Mike Murphy Unplugged

Episode Summary: An iCloud 101 for Apple users — what actually gets backed up, how iCloud Photos syncing works, and how to use iCloud Drive as part of a real backup strategy.

What You'll Learn

• What iCloud actually is and how it powers the whole Apple device ecosystem
• What gets backed up automatically, and how to check whether your backup is current
• How iCloud Photos syncing actually works, including the delete-everywhere warning
• What iCloud Drive is and how to use it as a real backup strategy

The most common question Mike gets asked: how do I free up space on my iPhone or iPad? A few questions worth sitting with: do you know what actually gets backed up to iCloud? If you delete a photo from your iPad, does it also disappear from your iPhone and Mac? Do you know when your device last backed up? Did you know you could back up 2TB of anything for under $10/month at the time? If any of this feels confusing, you're not alone.

Hard drive storage vs. iCloud storage: these are unrelated. Buying more iCloud space does not free up room on a full iPhone — you have to remove or offload data from the device itself. The upsell popup offering more iCloud storage is genuinely a little misleading on this point.

What Is iCloud?

iCloud is Apple's proprietary system for storage, backup, and syncing across devices and services, accessible from anywhere — Apple's answer to Dropbox or Google Drive. Beyond backup and storage, it also powers Mail, Calendar, Contacts, Reminders, Notes, Photos, Pages, Numbers, Keynote, iCloud Drive, and Find My iPhone — all synced under one Apple ID.

"The Cloud" simply means information stored on the internet, accessible from anywhere — unlike a USB-tethered external hard drive sitting at home, unreachable from a coffee shop. iCloud is also a big part of why the Apple ecosystem feels so seamless: Continuity and Handoff let you start something on one device (a Safari tab, a podcast, a video) and pick it up on another, and AirDrop moves files instantly between devices — all powered by the same underlying iCloud account.

What Gets Backed Up, and How to Manage It

App data, Apple Watch backups, call history, device settings, home screen layout, iMessages, photos and videos, purchase history, ringtones, contacts, calendars, bookmarks, mail, notes, health data, and iCloud Drive files — essentially everything needed to switch phones without losing anything, as long as iCloud Backup is turned on.

Setup and management: an Apple ID and password is all that's needed; manage settings from each device or on a Mac. Check "Manage Storage" (iPhone General Settings, or Mac System Preferences) to see what's taking up space and clear out old backups or unused apps. iCloud.com only works from a desktop browser (Chrome, Safari, or Windows) — not from Safari on iPhone or iPad — and it's worth exploring directly to connect what's on your devices with what's stored in the cloud.

Homework: on iPhone/iPad, go to Settings → your name → check the de…

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Episode Summary: A behind-the-scenes look at Mike's self-imposed writing challenge, the "Write the Life" project — publish a self-published eBook by April 15, 2018 — plus a quick overview of eBooks in general.

What You'll Learn

• A quick overview of eBooks: what they are, where to buy them, and typical pricing
• The self-imposed "Write the Life" eBook challenge: publish by April 15, 2018
• Why Mike chose eBooks as the next content format after podcasting and video
• The vision behind building a passive-income content platform through self-published books

37 days remaining in the challenge at the time of recording.

What Is an eBook?

An eBook — electronic book — is a digital book made of text, images, or both, readable on computers, phones, or tablets. The digital counterpart to a printed book.

Benefits of eBooks

Generally inexpensive, an endless catalog to choose from, and convenient to read on a phone, tablet, or dedicated e-reader like the Kindle. eBooks let you highlight, bookmark, add notes, and search text — and take up zero luggage space.

Where to Buy Them

Amazon, Apple Books, Google Play Books, Barnes & Noble, and Kobo, among others — though Amazon and the Kindle Store dominate the market and make self-publishing highly accessible. Amazon was Mike's primary focus, with distribution to smaller sellers planned too.

Pricing

Generally under $10, with the most common Kindle Store price points around $2-3.99, and plenty of free or $0.99 titles.

