Have you ever been playing with your kids or trying to relax, but your mind keeps drifting back to work? Trust me, you’re not alone! It can feel frustrating – and it can feel like you’re failing to achieve “work/life balance.” That’s why I brought on Lindsey Carnick, a licensed clinical social worker and owner of Onward Psychological Services. We get into how our minds work, the importance of aligning with our personal values, and practical strategies to stop overthinking – BUT ALSO why there’s ...
Nov 25, 2024•53 min•Season 2Ep. 444
It’s the annual gift guide episode! Except, instead of just talking at you for 40 minutes, This year, I’ve teamed up with my good friend Cat Mulvihill to bring you the ultimate 2024 Gift Guide for solopreneurs and anyone working from home. We talk home goods, tech, productivity, EDC, and more. Our main goal fits perfectly with the mission too: we want to help you solve a problem…not just spend money unnecessarily. Whether you’re shopping for yourself or looking for the perfect gift for the solop...
Nov 20, 2024•58 min
Bringing a VA into your business can free up your time and help you focus on growth, but finding and effectively working with the right VA requires clarity on what you need, a structured hiring process, and simple, ongoing communication. Many solopreneurs are overwhelmed by the process of hiring and working with a VA. You may not know where to start, what tasks to delegate, or how to ensure the VA’s work aligns with your business goals. This leads to hesitation, missed opportunities, and often b...
Nov 18, 2024•19 min•Season 2Ep. 443
A few months ago I launched a free private podcast called Joe’s Audio Notes. The episodes are very short (7 minutes or less), where I share my thoughts on being a solopreneur, a podcaster, a parent, and other thoughts related to being a productive member of society. I'm sharing 3 of the episodes here (which you can find in the chapter markers): Thinking About my Content Strategy How do you pick the right idea? Battling the work hangover If you like it, I'd love for you to join! You can sign up f...
Nov 15, 2024•18 min
Ever thought about creating an online course that truly makes a difference? One that actually helps people accomplish their goals? That’s exactly what guitar coach Den López has done. He transformed his life from being a car mechanic in Barcelona to becoming a successful online guitar instructor. We’ll talk all about how he created the “Guitar in One Hour” Method that helps beginners play songs quickly without the usual frustration, his unique approach to designing courses that focus on actionab...
Nov 11, 2024•51 min•Season 2Ep. 442
Being a business owner is hard. So is being a parent. So why don’t we hear more about how to do both well? Fret not – that’s why I brought Kim Caloca-Madden onto the show. We dive deep into why business owners with kids should build systems and how automation can be a game-changer for busy parents. Kim shares her personal journey from being a stay-at-home mom needing to generate income to becoming a powerhouse in business automation. We also cover how automation enhances consistency and efficien...
Nov 04, 2024•50 min•Season 2Ep. 441
The summer had one lasting effect I didn’t notice until recently: I made my schedule pretty open for anyone who wanted to meet. I didn’t want them to be limited to my limited availability, so I tried to be as open as possible. But over the last 2 weeks —really since my episode with Conny, I realized that I’ve let everyone else control my calendar. I’ll take a meeting with almost anyone bc I feel they are the best way to form relationships, but I’m not vetting those people. I’m not creating bound...
Oct 28, 2024•21 min•Season 2Ep. 440
My love-hate[but mostly hate] relationship with social media is well documented. It feels like a time-suck where you get into arguments with people who don’t care about anything you say. People tell me it’s great to grow your business…I just don’t see it. But Katie Brinkley has changed that for me. She elevates CEOs to become thought leaders and disruptors in their industries. And she does it mostly through social media. By the end of this episode, she’ll give you strategies for choosing the rig...
Oct 21, 2024•38 min•Season 2Ep. 439
It’s easy for people who live unconstrained lives to give advice. “Just meditate for 2 hours each morning.” “Hustle.” “Get rid of anything that doesn’t bring you joy.” The truth is that most people have some constraints to live by. Whether it’s kids, work, or other obligations, we can’t just drop everything to follow the latest guru. That’s why I like Conny Graf’s approach. Conny has many credentials, but the one I like best is “certified clutter-clearing practitioner.” And today, she’s going to...
Oct 14, 2024•42 min•Season 2Ep. 438
Do you hate social media as much as I do? Some experts will tell you that you need social media to market, but that’s increasingly not true. Gone are the heady days of Twitter, where you can tweet a link and people would actually see it. That’s why I brought on Emily Aborn, a Content Copywriter, Speaker, and Podcast Host. She’s also a wealth of information on how to market by making sure you have a great product, and much like her, a ton of personality. Want to hear a longer, ad-free version of ...
