Tips to Help Stay Organized and Make Yourself Smarter
Eric Cook recommends tools for staying organized while traveling: Expensify for expenses, UberConference for calls, and Rocketbook Everlast for notes. He also suggests podcasts like Pat Flynn and Tim Ferriss, plus LinkedIn Learning and Udemy for learning new skills on the road.
Chapters
Greetings everybody, welcome to the Wednesday, February 6th, 2019 episode of Free Webinar Wednesdays. This is Eric Cook with WSI Digital Marketing, where we work with businesses and organizations on helping them better understand and leverage the power of the internet as a strategic business tool. You can learn more about me and all the fun stuff we get to do here at WSI online at www.poweredbywsi.com. My my good friend and free webinar Wednesday partner, Mr. Jeff Simpkins, is on the road this week and unable to join us. But I'm getting pretty accustomed to going solo, so I don't think that that's going to really put a hitch in my giddy up, and we'll just continue to have the show. But want to make sure I at least mention Jeff and give him a hello. I did get a text message from him yesterday while he was out and about, and shared a couple of pictures. So I know he's there, I know he's kicking, he just can't seem to make it to the Free Webinar Wednesday show, but that's okay. Some would say I like to hear myself talk, and maybe that's got a little bit of truth to it. Today's show and— after a little self-deprecating humor there— today's show and all shows are recorded and pushed out to freewebinarwednesdays.com. On replay, so you can check us out there. And if you are attending today's show live and have a comment, question, thought, or just want to say hello, please feel free to use the chat functionality and would love to hear from you. And even though I'm officially coasting, I guess coasting hosting, I'm coasting and hosting by myself. It's good to know that there's other folks out there. And yes, in case you haven't figured it out, this is a live show. I don't go back and edit all the little flubs and missteps and things that I say that probably would have been better not said. That's just what makes me so darn adorable. So you get what you get. Anyway, today's show, I thought what I would do, I was on the road last week, had a pretty big week, went from coast to coast for some projects with some banks and got to meet some new people and spend some cool time. If we're connected on LinkedIn, you probably saw the epic selfie I took on Wednesday from Olympia, Washington with the fine folks from OlyFed. I made the mistake during the conversation and while I was with them saying Ollie, and it's Oly like Olympia, and was quickly corrected. Although the Easterner in me, when I see O-L-Y, I just want to say Oly, but it's Ollie. So hello to the OlyFedders out there, those of you that might be Joining live, I certainly had a blast with you folks and appreciated the opportunity to get a selfie in and push that out and see all the comments that that spawned on LinkedIn. But while I was traveling and out and about, I got to thinking about different ways to manage things more productively whilst traveling. And so just kind of thinking about the tools, the apps, the services that I use, or maybe some that I should use. That would make things a whole lot easier once you return back to the office, or making sure that while you're traveling around you can get stuff done. And so one of the things that got together with a couple of friends of mine in Seattle, we had lunch on Friday, and after we wrapped up lunch, one of the gentlemen that we were with pulled out his phone and took a picture of his receipt and then folded everything up and stuck it back in his pocket. And And so I've tried doing different things with receipts in the past, taking a photo, using a PDF creator. And way back, and I know this because I've recently re-engaged with the Expensify platform, but way back, I think Jeff might have even been the one that mentioned it on an old Free Webinar Wednesdays of the Expensify system and how it works to be able to scan receipts. And it has some artificial intelligence built within it that'll read your receipt and it'll automatically categorize things and recognize that were at Starbucks and Starbucks is the name of the company. And when you, uh, it picks up the dollar amount and it picks up the date and it classifies the receipt as meals because the system knows. So when I used it back in 2016, um, when I opened it back up because I still had an account, um, I recalled that it was handy, but it still had some things that weren't quite right, so I'd stopped using it. Well, when I asked the gentleman that we were with, I sent him a direct message on Twitter later and I said, I noticed that you took a scan of your receipt. What platform or app were you using? And he said Expensify. So he commented that the AI, artificial intelligence that drives Expensify has gotten really good and he's got it configured Now where basically it almost automatically does what he needs to do. It sends it to his to his phone. It classifies it, builds reports, and makes just the whole expense submittal process and tracking super easy. What was also kind of interesting is didn't realize this at the time, but those of you that are here in the States that may have watched the Super Bowl might have caught the Expensify Super Bowl commercial. So in addition to being reintroduced to the Expensify platform. Uh, it seems like they're making a pretty hard push to let the rest of the world know that their platform has got some, some pretty cool features built within it. Um, I am not, just like I was not back in 2016, actually paying for the premium service. I think for like $3 