Daily Content Machine

What's the difference between a goal and a plan?

They sound similar and you may even use them interchangeably, but they're quite different.

A goal is where you're going. A plan is how you'll get there.

You start by defining what you want to accomplish. This becomes your goal. Then you convert that goal into a plan that you can act on.

I give you a 5-step process for turning goals into plans in this episode.

When was the last time you scheduled blank space on your calendar?

I mean empty space where you said, "During this time, I will specifically and intentionally not do anything."

You know how sometimes someone cancels a meeting or an appointment with you and you suddenly have some extra free time? You know that relieved feeling? That's margin.

Margin is something we all crave but very few of us create. By habit, we fill time. If there's space on our calendar, we schedule something there.

But this space is important. As with all things important, it needs to be planned for. That means we need to schedule margin, as in, intentionally plan to do nothing.

In this episode, we talk about the ways that margin gives you a better life and how to get it.

There's a really big problem today.

You can be internet famous and have tens of hundreds of thousands of subscribers and followers and still be making no money.

You might even (gasp!) have to get a day job.

We have people thinking they can just "get famous" and once they have a massive audience, they'll automatically be set for life and start making bank.

What's wrong here? Why are there stars with 100,000 followers who still have to go to work at a minimum wage job?

They have no business model.

Repeat after me: a YouTube channel is not a business. A blog is not a business. An Instagram account is not a business. I don't care how many followers you have. A BUSINESS is a business.

What is a business? That's exactly what we talk about in this episode. You need a business plan and a strategy. Blogging and videos are acquisition channels. They are merely tools that advance someone on the Buyer's Journey.

What is the Buyer's Journey and how can blog posts and videos lead people to buy? I'm glad you asked. Tune in to the episode.

After the podcast ends, we usually do a little "after show" segment following the music.

Community members enjoy an additional live bonus segment called the "after after show". It's typically more laid back and low-key.

The recording you're about to hear came from an "after after show" conversation that went long. It went nearly 30 minutes. We weren't originally planning on releasing it publicly, but it was such a deep conversation that I really wanted to share it.

It's about taking a step back. In this off-the-record conversation, I get real with Ben about the challenges of producing as much content as we do. It was right before I was about to take a sabbatical week and you can tell I really need one.

I conjectured about what I might be able to accomplish if I stopped doing all of my shows and newsletters. If I stopped podcasting and publishing daily videos, what might I be able to do? It's not so much that I want to stop, in fact I really enjoy the work, but more that I'm not sure I've had the chance to take a big enough step back to evaluate what it might look like.

I talk about the possibility of taking a whole month sabbatical instead of just a week every seven weeks. Ben and I discuss my plans to take a full year sabbatical in 2020.

The conversation delves deeper into the meaning behind satisfaction, contentment, and fulfillment. I wonder how much of my efforts should be allocated to accomplishing my 5 and 10 year goals and how much should be dedicated to the short term.

I hope you enjoy this behind-the-scenes episodes.

I remember buying a product once, and in the package was a hand-written note.

What a surprise! What a delight!

Someone took the time to write my name and a personalized message. It felt really special. This is an example of something that is unscalable.

While in the beginning you may be able to write a hand-written note for all of your customers, as you grow and as your business scales to hundreds or even thousands of orders, you will no longer be able to write personalized notes for every person even if you made it your full time job to write notes all day!

Some things don't scale, but that doesn't mean you shouldn't do them. Responding to every comment, message, or email in the beginning is the key to growing. Those connections and deep engagement will create ambassadors. They're the people who will help you grow!

In this episode we talk about doing the unscalable things not only in the beginning, but how you should still be allocating time to do the things that don't scale even when your business is much bigger.

I was asked recently how I learn so much.

Pretty much constantly, I am acquiring knowledge. Every chance I get, I'm acquiring knowledge.

If I get up from the computer, I'm playing something on my phone while I get get food in the kitchen. I'm constantly acquiring things. Constantly learning.

