RPF0130-2015_Personal_Development

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00:00:14.100 | - Happy New Year, Radicals.

00:00:17.820 | Welcome back to the Radical Personal Finance Podcast.

00:00:20.380 | My name is Joshua Sheets and I'm your host.

00:00:22.480 | Today is Tuesday, January 6, 2015.

00:00:26.620 | Yes, it is 2015.

00:00:29.900 | I made an oops in the last show

00:00:31.420 | and I'm sure it'll happen a few times.

00:00:34.400 | 2015, this is the show where we're gonna talk about

00:00:37.140 | how to transform your fuzzy feel-good New Year's resolutions

00:00:41.580 | into workable plans of action.

00:00:44.140 | Things that you can actually do

00:00:47.120 | to bring those goals and dreams into reality.

00:00:51.220 | I hope you had a nice time off.

00:00:52.740 | I did, I spent the first week out of town

00:00:54.940 | visiting with family and the second week in town

00:00:57.220 | working hard on some business stuff for the show

00:01:00.180 | and then also working hard on some projects around the house

00:01:03.340 | working on improving some things

00:01:05.060 | that I've been neglecting here in my household

00:01:07.320 | and helping to improve my marriage

00:01:09.020 | by finishing some things.

00:01:10.420 | I'm excited to be back in front of the microphone,

00:01:13.080 | ready to share with you the ideas.

00:01:15.420 | Today I'm gonna share with you some ideas

00:01:17.780 | on my personal development plan for 2015.

00:01:21.580 | I'm doing it with the purpose of helping you

00:01:24.780 | to think about whatever it is that,

00:01:27.280 | helping you to think about how to put a plan of action

00:01:31.020 | in place to help you achieve your goals.

00:01:34.900 | The turn of the year is a convenient time

00:01:37.820 | to think about your goals.

00:01:39.820 | I like it, for me it's very convenient.

00:01:42.500 | My birthday is in June

00:01:43.860 | and my wife's birthday is also in June

00:01:45.980 | and so that gives us kind of a midpoint

00:01:48.880 | where there's a special day

00:01:49.860 | that's a midpoint of the calendar year

00:01:51.900 | and then I like the flip of the calendar year.

00:01:53.400 | So I do a lot of things in terms of six month projects.

00:01:56.420 | I use those periods of time

00:01:58.620 | to do some personal observation, checkups,

00:02:01.740 | just try to figure out, okay, am I on track

00:02:03.440 | with some of the things that I'm working toward.

00:02:05.980 | So I find that to be a convenient time of year.

00:02:09.020 | A lot of people, these days, New Year's resolutions,

00:02:12.020 | they're so jaded as far as what people,

00:02:14.660 | people have all these comments about them

00:02:17.360 | because people make them in this half-hearted idea

00:02:20.220 | and without any intention of following through,

00:02:22.000 | no plans behind it.

00:02:22.940 | They've almost become a cultural joke.

00:02:25.540 | But I don't see any reason not to take advantage

00:02:27.660 | of the natural seasons of life

00:02:29.900 | and a turn of a calendar year is a natural season of life

00:02:32.900 | where it's useful to sit down and look

00:02:35.220 | to see where you're at,

00:02:37.780 | especially when it comes to talking about finance.

00:02:40.220 | If you're running a company or you're an investor,

00:02:42.800 | your financial statements are always gonna be dated

00:02:45.200 | in some manner.

00:02:46.320 | So those usually are often gonna be a calendar quarter.

00:02:50.100 | So, okay, we're gonna look at a Q3 report

00:02:52.620 | or maybe you're looking at monthly balance sheets.

00:02:55.100 | So we're using the calendar month as a useful time.

00:02:57.700 | And then you're looking at either a calendar year

00:02:59.580 | or a tax year for your year-end,

00:03:02.740 | a fiscal year or a calendar year for your year-end statements

00:03:05.780 | and so it's useful.

00:03:06.780 | And so I just, I like that same ebb and flow of life.

00:03:09.860 | So I've been, over the last few weeks,

00:03:11.940 | I've been working on my personal development plan.

00:03:14.300 | I'm gonna share it with you today.

00:03:16.060 | Today's gonna be a little bit personal.

00:03:18.020 | And I'm gonna use this, my plan,

00:03:20.940 | as an example of just kinda how I approach goal setting

00:03:25.820 | where I focus a lot on, a little bit on the vision,

00:03:28.540 | okay, here's what I'm trying to do,

00:03:29.700 | and then a lot on the roadmap to get there.

00:03:32.340 | And I'm not, I wouldn't hold myself out

00:03:37.260 | as a great example of an incredible goal achiever.

00:03:40.760 | I wouldn't hold myself out as somebody

00:03:42.460 | that you need to look at and say,

00:03:44.860 | "Hey, whatever Joshua does is exactly what I'm gonna do."

00:03:47.300 | I'm a learner right alongside you.

00:03:49.020 | But I have learned in a few things

00:03:50.620 | that have worked well for me

00:03:51.540 | and a few things that haven't worked well.

00:03:54.140 | Much of what I've learned surrounding goal achievement,

00:03:56.940 | however, has come to me

00:03:58.860 | within the context of financial planning.

00:04:01.660 | And in working in financial planning,

00:04:03.780 | most, many people have financial goals

00:04:06.180 | that they've set for themselves.

00:04:07.860 | Usually those goals are somewhat general,

00:04:10.380 | maybe the focus of, you know, I wanna save some money

00:04:13.900 | or I wanna be rich.

00:04:15.420 | But few people take the time to make clear goals.

00:04:18.620 | And it's really astounding

00:04:19.780 | when you start working as a financial planner,

00:04:21.220 | you start asking people about their goals

00:04:22.820 | and you realize that everything that the success gurus say

00:04:27.500 | about the number of people that actually have goals

00:04:29.820 | and a clear plan of action

00:04:31.300 | to follow toward those goals is true.

00:04:33.720 | I've always started all financial planning

00:04:36.980 | fact-finding appointments with a question

00:04:39.860 | about a potential client's goals.

00:04:42.660 | And it's a really interesting thing

00:04:44.940 | because usually it comes out of left field

00:04:46.780 | and many people are,

00:04:47.980 | "Wait, how are you getting this personal?"

00:04:49.900 | But I find it to be a good litmus,

00:04:53.740 | not litmus test, a good, I guess, little mini test

00:04:56.620 | to see if somebody's gonna be

00:04:57.700 | a good prospective client or not.

00:04:59.520 | Now, it usually takes a little while

00:05:01.140 | for a relationship to be established

00:05:03.280 | where somebody shares their most personal intimate goals.

00:05:07.700 | But if somebody doesn't have goals,

00:05:11.300 | they can't answer that question in a clear manner,

00:05:14.460 | then at least in my years of experience

00:05:16.460 | working as a financial planner,

00:05:17.480 | there's very little,

00:05:18.820 | the relationship is not gonna be very fruitful

00:05:20.980 | and it's good to smoke that out in the beginning.

00:05:22.740 | So I've always liked starting

00:05:23.740 | with asking people about their goals.

00:05:25.740 | So many people have ideas

00:05:27.340 | about what they'd like to accomplish,

00:05:28.560 | but few people have clear, specific goals.

00:05:31.140 | And so setting out those clear, specific goals,

00:05:34.120 | I think is a good starting point.

00:05:35.860 | And then more importantly, however, I believe,

00:05:39.220 | is having a plan of action

00:05:40.980 | that you're reasonably confident in,

00:05:44.480 | that if you follow this plan of action,

00:05:46.020 | that it has some chance of working for you.

00:05:48.380 | Where I've often noticed this

00:05:50.820 | is things like retirement planning.

00:05:53.140 | Most of the time people say, "I wanna retire,"

00:05:55.060 | but they haven't sat down and said, "How much do I need?

00:05:58.900 | "What does that mean?

00:05:59.740 | "When do I wanna do it?

00:06:00.580 | "Let's work a little bit of math

00:06:01.860 | "to figure out what are the numbers

00:06:04.140 | "that I actually need to consider myself retired."

00:06:07.660 | And then, is it practical?

00:06:09.780 | Can I actually get there?

00:06:11.940 | Can I actually save the $3,000 per month that I need

00:06:16.940 | in order to accomplish that goal?

00:06:20.060 | And so financial planning is very good.

00:06:21.540 | The process is very good at exposing that.

00:06:24.020 | And then the most useful thing about it,

00:06:26.180 | about a good financial planning engagement,

00:06:27.980 | is that you regularly review the progress toward goals.

00:06:32.140 | And so with my clients,

00:06:33.900 | I tried to at least have an annual review

00:06:36.340 | of the financial plan.

00:06:37.660 | And you update the balance sheet,

00:06:39.340 | you update all the assets,

00:06:40.600 | you figure out how much more has gone

00:06:41.980 | into the investment portfolio,

00:06:43.540 | and then you basically should have a meter

00:06:45.140 | to say, "Are we on track or are we off track?"

00:06:48.380 | Some of the tools that the financial planning industry has

00:06:51.100 | are still a little bit clunky in that regard.

00:06:52.620 | I think there's some real opportunity

00:06:54.500 | for some programmers and designers

00:06:57.100 | to design some really beautiful tools

00:06:59.600 | to monitor that on an ongoing basis.

00:07:02.180 | But regardless of how clunky it is,

00:07:04.200 | just sitting down and saying, "Am I on track?"

00:07:07.000 | That has real value, has real value.

00:07:09.940 | So I've been spending a lot of time thinking about

00:07:11.980 | what am I gonna work on,

00:07:13.320 | work toward here in 2015,

00:07:17.300 | and kind of developing my plans of action.

00:07:21.220 | And so I'm gonna share them with you.

00:07:23.300 | And I still struggle a little bit.

00:07:26.180 | I'm gonna share some of my areas of focus.

00:07:28.900 | I'm not gonna share specifically

00:07:31.900 | some of my specific goals.

00:07:35.780 | It's a little bit too uncomfortable for me to share

00:07:38.180 | specific dollar figures or specific numbers

00:07:40.540 | or specific things.

00:07:41.660 | So I'm gonna share with you in a general way.

00:07:44.140 | I don't know, it's a little bit hard for me to,

00:07:47.760 | some people are very comfortable

00:07:49.020 | giving away all the details of their life.

00:07:50.700 | I'm not that way.

00:07:52.220 | And I'm not sure that it's necessarily important.

00:07:55.620 | I think if you're the kind of personality type

00:07:57.360 | who's motivated by that,

00:07:58.380 | then I think that would be valuable to know.

00:08:00.180 | But I'm not really that type of person.

00:08:03.020 | And so I'm gonna keep some details quiet.

00:08:06.740 | Little tip for you, years ago I heard Zig Ziglar

00:08:09.420 | talk about goal setting.

00:08:10.540 | He made two interesting comments.

00:08:15.540 | He said, in response to this question,

00:08:18.340 | who do you share your goals with?

00:08:20.380 | And he said, share your give up goals with everybody.

00:08:23.880 | And share your go up goals very carefully,

00:08:28.540 | or something along those lines.

00:08:29.700 | And his point was, if you have a resolution,

00:08:33.820 | a commitment to stop doing something,

00:08:37.180 | tell that to everybody.

00:08:38.560 | I think he was a smoker, if memory is correct.

00:08:43.300 | Or he was actually, he decided to stop drinking alcohol.

00:08:46.780 | And things like that, he said, declare them far and wide.

00:08:51.340 | I will not drink alcohol any longer.

00:08:53.980 | I will not smoke.

00:08:55.060 | Or I will not eat fried food.

00:08:57.060 | Or I will, whatever the, you insert,

00:08:59.260 | whatever your thing that you wanna give up,

00:09:01.540 | insert that here.

00:09:03.100 | But his point was, spread that far and wide

00:09:04.700 | so that people can remind you,

00:09:05.740 | and so that you can be held accountable to that.

00:09:08.460 | But his encouragement was, share your go up goals,

00:09:12.260 | the things that you're working towards,

00:09:13.860 | very carefully, and share it with people

00:09:15.300 | who can encourage you, and who can help you

00:09:19.940 | along your path.

00:09:22.860 | In finance, I've seen this a good bit.

00:09:25.820 | If you share the fact that you are working your way

00:09:30.160 | toward being a millionaire, or a multi-millionaire,

00:09:32.340 | or toward being financially independent,

00:09:34.660 | you gotta be careful about who you share that with,

00:09:36.740 | because many people simply don't understand

00:09:39.540 | that it's possible, and many people are gonna discourage us.

00:09:42.700 | Who are you to think that you can achieve that?

