Quiet Season And Why It Creates Winners
Level 2- Value Investor
Welcome Avatar! It’s holiday time and we’re going to grind through as usual. People can laugh all they like but setting the standard is the only way to go. No days off, no holiday break no nothing.
Oddly, while everyone talks about the grind, very few monetize the lull
The calendar has flipped to Christmas season and the world gives you permission to slow down: 1) cancel meetings, 2) taking longer to reply, 3) empty gyms, 4) dead group chats, 5) eating all this food they would never touch and 6) deciding to start working on their “new years resolution”… next year. This person is the definition of not serious at all.
Taking a vacation from your future isn’t how winners are wired.
Winners treat the lull like a runway. Getting the engine running. Picking up speed.
While the crowd is sipping eggnog and recharging, the lull hands out a competitive edge to anyone disciplined enough to pick it up.
This doesn’t mean you run a bunch of ads and try to make millions (isn’t logical as people are checked out). Instead it means creating a series of repeatable moves that will compound over time.
If you want an example. Real Estate is absolutely dead in this time frame. Guess when the better deals are had? That’s right in the thick of winter.
If you want a forever example? While everyone uses the lull to drink, eat pie and watch adult men throw a leather ball around… You will spend your time on research. There is something to learn every single year. Maybe you choose crypto, e-com, hand bags, real estate, bio-tech, etc. The list is quite literally forever. It’s the rare time you get to learn without the constant pings of customer support and a rattling iPhone with 500 messages.
The Holiday Lie
“Nothing gets done” in December. Sure. If you think the value of information is zero. A book can add millions to your lifetime earnings. But that doesn’t count because you didn’t close a deal on that specific day.
What’s actually happening: 1) social pulls drop to zero, 2) expectations drop to zero, 3) noisy information drops to zero, 4) free time goes vertical and 5) sleep debt is recovered.
Generally speaking you get about 7 days of freedom. Christmas to New Years. If you had a rough 2025, you can certainly take one or two of them to sleep, hit a sauna etc. However, the other 5 are huge. If you are working on a WiFi business you know that 4-6 hours a day is more than enough while juggling a W-2. Those 7 days? You can do a full 12+ hours. Equivalent to 14 days of work.
You are lapping everyone.
December isn’t dead time. It’s low distraction time. This is where fortunes are built. You just don’t see the results on day one. An amazing time period for those with low time preference.
View it as an Arbitrage
You’ll really be in two camps:
Drifter: Consume, snack, scroll, wait till January to miraculously start their New Years Resolution which they quit by February
Rational Exertion: They know that people are people. 95% will fall into camp 1. This means it is foolish to expect a business deal to be done on Christmas day. Instead they start researching the project they couldn’t get to. Or. They continue to work on the main problem they currently have. Either is fine depending on the situation. They wake up in January and the wheel are already turning on the runway.
Note: There is a full blown socially inept psychopath group that tries to sell stuff on Christmas Eve and Christmas Day/New Years Day. This group needs to learn basic social skills. We assume no one falls in that category (we hope!)
Create Momentum into the New Year
Since New Years day falls on Thursday you can bet practically everything that Friday will also be dead. This means you’ve got December 24 to January 4.
A rough 12 day sprint to create forward motion.
Create Momentum
You don’t need some massive notebook plan. Ask people from 2019 how that worked out (COVID threw the book out the door).
You need to create progress and momentum.
Create things you can put into a KPI: 1) pages written 2) pages read, 3) product tested, 4) iterations made on an ad, 5) organized list of customers to contact, 6) pre-written emails to vendors to send at the start of the year and 7) the all but necessary trimming of the fat - which contacts you realize are net negatives.
Thinking doesn’t count. You need output. Research only counts if it is actual materials read (10-Ks, Books etc.). Not some random short form video made by a zoomer on shrooms.
Output. And. Measurable information - a short journal of what you learned prevents meaningless scrolling.
12 days is a lot of days. If you’re in the dual W-2, WiFi money pain phase, this is like having 24 full days. Again. You can certainly ditch one or two of them for sleep restoration. However. We doubt you need more than that.
It works because there are no excuses when nothing is a distraction.
Balance Sheet of Time (2 Days)
A balance sheet for a corporation is Assets = Liabilities + Equity. In the real world? The balance sheet is Time = Keep + Cut. They are in equal weights because there are 24 hours in a day (time is constant).
The item is either improving to your life (keep) or negatively impacting your life (cut). In an absolute utopia there would be zero “cut”. However. This is real life and that’s never the case.
Use the ledger now. In fact, this is a perfect task for someone sleep deprived. During the 2 days you’re resting it takes less than 30 minutes to do this.
Keep: Routines that are keeping momentum in the right direction. People helping you move in the right direction. Projects are that are clearly adding to momentum. Places that are net positives on your life.
Cut: People that are draining your energy with no path to recovery. Projects that are more mental bandwidth than they are worth vs. financial return. Creating unnecessary stress in your life, draining your time. So on an so forth.
Time is Attention: Once you’ve gone through this list, you’ll find that the majority of stuff is just entertainment. Do you really want to pay $100 to watch some celebrity get punched in the face? You could have spent $100 on information to learn 3, 4 or 5 different topics at once. Massive misallocation of capital.
