The 4 Levels of Learning – The Secret to Hacking New Skills

November 29/by JC

McDonald’s just mentioned this past week that they’re going to be introducing automation to their restaurants in a big way this next year.

I shared it on Facebook and the overwhelming thought process is that the world is moving to a more and more automated society.What does this mean for people who work the jobs that are affected by automation?

Well, here in Indiana, it’s meant that many of those displaced workers have had to go to school and get taught a new set of skills for a changing economy.

In this post, I’m going to share with you the 4 Levels of Learning and how we all should navigate them to master our new skills.

Why This is Important

You might be thinking, “JC, I know if I know something or not. Why do I need labels?”. The truth is that you might not need labels.

But some of us – me included – want to decipher the world that’s going on around us. I like to categorize people by their personalities, their strengths, their age, and their education level because I know that each one of those things will tell me a little about where they’re coming from.

That’s just one example of breaking down a complex system into smaller ones. It helps me relieve stress in trying to figure out where people are coming from. With those labels, I kind of know what to expect.

Same thing is true when it comes to labeling where you are in your learning journey. It helps you realize where you are in your process so you know whether or not you have more things to learn or if you’re ready to help other people know what you know – if that’s your type of thing. 🙂

So, let’s get started:

Level 1: A grandson getting to see what biking is all about.

Level 1: Unconscious Incompetence

Do you remember the first time that you found out that something existed and you had to find out more about it? Probably not. When was the last time? Probably today, huh?

That state that you were in before you found out that thing existed was you being unconsciously incompetent. In other words, you didn’t know what you didn’t know.

In this state, you might have a sense of wonder, awe, and excitement – just like the grandson in the image to the right.

Level 2: Starting out on his first bike ride

Level 2: Conscious Incompetence

Ok, so you know this entire new world exists now of this new thing. Let’s say it’s riding a bike.

You might have seen all the big kids do it in your neighborhood. Heck, they might have been doing tricks on them.

As you start trying to start to ride a bike, you realize that you can’t even keep the damn thing up – let alone jump.

There’s just so much to learn and to do.

The thing with this phase is to know that you’re going to suck for awhile. You might even hate it and stress out a bit.

Learning to pedal and steer on training wheels all the way up to learning to keep balance. These were all things we had to learn to ride.

But in retrospect as someone who’s learned to ride now, you realize that you needed to “embrace the suck” in learning to ride a bike.

How many times did you fall off your bike when you were learning to just ride it?

I know I started laughing so hard everytime I fell off. I didn’t know what hurt more – my chest from laughing or my stomach from getting hit from the handlebars! 🙂

Level 3: A more seasoned vet saves himself from a spill.

Level 3: Conscious Competence

After enough practice, things to get a bit more fun. You’ll begin to realize that you know the basics of what you’re doing and you’re aware of what’s going on.

When I was learning to ride my bike, I didn’t really care about doing jumps. I just wanted to learn to ride FAST! Once I figured that out, I then wanted to get better at using my gears to get up hills better. Later, as I picked up riding again in college, it was going down small stairs and popping small hops to get on sidewalks.

In your situation, it might take you a shorter time than a year plus to figure out your new skill. It might take you more time. Again, it depends on how often you practice your skill (once a week vs 10 days straight) and how focused you are when you’re doing it.

Level 4: A young master working on his craft.

Level 4: Unconscious Competence

By the time you reach level 4, you’ve hit a certain level of mastery of the skill. You might not have everything down, but you’ve learned enough that new people are coming to you because you just seem to have the answers. Your skill is really just a part of who you are at this point.

In the biking example, I can think of the process it took me to learn how to ride, but that process was over many years as I needed to learn bits here and there. As I was learning them, I wasn’t thinking of the process it took me to get to that point.

All masters have this problem.

