How to Create an Online Course with Matt Ragland, The Bullet Journal Guy

Kristin:    00:00:00    I remember when I started my online relocation company, I used to write the names of the people that I helped on a poster board. And I would put it on my wall, and then it got love the point where I had to like tape the poster boards together and then I put it in a spreadsheet. And that's where it lived after that. Yeah. It was like, these are the people I've relocated. And it was all in a spreadsheet, but I could have never conceived of that. Like it's almost, it's like a thousand people now, right? Over nine years. Yeah. Okay. That's so, it's not like I had a thousand people on the first day. Right. Like knocking down my door. It, it started with one person. His name was Grayson. I still like remember everybody's names? Yeah. <laugh>. And then his roommate, and then his brother, and then his friend. And it's like, yeah. And that was able to sustain me and, and provide a livable income and savings for the past nine years. Yeah. So it's like, yeah. People can start, can just start where they are. 

Introduction: Welcome to Badass Digital Nomads, where we're pushing the boundaries of remote work and travel, all while staying grounded with a little bit of old school philosophy, self-development, and business advice from our guests.

Kristin:    00:01:18    You may know Matt Ragland as the bullet journal guy. He's a YouTuber writer, vlogger productivity expert, and the director of Creator Success at Podia, an online course platform. And this episode is all about, you guessed it, online courses and also overcoming procrastination, especially as it relates to starting or developing your online side hustle while stuck at home during these crazy coronavirus times. We cover Who should make an online course and discuss? Is now a good time to do so? Is the online course market saturated? Where should you start? If you wanna create an online course? And how do you pick a topic that people want to learn about? What are the best platforms for online course creators? And how is Podia different and cheaper than Udemy, Teachable, Skillshare, and Kajabi? We also discuss, do you need an email list or an audience to sell an online course?  

Kristin:    00:02:29    And how much money can you realistically make selling online courses Anyway, we also talk about YouTube, including some of our own personal struggles. And if it's too late to start a YouTube channel or if there's room for everyone. And of course, mass forte productivity and procrastination. How does Matt stay productive working from home with a wife and two kids? How do you balance your full-time job with your side hustle, especially during a pandemic? And most importantly, how do you motivate yourself to work when you don't feel like it? We talk about all of these topics and much more in this lengthy but super valuable interview. And in the lightning round we discuss what we miss from normal day-to-day life and what we're looking forward to when the quarantine's over, including where we'll travel first. Enjoy. And if you'd like to sign up for my first online course on Podia about how to make money online with the skills you already have, head over to digitalnomadbootcamp.podia.com and we'll also link to it in the show notes. As usual, you can watch this full interview in video format over at Patreon. You can become a Paton for $5 per month at patreon.com/travelingwithKristin

Podcast Interview

Kristin:    00:04:05    Everyone, welcome to another episode of Badass Digital Nomads, and today is May 1st, it's gonna be May. And it's  

Matt:    00:04:14    <laugh>. It's, it's today,  

Kristin:    00:04:16    It's so, so cheesy and  

Matt:    00:04:18    There's so many good date puns in May. It's just not even fair to the rest of the months.  

Kristin:    00:04:23    I have a friend who looks just like nineties Justin Timberlake, and he always posts, it's gonna be May on Instagram, so I gotta go look on there later and see his, but I'm excited for this interview for so many reasons. Like, I mean, you're just such a wealth of information on so many different topics. And I took a poll in my Facebook group and on my Patreon page, awesome. patreon.com/TravelingwithKristin, people support your girl. Um, and people wanna know about online courses and getting over procrastination, so we're going to focus on those today. Um, but it's Friday, it's, it's may, it's day. Who even knows of the quarantine? I saw a TikTok that said like, January, February, March, March, March, <laugh>  

Matt:    00:05:14    March.  

Kristin:    00:05:14    And it just kept going and then it cut off  

Matt:    00:05:17    Day 51 for me, which is nuts.  

Kristin:    00:05:21    What day did you enter the quarantine?  

Matt:    00:05:23    Uh, it was that first like full week of March or I actually got back from a, uh, I was at a conference the weekend before, which is kind of nuts to think about. Um, and we were kind of like not too close to people, just my wife and I went, um, it was like a trip for us too, so we were like, we're still going <laugh>. Um, and then we were with my parents and then we flew back, which we were very tentative about flying back. Um, but it was a light flight, very short. And then that next day we went to dinner with friends. That Wednesday we went to CrossFit and then Thur that Thursday that, so I think that was probably like May, or sorry, March, March 10th, 11th, who even knows 12th, whatever that like Yeah, the first full week of March, whatever that Thursday was, that's, that was day zero, day one, whatever <laugh>  

Kristin:    00:06:18    For me, it was probably the same because I remember being at dinner, I think it was March 11th with friends and things just happened so fast. It's almost, yeah, incomprehensible. But we were at this really nice dinner, like a big group of friends, like private room and getting the news on our phones that the Europe, they did like the Europe travel ban. Yeah. And we were like, oh, weird. You know? And then I never came outta my house again. <laugh> since then. That was like the beginning of the end and now, yeah, I guess day 50 something.

Matt:    00:06:53    It's very similar. Yeah. It was March 12th, was that Thursday. So yeah, I went to dinner with friends, very similar. Had a couple of friends in from town, so a bunch of us, uh, probably, you know, <laugh> like 12 people just at dinner. Um, lots of sharing, lots of family style, <laugh>. And then you're like, we're all in a text thread afterwards. We're like, oh no, what have we done <laugh>?  

