Erich Stauffer

Category: Self Development

  • 50 Things I Learned from over 600 Hours of Business Podcasts

    In the past six months I’ve listened to over 600 hours of business podcasts. That’s equivalent to sitting through a 15-credit semester of lectures in college. How did I do it? My drive to work each day is one hour, one way – and I listen to podcasts at 1.5x speed so each day I’m listening to at least 3 hours of business podcasts. If I have to travel to a client at night or on the weekends, I’m listening to more podcasts on the way.

    5 Benefits of Podcasts

    • On-demand learning – you can browse and download a podcast about almost any topic at any time
    • Location-independent learning – you don’t need to be sitting at a desk or in front of a computer – you can listen anywhere
    • Free to listen – books, audio books, and learning courses almost always cost money, but podcasts are fre
    • Multiple distribution channels – you can listen to podcasts via iTunes on your computer, the Podcast app on your iPhone, or through Stitcher Radio (stitcher.com or app)
    • Free mentorship – you normally would have to pay a coach, mentor, or mastermind group to get the kind of one-on-one advice podcasts provide

    600 Hours of Business PodcastsWhat business podcasts did I listen to?

    50 Things I learned from listening to over 600 hours of business podcasts:

    1. Take massive action
    2. Avoid the imposter syndrome
    3. Wake up early
    4. Network
    5. Seek a mentor
    6. Follow up
    7. Go to conferences
    8. Guest blog post
    9. Turn off distractions
    10. Listen to your intuition (hunches)
    11. Focus on the product
    12. Focus on a niche
    13. Focus on the customer
    14. Just start. You’ll never feel ready.
    15. Don’t listen to the naysayers.
    16. Don’t watch TV.
    17. No doesn’t always mean no.
    18. Help others first.
    19. Mindset matters.
    20. Clear the emotional blockages.
    21. Be thankful.
    22. Have an attitude of gratitude.
    23. Define what makes you happy.
    24. Work hard.
    25. Passion is important, but it should be for solving a problem, not a passion for the product.
    26. People buy products not markets.
    27. Build an audience then sell them something.
    28. PR can help, but PR agents aren’t always helpful.
    29. Celebrities can help.
    30. Backup your hard drive.
    31. Begin with the end in mind.
    32. Envision your future.
    33. Self affirmations.
    34. Use vision boards.
    35. Vehicle for goal. Make sure it matches.
    36. Multiple streams of income.
    37. Multiple sources of traffic.
    38. Figure out how many things it takes and work backwards.
    39. “Dollarization” of a problem.
    40. Don’t compare yourself to others.
    41. Success takes 9 months (to 5 years). There are no overnight successes.
    42. Double your price.
    43. If you get a no, ask why.
    44. All of your ideas are wrong.
    45. Start.
    46. Progress, not perfection
    47. Create systems and procedures.
    48. Know your avatar, or target market.
    49. Email marketing works.
    50. Podcasting works.

    Books most mentioned:

    Updates:

    Comment on Hacker News:

    a3voices commented:

    > Success takes 9 months (to 5 years). There are no overnight successes.

    From what starting point? The decision to try to be successful, when you come up with an idea, or when you start implementing it?

    To which I replied:

    Every person’s starting point is really the culmination of everything in their past so every starting point is different, but this statement is born from two trends I noticed while listening:

    1. “The Baby Effect” – a term coined by John Lee Dumas of Entrepreneur on Fire, a 7-day a week business podcast that interviews entrepreneurs, which evolved from John Lee noticing that successful launches tended to take 9 months from first action to the point of sustainability. He called it that because it usually coincided with the founder finding out they had a baby coming, but it also worked that way for BeardBrand, for example.
    2. Most of the “successful” interviewees on podcasts state they started back in 2009, so 5 years later is now (2014). 5 years seems to be the point at which entrepreneurs have been steady long enough that they start to either a) look for the next thing or b) start sharing with other people what they know. It’s also a sign that the ‘wave’ that they were currently riding (their business model) may have crested and they are in search of the next thing, hoping for a second win(d).

  • 10,000 Hours

    Have you ever heard that it takes “10,000 hours” to become good at something or that you should “follow your passion” and “do what you love”? If you’re still wondering What Color is Your Parachute? and you still don’t know what you want to be when you grow up, it may be time to take stock of your current skillsets and strengths to see how close you are to being an expert and whether or not that field is a vehicle that can economically provide a reliable income into your future.