00:09:45.020 | So, I think you have to be careful,

00:09:48.220 | the forum that you choose, to share those types

00:09:51.940 | of goals with, and make sure that it's

00:09:53.500 | a supportive community.

00:09:54.420 | That's why I love online forums,

00:09:56.420 | because of the creation of supportive communities

00:09:59.380 | that can come out of that.

00:10:02.400 | And where you get the opportunity

00:10:04.080 | to actually interact with people,

00:10:06.400 | who can support you toward those goals.

00:10:07.960 | And you can even do it anonymously, which is wonderful.

00:10:09.920 | But I'll get to that in just a moment.

00:10:11.400 | So, for me, the theme of 2015, my theme of the year,

00:10:16.280 | I don't do this in some kind of formal,

00:10:18.120 | I'm gonna set a theme, some people do that great.

00:10:20.560 | But, just what has come naturally to me,

00:10:24.440 | as a theme for this year, is the term,

00:10:27.840 | the couplet, world class.

00:10:30.900 | As I've reflected back, this past year, 2014,

00:10:34.260 | for me, has been a major year of growth and change.

00:10:37.700 | I closed a business that I've been working towards

00:10:39.580 | for six years, I kinda jumped out of the comfortable pot,

00:10:44.380 | caught to the comfortable bed,

00:10:45.380 | into a completely uncertain future,

00:10:47.300 | doing things that I've never done before,

00:10:49.780 | with starting the show, starting the business behind it.

00:10:53.060 | And it was a very exciting, but,

00:10:57.720 | it was an exciting year, but I haven't felt expert

00:11:01.320 | at what I was doing.

00:11:02.520 | And I had achieved a certain level of comfort and mastery

00:11:06.240 | with what I was doing previously.

00:11:08.900 | And now, for the last six months, I've just felt like,

00:11:12.760 | I don't have a clue what I'm doing,

00:11:13.960 | just figuring it out and thrashing around frantically,

00:11:17.240 | trying to stay on top of the water.

00:11:19.240 | And it's been a really great last six months,

00:11:22.360 | with bringing this show into the world,

00:11:24.240 | and so many of you tuning in and encouraging me,

00:11:26.520 | and sending me your notes, it's been

00:11:27.960 | a really positive experience.

00:11:29.880 | What has been apparent to me, however,

00:11:35.080 | is that I need to step it up a notch.

00:11:38.080 | And I've mentioned this on the show in a couple of ways,

00:11:39.880 | and today I'll give details as far as what I mean by that.

00:11:43.280 | It was important to me just to start.

00:11:45.120 | I am very much convinced of the value in most things,

00:11:50.960 | of taking a ready, fire, aim approach.

00:11:53.720 | Just shipping a minimum viable product,

00:11:56.480 | and letting the marketplace give you feedback.

00:11:59.040 | I like to think of all success and failure,

00:12:02.000 | or just simple feedback,

00:12:04.400 | is the marketplace giving me feedback.

00:12:06.600 | And so, I wanted to ship just a minimum viable product,

00:12:10.000 | which is why, when I started the show,

00:12:12.760 | just let me get something out there,

00:12:13.960 | let me get something out there.

00:12:14.800 | Even though I listen, I can see ways to improve it,

00:12:17.240 | let me get something out there.

00:12:18.680 | And so, I've shipped this show for the last six months,

00:12:22.480 | and some of the associated aspects of it.

00:12:27.080 | But I haven't been proud that it's been truly world class.

00:12:29.520 | I believe it's been good, but not truly excellent,

00:12:31.800 | and truly world class.

00:12:33.480 | And on the one hand, I think I kind of wanted

00:12:36.200 | just to do just good enough.

00:12:37.960 | I realized over the last couple of months,

00:12:39.480 | as I was thinking about it,

00:12:40.480 | that I kind of had this idea and this hope

00:12:44.040 | that I could just do my little show,

00:12:45.720 | do my little podcast, and make a little bit of money,

00:12:49.200 | and just kind of live a simple, unencumbered life.

00:12:52.920 | And that's still there in the back of my mind.

00:12:57.000 | Many people have large accumulation goals,

00:13:00.120 | many people have large things they wanna buy,

00:13:02.040 | things they wanna do.

00:13:03.440 | I feel as though I've accomplished most of those,

00:13:06.480 | I don't have much of the desire that many people have

00:13:10.000 | for, I don't have the desire for stuff,

00:13:13.000 | I don't have the desire for a status, house,

00:13:15.200 | and those kinds of things.

00:13:16.340 | So for me, I kind of desire a really great lifestyle.

00:13:20.000 | That's the core personal focus for me,

00:13:23.240 | and that lifestyle is defined in different ways.

00:13:26.680 | Part of it includes the physical surroundings,

00:13:30.120 | but much of it just includes being able to focus

00:13:32.920 | on the things that I really enjoy,

00:13:34.840 | and where I feel I'm really good at on a day-to-day basis.

00:13:37.720 | That's an important part of my lifestyle.

00:13:40.480 | And I realized, however, that I was bringing that approach

00:13:46.040 | to the business and just kind of hoping it was gonna work.

00:13:48.740 | And probably it was due to the pretty rough launch

00:13:51.340 | of the membership program,

00:13:53.940 | and thank you to those of you who have joined.

00:13:56.540 | I was hoping for that launch to be much more spectacular

00:14:01.540 | than it was with people joining.

00:14:04.140 | And most of it was my fault as far as,

00:14:07.220 | instead of doing it in a planned out way

00:14:09.260 | where I had all the services and things provided

00:14:12.300 | behind the scenes, everything ready to go,

00:14:15.220 | I just said I need to test this out and see.

00:14:18.700 | Another major issue was right before launching it,

00:14:21.700 | deleting all of my iTunes subscribers,

00:14:24.260 | which still has had a ripple effect on the show.

00:14:27.900 | So that was pretty tough.

00:14:29.740 | But what I realized out of that was I wasn't necessarily,

00:14:33.300 | I was a little discouraged based on that launch,

00:14:36.100 | but I wasn't disheartened to the point of wanting to give up

00:14:40.100 | I'm committed to doing a minimum

00:14:41.980 | of 1,000 episodes of this show.

00:14:43.620 | I think that's enough time to kind of work it out and see.

00:14:45.700 | But what I was discouraged was that it didn't just work

00:14:48.340 | as easily as I thought.

00:14:49.620 | I recognized that I needed to really step up my game

00:14:55.300 | and bring a higher level of professionalism to the show

00:14:57.980 | and a higher level of professionalism

00:14:59.660 | to all these new aspects of my life.

00:15:01.580 | And it's been tough for me to figure out how do I do that?

00:15:04.720 | Because my skills are not, for example,

00:15:09.300 | on the technical side of creating this show.

00:15:11.500 | I've never owned a microphone.

00:15:13.660 | I didn't know how to use sound editing stuff.

00:15:17.620 | I don't know bit rates and kilohertz and all this.

00:15:21.700 | I'm not a techie guy.

00:15:23.620 | My site was the first WordPress blog I'd ever put up.

00:15:28.340 | And as I was going through the process, though,

00:15:30.700 | I recognized that it's not good enough

00:15:32.980 | for me to be good enough.

00:15:34.440 | I need to be world class at what I'm doing.

00:15:37.820 | I need to be excellent, truly excellent.

00:15:40.660 | Because I need to have a good testimony.

00:15:43.100 | I need to lead by example.

00:15:45.900 | Whether that's for the people that I'm encouraging

00:15:48.380 | to start businesses and forge out on their own,

00:15:51.780 | or whether that's for my son who is gonna be watching me

00:15:55.820 | over the coming years, I need to lead by example

00:15:59.180 | and really be excellent.

00:16:00.780 | So over the last couple of months,

00:16:01.960 | I've come to a resolve to be world class in everything.

00:16:05.900 | And so for each of my priorities going forward

00:16:09.000 | over the coming calendar year,

00:16:11.100 | that's in every one of my priorities.

00:16:15.700 | For example, one of them very clearly is

00:16:17.620 | I'm a world class business owner.

00:16:20.220 | Another one, I'm a world class podcast host.

00:16:22.620 | Another one, I'm a world class writer.

00:16:24.120 | I'm a world class speaker.

00:16:25.780 | I enjoy world class health.

00:16:27.660 | I'm a world class husband.

00:16:29.180 | I'm a world class father.

00:16:30.740 | Radical Personal Finance is a world class

00:16:34.040 | financial education site.

00:16:36.300 | And there are more, but that term world class for me

00:16:41.260 | is essentially my focus.

00:16:43.240 | Is how do I learn the skills necessary

00:16:47.620 | to be a real leader in the space that I'm in,

00:16:51.100 | in the work that I'm doing?

00:16:52.620 | Whatever work you do, do it heartily, do it right.

00:16:55.900 | And that's what I'm committed to doing.

00:16:57.620 | Now I haven't known exactly how to do that.

00:16:59.180 | And I've made some missteps over the last few weeks.

00:17:01.940 | One of the things that's dogged my feet

00:17:04.100 | has been the idea of how to figure out

00:17:06.540 | whether or not I should continue to go it alone

00:17:09.660 | or whether I should partner with somebody on the show.

00:17:12.980 | Because I felt incompetent at the technical side

00:17:16.260 | of how do I create a video course,

00:17:18.380 | how do I do this stuff,

00:17:19.260 | because I felt incompetent at those things,

00:17:21.540 | then I've searched for perhaps partnering with somebody.

00:17:25.340 | I've had a few people reach out

00:17:27.140 | and I've explored some options.

00:17:29.140 | But ultimately, I decided recently

00:17:32.220 | that I just, I can't go that path.

00:17:34.300 | I wasn't willing to give up what I was gonna give up

00:17:36.800 | and rather I just needed to, I need to learn the skills.

00:17:39.220 | And I need to focus on becoming

00:17:42.400 | and learning the new skills.

00:17:44.140 | Doesn't mean I'm not gonna delegate things out.

00:17:46.140 | I don't need to become an expert

00:17:47.500 | at certain technical aspects.

00:17:49.840 | But I do need to learn the basic skills.

00:17:51.740 | And so I'm applying myself to those skills.

00:17:55.780 | So let me share with you my priorities

00:17:58.140 | and then the associated plans with them

00:18:00.340 | as a hope of maybe inspiring you to make sure

00:18:03.260 | that you've got a lot of meat and bones

00:18:06.620 | to your goal achievement plan for this year.

00:18:10.540 | Let me start with one of these things.

00:18:12.980 | One of my primary focuses

00:18:14.980 | is to be a world-class business owner.

00:18:17.740 | I wanna be a world-class business owner.

00:18:21.680 | And I haven't been able to get Tony Robbins out of my head

00:18:26.700 | since I read his most recent money book.

00:18:29.220 | When I look at what he does

00:18:31.900 | in what little I'm aware of with his book

00:18:34.340 | as a business owner, I'm just really stunned by,

00:18:37.700 | I guess his span of reach and influence.

00:18:43.220 | He has all these different businesses

00:18:45.460 | and all these different companies

00:18:46.860 | that he's involved in to some degree or another.

00:18:49.780 | And I've noticed this with many business owners.

00:18:51.700 | Many business owners run many, many businesses.

00:18:55.220 | And sometimes they're related, sometimes they're not.

00:18:58.100 | But Tony Robbins has his resort that he does in Fiji.

00:19:03.100 | He has a speaking career.

00:19:04.900 | He has a coaching company.

00:19:06.060 | He's got supplement companies.

00:19:07.940 | He's dabbling now in the financial advice business.

00:19:10.620 | He's got ownership interests

00:19:12.020 | in all these different businesses.

00:19:13.660 | And he still has the time

00:19:16.340 | for every other aspect of his life.

00:19:18.860 | And what I recognized is that people like him,

00:19:23.380 | people like Tony Robbins or other effective,

00:19:26.460 | influential, high-level business executives

00:19:29.780 | have skills that I simply don't have.

00:19:32.420 | They have the ability to delegate.

00:19:35.300 | They have the ability to keep track of things.

00:19:38.780 | They just have skills that I don't have

00:19:41.020 | to be able to expand their reach so much.

00:19:45.380 | And so one of the key focuses for me

00:19:47.260 | is I need to develop more of those skills.

00:19:50.120 | I don't particularly have a huge interest

00:19:52.260 | in doing what Tony Robbins does,

00:19:55.300 | although I'm gonna do some of what he does,

00:19:57.460 | but I still need those same skills

00:19:59.980 | because for me to be effective at life,

00:20:01.960 | I need to build those same skills

00:20:04.300 | and systems and structures.

00:20:05.880 | Many people are amazed at,

00:20:09.020 | I've gotten emails and feedback from people saying,

00:20:11.340 | "Joshua, how do you do a daily podcast?"

