Therapy Session 👥 The Biggest Lessons Of 2019

Boom, boom, boom.

Boom, boom.

What's up, everybody? You're listening to the Hustle and Flowchart podcast with your boys, Mount Wolf and Joe Fear. What's up, everyone? Welcome back to the Hustle and Flowchart podcast. My name is Matt Wolf. I'm here with.

Oh, you're Matt Wolf. Oh. Oh. I'm pretty sure most people probably know that, but if they don't. Yeah, you're Matt Wolf.

But we always talk about how our voices sound so similar, so they may not know.

Yeah, I'm Joseph. Oh, yeah. And then we have a rando that just popped in here.

Oh, yeah, we have a random guest that just popped onto the show. Hey, Shannon.

Oh, hey.

No, her name is Spindrift.

We'll introduce Shannon in a second. Let's do our normal intro first.

Okay, Sounds good. Shannon, don't say anything.

Okay, Sorry.

Banned from saying anything. Let's mute her. She can't be trusted. Just kidding.

So today we're doing another therapy session, but today we've got all three of the sort of core team members on the show. Me, Joe, and Shannon Lemon. And we're going to talk about our goals for 2020 and some of the lessons we learned over 2019. We're going to talk about how much we hate social media, among other things.

But as always, we are taking notes on this episode. So if you want the notes for this episode, go to hustleandflowchart.com comp. You can access these notes or you can text the word comp to 38470 and we'll send you the notes there, too.

That's 38470, comp. Come on, Shannon. Get in. Get in. Let's. Let's sing this jingle. Just whip out your phone and text 38470, comp. 38470, comp.

I don't know how to contribute to that jingle.

It's Lovely, though.

After 38470, you just have to repeat comp.

You guys were carrying it, so I don't think you needed my input.

Okay, fine.

But, yes, make sure you get the notes over at hustleandflowchart.com comp or text the word comp to 384700. We'll send you all the notes to whatever it is we're going to talk about. We haven't talked about it yet. Normally we record our intros after the fact. This time we're just going with it so we'll know what we talk about after we've talked about it. And Then that's typically what happens.

I hope we know what we talked about after we talk about it.

Yes, hopefully we're also testing a new tool, so hopefully the audio sounds good.

I don't know. We're also doing this virtually for the first time. So this is interesting where Matt and I are not in the same place. And Shannon's here as well. She's in Colorado. So. Yeah, we do a video, so it feels like we're in this tiny little room. That's just because.

And we're using a tool called SquadCast. So we're experimenting with a new tool for the first time. Hopefully the audio quality is as good as normal. If not, then we probably won't use squadcast anymore. But for this episode, we're testing it out.

Hey, Jordan Harbinger told us to get on squadcast. We're doing it all wrong. Yes. You know what? We're just going to blame him if this all doesn't work.

Gordon Harbinger, who is one of the advisors on SquadCast, recommended heavily that we use SquadCast.

Three minutes are going well.

Have you heard our podcast? We don't get it. We don't talk about shit for like the first, like seven minutes.

That sounds like our meetings.

Yeah.

We don't talk about shit for like the first hour.

About building culture within the community, within the team.

Exactly.

And there's deeper meanings behind it, by the way.

Happy New Year's, everybody.

Happy New Year. Happy New Year's.

Happy New Year.

Feels great in this new roaring 20s. We're in. We're in the 20s.

We're in the roaring 20s again.

2020.

Yeah. This episode is actually going live on December 31st, so it is New Year's Eve. You are most likely listening to this on New Year's Eve because that's what people do on New Year's Eve around and listen to podcasts.

You don't have any of those people.

Come on my glass of champagne.

Oh, yeah, that sounds like a good time. Actually. A little podcast champagne.

What kind of glitter at midnight?

Yeah.

I'm so nerdy that I probably would listen to podcasts on New Year's Eve. I would probably drink wine, listen to podcasts and do a jigsaw puzzle.

That sounds fun. Actually.

That is like an ideal Friday night for me. Isn't that kind of sad? Sl nerdy.

We knew that Shannon's already 80 years old, but Matt, I guess as well.

I literally have half a half done puzzle in our dining room right now.

That is awesome.

My nerdiness knows no Bounds.

There is no bounds.

No one can disagree with that.

You have your comic books out. Those at least.

I have a giant comic book collection and I do puzzles when I'm bored. So.

Of young and then old. With the. Yeah, with the jigsaw. Yeah, Something there.

Matt, I'm a big fan of jigsaw puzzles. I can't knock you.

Yeah, those are fun.

They're good. They're good. They're, they're. I'd rather have the mindless entertainment of working on a puzzle than the mindless entertainment of, like, sitting around watching stupid tv. So.

I agree.

And also puzzles are a good, like, exercise in patience and sort of delaying gratification because they take friggin forever.

It's really satisfying when you finish one, though.

Yeah. So what's your mountain accomplishment?

I'm curious about the. When you finish the pod, the podcast, when you finish the puzzle, what do you do with it? Does it sit there for like a couple days and you cherish it? Do you glue it together and frame it? Do you burn it and be like.

It'S there for a couple days and takes up your table space because you're too lazy to put it away because you just spent several hours putting it together in the first place?

Yes. I take a picture of it with my iPhone so I can prove to people that I've finished it once. Because, you know, I have this feeling that somebody is going to be like, you didn't do that. And I'm going to have to actually prove it to them once I take it.

A picture of this underlying belief system of yours. Why do you think people are after you after your jigsaw puzzle?

That's the joke. Literally nobody gives a shit that I finished this jigsaw puzzle other than me, yet I have to take a picture to prove it. But no, I do take a picture of it and then it usually sits for a day or two and then I tear it down and put it back in the box.

Validation.

Yeah. Yeah.

All right. Well, jigsaw puzzles, we should get one of those made specifically with evergreen profits. Things we can do it with like cover art for each one of the guests we've had on.

I've actually already looked into that. There's like Shutterfly. You can get custom made puzzles. There's like a handful of companies that will make custom made puzzles. I'm disappointed.

You haven't done this yet.

We just thought of it on the fly. So if anyone's listening, and they are puzzle makers. Hey, we're up for licensing our brand that's cool.

Also, side note, along those same lines, Joe, are we still planning on sending out Christmas cards this year? Wait, hold on. This is New Year's Eve. Did we send out Christmas cards this year?

Of course we did. And they look fabulous.

Okay, good. Just making sure.

Now you have to.

I'm gonna make a note really fast.

So here's what we did. Here's did, and by did, I mean are going to do because we are obviously recording this live on New Year's Eve. No, we. What we're planning on doing is making like, this, like, step brothers kind of picture. Like, you know the picture on Step Brothers where they're wearing, like, their ugly sweaters? They're, like, posing like they went to a professional photo studio.

Yes.

Like, we want to send out Christmas cards to, like, all of our past podcast guests and all of our customers that have, like, a stepbrother style photo of me and Joe on it for people to, like, hang on their walls. So I'm assuming we did that. I'm assuming we did that.

I think we did. We pulled it off. People loved it. If you haven't seen it, you did do that. You did.

I can verify that you did that.

You got one of them?

Yeah, yeah, I got one. It's on my fridge right now.

Yes, good, good. Perfect. I'm glad we managed to pull that off so well.

That was. It's like we didn't even do it, like, with no effort at all. It was great.

Amazing.

All right, well, let's. Let's. Let's get into some stuff that people actually care about listening to.

So today we brought Shannon. Shannon's our operations manager, onto the show, and we're going to have a team discussion about sort of the lessons we learned from 2019, the direction we're going in 2020, the stuff we're excited about, the stuff we're not excited about, you know, Joe's facial hair, things like that. Just normal topics. Wow.

Way to just be a jerk.

What, you're assuming I'm going to talk negatively about your facial hair?

I just trimmed it. Yeah.

I think we should discuss your facial hair, Matt. Yeah, Matt, there's more to talk about there.

There's a lot more to talk about.

As long as we're not talking about my eyebrows that almost connect now.

They do. Because you're connected.

I hear you can get that waxed.

Micro bleeding you can do. There you go. I don't know all these things, but.

