The Smart Passive Income Online Business And Blogging Podcast

#528 This might sound weird, but I've learned too much. There are a lot of things I picked up in school and in college, and even as an entrepreneur, that are just superfluous. Why am I talking about this? Because it has everything to do with the new book I'm writing, tentatively called The Lean Learner. I've talked about the book a little bit on social media, in SPI Pro, and with a few people, but I wanted to take time in this episode to go into more depth. The Lean Learner is about how to learn the things that matter to us most and can help us get to the next level, while excluding the things we don't need to learn right now. It's about understanding how to learn what we need to learn so we can get results faster. The Lean Learner is definitely not ready for the world yet—I'm still in the middle of writing it—but I think there's nothing better than working in public and sharing things as they're coming along. I'll share a little bit about the struggles and decision points I've had with this book already, in

#527 I'm so excited for this episode. We are speaking with one of my favorite people in the world: Michael Bungay Stanier. Michael is an author who's written a bunch of amazing books. He's also the founder of a training and development company, Box of Crayons, that has taught coaching skills to hundreds of thousands of people. In fact, one of Michael's books has been hugely impactful on my own business, and it's called The Coaching Habit. The Coaching Habit has guided the exact process I use when I coach my students—you can hear it in action when I'm coaching people on AskPat 2.0. Speaking of coaching, Michael also wrote another game-changing book called The Advice Trap, about how we default to offering advice to people before we know the full circumstances, and how to change our behavior to be more helpful to them. But the big focus of today's conversation is Michael's new book, How to Begin: Start Doing Something That Matters. And this book is incredible because it gets to the heart of why we do what we do.

#526 If you listened to this Wednesday's episode, 525, we spoke with Derrick Reimer from SavvyCal, which is a tool that competes with Calendly, a very popular calendar/scheduler. In that episode, Derrick and I talked about competition. We talked about standing out. We talked about how to get started and grow your business in a crowded space. Now, Derrick's in the software business. But there are strategies and principles to help you stand out that apply no matter what type of business you're in. Whether you're an app developer, or a content creator, or serving an audience in some other way, you need to find ways to set yourself apart from everyone else out there. That's why today I want to give you four ideas to help you frame how you can stand out from the competition. Those four things actually have an acronym: P-A-S-T. Why P-A-S-T? Well, that's what you'll find out when you listen in to this follow-up Friday episode. Let's do this! Show notes and more at SmartPassiveIncome.com/session526.See

#525 How do you compete in a space where there are already established players? Whether it's software, or information products, or physical products, it's not always possible to create something entirely original. There are likely others who have already built something and started cultivating an audience or customer base in your space. Today we're talking with Derrick Reimer, who created SavvyCal, a competing tool to popular schedulers like Calendly. As a competitor to an established option, Derrick had to go about things thoughtfully to make sure there would be a market for what he wanted to create. We talk a little bit about SavvyCal itself (and it's a really cool scheduler!). But the big focus of our conversation is how to get started in a crowded space and create something better than what exists. Because it is definitely possible—you just have to go about things smartly. You're going to learn a lot—because I learned a lot—and I hope you'll take what you learn and apply it to the market and niche you're

#524 In Wednesday's episode with Los Silva from eCom Powerhouse, we talked about some of the big mistakes entrepreneurs make. That conversation is a great one, so check it out if you haven't already. And it got me thinking about the mistakes I've made along the way. And I've made a ton of them. In fact, we could talk for seven to eight hours about all the mistakes I've made in my business. But this is a follow-up Friday episode, so I want to talk about just the five biggest mistakes I've made since embarking on my entrepreneurial career in 2008. I'm not going to talk about the little stumbling blocks, like using the wrong software tool. No, today is about the big, juicy mistakes. The ones that can create forks in the road, and really teach you something valuable. So if you're the kind of entrepreneur who's afraid of making mistakes as you build your business, this might be the perfect episode for you! Here's to the mistakes we all make, and what we can learn from them. Show notes and more at SmartPassiveIncom