00:20:14.180 | And I kinda chuckle 'cause I think,

00:20:17.180 | now I think, how does Rush Limbaugh do what he does?

00:20:21.140 | How does Dave Ramsey do what he does?

00:20:22.740 | How does Clark Howard,

00:20:23.840 | where these guys are doing two or three hour,

00:20:26.700 | how does Glenn Beck, he does a three hour radio show

00:20:29.220 | and he does a one hour TV show

00:20:31.860 | and he's running a TV company

00:20:36.860 | and he's writing books and he's speaking

00:20:39.640 | and doing all these things.

00:20:40.540 | Like how on earth do those people do that?

00:20:43.660 | And the answer is they have skills that I don't

00:20:45.740 | and they built teams and systems around them

00:20:48.180 | that equip them to be able to do that.

00:20:50.500 | So I think of this as, well,

00:20:53.880 | I just need to do the same thing.

00:20:55.320 | And up till now, I've done everything myself.

00:20:58.700 | So far I haven't hired,

00:21:00.980 | with the exception of the creation of my logo,

00:21:03.120 | which was a friend of mine who's a graphic designer,

00:21:05.280 | I've done everything, 100% of everything

00:21:07.680 | associated with this show myself.

00:21:10.240 | And I was a little bit tired of,

00:21:12.920 | I've had people when I was working as a financial planner,

00:21:16.160 | I had different people working for me

00:21:17.560 | and I had some really great staff working for me,

00:21:20.480 | but I didn't like the,

00:21:22.000 | I didn't like feeling constrained

00:21:25.320 | at having to support staff people

00:21:28.920 | and pay their salaries and do that.

00:21:31.460 | I just wanted to do my own thing.

00:21:33.440 | And I think enough time has passed now

00:21:35.760 | that I've gotten a lot of that out of my system

00:21:37.520 | and now I need to really build up my ability to outsource,

00:21:42.520 | my ability to build a team,

00:21:45.760 | my ability to leverage my time

00:21:47.580 | so that I can create better products

00:21:49.440 | to help people in a more effective way.

00:21:52.600 | It's not useful for you, my listening audience,

00:21:57.600 | if I should be spending time

00:22:01.160 | absorbing a new financial concept

00:22:02.820 | or thinking about how do I communicate this

00:22:04.840 | more effectively and more clearly,

00:22:06.680 | it's not serving you if I'm spending that time

00:22:11.480 | uploading MP3 files to the internet.

00:22:13.800 | It's really not.

00:22:14.740 | So I need to build those skills.

00:22:17.720 | I also, however, the flip side is

00:22:19.240 | I have to do it in an intelligent way

00:22:20.720 | because I'm essentially bootstrapping this project.

00:22:24.080 | I need to do it in an intelligent way

00:22:26.960 | 'cause I'm not willing to try to grow too big too fast.

00:22:30.320 | I'm not willing to try to run out

00:22:32.040 | and borrow a bunch of money.

00:22:33.560 | I'm not willing to give away

00:22:34.520 | part of the ownership of my company.

00:22:36.440 | That was the decisions that I came to.

00:22:39.120 | I'm not willing to surrender my brand

00:22:40.400 | and become a sub-brand to somebody else.

00:22:42.320 | So those were difficult decisions to come to

00:22:45.320 | because I could probably, maybe they're wrong, I don't know.

00:22:48.320 | We'll find out, look back in hindsight

00:22:50.200 | and be able to figure out.

00:22:51.400 | But I could've leveraged and scaled more quickly,

00:22:54.640 | but I realized that if I do that,

00:22:56.720 | I'll miss the opportunity to become

00:22:59.080 | a bigger, more skillful person.

00:23:02.080 | I'll miss the opportunity to learn to become better.

00:23:04.680 | So I'm going to develop myself

00:23:08.400 | as a world-class business owner.

00:23:10.360 | And there are a few aspects to that

00:23:12.860 | that I'm really focused on right now, right in front of me.

00:23:15.720 | Number one is I need to hone

00:23:17.960 | and develop my personal productivity skills.

00:23:21.120 | Now, I've got a pretty decent foundation.

00:23:24.880 | I've been paying attention to task management

00:23:28.520 | and time management techniques for a while.

00:23:30.240 | I've worked out systems that have worked for me.

00:23:31.840 | I've got a stronger foundation than many people,

00:23:34.640 | but I still haven't felt

00:23:35.920 | really expert at this area.

00:23:42.400 | And so I've decided that a major focus

00:23:45.480 | is I've got to become expert at this.

00:23:48.360 | At least for the coming months,

00:23:50.000 | I'm going to continue to be doing more things myself,

00:23:52.800 | 'cause I've got to build up the revenue of the show

00:23:55.800 | in order to be able to outsource things.

00:23:58.480 | It's kind of this vicious cycle.

00:23:59.520 | I've got to build up revenue so that I can hire things done,

00:24:01.560 | so I can create a better product,

00:24:03.080 | so that I can build more revenue.

00:24:04.240 | But that's business, and that's okay, it's fun.

00:24:05.920 | It's an adventure.

00:24:07.160 | But in the meantime, I've got to become

00:24:08.480 | much more ruthlessly effective and ruthlessly efficient

00:24:11.960 | at my own personal productivity.

00:24:14.240 | And so I've set out an educational plan

00:24:16.840 | for myself in that area.

00:24:18.160 | And the tools that I use primarily,

00:24:21.000 | at the moment, I use, I write a lot

00:24:24.240 | in just paper notebooks and things like that.

00:24:26.440 | But as far as the technical tools that I use

00:24:30.400 | is I use a task management application called Nozbe,

00:24:34.640 | and I use Evernote, and I use a tool,

00:24:39.640 | well, let's start with that, at Nozbe and Evernote.

00:24:41.760 | And essentially what I'm trying to do

00:24:43.800 | is get myself disciplined to using Evernote

00:24:47.360 | as my brain function and Nozbe for my task function.

00:24:51.600 | And of all the tools that I've tried over the years

00:24:53.960 | of task management functions, Nozbe I think is the best.

00:24:56.920 | And the reason that it's the best,

00:24:58.400 | that I have found so far, is because the founder and CEO

00:25:03.000 | is ruthlessly committed to his core mission,

00:25:05.520 | and because they actually have a business model

00:25:07.600 | behind their software, so it's always getting better.

00:25:10.240 | I used to look for free software opportunities,

00:25:12.680 | and I still use some, but one of the things

00:25:15.840 | that I've come to appreciate is the importance

00:25:18.320 | of paying for software on an ongoing basis

00:25:21.720 | so that it gets better over time.

00:25:23.540 | Because if you can pay the business owner

00:25:26.640 | for the creation of their product,

00:25:28.440 | then they can put more resources

00:25:30.040 | toward making their product better.

00:25:31.920 | So I like the fact that Nozbe has a free version,

00:25:34.720 | but to really get benefit of it, then you pay for it.

00:25:38.600 | And they have a really world-class task management system.

00:25:42.000 | What I'm gonna do again here,

00:25:43.640 | right in the beginning of the year,

00:25:44.720 | is they have a 10-part training course

00:25:47.000 | and productivity course that Michael Sluinski,

00:25:51.120 | the founder of the company, has created.

00:25:54.840 | And I'm gonna go through it again

00:25:58.880 | with a careful focus on my own personal systems,

00:26:01.800 | and make sure that I'm fully understanding

00:26:03.960 | and utilizing the new version of the software.

00:26:06.560 | So I've laid that out with action plans of tasks of,

00:26:09.920 | you know, watch video one, take notes, change something.

00:26:12.560 | Watch video two, take notes, change something.

00:26:14.680 | So that's gonna be a big, major focus.

00:26:16.280 | I wanna become really expert with my tool.

00:26:18.320 | And I think this is an important thing for you to consider,

00:26:20.800 | is when you have tools, it's important to know

00:26:23.080 | how to effectively use them.

00:26:24.760 | Many people don't read their manuals.

00:26:27.460 | And it astounds me when people don't read a manual

00:26:30.160 | because they miss out on half the functionality

00:26:33.240 | of, I guess, how their tool can work.

00:26:38.440 | It's very difficult for me to sit beside somebody

00:26:40.920 | who's working on a computer, because so many people

00:26:43.800 | who are working on computers are annoyingly slow.

00:26:48.460 | And they use the mouse for everything, they're clicking.

00:26:51.260 | It's very, it takes a lot of self-discipline for me.

00:26:55.160 | For example, working next to somebody in PowerPoint

00:26:57.460 | or in Microsoft Excel takes a lot of discipline

00:26:59.960 | for me to sit and watch them work,

00:27:01.760 | because it is agonizingly slow.

00:27:04.800 | And just a simple thing is, if any time you are learning

00:27:07.440 | a new program, A, take a course on it,

00:27:09.640 | find a book and read a book.

00:27:11.240 | I remember in college, one of the most useful books

00:27:13.340 | that I had was a book on Microsoft Office,

00:27:15.980 | where I went through and did all of the exercises

00:27:18.220 | for Microsoft Excel, Microsoft Word,

00:27:20.280 | Microsoft PowerPoint, Microsoft Access.

00:27:22.720 | It just helped so much to go through

00:27:24.980 | the basic training functions to speed me up forever.

00:27:29.400 | And then, so try a book, but then also print a list

00:27:32.840 | of keyboard shortcuts out, and follow that list

00:27:35.960 | and just start looking.

00:27:37.080 | Any time you're gonna do a task,

00:27:38.200 | is there a keyboard shortcut?

00:27:40.080 | You know, on your computer, don't ever go down

00:27:41.960 | and click for the next window.

00:27:43.640 | Use the Alt + Tab function on Windows.

00:27:45.360 | I don't, I'm not a Mac user, so I don't know

00:27:47.000 | what all the Mac shortcuts are.

00:27:48.960 | But search for keyboard shortcuts.

00:27:51.640 | If you are working in Excel, you need to know

00:27:53.780 | every keyboard shortcut, you need to know every thing

00:27:56.440 | to speed yourself up, just to increase your effectiveness.

00:28:00.480 | So that's what I'm doing with Nozbe,

00:28:01.680 | is I'm gonna go through, make sure that I know

00:28:03.800 | all of the fundamentals of exactly how the program works,

00:28:06.680 | so that I can be lightning fast with the use of the program.

00:28:10.240 | I've struggled with, I've used Nozbe a bunch of times,

00:28:13.840 | and what happens when I use digital organizers,

00:28:16.800 | I often get overwhelmed.

00:28:18.320 | And so, for example, last couple months,

00:28:21.680 | I actually switched back to a paper-based system.

00:28:24.100 | But the problem with the paper-based system

00:28:25.480 | is then, that got overwhelmed.

00:28:27.180 | So I'm going back to Nozbe, and I'm not changing,

00:28:29.960 | because it's the best tool.

00:28:32.480 | I've used it effectively in the past,

00:28:34.080 | and I'm gonna be really expert with it,

00:28:36.080 | and focus a lot on always working from that list,

00:28:40.440 | which I'll get to in a minute.

00:28:41.480 | Second tool is Evernote.

00:28:42.960 | And I've used Evernote for years, but I'm not a power user.

00:28:46.500 | I'm gonna become a power user of Evernote.

00:28:49.680 | I read in the past, my educational plan

00:28:51.940 | for how to implement this priority,

00:28:54.860 | is there's a book called Evernote Essentials,

00:28:57.440 | written by an author named Brett Kelly,

00:28:59.200 | and it's just all about how to use Evernote.

00:29:01.320 | It's basically the training manual for Evernote.

00:29:03.480 | And I am also, I'm gonna go through,

00:29:07.040 | and go through that book again, page by page,

00:29:11.240 | and make sure that I become a power user of Evernote.

00:29:13.440 | Because at this stage, my life has become

00:29:16.040 | so much more complicated over the last few months,

00:29:19.640 | with dealing with research for shows,

00:29:22.160 | show notes, show outlines,

00:29:24.360 | the actual process of creating the show,

00:29:27.360 | handling listener questions,

00:29:28.840 | kind of just the whole process

00:29:30.040 | becomes so much more complicated.

00:29:31.800 | So I need to become a power user of these tools

00:29:33.920 | in order to keep things hammered out.

00:29:36.500 | For time management, what I've done over the last

00:29:38.960 | little while, is I've reinstituted

00:29:42.800 | kind of a time budget for myself,

00:29:44.760 | of tracking where my time is going.

00:29:46.300 | And I've needed to do this because of

00:29:49.440 | basically trying to figure out

00:29:52.800 | how much time is actually going to handling blog comments?