Purchasing and Reading

Dedicated readers like Kindle or Nook allow direct purchases on-device. On iPhone or iPad, purchases happen through Amazon first, then sync easily to the free Kindle app — Mike's own preferred way to read, primarily on an iPad Pro.

What Was WritetheLife.com?

A new blog built specifically to force a public commitment: publish an eBook on Amazon by April 15, 2018. The reasoning leaned on Parkinson's Law — work expands to fill the time you give it — the same logic that got this podcast launched in 30 days with zero prior podcasting or audio-recording experience. The challenge: self-publish an eBook and document the whole process, tools included, on the blog, with a companion 5-10 episode podcast series and a class planned alongside it.

Why Start This Project?

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Episode Summary: A deep dive into Evernote — what it is, why it took 10 years to finally click as a productivity tool, and the simple organization system that made it stick.

What You'll Learn

• What Evernote is, what it costs, and how it compares to similar note-taking apps
• Why it took 10 years of on-and-off use before Evernote finally clicked
• The simple 3-notebook organization system that finally made it work
• Why Evernote's real power is search and tags, not elaborate folder structures

This episode is for you if: you've never used Evernote, you have an account but it hasn't clicked yet, or you're already a power user curious how someone else structures their workflow.

What Is Evernote?

Evernote is a Silicon Valley company that officially launched in 2007, going public in 2008-2009, with roughly 200 million users by 2018. Plans at the time: Basic (free forever), Plus ($35/year, Mike's plan), and Premium ($70/year).

Similar or complementary tools: Apple Notes, Bear, Todoist, Trello, and Google Drive.

When Did Mike Join Evernote?

Mike created his account in January 2009 as a beta user, and started and stopped using it at least 20 times since — always liked the idea, but could never quite make it stick.

What Does Evernote Do?

Evernote is the Swiss Army knife of productivity tools — a note-taking and list-making app, an organizer, and an archive, functioning like a filing cabinet for your digital brain, accessible from anywhere. It's built around capturing ideas and saving digital information: webpage articles, photos, emails, quotes, pretty much anything.

What it's not: a backup system like Dropbox or Google Drive. Evernote makes virtual copies of what you upload for viewing and sharing, but doesn't store the original files.

Primary Uses

Creating and sharing notes; taking or uploading and marking up photos; recording voice memos; scanning business cards and paper documents; and building to-do lists with checkboxes and reminders.

Evernote 101: Getting Started

Sign up free at Evernote.com, download the desktop app (Mac or Windows) and mobile app (iOS or Android). Tap the green plus icon to create a new note — text or voice memo — and add photos, PDFs, audio, attachments, or annotations inside it.

Notes live in Notebooks, synced in real time across devices, whether typed, dictated, or clipped from the web. At the time, the free plan capped notes at 250, with unlimited tags. Think of Evernote as the word "capture" — a place to offload the constant flow of information so your brain gets a break.

Why It Took 10 Years to Love Evernote

Mike always loved the technology and design — beautiful UI, seamless sync, affordable, right up there with Gmail and Dropbox as favorite tools. But it never actual…

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Episode Summary: How to figure out what your time and knowledge are worth, and how to create content, products, or services genuinely valuable to others — covering the definition of value, the 4 types of value, and a practical framework for pricing your own time.

What You'll Learn

• Why value is never fixed, and how economic value differs from ethical/sentimental value
• The 4 types of value: functional, monetary, social, and psychological
• A 3-step framework for figuring out what your time and knowledge are actually worth
• Why undercharging is often rooted in undervaluing your own skills, not the market's actual demand

"A lawyer's time and advice are his stock in trade." — Abraham Lincoln

What Is Value?

Nothing has a fixed value — "one man's junk is another man's treasure." Price tags may be fixed, but value lives in the eyes of the market, and it's always shifting. Economically, value is the maximum someone is willing to pay for a good or service. Ethically, it's how useful or important something is to you personally — think of the personal possessions in your house that carry sentimental rather than monetary value, or the brands you love because they align with your own core values like honesty, fairness, or kindness.

