productivity

100 Lessons I Learned In 2016

December 31, 2016 by Marc Guberti Leave a Comment

You and I are heading towards 2017, and the best time to prepare for an awesome year is right now. I dove through dozens of books, hundreds of videos and thousands of blog posts in 2016, and this is what I’ve learned:

#1: Massive action is the most natural state of action.

#2: Structuring each day of the week gives you more control over what you do.

#3: Sometimes opportunities come to you when you stop obsessing over them.

#4: As you don’t give up on yourself, you’ll be fine even if the world gives up on you.

#5: Every minute you spend self-criticizing is another minute that you can’t get closer to your dreams. Life is too short for self-criticism.

#6: Your story plays a big impact in how people view you, how many products you sell, and the power of word of mouth marketing for your brand.

#7: Before you grow your email list, you need to create a system for generating revenue for that email list so your other efforts aren’t in vain.

#8: Do anything you can to move forward each day.

#9: The less resistance there is between you and your work, the more you will accomplish.

#10: All pleasures are temporary. The impact you have on others is permanent.

#11: If you aren’t using Instagram then you are really missing out.

#12: If you ever get written up on a website like The Huffington Post, and you want to be a contributor, ask the person who mentioned you in the article to introduce you to the editor.

#13: If you are remarkable, the opportunities will come knocking on your door instead of the other way around.

#14: You need an arsenal of products and an emailing plan that ties them all together to get more sales from your email list.

#15: Reading 10+ books every year is doable if you do a little reading each day. If you read 30 pages per day, you end up reading 900 pages each month. Combine that with audiobooks and you’ll read more than 10 books per month in no time.

#16: It doesn’t matter how many books you read. While more is usually better, what matters is implementing what you learned from those books.

#17: Having hundreds of millions of users doesn’t make you safe. I never expected Twitter to shut down Vine, and I never expected the people at Blab to shut down their service (although Blab is concentrating its efforts to come out with a better Blab 2.0).

#18: We make decisions about people before a word is said. Within most lengthy interviews, the decision is made within five minutes and the rest of the interview is verification of that decision.

#19: We don’t like being told we are wrong. Don’t tell people they are wrong. Craft a different story that resonates with the audience without telling them they are wrong.

#20: It’s better to share a message in one sentence than it is to share the same message in two sentences. Value your readers’ time.

#21: There are so many times during which you can acquire more knowledge such as during a drive, while doing your grocery store shopping, while waiting on the train, and a long ride to your vacation destination. Audiobooks and podcast episodes make learning much easier.

#22: When reading a book, rush through it and underline the important stuff. Most of the books can be condensed into 20 pages. You want to get the important insights out of each book you read, not the same stuff you’ve been reading in all of the other books. If you commit to reading 10+ books each month about your niche, some things will sound familiar within the future books you read.

#23: The moment you stop giving yourself goals for the day and week is the moment your motivation will start to wane. If you don’t give yourself goals for the day, you’ll feel lost for some of it.

#24: Launching a podcast is a great way to connect with other influencers in your niche.

#25: Don’t be afraid to ask anyone for a favor that benefits both of you. If you told me in January that I would have interviewed Seth Godin, Neil Patel, and many others by the end of the year, I would have thought you were crazy.

#26: Going back to the other lesson, I would have given you a stranger look for telling me that I would start a podcast in the first place. I denied myself the chance for two years. Then, before I could think about what was happening, I sent emails to influencers as if I already had a podcast. Once some of these influencers wanted me to interview them, I was committed.

#27: The more freelancers you hire, the more motivated you will be to make more revenue.

#28: Get into other people’s networks because you never know what opportunities await you.

#29: Face-to-face is still the best way to communicate with people.

#30: To produce the same effect online, you need to communicate with that person for a few months. While it takes a few months to produce the same effect of a face-to-face conversation, it is possible to create that level of connection on the web.

#31: Never stop learning new things.

#32: Don’t repeat the same things if they aren’t helping you to move forward.

#33: Twitter automated DMs work for acquiring more leads. Some people will get annoyed, but others will click through and become subscribers.

#34: If you are the smartest person in the room, you need to be in a different room.

#35: Always overestimate the amount of effort you need to apply to accomplish any given goal.

#36: If you keep producing content without investing a heavy amount of time towards marketing that content, you will be the world’s greatest secret.

#37: The social media landscape is very different from when I first started. I wish Twitter could go back to its prime sooner, but if I were starting today, I’d still start with Twitter. It’s been easier for me to meet remarkable people on Twitter than any other social network.