Kristin:    00:07:16    We're like, were joking.  

Matt:    00:07:17    The same thing we've been doing for years. <laugh>,  

Kristin:    00:07:19    Is this wrong? Yeah. We were like, this is the last supper. Yeah. By the end, like from when we got to the restaurant until we left a few hours later, it was like the world had ended and we felt like we were in quarantine inside of this room. And then we just left. And like never, I never saw them again. Was wild.  

Matt:    00:07:37    Yeah, it's wild.  

Kristin:    00:07:39    It's so weird. Well, I, we have so much to talk about here before the, um, before the interview Matt and I were talking because, um, we're both on YouTube. So Matt is the director of creator success at Podia, which is an online course platform and he's also a YouTuber of Logger, a writer, a content creator, and the bullet journal guy who also worked previously at ConvertKit and Noah Kagan's company, is that correct? Yep. App Sumo. Yep. So quite the resume. Um, and both of us are from Florida, it appears, or we both went to school in Florida. That's true. Yep. Is that where you are right now?  

Matt:    00:08:20    No, I am in, besides the virtual background, I live, I've been living in Nashville, Tennessee for about seven years now, but I grew up in Florida. Florida boy, uh, Jacksonville went to University of Florida and so yeah, I, but then I moved away in 2009 and haven't, you know, haven't Yeah. Moved back since <laugh>.  

Kristin:    00:08:42    I grew up in St. Augustine.  

Matt:    00:08:44    Oh, nice. Yeah. Yeah. I  

Kristin:    00:08:46    Went to, worked on the trail, so right down the road  

Matt:    00:08:48    Mm-Hmm.  

Kristin:    00:08:48    And now here I am in Miami in my virtual coffee shop that looks like it's in Denmark or something. And you're in what appears to be Casey Neistat's basement <laugh>. That's  

Matt:    00:08:58    Right. Yeah. Yeah.  

Kristin:    00:08:59    Is  that what it's?

Matt:    00:09:00   I tweeted this picture. It is. I tweeted this picture and Casey hearted it, so it's kind of a big deal in internet points.  

Kristin:    00:09:08    It's amazing. I remember one time I tweeted something about Zed and he hearted it and I was like, I screenshotted it, <laugh>  

Matt:    00:09:16    <laugh>.  

Kristin:    00:09:17    I was like, oh my God. Zed liked one of my tweets.  

Matt:    00:09:20    That's awesome.  

Kristin:    00:09:21    Oh,  It's the little things, you know.  

Matt:    00:09:23    Especially these days. Definitely <laugh>.  

Kristin:    00:09:26    Yeah, totally. And on, um, Siri always hops in thinking that I'm asking him something. My series of man not talking to him right now, um, sure. Is mine. Yeah. Oh good. I have a,  

Matt:    00:09:40    It's like a butler.  

Kristin:    00:09:41    I have British male accent.  

Matt:    00:09:43    Yeah. I think mine's Australian.  

Kristin:    00:09:45    You have the same thing. Yeah.  

Kristin:    00:09:48    Yeah. Before the, um, before we started recording, we were talking about, uh, YouTube and some of our different failures, quote unquote on there. So I wanna talk about that later, but also just to like set the scene even more. Right before this interview today, this morning, I made an announcement that I was discontinuing my show Digital Nomad News, which I had on YouTube for a while. And then I made it into a podcast and then I discontinued it and I just was, started crying out of nowhere. Like I didn't realize how emotional I was going to be when I actually announced that I was going to discontinue it. And actually we're gonna put like a digital nomad news minute into Oh, nice. Badass Digital Nomads from now. That's a good  

Matt:    00:10:36    Way to, yeah, it's a good way to work through it. Definitely.  

Kristin:    00:10:39    Yeah. 'cause I didn't wanna like completely abandon it because it's so many interesting stories are coming out every day, but Right. Um, we'll also add in a topic later to talk about like, what even is failure, you know, when you're creating things and when you're trying new things. So, um, I know everyone wants to hear about online courses and productivity and procrastination, but then there's nothing better than like hearing about how other people failed and like what they learned from it. And, you know, you kind of have to fail like a hundred times to win once <laugh>, it seems like. Yeah,  

Matt:    00:11:15    Absolutely. Yeah. And I think, you know, even on that, even on that note, I think, um, you know, there's certainly plenty of examples. They get a lot of promotion for perfectly good reasons of people who succeed relatively early. And you know, it, I'm all for everyone's success at any stage. But I do think something that's interesting when you have like a viral, some kind of viral success relatively early on, is that you can end, you can end up being pigeonholed into a topic or a niche that maybe doesn't really resonate with you. And the more reps, you know, the more creative reps that you get early on, whether that's with a YouTube channel, a podcast or a blog, whatever, the more you kind of get to like, understand and feel your own style out before, like the market <laugh>, you know, the algorithm is like, yes, this is the one.  

Kristin:    00:12:07    Yeah. I think that people who have viral successes very early on, they probably don't even understand why they went viral at all. And then that can be really overwhelming, especially if you just start putting random stuff out there and then all of a sudden you have, you know, millions of views and comments and subs. Like, I would think that, that people could kind of feel a bit lost of what to do next. And then everything after that is technically a failure because unless you go viral every time you post something. Right. So it really is about the process and like what you learn along the way. And I'm always constantly reminded of some saying, I don't know who it's by, but it's something about if you're not embarrassed by who you were a year ago, then you're not working hard enough or you're not growing enough.  