    In 2013, Cal Newport wrote Don’t Follow Your Passion, Follow Your Effort, where he talked about how becoming an expert in something makes you passionate about it, not the other way around. But what if you could have both? In 2001, Marcus Buckingham and Donald O. Clifton wrote a book called Now, Discover Your Strengths and developed a test called the Clifton Strengths Finder to help you identify your strengths. What if there was a way to test for your “10,000 hours”?

    Becoming an expert at something doesn’t mean it’s the only thing you’ve worked on for the last 5-10 years. The accumulation of all of your experiences has led you to the position you’re in today. There is no one else who has had the exact same experience as you. No one else has the exact same perspective as you. There is already something you are an expert in that you can do better than anyone else in your area, if not the world. This experience is your “10,000 hours.”

    What do you do that's better than anyone else?
    What do you do that’s better than anyone else?

    Andy Johns, who was on the user growth team for Facebook, Twitter and Quora, recently wrote about Finding Your Career Economy, in which he says, “Everyone has their inherent strengths and weaknesses. I’m of the camp that believes that people should focus most on playing to their strengths and to align their strengths with a role that requires them to use their strengths regularly.” Shortly thereafter he spoke on Eric Siu’s Growth Everywhere podcast something similar:

    When I thought about my career, the mental model I used was an economics one. Where I thought that, “If I go and try and learn be a developer at this point and try and write code just as good as some of the Facebook developers,” like – just a huge fail, it just wasn’t going to happen. And frankly I just wasn’t interested in that. I didn’t think that’s where my heart was, nor was it where my sort of intrinsic abilities were.

    Instead I was like, “Well I’ve got to find this thing that I’m interested in that aligns with my strengths, but that also has an economy around it in the sense that someday there is going to be tremendous demand for this skillset – with very little real supply of that – and I wanna own that supply. That’s a position of leverage.

    For me the thing that I settled on – the position of leverage that made the most sense for my future potential – was “How can I be one of the best people on the planet in terms of understanding end-to-end, comprehensively from either one million to a billion users, ‘How do you grow something?’” – team building, analytics, experimentation, organization…the whole thing.

    That seemed like a tremendously powerful thing because the thesis or the hypothesis I had was that: more consumer Internet companies needed to have growth teams and no one was stepping up to the plate to do that. That’s what I wanted to do…and that’s been my sole objective since then – since I made up my mind about that in 2009.

    One thing I’ve noticed from listening to over 600 hours of business podcasts is that a lot of the people who are successful now started in 2009. It took them about 5 years to get from “go” to “grow” to “show”. Coincidentally, people work about 2000 hours a year so 5 years is about 10,000 hours. I read the same business books these guys listened to. I started blogs the same time they did, but somehow the result was different? Why was my 10,000 hours different than theirs? Because the vehicle I chose was different.

    The choices we make in life matter. Life is a game and not everybody wins, but everyone who can keep moving forward is capable of learning from their mistakes and doing better the next time. This is what startup culture calls “failing forward” and what normal people call “persistence” or “grit”. Those who are able to leverage their experience, focus on their strengths, and continue to improve will see return on their investments provided they select an economic vehicle capable of sustaining that activity.

     

  • Possibilities

    James Altucher used to email every single one of his web design clients everyday 10 things to improve their site. It’s about over-delivering and making your clients more successful. Imagine if I just did the things that it would take to make my clients more successful. Imagine if I just did those things and they became more successful. Would they pay me more because of it or would they think that they just became more successful without really trying?

    PossibilitiesIn his post about 9 ways to guarantee success James talks about how doubt, laziness, carelessness, vacillating, and not making progress are all things that will stop your business in it’s tracks. When I used to read this stuff I’d think to myself, “MAN! WHAT IS MY PROBLEM? I can easily write about all of this, but I can’t seem to DO any of it! Maybe I should just go work for someone else because I’m too lazy to run my own business, can’t make a decision, and don’t have a product. The world needs employees too. I know I have to provide for my family, it just seems like there has GOT to be another way.” That’s what I wrote my wife back in January of 2013. I did end up getting a job later on that month and I’ve had one ever since (however, I still do client work on the side).

    An Abundance Mindset

    The world is HUGE and full of possibilities. That is both a good thing and a bad thing. It means there are lots of problems to solve and lots of things to experience and lots of little niches to serve. But it also means it’s really hard for someone like me with their head in the clouds to actually stop, choose, and commit to any one thing. Is it because of risk? (I want to cry.) Is it because of desire and happiness? (I am a grown man.) When backed against a wall, I always come to the same conclusion: I’d like to build something. I’d like it to use the skills I already have. I’d like to have autonomy. And I’d like it to provide for my family. So far, the only thing that fits most of that bill is affiliate marketing, but it just occurred to me that writing books on a subject would also fit that bill.