#38: Instagram is a close second though.

#39: Do one new thing every day.

#40: For each minute you spend doing something, you lose 60 seconds that could have went to something else. Use your time wisely.

#41: Market conditions won’t improve until you change the way you think.

#42: Taking action is a natural response to having passion for your work.

#43: Do multiple podcasts once the first podcast performs well.

#44: Advertisers must never be your primary source of income.

#45: Blogging doesn’t make you stand out anymore. Blogger is the crowd. For every 2,000 bloggers there is one podcaster.

#46: Create content calendars so you know exactly what you will produce each day of any given month of the year.

#47: The last slide in a presentation is critical. That’s when you promote yourself.

#48: If you are looking for a new shirt, you can custom make a shirt on Zazzle that features your SnapChat QR Code. That way, people can take a picture of your shirt and then automatically follow you on SnapChat.

#49: Growth hacking is as simple as changing your mindset.

#50: In a world dominated by Siri, Cortana, and other built-in virtual assistants, having an FAQ page is more important than ever since people ask those virtual assistants QUESTIONS about their niche.

#51: Retention is more important than acquisition.

#52: If you want to be a blogger with 100K visitors per month, hang out with the bloggers who get 100K visitors per month.

#53: Analyze the entire lifecycle of your customers and optimize each phase of that lifecycle.

#54: It helps to know the event organizer if you want to land the speaking gig.

#55: Info overload costs 25% of our time.

#56: Your brain needs energy but energy is not infinite. While I always understood the brain’s impact on the body, hearing it described in that manner made me realize my need to acquire more energy.

#57: Like eager puppies, new emails beg for attention. I always knew that new emails grabbed our attention, but this was a metaphor that had to make the list. I came across the metaphor in Ned Hallowell’s book Driven To Distraction At Work.

#58: Most of us pay continuous partial attention. Focus is the hidden driver of excellence.

#59: Viewing problems as games (or for my generation, video games) makes it easier for you to solve those problems. Part of my success was when I drew the connection between building a business and playing video games.

#60: You get better by dwelling in your success, so stop focusing on what went wrong.

#61: Happiness is wanting what you have.

#62: Challenge your brain to do different things. For instance, I recently started writing with my left hand. Now I’m decent and getting a little better.

#63: Reading helps you sleep faster. Guess when I start reading.

#64: It is in giving that we receive. People feel better about themselves when they donate money than when they make money.

#65: Write down 10 ideas every day.

#66: When David Letterman was still hosting The Late Show, the room’s temperature was strategically lowered to 55 degrees Fahrenheit. At this temperature, Letterman’s voice sounded more crisp and the audience was more attentive. That’s knowing your environment!

#67: If we don’t create and control the environment, we are control by the environment we dwell in.

#68: It is important to adjust your leadership based on your followers’ readiness.

#69: If you want to say certain things at a meeting or behave at a certain way, carry an index card with you that tells you what to do during the situation.

#70: Ask yourself active questions (not passive questions) every day (i.e. Did I do my best). These questions need to reinforce your commitment.

#71: Ask yourself “Am I getting better” multiple times each day.

#72: We become more fatigued as we are forced to make more decisions.

#73: Marginal motivation produces marginal results.

#74: If you change your behavior, you change the behavior of the people around you.

#75: For SEO, you must do the greatest amount of work and initially anticipate the least return.

#76: The best way to create a successful blog or website is to focus on the user experience.

#77: Think about the buying process and use that knowledge to write blog posts adding value based on specific stages of the buying process.

#78: Write a guest post on an authority site that links back to one of your blog posts. Then, repeatedly link to that guest post in your other writing to increase the link juice of that guest post. It’s easier to rank guest posts on authority sites high, and by doing so, the blog post you linked within the guest post will get a lot of traffic.

#79: Bullet points are easy for us to read. Use them more often.

#80: If you want to like someone, play a mental trick on yourself and think of that person as a long lost friend from 20 years ago. It works…even for an 18-year-old.

#81: Your eyes are grenades that have the power to detonate people’s emotions. Profound eye contact signals trust. I wish I could take credit for the prior description of eyes, but that goes to Leil Lowndes who wrote How To Talk To Anyone.

#82: Posture is associated with success. Practice good posture each time you walk through a door to turn it into a habit.

#83: People don’t care how much you know until they know how much you care.

#84: Work ethic isn’t just a duty. It’s also spiritual.

#85: If you write notes but forget to write how you will take action based on those notes, you are taking notes wrong.