This person wanted to know my sources. I said I'll do you one better—because I wanted to "teach a man to fish," right?

Every time you hear a concept, name, book, reference, or anything at all, stop what you're doing and look it up. Whenever you're consuming content and you hear a new name, stop the recording and look it up.

I was on my way back from visiting family for the holiday and catching up on my listen and watch lists in the car. I'd taken my turn driving and now I was able to watch videos on my phone.

I was watching this interview with a very successful business man who used an older cell phone. He didn't have a smart phone.

He explained that smartphones are a huge distraction. Instant messaging, emails, and social media are constantly sending a barrage of notifications and interruptions every 2 to 3 minutes all day long; it's a complete killer of focus.

The true cost of a smartphone nowadays is not merely the $800 you spent on it for those hundreds of gigabytes of storage or the monthly fee you pay for data, but the value of the time lost using it.

He was explaining that you easily waste an hour a day because of it (and many people waste way more than just one hour a day). He said if you value your time at $100/hour, that's 365 hours a year or $36,500 down the drain. But if you value your time at $1,000/hour, it's a loss of $365,000 a year.

I just made a bold statement with this episode's title. I know this.

Your parents absolutely can instill valuable principles and insights that can contribute to your success. I 100% believe this and I certainly have my parents to thank for many things that have contributed to my success (thanks Mom and Dad!).

However, the purpose of this episode is to make you aware of inherent biases and conflicts of interest that are present. Whether you have supportive parents of not, it's important to understand how these emotions affect the advice a parent can give.

Objectively, parents want the best for their kids. They certainly don't wish for them to be in danger or harm's way. The last thing they want is for you to be hurt because they care about you. From a young age, we're told to stay out of the street and not to talk to strangers. These are all for very good reason.

However, success requires risk. It also requires failure. Repeated failure. Therefore, it's against the emotional nature of a parent to wish for you to be in risky situations or to encourage that you fail.

If your parents encouraged failure, you should thank them! It's very rare.

Whether your parents were supportive or not, it's important to be aware of emotional biases and conflicts of interest that are present. It's not just the case with parents but also with things like the traditional education system. You have to remember that the traditional education system exists not to make you successful, but to protect its own infrastructure.

We talk about a lot of deep things in this episode: why we're predisposed to avoid the very risk and failure that enables success, the different between assets and liabilities (and how only wealthy people truly understand the difference), why you might not be able to assess your own risk objectively, and my future vision for seanwes given all of this.

Raise your hand if you often stop yourself from putting something out there because it's just not quite perfect.

I know I've done that a lot.

I consider myself a chronic perfectionist. I'm a recovering perfectionist though and I want to help you in this episode!

Many of us have perfect ideas in our mind but what comes out doesn't match that perfect vision. This can be discouraging and it can keep us from producing.

The difference between you and someone who is able to do something perfectly every time with seemingly no effort is a sea of imperfect work. The only difference is that they've accepted imperfection and put out less-than-perfect work anyway.

It takes producing a sea of imperfect work to reach that point.

But even after reaching a point of mastery, our perfectionist tendencies can still hold us back and affect how we work with others.

We talk about why we struggle with perfectionism, how using the "90% perfect" concept can help, working with other perfectionists, and the difference between hustle and perfectionism.

Long-time listeners are very familiar with my "Full Price or Free" mantra.

I position things at one of two options: Either full price or free.

What's the problem with discounts? Everyone loves discounts, right? Yes, they do. That is, until they don't.

What do I mean?

Do you remember the last time you bought something only to see it get discounted the following day or next week? How did that make you feel? Did you enjoy feeling duped?

Discounted prices punish early buyers. Discounts not only devalue your products, but they also create poor customer experiences when your buyer finds out next week that they should have waited to buy from you later.

In this episode, Ben and I navigate the seas of pricing and make a case for why you shouldn't discount and how to sell without discounting.