#541 Today on the show I’m joined by my good friend, Lewis Howes. He’s a New York Times Bestselling author, a lifestyle and business coach, a former pro athlete, a top-ranked podcaster, has been featured on numerous television programs and magazines, and that’s not even half of his list of accomplishments. Lewis and I talk about building a successful agency. Lewis shares what he’s learned on his journey to success—the trials, heartaches, triumphs, and the wisdom he’s gained along the way. Show n...
Jan 12, 2022•1 hr 3 min•Ep. 541
#540 I've been hogging the mic here on the SPI Podcast . Yeah, I've shared some airspace with some amazing guests in the 500+ episodes we've published. But there are still so many talented, amazing teachers and storytellers in our community. I wanted to see what would happen if we had some of them join us on Fridays to share what they know with all of us. So today, we have the pleasure of bringing in SPI Pro community member Mike Lander, who you might remember from an earlier episode of AskPat ....
Jan 07, 2022•17 min•Ep. 540
#539 I can't believe we got here so quickly, but I'm fired up for 2022, because we have a great lineup for you this year on the Smart Passive Income Podcast—starting with today's guest, Roberto Blake. Roberto's been on the show before, and he's just a wealth of knowledge and inspiration! Today we're talking about the creator economy and how to approach it this year. With so many people creating content on all these different platforms, how do we stand out from the crowd? How do we approach the w...
Jan 05, 2022•53 min•Ep. 539
#538 Happy new year! 2021 went fast, didn't it? A lot of great things happened this year, especially right here on the podcast. (Check out episode 534, where I share my standout episodes.) Today, I wanted to talk about a hobby I picked up at the tail end of the year. I don't remember exactly how it happened, but I ended up in a deep YouTube rabbit hole—a good rabbit hole—of Bob Ross videos. I went right back to season one of his show and found a really helpful video with Bob and his son answerin...
Dec 31, 2021•15 min•Ep. 538
#537 Whether or not you're already an entrepreneur, how do you position yourself for success? Not just with money, or your goals, but how do you wake up every morning excited to do something that sparks you, that lights you up? Jonathan Fields is here today to help us answer that question. Jonathan's work is all about helping people understand what truly excites them, and the Sparketype—a combination of “spark” and “archetype”—is his framework for doing that. In my opinion, of all the self-asses...
Dec 29, 2021•44 min•Ep. 537
Control. We all want it, but very little is actually in our control. So what's in your control? The ability to wake up every day and be consistent with whatever it is you're trying to achieve. Perhaps 2021 didn't go the way you wanted it to, or you fell short on some goals. As you're looking toward 2022, I want to share an excerpt from a book called Great by Choice by Jim Colllins, which contains a wonderful concept called the “twenty-mile march” that might give you some direction for approachin...
Dec 24, 2021•10 min•Ep. 536
#535 Our vision at SPI most years is to bring our team together in the fall to think about the following year, source ideas, have conversations, and arrive at a strategic plan for the next year. We lost out on the opportunity to do that last year in the height of COVID, but 2021 provided an opportunity to “reboot” our in-person team summit. In today's episode, I take you behind the scenes to understand exactly what we did in Denver, and how it's guiding the direction of SPI in 2022. To help with...
Dec 22, 2021•34 min•Ep. 535
#534 Today I'm digging back into the archives of the SPI Podcast to reveal my favorite episodes we've put out this year. I'll be sharing some of the most memorable moments from the show in 2021, and expressing my gratitude for the year that was in podcast land here at SPI. We've got a ton of great podcast content coming at you in 2022, and I can't wait for all of it. But for now, thanks for being here for the ride that was 2021. I appreciate you! Show notes and more at SmartPassiveIncome.com/ses...
Dec 17, 2021•16 min•Ep. 534
#533 Brenda Petrella is an ex-scientist who helps people get outside in nature through her online business, Outdoor Photography School . She's here to share what she's learned about niching down and building her online business in a way that works for her. You'll learn how Brenda found her niche and started her YouTube channel and podcast. We chat about the differences between online video and podcasting, and how the cohort-based podcasting course Brenda took earlier this year gave her the boost...
Dec 15, 2021•39 min•Ep. 533
#532 I wouldn't be where I am today if I hadn't taken a brave step forward to discover what was out there. It's almost like a boat parked in a harbor, and the world of online business is a giant ocean. As we approach the end of 2021, how are you going to get your boat out of the marina and into the ocean, so you can lose sight of the shore—knowing that there's something better out there? Something a little scary, something that makes you nervous, but something very much worth doing? Show notes a...