or $4 a month, um, you can get unlimited smart scans. Uh, for the free version, you get maybe a dozen or so smart scans where the system Scans your invoice or your receipt, and it looks for things and then classifies stuff and does it for you. Whereas if you don't have that, or I just pushed through a bunch of receipts from my travel last week, I ran out of the allowable smart scans, and it said, "Hey, you got to manually classify this," or you can subscribe for $4.95 a month or something like that—a really nominal cost—if you are going to be running a lot of receipts. So if you do a lot of traveling. Or even if you don't do a lot of traveling, but, you know, maybe you're a salesperson or you're out and about, or you're married to somebody like me that really likes to make sure that she gets her receipts anytime I buy something. Get in the habit of you swipe your card, you pay for the goods or service, you get the receipt, and before you tuck it away in your pocket, you take a quick picture of it with Expensify and Even if the smart scan is not working, you at least have a capture of it. So that if you're also like me and you may forget to give your significant other that receipt, or it stays in your pocket and doesn't survive the washing machine, you'll have a picture of it. And if you need to, you can actually go back into the Expensify system. What I started to do is actually logged in to the website. Into my account, and then you've got a full version desktop where you can see the scans, you can see the receipts. It might be a little bit easier, so you can just push those out, and then maybe every couple of days, or depending on your frequency, you can go in and you can actually change the information, update those. It gives you the ability to create reports. So if you were on a specific project that receipts related to, I had one project on the East Coast and another one out in Washington on the West Coast. So those receipts are all scanned in, but then I have them in separate projects so that it organizes things. And then some of the newer elements that are now on the system that I didn't recall were there back in 2016 when I stopped using it is you've got the ability to actually generate those reports. You can export them to PDF. There's an option where you can even create an assistant. So I've actually entered my wife's email address so that she has access. When she logs in, she can see the receipts. So now if I scan something, it gives her the ability to actually check it out as well. And then the last item that I'm somewhat on the fence on, just in the early stages of testing it out. There is the opportunity for you to add a credit card to the system and have it connect to, for example, primarily use an American Express card with Delta while I travel. So if I provide the login credentials to my American Express account, it'll pull up that card, confirm that that's the number that I want, and then it can actually pull in those receipts for you directly from your credit card account. And So I'm still trying to figure out if that's what I really want to do, because those ultimately end up, you know, on an invoice or on a statement that we get in the mail. So some of the subscriptions or other sorts of recurring items that aren't necessarily receipts that I would scan while I'm out and about are showing up in Expensify. And I think I need to just determine whether those are ones that I want to keep in there. And if I buy a coffee at Starbucks and the American Express app pushes it into Expensify, but I take a picture of the receipt, determine whether or not there's any synchronization that takes place. So if anybody out there attending live has any experience with the Expensify platform and you have done that, you've integrated a card or have maybe messed around with some other options, Feel free to toss a comment into the chat area and would love to get your feedback. But Expensify, I think, is one that I'm looking forward to re-engaging with because you can also put in things like miles if you pay cash for something. And then after you wrap a project, or for example, I do a lot of speaking, so I'll drive to the airport at airport parking. Tip the airport driver. All of those are reimbursable expenses. Then I travel, sometimes go out to dinner on my own. Coming back and building those expense reports, it's, it's not difficult, but it's time-consuming. And if I had all that in one spot and I could, you know, get to the point where I could push a button, generate the expense report, and that information could go out very easily instead of coming back and scanning everything and organizing it You know, I'm looking forward to trying to reclaim a few minutes of my life and let Expensify do some of the hard work for me. So that's the one app that I wanted to make sure I talked about. And what I also thought was rather interesting that didn't really have anything to do with the app itself, but from a creative marketing perspective, one of the things that I noticed because I caught that they were going to be on the Super Bowl Is if you saw their commercial, and if you didn't, I'm sure like every other Super Bowl commercial, it's available on YouTube, or you can watch it on the Expensify site. They, they ran a contest, and in the commercial what they were doing is they were, they were showing this rapper going out and buying a bunch of expensive things for their video. And one of the ways that they were taking the video and incorporating it with the app Was as the video rolled through, there were times where they actually showed the receipt for the car, for the tray of seafood that they were feasting on, for the watch, for the gold diamond-encrusted football. And if you pause