SAT# 51 - ✌️🥂🏁 Farewell 2023

Happy Saturday, Friends!

This is our last email of 2023, and we felt the need to mark the occasion by sharing some of our personal and professional highlights and goals.

Don’t let us do all the talking. Hit reply and let us know what 2023 joys and 2024 hopes you’ll carry over the threshold come midnight on January 1st.

A dream shared with friends is a goal established!

Keep Pushing Back
-Paul, Kyle, Chris & Kristi

INDUSTRY HIGHLIGHT

Reflections and Directions

The ASOTU crew has enjoyed an amazing year, and we’re ready for more! Here are some of our biggest highlights from the last twelve months and what we’re most looking forward to in 2024.

⭐️ Paul —

ASOTU Fam…you are the real thing!

2023 is about to wrap and hundreds (maybe thousands) of you were able to interact with one another as a result of our content and live events.

Community is about knowing one another so much more than insights and hype, and I’ll say it again…you are the REAL THING.

May our next year together be full of new relationships, deepening existing ones, and all the magic that happens as a result.

We’re going to take 2024 by storm so the rest of the industry can feel it!

-Paul
🚘️❤️🎉

Professional Highlight 2023: This one is two fold and both have to do with realizing the power of community. The first is getting the More Than Cars Docu-series off the ground. It went from vision to execution in less than 60 days and we repeated the execution multiple times. Being able to highlight the amazing stories from the highest levels to the front lines of Dealerships is a huge win in my book.

The other is being a part of a community coming together at ASOTU CON 2023. Sure, we could have had a few more people in attendance, but for the hundreds who were there, the sense of community and progress was unavoidable. It has always been my belief that building community around shared beliefs is one of the most challenging parts in business.

Once others realize its the ‘real thing’ the other stuff falls in line. 2024 is going to be that year!

Personal Highlight 2023: I walked through some of the deepest challenges of my career late in the year. Getting personal, I’ve felt pretty ‘lonely at the top’. Especially when I realized the conditional nature of the support and encouragement from people who I considered mentors.

Here’s the bright spot…I realized who truly has my back even when its tough. All the while having the opportunity to grow in grace toward those who don’t.

It’s one of those seasons that I would never want to walk through again, but wouldn’t trade for the world.

Professional Goal 2024: We just about doubled the size of the ASOTU community over the last twelve months…I want to do that again! This is where you come in ;)

Personal Goal 2024: I want to get physically active again. This year was one of my least active years ever and I’m feeling it. I’ll set the goal at 4 times a week of 30 minutes of serious physical exertion. So there.

⭐️ Kyle —

Professional Highlight 2023: Shooting More Than Cars episodes 1-4.

Personal Highlight 2023: Getting A-list status on Southwest. 😂

Professional Goal 2024: Seeing More Than Cars visit 8+ dealers or dealer groups.

Personal Goal 2024: Run 1500 miles.

⭐️ Nathan —

Professional Highlight 2023: Working with the ASOTU team and experiencing the ASOTU community at ASOTU CON.

Personal Highlight 2023: Seeing a rocket launch live in Florida, absolutely unreal.

Professional Goal 2024: We’ve only just begun… perfect our More Than Cars storytelling, make the experience at ASOTU CON even bigger, and 600+ podcast episodes in 2024.

Personal Goal 2024: I’d like to run a half-marathon again, and break 2 hours. I’d like to read the entire Bible. I’d like to continue to push back against stress and anxiety while deepening relationships with family and friends.

⭐️ Jordan —

Professional Highlight 2023: Joining Team ASOTU.

Personal Highlight 2023: Officially meeting the legendary Paul Daly in person.

Professional Goal 2024: Growing deeper connections between people within the ASOTU Community.

Personal Goal 2024: Welcoming our 2nd child in March.

⭐️ Myles —

Professional Highlight 2023: Making most of the graphics for ASOTU CON and getting to see them on those massive screens.

Personal Highlight 2023: Buying my first car from Beaver Toyota!

Professional Goal 2024: Continue growing my editing skillset.

Personal Goal 2024: Write an album with my band.

