Podcasts about what has been

Time is a spiral - right now and always. And COVID time is a ride all its own. Whatever your experience of time has been in the past year, join us for a look at what time gives us and the benefits of letting go. We'll also explore our own personal connection to space and time so we're not so thrown by the world around us. Links: - What Happens When We Lose Our Social Rituals? - The Liminal Space – Embracing the Mystery and Power of Transition from What Has Been to What Will Be - KPFA's 2021 International Women's Day Programming Music by Terry Hughes Full Transcript Torres: First, I have to say, like, I don't... I know you were putting like the toilet paper tubes in a little area in the bathroom but I wasn't sure why and now you have them out on the table and I'm noticing they have like a... it's like a journal... it's really cool. This is my husband Rodrigo sitting with me and 47 empty toilet paper rolls. Torres: ...look, I have a collection of paper rolls with stuff written on them and I'm like... I used them as a way to mark our progression through the pandemic. Thomas: Here's the very first one. Torres: Oh, wow. Yeah, and we're, we're about there. It's almost a year now. Thomas: Yeah. It was March 18 I think when we went on lockdown. Torres: Wow. Thomas: So this is March 30 '20. And then there's a March from '21 there at that end. Torres: 3/2/21. That was two days ago. Thomas: So I dated them and I have them arranged them arranged by month so we can see how many we used each month. Torres: Ok. After a while of just dating them, I started also writing little journal entries on them. Thomas: What do you got there? Torres: Ah, let's see... let me grab one of these. 8/1/20: My podcast is... Thomas: Now Torres: Now available on Alexa. And it's written around the tube so it's like, you have to turn the tube around to read it. Thomas: Right. It's an interactive journal experience. Torres: Yes. It's a spiral with time. Time is a spiral - right now and always. And COVID time is a ride all its own. Whatever your experience of time has been in the past year, join me for a look at what time gives us and the benefits of letting go. We'll also explore our own personal connection to space and time so we're not so thrown by the world around us. This is Shame Piñata. I’m Colleen Thomas. Welcome to Shame Piñata, where we talk about creating rites of passage for real-life transitions. So how are you doing with time right now? Do you have enough of it? Too much of it? Do you feel lost or are you right on track? Do you know what day of the week it is? How sure are you about that? I've been having a hard time telling which way is up for about a year now, and it's disconcerting and I know I'm not the only one. I've heard several people say in the past year that it's difficult to focus, it's difficult to keep track of what month it is, difficult to gauge the passage of time during the day. Was that 15 minutes? Was that only two weeks ago? COVID has really been messing with our ability to keep track of time, mostly because it's a completely liminal space that's asked us to give up the framework we've used our whole lives. I found an article on liminality recently from Alan Seale, the Founder & Director of the Center for Transformational Presence. The piece was written in 2016. Seale, who could probably never have imagined how impactful his article would be in the early 2020's tells us that, "The word 'liminal' comes from the Latin root, limen, which means 'threshold.' The liminal space is the 'crossing over' space – a space where you have left something behind, yet you are not yet fully in something else. It's a transition space." Time is a super interesting thing. We feel secure when we build routines and expectations based on its constant presence. We mark time with concepts like generations, lifetimes, stages of life, annual patterns, weekly schedules, daily routines. Let's take a moment to consider what COVID has done with these concepts. It's become difficult to connect across generations which has kind of separated us from that intergenerational space that's so rich an important. The National Academy of Sciences recently published a study showing that life expectancy in the US went down in 2020 due to the pandemic, so there's a hit to our concept of what constitutes a lifetime. Along with that, the life expectancy reduction for the Black and Latino communities is 3 to 4 times that for the white community. That very statistic threatens to erase any gains we've made in equity on its own. Stages of life and the ways we mark them have also been affected. Graduations, weddings and other gatherings designed to mark the stages of life largely abandoned for almost a year. We're missing those rituals, really missing them. And lastly, as you know, our annual, weekly and daily patterns have completely changed. This is no small thing. I know you know this, and I just really want to say that whatever you're feeling right now, and whatever happened the last time you maybe suddenly just lost it over something small, you're not imagining things. This is weird. We didn't build our lives to make sense of this. An extended period of liminality with no warning and no psychological preparation is pretty brutal. COVID time to me feels like living inside a jar of sand and water that's being constantly shaken. Kinda like a snow globe, but without the pretty winter scene creating a