00:29:55.720 | How much time is actually going to prepping for a show?

00:29:58.240 | Do I actually have more time or am I wasting it?

00:30:01.320 | I need to know those numbers so I know

00:30:03.240 | if I'm gonna outsource this task to somebody else,

00:30:06.560 | how much time am I actually saving?

00:30:07.960 | What's it worth to me?

00:30:09.400 | So the little app that I found,

00:30:11.160 | I've tried a bunch of these over the years,

00:30:12.760 | and now I'm on an Android phone,

00:30:14.640 | but I found an app called Glio Time Tracker.

00:30:17.640 | And you might find this one useful,

00:30:19.640 | but essentially it's a really good way of,

00:30:21.940 | you put in the tasks and then you just hit start and stop,

00:30:24.380 | and it creates a list for you

00:30:25.860 | of how much time you've actually spent on things.

00:30:28.340 | I haven't found in the past

00:30:30.060 | most of the computer-based systems

00:30:34.620 | to be very effective for me,

00:30:36.660 | because I need to know,

00:30:37.900 | 'cause I'm doing a lot of stuff away from the computer.

00:30:40.180 | I've used a lot of paper-based systems.

00:30:41.840 | There's some really great paper-based ideas that I've used.

00:30:45.740 | But I found this Glio Time Tracker to be useful.

00:30:49.380 | And then I also found another app for the Android

00:30:51.540 | called Alarm Every 15 Minutes,

00:30:53.500 | where every 15 minutes my phone buzzes and it just vibrates,

00:30:57.020 | and that reminds me to make sure that I'm recording my time.

00:30:59.660 | I'm gonna go and check out again.

00:31:01.260 | I've noticed over the last couple years

00:31:02.840 | that I used to use Rescue Time.

00:31:05.060 | I've noticed that, and I didn't like it,

00:31:06.860 | I didn't think it worked very well.

00:31:08.780 | I've noticed that they've improved that,

00:31:10.760 | so I'm gonna give that a shot again here in January,

00:31:13.700 | and then see if they've improved it enough

00:31:15.480 | that that could be better for me.

00:31:16.940 | They seem to do, I mean, it's a more well-built system,

00:31:19.680 | probably, than this little time-tracking app

00:31:21.900 | that I'm currently using,

00:31:23.100 | so I'm gonna see if it's worth the cost.

00:31:25.580 | This is important, that's just my tools,

00:31:28.560 | and so I've set out a plan to learn the tools

00:31:31.340 | and to become really expert with the tools.

00:31:33.420 | Then the key, however, for personal productivity

00:31:36.780 | is not the tool, but actually the action behind the tool.

00:31:41.780 | And so I'm gonna really focus here

00:31:44.120 | in the first quarter of 2015 on strengthening my habits

00:31:49.120 | of one, always working from a prioritized list,

00:31:53.140 | I've gotten weak on this,

00:31:54.300 | instead of simply just focusing

00:31:56.100 | on my prioritized list ruthlessly,

00:31:58.340 | I get weak on checking this, checking that,

00:32:00.260 | we all do, it always happens to us.

00:32:02.160 | But I'm only going to work from a prioritized list

00:32:05.080 | that I've decided in advance.

00:32:06.680 | Next, planning each day's work in advance.

00:32:10.380 | Again, I often find myself kind of scrambling,

00:32:13.140 | how do I get this done, this takes forever,

00:32:14.740 | and I'm gonna plan each day's work

00:32:17.180 | and the time allotted for the work in advance.

00:32:19.500 | And then keeping up on my weekly and monthly reviews.

00:32:23.220 | What I find is that without those weekly

00:32:25.100 | and monthly reviews, my systems break down.

00:32:27.620 | And so that's a big deal for me,

00:32:32.540 | is making sure that I keep those calendar appointments

00:32:35.140 | with myself and that I do those reviews

00:32:37.100 | to keep my lists current, and especially current

00:32:40.580 | such that I can throw out stuff

00:32:41.900 | that I don't wanna do that I'm not doing.

00:32:43.820 | So those are just my personal course

00:32:46.220 | for setting these things out.

00:32:47.760 | Now what's useful about this

00:32:49.060 | is the reason I started with the productivity tools

00:32:51.420 | is goal achievement is basically a system of action steps.

00:32:56.420 | And so I have in Evernote and Nozbe,

00:33:01.900 | they're hooked together, I have a goal,

00:33:04.060 | a project is the terminology for Nozbe.

00:33:08.680 | I have a project entitled I'm a World Class Business Owner.

00:33:11.940 | And under that World Class Business Owner

00:33:13.620 | has an outline of all of these things that I've said.

00:33:15.780 | And that's linked to an Evernote note

00:33:18.220 | where everything is broken out into a step-by-step,

00:33:23.220 | do this, do this, do this, do this.

00:33:25.220 | And then as it's done, I can cross it out

00:33:27.580 | and I can check the task is done.

00:33:29.780 | And each day and week as I'm reviewing that category,

00:33:34.320 | I can see what's the next thing that I need to do.

00:33:36.820 | Many people, I've received questions from people asking,

00:33:41.380 | well, how do you, Joshua,

00:33:42.540 | how do you get so many financial credentials

00:33:44.760 | and designations?

00:33:45.620 | Well, it's simple.

00:33:46.540 | You sit down and you say, okay, I'm gonna do,

00:33:49.380 | I'm gonna get my certified financial planning designation.

00:33:51.860 | All right, what's required?

00:33:52.840 | Well, I gotta do, I think it's eight classes for that

00:33:54.540 | and I need to take an exam.

00:33:56.020 | Well, let's lay out the eight classes, write it out.

00:33:58.540 | Class one, two, three, put the order you're gonna take it

00:34:01.100 | and then break down the first class, sign up.

00:34:03.140 | You know, your action steps are pick a school.

00:34:06.060 | Okay, well, actually research schools.

00:34:08.060 | You have to research, where am I gonna do it?

00:34:09.660 | Next, pick a school, enroll, pay the enrollment fee.

00:34:12.940 | Next, order the materials.

00:34:14.340 | They send you the books

00:34:15.180 | and then I just add to my to-do list.

00:34:16.980 | There are 18 chapters in this.

00:34:18.680 | Read chapter one, read chapter two, chapter three.

00:34:21.420 | And I like crossing things off.

00:34:23.020 | So I literally will put read chapter one,

00:34:24.860 | chapter two, chapter three on my list.

00:34:26.700 | That way I can have the joy when I finished chapter 11

00:34:28.980 | and I feel like I'm wading through this horrific book

00:34:31.740 | of check, chapter 11 done.

00:34:33.580 | I'm one step closer, one step closer, one step closer.

00:34:36.860 | And you do that enough times

00:34:38.140 | and you can pile up a bunch of financial credentials.

00:34:41.020 | That's how you get through a university system.

00:34:43.180 | That's how you get it done.

00:34:44.660 | So for me, it's no different except this type of plan

00:34:47.700 | is where I'm actually focusing on the education

00:34:49.640 | that matters to me.

00:34:51.060 | My personal productivity skills,

00:34:53.880 | really understanding my software

00:34:55.320 | so I can be lightning fast with it.

00:34:57.460 | So instead of having to think about it,

00:34:59.440 | I can be really, really useful from it.

00:35:01.700 | I also need to really develop my personal outsourcing skills

00:35:06.700 | and I need to build a team around my business

00:35:09.220 | and around my objectives.

00:35:11.260 | So in order to do that, there's some pre-work,

00:35:13.500 | which is what I've been focusing on.

00:35:15.020 | Is I need to know exactly

00:35:16.300 | what my highest priority activities are.

00:35:20.180 | What is it that I can do that no one else can do?

00:35:23.580 | And basically that's sitting down,

00:35:25.180 | preparing and creating and doing this show.

00:35:27.060 | Maybe someone else can do it better, who knows?

00:35:29.020 | But that's the thing that I think I can do better

00:35:30.900 | than anyone else.

00:35:32.420 | Everything else I need to get rid of.

00:35:35.300 | Now, the challenge is how to get rid of it.

00:35:38.020 | Because again, bootstrapping this show,

00:35:42.200 | perhaps it would be nice if I could just outsource it

00:35:46.180 | and have it all done with a snap of the finger,

00:35:48.360 | but that'd probably be an expensive mistake

00:35:50.100 | 'cause I'd probably just waste a lot of money doing that.

00:35:52.540 | So I need to focus on what are the tasks

00:35:54.680 | that are most important

00:35:55.760 | and what are the tasks that are important to get rid of now

00:35:58.860 | and what order should I do that?

00:36:00.700 | And then I need to find and build a team of people

00:36:03.340 | and software to help me with the things

00:36:06.220 | that I'm not great at.

00:36:07.420 | I've done a really good job with that on many aspects

00:36:09.940 | of this show and this business,

00:36:12.180 | but I've not done it well with other aspects.

00:36:14.500 | And so tools and resources.

00:36:16.580 | So I've listed out and I've done a bunch of research

00:36:18.540 | on what are the tools and resources that I've got.

00:36:22.060 | So I'll share them with you.

00:36:23.940 | One of the things that I'm gonna do

00:36:26.480 | is I'm gonna read Chris Ducker's book, "Virtual Freedom."

00:36:29.320 | He published it this year.

00:36:30.820 | He gave away a copy of it at FinCon,

00:36:33.060 | which is where I picked up my copy.

00:36:34.340 | And I think he's a guy who teaches people

00:36:38.120 | how to outsource their stuff

00:36:39.300 | and he owns an outsourcing company in the Philippines.

00:36:41.420 | So I figure I'm gonna start with that.

00:36:42.540 | I'm gonna read all of his suggestions

00:36:44.300 | from that he's written about how to outsource

00:36:47.620 | different aspects of your business to virtual assistants.

00:36:51.580 | And I'm gonna take careful notes,

00:36:53.740 | think constantly about implementing again

00:36:55.900 | that thousand percent formula.

00:36:57.060 | What can I do?

00:36:57.900 | What can I change?

00:36:58.860 | Put something over on my action list.

00:37:00.620 | Okay, here, this is something I need to do.

00:37:02.920 | What are the action steps from it?

00:37:04.800 | Mark up the book, keep the careful action steps,

00:37:07.100 | implement the suggestions.

00:37:08.780 | Another book I've read in years past,

00:37:10.460 | I'm gonna go and pick it up again,

00:37:12.020 | is Sam Carpenter's book called "Work the System,"

00:37:15.000 | which is all about having a systems mindset

00:37:17.340 | towards your business.

00:37:18.580 | And I don't think he's received very wide acclaim

00:37:21.180 | for his book, but I really enjoyed it.

00:37:23.020 | And so I'm gonna work my way back through it again,

00:37:25.820 | applying it to my current context,

00:37:27.500 | create the manuals, create the procedures,

00:37:29.220 | create everything, and document the systems

00:37:31.740 | that need to happen surrounding my business.

00:37:35.820 | Next, one other site and actually podcast

00:37:39.380 | that I've enjoyed is there's a podcast

00:37:41.380 | called the Less Doing Podcast.

00:37:43.580 | And I commend it to you if you're interested

00:37:45.860 | in some of the current tools.

00:37:48.820 | The host of that podcast is a guy named Ari Mizell,

00:37:51.860 | and he's kind of a technology freak,

00:37:54.280 | and he's always current on these tools.

00:37:56.220 | So I find he's basically my aggregator

00:37:58.380 | for new and improved tools.

00:38:00.420 | And so whether it's things like IFTT,

00:38:03.460 | If This Then That, is a useful program that I use,

00:38:06.860 | or Zapier was another program,

00:38:08.780 | how to make all these software systems work together

00:38:11.980 | and use all these technological tools

00:38:13.660 | to basically create the systems in your life.

00:38:16.740 | So I'm gonna go back through his podcast,

00:38:20.700 | and I haven't listened for a while,

00:38:22.340 | but I'm gonna make a real focus of going through them,

00:38:24.060 | notebook and pen handy, taking notes,

00:38:26.540 | writing out action steps, using him as my aggregator.

00:38:30.100 | I'm gonna go back through, over the years,

00:38:32.300 | I've read all of Tim Ferriss's books,

00:38:34.780 | and also probably the majority of his blog.

00:38:38.460 | But the thing that is so interesting to me is,

00:38:41.660 | I remember, I think I found him before he was cool.

00:38:45.500 | I remember being in college before he made it

00:38:48.980 | such a massive splash for himself, coming across him.

00:38:53.980 | And I started to become interested,

00:38:58.260 | and then I just watched his success and popularity

00:39:00.580 | just take off, I couldn't believe it.