Spa day.

Spa day. Matt. Matt does not like spas.

Or at least no that's not true. I don't like massages.

Massages. That's it? Yeah.

What crazy person on this planet does not like massage? Whatever.

Starting to question you.

I'm giving a foot massage right now on this podcast. You didn't even know it. It's great. So it's. Oh, man. Perpetual. All right, so let's get into this.

Yeah, let's. Let's. Let's sort of break it up into, like, let's talk about 2019, and then let's talk about what we're doing in 2020, because that would make sense to talk about the past and then the future.

Yeah. And then, well, let's do a proper introduction of Shannon as well.

That would be great.

Yeah. I mean, you've been with us as our ops manager. Slash, what's the title that you want? You want something with badass?

Badass in it? I don't care what it is as long as there's badass.

Right. Okay, you.

You can come up with whatever you want. Just let me know.

Maybe we should feel this to our audience and see what we should call you or, you know, you should be called after they learn more about.

Okay, I like it. They come up with some good stuff.

And you'll likely see it as well. So if you write to info@evergreenprofits.com, let us know what title Shannon should have. And likely you'll hear from Shannon and she'll tell you if it sucks or not.

Yeah.

Right. Use your best creative efforts and please.

Be nice, because whatever wins out, we'll get business cards.

Sweet.

Sweet. That you'll never use.

I can put it on a little plaque.

You'll sit in a box in your desk. We'll just order, like, 10 of them so you can say you have some.

It's official.

Just carry them around with me.

So what, like, been almost two years, right? Yeah, it's like a year and a half. Year and a little further than a half.

Yeah.

Wait, wait. What is the sort of business anniversary that you joined? And we'll have this on recording so we'll never forget it.

Okay. It's in April. I'd have to look up the exact date, but I think it was, like, April 10th or something.

Okay, that sounds about right. I think I'll believe you.

We go to Palm Desert every year, and it was right before I went to Palm Desert.

Got it. Yeah. It's very. Well, no, it's not too hot at that time of the year.

Palm desert, like 95 degrees.

Okay. It's pretty hot. Never mind. Too hot for me. Yeah. So you basically are the brains behind the operations, obviously, like systems, and you handle a lot. Probably a lot that we don't even know about. That's probably a good thing. That was designed on purpose.

Yeah, I mean, that is done on purpose because that's the whole point of my existence, is to handle things. So you guys don't have to be in the mix of all of it.

Yeah, no, it's really cool. I mean, we've said this on previous episodes, but we found you through Great Assistant, a service by our buddy Tim Francis, who was just texting me, and he. Yeah, it was matched up on the Colby assessment, like personality, whatever, aptitude type test thing. And I think we had something like 80 applicants or something. And they. Short.

Come on, you had over 100. Probably don't sound short.

Thousand.

We had so many people. We sifted through hundreds of thousands of applicants, and you were the one. Yeah, well, I was great because we had someone else sift through all those applications. But.

So. Yeah, no, it's crazy because it's just wild that it was such an easy find, you know, to get you. But obviously we paid money to have people do it in a very systematic way. But it was perfect because we were trying to find someone who wasn't like either of us, but similar enough in the middle. But also with that operations mindset, because Matt and I, we have glimmers of that. I'm probably more of, like, idea guy with systems and stuff. Matt's more hands on, but each of us won't follow through with shit that we just don't want to do. And then that's where you come in.

Yep, exactly. That's a good way to describe it.

Yeah. That's pretty much what it's panned out to be, too.

It's cool.

No, it's been good.

Yeah.

You guys are all right?

You're happy? You're still okay?

Yeah, I'm still good.

You stuck with us this morning. I love.

I love the fact that.

Time to be asking me that if I was unhappy.

I just. I love the fact that since we've hired Shannon, we've literally not had to hire anybody else ever again. Because Shannon does all the hiring now.

I do. You're correct.

So you became our talent scout. So now we don't have to worry about finding good people. We just say we need good people to do X. And you go help us find those people.

Talent scout. I like it.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Well, you got those skills. Well, you did that in the Past for previous companies. But then what was, like, genm. So service that we've hired multiple people through that. Like, you freaking. You probably dialed it in there because you had to sift through so many people, you know?

Yeah, I feel like that was a really awesome experience to start messing around with genm. Just. I had done a lot of hiring in the past, and it's very different, but I think it's great. So, yes, I spent a lot of time in it, but I think that's kind of what it takes. You're hiring anyway. I think those people that go out there and send out the, you know, they're hiring, you know, job posting and take the first few applications and then just pick one or, you know, interview two people. That's how you end up with. Yeah, exactly. You too. That's how you end up with crappy employees that don't last.

Well, literally, like, this is no joke, but you were the only person we talked to after that filtering process, so we did. We're guilty. Even again, going through this service and hiring.

But they made me jump through hoops, so, yeah, was definitely vetted.

That's why we were comfortable with our singular interview.

And honestly, I think that we could all tell Nicole I was a good fit anyway.

Yeah. Yeah. You. Like, we got along.

We were joking right away.

That's true. And that has never ceased because. Yeah, we just wrapped up our team meeting prior to this call, and, like, 30 minutes of it was BS about sports and how the Broncos suck and the.

Hey, we won this week. Come on.

But to be fair, the conversation also talks about how the Chargers suck even more.

I know.

Which I am on board with different.

Yeah, well, and last week, we talked for over an hour about random stuff. I think we talked about football last week, too.

Yeah, I think it's.

It's important, though. And we talked about this. It's our form of culture. It's really the only time the three of us chat, at least, where we're, like, visually looking at each other in one place, more or less.

Yeah, totally.

And even Matt and I don't even chat as much anymore. And we'll talk about kind of, like, how we've spl things up a little bit, and I think it's. It's good. So. Yeah, like.

Yeah, no, I agree.

My wife will be like, how did you talk about other times?

Like, this is our.

Yeah, no, it's true. I think it's extra important when everyone on the team is remote to still have that, because I think that could be easily Something that's lost with, you know, our setup being as it is. So I think it's super important that we still have that.

Just so it doesn't get so mundane. We're also still having that team building and interaction where we're still getting to know each other and having fun and having a good time and not just all business talk.

Yeah, we get boring pretty fast. And I feel like. And this gets into kind of some of the stuff that. This is great. By the way, behind the scenes, Shannon had like a whole, like five pages of notes for this podcast and we had blank slates, as always.

That's what I do. I'm a note taker, writing things down.

You came up with amazing topics, things that will probably hit most on and awesome. And it feeds into exactly this culture thing and.

Oh, yeah, that's a big part of it.

Yeah, let's just shift into that then. And let's talk a little bit about some of the biggest lessons we've learned in 2019. Because, like we just talked about in our previous team meeting, there's been a lot of changes, a lot of sort of shifts and evolutions. And pivots is a trendy word to use lots of those makes you feel.

Better about the changes and the screw up.

They're pivots.

Yeah, that's our word for being indecisive about the exact business model a lot.

It's a nice way to package that up.

Let me hear, Shannon, maybe you lead it off with your perspective of everything.

Yeah, well, I think it definitely has been a year of changes, which has been good and bad. And I think there's been a lot of learning in that because as I mentioned on our team call, there's all different kind of changes that we face, things that have been outside of our control. Like earlier this year in April, I came back from vacation and we had two employees that we had to let go. And I don't have anything bad to say about those people. It just wasn't going to work out. So, you know, we had to act quickly to replace them and, you know, still keep the business afloat. So there's been a lot of things that have been outside of our control. There's been pivots, if you will, where we're doing something and we realize it's not working and we have to pivot and take on a new direction. And it's a change that happens immediately. So we have to implement those things quickly to make it a success and make it happen. And then there's exciting Stuff like some of the stuff we're working on that's going to be a long term change but it's going to take a while to get there. So there's an element of patience waiting for the good changes that we want to happen that take time. I think over the course of the year being able to roll with that has been super important. I think that if any of us had, you know, an issue with change, I think that would have really stopped us up and held us back. I think for the most part we all really were able to, you know, be on the ball when those changes needed to happen.