That’s why I say you should make it a usual practice to meet and engage with people who are just one or two steps ahead of you. They can teach you things better than if you were talking with a master. In fact, that’s exactly why, I’ve had to tune out Pat and other experts more recently. It’s not that I don’t think they know what they’re talking about. It’s simply that they’re so far up in their experience that they’ve gone into what I call “professor mode”. Thankfully Pat still explains things now in 2016 like he always has, but I’d really like to be talking to 2011 Pat as he was discovering things that I’m discovering myself today. Thankfully that Pat is still available in the archives (via the Wayback Machine.)

Bonus! Level 5: Shared Competence

You might have heard that the quickest and easiest way to learn something is to try and teach it to someone else. I heard this all the time as I was going through college and it wasn’t really until my first time as a lab TA that I found out what this really meant. I was used to teaching my friends who were closer to me in skill, but when it came to teaching freshman students, wow – there was definitely a difference!

If you are trying to become an expert in a field or someone who is trying to teach to others how to do something, you’re going to have to break down what you already know into steps your audience can follow. The higher your expertise, the trickier that’s going to become.

That’s why the best way to do it is to think of a transformation you want someone to go through and then make a 5 to 7 step process that they’ll make that transformation in.

That way, you’ll have it in small enough bites that the new person doesn’t get mind blown by all there is to know and you’ll be able to keep on eye on their progression easier.

How would you teach someone to ride a bike? What would those 5 steps be?

Action Steps:

So I hope that this process gives you a little more of an understanding of where you are in learning your new skill in whatever it is that you’re learning to do.

I think if you know that these are all part of doing something new, then you’ll probably have less stress about the small stuff… (unless you’re in engineering in college. Than it’s always going to suck until you graduate! Lol. jk!) Having less stress about learning something new will empower you to embrace who you are even more and just take things in stride a bit more.

Below I’d love to hear from you guys where you’re at in your journey of learning a new skill. Have you learned to embrace the suck? Do you find it hard to explain certain things to newbies? Let me know!

How to Inexpensively Start a New Podcast: Exporting and Distribution

November 1/by JC

In this third and final installment of this beginner’s podcast guide, I’m going to be discussing the final parts in starting your podcast: exporting and distribution. Of course, if you’re new to podcasting and are wondering what the other installments are about, you can find them here (Equipment and Software) and here (Planning and Production).

Also, just a reminder, we’re loosely using Pat Flynn’s 2012 video tutorial as the backbone of this tutorial. However, we’re focusing more on doing it for less than what Pat recommended at the time.

So let’s get started…

Let’s start with Pat’s video in where he shows how to export your podcast in Garageband:

Logic User Differences:

Again, I’m not sure if Pat still has his team use Garageband to produce the SPI podcast or not, but I do know that if you’re an audiophile – you’re probably using something a little more professional.

If you want to go the more professional route right out of the gate, Logic is a good choice. You’ll have to pay for it ($200 at the Apple Store), but you’ll definitely learn a lot more along the way about production – if you want to.

Again, Chase talks about them in his tutorial on Fizzle.co (that’s a link for free trial to Fizzle) because he uses Logic to produce the Fizzle Show.

But to save you some time, here’s the export settings that you’ll want to configure Logic to export or “bounce” your project to:

My Logic X Bounce Options

Now, when you do this, you’re going to have a rather large file still as you’re publishing to a raw audio format. Most podcasts are in mp3 format.

“Why not go with mp3 here?”, you ask.

Well, you could and I’m sure many people do. But in Chase’s video he explains that your audio is more than likely going to be in stereo if you export directly from here.

There’s nothing wrong with that if you like to have your audience feel like one person is on the left and another person is on the right and so on.

Like Chase, I prefer to have the audio in mono because it shrinks the file size of the final file by half.

Here are the settings that I use in Compressor ($50 via Apple) to shrink my show to small files (because it’s mono) but still reasonably good quality audio:

The settings I have for Compressor

You should know that Compressor is typically used for video files (specifically Final Cut Pro files) but you don’t have to have Final Cut for it to work.