#523 We all make mistakes in business. I have made several, and this topic is one of the centerpieces of my conversation today with Los Silva of EcomPowerhouse. Los is somebody I recently met and have become fascinated by. Why? Because in getting to know Los, I've begun to realize that his secret to success goes against the grain of what a lot of people talk about. Because sometimes the best way to grow is to actually slow down and go smaller. It's to try lots of different things at the start until you find what clicks. And it's even—yes—to fail, because failure is an opportunity to learn. You'll hear about Los's origin story in the eBay world, and the failures he went through, until landing on something he could lean into. He shares a ton of insights he's learned along the way, including how to hire and delegate the right way, and why he doesn't like to compete or compare himself or his business to anyone else's. He even shares a little thought experiment for those of you out there who are thinking abou

#522 I'm going to let you in on a little secret. It's something I've learned over time that I know I even have to embrace even more now, and it's something that we should all embrace and do more of. Have you ever had trouble selling a thing you made, perhaps because you're just afraid of failing, or you don't want to feel icky about it, or you don't want to let people down or sell out? Perhaps you're afraid of selling because just you don't even know how to? Beyond those questions, there's a chicken-and-egg dilemma that many creators face: how do you sell something with confidence if people haven't actually tried it yet and found great results? Well, what I'm about to share with you in today's episode will help you solve these problems. I'm going to tell you how to find the people who can help you test and sell your next product or service, and who can help tell the story of the transformation they experienced as a result of what you've created for them. Because selling shouldn't be scary—and, as I like to sa

#521 It's one thing to create an online course. But it's a whole other thing to figure out how to get people interested in it. How do you get people to find your course? How do you launch it? Do you do a fireworks launch, or a fireplace launch? What do those two terms even mean? Well, we're going to talk about all of that and more today with one of my favorite people in the world: Jess Catorc. Jess was actually on the podcast before, over five and a half years ago, in session 229. Back then, she was a blogger, writer, and brand strategist who helped people with their websites. Now she's become one of the top people over at Teachable, where she co-leads creator launch initiatives. She was head of partnerships for a while, and she's one of the smartest people I know. Jess and I talk about all things online courses, like how the landscape has changed in the past five years, how to launch a course successfully today, how to know if your course content is actually working, and wh

#520 This past Wednesday I interviewed Mike Pacchione, who is an amazing speaker and coach. Mike once worked with Nancy Duarte, whose organization helped people like Steve Jobs create presentations. And we all know how wonderful Steve Jobs's presentations were. And so Mike is super high caliber when it comes to helping people with their speaking. He even helped me with some of my first presentations back in 2012 and 2013, and he's completely influenced my entire speaking career. Mike and I had a great chat earlier this week about storytelling, so make sure to check out that episode if you haven't already. Because storytelling is absolutely key. It's one of the most valuable skills you can learn as a content creator. Great content, one that relates to people, one that people resonate with, one that people share, always has some sort of story at its core. That's why today I want to tell you a story. A few stories, in fact. Stories about the power of storytelling. Show notes and more at SmartPassiveInc

#519 When I think back on my 13-year entrepreneurial career, I think about some of the skills I've learned to get here, and one of the most important skills is storytelling. But storytelling is not something I've always been good at. In fact, at one point I wasn't great at it at all. But it's a skill that can be learned. When I started sharing lots of content, I realized I needed to learn how to better engage people through stories, to keep them on the page, or screen, or on a podcast like this one. Then, when I started speaking live, I really started to hone my storytelling skills. And there's no other person I can thank more for this than Mike Pacchione, who was my speaking coach back in 2012. I started speaking in 2011, got really hooked on it, and like everything I do, I went and found an expert to help me get better faster and minimize the mistakes. We're going to tell lots of stories today, and break down how stories should be told. Because story is, like I said, what engages an audience. It's what brin