Perceived Value and Value-Based Marketing

"Value" is an online buzzword, and creators are constantly told to over-deliver on it — but the audience decides what's valuable, not the creator. As Gary Vaynerchuk often puts it, the market decides how valuable content is, through likes, shares, and comments — not the creator's own assessment. Anyone who's published something they were proud of to silence, or something they considered mediocre to a huge response, knows this firsthand.

The 4 Types of Value

• Functional value — does it actually solve the problem? A tutorial that fixes someone's issue is functionally valuable simply because it worked.
• Monetary value — is the functional value worth paying for? When a "want" becomes a "need" (learning a skill for a promotion, say), willingness to pay rises accordingly.
• Social value — does it connect people with each other? A paid community or Patreon group might have limited functional value but significant communal value — this is often one of the most underrated parts of a brand.
• Psychological value — does it make people feel better? Simple content, like a livestreamed beach sunset, can carry real emotional value even without solving any concrete problem.

The throughline: always design with the end user in mind. Does it work? Is it worth paying for? Will they meet good people? Will they feel entertained, inspired, or happy?

How Much Is Your Time and Knowledge Worth?

There's no universal formula, but a few steps help:

Figure out expenses. Know the real monthly cost of running the business and living on it. A freelance rate calculator is a useful starting point for determining an hourly number th…

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Episode Summary: A recap of Podfest Multimedia Expo 2018 — why Mike keeps going back year after year, and the four biggest lessons he brought home this time.

What You'll Learn

• What Podfest Multimedia Expo is and how Mike's reasons for attending evolved over 3 years
• Why in-person industry events matter, even for self-described introverts
• 4 key takeaways from Podfest 2018: collaboration, feedback, authenticity, and not undervaluing yourself
• The book Principles by Ray Dalio and its lesson on the value of honest feedback

What Is Podfest Multimedia Expo?

An educational and training conference for independent podcasters, created by Chris and Katie Krimitsos, originally based in Tampa before moving to Orlando to draw a more international audience. Podfest 2018 ran February 8-10 at the Wyndham Orlando Resort, with early bird pricing at $249 and hotel rates around $139/night. The schedule is dense and tightly run, with both shared main sessions and breakout tracks — 2018 introduced a dedicated YouTube track for video creators.

Why Mike Went

2018 marked his third year attending. Year one (2016): a new podcaster looking for general advice and trying to get his name in front of the community. Year two (2017): more focused on Mike Murphy LLC specifically, absorbing as much as possible from people already succeeding and looking for chances to help others. Year three (2018): almost entirely about networking — building stronger relationships in a space he knew he'd be part of for the long haul.

Podfest keeps a spot on the calendar every year because of its unusually kind, generous community — podcasters, creators, and entrepreneurs genuinely trying to help each other, largely a reflection of the organizers themselves.

Even as a self-described introvert who finds conference small talk draining, Mike pushes through — no excuses. Being around like-minded creative entrepreneurs, all working hard and learning from each other, makes attending worth the discomfort every time.

Takeaways From Podfest 2018

Four things stood out, beyond a bad cold:

Collaboration is key. Research people worth connecting with and find genuine ways to help them — even something as simple as a helpful comment or Instagram DM builds a real working relationship. Honest feedback needs to be a priority. Making it easier for the audience to leave feedback (in show notes visible on mobile, and more direct calls to action) came directly out of this realization. Book mentioned: Principles by Ray Dalio — Dalio credits radically honest feedback as a major reason for his own success and his $150 billion company's. Being authentic is powerful. A presenter fumbling with a broken PowerPoint tossed his notes aside and asked the room if he could just ditch the slides and be himself — the room visibly relaxed, and it became one of the most memorable moments of the conference. The lesson: people want you, not the packaging. Undervaluing your own skills isn't an option. A recurring struggle — confidence in the work itself, but reluctance to actual…

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Episode Summary: The final part of a 3-part social media mini-series with livestreaming expert Ross Brand — this episode covers Facebook Live: what it is, how to use it, and content ideas for personal brands and small businesses.