Oct 07, 2024•42 min•Season 2Ep. 437
I made an unexpected $300 over a weekend in September. And I know that doesn’t sound like a lot — but it’s money I didn’t have, that I have now. That is the power of launching messy — something my friend Stacey encouraged me to do, and what I want to talk about today in a solo episode with some freshly minted segments: One Big Problem: How to get over the fear of making something perfect before launching it One Small Fix: Using Tella.tv to easily create videos as a way to update my product Feedb...
Sep 30, 2024•13 min•Season 2Ep. 436
I’ve been thinking a lot about the notion of starting simple (or messy) vs. starting perfect. And while I definitely fall more on the side of “start messy and iterate,” there are a few places where you shouldn’t skimp. A good home studio is one of them, which is why I brought on my friend Junaid. He’s a “Home Studio Architect,” and he’s a wealth of knowledge. We talk about why you need at least good audio, how to improve your setup without breaking the bank, and the absolute non-negotiables. By ...
Sep 23, 2024•38 min•Season 2Ep. 435
Recently my friend Justin asked on X, “How do you define success?” I said, “Can I knock off for a day at will to spend time with my family?” The world constantly tells us we need to hustle to be successful – but that can’t be true. If you’re a parent, for example, hustle is just not an option. That’s why I’ve brought on Terry Toh. Terry helps business owners successfully run their side business while maintaining a full-time job. But as you’ll see, much of what he has to say can apply to busy sol...
Sep 16, 2024•39 min•Season 2Ep. 434
Ever wonder how to make your podcast stand out in a sea of content? After a serendipitous conversation at Podcast Movement 2024, I uncovered a game-changing strategy that could revolutionize your approach. Spoiler alert: It involves segments. I'll break down why rethinking your podcast structure can make a big difference. We'll explore how segments can help you give more value to your audience, make your show more accessible, and even repurpose content more effectively. Plus, I'll share differen...
Sep 13, 2024•18 min
If you’re anything like me, you probably think about ways you can appreciably scale your business. Part of streamlining, after all, is taking things off your place. That’s why I brought on Joel Oliver. Joel is the editor for all of my podcasts, including this one. I’ve been with him since he was a freelance editor, and now he’s grown to have a team of editors to help him work on more shows. Listen in as we discuss structuring the business to stay a solopreneurship, while also creating processes ...
Sep 09, 2024•45 min•Season 2Ep. 433
It’s the end of the summer and the end of our experiment to keep our kids home instead of sending them to summer camp. So today I’m going to answer 3 questions: 1. How did it go (including giving it a grade) 2. Was it worth it? (and if yes, would it have made it **not** worth it) 3. Will we do it again? In Accelerated, I talk about why I want to create a more scalable business while remaining a solopreneur, and we do a time-tracking check-in. Sign up to get ad-free, extended episodes early over ...
Sep 02, 2024•35 min•Season 2Ep. 432
I think failing to give a good presentation is an incredibly missed opportunity. You have everything: a captive audience, borrowed credibility, and a place to deliver your message your way . But there are a lot of places where your presentation can fall down. Most people will focus on not capturing the audience quickly enough, or pacing. Maybe not rehearsing. But what about your slides? The actual visual part of your presentation. The visual storytelling is as important as the words you deliver....
Aug 26, 2024•38 min•Season 2Ep. 431
Do you have offerings for people at any level of their journey? That’s the importance of having a well-defined product ladder. A product ladder provides multiple offerings at different price points and levels of engagement to meet potential customers where they are at. Today I’ll talk about how I have struggled with this in my own business, with offerings that didn’t clearly communicate how I help my specific target audience of busy solopreneurs with podcasts. Then, I give you a walk through (wa...
Aug 19, 2024•31 min•Season 2Ep. 430
Are you feeling overwhelmed by the endless options for hosting your online business? The decision between a hosted platform like Squarespace or a self-hosted solution like WordPress can be daunting, especially for solopreneurs juggling multiple responsibilities. And while the conversation feels like it's been done to death, I was recently reminded that even seemingly simple platforms can shut you down for no reason. There are a lot of merits to going with a hosted platform. But there's also a lo...
Aug 12, 2024•31 min•Season 2Ep. 429
When I first started my business, I was 14 years old. My income was pretty light, and my expenses were even lighter. Heck – I didn’t even pay for hosting. I hosted my few client websites on a web server in my bedroom (don’t tell my old ISP). But even then, I knew the importance of keeping track of my income and expenses, which I did in an Excel sheet. I’ve always had an interest in accounting, which I thought served me well. Then I hired Rachel Stas. She made some fantastic changes to my busines...
