Episode Summary: Mike's annual roadmap episode — the mantra and theme for 2018 (fundamentals and storytelling), the 6 priorities for Mike Murphy LLC, and the content schedule he's committing to for the year.

What You'll Learn

• Mike's mantra and theme for 2018: fundamentals and storytelling
• The 6-priority roadmap for Mike Murphy LLC, from Murphy Concierge to health and wellness
• The 2018 content schedule across podcast, tutorials, articles, and social
• Why Mike writes a public roadmap every year instead of keeping goals private

Roadmap quote: "If you don't know where you are going, any road will get you there." — paraphrased from Lewis Carroll's Alice in Wonderland, from the dialogue between Alice and the Cheshire Cat about which way to go when you don't know where you want to end up.

Creating a roadmap forces real thinking about objectives and aspirations, and putting a plan in place makes some of them a reality. It won't be followed perfectly, but it gives clarity on the general direction — a follow-up to last week's 2017 recap in Episode 121.

Mantra & Theme for 2018: Fundamentals and Storytelling

2017 was about simplicity and reducing physical and mental clutter — that stays in effect. 2018 adds fundamentals and storytelling: who am I, what am I doing, why am I doing it, how am I doing it. The goal is a blueprint of the journey that helps hit big-picture goals while helping others create the life they want through the content being made.

Sharing a real origin story matters because people trust and buy from brands with a backstory they can relate to. The catch-phrase driving all of it: Create the Life You Want.

The 2018 Mike Murphy LLC Roadmap

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Episode Summary: A year-end reflection on 2017 — Mike's 5 favorite episodes, a report card against the 2017 Roadmap he set back in Episode 70, and what actually got done vs. what didn't.

What You'll Learn

• Mike's 5 favorite episodes of 2017 and why they stood out
• A report card on the 2017 Roadmap: simplicity in physical stuff, mindset, and business
• Content goals vs. actual output for the year, including 365 straight days of video
• Why an annual roadmap/reflection episode keeps him accountable

This is a reflection show — looking back at 2017 and how the year measured up against the 2017 Roadmap laid out back in January.

Favorite Episodes of 2017

• The Personal Brand Shows (Episode 82 & Episode 83) — thorough episodes Mike worked hard on and was proud of.
• The Simplify Show (Episode 91) — 2017 was the year of decluttering mind and space, and this one got a lot of listener feedback from people wanting to do the same.
• The Dead Show (Episode 95) — a trip to Boston and talking about his favorite band, always an easy, fun one to make.
• The Irma Show (Episode 106) — storytelling isn't something Mike considered a strength, but this one came together well and got strong positive feedback.
• The Self-Doubt Show (Episode 110) — another storytelling episode, built around favorite memories on the river in Colorado. This one held special meaning.

Overall, Mike was happy with the quality of the content even though dedicating consistent time to podcasting alongside other projects was a real struggle. Showing up week after week isn't easy, but there was good material in every episode — and that's what mattered most.

The 2017 Roadmap: Simplicity Report Card

The theme for 2017 was simplicity across the board — clutter-free, intentional, focused. Quote for the year: "Take what you need and leave the rest" — The Band.

Read the complete show notes and resources on mikemurphy.ai.

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Episode Summary: A walkthrough of Apple Podcasts Connect — how to manage an existing podcast, validate and submit a brand-new show, and read the new Podcast Analytics dashboard Apple rolled out in December 2017.

What You'll Learn

• What Apple Podcasts Connect is, and why Apple calls it three different names (iTunes Connect, Podcasts Connect, Apple iTunes Connect)
• The Manage, Resources, and Validate & Submit features inside Podcasts Connect
• How to launch a brand-new podcast: validating and submitting an RSS feed
• What Apple Podcast Analytics tracks: unique devices, time listened, subscriber breakdown, and listener drop-off trends

What Is Podcasts Connect?

Podcasts Connect is the portal Apple launched in 2016 for managing existing podcasts, launching new ones, and viewing performance analytics. Apple isn't consistent with the name — you'll see it called iTunes Connect, Podcasts Connect, or Apple iTunes Connect, but they're all the same tool.

Warning: don't touch your RSS feed URL or the Mirror URL inside Podcasts Connect unless you know exactly what you're doing. Your RSS feed is how listeners subscribe and get notified of new episodes — mess with it carelessly and you risk breaking subscriptions.

Managing an Existing Podcast

Every podcast tied to your account — new or old — shows up under Manage. Click your cover art to open a show's management page.