What You'll Learn

• What Facebook Live is and how to go live from both mobile and desktop
• The tools available for professional-grade Facebook Live production in 2018
• A long list of content ideas for Facebook Live shows, from Q&As to behind-the-scenes
• A tip for repurposing Facebook Live recordings into podcast episodes

Part 3 of the social media series with special guest Ross Brand from LivestreamUniverse.com — Episode 125 covered LinkedIn and Episode 126 covered Twitter.

Special Guest: Ross Brand

Ross Brand is a pioneer in the livestreaming field, transitioning from terrestrial radio to founding LivestreamUniverse.com, where he showcases and empowers other live video creators — including his own shows, Ross & Nez and Livestream Universe's Best of BeLive.TV. Named the world's #1 livestreaming expert to follow by Klout and one of "5 live video experts to follow" by Switcher Studio, Ross has spoken at Summit Live, Summit on Content Marketing, and NYU's Division of Programs in Business.

What Is Facebook Live?

A livestream, by definition, is a live broadcast of an event over the internet. Facebook Live is Facebook's feature for sharing live video directly on the News Feed in real time — viewers can join, comment, and interact live, and the video saves to the timeline as a replay afterward. It rolled out to beta testers in August 2015 and opened to the public in January 2016.

How to Use Facebook Live

On mobile: open Facebook, tap "Live" from the post-creation screen, add a title and description, optionally add emojis or effects, invite a friend to co-host if desired, and tap Start Live Video. Shoot in landscape mode when possible.

On desktop or laptop:

• For full professional production: Wirecast by Telestream ($700-1,000) or OBS Studio (free, open-source).
• Browser-based, easy setup: BeLive.TV ($12-20/month).
• Mac/Windows app, easy setup: ECamm Live ($40, one-time).

Mobile is the simplest way to go live. For TV-studio-quality production, Wirecast or OBS Studio are the tools to explore. For something professional but easy — especially with guests or screen sharing — BeLive.TV or ECamm Live are strong picks. Whichever route, a decent HD webcam and microphone round things out, and all of these tools make syncing external gear straightforward.

Types of Facebook Live Shows

There are no fixed rules — content should align with the brand and connect with the targ…

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Episode Summary: Part 2 of a 3-part social media mini-series with livestreaming expert Ross Brand — this episode covers Twitter fundamentals, key stats, and practical tips for content creators.

What You'll Learn

• Twitter fundamentals: tweets, mentions, hashtags, likes, and retweets explained
• Twitter usage stats and the platform's biggest accounts as of 2018
• Practical tips for using Twitter for travel, customer service, and content promotion
• How to use Buffer to schedule and space out promotional tweets

Part 2 of the social media series with special guest Ross Brand from LivestreamUniverse.com — Episode 125 covered LinkedIn, this one covers Twitter, and Episode 127 wraps up with Facebook Live.

What Is Twitter?

Twitter is an online news and social networking service built around short posts called "tweets" — a micro-blog by design. The character limit expanded from 140 to 280 in November 2017. Text, photos, videos, GIFs, and live video are all supported, with live video being especially popular during breaking news events.

Tip: when traveling, Twitter is a genuinely effective way to reach airline customer service — rebooking, cancellations, standby lists.

Bonus tip: for service businesses, Twitter is a real customer-service channel in its own right — social media customer service was fully expected by 2018.

The Story of Twitter

Founded in 2006 by Jack Dorsey (also the founder of Square), Noah Glass, Biz Stone, and Ev Williams (also the founder of Medium).

Twitter Fundamentals

You can follow anyone; someone must follow you back before they can send you a direct message. Each post — 280 characters or fewer — is a Tweet. The @ symbol mentions someone directly; hashtags (#) mark topics. Liking (heart icon) and retweeting are the main ways to engage with and amplify someone else's content. The Twitter bird logo is named Larry.