calming sense of place. What does time do for us? Or to be clear, what does an organized sense of time do for us? I think it gives us stability and maybe even sanity. At the very least, it provides a lay of the land, a framework, something to base our expectations on. But maybe we need to even be more fine-tuned in discussing this. It's not that time isn't flowing normally right now, right? Two weeks is still two weeks during COVID, but the thing that's weird is it doesn't feel like two weeks. I thought that I would get used to the flow of time in COVID and eventually it wouldn't be so disorienting, but that actually hasn't happened. I think that's because we're still in the liminal, threshold space, and the big question "When will this be over?" still can't be answered. So there has to be some benefit from this weird time we're in, some way we can grow from it. We'll be right back. [MUSIC] Thank you for spending a few minutes of your day with us! If you enjoy listening to Shame Piñata, you can support the show by sharing with a friend or co-worker. We're into our 2nd season now (yay!) so all of our first season episodes are available on your favorite player and there might be one there that would really call to someone you know. And thanks! One thing we can definitely do is practice disconnecting from our attachments and embracing the feel of flow. We might realize we're already doing this multiple times a day once we start paying attention. We can also use this time to reframe our view of the world and how we show up in it. We can fight for making a better world, a more equitable world. I have a quote on my desk that I look at every morning from writer Roxane Gay, something she said a year ago when the pandemic started, "The rest of the world yearns to get back to normal. For Black people, normal is the very thing from which we yearn to be free." And this is a chance for all of us to change the way we live, who we connect with, what kind of media we consume, and whose words we surround ourselves with. We are being offered the chance to see things from a different angle. And as Alan Seale says, "Herein lies the power and the gift of the liminal space. The liminal space shakes us out of our habitual lives. It draws us out of what we have known, yet does not allow us to know what is coming next, or when. It’s the chrysalis stage for the caterpillar." So how do we keep track of time within liminality? Here are a few ideas. First, routine events can help: A daily walk, a weekly lunch, a monthly treat. These are things our subconscious mind can begin to rely on for comfort and stability. And they can even weave in some connection if we want that. There's number two, regular social connections. I've been lucky enough to be part of a family that's held weekly Zoom calls for almost a year now. Before COVID, visits were few and far between, but we just celebrated our 50th call last week. (I know because my uncle keeps track and he held up a big 5-0 sign as we began the call). If you don't have regular social connections in your life right now, consider looking online at the activities and groups you find interesting. So many things have moved online right now. It's possible to attend workshops and ceremonies on the other side of the world. And if you can't handle any more screen time, consider events that might allow you to call in rather than connect online and maybe take a walk while you listen. Third, nature is still happening! The Earth still turns every 24 hours, bringing the steady rhythm of sunrises and sunsets which can be very potent times to observe the majesty of life on our planet. And the moon still pulls on the waters in our bodies just as much as she pulls on the waters of the Earth. You can mark the month by her changing light and if you choose to honor the new moon or the full moon, know that there is a very rich history in that tradition. And of course there are the many sabbats around the wheel of the year as celebrated by the earth-based religions throughout time. Here in the northern hemisphere we're coming up to Spring Equinox later this month which will of course be the Autumnal Equinox in the southern hemisphere. And that brings us to the mid point between emptiness and fullness, a moment of balance. And balance brings us to ritual. [MUSIC] We can create rituals to mark the significant moment in our lives. As social psychologist Shira Gabriel says, "Rituals mark the passage of time as sacred." We can also use ceremony to center ourselves when things are topsy-turvy. Here's a simple ritual sketch we might use to find ourselves even within the flow of COVID time. So first we might create an intentional space by finding a still corner of the house or maybe taking a walk to find a quiet space in nature. Then we might take a few deep breaths and really feel into the body. What does it feel like to be sitting on this thing? What is the feeling of the air on my skin? How many sounds can I hear? Next we might get in touch with any spiritual guides, Goddesses, Gods or entities we work with or connect to the numinous however we experience it with gratitude and humility. Connected to this greater force, we might notice that our breathing has softened a bit and that we feel just a little bit calmer. We might then bring our focus to the wide field of time, seeing ourselves in the very center of it, complete and whole, grounded and calm. Noticing how it moves in spirals, how