the actual video and took a picture of that receipt with your Expensify app, that entered you into a contest. To be able to win said diamond-encrusted football or, you know, several hundred thousand dollar sports car, whatever the case was. So I thought from a marketing perspective, it's interesting to see how businesses are getting creative. And this is one of the first examples where I've seen video in conjunction with an app, but really play off of the function of what the app does, which is scanning receipts. And getting people used to using the tool, but in a way where you're going online and you certainly couldn't catch it while you were just watching the Super Bowl ad. So you had to come back to YouTube and watch the video, and when the video actually showed that receipt, pause it, get out your Expensify app, scan the receipt, and that would automatically put you into a drawing to be able to be eligible. So some creative ways that they were pulling their audience into their brand, getting used to the app, You know, whether or not you like the commercial, because personally I thought some of the commercials that we saw this year for the Super Bowl were maybe not as good as years past. And many people would say that about the game as well. But, you know, it is what it is. It's the Super Bowl. At least it wasn't a blowout. So there is my totally unsolicited, uncompensated, un— To a certain extent, somewhat uneducated, although I am getting myself educated pretty quickly. Review and recommendation of the Expensify app. So give it a shot, try it out, and certainly the first couple of times you use it, because you will be within the allotment of the credits to have the concierge actually take care of things for you, I think you'll be impressed at how slick it is and how intelligent it It approaches the whole concept of receipts and expenses and all that other stuff. The next application, I guess, that I wanted to mention, because this is a great way for me to keep in touch with the team while traveling around, is called UberConference. And when I make a recommendation, when I'm on the phone with somebody and then have them go to UberConference, of course it's got the word Uber in it, so immediately people are wondering why I'm using a car service. It has nothing to do with the car service, but UberConference is a service. You can use it for free if you sign up, and then there's premium plans if you want to have, you know, toll-free or no PIN code access. But I've been using the UberConference platform for a number of years, and we've got our own UberConference room that we've set up. So you can go to uberconference.com/poweredbysi. And if we're on a call and I want to do a quick screen share, or that also has a phone number, if I want to do a bridge line and invite multiple people in, I can give them that phone number. A couple of things that I like about it, it loads very quickly. And some of you may recall we've had instances and issues with GoToMeeting sometimes and GoToWebinar. I know that there's a variety of colleagues within the WSI world that have made the switch over to Zoom, zoom.us. And so that's another conferencing platform for quick and easy conferences or conference calls. UberConference has just been a really good solution for us. And the other thing that I like about it is if I'm out of the office and I need to have a conference call with somebody, even though I could call them directly or they could call me directly, Sometimes what I'll do, because I know I'll be traveling and I may not be able to take notes or I'm not going to be at a computer, is I'll send them my UberConference number. And when they dial into UberConference and I get connected, I have it configured so that it automatically records the call. It notifies all the participants that this call is being recorded. So it's clear that everybody knows that the call is being recorded, but then I don't have to worry about really taking as detailed of notes as, as maybe what I would if the call was not being recorded. And when the call is over with, they provide you with a little option that says you can name the call so you can give it a category. So this was a conversation on our strategic plan or a conversation with a new prospect or a customer. And so you can download those directly as MP3 files if you want to keep a local copy. You can also take a link to that recording and you can send it to the other person or anybody else that was on the call. So if you, if you do end up having a call, you could send that and say, hey guys, here's a link to the conversation that we had for everybody's benefits. And then if you did take some notes, you could toss in maybe an attachment with a Google Doc with some notes and then just say, after you listen to the call, if there's anything else that you want to add, go ahead and toss it in there. So a great way to really make sure that when you do those conference calls when you're out and about and on the road, they get recorded and retained. But it also is a really nice little screen sharing platform. It works well with Google Chrome as the preferred browser. And you can do screen sharing and do voice over IP. So everybody can use their computer audio and microphone if they so choose, or they can dial in directly on the telephone. So check out UberConference. Again, all of these are being provided without any sort of affiliate income, or I don't get any sort of kickbacks. I don't know how they would even track that I'm even talking about them. These are just platforms that I've used that are pretty slick. The next item is one that we've kicked around before, but I used— actually had to go through and clean it while I was on the road. I filled it up with so