#86: Launch stacking makes each launch better than the last.

#87: To get more revenue, you can increase the number of your customers, increase the amount of revenue per transaction, and increase the quality of transactions.

#88: Focus on increasing your opt-in rate instead of whether you’re slightly below or above average. Getting slightly above average only makes you slightly better than everyone else. With the slightly better mindset, it is IMPOSSIBLE to dominate your niche in any way, shape, or form. The only person you should ever compete with is you.

#89: The data you obtain from a survey to your audience will help you create a high demand lead magnet.

#90: Email swaps (cross promotion to respective email lists) are a great way to get hundreds of new subscribers in a single day. Just make sure you only conduct email swaps with people in your niche.

#91: If your emails don’t look good on an iPhone (or any smartphone), you are missing out on a big chunk of traffic from your email list.

#92: Create two different versions of the same autoresponder. Split test virtually every part of your business to see what converts better.

#93: Offering a bonus related to an affiliate product you are promoting will result in more affiliate sales.

#94: 64% of people will open your email based on the subject line.

#95: AIDA = Attention, Interest, Desire (emotion), and Action.

#96: Some companies give their employees the same type of email address. If you can detect which pattern is used, you can contact anyone on the list. For instance, several high schools use the model of the last name followed by the first initial of the first name. If Joe Schmo went to Schmoville High School, the email address would be schmoj@schmovillehighschool.com. With this pattern detected, you know someone’s email address just by knowing the person’s name. Well-known magazines like Inc, Huffington Post, and many other magazines and brands follow a rule of this nature when assigning email addresses to employees.

#97: Instagram’s API rules make schedule pictures annoying, but it’s worth the effort. I schedule my Instagram pictures for a certain time and date. HootSuite then notifies me on my iPhone letting me know that now is the time to manually post the picture. Then I do so.

#98: Life is always better with an optimistic worldview than with a pessimistic worldview.

#99: Some would say the way I got into The Huffington Post and Success Magazine was pure luck (people contacted me out of the blue about both opportunities). That “pure luck” was seven years of work (more than a third of my life) leading up to those respective moments.

#100: Reflecting on the lessons you learned is a great way to remember them in the first place.

Drops mic until 2017

This is my final blog post of 2016. I’ll come back to this blog post on occasion in 2017, so this has been for both of us. I appreciate you being a part of my journey in 2016, and I look forward to serving you in 2017 as well.

What have you learned in 2016? Did any of the lessons on this list strike a chord with you?

How I Went From Zero Books To Reading 10+ Books Every Month

December 24, 2016 by Marc Guberti Leave a Comment

It turns out the advice our parents and teachers gave us was spot on. Reading is good for you. I remember the days of reading short fiction books. Those were the days when reading could easily become a hobby.

That was in 2nd grade. Now the world is getting busier and busier. And teenagers don’t have as much time to pick up new hobbies as the typical 2nd grader.

I built a successful blog, wrote several books myself, and grew my business on social media. But I slacked off on my reading. Sure, I read a blog post every now and then, but skimping on reading showed in my results.

Once I stopped acquiring additional knowledge related to my niche, I didn’t make big improvements. I either produced the same results or saw a slight decline. Blog traffic went down. My Twitter growth stayed the same.

Then everything started to grow, and I attribute that in large part to reading 10+ books every month.

But I didn’t just read any books. I read books with the specific aim of growing my personal brand. And I can tell you right now that reading 10+ books about your brand every month can completely transform your business (as in get you the results you’ve been dreaming of).

Here are some tips you can start utilizing today so you too will get through 10 books every month.

#1: Listen To Audiobooks

I don’t actually read all of the books that I consume. Sometimes, I will listen to an audiobook. There are certain activities that are nearly impossible to engage in while reading, but are very doable if listening to an audiobook.

For instance, I listen to an audiobook while I ride a workout bike for 30 minutes each day. To get the most information out of those 30 minutes, I have the built-in narrator read the book 2-3 times faster than the original pace.

That means during a 30 minute bike ride, I hear 1-1.5 hours of audiobook content. That totals up to 30-45 hours of audiobooks every month. Most of the audiobooks I read are within the five hour range. Just by riding on the bike for 30 minutes while listening to an audiobook each day, I read 6-9 books and get physically stronger at the same time.

I tried listening to an audiobook in the middle of a run, but that didn’t work well for me. I can more easily listen to an audiobook on a workout bike.