The features available there:

• Status & Refresh Feed — a green dot means your podcast is active and healthy; red means something needs fixing. Refreshing isn't usually necessary, but it's useful after metadata changes that are slow to update in iTunes.
• Mirror URL — a permanent link to your RSS feed. Listeners who subscribe via the mirror URL stay subscribed even if you change your actual feed URL later. Only touch this if you understand RSS feeds.
• View in iTunes — see how your show looks live in the iTunes Store.
• Hide Podcast — keeps a show active but undiscoverable/unlisted.
• Delete Podcast — self-explanatory.

Tip: subscribe to your own podcast, and check it on your devices every time you publish a new episode. If something looks wrong, Podcasts Connect's status indicator is the first place to check.

Resources & Help

The Apple Podcasts Partner Resources library has FAQs, news, videos, and guides covering all of podcasting. It's accessible from the dropdown menu in the upper left, under My Podcasts.

Launching a New Podcast: Validate & Submit

Validating and submitting is the last step before a new podcast goes live — same process whether it's your first show or another one added to an existing account.

Copy your RSS feed URL to your clipboard. In Podcasts Connect, click the blue + in the upper-left corner (or paste into the empty text box) and hit Valida…

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Episode Summary: Five reasons a business — especially a local, brick-and-mortar one — should consider launching a podcast in 2018, covering advertising, authority-building, client relationships, content marketing, and revenue.

What You'll Learn

• 5 reasons a business should consider launching a podcast: advertising, authority, community, content marketing, revenue
• Why podcasting is intimate and trust-building in a way most other marketing isn't
• Real podcast concept ideas for realtors and coffee shops
• How to turn one podcast episode into a full content-marketing workflow

Who this episode is for: any business, but especially local ones — realtors, mortgage brokers, financial consultants, restaurants and cafes, pet stores, grocery markets, plumbers, electricians, landscapers, painters, designers, house cleaners, and beyond.

Preface: Podcasting Is Hard Work

Articles make it sound easy, but running an ongoing podcast is real work — more than pressing record on an iPhone and hitting upload, and more than a $50 USB microphone and a $15 hosting account. Once a podcast starts, "what's the next episode about" tends to live in the back of your mind 24/7 — real time management is required, on top of preparation, planning, tech skills, and social media engagement. Running a business is already hard work but worth it; podcasting is the same trade.

Innovation matters more than ever for small and local businesses, and podcasting is one genuinely powerful way to connect with clients, stand out from competitors, and become the recognized authority in a space.

The Secret to Podcasting

People start listening because a topic interests them or someone recommends it. They keep coming back because of the host, and because the show is useful, entertaining, or improves their life in some way. Podcasting is intimate — listeners feel like they know the host, even without ever meeting, because the host shows up consistently and delivers.

The core rule: consistency is everything. Listeners build routines — commutes, workouts, mornings — around a show's release schedule. Break that consistency, or let quality slip, and the trust built up gets violated fast. As in the restaurant business: you're only as good as your last meal.

A podcast for local businesses can build trust with clients and the community if it is consistent (schedule) and over-delivers on content (value).

1. Advertising & Sales

Podcasting flips the old model of blasting zip codes with marketing materials and hoping the numbers work out. It meets customers where they already are — mobile devices — and audio content is uniquely suited to multitasking in a way most other formats aren't.

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Episode Summary: A behind-the-scenes look at how and why Mike makes Instagram Stories every day — one year after the feature's launch — covering process, mindset, topic ideas, and the tools used to make each story more interesting.

What You'll Learn

• What Instagram Stories is and how it compares to Snapchat, one year after launch
• Mike's daily process and mindset for making Stories, morning through sunset
• Why accountability, not audience size, is the real reason he shows up every day
• The apps and tools used to make Stories more visually interesting

Follow along on Instagram: @mikeunplugged. For a primer on what Instagram Stories is and how it differs from Snapchat, Episode 49 is the place to start — this episode picks up one year after Stories launched in August 2016.

What Is Instagram Stories?

Launched in August 2016 inside the main Instagram app, Stories is phone-only (though viewable on web now) and works like daily vlogging with an expiration date — clips run up to 15 seconds each, in succession, and everything disappears after 24 hours.

Core features: normal photo, Boomerang, Rewind, SuperZoom, Hands-Free, Stop Motion, and Live — plus the ability to pull photos and video from the camera roll, add text, filters, and stickers, and go live solo or with a collaborator. To view someone's Story, tap the colored ring around their profile photo at the top of the main feed.