#518 “Audience driven.” It's a term that has become a part of our vocabulary here at Team SPI, and it's why we put on the Audience Driven Summit earlier this month. An audience-driven approach is the way we've always believed a business should be built, and it's the stance we're doubling down on today. It's how we believe all businesses should be created. And if you joined us in this Wednesday's episode, you heard how Arvid Kahl built his own business in the exact same way, where you spent some time to build an audience first, and then you understand, well, what does that audience need help with? What are the biggest struggles that they might be having? And then you figure out, well, how can I get a few of these people some results? What works best for them? When you take this approach, you're not going to know all the answers. But you'll find them out as you go along. It takes out the guesswork, because your path toward a sustainable business is driven by your audience. Now, this is a very opposite approach

#517 Many of the guests on this show are people I know personally. Today's guest, however, comes to me by way of crowdsourcing. Arvid Kahl is someone who was recommended by several of the members of Team SPI, and I couldn't be happier that they did. Arvid is one of the most fascinating people I've met in a long time. He's a software engineer and entrepreneur who's been building businesses the right way. What do I mean by that? Well, everything that I've talked about in terms of finding an audience you can serve and figuring out what they need? Arvid is doing it about as well as anybody out there, and he's going to tell us all about it today. This is going to be a really great episode because we're going to be going, almost from start to finish, from building an audience, to learning about that audience, and building something for that audience. You're going to learn a number of powerful principles and strategies that'll help you get started building a following, a community, and a business today. Show notes a

#516 We're going to talk some numbers today—and we're also going to go beyond the numbers. Here's one number: This podcast has gotten 65 million downloads and counting, which is awesome. And it's important to share numbers like that, because they represent social proof that the podcast is worth paying attention to. But there's something much more important than a number like 65 million: the people at the other end of it. On Wednesday, I spoke with Dustin Bakkie about accessibility and universal design. We talked about how creators and entrepreneurs can make our content more accessible to those who may be hearing or sight impaired, or have another disability. Everyone should have an equal ability to access the things we're creating. So, go ahead and listen to episode 515, if you haven't already. It's a great one, on a topic that's so important. That episode also got me thinking about numbers—big numbers like 65 million, and small numbers like ten. And how getting fixated on the numbers can cause us to make bad

#515 One of my favorite things that happens as a result of this podcast is when a listener or fan says, "You know what, Pat? I noticed that you haven't really talked about [topic] much, but it's so, so important. Is there anything you can do about it?" We get a lot of feedback like that, and we appreciate it. We're always trying to improve, and how would we know how to improve if it weren't for the people in our community who speak up? Today, I wanted to highlight one of those community members. His name is Dustin Bakkie. Dustin started his online journey focused on effective teaching and course design. He's helped a lot of teachers, especially through his YouTube channel (DustinBakkie1). He has a lot of really popular videos that have helped teachers, especially during COVID with how to effectively use Zoom, and how to create really good curriculums online, something that obviously bleeds over into entrepreneurship. But Dustin recently had an epiphany that he could serve his audience even better by helping c

#514 I started my speaking career in 2011 at FinCon, the financial blogger conference. I got called onto the main stage at the last minute because the keynote speaker was unable to make it. I was kind of thrown into the deep end, and although I was nervous and scared, it was a life-changing moment. Flash-forward to 2018, when I decided to host my own conference. I pitched the idea to Team SPI, and we decided that in the summer of 2019 we'd put on an event in San Diego for 500 people who wanted to come. The very first FlynnCon was an amazing experience, a family-friendly event where entrepreneurs could come together and learn and connect (and even play some Mario Kart). Then of course in 2020, everything changed. We'd hoped to run back FlynnCon for a second year, but the pandemic had something to say about that. So we delayed it by a year. But soon we realized that hosting an in-person event in 2021 wasn't going to happen either. Long story short, FlynnCon was an incredible experience that may or may not happe