⭐️ Chris —

Professional Highlight 2023: Seeing the daily email community grow larger and deeper and the content become more precise and effective for the people trusting us to help them start their day well-informed, encouraged, and connected to the people in their industry.

Personal Highlight 2023: Completing construction on my family’s new house and moving in.

Professional Goal 2024: Create something that only I can create for the benefit of the people I have been given to care for.

Personal Goal 2024: Take my wife on more dates. Take my daughter on more adventures. Release more music and actually tell people about it. Leave scarcity behind in favor of generative, regenerative, and redemptive relationships with the earth, the people I love/meet, and the Creator.

⭐️ AMJ —

Professional Highlight 2023: Meeting and caring for our sponsors at ASOTU CON 2023

Personal Highlight 2023: The U.S. Grand Prix, especially the live driver interviews.

Professional Goal 2024: Balance and Aim are my chosen words for the year. You cannot achieve what you don’t aim for, and among those, for me is balance.

Personal Goal 2024: To become more involved in my community and to put together a cookbook. 😉

⭐️ Kristi —

Professional Highlight 2023: Starting with ASOTU! 😄

Personal Highlight 2023: Getting our puppy, Queso.

Professional Goal 2024: More deep dive articles.

Personal Goal 2024: DnD with Chris!

⭐️ Kelli —

Professional highlight 2023: Joining ASOTU as their Creative Director and seeing how our internal growths impact the industry positively as a whole.

Personal highlight: Rescuing an untrained kill pen horse and wrapping up a year of full time travel.

Professional goal of 2024: Get to genuinely know the incredible community we’re growing on a more personal level to understand their needs to help empower our content cultivation.

Personal goal of 2024: Growing my walk with Christ to an even deeper level, and buying more farm land.

⭐️ Al —

Professional Highlight 2023: successfully executing ASOTU Con 2023 without any major fires to put out! #SmoothSailing ⛵️

Personal Highlight 2023: Spending 50% of my time at my home in Nashville, TN where I truly feel pure joy!

Professional Goal 2024: Leverage my skills with ASOTU to help grow the business so it can serve the industry in new ways.

Personal Goal 2024: Improve 1% each day my overall health (physical, mentally, spiritually) #compoundinterest

CONTENT RECAP

Looking Back

EMAIL:

• The FTC lays out new transparency regulations with their CARS Ruling. 🚘

• Industry experts make their 2024 predictions. 🔮

• The EPA releases its 2023 trend report on emissions and fuel economy. 📝

• According to KBB, cars are holding their value better post-pandemic. 🤑

PODCAST:

In case you missed it...

Paul, Kyle, Michael, guests from all over the automotive industry, and hundreds of the ASOTU community gathered recently for the 3rd Annual Year End Extravaganza.

What happened?

• A wrap-up of the year, looking at automotive, culture, and global trends.

• Key insights into what’s coming in 2024.

• New faces and old friends to the ASOTU community.

• That ASOTU-level energy and excitement.

End the year on the right foot — watch the replay here!

SOMETHING FUN

Business in the Front, Party in the Back

In a surprising twist to the luxury car market, a unique Dodge Viper limousine has made its way onto the scene, sporting an eye-catching price tag of $169,000.

This isn't the first appearance of the 25-foot behemoth. It initially caught attention in 2012, later surfacing on eBay in 2021, and then on Facebook Marketplace in 2022 with fluctuating asking prices.

Gateway Classic Cars in St. Louis is now the proud holder of this unusual Viper. Seating up to 10 people and boating only 6,827 miles, this extended ride combines the sleek lines of a sports car with the spacious luxury of a limo.

The selling dealer assures us that safety hasn't been compromised, with seatbelts for all. But, let's be real — if you're cruising in a Viper limo, safety might not be your top priority.

Quick Hits

• SpaceX’s Falcon Heavy rocket launched a mysterious spacecraft for the US military. 🚀

• AI-generated “influencers” are stealing “work” from “real” influencers. 🥷

• 500 or so drugs will increase prices in 2024. 💊

• Amazon Prime will soon have ads. 💀

• China is looking to get into NFTs despite a crypto ban in the nation. 🚫