By this point Stories had roughly 300 million active users, compared to Snapchat's 177 million (still Snapchat's stronghold: under-25s). For anyone building an online presence, Stories was — and remained — worth a real shot.

Why Mike Uses Instagram Stories

The backstory starts on Snapchat in summer 2016 — goofy filters and talking to strangers about his day were genuinely outside the comfort zone at first. But video, livestreaming, and direct connection are the future of online business, and the 24-hour expiration takes the pressure off: every day is a fresh start, which makes the whole thing feel more like practice — for making videos, telling stories, and figuring out what people actually want.

Over 2 years of consistent Instagram posting, and over a year of daily Stories — 7 days a week, some days more than others. It's become one of the biggest personal motivators and a built-in accountability system.

The Why Behind It

Stories holds Mike accountable in a way nothing else quite does — if the work isn't happening, there's nothing worth sharing. It's a personal quest to get more comfortable on camera, sharpen the craft of storytelling, and build genuine connection with an audience, none of which comes naturally by default. Audience size isn't really tracked — Stories has view analytics, but they're rarely checked. Knowing that even one person is finding value is enough reason to keep showing up.

The Process

No scripting or day-mapping happens in advance, but every Story is built with the basic shape of a story in mind…

Read the complete show notes and resources on mikemurphy.ai.

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Episode Summary: A full blueprint of how Mike launched his side hustle, Murphy Concierge — a local tech-handyman service — covering the why, the exact tools and steps used to get it off the ground, and the revenue goals behind it.

What You'll Learn

• What Murphy Concierge is and why Mike started it as a local tech-handyman side hustle
• The exact steps and tools used to launch the business: domain, website, logo, invoicing
• What a side hustle is, and two podcasts to learn more about building one
• Mike's revenue goal and the math behind his introductory hourly rate

Who this episode is for: anyone looking to add a side hustle alongside an existing business or full/part-time job.

What is a side hustle? Per Entrepreneur Magazine: "A side hustle is a way to make some extra cash that allows you flexibility to pursue what you're most interested in. It can also be your true passion – a chance to delve into fashion, travel or whatever it is you care about the most without quitting your day job."

Podcasts about side hustles worth checking out:

• Side Hustle Nation by Nick Loper
• Side Hustle School by Chris Guillebeau

What Is Murphy Concierge?

A local side hustle helping people fix their iDevices and Macs, plus troubleshooting, fixing, and training for digital products and online tools. Tagline: The Tech Handyman. Site (in progress at the time): murphyconcierge.com, email: [email protected].

Why Start This Side Hustle?

To help pay the bills while building the online personal brand and business — and because it's a service Mike already does and loves, just one he hadn't been marketing until now.

Steps and Tools Used to Get Started

Deciding to start:

• Secure a domain name via GoDaddy
• Check social handle availability with Namecheckr

Building the website:

• Point the domain at SiteGround (the web host used at the time)
• Install WordPress.org
• Download and install the Divi WordPress theme
• Set up Google Workspace to send/receive mail at [email protected]
• Create a logo using Adobe Illustrator

Logo & Brand Resources

Canva (free) Logo.squarespace.com ($10) Color palettes: Adobe Color, Coolors Business cards: Adobe InDesign or Canva Digital business cards: Adobe After Effects, Keynote, ScreenFlow, or Camtasia Invoicing: FreshBooks (main tool), PayPal, Square, Stripe (for…

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Episode Summary: A mobile-recorded episode from Franklin, Tennessee — Black Friday deal roundups, a quick history lesson on Franklin and Nashville, and a behind-the-scenes look at the travel gear kit used to record on the road.

What You'll Learn

• A behind-the-scenes look at Mike's mobile podcast recording gear and travel kit
• 10 pieces of Franklin & Nashville, Tennessee trivia
• Black Friday deal links from the 2017 holiday season
• The exact recording chain: Shure SM58 into a Zoom H6, edited in Adobe Audition

Recorded on the road in Franklin, Tennessee, following a safe and happy Thanksgiving spent relaxing with friends and family.