Matt:    00:13:00    Yeah. I have you heard that? Say that? I have. I think it's some variation on, um, uh, Reid Hoffman, who's the founder of LinkedIn, I think has a similar quote, and it might be a play on that, where he said, if you're not embarrassed by your first, you know, iteration of the product, that's you actually like ship. If you're not embarrassed by it, you waited too long. Uh, and so there are a bunch of different variations on that, and maybe his was a variation of a different guy, <laugh> the same kind of quote in a different context. But yeah, that's one way that it pops up for me.  

Kristin:    00:13:31    Yeah. Because I think if we ever feel ready to do something, first of all, we're delusional, probably because we're not ready even when we do feel ready. But also sometimes that moment passes passes and like, you waited too long actually before I knew you lived in Nashville. I was gonna guess Austin from what I had seen. Okay. Around, um, on your page, those are very similar cities. Right. And, um, they're,  

Matt:    00:13:57    Yeah, Austin's definitely bigger, but Nashville's on like a similar trajectory.  

Kristin:    00:14:02    Yeah. I haven't been there since I was a kid, but there's so many, like entrepreneurs and tech people and music and creative people living in both of those Right. Cities. And, um, one of them is the guy from oh, Tucker Max, that writer. And he's always talking a lot about how he didn't publish a bunch of books because the moment passed. Like he had the idea for the book. He kind of like halfheartedly wrote an outline, he didn't really focus on it. And then he is like, those books will never be written because that time in that period of like who I was in my life at that moment is no longer appropriate. So it's like, yeah, if we don't, we don't act on what we're, what we want to do or what we think about there is like a good risk that we never actually do it. So it's good to have you on because you've, you've done so many things, but you've taken a lot of action even in the face of having everything on paper. So can you give us a bit of a summary? Um, right now you're married with two kids, like you have your job, you have your side hustle, but what was your earlier career like, and why did you leave such a, you know, high powered kind of successful career path in product development at ConvertKit to just do your own thing as this undefined entrepreneur and content creator?  

Matt:    00:15:34    Yeah. So, uh, well, a couple of things. One is that, um, I made the, I made the move away from ConvertKit to be a part of the team at podia and, uh, to be a director of creator success there. Um, but yeah, it was, it was a big change because I'd been at Podia, or sorry, I'd been at ConvertKit for about three and a half years. At the time I was employee number five. I was really early on, um, you know, I had <laugh> a nice path to, uh, good, you know, stock options and, you know, lots of, lots of things. Um, and a thing for me that I've always wanted to do that has always been like a guiding principle for my life is to like, seek, seek the path of most, uh, growth for myself personally. And the, uh, the opportunity to be a, a director, director level at Podia was something that like, just at the time being I didn't have at ConvertKit.  

Matt:    00:16:31    And that's nothing to say about like, opportunities that I did or didn't have. I have nothing but respect for Nathan and Barrett, the leadership team at, uh, ConvertKit, the, uh, guy who is the director of success at ConvertKit. CT is amazing. Like he's way more qualified <laugh> than I am. And, um, so I, I went to Podia and it's been a great experience, but it, you know, it's a, like, everything on ConvertKit is public, and so you can see the growth that they've had. Uh, when I joined, we had less than 500 customers, and when I left we had over 20,000 customers. Uh, wow. So just this huge exponential, uh, growth that we had. But I wanted to expand myself, like grow personally, professionally, uh, take a leap of faith and a bet on myself, which is something that I've always, I've always wanted to do, uh, from the side hustle perspective.  

Matt:    00:17:29    Um, you know, a lot of people ask, and I've asked myself this too, because it is a lot of extra things to do, and I've often <laugh> asked myself like, why can't, you know, like, why not just be content with like, you know, the nice job that you have and spend more time with, you know, spend more time with your, uh, family. And like, there's just an itch that I like to scratch when it comes to like, content creation personally. Uh, I've been doing it even before, you know, I kind of got popular with it. And it, I think for me, especially when it comes to the companies that I've worked at, uh, especially ConvertKit and Podia, we're very focused on creative entrepreneurs. And when, and what I find is when I'm doing that work myself also, it gives me just such a better window into the struggles and the challenges that all of our customers face.  

Matt:    00:18:28    And so when I'm having a conversation with someone about like, oh, I'm trying to get more sales, or I'm trying to get my first product off the ground, or I'm trying to like, grow my product from a hundred dollars to a thousand dollars from a thousand dollars to $10,000 in sales. Like, I've done all of those things <laugh> and pretty recently. And so like, it all works together for me. Uh, it creates really nice, uh, <laugh> corporate-y term, but really nice synergy between the two, between the two, uh, pursuits that I get to go after every day.  

Kristin:    00:18:58    I love that. I love that you're in the trenches and so much so that I wasn't even sure if you were the founder of Podia or if you worked there or if you <laugh> because you're on the platform and then you're answering the support tickets and then you, you're on YouTube. I was like, I don't even know what Matt, Matt is doing a lot of different things and I couldn't really tell at first. Um, you know, I didn't realize you had your hand in in everything there, but yeah, that's it. It just makes you more of a human. And sometimes we see these big tech CEOs on Twitter and they just seem like they're above the fray in a way. You know, like they only like text with Tim Ferris and like, you know, they aren't gonna respond to your tweets. And it's like,  

Matt:    00:19:45    I don't have Tim's number yet working on it.