What activities do you do every day that can also become moments of knowledge acquisition? The more you can think of, the more audiobooks you can listen to from start to finish. Just find 30 minutes in your day, every day. You’ll thank yourself later.

#2: Read Quickly

I listen to anywhere from 6-9 audiobooks each month. That means I read my way through the 10+ book milestone. I blaze my way through the finish line. The key information for almost any book can be condensed into 20 pages. Authors don’t do that because a 20 page book wouldn’t sell.

As you read more books about your niche, you’ll come across similar insights. I don’t need to hear another story about someone who regrets not building an email list earlier. I’ve heard that story before. And the only difference between this story and the other ones I’ve heard is that each person tells the story from a unique perspective (but always arrives at a similar conclusion).

The overall message is the same. Many books tell you that making excuses is bad and suggest ways to combat excuse making. I skip right to the suggestions. I don’t need to be told that avoiding excuses is a good thing. I already know that. And if I’ve already heard the suggestions in an earlier book, I skip those too.

Some books intentionally or unintentionally borrow ideas from each other. Why re-read the same thing more than once when you can acquire more knowledge instead?

#3: Publicly Announce Your Goal

I have been very public about my goal to consume 10 books every month. In fact, I also state which books I read each month in my performance reports. When I first got started with my performance reports, I struggled with reading five books in a given month.

Now I effortlessly get through 10+ books. Every. Single. Month.

As I came out with more performance reports, my reading increased. I made myself accountable to my entire audience—email list, social media audience, blog visitors… just about everyone.

If I don’t perform, I feel like I’ve let my audience down. I automatically obligate myself to read at least 10 books in a given month.

What’s Your Excuse?

I’m a student-athlete in college. I wake up at 5:30am to get ready for 7:30am practice. I get my homework done and also squeeze in time to hang out with friends. But I still have a personal brand that demands my attention.

Oh, did I mention that I read a bunch of books every month, too?

I’m not saying that I have the hardest schedule in the world, but I don’t have a crazy amount of time to play with, either. My obligations take up most of my time.

If you don’t have at least 30 minutes each day to read a book or listen to an audiobook, then you have a basket of lame excuses. Anyone can find 30 extra minutes each day by reducing the time spent on less productive activities.

Would it kill you to turn off the TV a little earlier? Would it hurt to avoid surfing YouTube? While it may be difficult in the beginning, once you make the adjustment over 66 days, it will stick.

If you feel you can’t commit to 30 minutes of reading or listening each day, you can AT LEAST commit to 15 minutes of reading or listening each day.

In the end, I don’t care about excuses. I only care about whether or not the work gets done.

Compound It!

Gradual evolution leads to massive evolution. The easiest way to go from zero pages to 100 pages per day within three months is to read an additional page each day. Start with a baseline of 11 pages, which is very doable.

On Day #2, read 12 pages. On Day #3, read 13 pages. Soon enough, you’ll begin to approach 100 pages. And if you count audiobooks, you can easily get through over 100 pages each day.

When I’m actually reading a book, I can usually get through 30-50 pages in a given day.

All of this knowledge compounded together will turn you into an expert in your niche and help you achieve your dreams.

As with anything in life, if you do something every day, and make continuous progress, you’ll be shocked by what you’ve achieved in a year from now.

In Conclusion

Reading books and listening to audiobooks allows you to acquire more knowledge about your niche. As you acquire more knowledge, your mind will expand.

The remaining challenge is to implement what you’ve learned, but you will already have the information you need. What happens then? Do you continue reading?

No matter how established you become, reading is still important. Reading fires up your brain cells, gives you new knowledge, and reminds you of things that you may have forgotten.

I mentioned earlier that I sometimes skip sections of a book if I have an idea of what’s coming. I may skip those sections, but I also remember what I’d learned previously.

Reading is a way of acquiring new knowledge while tapping into prior knowledge.

How many books do you read each month? Do you have any book recommendations for me? Sound off in the comments section below.

23 Lessons I Learned From My Podcast In 2016

December 9, 2016 by Marc Guberti Leave a Comment

I have published 21 podcast episodes in which I have interviewed a variety of people. During the entire process (connecting with people, preparation, and the interviews themselves), I learned many new things.

As a part of my end of the year reflection series, I decided to come up with a list of 23 lessons I learned from my podcasting adventure.

I already knew some of these lessons but thought they were important to share. In addition, I needed to remind myself of some of these lessons, especially #17.

#1: Start Before You Are Ready

I had many false starts before I finally launched my podcast. It was two years in the making. What made it happen? I started contacting people about the podcast before I could even think of what I was doing. I then had to think really fast when I got the first yes.