Black Friday Updates

• 2017 Amazon Black Friday Deals
• 2017 Holiday Gift & Gear Guide

Franklin & Nashville Trivia

1. Franklin was named after Ben Franklin — it was almost called Marthasville instead.
2. Tennessee was originally part of North Carolina, breaking off in 1796 to become the 16th US state.
3. Nashville was founded on Christmas Eve in 1779.
4. The first woman sentenced to die by electrocution in Tennessee was sentenced in 1949.
5. Teddy Roosevelt coined the phrase "good to the last drop" after drinking locally produced coffee at the Maxwell House Hotel in Nashville.
6. Nashville was the first city in the country to receive an FM broadcasting license, in 1941.
7. Oprah Winfrey got her start in television as the first African-American female news anchor at a Nashville station.
8. United Records Pressing has produced recordings for numerous legendary performers and is one of only four companies in the nation still producing vinyl records.
9. It's illegal to keep a cheetah as a pet in Nashville.
10. The Grand Ole Opry is the longest-running radio show in the world.

Mobile Podcast & Travel Gear

• BUBM Travel Bag — a 2-tier travel bag and electronics organizer for keeping audio gear, electronics, and cables together, easy to stuff in a backpack or suitcase. Amazon link, $21.99.
• Zoom H6 Handy Recorder — the swiss army knife of portable audio recorders. Amazon link
• Shure SM58 — the go-to dynamic mic. Link
• Samson Q2U — Amazon link
• Eneloop AA Batteries — Amazon link

Recording Setup

Shure SM58 dynamic microphone plugged into the Zoom H6 handheld recorder via XLR. The H6 records to a memory card, which then transfers to a computer for editing in Adobe Audition. For iOS recordings on the go, the app of choice is Auphonic.

Conclusion

Happy holidays from Franklin, Tennessee.

Show Notes & Links

2017 Amazon Black Fri…

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Episode Summary: A story-time episode — Mike's backstory on how he ended up making daily tutorials and teaching online, what nearly 800 straight days of content creation taught him, and what success actually looks like for Mike Murphy LLC.

What You'll Learn

• The backstory behind Mike's move into daily tutorials and online teaching
• What 792 straight days of content and 381 straight days of video actually taught him
• Why teaching comes naturally to him and what drives the daily-content habit
• What success looks like for Mike Murphy LLC, in his own words

"I have no special talent. I am only passionately curious." — Albert Einstein

"What's my deal?" — a question Mike's been asked more than once, including twice in the past month on social media alone. This episode is the abbreviated backstory, a look at the present-day game plan, and a conclusion on what success actually means for the business.

The Backstory

As a kid: sports, staying active, and anything that used his head — cards, puzzles, games, game shows. School and learning were genuinely enjoyed, not endured.

College: no clear idea what to study or do — a theme that's stuck around ever since — but every minute of the experience was loved: independence, studying, learning, and plenty of road-trip travel.

Post-college: resort and college-town living, chasing quality of life over a career ladder. Bartending, traveling, exploring, staying curious. "Those who wander are not lost." — J.R.R. Tolkien

The Hard Questions

What's your passion? What do you want to do with your life? What's your calling? What are you good at? The past 9 years answered them slowly: managing a photo studio in Florida, consuming huge amounts of tutorials and podcasts, wearing every hat available, and learning constantly — photo, video, audio, Adobe, networking, business, marketing, web, design, IT. Creating. Moving forward.

Why Teach

It comes naturally, and sharing knowledge that genuinely helps people is satisfying in a way that doesn't need much more explanation than that.

Present Day

792 days of content created and uploaded in a row, including a 381-day streak of one video per day. The daily habit started as a way to figure out what "the thing" actually was — and making something every day is how you get good at anything: you practice, a lot. Two years into daily content, the picture is clear: creating online content and teaching people is exactly the right lane. The focus now is teaching people to create online content for their own personal brand or business — podcasting, video production and editing, social media trends, and industry-leading tools like Adobe Creative Cloud that give them a real competitive edge. Technology moves fast, and creators and educators are only going to become more valuable.

What Does Success Look Like?

Simplicity and happiness, with enough money to keep creating and enjoying life. Learning and creating for a living, sharing that knowledge, and inspiring…

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Episode Summary: A behind-the-scenes look at the 2017 Mike Murphy Holiday Gift & Gear Guide for Content Creators — why it exists, how it's produced across video, text, and audio, and where it all gets distributed.

What You'll Learn

• Behind the scenes of the 2017 Mike Murphy Holiday Gift & Gear Guide for Content Creators
• Why Mike started the Gift Guide in 2016 by teaching himself After Effects the hard way
• The 3 pillars behind the guide: video, text, and audio, distributed everywhere
• The exact gear used to produce it: camera, mic, and editing software

Backstory

The Gift Guide traces back to November 2016, when Mike taught himself After Effects specifically to animate gear demos and how-tos — which turned into the original 2016 Holiday Gift & Gear Guide. Being new to After Effects meant videos were eating 4–6 hours a night, a pace that wasn't sustainable to repeat in 2017 while keeping the format going.