That's a good point because I feel like we are very flexible or adaptable as a team and you know like and we've constantly. And you a lot of times will modify systems and things that break like when someone quits or they have to move on to another position or whatever it is or they're just not a good fit. And making sure there's redundancies. I know that was a big learning thing this year is yeah bails out. We got to make sure this podcast keeps going or the newsletter goes out.

I mean when, when somebody leaves a company like that you actually it really sort of strengthens test is your systems and you figure out where you can shore up the systems. When. When somebody like the two team members that left within like a one week period of each other when they left we went oh crap. Some of these systems aren't quite as developed as well as we thought they were and we sort of found the blind spots as a result.

Oh yeah. It helped us patch up some holes for sure. So while it was stressful, I also think it helped us improve our systems because it made us realize where things weren't maybe flowing as perfectly as they could be.

And that's. That brought up something just really quickly that Matt and I were talking about. I think Friday is. It's so simple to over complicate things like very quickly too. Especially when you're online presented with a lot of opportunities and partnerships, affiliate opportunity, whatever, it doesn't even matter. But it's. There are all these like splinters of attention and energy and when you're dealing with a whole team and then systems that are layered on behind the team to function on the day to day practices. It like it can bring a lot of stress into the systems and into us as, as leaders of this business because complication and that's like why we're. And we'll get into that but like shave off a lot of the complications that we don't need. And you know, looking back at the Matt ever, like, man, if we were to start all over, like, literally, there's ways to run this business where it's so damn lean and mean, but it would be doing a lot less things that we're currently doing, you know?

Absolutely.

Yeah. It's easy to complicate stuff quickly.

It's super easy to complicate. But when those changes and things happen, I think it's an opportunity to dial things back and simplify them.

Yeah.

And then another thing you were mentioning before we started recording this session was one of the big learning lessons for you about team members was the importance of creating that culture and getting them to see the vision of the business. Let's talk about that for a second too.

Yeah. So.

When we lost those two people.

I would say they were good at their job, they were hard workers, they fit in well with the team, they were fast learners. So overall they were good hires. But I realized what was missing when I hired Jacob, who's actually editing this audio. Hi, Jacob. He has something that they didn't have. He actually is a bigger picture person. He has vision. He sees the opportunity that he has with us and where it could go. I think the other two people that we let go were very short sighted. They weren't thinking six months down the road, a year down the road, two years down the road. They were only seeing what was directly in front of them. And I think working from home is not for everyone. And I think if you don't have that vision. Vision is important in every company. But I would say having all remote employees, if they don't buy into your vision and where you want to go and then contribute to that vision, you're not going to have a lot of success with your employees.

Vision is huge. And that's where even just not employees, but even leaders of the business. I know I've struggled. I know Matt struggled. We had a lot of communications about not having this North Star, this thing that we can work towards and get excited behind because there's no excitement. What the hell are we doing? And if not everyone is bought into that vision, then there's no way we can succeed without friction and people bailing out and stressing our systems and ourselves. So yeah, absolutely. I think it's really cool that. And it's probably further things that we can do even as a company in 2020 to build that vision even stronger and bring that into our team as well.

Yeah. And moving forward, I think that's something that we need to keep in mind when we're hiring. You know, that's something we need to look for in everyone that works with us.

And I think a lot of entrepreneurs too.

They have the vision. The entrepreneurs have a vision. They know what they want, where they want to go. But that vision doesn't trickle down to other team members. They just sort of have that vision and they're working towards it and they hire the people they need to hire to get the job done and they just give them the tasks to do. But the vision is now never sort of relayed down the line to these other people in the business. And so they don't get the benefit of striving for the same vision as you. They don't get that benefit of being on that same page and being just as excited about reaching that end goal as you are.

And those people are not going to last. Like, if you, if your job doesn't give you any purpose or vision, you're going to feel pretty much meaningless, you know what I mean? And that's true in any company. But I would say even more so, like we said, it's harder to build culture when everyone's remote. But it's also harder to build that vision. You're not going into the office and hearing it every day and working with other people. And so I think really making sure that everyone on the team is super bought into that vision and we're talking about it and dialing it in. And Singer focused on that vision. I think that is one of the most important things that we can do as a company for ourselves and also for our team members to, you know, make them last.

Yeah, I love it.

And give them purpose.

And it comes from us, you know, as leaders of the business, to communicate that, to involve everyone or at least, you know, the folks that are on the day to day team, you know, that are behind this.

And yeah, there's probably things that there's always ways to improve. That's the beauty of this whole machine that we've built. There's no lack of things that we can improve on with communication, the vision and all that stuff. So I think it's powerful. Yeah, in 2020, I think we'll dial in stuff even more where. And I don't expect us to grow a massive team or anything, but just think about once we have, and I think we do have the pieces there, you know, a core team can make or break everything we do 100%. Yeah. So, yeah.

So let me ask, let me ask you, Joe and You can feel free to flip it back on me if you want to. After what have been like your one or two biggest sort of lessons this year around the business, like, what stands out to you is like this, this, like the theme of this year was.

X. I would say the year. This year has felt like a big transition year is what my gut says we've done a lot. Like, we've, I would say almost what, three months into the year, we started aggressively testing new things. And because we were very reliant on affiliate marketing at the very beginning of the year, and this was one of those things dealing with change, there's a lot of control that we don't have with that style of a model in our business. So relying primarily what we're like 80% heavily relied on affiliate income, which still works well for us, of course, but.

It'S still also our biggest income stream. But.

And that's cool. But yeah, we didn't have a lot of control with other things in the business or we didn't prioritize that control. So I feel like since that point we've been, we've been testing a lot, transitioning into different things. The podcasting, like podcast marketers, we've kind of started to been known in more of that space and got notoriety. But the downside of that is there, it's brought on a lot of complexity in different ways and not things that we probably have.

Start, stop, start, stop.

So it's A lot of energy has been spent or invested. I would say it's invested because we're essentially just throwing a bunch of shit at the wall.

With some logic behind it or enough gut feel like, okay, this might be the thing. Okay, let's tweak that and toss another thing at the wall. Yeah. And I think it's a beneficial. This is not a bad thing to.

Say this, but this is how I would sum up 2019. If there was a theme of 2019, for me, it would be go all in or get the fuck out. So.

All right, so there's been two things in 2019 that, you know, in 2017, 2018, the last. This podcast has been going for three years now, right. And in the first couple years we were doing this podcast, but we were also experimenting with everything. Right. We were selling courses, we did some agency stuff, we wrote blueprint roadmaps for companies. We, you know, we ran traffic for people. We did affiliate marketing. Like, we just kind of threw a bunch of shit at the walls and we were kind of half ass in on like all of it not all in on any of it. And I would say in 2019, we decided, we made a conscious decision. Let's go all in on the podcast. And becoming these podcast marketers, being known as the guys who teach how to growth hack podcasts. Right? That's where the POD hacker brand came from. Let's be known as the podcast growth hackers. And also, let's go all in on this newsletter. I know it's only 15 bucks a month. I know it's very inexpensive, I know we've got to get a lot of volume, but let's just ignore everybody that's telling us that it's a bad idea, listen to all the people that are telling us it's a good idea and just go all in on it. And so from my perspective, 2019 has been, let's just go all in on a couple of things instead of spread thin on a lot of things.

Yeah, yeah, absolutely.

Well, that brings me to one other point is focus. I feel like that's been a big thing that we've learned to do this year. There's so many opportunities out there and it's so easy to have shiny object syndrome. And I think that we are all guilty of that. I know it's my job to try to keep you guys focused. I do think that there's been opportunities that have come along that even I was like, oh, wow, that sounds amazing. But I think it's now to a point where we are asking, does this help promote our vision? Is this part of our goal? Does this help get us where we want to be? Or is this a distraction?

I think he nailed that on the head. We all did. I think in our own ways.