Kristin:    00:19:49    Yeah. So they're just like namedropping and kind of like status signaling and positioning. And, um, it's cool to think that you're like, you're one of us and you know, you're a dad, you're a husband, you're a content creator, you're making online courses, you're working at a company like working with startups. And, um, and I think that that is kind of the direction that everyone is going in right now, especially with the pandemic. Um, well, I'll get to that in a second, but I did read that you felt like you were burning out a bit, um, working at ConvertKit. And I think right now it's a really critical time for people who are either at jobs that they're uncertain about, that they don't even know if that company is going to be in business anymore, or they've been sent to work from home and now they're burning out even more at their corporate job because they're working longer hours. Um, and they're trying to prove themselves remotely without having FaceTime with their colleagues, or they're completely out of work, they're applying for unemployment and they're like Googling how to make money online and how to make an online course. So, um, do you have any advice for, for people who are in tho those situations right now where they're feeling either completely lost or they're like burnt out, but they're afraid to depend on themselves for income?  

Matt:    00:21:20    Yeah, it's definitely a scary time. And the, the thing, and this kind of connects back a little bit for me, it was about five years ago I was trying to break into, I was trying to break into tech and I had gotten a contract working at a, a company and I was really, really, really, uh, excited about, about this opportunity and I was working really hard with it. Um, and I let myself believe that this was going to turn into a full-time thing. And like I was getting, I was getting good feedback, everything seemed to be going well. Um, we had just had our first child, um, he was maybe two months old at the time. And so I was like, yes, this is gonna be, this is gonna be the thing. And after about two weeks they just said like, Hey, we're not, we're not going to continue with your contract.  

Matt:    00:22:12    It's, you know, in, in any way, not even part-time. You're just pretty much gonna be done. And, uh, that was a huge, huge, huge blow to me. Um, and I remember sitting there like, on the porch of our duplex in, in Nashville, it was like, you know, 600 square feet and my wife was asleep 'cause she was working nights and like our, our, uh, son was, you know, taking one of his mini naps throughout the day. And I was just like, what, what am I gonna do? What am I gonna do now? And so like that feeling of, um, kind of, not, not in a funny way, but <laugh> that, uh, that dumb and dumber scene, and they're like, what are we gonna do Lloyd? We got no jobs, got no food, pet's heads are falling off. And I really like, felt like that in the moment.  

Matt:    00:23:01    And I promised myself that I was never going to fully rely on a company to provide all of my, um, income ever again. And so that's really when, even though I had been kind of half-heartedly blogging, I had done some podcasting until then, I was like, okay, you know, this is, I'm gonna build a business on the side. This is all, I'm never going to compromise on this again. And even at the jobs that I've had since ConvertKit and Podia, like it's been <laugh> basically written into my contract that like, yeah, you can't ask me to stop doing the side hustle. If you don't like my work, then we can talk about the work, but I'm gonna keep, you know, I'm gonna keep hustling. And so with, with that, uh, I would just encourage people that, uh, if it's something that you wanna do to try and build a little business on the side, I think it's very doable.  

Matt:    00:23:53    I think it's even actually even more doable right now because, uh, it can, it can be challenging. But, and we can talk about this with like online courses and stuff, is that there are, there are still people out there who have money that they will spend, and even people who are having a hard time still have problems that they need solved. And that might be a service that you can provide, that might be a course that you can create. It could be a simple like digital download. It could be, um, yeah, I think especially early on, if you're looking to make some money in a relatively short amount of time, then services are, are a good way to do that. Uh, one of the things that I did early on was like, do illustration and basically like cartooning <laugh> for people like I would do, um, I would do like, uh, yeah, just kind of, they're called sketch notes.  

Matt:    00:24:49    And I would do sketch notes for bloggers, podcasters, um, speakers about their, about their post topic or about their speaking topic. And, uh, just to give a, a visual representation of their content. And so everybody has a unique thing. I do believe that, that you can, a service that you can sell or something that you can learn. So this is, uh, even though things can feel incredibly overwhelming, this is a time that if you have time, you can, uh, start to build something that can, you know, provide value for you for the rest of your life.  

Kristin:    00:25:27    And what did you say to the people or the sentiment that it's too late to make it on the internet? That everything is too saturated. There's too many online courses, there's too many YouTube videos, right? Uploaded every second there's too many podcasts. Like Yeah. What do you, what's your opinion of that?  

Matt:    00:25:48    It's easy to feel that way. It's probably even easier to feel that way right now when it's like, uh, I was talking to my YouTube coach about this and she was, she was like, yeah, you know, not only now are you competing against all the other <laugh> normal YouTubers that are out there, but also like, you know, Jimmy Kimmel and <laugh> Jimmy Kimmel at like all the late night crew. And, um, you know, John Krasinski just randomly started up his million subscriber channel <laugh> last week or two weeks ago. And, you know, SNL is churning out content, so it can feel very challenging right now. And I think always the answer to this, uh, Seth Godin has, has been writing about this, um, not this particular moment, but this particular idea for years of, if you can find a small group of people that care passionately about a specific thing that you can, like, talk about lead a tribe about, my favorite book from Seth is Tribes.  

Matt:    00:26:48    And it's about, I don't know, I'm hooked into my headphones now, like it's 2010, but, um, it's a small book, maybe about 10, you know, at least 10 years old. And it's all about like leading a small, a relatively small tribe of people. Because what you'll find when it comes to like building a small business or a community is that the more specific that you can make it, the more likely it is that you will attract, um, an audience around it. And so don't think, don't think of things in like really big ways right now. I would try and think of like a really specific problem that you can solve and people that you know it will help and just start from there and begin to build.  

