Episode 48 Show Notes

Imperfect Men's Club Podcast Recording date: December 17, 2025 Hosts: Mark and Jim

Overview

Mark and Jim close out the year by doing what emotionally mature men do in public: taking inventory. They reflect on what shifted in 2025 (in big, practical categories) and then cautiously speculate on what 2026 might demand, especially around AI, personal brand, and how you spend your finite supply of time, energy, and money.

Big Themes from the Episode

1) 2025: The Year AI Got Personal

• AI stopped being "a tech thing" and became part of everyday life for normal, semi-tech-competent humans.
• Mark frames AI as a relationship: if you give it context, it gets better, like "an infant becoming a teenager" and eventually a useful young adult.
• Jim reframes AI as Amplified / Augmented Intelligence, not "artificial," because it expands what capable people can do and removes work humans probably shouldn't be doing anyway.
• The human edge remains: the five senses, real relationships, and embodied experience.

Key takeaway: You can use it, or it can use you. Same deal as most tools. And most people.

2) Personal Brand Is Not Optional Anymore

• Mark talks about the shift from being "a company guy" to being a person with a message, experience, failures, and a lane.
• Building a personal brand becomes a way to give back, scale trust, and stay relevant in a world that rewards visibility and authenticity.
• Jim reinforces the basics: know/like/trust still runs the world, and credibility has to lead the way.

Key takeaway: Authenticity is the only strategy that doesn't expire.

3) Inventory: Time, Energy, Money (And Who Gets Access)

• Jim pushes a hard-end-of-year practice: audit your calendar, your spending, your energy, and ask: what did it produce?
• Mark prefers systems over goals: set up simple processes you'll actually do, and results show up as a byproduct.
• They discuss the uncomfortable but necessary practice of leaving things behind: habits, commitments, even people.

Notable mini-frameworks/tools mentioned:

• Gratitude letters (thank you letters with real specificity)
• Farewell letters (closing loops and moving on cleanly)
• The "Do Not Call List" (a savage little boundary ritual for 2026)

Key takeaway: If something drags you down, it's stealing your future. Politely escort it out.

4) Words of the Year

• Jim: Impermanence (nothing lasts forever, so stop wasting time and start valuing the present).
• Mark: Gratitude (his daily journal word, and a mental reset that crowds out negativity).
• Jim also brings up limerence: when your mind gets stuck looping on a person/thing and you have to interrupt the pattern.

Key takeaway: Your mind repeats what you don't resolve.

5) Quotes of the Year

A rapid-fire stack of principles they keep returning to:

• "If you're not being taken advantage of once in a while, you're not being kind enough."
• "If you don't stand for something, you'll fall for anything."
• "More people, more problems."
• "We grow bitter or we grow better. It's a choice."
• "Say less, do more."
• "90% of life is showing up."
• "It's not what happens to you. It's how you respond when it happens."
• "Don't let it define you, let it refine you."
• "Be referable, be reliable, be resourceful."

Key takeaway: The older you get, the more you realize you don't need new quotes. You need to actually do the ones you already know.

2026 Speculation

• AI is here to stay, and the real variables will be regulation and energy constraints (big forces, bigger than any one person).
• Mark's 2026 focus: what he's leaving behind vs. what he's taking with him, doubling down on systems, personal brand, and daily AI use without becoming naive about it.
• Jim lands the plane on the "self" theme: self-awareness, self-reflection, self-forgiveness… the whole "self-" universe that sits at the center of the IMC framework.

Listener Challenge

Pick ONE inventory move before January hits:

• Write a gratitude letter.
• End one draining commitment.
• Start one simple system you can repeat daily.
• Create your own "Do Not Call" boundary (yes, it can be metaphorical… or not).

Closing

Mark and Jim wrap with holiday wishes and the note that this may be the second-to-last (or last) episode of the year. Reflection, clean endings, better beginnings. The usual inconvenient work of becoming a better man.