    What if I went forward with my Content Motors idea where what I do is write “market-desired content” for my own site and for-hire for other sites with the intent of turning the material into books? It seems too simple and it doesn’t motivate me. In the book, Drive, Daniel Pink talked about the “Goldilocks tasks” which are neither overly difficult (such as app design or e-commerce) or overly simple (like business analyst or IT work). The question is how I can have both autonomy, mastery, and purpose in a job/career? Checkside has done a great job of summarizing Daniel Pink’s theory of what motivates us.

    Autonomy

    Autonomy – provide employees with autonomy over some (or all) of the four main aspects of work:

    • When they do it (time) – Consider switching to a ROWE (results-only work environment) which focuses more on the output (result) rather than the time/schedule, allowing employees to have flexibility over when they complete tasks.
    • How they do it (technique) – Don’t dictate how employees should complete their tasks. Provide initial guidance and then allow them to tackle the project in the way they see fit rather than having to follow a strict procedure.
    • Whom they do it with (team) – Although this can be the hardest form of autonomy to embrace, allow employees some choice over who they work with. If it would be inappropriate to involve them in the recruitment/selection process, instead allow employees to work on open-source projects where they have the ability to assemble their own teams.
    • What they do (task) – Allow employees to have regular ‘creative’ days where they can work on any project/problem they wish – there is empirical evidence which shows that many new initiatives are often generated during this ‘creative free time’.

    Mastery – allow employees to become better at something that matters to them:

    • Provide “Goldilocks tasks” – Pink uses the term “Goldilocks tasks” to describe those tasks which are neither overly difficult nor overly simple – these tasks allow employees to extend themselves and develop their skills further. The risk of providing tasks that fall short of an employee’s capabilities is boredom, and the risk of providing tasks that exceed their capabilities is anxiety.
    • Create an environment where mastery is possible – to foster an environment of learning and development, four essentials are required – autonomy, clear goals, immediate feedback and Goldilocks tasks.

    Purpose – take steps to fulfill employees’ natural desire to contribute to a cause greater and more enduring than themselves:

    • Communicate the purpose – make sure employees know and understand the organization purpose goals not just its profit goals. Employees, who understand the purpose and vision of their organization and how their individual roles contribute to this purpose, are more likely to be satisfied in their work.
    • Place equal emphasis on purpose maximization as you do on profit maximization – research shows that the attainment of profit goals has no impact on a person’s well-being and actually contributes to their ill-being. Organizational and individual goals should focus on purpose as well as profit. Many successful companies are now using profit as the catalyst to pursuing purpose, rather than the objective.
    • Use purpose-oriented words – talk about the organization as a united team by using words such as “us” and “we”, this will inspire employees to talk about the organization in the same way and feel a part of the greater cause.”

    Sharing The Vision

    I am moving towards a location-independent lifestyle that involves travel and running a business online. Outure and Webories are the primary organizations I’m setting up to help achieve that goal.

    Outure

    Outure is currently an affiliate marketing store, but is more of a brand, is being treated as a brand, and may one day become an ecommerce store. It has an active Twitter, Instagram, Tumblr, and Facebook presence. It doesn’t have an active website, but I’ve hired a VA to help me build it out. Outure’s tagline is “Outdoor Adventure. Urban Exploration.” It covers the urban/city things you can do to play outside in an area like Indiana. It has two sections: Gear and Wear. Gear is stuff like foldable bikes, kayaks, camping, and equipment. Wear is stuff like jackets, boots, and clothing.

    Webories

    Webories is an organization that exists solely to support other organizations. Some of those organizations are what we would traditionally call clients. Other organizations are affiliate marketing sites that do not have their own brand, per se, but are make money off of keyword searches. Again, the VA will be a large part of getting Webories going again by creating shareable content for Webories organizations (including Outure). If it helps you to categorize things in your mind, think of it as one organization (Webories) of which we have our favorite organizations underneath.

    What I’m Not Going to Do

    Sometimes it helps to also define what I am not doing. I am not renting an office. I am not building a software company. I am not building information products. I am not going to promote Webories as a company.

    What I’m Going to Continue to Do

    Blog. Tweet. Tumble. Facebook. Use Aggie. Client work. Day job.