It'S like we started the year so we did all out, like you said. We've committed to that all out vision, like you said, Matt. And I think we did that around three months into the year in 2019, when we noticed there were some leaky hole, there were some holes in the bucket basically, and things that we couldn't really patch to easily ourselves. So committing to the podcast was, I think, step number one. And then the newsletter has always been attached to the podcast and then of course, affiliate marketing, all that stuff. But yeah, like getting pulled in different directions in doing this. Like we've shaved off a lot. But with, it seems like with more focus and more attention, notoriety, people sharing our stuff around, more opportunities come. So, yeah, we all have this shiny objects. I mean, everybody does on the planet, I feel like. But it's like for us, it's different than what it is for you, most likely, Shannon.

Yeah. And your job is. And that was kind of one of the things where, like, please keep us focused as best as possible from your perspective.

Yeah.

Well, in full transparency, Joe and I aren't the best at holding each other accountable. Right. Like, we're too close. It's like, I mean, he's my. My sister husband. Right. Like.

Sister wives or whatever it's called. Like, or heard of it at least. Like, you know, and never mind.

Maybe.

Anyway, you have a bromance going on.

Yeah. We're like, we're basically brothers, so, like, we'll get on each other's cases about stuff, but it's almost more in like, passive aggressive ways than like, true holding each other accountable. So we needed that extra element in our business, like, as an accountability step of, like, who's our mediator when we're not agreeing on something? Who's going to, like, mediate that discussion when you guys fight like an old married couple?

Yeah.

It's true.

Oh, man. But it's all very short lived.

Yeah. And it passes quickly.

I think it always stems from a lack of clarity of where the hell we're going or who's doing what and, and the vision. And we've always. And I have always been really good at have sharing the vision, like where more or less where we're going or like what we're working towards. But yeah, it's. That's where the little tips will come up in freaking, you know, like. And then. Yeah. You are the lucky person to see it all in the middle.

Yeah.

It's fun.

Yeah.

I would. I would say that you and maybe Brad Costanzo are like the only two people that have seen, like, that side of us when we're like, not seeing eye to eye on.

I'll call you out too.

There was one time down at the Iron Pig, and this is a shout out because this is just in our contract with Dan Ryan, but Dan Ryan was there and I think you and I were arguing about something. He was like, he's like, all right, ladies.

Let'S move on. I'm like.

Drink.

Like.

The good thing is it's usually very like, surface level minor shit. And it usually blows over within about six minutes.

Yes, well.

And it usually leads to something productive. Well, not always, but most of the time we. It reaches a resolution that actually accomplishes something.

Well, there was something that Ryan Dice said when we had him on the podcast. He said that if. If you're in partnership with somebody and you guys always agree on everything, then one of the partners is not an effective partner.

That's true.

Not the exact words, but something along that. Those lines, right? Like if you have two partners and you always agree, then it's a pretty bad partnership because you should have some debates, you should have different points of views, you should be looking at things from a different perspective. Or else why are you partners? Like, what are you both bringing to the table?

He said one of you, one of the partners are obsolete. If there's. I think that was like one of his, his exact words. I was like, yep, that makes sense.

That makes a lot of sense.

Yeah.

And I listen to a podcast too, of like Horowitz and Dreeson or whatever it is, you know, the big venture capital capital firm. And one of the guys was saying that, like the two partners on there, they argue constantly. Like if you're ever in the office with them, they just like butt heads all the time. But the fact that they butt heads, they always end up coming to some sort of like, shared conclusion on what investments to make and where to take the business. And it always works. It always works out. So I don't necessarily see the fact that we don't always see eye to eye and we do debate things and we do have arguments. We do sometimes get passive aggressive with each other. Passive aggressiveness we could probably phase out, but the fact that we don't always see eye to eye on things is not a negative.

Yeah, yeah, yeah. Go ahead, Shannon.

Well, you both have such different perspectives on everything. So I think that when you guys do have those moments, we always, they're productive. We always come up with new ideas or someone, you know, has a change of heart or sees something from a different angle or. So I don't see those arguments as negative at all.

Well, and yeah, it's really cool because this is, case in point, the time of this recording, not on New Year's Eve, but it was last week or maybe the week before that. Matt. But you and I were talking about certain things and we weren't getting passive aggressive or any of that stuff. But I think we were both anxious about things like just the state of where our focuses are. And we were kind of both just like, something just doesn't feel right. And I think it was 9 o' clock at night. I slacked him. I sent a slack message and you were there. Like, I think I like, notify that.

Little silence. I'll like, nope. But I was just like, dude, I don't know what it says, but the essential thing was like, I feel like there's just like, things need to get fixed up here. There's certain things we're not doing. Like, I'm not feeling good about these certain things. And then you basically like, yep, I agree completely, a hundred percent. And then that was the time when you decided, let's split shit up in the business. That's really be deliberate. Not meaning, you know, separate the business, but actually, like, internally, you focus on what you're great at and then what I'm going to focus on what I'm great at. And then I think it was like the next Tuesday. Told you about that, Shannon, you're like, I love it.

I thought it was a brilliant idea. It makes a lot of sense. And then I can just bridge the gap.

Yeah. And then everybody, like, pretty much anybody we've talked to now, who knows us personally, knows our tendencies, knows our individual skill sets, would probably agree, like, yeah, you probably should have been doing that way for years now.

It's true. Yeah.

I thought it was a brilliant idea. It really makes sense moving forward that you both are, you know, focusing on what your strengths are instead of like mixing it all up and then having it be kind of a jumbled mess. I feel so much more structured and organized now.

Yeah. And just to elaborate, just to. So it's clear what, what we're talking about. Yeah. Like, inherently, Matt, you have always been great at systems and the marketing. Like, you know, ad buying and media buying and content marketing, email marketing, that kind of info products. Like the hacker that loves to, you know, just freaking hack away in dark lights and black light and, you know, you have weird rave parties in your office, let alone and accurate. And then I'm over here not raving, but it, you know, I've been doing more of like the, the people stuff, so hopping on calls, high ticket sales agency type stuff. So I, I think it's a good balance in terms of like, we're hitting both, like the spectrum of needs that, you know, our podcast helps generate interest for around, like podcast marketing. It's like, okay, cool. There's been a lot that we've. We've had demand over the years where we haven't fulfilled one of those sides. It doesn't matter which one. And we kind of jump back and forth, you know, but now we're like, okay, instead of jumping, why don't we just actually focus on both sides individually and then create really good systems around them both?

Well, you know, we were just talking about some of the things we bought heads on. That's actually one of the areas that we, I mean consistently for years have sort of butted heads on was I've always kind of been more attracted to affiliate marketing and selling online courses and things like that, where you've tended to be more attracted to doing consulting and selling agency services and going that more high ticket path. And there's really nothing wrong with either path. One is sort of like a lower touch, higher volume, lower price point. The other is a higher touch, higher price, lower volume. But at the end of the day, you could kind of get the same end result financially. And since we both kind of had the sort of sweet spot that we like to focus on, I was constantly pushing, let's do more of this stuff. Let's do more of this stuff. Let's do more of this stuff. While you were constantly pushing. No, this is the path we should be doing more of this stuff. And so the conclusion we essentially came to is, let's do it all. I'll focus on the stuff I like doing, you focus on the stuff you like doing. And now we have a combined business that kind of sort of scratches both of our itches.

Yeah, well, and that comes back to vision. Now that you've had it split up like that, it's really easy for Joe to go all in on the vision for that side of the business. And it's really easy for you, Matt, to go all in on the vision for your side of the business. And you're both bought into the vision for both sides, but now you are more focused on each side that you're strong in. So I think that brings us back to focus and vision and it's really going to help us make that vision a reality.

And it also creates an ultimate decision maker on either side. Right. Like, I'll go to Joe and say, hey, here's what I'm planning on doing. And I'll show him the funnel stuff and I'll show him him how I'm planning on driving traffic and I'll show him everything. But it's not really like I'm going to him for permission of like, should I go do this? I'm just saying, hey, I want you in the loop. Here's what I'm doing and vice versa for him. Like, he'll ask my opinions on stuff, but he doesn't need my permission for any of it. He just, on that side of the business, he goes and does what he feels is necessary to push that side forward. And so it sort of created like two CEOs in different areas where he'll get my opinion, I'll get his opinion. But ultimately, we each make the decision on our respective sides of the business.

Yeah, we're basically advisors to each other.

And then Shannon's the coo essentially.