00:39:02.620 | So I'm gonna go back through,

00:39:03.620 | and I'm gonna study his body of work again myself,

00:39:06.500 | and take careful notes on all of the suggestions

00:39:09.060 | that he makes, because he's walked the talk,

00:39:11.300 | and starting with nothing, with no particular,

00:39:15.220 | I mean, a special advantage other than a unique,

00:39:18.580 | other than his energy and effort,

00:39:21.060 | and personal talent and skill and ability,

00:39:23.620 | and applied that to his, so I'm gonna go back through,

00:39:26.420 | and I've got most of his stuff listed out on my to-do list,

00:39:29.020 | and go back through and take careful notes.

00:39:31.500 | I'm also researching, and I was planning

00:39:34.580 | to make the research before this,

00:39:36.020 | but I need to really understand more

00:39:38.580 | of the best strategies of things that are going on

00:39:42.060 | for online businesses, and some of the,

00:39:46.500 | so I'm gonna take a look at the resources

00:39:49.460 | from a site and some guys that are doing a project

00:39:53.140 | called Fizzle, and there are three entrepreneurs

00:39:56.580 | who are essentially coaching people to online businesses,

00:39:59.060 | and I'm gonna go through their stuff,

00:40:00.620 | and try to learn everything I can from their systems,

00:40:03.900 | and apply that to my scenario.

00:40:06.620 | I also have a number of other specific technical things

00:40:11.460 | that I need to learn, and so one of them

00:40:13.660 | is I need to really become, not necessarily an expert,

00:40:17.540 | I don't need to become world-class,

00:40:18.980 | but I need to be very good at WordPress, and I'm not.

00:40:22.380 | I get intimidated by the web stuff,

00:40:25.260 | and ultimately, I don't wish to do it,

00:40:27.780 | but I need to be intelligent enough at it

00:40:29.620 | to have it done for me, and so I'm still

00:40:32.500 | in the process of researching, okay,

00:40:34.580 | who's gonna be my WordPress coach and teacher.

00:40:38.180 | I also need to become an expert at email marketing.

00:40:40.900 | I use AWeber, which my system is totally broken right now,

00:40:43.940 | so I'm gonna fix that up, and then my membership site

00:40:47.620 | and that software, I need to become an expert at that.

00:40:49.940 | So those are also priorities for me to go through

00:40:52.300 | all of their training tutorials,

00:40:53.880 | make sure that I become really expert at that,

00:40:56.580 | and then an additional technical skill

00:40:58.060 | that I need to learn is I need to learn

00:40:59.460 | how to do screencasts and video casts,

00:41:02.340 | because a lot of the specialized product training

00:41:04.540 | is gonna be based upon screencasts and video casts.

00:41:07.560 | So under my business owner project,

00:41:11.300 | those are my different priorities,

00:41:12.680 | and it probably sounds like a lot.

00:41:14.660 | It is a lot.

00:41:16.180 | I find that I prefer to have more stuff on my list

00:41:19.700 | than I'll ever get done, so that when I get bored

00:41:21.940 | with one thing, I can just flip to something else

00:41:24.260 | that's already on my list, and so I do not expect

00:41:27.820 | to be able to cross everything off of my list

00:41:29.820 | on those strategies within this year

00:41:32.500 | or this quarter or anything.

00:41:33.540 | I don't expect to ever finish that list,

00:41:35.600 | but I know that if I get 50 or 70% of the way through it,

00:41:39.220 | I'll be an expert at that, so that's just all I gotta do

00:41:42.140 | is I gotta get at least 50 or 70% of the way through it,

00:41:44.740 | and I'll probably get through a good bit of it,

00:41:47.340 | but then I'll probably reassess and say,

00:41:49.940 | you know what, I'm good enough at this.

00:41:52.140 | I understand enough about how to do WordPress on my own.

00:41:55.100 | I've been able to fix these things myself.

00:41:57.260 | Now I know enough to hire a good developer

00:42:00.060 | who's really world-class at it, so fundamentals,

00:42:03.660 | gonna build the fundamentals in all of those areas.

00:42:06.220 | Now I know that was a lot, and I'm not gonna go

00:42:09.420 | through every one of my areas of focus

00:42:13.100 | to that degree of depth.

00:42:14.700 | I'm gonna cover two more with a little bit of depth,

00:42:16.900 | and then just briefly touch on each of the other ones,

00:42:19.460 | but my point in doing that was that my hope for you

00:42:23.940 | is that you will apply this same process

00:42:26.480 | of designing an educational plan for yourself

00:42:28.700 | that's in line with your goals.

00:42:30.600 | So if you understand what do I need to do,

00:42:32.340 | what am I trying to accomplish, and then you can say,

00:42:35.860 | well, now in order for me to do that,

00:42:37.880 | what skills do I need to develop?

00:42:39.740 | What knowledge do I need?

00:42:41.340 | Now you have a focus.

00:42:42.720 | With that focus, you'll be able to accomplish things,

00:42:48.140 | because then you can look for areas of synergy,

00:42:50.020 | and I'm gonna share with you how I'm structuring,

00:42:53.420 | at least with my plan.

00:42:55.060 | We'll see if the plan survives contact

00:42:57.160 | with the enemy or not, but my plan

00:42:59.420 | of how I'm overlapping all these things.

00:43:01.560 | The important thing is once you know

00:43:03.620 | the specific skills that you're weak in,

00:43:05.900 | then you can target your learning.

00:43:08.220 | I know many of you listen to my show on your commute.

00:43:12.580 | I love that, I think that's awesome,

00:43:14.100 | and I hope that I can really serve you

00:43:16.700 | toward your financial independence goals.

00:43:19.200 | But remember that you shouldn't only consume my show

00:43:23.300 | if you've got enough of the basics down

00:43:25.500 | and you need to focus on something else.

00:43:27.580 | So the reason I need to be a world-class business owner,

00:43:30.700 | one of the reasons, is very important,

00:43:32.460 | is because this is the way that I'm funding

00:43:35.080 | my financial independence plan.

00:43:37.120 | I'm funding it immediately with building my ideal lifestyle

00:43:40.020 | without having the savings to be able to just simply say,

00:43:44.580 | I'm declaring myself financially independent

00:43:46.020 | off of investment income.

00:43:47.620 | So I need to build the business to fund this lifestyle now,

00:43:51.420 | and I need to continue to build the business

00:43:53.620 | to provide enough room in my personal finances

00:43:56.820 | for me to save enough money in a reasonable amount of time

00:43:59.260 | to become financially independent.

00:44:00.960 | My show, my hope, is that it's very useful for you

00:44:05.500 | to encourage you and inspire you

00:44:08.820 | toward your financial independence.

00:44:10.340 | But you may find that my content

00:44:13.420 | is not serving your specific needs right now.

00:44:16.740 | You might find, for example,

00:44:18.420 | that you work in the marketing department

00:44:21.620 | and you need to become,

00:44:23.220 | in order to gain your financial independence,

00:44:25.100 | you need to become a vice president of marketing

00:44:26.960 | at the firm at which you work.

00:44:28.860 | Well, in that scenario, you're probably well-served

00:44:31.620 | by finding some really excellent marketing podcasts

00:44:35.300 | and interspersing my show with those marketing podcasts.

00:44:40.220 | But you need to sit down and say,

00:44:41.300 | what's the plan towards that?

00:44:43.660 | So for me, I'm not at the stage

00:44:45.460 | where I need to go and listen

00:44:46.500 | to any more financial podcasts.

00:44:48.420 | I'm at the stage where I need to go

00:44:49.780 | and listen to a WordPress podcast,

00:44:51.300 | or I need to listen to little technical tools

00:44:53.840 | that I can use to really develop,

00:44:56.160 | to streamline my life,

00:44:59.780 | or how do I outsource these things in a more effective way,

00:45:02.980 | or how do I do a better email marketing campaign,

00:45:05.640 | that type of thing.

00:45:06.980 | So this is why I'm sharing with you my ideas

00:45:09.580 | is to hopefully encourage you and inspire you

00:45:11.860 | and give you some tools

00:45:13.260 | that you can apply to your own scenario.

00:45:15.980 | Let me give you a couple more that have to do with the show,

00:45:17.980 | and I'll tell you just how I'm designing

00:45:19.420 | my personal development plan for this coming year.

00:45:22.220 | The next one is I'm a world-class podcast host.

00:45:26.720 | And I split this out from being a world-class business owner

00:45:30.640 | because the host is a very different set of,

00:45:34.420 | it's a very different skill set than the business owner.

00:45:37.520 | The skill of being the broadcast host

00:45:40.700 | is all about my on-air presentation.

00:45:45.080 | How concise is it?

00:45:48.020 | How in-depth is it?

00:45:49.420 | How interesting is it?

00:45:50.780 | How funny is it?

00:45:52.060 | How, do I use the right tone?

00:45:55.580 | Is it engaging?

00:45:57.540 | And to me, this has been the toughest thing for me

00:46:01.300 | to figure out how to develop a plan behind,

00:46:04.980 | 'cause I haven't known where to go for examples.

00:46:08.820 | For example, how do I become a really great interviewer?

00:46:13.740 | Well, the only best thing I have is just by noticing people

00:46:16.420 | in interviews that I enjoy and trying to listen

00:46:18.540 | and see what is it that they do.

00:46:20.920 | I haven't found a book that says,

00:46:23.940 | here's how to be a world-class interviewer.

00:46:26.540 | So here, under this category,

00:46:28.820 | my plan is actually fairly simple.

00:46:31.960 | The best resource that I've found so far

00:46:34.220 | is I found a website called transom.org,

00:46:38.060 | T-R-A-N-S-O-M, transom.org.

00:46:41.420 | And the founders of Transom,

00:46:42.900 | they're affiliated with public radio.

00:46:45.220 | And essentially, it's all about how to create

00:46:48.460 | good public radio for national public radio.

00:46:51.500 | It's the most useful thing that I've found

00:46:54.020 | where they're taking from the radio world

00:46:56.540 | and applying it to all types of media,

00:47:01.260 | whether it's distributed as a podcast only

00:47:03.580 | or as a radio show and a podcast.

00:47:06.860 | And so this is heavily influenced

00:47:08.340 | by popular public radio shows,

00:47:10.220 | such as This American Life or Radiolab.

00:47:13.060 | That type of reporting radio

00:47:16.700 | is essentially what they're heavily focused on.

00:47:19.180 | But I've enjoyed a lot of their topics.

00:47:22.600 | I have to figure out how to apply that

00:47:24.380 | to teaching and education, because it's very different.

00:47:28.900 | My wife and I enjoy listening to Radiolab,

00:47:31.140 | but that's something that we listen to

00:47:32.340 | when we're in the car together on a trip somewhere.

00:47:36.060 | That's not an effective way

00:47:38.540 | of communicating in-depth financial content.

00:47:41.020 | So I've had to figure out how do I take some of that

00:47:43.900 | and apply it to what I'm doing.

00:47:45.560 | So I'm spending a good amount of time

00:47:46.780 | consuming the information and the teaching at Transom,

00:47:50.500 | listening and thinking,

00:47:51.540 | how can I apply these lessons to myself?

00:47:55.560 | But the key thing on this one,

00:47:58.020 | way for me to become a world-class podcast host,

00:48:00.660 | is I dedicate time, well, actually, before I get to that,

00:48:03.780 | one of the key things is by doing a lot of it.

00:48:06.420 | One of the reasons why I started The Daily Show,

00:48:10.060 | and I may not continue The Daily Show forever, I don't know,

00:48:13.140 | but one of the big reasons was I needed to do it.

00:48:16.300 | I needed to do it a lot to get better.

00:48:19.280 | I have gotten worlds better as a host

00:48:23.060 | over the last six months

00:48:24.220 | by doing the show as frequently as I've done it

00:48:26.740 | than I would have if I'd only been doing a weekly show

00:48:30.300 | or a biweekly show, something like that.

00:48:32.660 | So I need to do a lot of something

00:48:34.420 | when starting to get better.

00:48:39.780 | I remember this was one thing I did well

00:48:41.660 | when I was starting my financial planning career,

00:48:43.820 | is I was terribly nervous about talking to people,

00:48:47.300 | and in the financial planning business,

00:48:48.700 | we call it doing a fact-finder,

00:48:49.940 | where you go out on an initial conversation with somebody

00:48:53.060 | and you get to know them

00:48:54.620 | and find out what they're trying to accomplish.

00:48:56.240 | Well, the only way to get good at it is,

00:48:58.300 | yeah, you gotta study a little bit,

00:48:59.460 | then you just gotta go do it.