many notes. But this is a little tool called Rocketbook, and I will tell you, every time I get into a meeting and I start writing notes and I see somebody else walk in with a crinkly old legal pad and it's dog-eared, or they've got a bunch of journals that they're using to keep notes on, I give them a little tour of my Rocketbook Everlast and they're blown away. And so if you've not heard me get on my soapbox about why my Rocketbook is so awesome. Sit tight. If you have, go ahead and put me on mute, go get yourself a cup of coffee, and you can come back in a little bit. But the Rocketbook is— and I've tried a lot of different versions, so you can go to getrocketbook.com and watch the video and check it out. But the Rocketbook is one of the very first Reusable, scannable, write like you're writing on regular paper experiences that will get into a digital environment as easy as possible. Jeff and I tried a number of different options. There was the Pulse Pen that had a special tip and it recorded your conversation and you used special paper. That pen was very uncomfortable for me personally, and you had to make sure that the pen was always charged, and there were times where, um, you know, it wasn't charged so I couldn't use it. And then I tried just, you know, using, um, uh, an Evernote Moleskine book and scanning that, but the app didn't work really well with Android. It only worked really well with iOS, and you had to use these little stickers, so that was cumbersome. And then somebody told me about this Rocketbook, and so they first came out With a version that you would write on, and then when you wanted to remove all of the text after you scan it with your phone, you would actually put it in the microwave. That's why they called it the Wave Notebook, and you could reuse that multiple times. They've since come out with the Everlast, and they utilize a special pen from Pilot called the FriXion pen. You can use these pens on regular paper just as easily on the Everlast platform. They've got a little eraser. Unlike regular erasers, they don't generate eraser dust, but the friction of the eraser material and the ink allow for you to actually write in ink, but you can erase it after it dries, just like pencil. The texture of the paper on the Everlast books has a little bit of a plastic feel to it, and writing on, on the paper is a very, very pleasurable experience. Never thought I'd use the word pleasurable when it comes to a writing experience, but it is. It actually feels like you're writing on real paper, and it's a, it's a good experience. So you can write well, and there's different options when you configure your Everlast book. There's little codes at the very bottom that you can, you know, check off, and I can have it automatically when I scan it, send it to a notebook in Evernote, which is not associated with the Everlast brand name, but Evernote is a platform that I use very similar to Microsoft OneNote, for example. So I can check a box, scan the page, boom, it automatically goes directly to Evernote as a document. I can check another box if there's something that I want to make sure I send an email. So if I took a bunch of notes or if I've got a to-do list or some things I can check, you know, the little apple icon in the bottom, and I know that that will automatically send a copy of that scan to my wife because I've got her email address in there. So if there's some things in there that I want her to take a peek at, I can go ahead and make sure she gets an email. You can put pound signs, manually write pound signs around words, and the platform will recognize those as keywords, and it'll automatically give your notes Titles, and it's just a really, really great way of capturing your thought. Now, I don't use it for all of my meetings. So when we were on site with our client on the East Coast, I actually chose to hop into Google Docs and I typed up probably 7 or 8 pages of notes in Google Docs. But when I was, you know, on the other side of the country and doing some other things that required maybe a little bit more creativity or some design, or what do you think about this, Or, you know, how are things going to, uh, you know, be organized? You want to maybe do a flowchart or a diagram, then the Rocketbook came right out. And it's so easy because you just write just like you're writing on paper. And at the end, when you're done, you simply click your little app, scan the page, whether you've got one or multiple pages, and everything just goes right where it needs to go. And when you're done and you fill your book up, you get out the little microfiber cloth that they provide you when you purchase it, you get it damp, and you just wipe the page clean and all of the ink disappears from the page. You've got a brand new notebook. I think I've probably purged my notebook at least a dozen times and it's just like new. So you can use it over and over and over and over and over again. Once the notes are in Evernote, I go back in and I apply tags. So I'll put the customer name if it's dealing with the website or a digital strategy or if it was something related to banking. And then when I hop into Evernote, I can go in and quickly search and say, show me all of the notes that I took on Free Webinar Wednesday. Show me all the notes that I had for, you know, for example, the visit that I had out to Washington to Olympia Fed. So I can go in and I can grab all that very, very quickly, which as you accumulate notebooks and letter and notepads, Over time, people are hesitant to throw those away because they've got your notes on them. But once you start creating multiple pads and multiple books and multiple note areas, it's very difficult for you to go back and find and say, which