Dec 10, 2021•15 min•Ep. 532
#531 Some of my all-time favorite episodes here on the podcast are ones where we interview somebody who is not just a successful business owner, but a member of the SPI community too. Today's guest, Eevi Jones, is a member of SPI Pro , our premium entrepreneurial community here at SPI. And she helps people write children's books. How awesome is that? If that's a field you want to get into, this episode is a must-listen. Eevi is such a joy. She's so knowledgeable, and has some amazing ...
Dec 08, 2021•40 min•Ep. 531
#530 As you learned if you listened to this Wednesday's episode, our team spent a week together in Denver for our first in-person retreat since COVID. Check out episode 529 with Jillian and Tony , two members of my team who were there in Denver who help run our membership community and events and have a ton of experience and insight in community building. In that episode, I talked about the importance of meeting your team in person. Our team is fully remote—we're located all over the United Stat...
Dec 03, 2021•18 min•Ep. 530
#529 During our team's recent retreat in Denver, I huddled with two of my team members, Jillian Benbow and Tony Bacigalupo, to record the episode you're about to hear. Jillian is our SPI Pro community manager, and Tony is our community program manager—and they're also the cohosts of our Community Experience podcast. Tony and Jill are absolute rockstars when it comes to community, and I'm so excited for you to dive into this conversation with us. Because community—and I cannot stress this enough—...
Dec 01, 2021•47 min•Ep. 529
#528 This might sound weird, but I've learned too much. There are a lot of things I picked up in school and in college, and even as an entrepreneur, that are just superfluous. Why am I talking about this? Because it has everything to do with the new book I'm writing, tentatively called The Lean Learner . I've talked about the book a little bit on social media, in SPI Pro, and with a few people, but I wanted to take time in this episode to go into more depth. The Lean Learner is about how to lear...
Nov 26, 2021•18 min•Ep. 528
#527 I'm so excited for this episode. We are speaking with one of my favorite people in the world: Michael Bungay Stanier. Michael is an author who's written a bunch of amazing books. He's also the founder of a training and development company, Box of Crayons, that has taught coaching skills to hundreds of thousands of people. In fact, one of Michael's books has been hugely impactful on my own business, and it's called The Coaching Habit . The Coaching Habit has guided the exact process I use wh...
Nov 24, 2021•47 min•Ep. 527
#526 If you listened to this Wednesday's episode, 525 , we spoke with Derrick Reimer from SavvyCal, which is a tool that competes with Calendly, a very popular calendar/scheduler. In that episode, Derrick and I talked about competition. We talked about standing out. We talked about how to get started and grow your business in a crowded space. Now, Derrick's in the software business. But there are strategies and principles to help you stand out that apply no matter what type of business you...
Nov 19, 2021•18 min•Ep. 526
#525 How do you compete in a space where there are already established players? Whether it's software, or information products, or physical products, it's not always possible to create something entirely original. There are likely others who have already built something and started cultivating an audience or customer base in your space. Today we're talking with Derrick Reimer , who created SavvyCal , a competing tool to popular schedulers like Calendly. As a competitor to an established option, ...
Nov 17, 2021•43 min•Ep. 525
#524 In Wednesday's episode with Los Silva from eCom Powerhouse , we talked about some of the big mistakes entrepreneurs make. That conversation is a great one, so check it out if you haven't already. And it got me thinking about the mistakes I've made along the way. And I've made a ton of them. In fact, we could talk for seven to eight hours about all the mistakes I've made in my business. But this is a follow-up Friday episode, so I want to talk about just the five biggest mistakes I've made s...
Nov 12, 2021•19 min•Ep. 524
#523 We all make mistakes in business. I have made several, and this topic is one of the centerpieces of my conversation today with Los Silva of EcomPowerhouse . Los is somebody I recently met and have become fascinated by. Why? Because in getting to know Los, I've begun to realize that his secret to success goes against the grain of what a lot of people talk about. Because sometimes the best way to grow is to actually slow down and go smaller. It's to try lots of different things at the s...
Nov 10, 2021•45 min•Ep. 523
#522 I'm going to let you in on a little secret. It's something I've learned over time that I know I even have to embrace even more now, and it's something that we should all embrace and do more of. Have you ever had trouble selling a thing you made, perhaps because you're just afraid of failing, or you don't want to feel icky about it, or you don't want to let people down or sell out? Perhaps you're afraid of selling because just you don't even know how to? Beyond those questions, there's a chi...