it dances around us and holds great complexity. And yet at the center of it, we are focused and deeply connected with our own self, our own presence. Sound healer Aleya Dao talks about the golden river of light that flows at our core. We might connect to that pure essence of self as we watch time go by like a movie. We might begin to sense the many ways that our core essence transcends time, transcends the grids our mind creates to make sense of it. We might come up on a younger version of ourselves and feel moved to share something we've learned with them. We might seek out an older version of ourselves and ask for some wisdom to make this COVID time easier. Mostly, we can rest in the deep knowing that all time is now and all space is here. This ceremonial experience of time transcends the limits we've known before, and allows us to heal in new ways. When we're ready, we can return to the space we're in, take a few deep breaths and maybe move our body around a little to come back to waking consciousness. And we might want to write down a thing or two of what we experienced in the open field of time. So how are you keeping track of time right now? What's working for you? Drop us a note on the shamepinata.com website and we will share your tips in an upcoming show. Catch a special edition of Shame Piñata this Sunday March 7 on KPFA's International Women's Day Programming. Interfaith Minister Tristy Taylor will speak on the importance of ceremony in women's lives and The UnBaby Shower she designed when she and her husband stopped trying to have children. That's at 1:30pm Pacific this Sunday, March 7 on KPFA.org. Our music is by Terry Hughes. If you like the show, please take a minute to rate and review it on Apple Podcasts. I’m Colleen Thomas. Thanks for listening.

Access the full blog post here. Christine Pinto and Jessica Twomey, two amazing kinder teachers, join me to discuss home learning strategies for primary students that ALL teachers can use. These awesome educators share amazing home learning strategies for primary students, and honestly, ANY teacher can learn from this episode.  This is a MUST-LISTEN episode for all teachers. Shoutout Laura Steinbrink joined me on Episode 56 to chat about choice boards, but she’s back with an update. She is revising her choice board based on feedback from her students. Some of them prefer a big project rather than small ones. She shares how she has now updated her board to offer either one big project a week or several smaller ones. Keep shifting and changing to find what works for you and your students. Quick Tip of the Week: Copy Direct Link to Google Classroom Assignment Depending on how you are creating assignments in Google Classroom, this tip can help you quickly link to assignments elsewhere. Go to the 3 dots (more menu) on the assignment and select “copy link.” You can now share that assignment wherever else you need. Watch this YouTube video to learn how! Get all the weekly tips on this page. Home Learning Strategies for Primary Students That All Teachers Can Use! You are going to love the ideas from these two awesome kindergarten teachers. Together we will learn some home learning strategies for primary students that all teachers can use. Jessica and Christine, both kindergarten teachers, have been collaborating for over three years with their classes. They’ve set up a number of rituals for their kids so that they stay connected all year long. From the “Wish You Well” hearts to their daily updates on the weather and happenings, their kids know that learning happens outside of the classroom. These collaborations and technology integration during the regular class meetings have set these students up for success during the unexpected home learning that is now taking place. Jessica says this cross-country collaboration helps students better understand that learning can live outside the four walls fo the classroom. Their students already have a growth mindset and a foundational understanding about how learning works--giving them an advantage to understanding the new home learning approach. How Learning Has Changed on Opposite Ends of the Country California hasn’t fully stepped into a true digital classroom. Their spring break is coming up soon, so until then, they’ve been providing supplements and enrichment activities for families. After the break, Christine thinks they’ll move to requiring the kids to turn in assignments and do more targeted activities. New Jersey instead has stepped fully into focusing on ongoing learning versus just enrichment. They are working to keep grade-level consistency as well, which is extremely important. Jessica mentions that both districts are using similar technology; they’re overall goals are just a bit different. Why Supporting Families is Important Right Now This change has been hugely impactful on parents, so giving them the tools and support that they need to help educate their children is necessary. Jessica shares how her district is using Seesaw and Flipgrid to help provide spaces for the parents and kids to learn and communicate.  Also, the focus is on hands-on learning and experiences versus “book” learning. For the youngest students, we have to be careful with too much screen time. It’s also important to note that for many families, school is happening in the evening. They need to have access to resources even though they aren’t teaching during the regular school day. These technology tools were already in place before schools closed. This is not the time for new tools, use the tools that have already been proven.  