book was that in? Was that in the blue one? Was it in the leather-bound one with the strap on it? Was that in a regular? And even if you scan that and you save that stuff as a PDF, It's still very difficult for you to find it. So give the Rocketbook a shot. It was an Indiegogo kind of Kickstarter item. You can see that they've got a new launch where they're actually figuring out a way where you can take a whiteboard and turn it into a smartboard, which is probably something that I will be acquiring because I have a very large whiteboard in my office and looking at those different smartboard options. Is, you know, they're not exactly inexpensive. So lots of cool stuff here, but you got colored pens, you got black pens. Super duper easy. Absolutely love it, and I'm sure that you will as well. So you scroll down, you can kind of get an idea of what some of the things look like. There's the little icons that I had mentioned. So this goes to my Rocketbook normal. I've got a Rocketbook executive size. There's my little apple because, of course, my wife is the apple of my eye. So that's why I put her email address in there. And yes, those of you that are listening live can go ahead and throw all sorts of cheesy comments in the, in the chat. But, but that's okay. It's Valentine's Day month and it's my wife's birthday month. So I have to figure out different ways to kind of throw those things out there. Not that she'll ever watch this, but— and then here's where you can actually go through. After you're done, you just get your cloth a little damp, wipe it, and boom, brand spanking new. The cool part is these are like $30 on Amazon, and you can get your pens— pens you can buy at any office supply store. So technology-wise, you know, super low-brainer as far as just A really cool little platform to be able to use. So anyway, check that out. The next item that I want to talk about is podcasting. And in between all of the airplanes and travels and downtime, I'm an avid podcast listener. Would love to be a podcast producer at some point, and who knows, maybe that might be coming down the road. to a podcast near you. But a couple of the people that I follow, I had the opportunity to hear Pat Flynn speak last year at Social Media Marketing World 2018 in San Diego, and his speech really inspired me to think about things differently. Some of the stuff that we were doing here and some of the passions that I have that could be developed But, you know, like everybody else, there's that, oh, there's not enough time in the day, but it's all about what you make out of it. But he's got a handful of really good podcasts. He does a lot of writing. He's just a genuine guy that I was pretty impressed listening to. And one of his claims to fame, lost his job, trained as an architect, and started getting into affiliate marketing and selling stuff online. And his approach of being fully transparent and doing things and letting other people know what was going on in his world— he was actually taking his affiliate commissions, so selling things online and how much money he was making, and he was scanning those and putting those out on the internet for the rest of the world to see. So when he talks about creating other sources of income In doing it himself, you know, he was basically giving you the plan as to how you could go about doing it and how much money he was really making. And not that everything is, you know, super easy. He also shared challenges and concerns. But I think if you engage or listen to some of his podcasts, I think you'll appreciate the way in which he shares his information and might— not that you know, I'm saying everybody needs to quit their job and start their own business. But as you're looking at different ways to be more successful at your own business, um, he does a lot of great interviews with people that are, are doing some really cool stuff that give you some ideas. Um, and I've gotten a lot of really great ideas from his podcasts. And so I would encourage you to tap into Pat and, uh, just kind of see what he's talking about. Um, another one that, uh, that I like a lot just because of my banking area is Breaking Banks. And so this has got Brett King, one of the best-selling authors of all time in the banking space, a lot of different books around the world of banking and technology and where it's headed. A couple of my good friends who were on my Banker Education Series show last month, JP Nichols and Jason Hendricks from FinTech Forge, are frequent contributors to the Breaking Banks podcast as well. And so they interview some really good people in the world of banking and fintech and technology, and if you've got any sort of banking pedigree in your world, this is definitely one that I would encourage you to check into and put onto your list. So that's a really good one. Another podcast that also has got a good banking spin to it is John Siracusa's Bank On It podcast. He started off with Bank Social Media Conference, which I actually had the opportunity of participating in when he launched that several years ago, and has kind of evolved that. I think the conference is now part of the ICBA's lead conference, and that's no longer You know, I think that he does, but he started the Bank On It podcast with episodes every Tuesday morning on your way to work, and now it's every Tuesday and Thursday morning on your way to work. And this is another really great podcast. I would say these are typically a little bit shorter than the Breaking Banks podcasts, which is okay because smaller and digestible little nuggets, but some of these are a little bit longer as well. But the Bank On It podcast is one that I also will listen to, and you know, you can You can hop on to the actual