Wraps it all up.

Make sure you actually do what you say you're gonna do.

Keeps us accountable. And then like we said before, it's tough for us to do that. So, yeah, we lean on you for that. And you're great at it. It. And with this new model, I'm sure there's ways that you can become even more great at it because we'll be tracking different things now.

You know, I'm excited to see where we're going to take this because I think what we've got now is really, really good.

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

And I think, you know, just kind of like starting to future pace a little bit as we kind of come towards the end of this episode. Like, let's talk a little bit about 2020 and. And you know, let's talk about both business and personal goals. You know, Shannon, you mentioned before we hit record talking about some personal goals. We can touch on some of those too. And I think it'd be cool for us to kind of talk about what our goals are for the business in 2020 and then talk about what some of our goals are personally and, you know, put it out into the world publicly.

I like it. Let's do it.

All right, Shannon goes first.

Let's bring it business and then we'll. And then we'll do personal after business stuff.

Got it.

Come on, Joe.

All right, fair enough. All right, I'll throw some things out there and we can all elaborate for business focuses. 2020, obviously, what we just talked about. So, yeah, on my side of the business, you know, my role essentially for this business is to do all the high ticket sales type stuff. So that's selling things like, you know, this is kind of an overlap, but selling the course, you know, the pod hacker masterclass course, because that's at least time of this recording, around $2,000.

But that overlaps a little bit with your funnels, Matt. But we'll be going deeper into podcast marketing as a whole. So that's where I'm heading up, you know, kind of that training element, consulting and advising folks around that having an agency arm to our business that supports production of podcasts, but also the growth and, you know, the conversions on the back end and the profits and really like, I think we're diving in deep into that podcasting space and we're also getting Propped up on stages, partnering up with, you know, influencers and companies that can give us a lot more exposure. So I know at least for me, a lot of my goals for 2020 on my side of the business is systemize the hell out of this stuff.

So yeah, I would say that's probably the biggest sort of change addition that's coming in 2020 is the introduct, the reintroduction of an agency. Just different services than we've ever provided. We're actually going to be providing both services in the realm of podcast production, podcast growth, and also for businesses that just need help driving traffic. We had a fairly successful traffic course in the perpetual audience growth and we've had enough demand from people saying, hey, can you just do this for me? That we are starting to build out an agency to help with people with traffic. So I'd say that's really like the biggest change that's coming. And outside of that, just really, really, really focused on continuing to grow the podcast, continuing to grow the newsletter and then having that, that agency arm on the other side of it all.

For me, mostly it's going to be creating systems around that agency and you know, just helping create that structure so we can scale the heck out of it.

Yeah, well, and the beautiful thing, our vision isn't like, like we don't need to scale too crazy on any of this stuff. It's and like 13 clients.

We've done the math. We need 13 clients.

Yeah. And, and like that's, and of course there is opportunity for more later but like let's dial this thing in in a smart everything we're doing. But like for agencies specifically, we've done it before. Been there, done that. This is the reason I'm comfortable with this. Like that's what I've always done, but I never did it like a big scaled out thing. But you know, the beauty is that we don't have to do that. So you know, with delegation and or at least the way that we split out our roles and our team and everybody to support us, it's going to be exciting I feel like, because.

Some other really cool stuff that's happening in 2020, we're going to be speaking at Traffic Conversion Summit. That's exciting. We're speaking at PodFest in Orlando, possibly speaking at a couple other podcasting related events next year. Still waiting for confirmation on, on like podcast movement and stuff, but definitely speaking at PodFest, definitely speaking at Traffic and Conversion. We're putting out a course with well fit, at least one course, possibly two courses next year with well fit. What else do we have going on?

We have the Orlando and at the time that this gets released, it might be sold out. So but a mastermind or yeah, kind of a mastermind type thing paired up with Pod Fest in Orlando in early March. So that's going to be 20 people in the room with us talking podcast stuff. Maybe we'll do another one of those in later in the year. Don't know yet. Don't have plans for that yet.

I think it's highly likely that we'll be speaking at like War Room again and possibly creating a course with digital marketer around podcasting. So lots of cool stuff coming out next year, but really the focus is let's help some people run it for them and let's get more people checking out this newsletter. And we're making the newsletter more and more of a no brainer too because it's, you know, 15 bucks a month. You get the newsletter, you get all the backlogs. But now we're also adding all sorts of like bonus trading from all of our guests and just like it's insane for, for what you get for 15 bucks. But this isn't meant to be a sales pitch episode, so I won't pitch it any more than that. But if you go to hustleandflowchart.com comp you can get a free companion and see what we're talking about.

Little appetizers of what this thing actually is.

Let's talk about personal goals and let's go to Shannon first because I know she's already got some notes, but what are some of the things you've got personally planned for 2020? Yeah.

So this is something I've already started kind of working on but want to continue to focus on next year is being more present. I feel like that's something that's hard in this day and age with social media and you know, our cell phones. You know, I'll go to dinner with my husband and the couple next to us will be on their cell phones the entire dinner. So I feel like.

Social media has created a lot of disconnect where we're not being present with the people that we're with. And when you do that, when you are on your phone while you're hanging out with someone, while you're having dinner with them, while they're talking to you, you are basically saying, I am prioritizing my phone, my social media over you. You are devaluing that relationship. So in social media in and of itself has become Such a negative, toxic thing. I actually recently deleted social media from my phone just because I feel like you kind of can't help but fall down, you know, the rabbit hole of being on it for wrong reasons. Maybe you're using it to judge other people.

You're using it to be jealous of what other people have. You're wasting time spending hours scrolling through social media. Some people out there, and maybe I'm guilty of this too. I don't know. You're basically creating a tiny shrine of yourself. It's a very vain thing to be like, look at what I did. Or here's 50 selfies of me. Look how great I am. Look at this trip I took. And I think that all of that doesn't contribute anything positive to your life. So not only are you not being present, but you're also bringing something that's, I would say, negative and toxic into your daily life. So.

I think my biggest thing right now is actively being present. So when I'm with other people, I put my cell phone away, you know, and I've been trying to limit my time on social media. And like I've told you guys before, I don't think there's anything inherently wrong with posting. Like here's a beautiful, you know, building in Italy. Like, there's nothing wrong with that.

But I think you have to kind of check your motivation.

Behind being on social media and posting something.

Have you had like a. Because he told us about the story. I think it was you said your friend in Italy that read a comment. Oh, that's on social media.

Dick, what were you talking about? I wasn't paying attention.

Yeah, so it was actually my sister in law and the moment she realized that she should get rid of social media is she was on a tour in Italy and she went to go post something and she just started scrolling a little bit and she read a comment that really upset her and then went on a rant about it for the next hour and then stopped herself and realized that she let one person's comment or opinion on social media ruin the tour of Italy that she was on. And in that moment she realized, this is not worth it and she deleted all of her social media platforms because she's like, this is taking away from my life. I literally missed an hour in Italy to be mad about a comment.

Yeah, no, I mean, I agree wholeheartedly about social media. We've talked about it on the podcast in multiple episodes in the past about how it's actually leading to a lot of depression and a lot of issues. I mean, the rate of depression has gone up, up in correlation with the rise of social media. So, you know, there's very, very in depth studies to show that it's, it's causing more good than, or causing more harm than good. But I actually did that too. I took Facebook off, I took Instagram off, I took Twitter off, I took all of them off my phone. And it lasted me probably like six months. And I eventually. And I sort of lost the impulse to check out them, right? I completely lost the impulse to log in and look at them. And then after, you know, five or six months, I reinstall them for purely business purposes. Right? Just to. Because people were messaging me on Instagram, people were direct messaging me on Twitter. On Facebook. We were running ads and I kind of had to manage comments on some of the ads that were running. And we run Facebook groups and I had to, when people were asking questions in the Facebook group, I wanted to check in and respond in a fairly timely manner. And to this day, I never got back the impulse to check social media. I literally, anybody who follows me on social media, I'm sorry, I'm very selfish. I don't post pictures of me or my family or what I'm doing. I literally ask for things. I go and say, hey, here's a new podcast, go listen to it. Or I say, hey, I need a book on copywriting. What do you recommend? Right, Like I just ask for shit on social media. That's all I use it for. And then also I watch my notifications from time to time to see if there's anything I need to comment on. But just getting rid of it for like six months, you lose the impulse to check in. And then once you've lost that impulse to check in, it's really hard to get back on this social media train, at least in my experience. So I do have the apps on my phone. I just don't ever really use them that much. Oh, and I turned off all the notifications I still have on my phone, but I don't get any of the like push notifications that pop up constantly.

