Mike Murphy Unplugged

Episode Summary: A rundown of Patreon — what it is, who uses it, how the pledge-and-reward system works, and why Mike decided to launch his own Patreon page for the podcast.

What You'll Learn

• What Patreon is and how the creator/patron pledge system works
• Who uses Patreon: designers, musicians, podcasters, YouTubers, and more
• Why podcasters specifically gravitate toward Patreon, including private RSS feeds for patrons
• Why Mike decided to launch his own Patreon page, and what it unlocks

What Is Patreon?

Per Patreon's own description: "Patreon is a membership platform that makes it easy for creators to get paid." Creators sign up for a free account and build a membership page to showcase or gate content. People who find value in that work pledge a dollar amount — becoming patrons. For creators, it's a way to get paid for work they're already making; for patrons, it's a way to directly support a favorite creator's community, usually for a few dollars a month.

Who Uses Patreon?

Designers, letterers, painters, filmmakers, gamers, musicians, podcasters, vloggers, bloggers, and YouTubers.

Patreon by the Numbers (2017)

Roughly 50,000 creators and 1,000,000 active patrons per month, with an average pledge of $12 and a projected $150,000,000 paid out to creators for the year.

How Does It Work?

Free to join. Patreon takes a 5% fee plus a small processing charge, and creators only get paid once patrons do. Every Patreon page functions as an about-me/landing page — photos, video, text explaining who the creator is and what patrons can expect. The system runs on rewards: creators set up perk tiers, and patrons choose the level they want to pledge, paid via credit card or PayPal.

Why Podcasters Use Patreon

Podcasting is expensive and time-consuming to sustain, and traditional sponsorships aren't accessible to every show. Patreon fits naturally because podcasting is fundamentally about building and nurturing a community — which is exactly what the platform is built around.

Patreon RSS feeds: patrons can get access to a private RSS feed with bonus content, subscribable in any podcast app.

Common podcaster reward ideas: MP3 downloads of episodes, PDF show notes, on-air shoutouts, promotional opportunities for patrons with their own brand/business, discounts on services, private webinars, access to live recordings, 1-on-1 calls, and coaching. Pledge tiers vary widely — most pages cluster around $1, $2, $5, $10, and $20/month, with some going up to $100+.

Other creator types lean into different rewards: illustrators offer downloadable sketches or livestreamed art sessions, YouTubers share bloopers and bonus footage, writers give early access to articles or books, and musicians let patrons hear new material first.

Mike's Patreon Page

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

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Episode Summary: A rundown of G Suite (now Google Workspace) — what it is, how it works, and why professional email and the full Google office suite are a near-must-have for any brand or business.

What You'll Learn

• What G Suite (now Google Workspace) is and why it beats a personal email address for business
• How G Suite works under the hood: MX records pointing your domain's email to Google
• The full feature set: unlimited aliases, unlimited domains, 30GB+ storage, and the full Docs/Sheets/Slides suite
• How to get started, including the 14-day free trial

What Is G Suite?

An all-in-one office and productivity suite from Google, built for small and large businesses, educational institutions, nonprofits, and anyone with a website. The headline feature: the power of Gmail running on your own domain, paired with an entire suite of office and communication tools comparable to Word, PowerPoint, and Excel — all branded to your business.

Cost: free to set up, then $5/user/month (or $60/year). A 14-day free trial with 20% off is available at signup.

How Does G Suite Work?

It's a bundle of services accessible from any web browser. Setting it up means changing your domain's DNS settings — specifically the MX records — to point your domain's mail routing to Google. Once that's done, you can send and receive mail as [email protected].

Email Options When Starting a Business

• Personal email (not ideal) — Gmail, Outlook, Yahoo, Hotmail, AOL. Something like [email protected] works technically, but it doesn't read as professional.
• Hosting-provided email (better, viable for some) — most hosts (GoDaddy, Bluehost, HostGator) offer email through their cPanel. An improvement over personal email, but still less reliable than Gmail.
• G Suite (the best by far) — the full power of Gmail, running on your own domain.

Email is still the backbone of most businesses — it's worth using the most reliable, trustworthy option available rather than treating it as an afterthought.

G Suite Features

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Episode Summary: A storytelling episode built around a whitewater rafting trip through Cataract Canyon, Utah — using the experience to unpack self-doubt, where it really comes from, and how to use it as fuel instead of a reason to quit.