00:49:00.820 | Dozens and dozens and dozens and dozens and dozens of times

00:49:04.260 | until you get really comfortable

00:49:05.860 | because you've been down this road 50 times.

00:49:07.860 | You know exactly how this conversation is shaping up.

00:49:10.900 | So one of the key tools, I think,

00:49:13.020 | that we don't talk about enough in our culture,

00:49:16.100 | we talk a lot about how to do things smarter.

00:49:18.100 | Yeah, do things smarter, but just simply do more.

00:49:21.020 | Write more, write more stories,

00:49:22.980 | and you're gonna get better as a writer more quickly.

00:49:25.540 | Record more shows,

00:49:26.660 | you're gonna get better as a host quickly.

00:49:28.660 | But then the key also for me,

00:49:30.100 | which is where I was going before I interrupted myself,

00:49:33.460 | is in addition to doing more shows,

00:49:35.740 | carefully listening to my shows and coaching myself.

00:49:38.660 | Oftentimes, this is a bit countercultural.

00:49:43.660 | We don't usually trust ourselves to coach ourselves.

00:49:46.960 | We usually look for someone else to coach us

00:49:49.860 | and usually look to someone else for their affirmation.

00:49:52.540 | But the reality is,

00:49:53.700 | we're probably pretty good consumers of our own content.

00:49:56.820 | I'm a pretty good consumer of financial content,

00:49:58.860 | so what I need to spend time doing,

00:50:01.780 | and I do this, and I'm gonna do it a lot more

00:50:03.980 | in this coming six months,

00:50:05.140 | I haven't made the time for it over the past six months,

00:50:07.420 | is listening carefully to my shows.

00:50:10.020 | Listening and saying, what was annoying?

00:50:12.780 | I catch certain verbal crutches,

00:50:14.500 | I catch certain repetitive things that I do.

00:50:18.300 | For example, I have a tendency to repeat myself.

00:50:20.740 | And so by focusing and recognizing,

00:50:23.820 | I asked the question twice,

00:50:25.140 | I repeated myself multiple times,

00:50:27.220 | it allows me to slow down

00:50:28.620 | and produce a better quality product.

00:50:31.180 | And so just by focusing on

00:50:33.880 | what is the actual quality of my work.

00:50:36.300 | In financial planning, you could do this in your career.

00:50:38.980 | One thing I've recommended to many people

00:50:40.540 | is when you're making phone calls.

00:50:42.220 | A lot of my business had to do with making

00:50:43.940 | outbound initial introductory sales calls

00:50:46.600 | to schedule an appointment

00:50:47.980 | for a financial planning appointment.

00:50:49.440 | I would record that, record the audio and listen to myself

00:50:52.860 | and say, would I give myself an appointment?

00:50:54.780 | And I tell you what, for a lot of time it was no.

00:50:57.700 | But then over time you learn, okay,

00:51:00.100 | yeah, I would give myself an appointment.

00:51:01.780 | That sounds like a reasonable professional approach.

00:51:05.020 | I would give myself an appointment.

00:51:06.900 | So the super, super valuable,

00:51:08.180 | just focus on your own work

00:51:10.660 | and think about how it can be better.

00:51:13.620 | So that's one of my areas of becoming a better host

00:51:19.000 | is just a few of the aspects from my educational plan

00:51:22.500 | to build the skills necessary to become a better host.

00:51:26.420 | Another project of mine for 2015 is this.

00:51:29.820 | Radical Personal Finance is a world-class

00:51:33.500 | financial education resource.

00:51:36.400 | That's my vision.

00:51:38.360 | And in order to do that,

00:51:43.620 | I've got a lot of work to do to build that up.

00:51:47.340 | What I've learned is in many ways,

00:51:50.200 | I'm seeing more and more how the structure of this show

00:51:54.980 | is going to work into the business.

00:51:57.100 | And I thought that the show itself

00:51:59.860 | was going to be that resource.

00:52:01.560 | And I think it will be, continue to be that resource.

00:52:05.860 | But what I've recognized is that in many ways,

00:52:07.580 | the show is almost the sales page.

00:52:10.140 | The show is almost the lead-in

00:52:12.380 | to the other resources and products.

00:52:14.940 | One of the ideas that I've had

00:52:16.640 | that I haven't been able to implement yet

00:52:18.380 | is to map my shows

00:52:20.020 | to the certified financial planner curriculum

00:52:22.300 | so that somebody who's an interested CFP student

00:52:26.700 | can simply go and say,

00:52:27.660 | "Ah, here are all of the CFP topics.

00:52:30.620 | "Now I'll just listen through those shows in that order."

00:52:33.820 | But what I've learned is that in order for me

00:52:36.460 | to create the type of radio show that I'm envisioning,

00:52:40.540 | it has a lot of variability with topics.

00:52:45.040 | So that makes it very difficult

00:52:46.460 | for someone to go back through the somewhat voluminous

00:52:50.220 | and growing everyday archives

00:52:52.500 | in order to find the topics that they need.

00:52:55.860 | So what I need to do is continue creating the show

00:52:57.980 | as the resource for the regular listeners

00:53:00.260 | who can consume the entire body of work.

00:53:02.980 | But then I also need to create a number of guides

00:53:06.020 | and products that are specifically suited

00:53:08.660 | to specific situations.

00:53:11.100 | And this has to be to complement the financial advisor

00:53:16.100 | rather than to compete with the financial advisor.

00:53:19.820 | I can't compete with financial advisors effectively.

00:53:22.580 | I think we need good financial advisors.

00:53:24.860 | And one of the most frustrating things for me to do

00:53:27.340 | has been to try to figure out

00:53:29.300 | how do I serve the need for great financial advisors myself?

00:53:34.180 | And I've had this for the last six months.

00:53:36.900 | I had this registered investment advisory firm pending

00:53:40.660 | and it was never officially open.

00:53:42.100 | And finally, a few weeks ago,

00:53:43.860 | I just simply made the decision,

00:53:45.740 | my wife and I said, "Listen, I cannot do this.

00:53:47.380 | "I at least can't do it right now."

00:53:49.360 | Whether or not I could do it someday,

00:53:50.940 | I can't do it right now.

00:53:52.380 | That the educational resources are more important

00:53:55.580 | and that's what needs to be done right now.

00:53:57.580 | So I can't begin the firm.

00:53:59.980 | I'm perfectly confident that if I desired to,

00:54:04.980 | I could create a firm similar to what Rick Edelman has done

00:54:09.460 | where he is the marketing spokespiece

00:54:12.100 | for the firm of advisors.

00:54:13.660 | And I could train advisors to do planning

00:54:15.940 | the way that I think it should be done

00:54:17.340 | in this comprehensive way.

00:54:18.780 | I think I could help reinvent the industry,

00:54:22.040 | but I don't have the skills.

00:54:24.240 | I'll just say I don't have the skills

00:54:25.420 | to do that at the moment.

00:54:26.600 | The same way I said I need the business owner skills,

00:54:28.240 | I don't have the capacity.

00:54:29.800 | So I finally said, "Just gonna shut it down.

00:54:31.640 | "No chance of doing that, period.

00:54:34.100 | "Not gonna do it.

00:54:35.100 | "I'm gonna focus on building the educational resource."

00:54:37.920 | So what I need to create for Radical Personal Finance

00:54:40.940 | is I need to create a lot of useful educational resources

00:54:44.820 | that answer specific questions for do-it-yourselfers,

00:54:48.140 | but that also help people to become confident

00:54:52.020 | and competent in preparation

00:54:54.300 | for meeting with their advisors.

00:54:56.620 | Let's say as an example, I were going to,

00:54:59.780 | somebody was a new parent,

00:55:02.860 | and they knew that they needed

00:55:03.900 | to purchase some life insurance.

00:55:05.540 | Well, it would be useful if they could go

00:55:09.220 | and find a resource that said,

00:55:11.060 | "Here's what you need to know about life insurance."

00:55:13.060 | And this would be a course.

00:55:14.280 | I'm envisioning a video course,

00:55:16.020 | four or five sessions, 30 minutes each,

00:55:19.960 | a comprehensive, straightforward primer on life insurance

00:55:24.640 | that could tell them basically how to do it themselves,

00:55:29.160 | but then also give them the information they need

00:55:31.440 | when speaking to a life insurance expert.

00:55:33.840 | That way, they could feel comfortable

00:55:35.440 | with their level of knowledge,

00:55:36.640 | and then get the specialized advice of an expert.

00:55:39.800 | Or if somebody is saying a common question

00:55:43.600 | I get on the show, "How do I know

00:55:44.560 | "if I have enough money to retire?"

00:55:46.480 | Well, here's what you need to know.

00:55:48.240 | And I'm doing shows on that,

00:55:50.040 | but they become somewhat disjointed.

00:55:52.040 | And because I don't do a whole series five days in a row,

00:55:55.700 | they become a little bit disjointed.

00:55:57.200 | So what I've recognized is I think

00:55:58.840 | that the very motivated do-it-yourselfer

00:56:01.680 | will be able to get out of the show

00:56:03.000 | enough of the information that they need

00:56:06.360 | to do it themselves,

00:56:07.400 | but that there's a real need for me

00:56:08.880 | to create these additional focused value-added products

00:56:13.280 | for those whose time is limited,

00:56:18.200 | who can't listen to the comprehensive content

00:56:22.760 | that I have developed here.

00:56:24.760 | They need just a specific answer.

00:56:26.600 | And so I'm studying,

00:56:28.920 | and I've set out a studying process for myself this year.

00:56:33.120 | I'm gonna study all the major people

00:56:34.800 | in the financial advice business.

00:56:38.440 | I'm gonna read their books again.

00:56:39.760 | I'm gonna look at what they're doing

00:56:41.240 | and how they're doing it and try to learn.

00:56:43.520 | So I'm gonna study Dave Ramsey.

00:56:46.440 | I'm gonna try to understand more of his history,

00:56:48.520 | understand more of how he developed his,

00:56:51.160 | the approach he took to developing things,

00:56:53.000 | David Box, Suze Orman, Jim Cramer, Clark Howard.

00:56:56.520 | I'm gonna focus on what are they doing

00:56:58.320 | and how did they do it,

00:56:59.520 | and try to understand what they're doing.

00:57:01.160 | 'Cause essentially, the difference between my show

00:57:03.940 | that I envision and many other podcasts

00:57:05.440 | is I'm trying to create something

00:57:06.760 | that's more along the lines of radio than podcasting.

00:57:11.100 | I don't know if I can do it successfully,

00:57:14.480 | but that's the,

00:57:15.320 | that's kind of where I'm going to

00:57:17.720 | for my learning and understanding.

00:57:20.140 | And I'm gonna try to understand

00:57:21.440 | how did these people have created their content

00:57:24.520 | and applied it.

00:57:25.360 | I have some others as well.

00:57:27.040 | I'm gonna read through this year

00:57:28.360 | all of Nick Murray's archives,

00:57:31.360 | all of Joshua Kennan's archives,

00:57:34.440 | and so, and just try to understand

00:57:36.840 | what are they doing well,

00:57:38.440 | and how can I learn from what they're doing.

00:57:40.680 | I'm also going to spend a lot of time

00:57:43.280 | consuming the body of work

00:57:44.800 | of some people who aren't specifically in

00:57:47.680 | the financial space.

00:57:51.360 | And the people that I've chosen here,

00:57:53.740 | well, one other who's in the financial space,

00:57:55.720 | I'm gonna consume Ramit Sethi's work.

00:57:58.680 | He's the guy who writes the site,

00:58:00.160 | "I Will Teach You to Be Rich."

00:58:01.880 | And his stuff's never really clicked with me,

00:58:06.040 | but it seems to be very effective

00:58:09.800 | with his core audience.

00:58:12.080 | So I'm gonna consume his work.

00:58:13.400 | And then I'm also gonna study through

00:58:15.240 | what Dan Miller is doing with "48 Days,"

00:58:19.680 | and also what Michael Hyatt does with his ventures.

00:58:24.260 | And neither of those men,

00:58:27.080 | their content has never really appealed to me.

00:58:29.480 | I've kind of not really understood

00:58:30.940 | why they're so effective.

00:58:33.180 | Dan Miller less than Michael Hyatt.

00:58:36.920 | I've liked Dan Miller's stuff.

00:58:38.000 | It just didn't really appeal to me that much

00:58:40.400 | as far as just the need that I've had necessarily.

00:58:43.680 | But Michael Hyatt, I've never understood

00:58:47.440 | why is he as popular as he is?

00:58:49.200 | People, the weirdest people in my life are fans of his.

00:58:53.440 | And he seems to be just so effective

00:58:55.900 | at building his business.