Kristin:    00:27:31    Yeah, I think that's really good advice because it can be easy to get caught up in the bigger picture when there's people like Gary Vaynerchuk and everyone saying like, you know, pump out this content and grow this audience and blah, blah, blah. And it's really just about helping one person. I mean, and, and going back to basics and then that one person can turn into two, right. And it can turn into more, but you really don't need that many like the, like, just like the 1000 true fans concept, right? I mean, I have to reality check myself all the time because there's a lot of pressure to like, grow on every platform all the time, but like to what end? Right? Like, are, you know, Casey Neistat is probably still trying to grow his channel and he's got millions of subscribers, right? It's like you're never gonna have enough.  

Kristin:    00:28:20    Yep. So it's like saying like, oh yeah, I have too much money, I guess. Like, I don't need anymore <laugh> <laugh> like, or I don't know, like there's just not, everything's infinite. Everything's infinitely big in the universe. Yeah. Everything's infinitely small and particles and there's like no end to anything. So it's just about like, you know, being where you are in that moment. And I remember when I started my, um, my online relocation company, I used to write the names of the people that I helped on a poster board. And I would put it on my wall. Love that. And then it got love the point where I had to like tape the poster boards together, and then I put it in a spreadsheet and that's where it lived after that. Yeah. It was like, these are the people I've relocated and it was all in a spreadsheet, but I could have never conceived of that.  

Kristin:    00:29:10    Like, it's almost, it's like a thousand people now, right? Over nine years. Yeah. Okay. That's awesome. So it's not like I had a thousand people on the first day. Right. Like knocking down my door, it, it started with one person. His name was Grayson, I still like remember everybody's names. Yeah. And then his roommate and then his brother, and then his friend, and it's like, yeah. And that was able to sustain me and, and provide a livable income and savings for me for the past nine years. Yeah. So it's like, yeah, people can start, um, they can just start where they are and, and even seeing all the people come out on YouTube now and all of the big stars and everything, it has gotten me thinking about what if everybody had a personal brand? There's actually probably enough room for everybody, right? Yep. If you think about it, I think it does because everyone's their own unique person, right? So couldn't everyone just have a personal brand? Yep.  

Matt:    00:30:09    Yeah, I think so. I think that's very true. And I think it's not about attracting all the people or the most people, but attracting the right people. You know, you mentioned it with the thousand True fans, which is, uh, yeah. Just an iconic article from a long time ago by Kevin Kelly, who's the founding editor of Wired Magazine. And yeah, the, for those listening that aren't familiar with it, the, the premise of like, the entire idea is that if you have a thousand true fans, like raving fans will basically purchase anything that you put out, uh, are happy to support your Patreon and like sub, you know, subscribe your YouTube channel and buy your course and your ebook and all of the things. Um, if you find a thousand people that are willing to basically pay you a hundred dollars a year, so, you know, eight, nine bucks a month, then you will have created a hundred thousand dollars business to support yourself.  

Matt:    00:31:08    And so when you think of it in those terms that a a thousand people is not really that many, now how many, like, how much of an audience do you have to have to get to a thousand true fans? That's kind of a little bit of a different, uh, calculus. But depending on, depending on your offer, depending on what you share with people that you know, something that might be a very gen, someone who might have like a lifestyle brand that's very generalized, may not have that many people that are actually willing to pay. You see this a lot with, uh, you know, say like Instagram influencers that are all of a sudden trying to sell their merch, and people are like, ah, yeah, I'm good <laugh>. But I know, um, I know a lady, uh, she spoke at the ConvertKit conference a couple of years ago and she has a blog that's all about succulents the plants, uh, which I didn't know what those were, uh, until she got on the stage, or like <laugh> met her and just thought they were plants. But now I know they have a name. And so she does about a little  

Kristin:    00:32:08    Cacti, right?  

Matt:    00:32:09    Little cacti. Yeah. She does about 150 K at the time, $150,000 a year on her succulents blog and site, and like, just doing eBooks and, you know, some short courses. I think her most expensive, like public offering was still a, was about a hundred dollars. And so whatever you want to talk about, most likely these days, there's an audience out there for it. And yeah, it's just doing, doing the work and, you know, putting in the creative reps to find that right fit.  

Kristin:    00:32:41    Yeah. There's a writer named Zach Rana on Medium. Have you ever read his stuff? he's like, I think has 110,000 followers on Medium. I just looked and he sent out basically a notice that he was gonna quit writing on Medium, and he was only writing for his private audience now, and I think it was $6 a month to become a member. And, um, I signed up as like a founding member of his tribe or whatever. I don't even read all of his stuff, but I just wanna support people who wanna make it on their own and not have to like, sell out to a big platform. And, um, that's how people can be their authentic, true selves. Yeah. Is if they're able to support, genuinely support themselves with their work through their audience, and not have to take sponsors and not have to worry about click-through rates on their article headlines or, you know, getting the perfect image.  

Kristin:    00:33:42    And I mean, yeah, you can go that route, but I think that he will deliver more value to his readers if he's in complete control of what he's writing about. And he's able to do that without worrying about if he's gonna be able to put food on the table. So everybody support your creators <laugh>. And so if people are interested in pursuing this and in starting to develop their personal brand in monetizing their identity as a human being in the world, where do they start? I mean, let's say they've never published a piece of content before. They don't have an email list, they don't have an audience. Can they still realistically make an online course and expect anyone to buy it? Or, you know, where where do they start?  