What You'll Learn

• A whitewater rafting story from Durango, Colorado, used as a metaphor for self-doubt
• Why self-doubt from inexperience is natural — and how to use it as fuel instead of a stop sign
• The difference between your own self-doubt and absorbing other people's doubt
• Why there's no universal timeline for confidence, skill, or business success

Dictionary definition of self-doubt: the lack of confidence in oneself and one's abilities.

The Whitewater Rafting Story

Years spent living in Durango, Colorado, working as a bartender, with whitewater rafting as one of the favorite activities of that chapter of life (college: University of Massachusetts–Amherst). The river at the center of this story: Cataract Canyon, Utah.

The Moral of the Story

Self-doubt from inexperience is natural — it takes time to get great at anything, and that inexperience can be used as fuel rather than a reason to stop. A lot of what feels like self-doubt isn't even your own; it's the doubt of people around you, absorbed as if it were yours.

The fix is redirecting effort: stop spending energy proving your worth and abilities to others, and put all of it into getting from one side of the river to the other — the thing you actually set out to do, and know deep down you're capable of with a little effort. Use the self-doubt that comes from inexperience and lack of time to your advantage — let it make you hungrier and push you to work harder. What it should never be mistaken for is a signal to quit. Whatever you do, put distance between yourself and negativity that's trying to turn someone else's doubt into your own.

Publishing content every day comes from the same place — creating the life worth living, and knowing what it actually takes to get there. Creating moves things forward.

Conclusion

Building an online business is hard. Making daily content is hard. Producing a weekly podcast is hard. Building a life that supports doing what you love is hard — none of it was ever going to be easy. Self-doubt is real, but understanding where it actually comes from matters more than pretending it doesn't exist. There's no universal timeline that guarantees success in podcasting or business, but there is a guarantee that becoming good, confident, and skilled at anything takes time and patience — without both, it's not going to happen.

Show Notes & Links

No external resources referenced in this episode.

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

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Episode Summary: Part 2 of the simplify series — a practical walkthrough for decluttering your digital world: email, photos, backups, desktop and downloads folders, apps, and social media follows.

What You'll Learn

• A practical Inbox Zero and email-as-todo-list system
• How to organize and back up photos and media with a simple year-based folder structure
• A full checklist for decluttering desktop, downloads, browsers, and installed apps
• How to cut notification overload on iOS and clean up social media follows

This follows directly from Episode 108: The Priority Show — after cleaning up home and work environments, this episode turns the same process toward the digital and online world: computer, iDevices, social media, and every online platform in between.

Why Declutter Digitally?

More breathing room, less stress, more productivity — the same mindset hack as physical decluttering, just aimed at screens instead of closets. The less there is to think about, the more there is to actually enjoy.

Email Management

The goal is Inbox Zero — the inbox functions as a to-do list. Once an email is replied to or followed up on, it gets archived.

Photo & Media Organization

• Export all photos from iPhone/iPad to a computer or external drive.
• Use Lightroom or Photos to organize and clean up.
• Keep a simple folder structure: one master "Photos" folder, organized by year inside it.
• Delete junk photos as part of the process.

Backup Plan

Two external drives, kept as exact clones of each other, backed up automatically 24/7 via Backblaze.

Clean Up Desktop & Folders

Desktop clutter causes real stress — it shouldn't function as an organization system. Purge the Documents and Downloads folders, empty the trash, and clear out the junk drawer of zip files and DMG installers everyone accumulates. Clean up web browsers too: empty the cache, prune bookmarks and favorites, remove unused extensions.

Delete Apps & Software

If an app isn't being used, delete it — including old bundled manufacturer software and outdated versions of Adobe apps sitting around unused.

iOS Devices

• Clear unread notification badges — Mail, Messages, Twitter, software updates, all of it.
• Delete or offload apps not used at least weekly or monthly.
• Unsubscribe from as many email lists, YouTube channels, and even podcasts as reasonable — the goal is reducing the number of things fighting for attention.
• Clean up social media — unfollow accounts you don't recognize or can't explain following, especially on Twitter and Instagram. Leave inactive Facebook groups, unfollow people you never interact with, and audit your friends list.

Productivity Toolkit

Contacts — consolidate into one master list that syncs across every device (…

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

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Episode Summary: What Mike has been doing to find focus and clarity in business and life, starting with a hurricane evacuation packing list and turning into a full self-audit and decluttering of his home and work environment.