Nov 05, 2021•17 min•Ep. 522
#521 It's one thing to create an online course. But it's a whole other thing to figure out how to get people interested in it. How do you get people to find your course? How do you launch it? Do you do a fireworks launch, or a fireplace launch? What do those two terms even mean? Well, we're going to talk about all of that and more today with one of my favorite people in the world: Jess Catorc. Jess was actually on the podcast before, over five and a half years...
Nov 03, 2021•38 min•Ep. 521
#520 This past Wednesday I interviewed Mike Pacchione , who is an amazing speaker and coach. Mike once worked with Nancy Duarte, whose organization helped people like Steve Jobs create presentations. And we all know how wonderful Steve Jobs's presentations were. And so Mike is super high caliber when it comes to helping people with their speaking. He even helped me with some of my first presentations back in 2012 and 2013, and he's completely influenced my entire speaking career. Mike and ...
Oct 29, 2021•16 min•Ep. 520
#519 When I think back on my 13-year entrepreneurial career, I think about some of the skills I've learned to get here, and one of the most important skills is storytelling. But storytelling is not something I've always been good at. In fact, at one point I wasn't great at it at all. But it's a skill that can be learned. When I started sharing lots of content, I realized I needed to learn how to better engage people through stories, to keep them on the page, or screen, or on a podcast like this ...
Oct 27, 2021•50 min•Ep. 519
#518 “Audience driven.” It's a term that has become a part of our vocabulary here at Team SPI, and it's why we put on the Audience Driven Summit earlier this month. An audience-driven approach is the way we've always believed a business should be built, and it's the stance we're doubling down on today. It's how we believe all businesses should be created. And if you joined us in this Wednesday's episode, you heard how Arvid Kahl built his own business in the exact same way, where you spent some ...
Oct 22, 2021•11 min•Ep. 518
#517 Many of the guests on this show are people I know personally. Today's guest, however, comes to me by way of crowdsourcing . Arvid Kahl is someone who was recommended by several of the members of Team SPI, and I couldn't be happier that they did. Arvid is one of the most fascinating people I've met in a long time. He's a software engineer and entrepreneur who's been building businesses the right way. What do I mean by that? Well, everything that I've talked about in terms of finding an audie...
Oct 20, 2021•58 min•Ep. 517
#516 We're going to talk some numbers today—and we're also going to go beyond the numbers. Here's one number: This podcast has gotten 65 million downloads and counting, which is awesome. And it's important to share numbers like that, because they represent social proof that the podcast is worth paying attention to. But there's something much more important than a number like 65 million: the people at the other end of it. On Wednesday, I spoke with Dustin Bakkie about accessibility and universal ...
Oct 15, 2021•14 min•Ep. 516
#515 One of my favorite things that happens as a result of this podcast is when a listener or fan says, "You know what, Pat? I noticed that you haven't really talked about [ topic ] much, but it's so, so important. Is there anything you can do about it?" We get a lot of feedback like that, and we appreciate it. We're always trying to improve, and how would we know how to improve if it weren't for the people in our community who speak up? Today, I wanted to highlight one of those community member...
Oct 13, 2021•37 min•Ep. 515
#514 I started my speaking career in 2011 at FinCon, the financial blogger conference. I got called onto the main stage at the last minute because the keynote speaker was unable to make it. I was kind of thrown into the deep end, and although I was nervous and scared, it was a life-changing moment. Flash-forward to 2018, when I decided to host my own conference. I pitched the idea to Team SPI, and we decided that in the summer of 2019 we'd put on an event in San Diego for 500 people who wanted t...
Oct 08, 2021•13 min•Ep. 514
#513 A lot has changed recently when it comes to online courses. For a while, it was all about having as much content as possible. Sixty hours of video and five hundred worksheets? Great! Ship it! We might have thought that way once, but we know now that's just the wrong way to build a course. We want our course experiences to be more efficient—for both the course creator and the students taking it. But online courses have continued to evolve beyond just more efficiency. It's about t...
Oct 06, 2021•48 min•Ep. 513
#512 This past week I interviewed Joe Sanok from Practice of the Practice, who is the author of a new book called Thursday is the New Friday . My chat with Joe really got me thinking, "Who created the five-day week anyway, and why is it like that?" I think we've all been burnt out by working five days a week, and feeling like the weekend isn't quite long enough. What if we had an extra day? How cool would that be? Now, today's episode is actually going to take a bit of a different angle! But it'...
Oct 01, 2021•16 min•Ep. 512
