okay. When do you want to text him? I'll text them next week. Okay. Put it on the calendar. So putting these insights that we have, the things that we want to change for 2026, scheduling them on the calendar for follow-up is what I want you guys to take away from the podcast today. Whatever you want to accomplish in 2026, you got to plan for it now. And planning isn't just writing it down, isn't just trying to remember it and saying it out loud. It's putting it on your calendar. Because a lot of the time, what we have on our calendar are our responsibilities to other people, to our family, the kids' activities, the meetings with people at work. What is missing are the things that are important to us. So this guy put an appointment on to call his brothers or to text his brothers. He also put an appointment on his calendar for when he was going to reach out to certain clients. Because when we were doing his year on review, he noticed that the big conference industry trips that he took weren't where he wanted to spend his time. And what he wanted to do was visit his top seven customers at least once throughout the year, fly in there, have a good meal with them, play golf with them, whatever, and then come home. That would be a better strategic move for his business. So I had him write down who are those top seven clients? Write their names down. When do you want to reach out to them? I'll reach out to him at the beginning of March to try to get a date on the calendar. Boom. Put March 1st, write those seven guys down, have that appointment on your calendar, ready to email them. One of the things that I wrote down from my year-end review, I loved my Spartan races that I did. And 2026 is filled with another trip. I'm taking people on to the Grand Canyon. And then Craig and I were going to run another men's trip out west in the fall. So those are two week-long trips I'm already taking that I'm going to be training for. So I'm not going to do another Spartan race, is what I decided. I don't want to take more time away from my family. However, having a trail run on my calendar is important to me, but I don't want to have to travel for it. So there is a Boy Scout trail. It's called the Boy Scout Trail. It's 15 miles about 25 minutes from my house. I'm going to run that in February. But I got to train for it. It's 15 miles. I'm not ready for that yet. So what I put on the calendar, I worked with ChatGPT to build a training schedule, run three times a week, how many miles I'm going to have to run. So I'm ready in February. I put all of those runs on my calendar. And now I'm held accountable to it. Will they have to shift a day or two? Sure. But now the ideas that I have, what I want to create for 2026, are on my calendar. That's what it takes to turn your next year into something different than what the previous year was. For Brenda, something that she put on her calendar was one-on-one time with our older daughter Luna. She looked back at the previous year. They had taken this camping trip together, just the two of them, and it was freaking awesome. And one of the questions in the year on review is what do your kids need in the coming year? And Brenda just knew that that one-on-one time helped them build their connection. So she figured out when she's going to do it in the fall. She hasn't booked the camping spot yet, but she has the date on her calendar. So that's what you do with the last half hour of your year in review. First hour and a half is looking back pictures, looking back calendar, answering some questions. You start getting some inspiration for what you want your next year to be, the last half hour. And it's usually the hardest part. The first part's fun. The putting it on the calendar, it's a little more like, oh shit, now I'm going to be held accountable to this stuff. Yes, take that uncomfortable feeling, put it on the calendar. This is how we get anything done in life. We figure out what we want, we get really clear on what's important to us, what where we want to put our time and energy, and then we plan for it, put it on the calendar, make some time in the future, and then we execute. What needs to go on your calendar for 2026? I'm gonna leave you with that question. Whatever the answer is, put it on your calendar and execute. That's what I got for you guys today. Have an awesome week and I'll catch you next time.