00:58:57.560 | And so I'm gonna study his work,

00:58:59.320 | and I like him, but I don't know.

00:59:02.000 | I just don't have that same feeling

00:59:03.200 | that a lot of other people have.

00:59:04.420 | But I'm gonna go through and try to work my way through

00:59:06.520 | and understand what it is that he does so well.

00:59:09.840 | Because he certainly seems,

00:59:11.080 | the marketplace is really benefiting

00:59:13.620 | from what he's doing, it seems.

00:59:15.400 | And then Dan Miller, I like Dan Miller,

00:59:17.580 | I like his grandfatherly attitude.

00:59:19.620 | I don't personally click a lot

00:59:22.300 | with the young, aggressive, single,

00:59:26.380 | 23-year-old internet hotshot.

00:59:28.740 | It doesn't, that doesn't appeal to me.

00:59:31.500 | It's fine for other people,

00:59:32.660 | that doesn't really appeal to me.

00:59:33.940 | I like the gentle, humble, people like Dan Miller.

00:59:38.940 | And the other thing that I've been working

00:59:40.900 | on Dan Miller's work is I've realized

00:59:42.880 | that much of what I do with financial planning,

00:59:45.120 | the weak point is the coaching.

00:59:48.300 | That's the weak point with financial planning

00:59:49.760 | is you need to have those coaching skills.

00:59:51.740 | And he's widely regarded as having

00:59:54.020 | a well-constructed coaching platform

00:59:57.660 | to teach people how to become coaches.

00:59:59.420 | So I'm gonna join all of these people's programs,

01:00:01.560 | I'm gonna learn and consume their content

01:00:03.860 | and just really strive to understand

01:00:05.500 | what they're doing so well.

01:00:06.820 | And then replicate the good things

01:00:08.960 | that I like from their models into this show.

01:00:13.360 | So that's some of how I'm applying this

01:00:15.900 | to be the world-class financial education site.

01:00:18.660 | And I'm way behind on the things

01:00:20.820 | that I've intended to do with each of those aspects.

01:00:25.400 | But I've got the plan laid out

01:00:27.900 | and gotta get stuff done.

01:00:30.940 | So that's the plan.

01:00:32.180 | Number of other areas that are on my goals

01:00:34.520 | and we'll start to wrap up.

01:00:35.500 | But I'm gonna just share with you a few other things.

01:00:38.420 | For example, one of my major focuses,

01:00:40.820 | two of my major focuses of additional skills

01:00:43.320 | are my own writing abilities and my speaking abilities.

01:00:48.920 | Let's start with speaking.

01:00:49.980 | I have given a couple of speeches in the last six months.

01:00:54.100 | And one of the things that really frustrated with me

01:00:56.100 | was how uncomfortable I was doing it.

01:00:59.060 | Once upon a time, I was very comfortable

01:01:01.300 | being able to give a compelling speech

01:01:05.840 | on a specific topic that was useful for the audience

01:01:08.780 | and to feel comfortable doing that.

01:01:10.620 | Well, the two of the speeches that I've made recently,

01:01:12.420 | I just really wasn't comfortable

01:01:13.620 | and I didn't feel like I had done a very good

01:01:15.140 | and effective job with it.

01:01:16.580 | And I really wish to start developing

01:01:20.580 | some of that content for the different format

01:01:23.460 | and just the podcasting format

01:01:24.780 | for the verbal spoken content.

01:01:26.740 | So I need to work on my skills.

01:01:28.360 | So this year I'm gonna be rejoining Toastmasters.

01:01:32.440 | And I spent several years in Toastmasters in the past,

01:01:34.900 | but this time I'm gonna be joining

01:01:36.100 | what's called a Toastmasters Advanced Club.

01:01:38.980 | And quick primer for you on Toastmasters,

01:01:41.420 | 'cause I think it's such a useful organization.

01:01:43.260 | It's widely regarded by many people

01:01:47.500 | as having just the perfect curriculum

01:01:50.360 | for learning public speaking skills.

01:01:53.140 | And so it starts with most clubs are just basic clubs

01:01:56.340 | and you'll have everyone from real experts in there

01:01:59.220 | to rank amateurs who are completely uncomfortable.

01:02:03.220 | I mean, they're just,

01:02:04.060 | they basically could get up and stammer their first speech.

01:02:06.740 | And what's really beautiful

01:02:08.740 | is Toastmasters has a comprehensive curriculum

01:02:11.540 | to take you from an initial speech

01:02:14.540 | where you're completely uncomfortable

01:02:16.860 | to a comprehensive, beautifully well designed

01:02:21.980 | and delivered speech.

01:02:25.160 | It starts with their initial manual is,

01:02:29.820 | the initial phase of achievement is to become a,

01:02:33.260 | what's it called?

01:02:34.100 | A competent communicator, I think is what they call it.

01:02:37.260 | And so they give you,

01:02:38.100 | you start working your way through an initial manual

01:02:40.460 | that has 15 speeches.

01:02:42.340 | And each of the chapters in the manual

01:02:47.140 | has an instruction section,

01:02:52.140 | a few pages of here's how you construct a speech.

01:02:55.060 | And then you prepare a speech

01:02:56.700 | focusing on that specific aspect of speaking.

01:03:00.040 | So it begins with an icebreaker speech,

01:03:02.360 | then it moves on to how to be in earnest.

01:03:05.100 | So how do you convey earnestness,

01:03:07.420 | sincerity, conviction, et cetera,

01:03:09.740 | speech organization, vocal variety, et cetera.

01:03:12.340 | And there are 15 speeches.

01:03:13.260 | And then once you do that,

01:03:14.460 | you've achieved the competent communicator

01:03:17.260 | first initial standard.

01:03:18.960 | Then they have what are called advanced manuals.

01:03:21.980 | And these advanced manuals cover many different topics.

01:03:25.100 | And so the club that I'm gonna be joining

01:03:26.660 | is an advanced club where all of the speakers

01:03:29.980 | and members of that club have at least achieved

01:03:33.060 | the minimum level of certification,

01:03:34.960 | the competent communicator certification.

01:03:37.380 | And based upon that,

01:03:38.900 | you have people who are more experienced at speaking

01:03:40.740 | and you can get a little bit deeper.

01:03:42.660 | And I'm gonna be working my way through

01:03:45.140 | a few of the manuals.

01:03:46.140 | There are a total of something like 12 manuals

01:03:50.200 | that they have, I think, that are advanced speaking manuals.

01:03:54.100 | The ones that interest me are communicating on television

01:03:59.100 | 'cause I wanna learn some of the specific skills

01:04:02.220 | for creating excellent television presentations.

01:04:05.580 | I did a couple of things where I was televised

01:04:07.200 | for some things this year

01:04:09.300 | and it just really didn't feel like

01:04:10.820 | I did a very good job at it.

01:04:12.860 | The entertaining speaker manual,

01:04:16.780 | humorous speaking manual, persuasive speaking manual,

01:04:20.420 | professional speaking manual,

01:04:21.460 | speaking to inform storytelling,

01:04:23.480 | technical presentation,

01:04:24.500 | and then the special occasions speeches.

01:04:26.820 | So each of those is a comprehensive manual

01:04:28.820 | where you go through different exercises

01:04:32.060 | and you prepare speeches

01:04:33.620 | based upon these specific requirements.

01:04:36.860 | And that builds your ability to craft a speech

01:04:39.700 | that is focused on a unique occasion.

01:04:44.060 | They have other manuals as well

01:04:46.100 | that you can work through if they're of interest to you.

01:04:50.260 | So the special occasions one is interesting.

01:04:52.740 | How do you create a great toast?

01:04:54.220 | How do you give a praise speech?

01:04:56.220 | How do you do a roast?

01:04:57.340 | How do you roast somebody?

01:04:58.800 | How do you do an award acceptance speech?

01:05:00.580 | So you can prepare for these things

01:05:01.860 | and practice them in advance

01:05:03.420 | and that can extend your ability with speaking.

01:05:06.580 | So this is a focus of mine for 2015.

01:05:08.460 | I'm gonna rejoin this club

01:05:09.700 | and I'm gonna work my way through some of the manuals.

01:05:12.480 | I've chosen the ones that I'm gonna start with

01:05:15.220 | and then we'll see.

01:05:16.060 | I'm not gonna go just one manual at a time.

01:05:18.620 | And then that'll help me.

01:05:20.420 | I'll videotape those.

01:05:21.540 | I will use them as a learning experience

01:05:23.840 | and I will be able to assess my progress in that direction

01:05:28.840 | toward the need that I have

01:05:33.460 | of being able to deliver compelling financial presentations

01:05:37.660 | to educate people and help people in another forum.

01:05:40.860 | Another area of focus for me is

01:05:43.020 | I'm gonna focus this year on being

01:05:46.580 | and becoming a world-class writer.

01:05:48.860 | Writing has often been a weak point.

01:05:52.140 | I've mentioned on the show in the past,

01:05:53.380 | I haven't loved writing.

01:05:55.220 | But I've come to terms with the fact

01:05:57.140 | that it doesn't really matter whether I love it or not.

01:05:59.340 | I've gotta do it.

01:06:00.620 | Because ideas that are communicated in print effectively

01:06:05.180 | are ideas that matter.

01:06:07.460 | When I think about the people that I introduce on the show

01:06:10.180 | and I think about, excuse me, that I interview on the show

01:06:12.580 | and I think about what they've been able to convey

01:06:15.500 | through their books and their written content

01:06:18.660 | as compared to in an interview format or in a speech,

01:06:22.220 | speeches are valuable but they're very different.

01:06:24.820 | Podcasting is valuable.

01:06:25.980 | It's very different than writing.

01:06:27.540 | And I need to focus on building my skill in this area.

01:06:30.900 | I need it to, I'm sure that at some point,

01:06:33.000 | once I can figure out what's needed in the marketplace,

01:06:37.000 | clarify my own message, I'm sure I'll need to prepare it

01:06:39.660 | to write a book or two or something like that.

01:06:41.680 | So I need to practice that now.

01:06:43.460 | But I also wanna model this skill for my son.

01:06:46.440 | And I need to build my own productive output.

01:06:48.720 | And this is only gonna come with practice.

01:06:50.300 | The only way I'm gonna become a better writer

01:06:52.240 | is by simply by writing.

01:06:53.360 | And so I'm focusing on four different areas of writing.

01:06:57.020 | Number one is I need to dramatically improve

01:06:59.680 | the show notes that I create for radical personal finance.

01:07:02.420 | And this is important for my marketing efforts for the show

01:07:05.800 | to help things be found, help the content be found.

01:07:10.460 | Number two is I need to focus on preparing

01:07:13.560 | some excellent guest posts and articles

01:07:16.600 | for broader publication as a marketing outlet for the show.

01:07:20.080 | Additionally, I'm gonna prepare some of those separately,

01:07:24.320 | some of those be private, but then I'm also gonna start

01:07:26.600 | writing on joshuasheets.com to have an outlet

01:07:29.720 | for some of the things that are not necessarily

01:07:31.960 | appropriate for this show,

01:07:33.840 | but that I still have an interest on.

01:07:35.760 | I need to be careful with the content

01:07:37.360 | that I present on radical personal finance.

01:07:39.560 | When I get into some of the offbeat areas

01:07:41.480 | that I'm interested in, I can lose some people.

01:07:44.960 | So if I talk about baby education,

01:07:47.400 | that's a real interest of mine,

01:07:49.200 | but it's only a real interest to some in the audience,

01:07:51.800 | maybe who are in similar stages.

01:07:53.600 | So I'm gonna start and develop joshuasheets.com

01:07:55.760 | and start putting some of the information there,

01:07:57.880 | some of the things that I'm learning

01:07:59.200 | and sharing some of those things in that forum

01:08:02.160 | as an effort to focus my writing and work on that.

01:08:05.680 | And then also, I'm gonna be working on creating products

01:08:08.480 | and manuals for the membership, the irregulars,

01:08:11.240 | here at Radical Personal Finance,

01:08:12.560 | and that's gonna be a lot of writing as well.

01:08:14.240 | I don't plan to use any special tools.

01:08:16.560 | I don't need any coaches.

01:08:17.960 | I'm just gonna write and read it

01:08:19.440 | and see how I'm doing on that

01:08:22.000 | and focus on how I'm, you know,

01:08:26.040 | just critiquing my own content.

01:08:28.920 | And then also to be an effective writer,

01:08:30.280 | I need to continue to read and consume

01:08:32.400 | a wide range of content.

01:08:33.840 | And so I've got an extensive reading list planned out,

01:08:36.880 | which I won't go into in depth at the moment,

01:08:39.240 | but things that are gonna influence the show

01:08:41.160 | and then also things that I am focused on as well.