#2: Conduct Your First Interview With A Fellow Podcaster

The first person I interviewed for my podcast was none other than Jeffrey Shaw. Big shout out to you my friend. He gave me some tips after the interview and steered me on the right path.

#3: Don’t Be Afraid To Ask

I contacted some people knowing that they would almost certainly agree to be guests on my podcast. I contacted other people in hopes they would say yes. Some of those people said yes while others said no. I wasn’t afraid to ask people like Seth Godin, Neil Patel, Mike Michalowicz, and many other people.

#4: There Are No Limits.

One of the things I despise the most is when people say they don’t have the right credentials to pursue a goal. If you think of an 18-year-old without a license, do you think about me? I am that 18-year-old, but that hasn’t stopped me from interviewing millionaires, bestselling authors, TEDx speakers, and other successful people. I don’t say this to brag but rather to show you the possibilities.

#5: Be Over Prepared

Each guest is different. Some of them will elaborate with their answers while others will give you quick answers that make you run through all of your questions quickly. If you don’t have enough questions, you’ll have to improvise on the fly. After enough interviews, I decided to come up with at least 20 questions for every guest. I don’t get to all 20 questions, but I do get to the important questions. Everything else is icing on the cake.

#6: Outsource Most Of The Work

I have never edited a single episode and yet they get published as if they were edited. These episodes are edited, but they get edited by one of my freelancers. Without this individual, the podcast would not be possible. I don’t have enough time to devote to editing the audio, so I hired someone else to do it instead.

#7: Go

I continuously hunt for motivational quotes I can share with my audience. I asked Seth for his most inspirational quote and he just said, “Start.” As the conversation unfolded, Seth gave us another motivational quote, “Go.” The simplest approaches are often the most effective. If “Go” doesn’t get you fired up, I don’t know what will.

#8: Everyone Wants Another Breakthrough

I have interviewed several people with six, seven, and even eight figure brands. I have interviewed guests who have achieved everything that many of their listeners want to accomplish. These same guests aspire to hit the next breakthrough. They aren’t settling with where they are now. They continue to push the envelop, and that’s why these guests have achieved great admiration for what they do.

#9: Don’t Give Up If The Launch Is A Bust

While I got hundreds of listeners for my podcast, it did not end up in the iTunes New & Noteworthy section. At this point, some people give up because their intention is to get into that New & Noteworthy section. But to be a successful podcaster, blogger, YouTuber, or anything else of that nature, you must continue producing content, video, or audio for many years to come. Keep those launch ambitions alive, but remember there’s far more to a podcast than those first weeks after the launch.

#10: Have A Structure

All of my podcast episodes follow a structure. The intro, interview, and outro reside within the structure of each episode. I also have an email rubric that I use to contact potential guests. The more structure you have in your life, the more efficient and effective you will become.

I learned the first 10 lessons by pushing through and launching the podcast. The rest of the lessons mentioned here come directly from prior episodes.

#11: Have a team around you that shares the same vision.

#12: Set bigger goals to get bigger results.

#13: The habits you develop will make or break you.

#14: It’s possible to chase your startup dream without quitting your job. To do that, you’ll have to be a 10% Entrepreneur.

#15: Outlining your goal enables you to take action at a quicker rate.

#16: Writing a book increases your authority within that subject.

#17: Perseverance is vital regardless of what ambition you pursue.

#18: Speaking to a targeted audience may mean reinventing your methods of delivery. If you are a KeyNote presenter, you’ll have to go without the slides if you wish to speak at a TEDx.

#19: The email list is the most important platform you have for your business. If you don’t have an email list, create one now.

#20: Fear can be a motivator that results in you accomplishing your goals. From personal experience, fear of the deadline works very well.

#21: Don’t say yes to any client who comes your way. Only say yes to the clients you want to work with.

#22: Several guests on the show grow their businesses exponentially with the help of referrals. For some, it meant raffling free prizes to people who got you more email addresses. For others, it meant cross promotion.

#23: Recruiting affiliates for your products will allow your products to spread farther than you could have spread them on your own.

Which lesson was your favorite? Who would you like for me to interview? Have any lessons for us as we head towards 2017? Sound off in the comments section below.

Performance Report November 2016

November 25, 2016 by Marc Guberti 4 Comments

November was a slow month that picked up momentum towards the end. At the end of the month, I came across an important discovery about my productivity and desires. Here’s a review of my Performance Report for November 2016:

Growing The Blog

I mentioned one of my goals was to schedule all of my content past the first month of 2017. I didn’t schedule a single blog post. With that said, I wrote all of the content. It’s just a matter of scheduling everything.