Normalizing and The Levelator:

One of the things that Pat mentioned in his tutorial that he used to do is use the Levelator to bring all his voices and sounds to the same volume level.

It’s a great simple solution.

However, if your show is designed to have manual fade-ins and fade-outs, or you purposely alter the volume to censor cusses, or anything that changes the volume, then using the Levelator is not going to be your best choice. It will basically destroy all those fine tunings.

This has been my case.

I use Fade-ins and outs to transition from one part of the show to another. The Levelator destroys those transitions.

So for the longest time I’ve been struggling with making sure that everyone sounds good on multiple speakers. In my office, many of my shows sound great, but when I got them to my car which has a much different setting than my office, my side of the conversation would sound much fainter.

I think I’ve fixed that as of session 59. Per Chase’s advice via the Fizzle forums and Podcast Master Cody Boyce’s help, I’ve started altering the output level of the entire track. Hopefully this will be a welcome chance to those of you who listen in your cars as well as your headphones.

After Exporting but before Distribution

Tagging:

Ok, so getting back on track here. The next thing that Pat talked about was tagging your new mp3 file. (We’re at the 15:13 mark in the first video in the process if you’re wondering where we’re at.)

Only thing I’ll say here is that Macs have it easy because you can do it in iTunes. However, if you don’t want to get iTunes on your PC, you can use Mp3tag to do it. It’s free, but if you use it quite often, you might want to consider a donation. 🙂

Here are the tags that I use for my show (depending on who my cohosts are):

Tags for the Angles of Lattitude Podcast

Artwork:

You probably noticed that as part of my tags, I have my “generic artwork”. Artwork is huge. You can’t forget it – and unfortunately, many podcasters do.

You want to make sure that you have some sort of generic piece that you’ll be able to post on all of your shows.

Feel free to make personal cover art for your guests!

Pat used and continues to use one piece of artwork for his podcast. If he’s changed it since then, it wasn’t much.

That said, I change mine every show based on who I’m talking to. I give each one of my guests their own individual “cover art”. And when you have a template going like I do, it doesn’t take too much longer to add this personal touch.

The artwork that is in the tags is usually what the player will play in your listener’s player – unless it uses the generic artwork provided to the place where people are downloading your show from.

I know that you can’t change Stitcher and Google Play’s artwork as they overlay the generic artwork that you’ve chosen to register with them. On the other hand, iTunes, SoundCloud, and any player that actually downloads the file to your listening device, will more than likely use the artwork you provide for that particular file.

So my recommendation is definitely have a generic artwork image that you use per show. But if you have an interview based show, feel free to give your guests a little more appreciation by giving them their own cover image!

Distribution:

Ok, now we want to get our podcast into the world. How do we do that? The best way to do it is to use a remote host to do the work for us. Pat will explain this in detail here:

Through my experience, Libsyn is a great option for all the reasons Pat mentioned.

Another thing to note is Libsyn is set up in a way that you can upload it at one point and then it will become available whenever it is published. Before it is published, you get a link for where it will be linked from.

This means that you can get all your show notes all ready to go before the actual launch of that particular show. Essentially you can set it to go off and then work on getting your marketing ready to go.

This is a great thing.

However, the more bang I can get for my buck, the more I’ll want to use a particular option. For Chase and I, we both use SoundCloud as the host for our show.

And while we can’t actually set it up before hand like Libsyn (SoundCloud only gives their file link after it’s published – and even then you have to look for it in Settings > Content. Then copying and pasting the rss feed URL to another tab and then searching for “URL=” in that page of code to find your files. Ugh.), all the metrics that comes with Libsyn’s middle pricing tier is available through the basic tier of SoundCloud.

So, I’ll say this. If getting your content ready to go ahead of time is priority and you don’t do things at the last minute like Chase and myself, then you’ll want to definitely go with libsyn. If you just want to go the least expensive route – SoundCloud is currently the way to go.