Tip: when learning a new tool like Photoshop, After Effects, or Premiere, jump straight into finished projects instead of just learning the program's overview — get your hands dirty and let real projects force the learning.

A genuine milestone: a video uploaded every single day since November 1, 2016 — a long streak by any measure.

What Is the Gift & Gear Guide?

A combination of video, text, and (via this podcast) audio — the three pillars of content creation. The 2017 guide includes roughly 25–30 products picked as good gifts for creatives and online business owners. Each product gets its own video plus a mini blog post covering the details, distributed across Instagram, Facebook, YouTube, and (for some) Medium.com, with a dedicated page on the website collecting all the videos and links.

Why Create the Gift & Gear Guide?

• Business and brand building — honing a tech-review/tutorial style that could eventually attract vendor and brand partnerships, refined over time into something genuinely quality and helpful.
• Monetization — gear videos drive traffic to Amazon affiliate links, building a passive income stream over time as part of a sustainable creative business.
• Uniqueness — staying genuine and doing things the "one man band" way, distinct from the standard influencer gift-guide format.

How the Content Gets Made

• Camera: Logitech C920
• Microphone: Rode NTG3 Shotgun Mic
• Video editors: ScreenFlow (recording), Camtasia and Premiere (editing), Adobe After Effects (polish)
• Free 30-day trial of Adobe Creative Cloud

Where It Gets Distributed

YouTube, Instagram, Facebook, Medium, and a dedicated page on the website.

2017 Mike Murphy Holiday Gift & Gear Guide

Gifts get uploaded to the guide as each video releases.

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Episode Summary: A rundown of the Adobe Creative Cloud 2018 update — the new apps, the headline feature upgrades across Photoshop, Lightroom, and Premiere, and why staying current with creative tools matters even if you can't learn everything at once.

What You'll Learn

• What Adobe Creative Cloud is and why it's the creative-industry standard
• The major October 2017 update highlights: Lightroom CC, Photoshop's Curvature Pen Tool, and more
• 3 new apps graduating out of beta: Adobe XD, Adobe Dimension, and Character Animator
• Why staying current with your creative tools matters more than mastering everything at once

A free 30-day trial of Adobe Creative Cloud is linked in the show notes. From the archives: Episode 38, The Adobe Show, covers the broader case for Adobe CC if you want the fuller introduction.

Adobe Creative Cloud Overview

Adobe CC is Adobe's subscription bundle of creative software — the industry standard across graphic and web design, video editing, podcasting, print/advertising, and online content creation broadly. Photoshop has always been the flagship name associated with Adobe, but video, audio, and animation are just as central to the suite.

Cost: $50/month for the full Creative Cloud, $20/month for teachers and students, $20/month for a single a la carte app (like Audition alone), or $9.99/month for the Photography bundle (Photoshop, Bridge, and Lightroom).

Why Adobe Matters for Technology Trends

Adobe, Apple, and Amazon dominate because they understand user behavior and actively shape where technology, creativity, and business are heading through the tools they ship. Staying relevant doesn't require deep technical knowledge of AR, VR, or AI — but if Adobe CC and the newest iPhone are both leaning hard into a technology, it's worth keeping on the radar. Watching what companies like Adobe prioritize is itself a useful trend signal.

Adobe CC 2018: What's New

The major update landed in October 2017, installable through the Creative Cloud desktop app.

Tools regularly used day-to-day: Photoshop, Illustrator, InDesign, Lightroom, Audition, Premiere Pro, After Effects.

New apps graduating out of beta: Adobe XD, Adobe Dimension, and Adobe Character Animator.

Highlights of the Update

Lightroom CC — a brand-new, cloud-native version of Lightroom (the older version becomes Lightroom Classic), with 1TB of cloud storage for RAW and JPEG files, editable from anywhere. Photoshop — Curvature Pen Tool, an improved Properties panel, smoother brush strokes, better brush organization, Kyle Webster brush packs, and a Quick Share menu. Illustrator — a new Properties panel and Puppet Warp. InDesign — footnote support. Adobe Audition — auto-ducking and faster mixdowns. After Effects — virtual reality and 360° camera editing, plus new animation tooling. Premiere Pro — improved Essential Graphics, responsive animations, multi-project support. Adobe XD — design and p…

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