Each month, I’ve posted the goal of getting 1,000 daily blog visitors. As the months have gone by, that goal has become more and more distant. I’m changing that with a new approach.

By the end of the year, my blog will get updated five days per week. Here’s how it will work.

Monday: Guest post
Tuesday: A blog post I write
Wednesday: Podcast episode with transcript
Thursday: Guest post
Friday: A blog post I write

Getting two guest posts per week is currently the biggest challenge. I hired a freelancer to help me find the right guest bloggers. If you believe you are the right guest blogger, I invite you to fill out this form.

I have no problem with writing two blog posts. The challenge is scheduling everything. I find that part of blogging the most annoying of all. Just as I do with any annoying tasks, I outsourced that task to my freelancer.

By getting rid of other tasks, I increase my focus on the tasks that I work on. Here’s the other big part of my plan.

I’m Officially Back To Creating Udemy Courses

I had my first good month in a while on Udemy so I’m motivated to create courses on that platform once again. Mega course and membership site ideas like Total Social Media Domination and Unlock Your Potential will be self-hosted, but I’ll be putting up a few mini courses on Udemy.

The $0.99 Book Experiment

I recently came across Adam Houge’s work. He’s a successful self-published author who has sold over 2 million of his books. Many of his books are $0.99 and about 40 pages long.

Writing these types of books is very easy. At my maximum, undisrupted level of productivity, I could write one of these books in under three hours.

I’ve decided to write one of these books each week and charge $0.99 for it. I will continue until the first quarter of 2017 and then assess my progress. I thoroughly enjoy writing these types of books because it’s virtually impossible to add fluff.

The point of these books is to fill you up with knowledge that you can act upon within 30-60 minutes (the amount of time it will take for you to read one of these books).

With that said, I’m still in the process of getting Unlock Your Potential out to the world. That book will be an exception to the rule.

The Kindle-Udemy Combo

An intermediate tip that finds its way on many blogs is to repurpose your content. I do just that with all of my $0.99 books. Here’s how it works:

#1: I create the outline for my Kindle book.

#2: I write the Kindle book.

#3: I use the Kindle book as an outline for my Udemy course.

#4: I create the Udemy course.

I am repurposing all of my $0.99 Kindle books to Udemy courses that will be advanced, interactive versions of the books. I aspire to write one book and create one Udemy course every week. My freelance army is about to get bigger.

Learning On Udemy

Not only am I creating more Udemy courses, but I am also enrolling into more Udemy courses. With plenty of discounts and several free courses that I never went through, I can use Udemy to take my learning to the next level.

I bought three Udemy courses during one of their sales about the following:

Reading books faster
Singing (yes, that’s something I want to do)
Growing a podcast

I already went through the course on reading books faster, and what I like best about Udemy courses is that you can quickly go through them by not completely going through them.

What I mean is that you can look at the titles of each video and watch only the videos that most interest you. I didn’t watch all of the videos for the course about reading books faster. Rather, I simply watched the videos that I knew would serve me best.

There are plenty of courses I need to get through before I can even consider buying more.

The Different Mediums I Use To Learn

I am learning by reading books, listening to audiobooks, listening to podcast episodes, and watching training courses. I read before going to bed and listen to audiobooks while on the bike.

During the Thanksgiving Break I adopted two more learning methods, so I’ll have to determine how to fit them into each day.

Books I Read

I didn’t read 12 books this month, and that’s part of the reason I invested my time and money into the speed reading course. And the most important lesson I got from the course was to view a book as a tool in which you don’t have to read from cover to cover.

For reading, it’s better to spend 20% of the time to get 80% of the ideas than it is to spend 100% of the time to get 100% of the ideas.

But these are the books that I did manage to read:

Invisible Selling Machine by Ryan Deiss

How To Talk To Anyone by Leil Lowndes

Virtual Freedom by Chris Ducker

The Compound Effect by Darren Hardy

Peak by Anders Ericsson and Robert Pool

This wasn’t my best month of reading, but I probably got the most insights from this book line-up.

Blog Posts I Wrote

How To Create A Content Calendar: Content calendars help you plan out your content production. Here’s how you create one.

5 Secrets For A Successful Blog: Some are secrets while the others are common knowledge that isn’t common practice. #2 is the biggest secret of them all.