What Has Been the Expectation for Time and Assignments? The goal for both Jessica and Christine’s districts has been to promote learning without expecting these kids to sit in front of a screen. They’ve put together the resources and materials that parents need to help their students learn through experience. The districts have made it known that consistency is a priority, but that there should also be a healthy dose of flexibility. They know that while parents want the best for their kids, they are not always equipped to teach their youngsters. Teaching Young Children From Home Framework Christine and Jessica walk us through their framework for teaching and learning from home with young children. Learn more about this framework and their approach in this post. [ctt template="1" link="Ea9Ic" via="yes" ]We have the opportunities to redefine our educational framework. If we choose tools and learning experiences wisely now, they can follow up back into the classroom.[/ctt] Recommendations for Teachers: Ensure a Method for Communication is in Place Create a Home Base for Information Develop Learning Connections Offer Purpose and an Authentic Audience Personalize Experiences Learn More About Innovating Play  Christine and Jessica have been working on creating resources for teachers to help them realize their strengths and how to build their communication systems. Think about the skills and goals that your kids have been working on and build out activities that help your students continue on those paths.  Christine shares the process they’ve created through Innovating Play to help teachers understand how their skills translate to the digital learning space. She builds a house with the foundation, walls, interior, and roof and explains how your classroom curriculum translates. Where is This Period Going to Take Us?  Both Christine and Jessica hope that the tools and strategies we are using today continue once everything is back to normal. The involvement of parents during this time and the increased engagement with students in a more dynamic way are invaluable.  They share how you can help support your students’ parents by reducing the expectation. Help them redefine their norms and make this period relatable to other experiences they’ve had. What you need is for you and your child to be successful. Christine and Jessica share information on their upcoming book! We are looking forward to this amazing resource. About Christine Pinto and Jessica Twomey Twitter: @PintoBeanz11   @jlabar2me Website: innovatingplay.world Title: Kindergarten Teachers Bio: Christine Pinto and Jessica Twomey have been in the field of Early Childhood Education for over 18 years collectively. Their kindergarten classes have collaborated on a DAILY, yearlong, basis from their locations in California and New Jersey for a number of years. Christine and Jessica moderated the #InnovatingPlay/#GAfE4Littles Slow Flip Chat via Flipgrid for a year and a half, and are proud to be publishing a book with Dave Burgess Consulting, Inc. When opportunities arise, Christine and Jessica travel to present about Innovating Play and how they preserve, protect, and transform early childhood experiences in and beyond the classroom. Super Slow Chat Book Edition Podcast Question of the Week How can my students and I grow together through this remote learning experience?    Post your answers in the Shake Up Learning community or on your favorite social platform. Join our FREE Shake Up Learning Facebook group.

In this episode, we get to know Patrick Lum, CEO and founder of AsteroidX. We talk about learning how to validate your feelings, commitment issues, not repeating the same mistakes and Patrick shares his formula for happiness. Resources: Patrick’s Website: https://www.asteroidx.ca/  Patrick’s YouTube channel: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UC3tjij8y2Xz6GPFuEP2OLyA Be Our Guest by The Disney Institute - https://www.amazon.com/Be-Our-Guest-Perfecting-Institute/dp/1423145844 Think and Grow Rich by Napoleon Hill - https://www.amazon.com/Think-Grow-Rich-Landmark-Bestseller/dp/1585424331 Principles by Ray Dalio - https://www.principles.com/ Posh Incredible Transformations - https://itunes.apple.com/us/podcast/posh-incredible-transformations/id1377517663?mt=2 Youtube Channel - https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCyrz1fZpMDHSfGm7t29ieOA/featured Website - Poshinc.com Email - tifany@poshinc.com   Episode Notes: * Intro - 0:00 * Who is Patrick Lum? - 0:45 * We Are Earth Signs - 1:05 * Growing With a Set of Attributes and Identifying My Strengths - 2:35 * Being Observant and Analytical - 3:30 * The Phone Case Personality - 4:13 * Where the Phone Case Came From - 7:10 * My Haggling Skills - 8:38 * Improving the Services - 9:54 * How Where You Able to Care About the Details? - 11:00 * Be Our Guest - 12:18 * Principles By Ray Dalio - 13:30 * Genetic Testing and Not Learning from My Mistakes - 14:52 * How Do You Deal with Mistakes and Not Repeating Them? - 16:22 * Do You Have Commitment Issues? - 18:00 * Sticking to the Recipe - 20:00 * What Are Your Biggest Most Beneficial Impacts - 21:37 * What’s Your Formula for Happiness? - 26:26 * Being Able to Feel Your Feelings and Validating Them - 28:25 * Trying to Understand “Think and Grow Rich” - 33:38 * How Do You Know When to Ask for Help? - 38:50 * Which Conferences Do You Enjoy Going To? - 41:51 * Seeking Groups of Like Minded People - 43:30 * Working Remotely - 45:57 * How Do You Manage Your Time? - 48:28 * What Has Been a Productivity Hack? - 49:59 * What Do You Do When You Don’t Know the Answer to Something? - 53:05 * Last Thoughts and Naked Bike Parade - 54:38 * Closing - 57:00