website. So if you're in the office, you can pull it up on your computer and you can play it through speakers, or you can subscribe to it through any of your favorite podcast players. But for those that are in the banking space, those are some, some really good podcasts that you may be interested in plugging into. They're keeping an eye on things like fintech and Let's see, fintech, artificial intelligence, customer profitability, all those sorts of things that really are going on in the banking world today, trying to figure out how to make the consumer's experience easier and more of an enjoyable, pleasurable experience. There's that word again. So yes, Sean, I did figure out a way to work that into the conversation again. So that's another one. I guess a couple of the others that I also follow, and I don't have pages up for these, but the geek in me really likes anything that's on the TWiT network, This Week in Tech. Leo Laporte used to be— way back in the day, there was a TV channel that was on cable that had, I think it was CNET TV, or I can't remember the name of it. It's been so long since it's actually been on TV. But he had a TV show called The Screensavers, and he would talk about things. So they've got a ton of different shows. I like to listen to This Week in Google. That really doesn't focus exclusively on Google stuff, but a lot of it's around Google. They talk about home automation. Certainly if there's anything that goes on at Google, they make sure to talk about it. I suspect they're going to be talking, you know, there was a few commercials in the Super Bowl where Google was talking about their AI and the Google Translate capability and some of the things that they're doing in kind of deep learning and, you know, just conversational capabilities. So the Twit network is really good. This Week in Google, This Week in Android, This Week in iOS. So there's a lot of different podcasts there depending on your technology platform of preference. I also get a lot of my social media fix from Social Media Examiner. I've already mentioned their Social Media Marketing World Conference, which we'll be going to again this year in March. So if any of you out there in Free Webinar Wednesday world are going to happen to be at Social Media Marketing World please feel free to reach out, let me know. Would love to see you in San Diego. But they've got a couple of different podcasts, and they also stream those directly out into YouTube. So they're live shows that you can actually watch on YouTube Live. You can catch them later, or you can go to Social Media Marketing— I'm sorry, Social Media Examiner Saturday mornings, and they'll put the transcripts of the actual podcast simulcast out there for you to take a look at. So that's another great area. Tim Ferriss, who is also a bestselling author, the book that he's probably most well known for is called The 4-Hour Workweek that he wrote a number of years ago, but kind of an optimization slash squeeze the juice out of the orange as much as you can type kind of guy. But he's all about figuring out what he refers to as the minimal effective dose, the least amount of effort you can put in to get the greatest amount of gain. Some would say that's lazy. I say that's working smarter, not harder. But he's into things like interviewing top performers of their field. So he'll have individuals that are concert cellists and opera singers to entrepreneur slash multimillionaire. Yeah. inventors, Navy SEALs for optimal performance and commitment and dedication and perseverance. So one of the episodes that I probably go back to on a pretty frequent basis is he actually had a really great conversation with Jamie Foxx. And I don't even want to say that he's an actor because he's a singer, he's a musician, he's He's a businessman, he's a comedian, but his interview with Jamie Foxx was really, really cool because he was actually at his place and interviewed him and went through a bunch of stuff. So those interviews are always really good. And the topic is somewhat of an eclectic collection of things, you know, whereas you go to Bank on It or Breaking Banks, you pretty much know it's always going to be banking related. Tim gets you out there into a variety of different areas, and each one of those is usually packed with at least half a dozen or so interesting little takeaways that are kind of cool. So whether you, you queue these up to listen to them on the plane, or you just put them in your ears when you take the dog out for a walk, or when you hop on the exercise bike, or whatever the case is, Different ways that you can take that time instead of just maybe sitting in front of the television, which I probably do way too much myself, but using that as opportunities to, to learn. I'm curious if there's any podcasts or other sorts of electronic resources that, that you folks dig into, those of you that are attending live. If you're listening to this replay, drop me a note at eric@poweredbywsi.com and let me know. I'd be curious. What's there? I mentioned LinkedIn earlier. One of the other things that is is a benefit of the LinkedIn Sales Navigator account that I upgraded to last year after attending some LinkedIn training and realizing wow this is actually pretty slick is you have the ability to use the LinkedIn Learning Center, which is really all the courses that got carried over. From the Lynda.com platform. And so Lynda.com, I'll actually pull that up for us here so we can take a look at it. But Lynda, L-Y-N-D-A.com, is an online learning curriculum environment where it has a variety of courses that you can take. You can subscribe to Lynda.com. I think it's like $19 a month, something along those lines. And that gives you the ability to take all of