The Numbers (2018)

Roughly 350 million users, over 500 million tweets per day, 80% of users on mobile, 80% of accounts overseas, 56% of users earning over $56K/year, and a company valuation over $16 billion at the time. Over 100 million tweets contained animated GIFs. Top followed accounts: Katy Perry (108M+), Justin Bieber (100M+), and Barack Obama in third — with the sitting president at the time ranked #20 with 47 million followers.

Q&A With Ross Brand

Is Twitter still relevant for content creators and personal brands in 2018, and why?

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Episode Summary: Part 1 of a 3-part social media mini-series with livestreaming expert Ross Brand — this episode covers LinkedIn, why content creators should be using it, and where to focus first.

What You'll Learn

• Why LinkedIn was becoming more of a content-creator platform in 2018
• Key LinkedIn facts and demographics at the time
• Expert advice from livestreaming pioneer Ross Brand on where to focus first on LinkedIn
• A simple LinkedIn content strategy: post your best niche-relevant material once a day

This is part 1 of a 3-part social media series with special guest Ross Brand from LivestreamUniverse.com, covering LinkedIn, Twitter (Episode 126), and Facebook Live (Episode 127) for content creators, personal brands, and online businesses.

Special Guest: Ross Brand

Ross Brand is a pioneer in the livestreaming field — both a prolific content creator and a thought leader on leveraging live video to grow a business or brand. He made the transition from terrestrial radio to livestreaming, founding LivestreamUniverse.com to showcase and empower other live video creators. Named the world's #1 livestreaming expert to follow on social media by Klout and one of "5 live video experts to follow" by Switcher Studio, Ross has spoken at Summit Live, Summit on Content Marketing, and NYU's Division of Programs in Business.

About LinkedIn

LinkedIn is a professional networking platform geared toward job seekers and business connections, built around profiles that function as resumes or bios. Tagline: "Relationships Matter." Founded by Reid Hoffman in 2002, launched in 2003.

"If you aren't embarrassed by the first version of your product, you shipped too late." — Reid Hoffman

That echoes one of Mike's own favorite principles: done is better than perfect. Just start.

Facts about LinkedIn at the time: LinkedIn acquired Lynda.com in 2015 for $1.5 billion; Microsoft acquired LinkedIn itself for $26.2 billion in 2016. 530 million users, 70% outside the US, 40 million students and recent grads, 57% male / 44% female, 41% of millionaires use it, the average CEO has 930 connections, 5.5 million accountants are on the platform, 44% of users earn over $75,000/year, and 3 million active job listings. Profiles with professional headshots get 14x more views and 36x more messages. The most overused profile word, then and for years prior: "Motivated."

Q&A With Ross Brand

Why should creators use LinkedIn in 2018? LinkedIn was shifting toward more of a content-creator platform with the addition of video, and relatively few creatives were using it that way yet — meaning it was easier to stand out.

What should someone focus on first? The profile itself — that's where to put initial effort, whether starting fresh or updating an existing account.

What content strategy works, and how often should you post? Share your best material…

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Episode Summary: A behind-the-scenes look at the Mike Murphy 90-Day Health & Wellness Project — a content-marketing case study built around getting into shape at a local spin studio, told through personal goals, a client win-win, and the gear used to document it all.

What You'll Learn

• Why Mike sees physical and mental health as foundational to business success
• The 90-day Health & Wellness Project with Cycle Guroo, a Naples, FL spin studio client
• Mike's personal goals and the client's business goals for the project
• The gear used to document the project in video, audio, and text

"To keep the body in good health is a duty, otherwise we shall not be able to keep our mind strong and clear." — Buddha

Health as the Foundation

There's no doubt in Mike's mind that the secret to success in business and happiness in life is health — physical and mental both. School and work culture tends to prioritize hard work and grades over movement and creative outlets, but a balance of both is the winning combination.