10 Dos and Don’ts For Writing Smooth Content: Kate Simpson stopped by to write a guest post providing valuable insights you can use to write better content.

4 Keys To A Successful Blog: If you thought the secrets were cool enough, I’ve now got keys for you. Regardless of what niche you are in, these four keys to a successful blog apply to you.

How To Write Valuable Content When Pressed For Time: Andrew Howe stopped by to write an epic blog post on writing great content even when the clock is against you. This is an important skill because with life and an online business, the clock is almost always against you.

Podcast Episodes I Published

Finding The Next Wave Of Consumer Demand With Mike Michalowicz: Episode 13
How To Achieve Explosive Personal Growth With Aaron Walker: Episode 14
How To Achieve Personal Freedom With Rob Cubbon: Episode 15

December Goals

Normally I have a section in which I look back at the previous month’s performance report, but I feel it is unnecessary for future reports since I look back at the previous month in various parts of each performance report.

With that said, these are my goals for December.

#1: Launch TSMD On December 30th

The membership site I’ve been talking about for months finally has a release date. Since I have been working very hard on this membership site, I am eager to share the final product with everyone.

While the focus of the membership site is to give you enough insight to help you take action, it isn’t one of those libraries of content that seems to stretch on for countless days.

However, you can ask me anything about your social media strategy, and you’ll get access to my expertise.

#2: Create Some FB Ads

While I have attracted hundreds of thousands of organic visitors to my blog from social media, for the first time ever I am attracting visitors to my blog and landing page with the help of paid social traffic.

Since Facebook is the superior social network for social advertising, it only makes sense for me to focus my efforts on Facebook first. I will create Facebook ads for Total Social Media Domination since it would result in recurring revenue that I can use to scale up my business.

#3: Learning Goals

Because I want to learn as much as possible, here are my specific goals to help me acquire more knowledge:

#1: Read 10 Books

#2: Watch 15 Udemy Courses

#3: Listen To 5 Audiobooks

#4: Listen To 20 Podcast Episodes

I’m all in with my learning.

In Conclusion

I place a strong emphasis on learning. Not only do I acquire more knowledge, but the simple act of learning motivates me to put in the work.

A few months ago, I had completely given up on Udemy and self-publishing, but now I’m returning to those two opportunities. When I wrote my first $0.99 book, I realized that I have a strong passion for writing books. Since I had neglected this passion for too long, it made me more susceptible to procrastinating.

And the same thing applies for creating Udemy courses.

So what are your thoughts on this performance report? Do you have any good book recommendations for me? Sound off in the comments section below.

5 Power Tips To Get More Goals Accomplished

July 1, 2016 by Marc Guberti 2 Comments

goal accomplishment

No matter what your profession, you want to accomplish more goals. And you want to accomplish your goals twice as fast. If you are still working for an employer, you want to get twice as much done for your startup so you can achieve better results.

Everyone wants to be more productive . But the problem is that most people aren’t very productive. We often find ourselves busy with all of the tasks we must complete in a given day, but being busy doesn’t mean being productive.

What we get done in relation to our ambitions actually determines how productive we truly are. Some days I may work for only an hour and feel very productive. Yet on other days I may work for six hours and feel like I accomplished nothing.

Getting more stuff done requires shifting your mindset and examining all of the work that you do in a given day. These five power tips will guide you.

#1: Focus On A Few Big Tasks

Most of my weekly scorecards are filled up with goals from the top to bottom. On some weeks, I’ll give myself 15 big goals to complete. I keep all of these scorecards in a single folder. This allows me to take a walk down memory lane to see what I was working on that is now complete.

Those memory lane walks are sweet, but they also reveal a lot.

I didn’t know it when I started, but keeping all of these scorecards allowed me to have a file containing the secrets to my productivity. I have scorecards in which I accomplished every goal (very rare) and scorecards in which I accomplished very few.

It turns out I have a higher chance of getting all of my goals accomplished if I give myself fewer things to do! Even when the fewer goals are more challenging than all 15 combined.

It’s actually easier, and more productive, to focus on accomplishing fewer, challenging goals than it is to accomplish numerous, simpler goals.

Numerous goals requires that you to spread your energy across a larger playing field. But the more you spread your energy, the less focus you have to concentrate on each individual goal.

Productivity is not measured by how many checkmarks end up on your scorecard. Rather, it’s measured by the impact on the work you are trying to accomplish.

#2: Outsource The Smaller Tasks

With that said, we must complete numerous tasks for the survival of our businesses. If we focus on fewer things, the rest of the business will fall apart.