That said, everything else as far as setting up Blubrry hasn’t changed – so I’ll leave Pat’s last video here:

Action Steps:

Alright, guys. There you have it. That’s the basics of how I do my podcasts. Again, mad kudos to Pat and Chase for their help in teaching me this process.

Now it’s time to start your own show.

I hope this gives you a little more insight into the behind the scenes of doing a show so you can start yours or make your current process a bit more efficient and/or easier on the wallet.

If you have any questions regarding this process, feel free to contact me using the contact page. I’d be glad to help you out in any way I can!

Drew Badger: Touring Alaska and Teaching English by Rejecting the Menu (AoL 059)

October 27/by JC

It seems that most everyone in the world wants to be a part of modern western culture in one way or another. I don’t think you can go far in most big cities in the world without seeing a McDonald’s or Burger King.

That said, traveling abroad shouldn’t be this big scary thing anymore – especially if you’re American.

There seems to be hundreds of books, podcasts, courses, shows and instagram accounts about travel and learning to speak other languages. But for so many people, it still seems unobtainable. To actually get out and move around the world and explore.

Today’s guest, Drew Badger, is all about getting out of the norm. In fact, that’s how he’s lived his life for quite awhile now.

Having grown up in the midwest and going to Japan as soon as he could, he’s done something that many only dream of doing.

But he didn’t stop there. He’s always looking to do more outside of the norm – rejecting the menu.

So that’s what we talk about in this session. The ideas and influences he had as he was growing up that made him go live a life of adventure.

We also talk a bit about how he started English Anyone, and how he’s been able to make the brand as successful as it is.

Enjoy, and thanks for listening.

SPECIFICALLY, YOU’LL FIND OUT MORE ABOUT:

Where did he get his entrepreneurial know how from early on? 10:00
What was the some of biggest game changers in his business? 19:21
How he got paid to take a tour of Alaska. 25:15
How can people get out of their own box to see what’s really available to them? 28:26
How did a guy who grew up in Chicago end up living in Japan? 35:05
How he did Drew go from teaching English in person to doing it on YouTube? 44:36
What does he contribute to his success on YouTube? 55:17
What his really cool upcoming language app is all about. 1:01:56
Who are three influencial teachers in his life? 1:05:36
One gift he likes giving others. 1:08:26
What is something he used to believe as a 30 year old and now knows is wrong and why? 1:09:30
What is one thing under $100 that has changed his life? 1:11:44
What does it mean to live a life of abundance? 1:13:15
… and MUCH more!
Right click here and save-as to download this episode to your computer.

ITEMS and PEOPLE MENTIONED IN THIS EPISODE:

Drew Online: English Anyone, YouTube, Facebook
Ingress
Osaka Garden in Chicago
Princess Mononoke & Totoro
Ryokan – Traditional Japanese Inn
Dane Maxwell’s AoL Interview
Robert Kiyosaki (Author of Rich Dad, Poor Dad)
22 Inmmutable Laws of Marketing by Al Ries & Jack Trout (Amazon Link)
Mark Nathan’s AoL Interview
Jonathan Fields’ Preview via Fizzle (Get 5 Weeks of Free Fizzle here!)
Brendon Burchard’s High Performance Academy

SHOW NOTE EXTRAS:

Thoughts on the New iPhone:

More on Rejecting the Menu:

Drew and his Dad on learning English:

Gabby Wallace Interviews Drew:

Thanks so much for joining us again this week. Have some feedback you’d like to share? Leave a note in the comment section below!

If you enjoyed this episode, please share it using the social media buttons you see at the top of the post.

Also, please leave an honest review for The AoL Podcast on iTunes! Ratings and reviews are extremely helpful and greatly appreciated! They do matter in the rankings of the show, and we read each and every one of them.

If you have any questions feel free to email them over via the email mentioned in the show or by our contact form.

And finally, don’t forget to subscribe to the show on iTunes, Stitcher, Soundcloud, and/or Google Play Music. It’s absolutely free to do so.