    What I am Going to Do that I’m Not Doing Now

    Here’s what I’m going to start doing that I’m not doing now: podcast. video. email marketing.

  • How I Lost 40 Pounds in 4 Months Using Slow-Carb Ideas from The 4-Hour Body

    4 months ago my weight was hovering around 270 pounds with a high of 275. Today it’s down around 230 with a low of 228. Here’s what I changed.

    Before and After 4 Hour Body

    While The 4-Hour Body came out on December 14, 2010, I didn’t start applying it’s principals until April of 2013. The first thing I did was to stop drinking coke (Coca Cola, Cherry Coke, and Mountain Dew). This alone helped me drop 10 pounds. I initially switched to sweet tea, then half sweet/half unsweetened, and then to only unsweetened tea. When I go to Starbucks, which is often, I get either a plain black iced coffee or a plain black Americano (espresso with water) for a hot drink. All other drinks are water. I drink a cold glass of water every morning, which is discussed in the book as a way to kick start your metabolism (along with using coconut oil).

    One of the hardest things I found was knowing what to eat at any given time. I really just wanted someone to hand me a menu and tell me what to eat so I didn’t have to think about it all the time. Before I started this diet food was very important to me. I thought about it all the time. I was always wondering what I’d be eating for the next meal. I’d fantasize about it. I even dreamed of owning my own restaurant so that I could serve myself anything I wanted at any time. I was fat.

    One of the things Tim Ferriss (author) talks about in The Four-Hour Body is that in order to lose weight we need to break the emotional connection we have to food. We need to stop looking forward to it and start getting it over with as fast as possible. Ferriss recommends eating the same things over and over and being very utilitarian about the eating experience. This idea helped propel me forward.

    Slow Carb vs. No Carb

    The diet in 4-Hour Body is a low-carb diet for 6 days a week followed by 1 “carb day” of eating as many carbs as you want. There are many foods that contain carbs, but what Ferriss is really talking about is breads, potatoes, corn, and rice, which all contain simple carbohydrates (sugars) that prevent your body from burning fat (by burning sugar instead).

    What to Eat

    This is a menu I used and continue to use today. It involves eating low-carb meals for 6 days a week followed by 1 day of eating whatever you want.

    Breakfast

    Drink a cold glass of water as soon as you wake up and then choose from this menu:

    • Fried eggs in coconut oil
    • Black beans with taco seasoning
    • Scrambled eggs with peppers

    Lunch

    • Salad with vegetables and meat – Wendy’s is great for this – try the BLT Cobb Salad for starters – no fruit salads
    • Mexican restaurant? Get a burrito bowl with only meat and vegetables and/or beans – no chips
    • Steak restaurant? Get a piece of meat or fish with a side of vegetables – no baked potato, bread or fries
    • Mixed nuts as a snack
    • Beef jerky as a snack

    Dinner

    • Black beans or refried beans
    • Lettuce wraps with black beans, refried beans, and chopped tomato with Frank’s red hot sauce
    • Chicken breast, fish, or steak with side of steamed vegetables – avoid breaded meats or BBQ sauce
    • Baked sweet potato, steamed cabbage, or coconut oil kale chips are all nice treats
    • Baked brocoletti with coconut oil, salt, and pepper is delicious as a meal

    Kudos and shout-out to my kid’s mom who used to make these meals for me.

    Other Habits

    It wasn’t just the diet that had to change, there are other contributing factors to weight loss such as exercise and tracking.

    Exercise

    I didn’t join a gym or anything, but I did go on the occasional long walk and the job I had at the time required me to walk up and down stairs a lot carrying computer equipment around. But this wasn’t all the time, maybe once a week. Most other times I was sitting down in the car (I have a one-hour commute – one way, twice a day) or sitting down at a computer chair (much as I’m doing right now). When I get home at least one of my kids will want me to do “big jumps” by repetitively lifting them up in the air or play the “broken crane” where I lift them up making engine noises until the engine gives out and drops them.

    In the beginning of the diet change I felt weak, like I couldn’t exercise if I wanted to. This lasted for about 3 months, but by the fourth month I felt I could start doing things like push ups and running again. Prior to the diet change I would run and do push-ups, but I wouldn’t lose any weight. How could I when I was putting so much sugar into my body? It was much easier to burn the “easy” sugar than for my body to take the time and energy to release and use the fat it had stored up.

    Don’t have time to exercise? Consider exercising at work.