Matt:    00:34:36    Yeah, it's a great question. It is probably the most common one that we get. The majority of people who sign up for a podia, uh, have never created an online course before. And so, yeah, I, if you're listening, I talk with other people like you every day. Uh, you're not alone in this. So the way that I always recommend people start, um, there are a lot of the good news is that, you know, you have the tools to create content online, and they can be relatively cheap, um, or completely free. The kind of downside of it is that everyone also has access to these tools, but don't, you know, don't let that get you down. The thing that I recommend is that thing you want to, um, use a, use a medium or a, like a channel that works best for your, uh, works best for your personality.  

Matt:    00:35:24    So could be writing a blog, could be having a podcast, could be on video with YouTube channel or even, you know, Instagram tv. You know, sometimes I even had, I had, you know, even on video, I had a friend, um, Alexis, who is, uh, works at Patreon and she's had a YouTube channel for a couple of years now, and it does okay, but then she started putting her like comedy videos just on Twitter, and she like blew up in the past month. Uh, and she's, she's really smart. So you never know like where that channel is, but think about like, are you better writing, talking, or like being on, being on camera? And there are tools for each of those. So I would, I would think about that. Um, the next piece is, you know, think about what you want to, uh, talk about what you want your topic to be.  

Matt:    00:36:13    The more niche the better. And if you're really early on in this, then I think it's okay to try out a few different topics that you're interested in to see what is gonna resonate as you're consistently putting out content. So for me, early on when I was on YouTube, I would talk about my work, I would talk about fitness, I would talk about like marketing and leadership and product development. And I talked some about productivity, and I put out a video just about bullet journal productivity, uh, August of 2017. And that video did much better when I looked at all my stats from pre from, you know, that past year in November, I noticed that that video had done way better than any other. And so I thought, okay, I'm gonna make a few more videos specifically about bullet journaling and productivity and those videos.  

Matt:    00:37:05    That was my like takeoff moment was having those videos do really well. And I've followed the path down since that. But that was my, the video that really took off the video that, um, when I hadn't had a video all year ago, over a thousand views. And then this video, which I published on like December 24th, 2017, I had published like 70 videos already that year and none had gone over a thousand views. And that video went over a thousand views in like 36 hours. I was like, wow, that's great, <laugh>. And I just kind of kept going from there. But, you know, I took a lot of shots, you know, rel you know, metaphorically speaking, I put in a lot of creative reps just to see what was resonating with people and what, uh, you know, what might get <laugh> picked up by YouTube. We've mentioned that a couple of times.  

Matt:    00:37:58    You can't always know what is gonna take off. And, you know, just as another example of that might actually, my most watched video on my channel now, it just passed 600,000 views, but it was a video that I did about like keeping a journal, like a diary basically. And I put that out in May, 2018, and I didn't think that was gonna be that big of a deal <laugh> anyway. Um, but that, that video has, you know, far and away been my, uh, my biggest one so far. So picking, picking a, picking a, you know, a con a type of channel that you wanna communicate through written audio or video, find a, like using a few different topics that you're interested in to see what resonates. And then once you see, uh, once you see what people are paying attention to really start focusing on that particular topic.  

Matt:    00:38:50    So for me it was productivity and bullet journaling, um, specifically bullet journaling as a ways to productivity. I kind of became like the Trojan horse for how I think about life is. Yeah, I just put it all down in the bullet journal and then I get to talk about mindfulness and productivity and goals and, you know, be time management. Um, but that is kind of the way that you can progress through it. Uh, it does take time now, if you have more clarity about what you wanna talk about, like whether it's, you know, cooking or homeschooling or fitness or, you know, maybe it is, you know, productivity in some way, um, go with that topic. But even in like, if you have that primary topic that you believe you already wanna talk about, still be thinking about different ways that you can make it specific to you.  

Matt:    00:39:34    So like, let's take cooking as an example. Um, you could just talk about cooking or you could talk about, um, now this is kind of an overlap of topics, but you could talk about paleo and keto meal planning for elite athletes. So you can think about how you can take a relatively generalized topic and still go deeper into the niche. Like, and for me, I'm, you know, overall in the productivity niche, but I go really deep <laugh> into like bullet journaling as a method within that. So continuing to like nail down to focus in on as tight of a niche as you can, because the better that you can do that, the more descriptive and clearer your content is going to be to others, and it's going to help them understand really quickly what you're all about and it's going to make it easier for them to share as well.  

Matt:    00:40:29    Like when I was talking about like before I got <laugh>, you know, better or more consistent with this, like, like I said, really early on with the YouTube channel. Now, I do think there again is a, is a space early on to be consistent and see what hits, but at the same time it probably would've been kind of hard for me to grow because let's say that, you know, Kristin, you were telling a friend about my YouTube channel and be like, well, what does Matt talk about? Like, well, he talks about productivity, but then there's some stuff about marketing, and then his kids are in there, some, and he talks about food and he works out and he, and he like, go swimming sometimes. And they'd be like, okay, fine. Nevermind. Like, unless you like, become kind of popular, just like, oh, you know, like Casey Nyad, I'm just curious to see what he's doing.  