Watch the video podcast here. Jurgen's Story Jurgen's journey is quite an interesting one. He started off with 27 years of experience in corporate marketing and enjoyed both the challenges and being able to work his way up. However, in the last few years, things changed - he is driven by serving his clients and the company that he was working for wasn’t putting an emphasis on relationships and he didn't want to be a part of something that wasn't in line with his values. Jurgen went off on his own and started a business which he initially thought would be a marketing and business consultancy (because that was his background). However, he soon came to realise that his marketing was based on corporate experience which didn’t work well with small business. The Global Financial Crises also got in the way at the time and people were cutting back on marketing expenses. Jurgen realised that in those meetings people would often tell him that they needed websites. Aha! Lightbulb moment! Jurgen decided to figure out how to make websites and discovered WordPress. He built a website for a client who was impressed that they were able to get leads pretty quickly. It was then that he decided to change his company focus to building websites as a marketing tool. Building Self Taught Websites Jurgen taught himself how to use WordPress with some courses along the way. He isn’t great at coding so he has people to help him. He decided that it wasn’t a good use of his time to learn something that he wasn’t interested in. He was better off focussing on his strengths. What is Jurgen's Niche? He has niched his business down in the last 12-18 months to focus more on targeting business coaches. He had a range of different clients but his marketing is focussed towards business coaches now as they are the people who respond well to his message. There is no point in trying to get your message across to the wrong audience! The Process The key thing for Jurgen was setting up good systems. He developed a transformational marketing map with the stages that he uses in his own business and the businesses that he works with: First, the potential client has to find out about you and build trust Then get them interested in what you have to offer by understanding their problem and matching their needs. You then go through the relationship building stage - generating, nurturing and converting leads. By the time you get to the sales part it should be easy (or you haven’t done enough work!) The sale isn’t over yet though, you need to deliver an exceptional product. Jurgen helps his client's develop systems for onboarding and building referrals and then makes sure it can be scaled. The revelation for him was to get clear with his target audience - getting really clear about who they are to the point where you can give them a name, an image and a story that you can attach a whole lot of information to (a tip he learned from the WP Elevation Blueprint!). Ask yourself - what are their needs, behaviours, hobbies, beliefs, values, frustrations and aspirations. That way you can communicate with them. Find out where they hang out. Such as LinkedIn, Facebook, or in real life are they in a Chamber of Commerce. You can even attend those meetings, or find where their meetups are. Building Trust You can build trust quite quickly by giving away free information or services and creating clear processes such as Jurgen's transformational marketing map (download the detailed map on his website). Jurgen also blogs and has a podcast series which helps position himself as an expert. The content is on social media, with a lot of it automated to get his blogs and articles posted and shared easily. However, he also spends time engaging with people and sharing other people's content. Innovabiz also has a weekly newsletter. Typically they include a variety of relevant articles in there, two of which will be their own, the rest are written by other people. This shows the client that they care about their success, even if it is to share another person's knowledge with them. Podcasting Jurgen's advice is that if you are thinking of doing a podcast- just do it! If you want help, there is a lot of support within the WP Community. Jurgen had some personal coaching with Troy and one of the things Troy suggested was to start a podcast. He isn’t afraid to get on camera and talk to people so he found the idea of simply having a conversation with someone not daunting at all. When Jurgen was in corporate, he had made many international contacts which weren't helpful for him when he was trying to get local business. However, he realised with a podcast he could leverage these relationships and speak to some really successful people doing innovative things. Hence the theme - innovation. What If You Are an Introvert? Jurgen's advice - forget about yourself and think about the audience. You have a gift and something to contribute to the audience. So get over yourself, get out there and make it about the audience and how you can help them. Has the Podcast Helped Jurgen's Business? It is