A huge thank-you to you guys for joining us!

Cheers!

Are you a Brick or a Stone? Personal Freedom is A Decision

October 4/by JC

This week I’m going to be releasing a very special interview of myself and Daniel’s. The guest is Dane Maxwell, formerly known as the guy who has helped numerous people build their own SaaS (Software as a Service) based businesses through a program called “The Foundation”.

If you’re not familiar with Dane, check him out on one of Pat’s “early” podcasts via this link. This interview was a game changer (and still is!) for many online entrepreneurs.

The election process is something that a lot of people take for granted. But in the US, we shouldn’t ever forget how many people have fought for what we have today.

Unfortunately, the powers that are in control in society – especially the media and the federal government – have led many of us to believe we’re only capable of what others say we are.

If you look at both sides of presidential ticket, one side says we need more protection from all the bad things in the world, while the other one says that we need protection from all the challenges that we might face in the world.

Either way you look at it, the Federal Government is trying to tell us we need more of it in our lives.

In return they’ll give us liberty to live a peaceful life and just keep doing what we’re doing.

But is it really so simple?

We’re All Stones Treated as Bricks

I recently heard an analogy about how the world is trying to make us copies of each other. Like we’re being made into bricks to be the infrastructure of this society. We all conform into a certain code of conduct.

And we do. Especially those of us who are products of higher forms of formal education.

It’s what our school system trains us to be. Teach to the test, not the individual.

Sure this is fair treatment, but is it the best treatment?

I don’t think so. Not everyone is the same naturally.

Instead of bricks, we’re more like stones. Some of us are big, some are small. Some have weird angles and yet others are made of different materials.

You can still build with stones… but not as easily as you can with bricks.

It’s easy to understand why working with brick might be more preferable by a craftsman (or in the real world, the top 1% of the top 1%). They want the easiest way to build something that has a strong structure.

But value of the end result isn’t going to be as high as if stones were used.

With bricks, you just place each one on top of each other until you have the form you want and put a roof on it. With stones, you have to strategically think about how each stone fits into the building.

Like Glenn, when I see a stone house, I admire the work that went into it.

Can You Be a Stone once You’ve been Trained as a Brick?

When it comes to people, I believe so. We’re never truly bricks. We’re just treated that way.

That’s really what New Inceptions is all about. Helping people who think they’re bricks “refind” their uniqueness. Their own perfect spot in the world.

When it comes to finding your spot, Dane wants us all to know about our individual worth and value. We are valued for who we are and our contributions to helping others.

You might have heard that he’s becoming a musician to get that message out. Further than he could with The Foundation.

His songs are meant to help people feel loved and appreciated for who they are. Here’s a glimpse:

I recommend subscribing to his newsletter to get the rest of his new songs.

But yes, it takes a lot of work to find what makes you unique and realize you’re a stone.

Exercising Your Personal Freedom

Here’s the deal. You, like me, or even Dane, are not defined by your past.

We don’t have to always be the person that everyone sees us as.

Perhaps society and your education would make you believe otherwise, but really your future does not rely on who you’ve been or what you currently think of myself.

Heck, just yesterday Maria let me know of a guy who killed himself over the pressures of what was going on in his life. From what I understand, he turned to alcohol and other means of blocking out the pain. And eventually it got to him. You really have to feel for his family and the grief that he caused them.

But yet, I’m sure he felt stuck.

It doesn’t have to be that way.

As Sandra Bellamy said in session 50 of the podcast, you need to embrace your quirkiness. Or as I would simply put it, you need to exercise your personal freedom.

How do you do that?

Well, besides what Sandra suggests, I’d become familiar familiar with the 5 Obstacles of Personal Freedom. Start with health because you can’t really help people if you don’t have the energy to.

With it being October of 2016, I want to make sure you’re aware of the fifth one.

You need to know what liberties are currently granted to you in your country. Essentially these are the rules that you have to play by.