What You'll Learn

• What Hurricane Irma's evacuation packing list taught Mike about real priorities
• A practical purging technique for decluttering a home room by room
• Why simplifying physical space is really a mindset hack, not just tidying
• The "snowball effect" of small positive habits compounding into bigger clarity

Lyrics Trivia

"Take what you need and leave the rest." What song are these lyrics from, who wrote it, and what band played the original? The song is The Night They Drove Old Dixie Down, written by Robbie Robertson in 1969 and originally performed by The Band. It's been covered widely — Joan Baez, Johnny Cash, and a favorite version by The Jerry Garcia Band. ("Dixie," for context, was the nickname for the Confederate States.)

What Is This Episode About?

Clarity is the state of being clear, and this episode is about finding clarity on goals and priorities — largely by simplifying and removing the distractions and external noise that cause overwhelm. The goal: inspire a step back to look at the big picture across job, business, podcast, social channels, and branding, and honestly assess whether time is actually going toward what matters most.

The story that started it: evacuating for Hurricane Irma meant packing 4 bags of essentials and valuables and accepting that everything left behind — including the place of residence itself — might be destroyed.

What made the cut: good podcasting and audio gear, camera equipment — DSLR, lenses, GoPros, chargers, batteries, a laptop, an iPad, and some clothes. The old faithfuls: a Shure SM58 and a Martin acoustic D16 guitar. (Full gear list on Kit.) Take what you need, and leave the rest.

Post-Irma Self-Audit

A hard look at business and personal goals followed: are priorities actually in order? Is time going toward the most important things while building the personal brand and business? The honest answer — wheels had been spinning for months, and a real pause and recalibration was overdue to avoid working in circles instead of moving forward.

What Got Done, and What You Can Do

Clean house — literally and figuratively. Starting with the evacuation bags themselves, sorted into two piles: keep and sell. Then room by room, sorted three ways: keep (used regularly, actually needed), toss (not even thrift-store worthy), and sell (real resale value). Facebook Marketplace worked well for local sales — some spam and time-wasting inquiries, but genuine success with minimal effort.

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

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Episode Summary: A story-time episode marking two years of Mike Murphy Unplugged — the real origin story tracing back to a blog from the early 2000s, why podcasting turned out to be the right medium all along, and what two years of consistency actually changed.

What You'll Learn

• The real origin story of Mike Murphy Unplugged, tracing back to a blog started in the early 2000s
• Why "Unplugged" and "Acoustic" as brand names both come from the same instinct: strip away complexity
• What Mike tried before podcasting — video production, branding, retouching — and why none of it stuck
• What two years of weekly podcasting actually changed about his skills and business

Birthday: the anniversary of a birth. Anniversary: the yearly recurrence and celebration of a past event. Today is both, for this show.

Launch date: Friday, September 25, 2015. New episodes every Friday at 12:15am. Subscribe on iTunes, and the podcast newsletter goes out every Friday at 6:00am.

Why Start This Podcast?

Today's answer: to build a personal brand rooted in teaching people things that genuinely improve their lives or business. The original answer, from September 25, 2015: there was simply too much information built up to share, and a podcast was the right format to give it a shot.

Self-education has always been the throughline — 8+ years managing and designing for a photography studio meant learning accounting, business, sales, marketing, IT networking, data backups, servers, photography, lighting, video, graphic design, and the entire Adobe suite. A lot known about a little, and a long search for the "thing" underneath it all.

Flashback: The Acoustic Blog

Long before the podcast, there was Blogger and a site called The Acoustic Blog, started in the early 2000s. HTML, CSS, design, web color, typography, SEO, and Google AdSense were all self-taught in the process of writing about tech news (Apple vs. Microsoft), travel, culture, arts, design, and music.

Then the iPod arrived around 2004/2005, and podcasts followed immediately — every cool Silicon Valley tech blogger was making them (John C. Dvorak, Merlin Mann, Kevin Rose, Leo Laporte, the whole CNET lineup). The blog eventually stopped, but the podcast listening never did — photography, Photoshop, design, tech shows, absorbed for years.

What the Blog Has to Do With the Podcast

Everything, as it turns out. The names say it: The Acoustic Blog and Mike Murphy Unplugged. Music and audio have always been part of the identity — "acoustic" and "unplugged" both strip complexity away and make something easy to understand, visually and artistically. That's exactly the teaching philosophy: take complicated tools and make them simple and approachable for other people.

The moral: don't overthink it when you feel stuck. What's happening today is functionally identical to wha…

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Episode Summary: The story of Hurricane Irma — its path, the decision not to evacuate, and what the days after landfall in Naples, FL actually looked like — plus a thank-you to everyone who reached out with concern and support.