For a long time, my focus was on completing the numerous tasks that called for my attention. I was always busy, but I wasn’t always productive.

For example, one task was growing my Twitter audience and providing them with content. But the tasks associated with my Twitter account eventually became busy work and detracted me from accomplishing other, equally important goals

At the same time, my income wasn’t increasing and my blog subscribers weren’t growing. While that , I simply didn’t have any time to address those issues.

Then I learned of the magical “O” word: outsourcing.

Outsourcing is the act of paying money to buy back some of your time. I no longer schedule my tweets myself or try to grow my Twitter audience. My freelancers do that for me. And they help me with my podcast, Pinterest account, picture creation, and spreading the word about what I do.

If I have to devote a lot of my time to accomplish these smaller, yet important, tasks, I can’t imagine my business moving forward. Outsourcing saves me a lot of time by taking tasks off my hands. But it also saves me time in other ways.

For instance, if you want to create an app but don’t know how to code, hire a developer and have that person create the app for you. Not only will you save time on creating the app, but you will also save time on learning to code.

#3: Give Yourself A Deadline

Deadlines create a sense of urgency. Urgency leads to action. Without specific deadlines to meet, procrastination will dominate your life. The problem with a “soon and later” mentality is that neither soon nor later ever happen.

That’s why I create a weekly scorecard filled with deadline specific goals. The scorecard creates that sense of urgency I need to get my work done. The goals are challenging, but not impossible. And each is marked according to priority.

The deadlines boost my focus because of the time constraints. I force myself to focus on higher priority goals and get those done before starting on the less important tasks.

Each deadline should be accompanied by a plan. What must you do each day in order to achieve a specific goal? Is it possible for you to take time off in the middle of working, or is this an all-in type of goal?

The more detailed your plan is, the easier it will be for you to implement it and accomplish your goal.

#4: Add A Deadline Motivator Into The Mix

Deadlines are as potent as you make them. Some deadlines will carry no weight whatsoever, while others will loom over your shoulders. The potency of a deadline motivator determines the potency of the deadline itself.

For most people, the biggest deadline motivator is accountability. Share your objective with a few people whom you can rely on to help you reach it. Now you’re accountable. Don’t tell people who will try to discourage you. Why even talk to them in the first place?

Accountability is a strong and easily accessible deadline motivator.

I am in the midst of working with a big deadline motivator. Towards the end of August, my first season of NCAA cross-country begins. Practices begin at 7:30 a.m., so I want to schedule as much content in advance as possible.

That is why I set these three goals for myself to complete before the end of August:

Write 30 blog posts.
Create 30 YouTube videos.
Interview 50 people for my podcast.

These tasks are in line with my overall content plan and will get me through 2016. Chances are I can run and grow my business as easily as I did in high school, but I want to be prepared. Thus, my view of the deadline motivator has made the deadline very potent.

I’m still doing a lot of exploration in my niche to discover new opportunities and stay up to date. Nothing will change but I want to have my content finished and ready to go.

What potent deadline motivator can you think of so that your desire to meet the deadline is just as strong? Make it as potent as you can.

#5: Less Talking, More Doing

Most thoughts pertaining to my business rattle through my head. I don’t spend a lot of time talking about them.

I spend most of my business hours putting in the work. The only business activity I engage in when I am not actually carrying out the work is formulating a plan to carry it out more effectively.

The more time you spend working on your business with the right plan in place, the more you will get accomplished. Productivity involves working efficiently, but no matter how efficient you become, you always have to put in the work.

In Conclusion

Goals pile up. And multiple goals require spreading your time and energy across multiple tasks. That’s the story of most entrepreneurs.

The most successful entrepreneurs are experts at prioritizing and knowing when to say no. Not all objectives are created equal, and certain tasks are simply not worth the time.

Outsourcing eliminates unworthy tasks. Saying no to certain tasks allows a stronger concentration of focus on the opportunities that will yield the strongest results.

What are your tips for accomplishing more goals? Did any one of these tips resonate with you the most? What goals do you want to accomplish this year? Sound off in the comments section below.

4 Methods To Boost Your Time Management

May 2, 2016 by Marc Guberti Leave a Comment

Time management is an important skill for goal achievement and the work-life balance. The way we utilize the time we are given ultimately determines what we do within our lives and how we impact others.

In this video, I will share with you four methods you can use to get better time management while not becoming the victim of bad habits that put you back where you started.

If you like this video, then I would love it if you subscribed to my YouTube channel and spread the word.

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