Happy Christmas to everyone!

I wish health to each and every one of you!

Enjoy your friends, family and good food!

Today has been cold, wet and miserable in Cardiff and at the same time following our boy's lead, me and my partner are getting sick.

We barely made it through the day and finally it is time to rest.

I miss my parents and friends today but... it is what it is...

And for those who know me, I hate this expression but it today it feels appropriate.

Why do British drink so much?

Its been 11 years since my first...encounter with the British nightlife culture.

A culture that dictates to get not drunk but smashed to the point that you don't remember the previous night.

I didn't get it back then and I still don't.

And I obviously do not enjoy it.

Is there a specific reason for this behaviour?

No business talk today since it is 23rd December and my boy is at home with very high temperature...

Is it opression or depression? Maybe something else?

What I learned from watching YouTube the past years and how you can use it now.

I have realised latelt that the type of content I consume mostly on YouTube is podcasts.

And here is a great opportunity for content creators and business owners.

Create a podcast (and a newsletter) and use it to raise your authority in your space.

Talk about your passion and invite people to talk to.

Anyone who does not move on podcasts in 2024 are missing a huge opportunity.

What are you going to do?

What I learned after I studied the highest converting websites.

Lesson 1: Nobody cares about your business. They only care how your business can help THEM.

Lesson 2: Successful websites have ZERO fluff. Every single section is designed to convert you from visitor to subscriber or client.

Are these lessons not enough? Do you want proof?

Which is your favourite brand? Apple? Nike? Gymshark?

Have you ever read the about me section in their website?

Probably not...

Then, why do you spend so much time and effort on yours?

Lesson 3: Your header, hero section, any other section or page, even the footer MUST have calls to action and MUST make the customer experience easy and valuable.

My challenge to you:

Find 3 businesses in your niche that are miles ahead of you.

Check their websites.

Compare them to yours.

What do you see?

What I learned from watching The Office US for the second time.

When I first started watching this series that has marked our culture with memes and characters I was not into it.

I did not like the characters, did not like most of the jokes.

But I gave it a chance and now I am a fan of Michael, Jim, Pam, Dwight and the rest!

To do the parallelism, I believe that showing up everyday through social media and/or newsletter helps your audience connect with you and your story and personality.

Some people will like you for this, some for that and some will never like you and that's OK.

Some people will resonate with some of your content, some will never and that's OK.

Just be there.

Everyday.

And people will start notice and appreciate it.

And hopefully love you like Michael Scott loves his people!

Why I hate being a specialist in software engineering and business.

The world has enough specialists that are mostly useless in anything else and is missing generalists that can use principles and techniques to any platform or technology and be valueable in an end to end solution.

Today I worked with a variety of tools and tech to solve client problems.

WordPress with Divi, Clickfunnels, Kartra some of them.

When I was a pure software developer, I loved working with a variety of technologies.

I could never be a specialist.

I would get bored out of my mind.

Being a generalist requires more effort and the ability to shift focus from one thing to something else in a matter of minutes.

Are you a specialist or a generalist?

And most importantly... Do you think I need a haircut?

Today I wrote down my personal and business goals for 2024.

First iteration was too vague.

Second iteration was better.

Third iteration had specific numbers.

Fourth iteration had specific deadlines.

Fifth iteration I x2-x3 all my numbers so I have higher goals to reach.

I am still missing a couple of iterations to break everything down to quarters, months and weeks of actionable items.

Without goals I feel I am randomly acting towards no end goal.

I also realise that I usually underestimate what I can achieve in a long period of time.

Do you set goals?

What is your goal setting strategy?

PS. I am going to create a video to document my goals for next year so I can have a public documentation of it all.

What I learned from a 1500 pieces jisgsaw puzzle.

Solving a puzzle is like working on your business.

How?

Requires underastanding of the big picture, your vision, your mission and your goals.

Requires reverse engineering approach, breakdown of all the goals into years, quarters, months, weeks and days.

Requires patience and humility.

Why?

Because every little action you take, every small decision will feel inconsequential in the beginning.

But it is all part of solving the puzzle that business is.

It requires repetition, numerous...sprints and focus!

And most of all it takes time.

The bigger the puzzle, the more pieces have to come together, the longer it will take to solve it.

Unless....

Unless you bring partners in and solve it together.

For the record, I bought this puzzle today as a small hobby for the holidays that are coming.

And while I was shifting through the pieces, these are the thoughts I came up with and wanted to share.

And this is how it feels