    Goals

    My first goal was to lose 1 pound. I know that may sound silly, but my weight was so consistent that even losing 1 pound would tell me that I was doing something differently. Once I lost 1 pound I set a new goal of losing 5 pounds. After 5 pounds I set a goal weight of 240. After hitting 240 I sat my eyes on 220, which is how much I weighed in college (I weighed 180 in high school – by the way, I’m 6′ 5″). I haven’t reached that goal, but like I said before the closest I’ve came is 228.

    Setbacks

    How are you going to handle setbacks? When you weigh yourself everyday, you’re going to have days where you way more than the day before. This could be because you need to go to the bathroom or because you didn’t drink enough water the day before and are now holding onto it (it could also be from holding water from salt intake). It could also be because you just had a carb-day or because you slipped up or decided to take a break. Whatever the reasons, what matters most is that you keep going and get back on track. Mistakes happen – we’re human – but we don’t have to let our mistakes derail us from our goals of being healthier and looking better for our loved ones.

    Tracking Tools

    I use a normal, tempered glass, bath scale, but some people who practice quantified self or that just like technology like using the Fitbit Aria Wi-Fi Smart Scale because it wirelessly sends the weight recording to a Fitbit One Wireless Activity Plus Sleep Tracker. Fitbit has it’s own tracking software, which also integrates with MyFitnessPal, which I do use. Some people track their weight in Excel, Google Docs, or Evernote. Some people go beyond tracking their weight and also track their body mass index (BMI); their chest, belly, and hip circumference; and their total body fat. There are sports centers and various medical facilities that you can contact about getting these measurements.

    Disclaimers

    I am not a doctor. Consult a medical professional before making any changes to your body or diet. I am not giving advice, but merely telling you of my experiences with a particular type of diet and exercise routine that has worked for me. Every person is different.

    Any links you see to Amazon are affiliate links, which means that if you click on them and buy something I’ll get a small percentage of whatever you buy. This is no increased cost to you and helps you support informative blog posts like this. Thanks for reading.

    Update: if you’re looking for a coconut oil that tastes, smells, and feels like Skinny Coconut Oil from Skinny & Co., check out Dignity Coconut Oil (affiliate link). Like Skinny, their coconut oil is raw and they use glass jars instead of plastic, but the best part is their mission to raise women out of poverty.

  • How Do I Improve My Station in Life?

    One of the questions I get on this blog is, “How do I improve my station in life?” This may be because of a post I recently wrote about How to Improve Your Stations in Life, but I don’t think this is what the person is actually asking. What they probably want to know is:

    • How do I get ahead in life?
    • How do I make more money?
    • How do I get a promotion?
    • How do I meet new people?
    • How do I make meaning in my life?

    I get it. When you’re down and out it’s hard to see how things can ever be different. When you can’t see any possible way that you can get out of the hole you are in that feeling can be crushing. When you lose your confidence your mindset changes and it can be hard to get ahead. I’ve been there – I know how hard it can be.

    So if you’re asking how to improve your station in life, you may be looking for specifics, not just happy sayings like “believe in yourself” and “pay yourself first”, but mindset does matter and procedures do matter. How you think and how you act help predict how things will turn out and can improve your station in life. Here’s how:

    • Be thankful for what you have now
    • Think about how you’ve improved or grown from two years ago until today
    • Imagine a place you’d like to be in the future
    • Do one thing today that will move you towards that future
    • Write down what you did today

    So that’s pretty general advice, so let’s get more specific. There is an old saying that the longest journey begins with a single step, and that’s true, but sometimes you don’t have a long time to make a change. Sometimes you need to make a change now. If that is the case, here are some things you can ask yourself:

    • What you can stop doing?
    • What can I start doing?
    • What can I do more of?
    • What can I do less of?
    • What can I change?

    Sometimes things don’t change unless you change them. The world is not going to hand you anything. Most of the time you’re going to have to work for it. Work is hard. I get it. And results don’t come fast. You may work on something for months without seeing results until one day something breaks your way – unless you:

    • Get out of the building / leave the cave
    • Learn a valuable skill that adds value
    • Ask someone to buy what you have
    • Help someone without expecting
    • Be willing to fail – be confident

    How to Improve Your Station in LifeThink about it – once you change your mindset and believe you can be in a better place than you are right now you’ll start doing the things it takes to get there. And over time you will start to see yourself becoming the person you want to be. And then one day you will look back and realize how far you have come. In this way you will have improved your station in life. You will be thankful for what you have and look back to where you were and be happy. You will then look forward and see where you want to be – and begin walking into that reality – one step at a time.