If you’re like me, you’ll want to fight to keep things as free as they are. The more liberties governments gives their people, it’s usually done through taking away something else that we weren’t aware of.

Remember that the Constitution is all about what powers the government has – not what liberties it gives us. The government should work for us, not the other way around.

And currently it’s looking more and more like we’re bricks working for it.

Wrap Up

As you’re hearing this heavy pounding of political ads this month in the US, I want you to remember the difference between Personal Freedom and Personal Liberty.

Personal Liberty is the “playing field” that the outside world gives us. Personal Freedom is the freedom you give yourself to be the natural you in that space.

Familiarize yourself with which candidates talk about giving you more freedom. Not necessarily those who talk about “being fair”. Brick makers are usually the ones who talk about strong “education” and treating each other as “equals”.

With the internet, you can educate yourself. Educate yourself to be the best version of you and not what formal education teaches you is “important”.

Also, we shouldn’t judge people by what their demographics are. We should judge them based on their character and their actions – if at all. No one person is inherently better than the next.

Not a person who owns 16 profitable businesses or a person who has a spark of a dream.

Now, get out there and meet some other stones!

Barrett Brooks: ConvertKit Transition, Empowerment of Others, and Meaningful Conversations (AoL 054)

September 22/by JC

We’ve all felt that feeling where, at the end of the day, you wish you felt better about the work that you’re doing. Perhaps you feel like you’re stuck in a rut. Maybe you want to pursue something else with your time? Make more impact on people.

How do you do that?

There’s so much to the answer of that simple questions.

Like the team at New Inceptions, Barrett Brooks, today’s guest, is all about helping people make an impact. He did it with his first business called Living for Monday, then went on to join Fizzle, and now he works with ConvertKit as their Brand Strategist and Community Builder.

In this chat with Barrett, we find out more about that transition to ConvertKit and what he looks forward to doing with them. We also got the opportunity to find out more about his time with Seth Godin, why he likes empowering others, and why he believes meaningful conversations are the basis for great relationships.

SPECIFICALLY, YOU’LL FIND OUT MORE ABOUT:

How Barrett got involved with ConvertKit 8:00
What’s the people and culture at ConvertKit like? 11:28
Who is ConvertKit for? 13:48
What was Barrett’s time with Seth Godin like? 15:56
Knowing what he knows now about business, how would he have changed his business plan for his old business “Living for Mondays”. 23:13
How did Barrett get started with Fizzle.co? 26:17
What were things that made Barrett want to become an empowerer of others? 29:05
Where does he get his interest in politics and world events? 40:02
Why he believes that great relationships are built on deep conversations and connections. 45:16
Who does Barrett coach and how does he reach out to them? 47:26
His thoughts in how to get more people in deep and meaningful conversations. 52:01
Biggest 3 Influencers in Barrett’s Life 59:24
What he believed when he was 21 and now sees as bogus. 1:00:11
Who’s the most awe-inspiring person he’s met? 1:01:23
One thing under $100 that has changed his life. 1:02:37
Who comes to mind when he thinks of success? 1:03:10
… and MUCH more!

Right click here and save-as to download this episode to your computer.

ITEMS and PEOPLE MENTIONED IN THIS EPISODE:

Barrett’s Choice Books:

SHOW NOTE EXTRAS:

Barrett’s TEDx Talk

Teaser for the Fizzle Jess Lively Interview

Jess Lively Interview:

His interview via Talking Davos:

Thanks for Listening!

Thanks so much for joining us again this week. Have some feedback you’d like to share? Leave a note in the comment section below!

If you enjoyed this episode, please share it using the social media buttons you see at the top of the post.

If you have any questions feel free to email them over via the email mentioned in the show or by our contact form.

And finally, don’t forget to subscribe to the show on iTunes, Stitcher, Soundcloud, and/or Google Play Music. It’s absolutely free to do so.

A huge thank-you to you guys for joining us!

Cheers!

How to Make a Personal Development Plan for Your Business Which You’ll Be Sure to Stick To!