Current state, in summary: decent shape for 48, but with room to improve — chronic back issues from a lifetime of bad posture, and occasional breathing trouble that comes with it.

Routine: 15–20 miles of biking daily, plus at least 5 miles of walking. Eating leans healthy and light by preference, not discipline — no fast food or fried food in recent memory. Even with a laid-back approach to exercise, back pain, headaches, and stress are present and mostly ignored rather than addressed.

The logic: elevate physical and mental health to an optimal state alongside sharpening content and education skills, and the result is a genuinely unstoppable combination. People are drawn to confidence and positive energy — and good physical and mental health is where that comes from.

"A journey of a thousand miles begins with a single step." — Lao Tzu

The 2018 Mike Murphy Health & Wellness Project

Background: Mike had been consulting for Cycle Guroo, an indoor cycling/spinning studio in Naples, FL, on content marketing and social media strategy to drive local business and position the studio as the place to build physical and mental health through exercise, empowerment, and confidence.

What is spinning? A high-intensity stationary-bike workout with a tension wheel simulating hills, loud music, colored lighting, and an instructor calling out direction and encouragement — closer to a concert than a gym class.

The project: a 90-day exercise program at the studio (ending April 15, 2018), documented start to finish in audio, video, and text across Instagram Stories, this podcast, and eventually YouTube and livestreams. The content does double duty — building Mike's personal brand while serving as a real case study and transformation proof for the studio to use with prospective clients.

Personal goals:

A solid early-morning routine to boost productivity all d…

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Episode Summary: A personal-branding episode — Mike goes behind the scenes with his own origin story, from a childhood injury and discovering the Grateful Dead to the winding cross-country path that led to building Mike Murphy LLC.

What You'll Learn

• Mike's origin story: childhood, a broken femur at 13, and discovering the Grateful Dead
• The core principles behind his in-progress book: learning, creating, and moving forward
• How introversion and a love of teaching coexist as a deliberate "push and pull"
• The winding path through Portland, Missoula, Durango, Denver, and Naples that led to Mike Murphy LLC

This episode is the facts, the highlights, and the turning points — history, profile, and resume all rolled into one. In January 2017, Mike promised to write a book by year's end and didn't. This episode starts it: an introduction to One Man Band: Create the Life You Want, covering who he is and the paths he took to get here.

Requirements to create the life you want: you have to start, and you have to work hard.

Core Principles of the Book

• Learning — feed your brain and stay sharp.
• Creating — find your voice and uniqueness by doing and practicing what genuinely interests and excites you, then getting really good at it.
• Moving forward — "You only lose what you cling to" (Buddha). Stop dwelling on the past and focus on the good things ahead.

Origin Story

Born in Syracuse, NY in November 1969 — a Scorpio, the youngest of three. His father spends winters in Florida; his mother died in 2006.

Early school days: shy, uncomfortable with attention — winning "best all-around student" in 4th grade was closer to a nightmare than an honor, given the walk down the aisle in front of the whole school. A surprise birthday party would still be a worst-case scenario; receiving gifts has never been comfortable, closer to the Hobbit tradition of giving rather than receiving on your own birthday.

Pulling From Opposite Sides

Not wanting the spotlight, yet recording a podcast and writing a chapter all about himself — that contradiction has always been there. Starting the podcast and putting himself in videos was far outside the comfort zone, but necessary for what he wanted: happiness and the freedom to make a living doing what he wants.

The shyness isn't rooted in insecurity or fear — Gary Vaynerchuk's framing of "push and pull," drawing from opposite extremes, helped put language to something Mike had always done but couldn't describe. A lone wolf and introvert who's spent his whole career in the service industry; shy but a natural teacher and leader more than a follower. Adaptability is the throughline — like a raft following the smoothest line down a river. Fear of being knocked down was never going to be the reason this fails.

Turning Points

A broken femur at 13 meant 6 weeks in traction and 8 weeks in a full body cast, followed by a year of therapy — any NBA dreams ended there. During that period came…

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