#513 A lot has changed recently when it comes to online courses. For a while, it was all about having as much content as possible. Sixty hours of video and five hundred worksheets? Great! Ship it! We might have thought that way once, but we know now that's just the wrong way to build a course. We want our course experiences to be more efficient—for both the course creator and the students taking it. But online courses have continued to evolve beyond just more efficiency. It's about the experience people have around that content, and how we can enhance their learning through extra guidance and community. This evolution is showing up in the form of cohort-based courses—”cohort” meaning a group of people, in this case, course students. The concept isn't exactly new. Cohort-based learning has been around for a while. (You may be familiar with “schools” and “classrooms.”) But when it comes to online education, cohort-based courses have come to the fore thanks to people like Seth Godin and his altMBA prog

#512 This past week I interviewed Joe Sanok from Practice of the Practice, who is the author of a new book called Thursday is the New Friday. My chat with Joe really got me thinking, "Who created the five-day week anyway, and why is it like that?" I think we've all been burnt out by working five days a week, and feeling like the weekend isn't quite long enough. What if we had an extra day? How cool would that be? Now, today's episode is actually going to take a bit of a different angle! But it's one that was sparked by the episode with Joe. That's because in thinking about a four-day workweek, I started to wonder: “Okay, four days a week. I could spend the other three days fishing on a boat with my kids, my family, building memories that will last forever. What would it take to make that happen?" So that's what I want to talk about today: how to start making your goals and dreams of the next phase (or next-next phase) of your life a little more possible. Maybe like me your dream is owning a boat, or having a

#511 Perhaps you've heard about the four-hour workweek. Well, a lot of us have come to realize that it's kind of hard to come by. Even Tim Ferriss, author of The 4-Hour Work Week, has said that maybe wasn't the best title for his book. Because even with passive income coming in, you still have to do work to maintain things. Four hours is probably out of the question for most of us—but what about a four-day workweek? That's three days for a weekend, four days of work, then rinse and repeat. In fact, this has become the norm in places like Iceland, where 85 percent of workers are working just four days a week. And guess what? They still get paid the same, and productivity is up. So the question is, when is this going to happen in the US? Well, the truth is it can happen right now if you are an entrepreneur and you control your own time. And even if you're not an entrepreneur, you can still make this happen if you're smart about it and willing to have the right conversations with your employer. Thankfully, my go

#510 Earlier this week, we spoke with Dorie Clark, author of the brand new book The Long Game, about being in it for the long haul and doing the things now that will ensure long-term success in your business and your life. And we talked about a lot of strategies to ensure that you're always staying on top of your business, your community, and your physical and mental health. Today I want to talk a little about a related question: how do we remain consistent? Because if you're in it for the long haul in this creator economy, it can take a lot to remain consistent. It can be tough to be continually uploading and creating content, continually showing up for your community, and continually providing value. It takes a lot of energy. And having now created 510 episodes of the Smart Passive Income Podcast, nearly 1,200 episodes of AskPat, more than 1,000 videos on YouTube, and more than 1,000 blog posts, we've been pretty consistent. Now, I haven't been consistent the entire time. There've been moments where I've be

#509 Are you in this for the long game, or the quick buck? The problem with short-term thinking is that it's so vulnerable. When you go for the long game, you're building something that will last—and perhaps even outlast you. Thankfully, most of the entrepreneurs I speak to are thinking about how to succeed in the long term. Now, you may not make a lot of money upfront by playing the long game. And you may have to dedicate more time than you'd like initially. But the end result is that you'll have more time and money and freedom down the road. We're talking with one of my favorite people today: Dorie Clark, author of The Long Game: How to Be a Long-Term Thinker in a Short-Term World. Dorie and I chatted on here a long time ago, in session 161. She had just come out with a couple of books, Entrepreneurial You and Stand Out that have gotten really great reviews. We're going to discuss what it actually means to play the long game in today's world of short attention spans. What does it mean to sacrifice now so we