What You'll Learn

• The path and strength of Hurricane Irma as it hit Southwest Florida in September 2017
• Why evacuating isn't always the safer or smarter choice for coastal residents
• What Naples, FL looked like in the days after landfall: no power, scarce gas, spotty service
• A thank-you to everyone who reached out during and after the storm

About Hurricane Irma

Irma originated off the coast of Africa and became the most intense hurricane to hit the US since Katrina in 2005, and the first major hurricane to hit Florida since Wilma, also in 2005. It held Category 5 strength with wind speeds topping 185 mph, made landfall in the Florida Keys as a Category 4, and hit Marco Island and Naples as a Category 3 with sustained winds around 140 mph. Hurricanes build strength over warm water; land and mountains are what break them apart.

Before the Storm

Hurricane season runs June 1 through November 1, with storms named alphabetically each season — Irma was the 9th of the year with a real chance of making landfall nearby. Hurricanes don't sneak up, but their exact path usually isn't confirmed by the National Hurricane Center until 2–3 days out, by which point evacuating gets complicated fast: flights sell out, roads jam, and — as happened with Irma — gas runs low or out entirely.

Irma was roughly the size of Texas and threatened both coasts of Florida at once. Evacuating isn't a simple call for everyone — it costs time away from work, real money for travel and lodging, and can mean ending up in a worse spot than staying put, especially with pets or kids involved. Homes built in Florida's tropical/subtropical building codes, especially newer construction, are built to withstand a great deal.

The Scary Part

Two models typically predict a hurricane's path: the US model and the European model (historically considered more accurate). The US model had Irma making a destructive hit on Miami; the European model had it heading for the southwest tip of Florida — Naples. The European model was right.

After the Storm

90% of Collier County lost power and drinkable water. Gas was scarce, with long lines at the few stations that had fuel and many drivers turned away. Cars became the only way to charge phones, which made limited gas an even bigger problem. No power meant no air conditioning — genuinely dangerous in Florida, especially for infants and the elderly. Wi-Fi was down, and AT&T service was spotty at best. Some homes sustained real damage, but the outcome overall: safe, and back to normal soon enough.

Thanks for the story, Irma — you won't be missed.

Show Notes & Links

No external resources referenced in this episode.

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

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Episode Summary: To succeed in business, it has to be clear what you do and why people should work with you — this episode breaks down what brand clarity actually means, why so many people (Mike included) struggle with it, and concrete steps to get there.

What You'll Learn

• What brand clarity actually means: is your work immediately recognizable as yours?
• The 4 main reasons people struggle with clarity: fear, lack of self-awareness, self-doubt, and impostor syndrome
• Concrete action steps to gain clarity, starting with doing instead of contemplating
• Why auditing your bios and platforms for a consistent story matters as much as the work itself

What Is Brand Clarity?

Brand is your mark, style, or image — the combination of logo, colors, fonts, and overall style that differentiates you from competitors. Clarity is simply the quality of being clear. Put together: when someone glances at your work or online content, is it immediately obvious it was made by you, and does it stand apart from everyone else? Do people recognize and understand who you are and what you do? Your brand's message is your story — potential clients need to understand what makes you you in order to actually connect with your work.

Why People Struggle With Clarity

• Fear — of failure, of success, of picking the wrong niche, of the unknown.
• Lack of self-awareness — not yet understanding your own strengths and weaknesses, or what genuinely makes you different or better.
• Self-doubt — constant second-guessing: do I actually like this work? Am I on the right track? Do I have the business skills to pull this off?
• Impostor syndrome — comparing yourself to others and questioning whether you belong in the same conversation. Are you really good enough to call yourself an expert? What if you get hired for something you can't actually handle?
• Missing why & story — not understanding your own motivation. Why did you start this business? What series of events led here? What are your goals? Can you explain it in an elevator pitch? If you don't know who you are as a brand, nobody else will either.

Action Steps to Gain Clarity

Start today. Clarity comes from doing, not from studying others, taking classes, or reading books indefinitely. The sooner you start, the sooner you find it.

Do. Create. Make things. Throw plenty at the wall — it's a genuinely useful part of discovering what you like, what you're good at, and just as importantly, what you're not. Instead of chasing what seems most profitable, think about what you'd happily do for free for the rest of your life.

Build self-awareness. Ask others what you're good at. Take an assessment like StrengthsFinder 2.0. Learn to trust your own gut, focusing on strengths rather than trying to fix every perceived weakness. Go all-in on what makes you smile and what you're already decent at — belief follows over time.