  • The Value of Conferences and Trade Shows

    Mike McDerment, the founder of Freshbooks, recently wrote a post titled How I Earned A Lot More on Projects by Changing My Pricing Strategy in which he talks about how he used to be a web designer (only) and it was his frustration with invoicing that moved him to create Freshbooks, which is online accounting and invoicing software for small business owners. McDerment recently released a free ebook that is similar to the Brennan Dunn’s Double Your Freelancing Rate book called, Breaking the Time Barrier: How to Unlock Your True Earning Potential. McDerment will be speaking in Indianapolis at MixWest (formerly Blog Indiana) August 7-9th, 2013, which reminded me of the value of conferences and trade shows to your business.

    I last attended Blog Indiana in 2011 and have since wrote about it in My Local Heroes, Mesh Networking, and Networking Indianapolis. It’s also how I know most of the people I now know on Twitter. In other words, it was very impactful to me and part of the reason I decided to attend The Combine that same year in Bloomington, Indiana. People I met at Blog Indiana and The Combine I later ran into at Verge in Indianapolis, at the Lean Startup Circle, and at Agile Indy. I was starting to be a part of a community of like-minded individuals, which has intrinsic value.

    Vishen Lakhiani, founder of Mind Valley, talks about how attending conferences changed his company and allowed it to grow. Pat Flynn, owner of Smart Passive Income, talks about how he met one of his best friends and business partners at a conference. In Terry Lin’s Build My Online Store podcast #45, Matt Kowalak talks about how attending trade shows is a critical part of the marketing of his business.
    The bottom line is that while it can cost a lot of money to go to conferences, there is a lot of value in going to conferences. Surrounding yourself with like-minded people is powerful, and it can change your business. For encouragement, collaboriation, or learning from others who have paved the way before you, meetups, conferences, and tradeshows can help you become a success.

    Know you can succeed, and you will.

  • What Not to Do

    A lot of people ask me, “How do you find the time to do what you do?”

    I hate the phrase, “I don’t have time.” We all have the same amount of time and no one can “manage time”. They can only manage their actions. I have five kids, work full-time, and run a business consulting business on the side, blog, affiliate market, network, and go to meetups. It’s both easy and pointless to say what I do because that’s just truth. It’s just what is. It’s what happens when those facts are contrasted against what I’m not doing that gives meaning and a glimpse into an answer to this question.

    What do I not do to make business, blogging, and networking a priority?

    • I don’t work on my house anymore – I used to work on my house a lot. I would change things, add things, subtract things. I would dig holes, go to the hardware store, and spend a lot of money. But more than that, it takes a lot of time to do these things. A house is not an asset, it’s a liability – and unless you’re renovating the kitchens and bathrooms, the changes you’re making probably aren’t adding very much value at all. Contrast this with the amount of money you could be making by investing in your knowledge, learning a new skill, or practicing your sales techniques.
    • I don’t watch TV, read the news, listen to the radio, or browse Facebook – I realize I sound like a pompous person by saying this, but it’s not like I’ve never done it before (I used to be a huge news consumer). If you do this you will notice a HUGE change in your lifestyle (for the better). Instead of letting anyone and everyone bombard me with stuff I don’t care about , the only thing I am ingesting is the things that I am seeking out. Therefore ALL of my time spent in the car or in front of the computer is spent either learning or producing something. Imagine how that time transformation can change your life.
    • I don’t get alerts on my phone for anything other than a phone call or text message – Task switching is a productivity killer so I disable all notifications from apps other than text messages and phone calls, but I have even trained myself to not pay attention to text messages throughout the day. Often times I will have to remind myself to check my phone because I faintly remember feeling my phone vibrate. This is intentional as text messages are rarely important and email is even less important. The biggest productivity booster you will get is turning off email notifications on your phone.
    • I don’t go shopping or pay the bills or make a meal or do laundry – Not everyone can do this, but it’s one of the reasons why I have the time to do what I do. Shopping is a huge time suck. So is everything that comes with taking care of a household. My wife does a great job of this so that I don’t have to. I will help her carry laundry baskets or carry a kid to bed, but she and the kids now do most of the housework. I’m very blessed to have someone make my breakfast, lunch, and dinner, do my laundry, and make sure the bills get paid so I can “focus on my business” – just like the marketer’s say :).
    • I don’t change my own oil – I used to do this. I used to spend hours changing my oil so that I could save $10. Now I pay $10 more to only have to spend 10 minutes changing my oil. I practically get paid to get my oil changed. I still mow my own yard, but that is because I use it as exercise. I don’t pay to go to a gym because that seems like an even bigger waste of time, but I do recognize the value of exercise for both mental and physical help. I even tell my clients that when we get stuck on a problem in a meeting, “Let’s go for a walk.” Often going on a ‘walking meeting’ will help you discover new ideas.