Well, and to touch on what you said about depression, like, it's so easy to be affected by what you see on social media because it's very carefully curated content. You know, you're seeing a perfectly painted picture of someone's life you're not seeing. I mean, sometimes people post things to be more real, I suppose, but you're still not seeing the day to day struggles that people have. You're seeing the fun times they had. Like, I just went to the Broncos game this weekend. I posted a picture. You're seeing, you know, all the best parts of other people's lives. So it could be very easy, just as humans to, you know, when you're in the mix of social media and when you're on it constantly to compare yourself and your life, your day to day struggles with other people's beautifully painted picture of their life, which is not reality.

Yeah, I like the, the fact that because I did the whole thing, delete social media apps. There, There was like some training. I was. Perry Marshall's training, I think originally was getting us in that mindset, Matt and I. And just like you, Matt, I trained myself out of the impulse of, of checking those apps. And I ended up, even though I did actually delete Facebook again last night, but I might actually bring it back. But I don't have that impulse anymore. And I've actually found a timely, like, things are great, you know, notifying or responding to people, but I noticed with myself that I'll actually spend less time even thinking about my thoughts or responding to people on social media if I use my phone. Actually, same goes with email. I can almost like just kind of crank through things a little faster and more efficiently. But it's because I've helped train my mind to not go into the scroll mode after I clear out all my notifications. So I just get in there, like you said, clear notifications and respond to people in Messenger. Messenger I'm still not that good at because I've trained myself so well at getting away from Facebook. I'm like, ah, dammit.

When people start messaging me on Messenger, I literally go in there and like, what you should do, Joe, is create a text expander response. Text expander is an awesome tool that we all use. Create a text expander response that says, hey, I suck at checking in on Facebook. Messenger, email me at Go, you know, whatever, right? And just like go in there, create like a short code where you type in three letters, it populates the thing and just anybody, anytime somebody messages you, hit the text expander message and have them email you instead.

It's a good idea. That's great. And everybody else can take that advice as well. That's the thing, social media and, and I'll be the devil's advocate a little bit. It's like, it's an amazing way to connect with almost anyone out there. It's an amazing way to grow our business. And for me to obviously state, like, with my dad passing, I've been able to connect with so many people that I've never known or my family that I haven't chatted with for years.

But at the same time, and you know, Matt and I post a lot of vulnerable on social media and, and I think really, at least for me, training myself out of the normal usage of social media, which is kind of like what you described there, Shannon, putting all the good stuff, all these doctored images of you that aren't really real, but rather do a balance for me. I don't even really think or care who's listening or reading. I just like, yep, here are some thoughts. This is spinning around my head. I think it'll help others maybe. And, you know, it's not a chest pumping exercise, but it becomes more of, like, I don't know, just a general communication tool I've been able to leverage a little better after training myself out of the.

Yeah, yeah.

How you're using it, you know, if you're using it to connect with other people or, you know, you want to post pictures because, you know, your grandma wants to see them, which. My grandma has actually asked me to post pictures of things before.

That's one thing.

But I think it becomes a problem when it's an addiction totally. When you spend so much time on it and it actually. The things that you see and the things that you post actually affect you and your mood and your happiness and, you know, how you're living your life. When it becomes something that actually changes your, you know, your life or your daily, you know, habits, that's when it becomes, you know, a toxic problem and an addiction, in my opinion.

Yeah, yeah, yeah. I mean, I. I do agree that there are some positives from it. I mean, the social media basically made the concept of a high school reunion obsolete. Who goes to high school unions anymore? Everybody from high school you still are in contact with because you see them online whenever you get on Facebook. So, like, I do think there are some positives. Like, I do think it keeps people more connected than they were they once were. I do believe there is, like, the more connected the world can be, the better. Right. So I do think it's helped bring, like, it's. It's made distances shorter. It's made the world smaller because, you know, we have partners that we work with constantly in New Zealand that we talk to on almost a daily basis. Like, that wouldn't have been possible 20 years ago, you know, I mean, or it would have been very, very expensive and a pain in the ass to do.

So. I do Think that there, there is a lot of positives but I, I couldn't agree more. It's like it's the way you use it that matters. If you're just on there mindlessly scrolling, it can be very, very negative very fast. It can, it can really sort of affect your emotional state and that's where I think it causes problems.

Yeah, well, it all comes back to being present. So yeah, there's positives as far as connecting you with others and it makes things possible that haven't been possible in the past. But I think it's important to make sure that the connections that you're making online are not affecting your connections with the people that you are in person with, that you're present with, that you have a relationship with, that you see every day. As long as the connections you're making online are not affecting your actual present connections, I think then it's a non issue.

Totally. It's how you use it. I love it. Joe? Yes, Joey?

Personal goals for 2020.

Nailed it.

Oh yeah. Did you have any more that you wanted to share there?

Oh yeah, no, that's it. I said all of the things that I wanted to say.

All of the things.

Cool.

For me, personal with.

Seems like, you know, with new baby in the house, she's definitely the big priority here. Big why and it comes. I've noticed that I succeed most when I'm consistent with things and when I'm more disciplined about my actions and kind of pre plan things, schedule things out, not so rigid but enough where I'm consistent with the things that I want to get done. Business and life. So coming up with a good, disciplined, just a consistent manner about how I carry myself through life and work and play, all that stuff is making sure I'm consistent with what I truly want and what aligns with my values. So I can be the best entrepreneur and leader for our business, but also the best husband and the best dad and instill good values into all the people that I'm chatting with and I'm present with. So with that, yeah, I've just noticed that consistency is the biggest thing that I'm striving for.

Yeah, I mean that's, I've noticed. Like our business for instance, I know this is talking about life, but business, anything that we're consistent with expands and that's with everything. It's like the more we put focus on whatever it is that we're doing or not wanting, even if you don't want something, you're definitely going to expand that with more Focus on there.

Yeah, that explains this rash in my leg, too.

Yeah, the rash keeps getting bigger. I'm like, damn. I keep looking at it and I keep not doing anything. Thing. No. So really outlining what I'm. What I'm doing is like, Craig Ballantyne, who's been on. Who's on our podcast. I've been really reading a lot of his material, and just other folks like that who are disciplined. You know, Marks Acosta, Rubio was on here. Getting things done with David Allen was a good primer as well for this for me. And really coming up with a system that works for me is probably the biggest thing. And not like Omnifocus. And being very rigid about stuff has a place for it for me, but also something that fits my personality. We actually had Justin Goff on the show, and I don't know if you read this email, Matt, but he sent how he plans out his week, and it super resonated with me where essentially it was like the big rocks of what you want to accomplish that week, some extra things. You have a personal life, and then I think you have people to follow up with, with. And then there might been one more thing. But essentially it's just like, here's a quick snapshot of the priorities, and that keeps me consistent, plan that on Sundays, similar to the whole getting things done thing.

So I think that's really going to be me going into 2020. Clarity, planning helps.