Your future shouldn’t be blocked by things that don’t matter.
Oh and by the way. The celebrity or politician has no interest in anyone but themselves. Don’t fool yourself by putting another man’s name on your back. And. Paying money to do so.
Create Momentum and Play to Attrition
We’re still here writing. Long-time readers know we “could” just mail it in. We “could” just call a mulligan and nothing would happen. We don’t because it isn’t the standard. The standard is to optimize. Efficiency. Effort. Duration.
The world doesn’t reward half done. It rewards completed reps. Is this rep here on Monday before Christmas Eve going to be the best “rep” we’ve done. No.
But Lady luck rewards reps. Completion. Completion. Completion.
Once you are wired this way, you don’t even understand what procrastination is. You simply start (even if it’s small). If you have a bad day at work and only have 30 minutes to hit the gym, you put in the 30 minutes and at least complete a small workout.
It’s like taking a shower or brushing your teeth, you just do it out of habit.
A simple way to think about this. It is much better to keep the ball rolling forward vs. obsessing over when it starts to roll down the hill. In fact, once the ball is rolling down the hill even a tiny shove makes it accelerate even faster!
Holiday season is where a ton of people allow the ball to stop moving. It is immensely more difficult to get a car moving from a standstill vs. 1mph of momentum.
The world stops demanding your attention every second which is the easiest time to keep the ball of progress going in the right direction.
Here Are Some Open Loops to Close:
Wanted to edit your check out or website display just too lazy to do so? Go ahead and do it.
Wanted to email vendors or more reach clients but didn’t have the time to write the copy? Do it now and ship it in January.
Have a book on your desk about manufacturing that you needed to read? Pick it up now
All your financial documentation disorganized? Get it all done now before tax time comes in April
Have a product you want to demand test? Well go and make all the ads, websites etc. Just launch it in January when people are back at their desks
On a health and fitness note? If you were taking in boat loads of caffeine and other grey market items to make it in 2025? Good time to detox from all that as you don’t have a performance hurdle excuse
To simplify, find one meaningful thing for you to complete before 2026 even begins. This will make the New Years resolution sound insane. You will have already knocked one item off the list and the bell will ring with a sound of momentum and confidence vs. mild anxiety.
Momentum and confidence is the right type of leverage.
Why This Works: Seamless Transition
Any of these sound familiar from the NPCs you meet every day to start the year. “Just getting back into the groove” “working off this holiday weight gain” “will start their detox on New Years, just one last cake/drink etc” “writing their annual plan”… which has zero entries from the entire year of 2025.
They think the new year is like a switch. That they can suddenly take a magic pill when the year turns over. No one serious operates like this. If you have something you can accomplish now? You do it now. Not later.
When 2026 comes around? You’re already in a groove. You already have momemtum. You’re already more prepared for the year. That’s exactly what *Edge* is.
See that small advantage? Why wouldn’t you want more of it?
High stakes competition always comes down to milliseconds, millimeters and tiny amounts of differentiation.
Engrain Your Identity
Most use the Holidays to abandon their core operating beliefs. This is like throwing a wrench into a Lambo.
You can easily catch up on some rest and do the standard holiday hand shakes. However, there is no need to abandon the person you’re trying to become.
The holidays allow you to hardwire a belief system into your personality. This has immense value beyond the few ads you create or emails you draft.
There is no point in “grinding” through Christmas. The goal is to maximize the lull period. Producer operating system. There is always some value to capture. Even when 99% of people are eating and drinking all night.
If you want a good one liner to think about this time period? Peaceful Progress.
You can continue progressing/creating momentum without disturbing anyone in the vicinity.
Simple One Item Idea
We gave a bunch of examples here but everyone is different. Maybe your main thing is getting off alcohol/caffeine for a bit. Maybe it is understanding the basics of TikTok ads. Maybe you’re considering a website facelift. We don’t know.
Just find one small task that can be done in about 10 days. Square off two days to sleep in goof off and recalibrate your physical health.
Once you’ve completed the task, click send on it to start the year.
Instead of walking in with a meaningless piece of paper with a list of new years resolution, you’ll have verifiable proof in your hands.
Proof that you can execute, finish and change even when the masses are telling you to “chill and relax all day bro”
When you click send, you won’t even care about New Years Resolutions, you’re already on your way to fixing the problem.
Final Note
For over a decade we’ve said to stay in on New Years Eve. Our opinion on this hasn’t changed. In fact we think that December 31 is the best possible day to stay in and recharge (one of the burn days). 1) there are too many drunk drivers, 2) there are too many people desperate for a change in the clock to change their lives and 3) the fireworks are far too late in the night vs. July 4. Also. Typically worse as well.
On that note, 2026 begins today for us. Onto our research project which the paid members already know about!
Hope you find one item to knock off the list. This is your time to keep that ball moving faster and faster in 2026.
Disclaimer: None of this is to be deemed legal or financial advice of any kind. These are *opinions* written by an anonymous group of Ex-Wall Street Tech Bankers and software engineers who moved into affiliate marketing and e-commerce.
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