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

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Episode Summary: Part 2 of 2 — the highlights, lessons, and concrete action plan from Mike's first Podcast Movement conference, checked against the 5 goals set in Episode 103.

What You'll Learn

• The highlights from Mike's first Podcast Movement: people, keynotes, and the exhibition floor
• A grade against each of the 5 pre-conference goals set in Episode 103
• The single biggest takeaway: fix the business model and communicate clearly what's for sale
• The 2 concrete actions taken to implement what was learned

Verdict up front: an incredible time, genuinely great people, worth every penny, and a lock to return for Podcast Movement 2018.

The Breakdown: Podcast Movement 2017

The 4th annual Podcast Movement, a conference for podcasters by podcasters, held August 22–25, 2017 at the Marriott convention center in Anaheim, California. Pre-conference goals and prep are covered in Episode 103.

Highlights

People. The top priority was meeting new people and strengthening relationships with familiar faces and online friends met in person for the first time. Conferences aren't easy — a genuine pit in the stomach walking into the Marriott — but plenty of fellow podcasters share the same introvert tendencies, which made it easier to push through. The New Attendee Orientation on day one was a helpful icebreaker.

Keynotes. Dan Carlin of Hardcore History and Aaron Mahnke of the Lore Podcast delivered genuinely impactful, inspiring talks. Their shared message: the playing field is level, and opportunity is abundant for anyone willing to be consistent with quality content and put in the work.

Exhibition floor. Adobe, Shure, and other major gear and software vendors, all in one place.

Goals Met?

Yes — checked against all 5 goals from Episode 103:

• Networking — a stack of new business cards and some genuinely great new relationships. Self-graded a solid B to B+, which tracks — this was expected to be the biggest challenge going in.
• Clarity — came away understanding the need to package the work more clearly so people immediately understand what's on offer. The answers were already there; Podcast Movement just sharpened the insight.
• Knowledge & education — a 1:1 lesson on audio compression at the Adobe Audition booth was good enough to have stayed at all day.
• Inspiration & creativity — left feeling genuinely recharged and more motivated than ever to push the podcast and business forward.
• Travel/fun/social interaction — California, and a day walking around Disney's downtown district, delivered on this front easily.

The Big Takeaway

The business model needs fixing, fast — and what's ac…

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Episode Summary: Part 1 of 2 on attending Podcast Movement, the biggest conference in podcasting — pre-conference goals, expectations, budget, and the game plan for getting the most out of it.

What You'll Learn

• What Podcast Movement is and the real cost of attending (roughly $2,000 all-in)
• The 5 goals driving Mike's first Podcast Movement: networking, clarity, education, inspiration, and fun
• A concrete networking strategy for conferences, business cards and elevator pitch included
• Why "watch, observe, ask questions" is the strategy for gaining business clarity at an event

This episode covers the pre-conference goals, expectations, and plan of attack for Podcast Movement, held in Anaheim, California, August 22–25, 2017. Episode 104 picks up afterward with the actual experience and takeaways.

What Is Podcast Movement?

A 4-year-old conference that started as a Kickstarter campaign, held this year in Anaheim from Tuesday, August 22 through Friday, August 25, 2017.

The Investment

• Conference ticket: $250
• Hotel: $189/night × 4 nights
• Airfare: $400
• Per diem: $100
• Total: roughly $2,000

Goals & Mindset

Five things going into the trip: networking, clarity, knowledge and education, inspiration and creativity, and travel/fun/social interaction.

Networking. By definition, interacting with others to exchange information and build contacts, especially to further a career or business. The plan: meet vendors, sponsors, podcasters, online friends, and listeners face to face — armed with uniquely designed business cards and a practiced elevator pitch (who am I, what do I do, who do I help). Listening matters as much as talking, so a set of genuine questions was prepared in advance to get people to open up.

Clarity. Looking for direction on the business by watching, observing, listening, and asking a lot of questions — what are other people doing right that could translate here?

Knowledge & education. A genuine tech nerd's approach: attend a mix of sessions, workshops, and vendor conversations to pick up new tools, gear, and techniques.

Inspiration & creativity. Attending to recharge and refresh the creative tank — the strategy is simple: seek out people with similar skills and interests, and repeat.

Travel/fun/social interaction. A genuine love of travel and exploring, plus the appeal of spending time around a crowd of fellow podcasters and creative people.

Final Thoughts

Heading to Podcast Movement 2017 to learn, create, and move forward. Wish me luck.

Show Notes & Links

• Podcast Movement

Related Episodes

• Episode 104: The Podcast Movement Show

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