    Want more? Check out Tim Ferriss’ list of 9 habits to add to your not-to-do list. If you have your own productivity tips or want to share what’s been working for you, please leave a comment below. Thanks for reading.

  • How to Improve Your Stations in Life

    While your “station in life” is a British phrase referencing your status in your community, I feel that it’s a negative term used to keep people in their place and so I’ve decided to commandeer it for a more positive use. The context of this article is about the different stations in your life. You do not have one station in life – you have many – and that’s a good thing. (Note: if you’re looking for how to improve your work life, try this article about how to work a life of purpose.)

    I recently wrote about how the number of stations in your community (places you go regularly throughout your day) is directly linked to happiness. But what I didn’t mention was how to increase the number of stations in your life or how to improve the ones you already have. In this blog post I’ll share my ideas on how to get the most out of your community. The first step is to identify the community you already have. To do this I’ll give you three different examples.

    My Brother’s Stations in Life

    My brother lives in Bargersville and drives to Terre Haute most weekdays. It’s an hour and a half commute by car. In the morning he stops in the kitchen for breakfast with coffee (Station 1). There he’s greeted by one to three kids, depending on their sleeping schedule. When low on gas he stops by the local gas station (Station 2) where he recognizes the clerk, makes small talk, but feels uncomfortable calling them by name (even though he knows it). When he gets to work (Station 3) he’s greeted by his coworkers – some happy to see him. For lunch he goes out to the same restaurant where he talks to the same host and the same waiter. Again he knows their name, but doesn’t move beyond small talk. After he gets home he goes to his garage (Station 4) to get his mower and heads off to his first lawn client (Station 5). Occasionally he might go to our parents house (Station 6) for dinner or to drop off his kids so he can go to a nice restaurant (Station 7) with his wife.

    My Friend’s Stations in Life

    Erich on the Monon TrailMy friend lives in Nora. He lives five minutes by car from his work in a walkable neighborhood right next to the Monon Trail. In the morning he stops in the kitchen (Station 1) for coffee before sitting at his desk in the living room (Station 2) to read his email before heading off to work (to check his other email). He rarely stops at the gas station (Station 3) anymore and while he lives near two Starbucks (Station 4), doesn’t go there as often anymore. At work (Station 5) he’s greeted by several coworkers, but most days he goes home for lunch. When he does go out it’s usually with coworkers and he doesn’t take the time to learn more about the staff at the counter. He doesn’t know their names and they don’t know him. When he comes home at night he’s greeted by his neighbors as he drives by or when he goes for a walk with his family. On the weekends he might go to his local hardware store (Station 6) and on Sunday his local church (Station 7).

    My Stations in Life

    I live in Tipton, but work mostly in Carmel, but travel all around the Indianapolis area. It takes me about 45 minutes by car to get to my first job each day. My wife wakes me up, makes me coffee and breakfast with a side of water. I sit down at the kitchen table (Station 1) to eat. While I’m eating my wife makes my lunch. By the time I’m done eating she has packed my lunch in my car with coffee to go. My kids are now awake, wait by the door, and demand kisses before I leave. When I arrive at my first job (Station 2) I get a few nods. Afterwards I may go to my second job (Station 3), to Starbucks (Station 4), or to my friend’s house in Nora (Station 5). If my gas tank is at a quarter or below I’ll stop at the gas station in Tipton (Station 6) on my way home. When I walk in the door I sit down to dinner, then get up to go check on the garden (Station 7). On Sundays I go to church in Noblesville (Station 8). Some weekends I go to parent’s homes (Station 9).

    How to Improve Your Station in Life

    Appreciating what you have and be thankful first. If you’re not first happy where you are now, you won’t be happy ‘there’. The grass isn’t greener on the other side of the fence, it’s greener where you water it. Your community is made up of your stations in life and it’s up to you to be thankful, appreciative, engaging, and involved in order to get the most out of it. By helping others and continually adding value to your relationships, you will build a stronger community and improve your stations in life. If you don’t live in a walkable neighborhood, walk around. It will become walkable. If you hate where you live, don’t move (yet), first find what you like about it and practice focusing on that. Be the change you want to see in your community. Start with yourself – the only thing you can change. Don’t try to change too much at a time – the longest journey begins with the smallest step. So get walking!