Matt:    00:41:14    Yeah. <laugh> each day, like you could tell me, Casey does all those 

things and be like, great, that looks interesting. I'll watch it. But early on, you want to give people a really clear, um, basically, you know, you want somebody else to be able to give your, um, elevator pitch for you basically like your, your messaging needs to be that, that strong to where it's like, now you say like, oh, well Matt talks about like bullet journaling and productivity. And what people get scared about is like, oh, what if people don't know what that is or they're not interested in it, that's okay, that's okay at that point because you actually don't want to be general for a really long time, if ever, like, the more specific, because then the people that are like, oh, I've been trying to bullet journal, I've been trying to be more productive. Tell me about, tell me about the channel. And it just kinda goes from there.  

Kristin:    00:42:00    And then do you have a course yourself on bullet journaling or productivity?  

Matt:    00:42:05    Yes. So I have, I have, uh, two, two courses now. One that's on productivity and goal setting and one that is on, uh, journaling more specifically than bullet journaling. Most of my bullet journal stuff is all on YouTube. Like I have a, a, uh, basically a course substitute that's just a playlist on YouTube that's about, you know, how I set up a bullet journal  

Kristin:    00:42:25    As a follow up to what you were saying, um, for some people, I know I went through this, when you start creating content, you're gonna have an idea of what you think people wanna know about, and then you'll get feedback pretty quickly <laugh> as to whether or not they actually want to know about that. And so when I started my YouTube channel, I just thought I was gonna be a travel vlogger, but then people didn't really, people liked my travel vlogs, like they're pretty funny actually. But, um, there just wasn't a lot of search volume for what I was posting. Yep. And then people would watch it once and be like, okay, cool. Like, cool experience, cool adventure. And then that was it. And then I had a similar experience in, it was late, I think like December of 2018, so about a year after you, when I was on the Nomad cruise, I uploaded a video about the cost of living in Lisbon, Portugal, and I didn't have internet on the cruise, it was only in the ports.  

Kristin:    00:43:31    So I uploaded it, and then I wasn't online for a couple days, and when I came back it had gotten like over a thousand views just in the first 24 hours, and I didn't have another video over 500 views. Yeah. And that video today has almost 200,000 views. Yeah. And then all of the similar videos I posted about the cost of living and like travel guides on those destinations have gotten like 50 to a hundred thousand views, and then they're gonna cross that soon. So, but I also have published <laugh> over a hundred live streams and over a hundred videos on other random things that didn't go anywhere. But I don't think I, I, there's no way that I would've produced that specific video about Lisbon if I hadn't have made all of the other videos I made that year because just the idea for the video, right.  

Kristin:    00:44:24    The way I came across on camera, what I included in the script, the information that, you know, people have been asking for this, this video video was just a culmination of a lot of things that I had learned over posting videos that entire year. Right. And so you just don't know, you know, where things are gonna go, but 10 people, like let's say they sign up for Podia and they, um, are making their first course, should they make the course first and then try to sell it? Or should they put up like a, a landing page and ask people if they wanna buy it and just put up a sales page and get interested possible clients and then build it after?  

Matt:    00:45:05    Right. Yeah, this is a really good question, and it's something that I don't think that there is any like specific right answer to, but the way that I normally coach people through this is when you sign up for, when you sign up for Podia, uh, the first thing that I always recommend people do, especially if you don't have a your first course ready to go, is there is a way on Podia to set up a, like a bio page with a newsletter, an email newsletter capture, because it is really important to start collecting emails as soon as possible. And you can do that on podia. It's really easy to set up. It's just a couple of clicks because I'll tell you, just as a quick aside, uh, when I did my last course launch the va, like 90% of my sales, 80 to 90% of my sales come through my email list. Now all of those email addresses, for the most part are also YouTube subscribers. So there is like a huge amount of overlap, but the difference between the people who see it on YouTube and buy, and the people who see it in email and buy, it's, it's not even close. It, it, it makes, so collect emails, <laugh> as soon as you can, that's going to be your best sales channel. Like, no, no doubt. Um, especially when you're just starting out. So you can set that up and there, oh,  

Kristin:    00:46:25    I'm sorry, go ahead.  

Matt:    00:46:25    Yeah, I was gonna say, you can set that up in, on podia within 15 minutes of signing up for a, for an account. So starting there is a really good way to start to communicate with people and build that audience, and then you can kind work with them and start to share the different, uh, whether it's ideas that you have for a course or just as you are building the course, say like, Hey, here's, here's like a little preview of lesson one, or here's the outline of the course. The other thing that I always rec that I do recommend people doing at this point is as you start to build a little bit of an audience, and it doesn't have to be much, uh, start like trying to pre-sell the pre-sell the course. Um, now I think you should do this when you do have a pretty good idea of what you want the course to be and a realistic timeline of when you could complete it.  

Matt:    00:47:16    I was actually talking to a customer about this yesterday, but like getting, getting people to actually pay, not just like sign up with emails like, Hey, are you interested in this course that I'm gonna make sure I like you, I'm interested in your course, but then you're like, Hey, I'm gonna have this course ready. Will you pay $50 for it? Will you pay a hundred dollars for it? It's gonna be a hundred dollars, $200 when it's actually ready. Um, but will, like, trying to get people to pay will tell you if they're interested. And yeah, I will say that like, just because someone doesn't pay doesn't mean that it's a bad idea necessarily. It's not a good sign <laugh>. But it could also be that you didn't do a very good job of like selling the idea. You didn't explain it clearly enough. You maybe were, you know, afraid to pitch.  