September 20/by JC

In the last post, I talked about Just In Time Learning. This is something that I’ve been learning quite a bit about recently.

Before I was focusing on building New Inceptions, I would always just listen to whatever the influencers had to say. Many times just because it was actionable information.

But, I never took action and therefore it was really just entertainment.

Once I did start focusing, however, I was able to actually apply what I was learning. And then I would naturally have more questions that needed answers. And the process would keep going.

This process has lead to me mastering skills and abilities that I didn’t know I’d even have before starting on the journey of building a business.

Want to know my strategy for mastering parts of my business? Here you go:

Step-by-step process: How to Make a Personal Development Plan for Your Business that You’ll Be Sure to Stick To

I’m going to walk you through all six steps here. Follow along and do what I do.

Step 1: Brainstorm

Using a mind map, I want you to think of 10 to 15 things that you believe that you could that could take your business to the next level.

Before you think of those items, I want you to give yourself 4 different categories that will help you with your thinking.

These 4 different categories are things that would help your business grow. So, for example, here are 4:

Speaking opporutunities
A website
Products
Engaging with potential clients

If you’ve never heard of a mind map, here’s what one might look like (via Pat Flynn in this 2008 post).

These are examples of things that Pat could make money from.

This mind mapping process can give you a much clearer sense of what’s important and you need to be focusing on next.

Step 2: From Your Mindmapping, preferably pick skills and topics that are in the Personal Development Sweet Spot.

Meaning that:

You have a competency in or can perform it.
You have a passion for it (or it’s existence will help your passion).
Other people will want it.

Here’s a visualization of where you should be working:

Step 3: Prioritize – which of these chosen skills or actions will have the most impact on your business?

Now that you’ve brought this list down a bit, let’s see if it makes sense to do them right now.

First, do any of the items that you’re thinking about working on fall into one of the 6 Cornerstones of a Successful Online Business?

For example, if one of your items is learning how to use a certain type of social media (because one of the 4 topics we listed was engaging with potential clients), then you’d learn that social media, when it comes to business, is a form of marketing.

However, another one of our topics was “a website”.

Would it make sense to market your services first or have a place on the web (or in the real world for that matter) where people can find out more about you?

That’s where a website is needed. Marketing and engagement should come after actually having somewhere for people to find out more about what you’re doing.

Again, get the 6 Cornerstones eBook to help with this part.

Step 4: Evidence of Accomplishment

So let’s say that you pick doing a website now because you accept what I said in the last step.

How will you know that your website is done enough that you can start marketing it?

What does “Done” look like here?

That decision is going to be up to you. You might just opt for a long one page solution. Or, you might feel that you want to create different pages that that have different jobs. What’s best for what you’re wanting to do?

You have to start with the end in mind of what you want to achieve before you go looking for how you should do it.

Examples of things that might be considered “done” in my book would include:

My New Product is available.
I have a landing page for that new product.

Or if I wanted to work on traffic and leads:

How many new followers do I need to have in order to get X traffic?

Knowing what you’re looking for will help you do the next step…

Step 5: Find and List 10 Resources or People That You Might Be Able to Learn it From

Ok, so how do you find someone that has the knowledge (free or for a premium) that will help you do what you want to do?

I have 5 suggestions you can to with increasing cost to get what you’re looking for:

Search YouTube – You’ll find the free options here. Many times, though, they’re previews of the main course.
Subscribe to Fizzle – Only $35 a month and it covers all the bases of what you need to know at any given time while building a young business. (Use this link for 2 weeks for free!)

Here’s the main page of Fizzle’s library of courses. Now you see why I recommend them!!

Go to a site like Lynda.com or uDemy to find specific skills for your business.
Buy a big ol’ course from a lead influencer. These usually have the best results because they’re so rich in details, but you will be paying through the nose for it. (These can typically cost anywhere from $500 – $5000 per course!!) You’ll hear about these courses from big mediapreneurs like Pat Flynn, Jordan Harbinger, and Lewis Howes.
Buy a course from a lesser known person through a site like Producthunt.com. Results might definitely vary here, but you might find a bargain!!