  • I’m Not as Great as I Think I Am

    Recently Dove did a study that showed men think they are better looking than they actually are, but a similar study was done in 2010 and before that in 2009. I probably think I’m better looking than I actually am, but what I’m more concerned with recently is that I may think I’m better than I actually am.

    For the last year and a half I’ve had this inflated notion that I’m ‘more than just an IT and web guy’. “I’m a high-level thinker!” I’d say to myself. “I think at a systems level. I can synergize data. I can run a big company. It’s easy for me to make money. I can do anything.” The problem was that while I was busy thinking about better ways to run a company or businesses I could start, I wasn’t really doing anything. I was really just running my mouth.

    Work is Hard

    The moment I was forced to do some of the things I was claiming I was ‘so good at’ I found the tasks extremely hard to do. Solving big problems is not easy. Setting up an ecommerce site is not easy. Going to work everyday is not easy. I had to get over my dream of doing nothing and realize that I’d always be doing something – and so I had to get better at whatever it was I was doing.

    What I was doing was IT work, web design, and online marketing/SEO. But because I had spent all of my free time thinking of new business ventures, reading about startups, or hanging out with friends, I wasn’t spending any amount of time becoming a better IT guy, learning more about web design techniques, or discovering new SEO and online marketing strategies.

    To be fair, I was learning new things about marketing. I recently learned about things like market sophistication, multivariate testing, and content marketing. I was able to apply this new knowledge to clients who needed to use market segmentation to create separate marketing campaigns for different target markets. It also came in handy while writing the marketing strategy for a business plan for one of my customers.

    But there is a lot more I could be doing. I wrote a post on Google Authorship Markup Validation in 2011, but I’ve yet to get it working on my site. My voicemail message still says my old company name and my Gravatar still reflects the old logo. I’m still trying to figure out video and I’ve yet to start an ecommerce store (one of my goals in 2013). However I did start an Amazon Web Store (Amazon’s eCommerce platform) yesterday to try it out. I was looking for something that would let me easily add products and I’ve found that finding suppliers is one of the hardest parts of setting up an ecommerce site. So far I’m not thrilled with it. Why? Because it’s hard.

    Seeking Out Easy

    James Altucher recently wrote, Why Do Anything? In it he writes about how he likes, “to submerge myself completely in water and just float for as long as I can hold my breath.” I used to do this. It was my favorite thing to do when I was on the swim team in high school. As soon as school got out I would race down to the locker room, get changed, and submerge myself in the diving well. I didn’t weigh very much then so I’d sink down about 10 feet until I reached an equilibrium and I’d just hover there, weightless and silent. Nothing could hurt me and all was right with the world – all but my lack of oxygen. I try to recreate this feeling when I’m in the shower, but it’s not the same. That’s the only thing I miss about high school.

    In August of 2012, a little over a year after I first quit my job, I wrote a short post called Always Working. It was the first time I realized that I had a feeling where “I just have to work until [x]” happens. Later I had a dream about a hill behind my house. It was a place I had gone many times before and I knew it very well. There were trails, a playground, a parking lot, and a place to buy candy – all at the top of the hill. The only thing was the hill doesn’t exist in real life. It never did.

    It was clear my perception of work needed to change.

    Recently a friend texted me with the stark realization that he still has 30 more years of work ahead of him. I don’t know. It’s all about your mindset (what people used to call your attitude). To me, work is part of life – and you’re always going to be working – even when you’re not technically working. It’s great if you can do something you love, but it’s better to be better at what you’re doing. Be the best that you can be and things will get better. If you’re a farmer, be the best farmer. If you’re an accountant, be the best accountant. If you’re a writer, be the best writer. If you’re not the best, practice “deliberate practice” in order to get better. This is what great people do. If you want to be great, you have to try to be great – not just think you are great. No one becomes great by doing nothing. There is no hill in your backyard. You cannot float forever. You have to come up for air.

    Slowly I Turned…Step By Step…Inch By Inch

    Seth Godin recently wrote an article for Fast Company about how to build a company slowly and one line stuck out to me and it’s one that I’ll end with:

    Sometimes the best way to be great at something is simply to become better and better at that thing, rather than hoping one or three bold and brilliant choices will reap a windfall.