Yeah, yeah. No, I mean that for me, that's, you know, the Omnifocus is. What does that for me is keeps that shit. It sort of in line for me. Same concept. I just. I have a tool that works that I've just gotten in the habit, and it works for me now. But, yeah, I mean, for me, there's a couple skills that I really, really, really want to improve on in 2020. For me, I really want to become, like, the best possible copywriter I can. I'm just. I'm studying copy and sales persuasion. And so one of my big goals for 2020 is just to, like, really, really hammer that in and get really good at coming up with, like, angles that get people excited to buy things. I feel like we've got the traffic sort of nailed. We kind of understand how to drive traffic. We know how to create good products that people love. The one piece that's sort of been a little bit of a bottleneck in our business is just having really great sales messages that get people excited to buy. And so I just. I really, really plan on going deep down that rabbit hole and just becoming really, really good at it. Because when you think about it, if you have that skill of copywriting and sales and pers, you can convert anybody, then like, what else do you need? You're gonna be able to drive traffic. Cause you're gonna be able to write good ad copy for your ads. You're gonna be able to sell products you don't even need to make products. You promote affiliate products. You know, like that's like, that's like the one skill that I feel like if you have that super dialed in, you can kind of write your own ticket. So, you know, it's something I've studied for 10 plus years now, but I really want to kind of go deep down that rabbit hole this year. One of the things I've started doing too is I've started putting three main tasks on my task list for the day. So every single day I've got like in omnifocus I got like eight or nine things I want to accomplish every day, right? But like four of them will take three minutes each, right? They're just kind of like routine things. Like I need to go check into our Facebook group to see if there's any new questions. On a daily basis, there might be two or three things I need to respond to. It takes me five minutes. Check into our forum in our members area. If nobody's posting any questions, it takes me 30 seconds. If there's one or two questions, it takes me five or 10 minutes to respond. So like a lot of my tasks are just real quick things, but then I have three rocks every day. Like one of them has to be an income generating activity. So for me, an income generating activity is mailing our list, right? When we mail our list, we make money because there's always offers in our emails. Creating a new Facebook ad, building a new funnel landing page, creating a new split test variation. To me, those are all money things that, that when I do them, it generates new income into the business. So I want at least one task every day that's going to generate new income into the business no matter what. And so one of the, there's going to be one of those rocks on my list every single day.

Other than that, I, I have two, you know, two big things that I want to accomplish every day. Usually around like, you know, optimizing a landing page or I don't know, I don't have any good great examples, but I have three main things that if I get just these three things done and nothing else on my list gets done that day, I consider today a success. So if these three rocks are done by noon and my wife wants to go get lunch, I'm good. I'm out. I finished my three big rocks for today. So, you know, that's kind of how I'm sort of thinking about my day is how do I know if today was a successful day in our sort of business journey? Well, now I know if today was a successful day on our business journey because these three things that I know are moving the needle got done today.

That's actually very similar to that Justin Goff model. He was like, it's three rocks. And I believe he said, yeah, but.

He does it over a whole week. He sets three rocks for the whole week. I want to have an income generating activity every day.

Yeah, yeah. And, well, that's how I'm, I'm. I took and modified his thing to do the same thing. Essentially it was like sales. He had something about lead generation in there as well. And there was one other, maybe it was like content. So it's like having those rocks, which I think are, that's, that's exactly where I've been focused on because you always need leads. You gotta keep the sales coming and then, you know, the content and stuff. Like our podcast, which we're just constantly churning out or posting on social media in a good way.

We'Re doing, because that's actually part of my thing is something I'm focused on is actually creating more of a marketing calendar. I haven't even really talked to you guys about it, but coming up with content for social and how that can be repurposed all over the place into our courses too, like podcast marketing content, let's say. And because we know like every time I post on something about our business or something we're doing, there's going to be interest. There's, there's leads that come from that, there's sales that come from that. And it just seems pretty like a lot of folks don't, don't think that like a lot of marketers are really putting it out there, what they do or what their offers are. I heard some other podcasts talking about this the other day. There's a lot of folks who are just like, oh, what do you actually do? Or what, what do you. Yeah, it's like, well, that's a sign that you're not putting enough out there and, and making it clear. Even though it sounds like we're constantly talking about it, there's a lot of folks that just don't know. So what I'm doing is, is coming up with more of a calendar and. And thinking in advance and less reactionary is what I've noticed. I've tended to operate in more in the past, not in 2020.

I like the planning on your side, too, and I think it's important to find a tool that works for you. You know, like Omnifocus, There's a place for it, but, like, for me, it's like, ah, it's too rigid. I need to just like, all right, draw out a couple things. Maybe you can refer to that as, like, the database. And then it's like, here's my go plan. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

I mean, for me, it's like, it's a great place to just dump everything and then review once a week of everything that's been on my mind. Yeah, I actually still rate, like, the.

Can't really.

If you're not watching this on video, you can't see it, but there's like a. A list of things here, like, Monday, Tuesday. So I actually still write on a yellow notepad, like, these are my three rocks I'm getting done today. Even though I have a digital version of my checklist list on the screen right next to me.

There's something satisfying about crossing things off a list.

That's right.

Also, like, on my screen, where I have Omnifocus, which is to the side, there's also other apps running. So, like, Slack is in front of it. And, like, if somebody's messaging me on, like, one of the messaging platforms, it actually sits in front of my Omnifocus. So just like, the fact that this notepad is always in my line of sight when I'm at my computer is also super helpful.

That's exactly it. Yeah. Shannon, how do you plan your days?

I use notion and I write everything down. Like, Matt, like I said, there's just something so satisfying about crossing stuff off the list. And I'm just the kind of person who likes to have everything, you know, written down anyway. Like, my husband, when he goes to the grocery store.

He has an app. Not sure what it is, but he puts everything on his phone. I actually go and write a list. So I'm just the kind of person who actually likes to write lists. So I do use Notion, but at the same time, I always make a list of things. Everything I need to do in a given day, every morning.

Yep. Nice.

Dig it.

I dig it, too.

Anybody read any good books lately?

I have. I've been reading a lot of different books. Superhuman was the last one I finished by Dave Asprey biohacking tape book. Very good for little quick fixes and things you could do in your daily life to feel better and think a little clearer. I like it. It was cool. Gets a little heady with all the big words that are said though. So maybe just skip around or read a summary if you don't want to dredge all the science. That's. It's a good. How about you, Shannon? You have books behind you.

October and November have been kind of weird just because we were out of the country and then coming back. So I have read good books, but they're not business related. It's been more for leisure, so.

Twilight.

No.

No, I actually read it.

Oh, wow.

A little different. Yeah, but. Yeah, so. No, but that's something that I need to get back into. So maybe that's Another goal for 2020 is to get back into the habit of reading more regularly.

Fifty Shades of Gray.

No, no, thank you.

Yeah, man.

This isn't actually the most recent book I've read, but it's been the most impactful of recently is a book called the 16 Word Sales Letter by Evaldo Albuquerque, I think is his name. But it's a very short book about copywriting. It's about 85 pages long. I think I read it in like two sittings of like an hour and a half each. So it's a pretty quick read. And it's just, it's probably the simplest sort of copywriting formula strategy I've read. It takes a lot of elements that, that anybody who studied copy has read before, but simplifies them down to a point where like you just kind of get it. It just kind of clicks. And so that book has been really, really impactful. Outside of that, I don't really read business books either. I read, I will read mindset books, I will read biohacking books. I do read sort of.

Like relationship advice books and like books on like self improvement. I guess I would. I read a lot of. But I don't really read a lot around business. What I've learned is that when I take business advice from like books and a lot of other people, I tend to. They tend to not work out. And the stuff that does work out is sort of the ideas that we sort of come up with ourselves. Like if we're all sitting around masterminding, going, what if we did this? What if we made a newsletter? We charged only 15 bucks and we got volume and then we got a lot of people and then we sponsored and we got sponsors to actually not only sponsor the newsletter, but sponsor the podcast. And like nobody else is doing that shit. It's just stuff that we came up with in the process of masterminding some ideas. That's the stuff that always works the best. When I go and read a business book and they're like, structure it like this and then do this and then implement this, I always find out it just, it's like it never seems to be super applicable to our business. So I just kind of stopped reading business books for the most part because I've. Plus there's contradicting information. You can read one business book that'll tell you, you know, work four hours a week. If you're doing more than that, you're working too hard. And then you can go read a different book by like Grant Cardone who says if you're not working 80 hour weeks, then you're a pussy and you're not doing it right. Right. So like you can read two different business books on the same day and get completely contradicting advice.

So that is true.

You got a lot.

You know, business books, in my opinion are not super helpful.