hard to quantify but the reason they did it was for positioning. They an opportunity to land a large corporate client due to the fact that the CEO of that business was a guest on the podcast. So the podcast was the critical factor in that. A number of small business clients also told him that they had a number of options, but the fact that they had listened to his podcast swayed them his way! What Has Been the Biggest Challenge in Running His Business? Jurgen says that cash flow has made it stressful at times. You get to a point where you spend a lot of money, put out a lot of proposals and you're counting on getting a lot of money coming in, but client's delay. However, when it rains, it pours and sometimes you can take on too many clients! A few years ago he changed his business model from building websites as a single service, to monthly retainer payments from most of his clients which definitely helps with the cash flow situation and building long-term relationships. Jurgen tells the client up front that if they want a website build with him that they need to go onto a care plan. That usually works pretty well. With the bigger projects, he tends to do it over a 12 month period so it gives them the chance to scale it and show them how it is working. The idea then of course, is that they continue on. Mindset How does Jurgen stay positive? He says that you have good and bad days but he tries to remind himself that at any given time in this world there is someone out there that is desperate for the magic that only you can provide and you can transform their lives. So you need to find a way to get out there and find those people, get in front of them and build your business in a way that feels good for you and makes you profit and growth. Understand that there might be people that you think are doing things better than you, but that there are clients who will be a better fit for you and what you do. So there is no need to compare! Balance Jurgen takes time to get out on his bike for an hour or so first thing in the morning. When he is on his own a lot of good ideas come to him. If he skips a day then he doesn't feel right. He says to do whatever you're passionate about to get away from work and switch off a bit. He had an interesting conversation with guest Dr Fiona Kerr on his podcast recently who is a neuroscientist and talked about how when we switch off the mind we actually become more creative and it helps you develop new ideas. Find the link to this in the links section below. Day to day Tools:  Ryver, which is a Slack alternative, where they do all their communication Zoom link for live chats Zapier for integration Paperform which is similar to Gravity Forms Where to From Here? Listen in at the end to find out where his business is going and his exciting upcoming plans. Including a joint venture which will include training programs and his annual business planning retreat with the next one being in Vanuatu. So Stay tuned for that one! And that's a wrap! Jurgen is a wealth of knowledge, so please feel free to ask him any questions in the comments section below and he will get back to you.

Watch the video podcast here. About Matt Matt started out in IT after he left the military but eventually got tired of the corporate world and decided to go out on his own six years ago and start an IT company working as an IT consultant. He had been building websites for years as a hobby and as he was consulting his clients, they either had bad websites or none at all. So being their IT guy they started talking to him about it. Not thinking it would be a full-time thing, he made a few websites and realised he was pretty good at it and that he enjoyed doing it. So 2.5 years ago, he transitioned to web development and hasn’t looked back since. Matt's Companies Matt has three companies at the moment- His first being the web design company Aledor (his surname backwards!) where he builds and redesigns websites for service professionals such as accountants and lawyers. His second company is Tech Site Builder which is a turnkey website platform specifically designed for computer repair workshops. He acquired this company when he was running his own IT consultancy. Through his podcast series, he made a lot of contacts in the computer repair industry. A fellow podcaster had created Tech Site Builder as a WordPress theme and was selling it packaged with tutorials. However, he wanted to get out of the industry and so he sold the theme to Matt. Matt then transitioned it from a theme to a turnkey website. Similar to Squarespace, you sign up for a low monthly fee and you get a starter website template with all the tools and plugins that they need. He has been doing this now for two years and it has created a recurring revenue for him with little input as most of it, including the onboarding process, is all automated. His final project is TurnKey Websites BluePrint which teaches other website consultants how to build their own turnkey website. This will be launched in a couple of months. How Does He Stay Focussed on Multiple Projects? Research shows that multitasking isn’t efficient and you get the best work done when you focus on one thing at a time. So with his separate projects, he likes to focus on it, get it launched and then come up with a process to keep it going with minimal involvement from himself. He has a VA who looks after a lot of things as well. Matt says that he didn’t go out