Jul 22, 2024•41 min•Season 2Ep. 428
My newsletter has gone through a lot of changes over the years, but something that's been steadfast is promoting the latest episode of this podcast at the beginning of the week. And that made perfect sense when both the newsletter and this podcast talked about largely the same thing. But now this show talks about running a solo business generally, while the newsletter is supposed to focus on podcast processes and systems. They both make the same promise , but the audiences are different. I've tr...
Jul 15, 2024•25 min•Season 2Ep. 427
I remember the first time I got an affiliate payout. I didn’t even know it was coming. The money just showed up in my account. “What is this from?” Then an email followed. A hosting company I had written a blog post about paid my affiliate commission for the last 2 months. Since then, I’ve been stumbling through, clumsily trying to make affiliate income an appreciable part of my income – but it’s never worked as well as I hoped. So I brought in an expert: my friend Justine. She’s been doing affi...
Jul 08, 2024•42 min•Season 2Ep. 426
A common thread on the show this year has been the push and pull of finding the right tools while also balancing our time and money as solopreneurs. A while back I invited my friend and fellow podcaster Sarah St John onto the show. She’s the host of the Frugalpreneur podcast, and at first, I thought we’d share podcasting war stories. But then everything went wrong. We were having both hardware and software issues. So once we got everything squared away, I thought we could refocus the conversatio...
Jul 01, 2024•48 min•Season 2Ep. 425
I remember the first time after my wife and I started dating that a mutual friend of ours became pregnant. I was the first one to find out and got to relay the message to her. "Amy's pregnant," I said. My wife then asked a series of questions: "When is she due? What is she having? How is she feeling?" I had the same answer to every question: "I don't know." All I knew was that Amy was pregnant. My wife later went out and found this information for both of us. All these details were crucial to be...
Jun 24, 2024•34 min•Season 2Ep. 424
Just this morning I watched an incredibly interesting video that sent me down a rabbit hole. A 19-year-old kid was arm wrestling against a massive bodybuilder – and won, pretty easily. Thinking this could be rigged or fake, I looked at other matches this fellow – Maxim appears to be his name – competed in. And he won…a lot. See, while he is very strong (just not as big as the other guys), Maxim has great technique. What does this have to do with lead generation? Well, as you’ll hear from Jennie ...
Jun 17, 2024•1 hr 4 min•Season 2Ep. 423
Perhaps the most important lesson I learned over and over again running a business is that it’s never about the tool – it’s about the solution to a particular problem. So while I recruited Mike Schmitz to talk about Obsidian, what we actually talked about was much, much deeper. Personal Knowledge Management (PKM) is much more about defining your approach, and intentionality and making time for the important things in your life. All of this creates balance, and space, for you to do your best work...
Jun 10, 2024•59 min•Season 2Ep. 422
Tell me if this sounds familiar: you know you need to publish a blog post, video, or newsletter, but you have no idea what you’re going to talk about. And this isn’t the first time it’s happened. You definitely have ideas, but you can’t think of anything at the moment. That’s why you need a content calendar – and why I’ve brought on Kaitlyn Merola to tell us all about them. We're going DEEP on how to plan, organize, and execute on your content and social plan using a centralized content calendar...
Jun 03, 2024•51 min•Season 2Ep. 421
If you have kids and you’re a solopreneur, you know how tough summer care could be — especially if you have small children. Today, I'm diving into why my wife and I decided to skip summer camp for our kids and how this big decision is changing how I’m structuring my business for the summer. Discussion Topics: Financial and Family Considerations : The high cost of summer camp motivated my wife and me to find a solution that allows us to save nearly $10,000 while providing more quality family time...
May 27, 2024•29 min•Season 2Ep. 420
One day in March I started getting regular inbound requests from my coaching form – I had no idea why. When I looked into it, it turns out that I was ranking at #2 on Google for “Podcast Coach.” Not to sound like a broken record…but I had no idea why. I didn’t feel like I was doing anything special. I didn’t do keyword research. I didn’t write content in a certain way. So I wanted to learn more. That’s why I sat down with SEO pro Lauren Gaggioli to get the real truth about search engine optimiza...
May 20, 2024•54 min•Season 2Ep. 419
Context is everything. It’s easy to think that if you have a salesperson who’s actively frustrating potential clients to the point where they never consider hiring you, you’d fire that salesperson. But what if your website is doing it? Would you fire your website? You should. That’s why I’m SO excited to have Monica Pitts on the show today. She’s going to tell us how we can save HOURS per month by making our website a member of our team (sound familiar?). We spoke for over two hours – and you’re...
May 13, 2024•1 hr•Season 2Ep. 418