these courses on technology, business, if you just want to learn how to take pictures better, managerial elements, you can browse around and you can see here the, the cool part is LinkedIn Learning, which is available as part of your LinkedIn Sales Navigator subscription, is providing access to all of these along with your subscription. So There is a LinkedIn Learning app that you can actually use on your phone and your tablet. So while you're traveling, if you would like to, you have the ability to take those courses and you can actually download those into the LinkedIn Learning app and save them offline. So it gives you the ability, even when you're in the airplane or someplace where there's not Wi-Fi, if you want more of an active learning— I think of podcasting as a little bit more passive, although Oftentimes, there's a handful of podcasts when I listen to them, I know I'm going to want to have something to take notes on because I just, I get a feeling that there's going to be some really good stuff that the speaker or the presenter or the host is going to share. So, I want to make sure I jot that down. But a lot of times, a podcast is just more of a passive, I toss it in, I catch a few things, and hopefully, I'll remember it when I get back. But repetitive listening, You know, some of the important stuff will stick. When you start getting into a learning center type of an environment, you're actually going through curriculum and courses and instructions. You're trying different things out, whether it's kind of words on the page and downloadable documents, or you're watching some videos. The cool part about the LinkedIn Learning curriculum, though, is if you're looking at enhancing and building the expertise of your LinkedIn profile so that when people stop by, they get a better sense of who you are. Last week we talked about a lot of know me, like me, trust me, and part of that know me, like me, trust me process is making sure that people have a clear understanding of the skills that you have and, and what you could potentially do for them and what others have said about what you've done for them so that they they can trust you that you're going to do a good job. When you go through the curriculum for LinkedIn Learning, there's the option to be able to, you know, validate your proficiency with a, with a test at the end. And then once you've completed that course, there's the option for you to actually share that information directly to LinkedIn so that it can say that you've completed the course on photography or business management or financial analysis or SEO. Whatever skill it is that you're out there trying to kind of make yourself better at. So somewhat similar to podcasts in the sense that you can take them with you, but a little bit more involved. And if you're thinking about whether or not you want to use the Sales Navigator, this is one of the elements that I think needs to play into your decision-making process, because certainly Sales Navigator, I think it's $40 or So bucks a month is not inexpensive, you know, $700 or $800 a year. But if you want to improve yourself and looking at this as being the year that you add some new skill sets to your knowledge base and you know that you get a learning curriculum like Lynda.com with, you know, hundreds of thousands of courses, then I think this is one that would certainly be worthwhile. And you can, you can try a free month. Take a few courses, check it out, see what you think, and then kind of play it from there. So that exhausts as I'm looking at my list. So you can tell, pretty big fan of what I hope will be conveniences created for me with Expensify. Loving the Rocketbook and its connectivity to my Evernote application. And then, you know, some of these podcasts. So if you're using podcasts, kudos. It's amazing. Sometimes I'll talk to people that I would just think that that would be, well, of course I'm listening to podcasts, and people aren't. And so if you, you know, just go into iTunes or any other place where you can get access to your— to the list of podcasts, There's so much information out there at our fingertips to be able to inspire us to do cool stuff and to get better at things that you want to get better at. You know, for me, it's just, as I'm sure many of you, the time of the day and when that really needs to happen. And so a lot of it happens when I'm exercising, making sure that, you know, I'm doing it safely. I know I've gotten comments before about people saying, well, how are you riding your bicycle on the busy streets and listening to a podcast? It's, it's Usually one earbud is out. I play it at a sound that's not overpowering and certainly make sure that I can still hear cars. But I also choose to ride in areas off trail and in the woods where cars are not going to be much of an issue. So I assure you all that I'm being safe with my podcast consumption behavior when it relates to bicycles. But check out podcasts and then, you know, Give Linda a try. There's a bunch of others out there. Udemy is another platform that I've actually purchased some classes on for you know five or ten bucks, and you got lifetime access to those as well. So there's no excuse for for not making yourself smarter and more knowledgeable in today's information age. So with that, we're going to wrap the show. I appreciate everybody joining me live and being part. Of today's conversation. I will be back next week. I'm not traveling, so there will be a show next week. Look forward to those of you that can make it live joining me again on Wednesday, 1:00 PM Eastern time. If not, we'll see you at freewebinarwednesdays.com. And until next Wednesday, have an awesome week, everybody, and we'll talk to you later. Bye. Thanks.