I think getting the mindset straight is the biggest possible thing you can do because that's going to trickle out in the business. And that's actually one of my bigger things going into 2020 as well is squashing any like limiting beliefs that I personally have about. I mean, we all have certain limiting beliefs that are holding us back, but also holding the company back. I'm holding you back, you back. And you're doing the same in different ways if that shows up in business. And I think that's super important. So. Yeah, the self improvement stuff, same. I use a little app called Scribe and I absolutely freaking love it instead of audible and stuff. So I'll devour a lot of audiobooks and it always recommends other ones like Psycho Cybernetics was another one I read recently that you recommended it to me, Matt, and that's an old book, but holy crap, is that like you're just completely creating visions for yourself and you could squash any like limiting factors that you might have.

So. Yeah, well, the more you work on yourself and improve yourself and grow just as a person, the more you're going to have to contribute to the business as a whole.

Yeah. And I, I think the biggest strides that have come in our business have come from working on ourselves more so than working on a new business philosophy.

Or strategy or new business model.

Yeah. Yeah. So another resource I want to share, because you mentioned scribed. Right. I use an app called Pocket, which allows. It's a chrome extension. And when you find a blog post that you really like, you can actually save it to Pocket, right? And it's kind of like an evernote where it saves it across your devices. You can read it on your iPad, your computer, Kindle, your iPhone, whatever, later. But it saves. It'll actually save that blog post, and it'll actually save it for, like, offline readings. If you're on a plane or something and you don't have Internet, you can actually read the blog posts you've saved, but they actually recently added a new feature where it just reads the blog post for you. You press one button, you put on your headphones, it'll actually read the blog post to you, and you can actually speed up the reading of it. So I listen to podcasts at like 2x speed. Anyway. So now I find blog posts that I really like, I save them to Pocket, and then when I have some downtime, I'll put on some headphones. I'll put on like 1.5 speed because it's not real voice, it's like a computer generated voice. So 1.5 speed's about the sweet spot. And I'll listen to a blog post that would take me 20 minutes to read in 15 minutes. And it's been a nice little time saver for when you find blog posts and you just want to have somebody read the blog post to you. You.

I like that.

It's a good one. Yeah. Pockets legit. And the fact that I'm about to hop on a plane, I think I'm gonna have to save a lot of articles and have some reading or listening while I'm on there.

There you go.

Reminder. Yeah.

Good timing.

Yeah.

Sweet. Anything?

You mean, you mean, you mean back when you hopped on a plane two weeks, three weeks ago?

Oh, yeah, that's right.

The whole path. Past, present, future.

Time travelers.

Time travelers. We're really good at it.

What did you think of that app while you were on the plane, Joe?

I loved it, man. I read so much and learned so much.

You mean you listened so much that.

Yes, both. I can read along, actually. There you go. I'm on a plane. I'll digest even more. So podcasts. I was jamming through those. I listened to 20 on the way there. It was crazy. Wow.

Good thing that Matt shared this tool with you before your trip.

Oh, my God.

It's what, a five and a half of flight? Something like that.

Yeah. And I Read. I listened to 20 podcasts. Figure out how that is, how fast, speed, probably 10x, man.

Very impressive.

Yeah. Nice.

All righty. Anything else? Well, cool.

I think. I think we covered everything we want to cover.

Yeah.

You know what people should do after listening to this episode?

Get them notes.

They should go to hustleandflowchart.com comp and get these notes. Or. Or text the word comp to 38470. It's actually been really cool to see all the people that are texting in. Like, I didn't know if people were actually going to text in or not. This was kind of an experiment. But I logged into Call Loop, the tool we use that sort of collects all the phone numbers and sends you all the details after you opt in and stuff. I've been watching that and like every day there's a handful of new people texting. And I'm like, this is really cool. So you should get on that text list. Maybe we'll text you sometime with Joe. Will. Joe will send you some, like, shirtless pics of like, his workouts and stuff. Oh, wow.

No one wants that. No one wants to see that you are discouraging people from.

Yeah.

I'll text 38470 if you want to see Joe's shirtless body.

Or just. I'll send them to Matt because he seems to love them for some reason.

He's bromance.

It's all bro.

8470, comp 3847070 Shannon 8470.

All right.

All right. Thank you. And how about this as a special bonus? If you opt in today, we won't send you pictures of Joe's shirt. So bonus, fast and cautious running to their phones.

If you wait till later, no telling what's going to happen.

You might be surprised.

That's terrifying.

Nightmare.

As long.

As long as people join the list. Whatever.

See, I'm getting better at my copy, right?

Yeah.

Hey, I'm bonus again, not sending you pictures of Joe shirtless.

Interesting bonus. Not bonus that I think will work.

It's an interesting non bonus. We take the tactic of trying non bonuses over bonuses sometimes.

I think it works so well. We'll have details after this. You know, give it.

I think the masses will be motivated.

Yes.

You won't see my shirt off.

Actually, in all reality, we'll just send you the notes.

All righty. Well, thank you for listening.

People are confused at this point about what they're getting.

Sorry, ladies and men.

Probably mostly men.

Have a good one.

Hey, thanks so Much for tuning into that episode. I hope you hope you loved it as much as we loved recording it. Now, before we wrap this up completely, I want to give a quick shout out to our supporters of the show. These are some companies that have really helped us and have supported the show and we just like to give a big thank you to them. And they also are offering some cool free gifts for you as the listener. So, number one supporter, Podcast Magazine. Podcast Magazine, the preeminent publication covering podcasts, podcast culture and the podcasts that fans love. It's launching in January of 2020. Prior to launch, you could grab a free lifetime subscription over@podcast magazine.com that is a free subscription. A free lifetime subscription to Podcast Magazine where they are talking about everything. Podcast, Podcast culture, the podcasters you love behind the scenes of podcasts, they're ranking and reviewing podcasts. And guess what? Joe and I are actually going to be regular contributors to Podcast Magazine. So if you want to hear more of our insights around podcasting and the shows that we're listening to and some insider tips about what's going on behind the scenes of our show, we're actually going to be one of the featured experts inside Podcast Magazine. So if you love podcasts, if you're a podcaster, or if you just want to stay on top of what's going on in the growing medium, subscribe now, because you can get the free lifetime subscription until it launches. So make sure you do this early. So once Again, go to podcast magazine.com free subscription to this magazine. Go do it. Get on that. Now, another supporter that we really, really want to thank is Easy Webinar. Now this is the webinar platform that we tend to use when we run webinars. If you go to easywebinar.com hustle, you can actually try Easy Webinar for free right now. And what I love about Easy Webinar personally is that it's got both the live options. So you can just go live with a webinar like you would normally, but it's also got automated webinars where you can make a webinar feel like it's live but it's happening on a recurring basis. Then they have what's called, you know, hybrid webinars where portions of it are live, but then it goes to a pre recorded and they do all encore webinars. I mean, they've got pretty much every feature you can ever want from a webinar. Now you probably know that webinars convert better than any other marketing tool, but if you thought, you know webinars, Easy Webinar is going to surprise you. So with live Automated, all these different functions of webinars, you're going to be using the best onboarding customer platform. You're going to be able to create automated courses. You're going to run automated sales funnels. So much cool stuff that you can do with Easy Webinar. It is our preferred choice of platform for webinars. So make sure you check out Easy Webinar. You can get it for free right now. Get a trial of it over@easywebinar.com hustle and check out our episode with Casey Zieman, the founder of Easy Webinar, where we dive into a lot more cool stuff that you can do with webinars. So check it out again. Easywebinar.com hustle to get a free trial, go to podcast magazine.com to get a free lifetime subscription. Both amazing products, both products that we use we're subscribed to and we support and can't thank them enough for also supporting our show. So go check those out. We appreciate you and thanks for tuning in to Hustle and Flowchart.

Thanks everybody for listening to this episode of the Hustle and Flowchart podcast. Before taking the time to listen, we want to give you something a little bit special. Every single episode that we do, we actually have somebody on our team take notes. We basically have a Cliff's Notes version of every episode where you can go and find all of the tips and tactics that they laid out, all of the resources that they laid out, all the good stuff from this episode. We actually have a nice simple notes version that you can find on our website. So go to evergreenprofits.com find this episode that you just listened to and give us your email address and we'll send you the notes. Thanks for listening.

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