01:08:44.520 | Couple of other quick areas.

01:08:45.980 | For example, I have all of my personal goals

01:08:49.040 | working towards complete debt freedom

01:08:51.160 | and financial independence.

01:08:52.420 | That has some aspects associated with it.

01:08:57.200 | A major focus for me is my health.

01:09:00.020 | I'm about to turn 30 this summer,

01:09:03.120 | and over the last year, I've never felt,

01:09:05.720 | I've been overweight most of my life

01:09:07.840 | and have had various issues with,

01:09:11.200 | I've gained weight, lost weight,

01:09:14.160 | gained weight, lost weight, gained weight, lost weight.

01:09:16.400 | And I've never really had any issues

01:09:18.860 | with being overweight though,

01:09:19.880 | but lately I'm just starting to feel old.

01:09:21.960 | And I've done some things, worked hard over the last year

01:09:25.680 | on some different aspects of improving my health,

01:09:27.720 | and they've been less effective

01:09:29.220 | than I thought they should be.

01:09:31.000 | And I won't go into detail

01:09:32.480 | on all these things at the moment,

01:09:33.660 | but I've done different exercise programs,

01:09:35.760 | I've done different ways of eating,

01:09:36.920 | and everything's been less effective

01:09:38.440 | than I thought it would be.

01:09:39.260 | So I've been really focusing on

01:09:42.440 | how do I build my health in a comprehensive way

01:09:47.440 | that's a sustainable way and a long-term

01:09:49.600 | that also integrates with all the other aspects of my life.

01:09:52.900 | And that comes down to quality, proper food and nutrition.

01:09:56.860 | That comes down to proper movement that's fun,

01:10:00.140 | proper exercise, proper physical structure,

01:10:02.940 | my mental health, things like that.

01:10:04.780 | And so it's a real focus for me.

01:10:07.040 | I'll talk more about that some other time,

01:10:08.300 | probably on another forum.

01:10:10.000 | Some of the members of the audience

01:10:11.240 | have shared some resources with me and I thank you.

01:10:13.100 | One of the things I'm gonna do

01:10:13.940 | is I'm gonna get some testing done.

01:10:15.100 | I think I might have some kind of, I don't know,

01:10:16.740 | thyroid issue, 'cause I'm gonna get some testing done

01:10:19.780 | and see if I have some issues there.

01:10:24.500 | And then I'm a world-class husband and a world-class father

01:10:28.140 | and I've got different things associated with those.

01:10:30.240 | And then with my spiritual life,

01:10:32.120 | I'm changing with my own focus and relationship with God.

01:10:38.020 | I'm changing a couple of things that I'm doing

01:10:41.460 | with my own personal study.

01:10:43.260 | I'm using this year, I read the Bible a lot

01:10:48.260 | and other resources as well on a wide range of subjects,

01:10:53.260 | which too comprehensive and not necessarily focused

01:10:56.500 | on this type of target.

01:10:58.460 | But one of the things I've done in years past,

01:11:00.020 | I've read through the Bible several times,

01:11:01.920 | but this year I'm focusing on taking a different approach

01:11:05.140 | and I'm doing it book by book,

01:11:07.540 | focusing on one book for a month,

01:11:09.000 | reading through the book many times

01:11:10.620 | and understanding how each book of the Bible fits together.

01:11:13.500 | And I'm using as an outline some materials.

01:11:16.500 | If you're interested, you can find them online

01:11:19.140 | called "Unlocking the Bible"

01:11:20.800 | and it's by a man named David Pawson.

01:11:23.820 | And he teaches through each chap,

01:11:26.100 | excuse me, each book of the Bible.

01:11:27.740 | And this is a real weak point

01:11:28.900 | with my own personal knowledge and understanding

01:11:30.660 | of how do these different books fit together.

01:11:33.300 | And I get the comprehensive view,

01:11:35.940 | but what I'm interested in now is understanding

01:11:38.020 | how each book of the Bible works together.

01:11:40.060 | And so I'm making a major focus

01:11:41.980 | of taking that type of approach

01:11:44.040 | where I'm specifically focusing, for example,

01:11:46.220 | in January, reading through Matthew multiple, multiple times

01:11:50.900 | at the moment about once a day.

01:11:51.960 | And then in February, I'm gonna go to Genesis

01:11:55.100 | and I'm gonna go Old New Testament,

01:11:56.580 | work my way through using his content as an outline

01:11:59.660 | to really understand how each of the books

01:12:01.560 | of the Bible fits together.

01:12:02.940 | So I'm pretty excited about that.

01:12:04.060 | That is really great.

01:12:07.220 | That's a good thing for us.

01:12:08.700 | In closing, I want to share just an idea

01:12:12.980 | of how to integrate these things

01:12:14.700 | and in hopes that it'll inspire you.

01:12:16.940 | 'Cause it probably, I mean, it sounds like a lot.

01:12:18.700 | I'm a little bit daunted when I look at my lists.

01:12:20.500 | And again, I don't expect to ever finish everything.

01:12:24.220 | I'm done with this whole idea

01:12:27.380 | of you gotta do something to perfection.

01:12:28.980 | Everything's gotta be done.

01:12:30.500 | Hey, you do the best you can, you just work at it

01:12:32.380 | and you have fun and enjoy the process.

01:12:34.300 | But at least with an outlined plan and a general roadmap,

01:12:37.300 | I think it's more likely that I will be able

01:12:39.460 | to make progress toward my goals.

01:12:44.180 | One of the things, however, is I think a lot

01:12:46.300 | about how to integrate things.

01:12:48.640 | How do I integrate different of these ideas?

01:12:52.260 | So let me give you an example.

01:12:53.140 | I just talked a little bit about health and exercise.

01:12:55.780 | I've done different things throughout my life,

01:12:58.700 | including this past year, I joined, again,

01:13:01.180 | a local CrossFit gym.

01:13:02.660 | I enjoy kind of not having to think about things,

01:13:05.140 | just having a curriculum laid out.

01:13:06.820 | I enjoy working hard.

01:13:08.600 | So I joined a local CrossFit gym for a couple months.

01:13:10.940 | Did not work for me.

01:13:11.940 | It hadn't worked for me in the past,

01:13:13.980 | but it did not work for me,

01:13:14.820 | not necessarily from an exercise standpoint,

01:13:16.340 | but it didn't fit with my life

01:13:18.620 | because it required me to leave my house

01:13:20.380 | and leave my family for an hour worth of working out

01:13:23.660 | and a half hour on getting ready and getting home.

01:13:26.920 | And that's an hour and a half out of my day.

01:13:28.140 | That's a valuable hour and a half.

01:13:30.260 | So what I've spent a lot of time this year thinking about

01:13:33.060 | is how can I build things where there's synergy?

01:13:36.580 | So for example, I'm working on,

01:13:40.060 | I'm gonna be doing an in-home exercise program

01:13:44.540 | so that I can do it with my wife and with my son.

01:13:47.820 | And that way, everyone's together.

01:13:49.620 | I'm building on my responsibilities

01:13:52.340 | to be a world-class husband and a world-class father,

01:13:55.980 | but I'm also building world-class health at the same time

01:13:59.020 | because of the time spent together.

01:14:01.740 | Or one of the routines that I'm putting into my day

01:14:04.380 | is following lunch to walk with my son to the local park

01:14:08.860 | and get out, get some sunshine, get some exercise.

01:14:12.100 | And then by being outside, I can get exercise

01:14:16.980 | and I can spend time with him.

01:14:18.180 | I can spend time talking with my wife,

01:14:20.420 | having a lot of focused, intimate conversation.

01:14:24.700 | And that way, things build on each other.

01:14:27.880 | When I'm building as a,

01:14:30.340 | if I'm working at Toastmasters

01:14:32.140 | and I'm focusing on becoming a world-class speaker,

01:14:35.620 | in order for me to do that,

01:14:39.100 | I need to prepare an outline and a goal and a focus.

01:14:42.420 | Well, that outline could very well be written

01:14:44.740 | as a useful blog post or article,

01:14:48.280 | which is posted on Radical Personal Finance

01:14:50.180 | or at joshuasheets.com.

01:14:52.420 | It could also be used as training

01:14:56.500 | for creating a more effective podcast presentation.

01:15:00.500 | And it could also be a component of a podcast presentation

01:15:03.460 | so that I can create content that I can release on the feed

01:15:07.500 | when I'm out of town, perhaps,

01:15:09.100 | to continue maintaining regular content.

01:15:11.720 | Debt-free and financial independence,

01:15:15.580 | I get to research that stuff

01:15:17.460 | and focus on perfecting my own personal systems

01:15:21.460 | while creating content to help other people

01:15:24.860 | perfect their own systems.

01:15:27.060 | And that builds my mental health

01:15:29.900 | and my enjoyment of the content,

01:15:34.740 | of learning it and conveying it.

01:15:37.340 | 'Cause to me, that's fun.

01:15:38.900 | I love to teach and I love to convey the information.

01:15:41.700 | So all of these things add on top of each other.

01:15:44.580 | I can listen to,

01:15:45.860 | as I'm building Radical Personal Finance

01:15:48.740 | into a world-class financial education site,

01:15:52.180 | I can listen to Dave Ramsey

01:15:53.980 | and I can understand what does he do so well

01:15:55.480 | as a broadcaster where people enjoy listening

01:15:58.060 | to him so much.

01:15:59.100 | And then I can say,

01:16:00.060 | what does he do so well as a business owner

01:16:02.940 | and what does he do so well as a marketer?

01:16:05.500 | And I can narrow in on those things

01:16:06.860 | and that affects each aspect of my life.

01:16:10.660 | So what I love and where I like to think about

01:16:13.140 | is how can we get a lot of synergy

01:16:15.940 | from different areas of focus and build things together?

01:16:19.500 | And hopefully some of the ideas that I'm working on

01:16:22.220 | for my life coming forward over this next year

01:16:24.060 | will be useful to you.

01:16:25.200 | That's it for today's show.

01:16:27.420 | I thank each and every one of you for listening.

01:16:29.700 | Hope this has been useful.

01:16:30.540 | A little bit more personal.

01:16:31.460 | And one of the things that I'm doing also

01:16:34.180 | is working to do less of the show,

01:16:37.860 | like the behind the scenes on the public feed,

01:16:42.180 | creating more additional content for the member program

01:16:45.340 | where I'm gonna do more of sharing

01:16:47.700 | what's actually going on with behind the scenes on the show.

01:16:50.340 | But I'm gonna start to do a better job

01:16:53.020 | of keeping the lines more,

01:16:57.100 | it's a little bit stronger

01:16:58.380 | between the public facing information

01:17:00.060 | and the private facing information.

01:17:01.820 | Thank you all for listening.

01:17:05.980 | It's been an awesome, 2014 was an incredible year for me.

01:17:09.740 | 2015, I'm more excited about 2015 than I've ever been.

01:17:14.300 | I think it's gonna be really, really fun.

01:17:16.020 | I'm enjoying learning all these new skills.

01:17:18.780 | I'm enjoying having the opportunity to just improve

01:17:22.900 | and to get better.

01:17:23.740 | And to me, that's fun.

01:17:25.340 | Learning is so neat.

01:17:27.420 | It's a lot of hard work sometimes,

01:17:28.980 | but I'm in it for the marathon

01:17:31.060 | and I'm just enjoying the process.

01:17:32.700 | Thank you to each one of you who have left reviews

01:17:35.700 | and who have joined the membership program

01:17:37.980 | over the past couple of weeks as I've been out.

01:17:40.980 | I appreciate each one of you investing in me.

01:17:45.580 | And it's so nice to have customers, paying customers,

01:17:49.820 | 'cause that puts such an incredible responsibility on me

01:17:52.740 | to say, I need to ship some stuff here,

01:17:54.620 | some additional benefits that are gonna be world-class.

01:17:57.100 | And I've got a bunch of ideas on that.

01:17:59.180 | I will be putting a lot of that behind the scenes

01:18:02.180 | as I learn to get the technology.

01:18:04.060 | I got really waylaid with the technology stuff,

01:18:06.620 | thinking about outsourcing it.

01:18:08.220 | But as I figure out how to do it better,

01:18:09.980 | I'm gonna be putting a lot of that stuff behind the scenes,

01:18:11.980 | creating some private user forums, things like that,

01:18:14.860 | where I'll be spending a lot of time.

01:18:17.140 | Big plans coming, details coming in the future.

01:18:20.540 | Thank you for being here.

01:18:21.620 | Happy New Year.

01:18:22.460 | (upbeat music)

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01:19:15.460 | (upbeat music)

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