searching for these new projects - they fell into his lap. When you're doing what you love, then this is what happens! Staff He has a part-time VA who works four hours a day as well as a part-time developer. The developer is based in Eastern Europe and the VA is in the States. Matt found her accidentally on Upwork when he hired her to do some photo edits. She had such a great manner that he asked her to be his VA because it is hard to find a good person online. Matt has been through many freelancers and VAs and learned from his mistakes so you need to hold onto a good person when you find them! What is Matt's Sweet Spot? It has evolved over the years and he has seen the common thread throughout everything he has done - he is really good at communicating, breaking things down and being able to explain complex tech stuff. He has so many aspects of his job that he enjoys doing, but he knows this is his strength and so he builds on it. He outsources the tech side of things and is slowly trying to let others take the reins a little bit. He finds it hard to let go of that control but once you find the right people that are even better than you at what they do, then that makes it much easier. What Has Been the Biggest Challenge? His biggest challenge when growing his business has been budgeting and understating how to put the money where it's most useful. Matt has gone through phases of Shiny Object Syndrome and blowing all his money on new tools for the business. So what helped him get over this was the book “Profit First” which teaches you how to budget your business finances. Pricing The key for Matt was finding his niche. The more you narrow down your services, the clearer the pricing becomes as well as the marketing and the message. Once he was able to find his focus, then people were coming to him and he was able to increase his prices to filter out the people who price shop to find the people who are really serious about working with him to get a great result. Through his sweet spot, Matt was able to find his niche. But what about people starting just up and who need to be everything to everyone? How should they find their niche? It's something that comes with time and can't be forced. The key is to know that you will eventually need a niche, but that you will need to be everything to everyone while you're starting out. It has to be something that you learn over time through the type of client that is attracted to you, or by discovering what area you are best at. It seems counter-intuitive to focus on a niche because you have a fear of missing out and won't be able to help as many people. But he said that it has had the opposite effect on his business. Word gets around the industry that is your niche and you are seen as the expert in their industry. Mindset Everyone has times when they're ready to throw the towel in when it comes to running your own business. Matt says that the struggle never ends and sometimes it gets more exaggerated as you get more experience. You need persistence and to stay positive. To get out of any dips in the business he has had to change focus. When he was working on the web development it was a struggle to get clients through the door, so he realised that he needed a different focus that would bring him recurring revenue. When he hits a problem, by changing focus he is able to go back to what wasn't working. With a fresh mind he can then tackle it from a different angle and take it to the next level. Through doing that he changes perspectives and builds mini businesses so that if one crashes and burns, he still has the others to rely on. Matt likes to hedge his bets! Balance So how does Matt balance personal and professional life? He purposely built these businesses to be flexible so he can work anytime from anywhere. He is a big fan of taking an afternoon off to go to the mall or places that are busy on the weekend and then sometimes working weekends instead. He also plays the trumpet, so he has the flexibility to play a gig and then sleep in. How Does He See His Businesses Evolving? Matt doesn’t like to plan ahead too much. He waits for opportunities to come to him. If he had a five-year plan for his IT business he may not have jumped on these opportunities that came to him. He likes to have short-term goals for his business and change them up. For example, subscriber, revenue or retention-based goals. But he keeps his mind open and businesses flexible to allow new opportunities to come to him. Tools Theme: His favourite WordPress theme is the Genesis Framework by StudioPress. Sometimes he builds a custom child theme off that. Plugin: He is a big fan of Restrict Content Pro he has been using it as a membership plugin and also for the sign-up process on his website. You can also use it to sell products online through a login process for the customer. Day to day tools: The stack he uses is Slack, Trello, Freshdesk (for support desk for all of his platforms), Process Street (for processes and checklists), and Active Campaign (for email marketing). He then ties them all together with Zapier. He likes the flexible solutions! Well, there you go... Matt's formula for success! I hope you got some inspiration from today's podcast. Let us know what you think in the comments below.

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Title: Dying and What Has Been the Root to Your Self Date: February 20, 2011 Afternoon - Edmonton, Canadawww.johnderuiter.com