Control. We all want it, but very little is actually in our control. So what's in your control? The ability to wake up every day and be consistent with whatever it is you're trying to achieve. Perhaps 2021 didn't go the way you wanted it to, or you fell short on some goals. As you're looking toward 2022, I want to share an excerpt from a book called Great by Choice by Jim Colllins, which contains a wonderful concept called the “twenty-mile march” that might give you some direction for approaching your goals in the new year. It provides a tangible point of focus to keep you and your team moving forward, despite confusion, uncertainty, and even chaos. As we round out 2021, I hope this gives you a boost of inspiration that no matter the conditions, you've got to keep going and march that 20 miles each day. Show notes and more at SmartPassiveIncome.com/session536.

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#535 Our vision at SPI most years is to bring our team together in the fall to think about the following year, source ideas, have conversations, and arrive at a strategic plan for the next year. We lost out on the opportunity to do that last year in the height of COVID, but 2021 provided an opportunity to “reboot” our in-person team summit. In today's episode, I take you behind the scenes to understand exactly what we did in Denver, and how it's guiding the direction of SPI in 2022. To help with that, I invited my co-CEO and chief operating and financial officer, Matt Gartland, back on the show. Matt rallied us and developed this retreat in a way that was so helpful and so valuable for our company, and I wanted to bring him on to share how we ran the summit and what it means for SPI and our audience. If you have a remote team and are hoping to get together soon—it will hopefully provide some structure, motivation, and inspiration for what you can create and achieve in your next in-person team meeting. Show notes and more at SmartPassiveIncome.com/session535.

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#534 Today I'm digging back into the archives of the SPI Podcast to reveal my favorite episodes we've put out this year. I'll be sharing some of the most memorable moments from the show in 2021, and expressing my gratitude for the year that was in podcast land here at SPI. We've got a ton of great podcast content coming at you in 2022, and I can't wait for all of it. But for now, thanks for being here for the ride that was 2021. I appreciate you! Show notes and more at SmartPassiveIncome.com/session534.

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#533 Brenda Petrella is an ex-scientist who helps people get outside in nature through her online business, Outdoor Photography School. She's here to share what she's learned about niching down and building her online business in a way that works for her. You'll learn how Brenda found her niche and started her YouTube channel and podcast. We chat about the differences between online video and podcasting, and how the cohort-based podcasting course Brenda took earlier this year gave her the boost she needed to get the ball rolling. We also talk about how Brenda plans to deal with her first YouTube trolls (if and when they show up!), and how she manages the burnout of the "content treadmill." And stick around for an announcement about something new Team SPI is doing in January 2022 that could be a game-changer for a lot of people! Show notes and more at SmartPassiveIncome.com/session533.

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#532 I wouldn't be where I am today if I hadn't taken a brave step forward to discover what was out there. It's almost like a boat parked in a harbor, and the world of online business is a giant ocean. As we approach the end of 2021, how are you going to get your boat out of the marina and into the ocean, so you can lose sight of the shore—knowing that there's something better out there? Something a little scary, something that makes you nervous, but something very much worth doing? Show notes and more at SmartPassiveIncome.com/session532.

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#531 Some of my all-time favorite episodes here on the podcast are ones where we interview somebody who is not just a successful business owner, but a member of the SPI community too. Today's guest, Eevi Jones, is a member of SPI Pro, our premium entrepreneurial community here at SPI. And she helps people write children's books. How awesome is that? If that's a field you want to get into, this episode is a must-listen. Eevi is such a joy. She's so knowledgeable, and has some amazing tips for anybody who's starting anything, really. Show notes and more at SmartPassiveIncome.com/session531.

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#530 As you learned if you listened to this Wednesday's episode, our team spent a week together in Denver for our first in-person retreat since COVID. Check out episode 529 with Jillian and Tony, two members of my team who were there in Denver who help run our membership community and events and have a ton of experience and insight in community building. In that episode, I talked about the importance of meeting your team in person. Our team is fully remote—we're located all over the United States, and we don't have an in-person office anywhere. So it's really important for us to meet in person because there's just no replacement for real, human connection. That's why today I wanted to talk a little more about the retreat. Specifically, I want to talk about the dos and don'ts of running a retreat, in case it's something you're thinking of doing for your own remote team. Show notes and more at SmartPassiveIncome.com/session530.

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#529 During our team's recent retreat in Denver, I huddled with two of my team members, Jillian Benbow and Tony Bacigalupo, to record the episode you're about to hear. Jillian is our SPI Pro community manager, and Tony is our community program manager—and they're also the cohosts of our Community Experience podcast. Tony and Jill are absolute rockstars when it comes to community, and I'm so excited for you to dive into this conversation with us. Because community—and I cannot stress this enough—is the future of business. Bringing a niche community together to feel welcome with each other, to inspire, motivate, educate, and entertain, is where long-term business success is going to come from. We talk about all sorts of things community today, from how to manage trolls and haters, to accessibility and inclusion and making sure the community feels welcoming for everybody. We talk about how to get people motivated and comfortable stepping up and having conversations. So whether you have your own free Facebook group, are planning on launching a big premium community for your paid course members, or anything in between or outside those options, listen closely. Show notes and more at SmartPassiveIncome.com/session529.

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#528 This might sound weird, but I've learned too much. There are a lot of things I picked up in school and in college, and even as an entrepreneur, that are just superfluous. Why am I talking about this? Because it has everything to do with the new book I'm writing, tentatively called The Lean Learner. I've talked about the book a little bit on social media, in SPI Pro, and with a few people, but I wanted to take time in this episode to go into more depth. The Lean Learner is about how to learn the things that matter to us most and can help us get to the next level, while excluding the things we don't need to learn right now. It's about understanding how to learn what we need to learn so we can get results faster. The Lean Learner is definitely not ready for the world yet—I'm still in the middle of writing it—but I think there's nothing better than working in public and sharing things as they're coming along. I'll share a little bit about the struggles and decision points I've had with this book already, including the decision to go with a traditional publisher or self-publish again. And I'll talk about some of the mentors and influences who have inspired me in my writing, with this book and others. Show notes and more at SmartPassiveIncome.com/session528.

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#527 I'm so excited for this episode. We are speaking with one of my favorite people in the world: Michael Bungay Stanier. Michael is an author who's written a bunch of amazing books. He's also the founder of a training and development company, Box of Crayons, that has taught coaching skills to hundreds of thousands of people. In fact, one of Michael's books has been hugely impactful on my own business, and it's called The Coaching Habit. The Coaching Habit has guided the exact process I use when I coach my students—you can hear it in action when I'm coaching people on AskPat 2.0. Speaking of coaching, Michael also wrote another game-changing book called The Advice Trap, about how we default to offering advice to people before we know the full circumstances, and how to change our behavior to be more helpful to them. But the big focus of today's conversation is Michael's new book, How to Begin: Start Doing Something That Matters. And this book is incredible because it gets to the heart of why we do what we do. How do we make sure that what we're going to do moving forward is actually something that, like Michael says, matters? How do we have the courage to let go when we need to? And how do we navigate the raging waters that sometimes happen when making these decisions? We talk about how to know whether or not the direction we're going is one that lights us up. You're going to love this conversation because Michael is just a great, genuine person, with a ton of amazing insights to share. Show notes and more at SmartPassiveIncome.com/session527.

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