Step 6: Implementation through Accountability

Learning about some new topic, strategy, or skill, won’t mean anything unless you put what you’re learning about to use.

Some people like to buy the higher cost courses just because the higher cost will keep them more accountable to implementing what they’ve learned.

However, many of those courses are time sensitive and will expect your full focus right away. Often times you get to meet others through these courses and help each other accomplish more together.

…

Side Note: If you’re wondering how much a product that is currently being hyped will cost – the more hype combined with the more results a free portion of the product will yield, the more you can expect the final program costing.

So a great example of this was the recent Ryan Levesque’s Ask Method. He was on several shows giving great quality in-depth pointers in how to actually do something. He was also mentioned several times in email campaigns by other folks as affiliates. The actual cost of the program is unknown to me, but I would go out on a limb and guess it was easily $2000 to $5000 per participant. And if people wanted to work with him in a small workshop type of function – that could easily start that price at $10k for the entry price.

Personally, I’ve been through two programs like this: The John Maxwell Team Certification Program and The Foundation. My networks have blossomed greatly because of my involvement with both.

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Other resources that are available all the time won’t require as much focus and chances are their price points won’t be in the thousands.

However, you won’t be getting built in accountability with it.

If you have a network already in place of people who are ready to be accountable with you in whatever you want to work on, then you don’t need that extra price

If you’re just getting starting on your business, here’s my suggestion: Hop on Fizzle and make use of their Roadmap or if you’re a reader, read Pat Flynn’s book Will It Fly?

Action Steps:

Here’s my challenge to you.

Pick 5 topics or skills that you’re going to learn about within the next month or so by the end of this week. Then start learning about the first one next week. It might take you longer than a week to learn and do as much as you can for each one. How quickly you learn them is completely up to you.

But you’ll have focus because you’ll know what you’re supposed to be learning about!

And, of course, the bright side of that is that you won’t go crazy trying to convince yourself you need to be doing 20 different things!

Let me know how it works out for you below!

Tips for Starting a SaaS Business and Exploring Current Events with Matej Leban (AoL 053)

September 15/by JC

Have you heard of The Foundation? The one educational program with Dane Maxwell teaching people how to build a SaaS based business? Perfect students are those who don’t have their own idea, money, or skills to make it work out on their own?

If you haven’t, go check it out!

If you have heard of it, you might have heard that the hardest problem that many Foundation students have is finding someone to work on the technical aspect of things. They don’t know where to look or how to vet those that they have found on a site like Upwork.

That’s where today’s guest, Matej Leban comes in.

Just like other students, Matej struggled with this part. Eventually, though, he figured out a way around it.

Today with SaaSBloom, he helps others do the same thing.

In this chat, we talk about that story and some tips he’s learned in making a profitable SaaS. We also discuss why a guy like him, who’s from Eastern Europe, would be interested in US Politics.

SPECIFICALLY, YOU’LL FIND OUT MORE ABOUT:

Matej’s Experience Being a Mentor in the Foundation 8:52
What flipped his entrepreneurial switch. 11:21
Some tips that Matej has learned to successfully cold contact potential clients. 20:28
Where the idea for SaaSBloom came from 24:20
What Matej would use to create in the world. 32:54
Why Matej, who’s from Eastern Europe, has an interest in US Politics. 34:06
Sources that Matej follows to stay on top of World Events 48:50
What are 3 influencers that have influenced Matej to where he is today 55:21
One gift he likes giving the most. 57:43
One thing Matej believed when he was 28 years old, but doesn’t any longer. 58:19
If he was going to place an ad cost free into world, what would it be? 2:32
One thing under $100 that has changed his life. 3:54
When he thinks of success, who comes to mind? 1:04:58
… and MUCH more!