Matt:    00:48:05    I've experienced all of these things, uh, myself, but the, even if people tell you no, and some people will tell you no, trying to even like, get past the fear, get over the fear or the frustration of like, oh, it didn't work to be like, oh, well what, why didn't, why weren't you interested in this? Or, Hey, can you give me like, some feedback on, on this course idea? People will often just tell you, like, sometimes they'll tell you things like, oh, you know, I don't have the money or I don't have the time, but they may just be like, Hey, you know, this wasn't the idea for me. Or like, I thought you were offering this, and you'd be like, oh my gosh, I was actually offering something totally different. And they're like, well, that didn't make sense to me. That's a really good sign. Like, the sooner that you start asking for money, the sooner that you're gonna start to understand what people will, will really buy from you and how to best communicate it.  

Kristin:    00:48:56    Yeah. I'm actually planning on doing that for a new course that I've been wanting to make for like the past six to eight months probably. It's called, I already have the name for it, a travel mastery course where I just teach people all of my travel hacks and tips and strategies for saving money and things in one place. Yep. Um, but because I was traveling so much, I just found it hard to make time between work and content and other stuff to actually make the course. And then when I came across podia, I was like, this is great because I don't have to use a lot of different types of technologies and software platforms. I can just put everything here. Right. So one of the things that I'm planning to do now that I finished, um, my Make Money Mentorship course, which is now live on Podia, guys, you can actually learn step by step in 30 days how to make money online.  

Kristin:    00:49:51    Love it. Um, I'll link that in the show notes and I do already have clients signed up for it. So I actually like pre-sold it before People Perfect. Um, before I finished it, <laugh>, or, yeah, I love that. So I, I customized it, um, but I wanna do that for the travel course and just put the outline up and then I'm not sure exactly what the price point's gonna be, but like, probably pretty low, like, I don't know, like definitely less than $500. And um, yeah. And then I'll get people to just give me feedback on that and they'll actually be able to buy it and then I'll give like two weeks before it's ready or until the first module's ready or whatever it is. So that's what I'm gonna do before I do my next course because I wanna make sure it's exactly what people want to know about and then it's a collaborative thing.  

Kristin:    00:50:43    Right. And, um, yeah, it doesn't matter if you have an audience or not, I don't think, um, I have a friend who just started a, a group training on something and she only has like a handful of clients and she's made over 20 grand just off of talking on people one-on-one and pre-selling it before she started it. Yep. So there's plenty of ways, even if you have two or three people signed up in your course, like you can make as much money as your salary that month. Um, and then Podia is like, I've been using it now for about six weeks or something like that. Like, can you explain what the differences between Podia and a lot of the other course platforms, because people are really familiar with like Udemy and Teachable and Skillshare, right? But they're kind of like the freelancing websites of online course platforms. Like there's so many courses, right? A lot of them are $10 and it's like really competitive and you don't get paid a lot of money. So how is Podia different from those as well as like the more expensive custom, um, pieces of software that like the big entrepreneurs are using, like Russell Brunson and people like that? Yeah,  

Matt:    00:51:58    Yep. Yeah, it's a great question. So for specifically things like, um, like Udemy and Skillshare, so skills for both of those. Uh, the big drawbacks for the, well, lemme lemme just be a nice guy and start with the positives. The positives is, the positives for both of those are that, um, they bring an audience to you, like people, students, for lack of a better term, go to Udemy and Skillshare to learn, like, to try and learn something. And so that is a positive that, uh, students, buyers are actively going to those sites looking for courses. The downside for you as the creator is that they basically force you into a price. It's usually pretty cheap and, you know, 10, 10 20 bucks. Uh, and so your, your ability to make a really like solid income off of those is pretty, is pretty low in my opinion, because they force you into a price.  

Matt:    00:52:53    You actually don't own your audience at all. Um, you know, they sign up for Udemy and you, I don't think you are able to really access their emails or maybe you are, but like, there's something in your terms of service that, uh, I would never use Udemy personally or Skillshare. Um, but the, the PO and then, uh, teachable Teachables, uh, more like Podia, the, uh, thing with Teachable is that, uh, their courses, their courses only, and, um, they're also a little more, a little more expensive. The nice thing about Podia is that Podia combines a several different products into one to really make it a grade all in one solution for, uh, the creative, you know, for a creative business. And so you have online courses, you can do digital downloads like eBooks, um, or like any kind of file. We have a lot of illustrators and photographers that sell like design files and, you know, illustration or, uh, photography, presets, uh, all kinds of things.  

Matt:    00:53:54    And then also memberships. And so like if you're on Patreon or something, something like that, then you can basically have a version of that inside of Podia also. So, and there's also email marketing and a pay and a site builder. So there's a lot that you can do inside of, uh, podia. And then, uh, larger ones like Kajabi or ClickFunnels. What I have found is that, uh, not only are they more expensive, uh, ironically sometimes there are more limitations. Like I think the starter plan with Kajabi, uh, you, which is still more expensive than the nicest Podia plan, uh, only limits you to five products. Um, and uh, ClickFunnels is another one. They're, both of those have a lot of features, sometimes more features than podia, but, uh, often for someone who's getting started on top of the like just month to month price, uh, they're both very complex.  

Matt:    00:54:46    And so, um, that's why a lot of times you will see like some more, uh, advanced or like, you know, some of the big influencer entrepreneurs and course creators using, using those, um, just because they have, they need a lot more features, but also many times they have entire teams that, like, they just have the ClickFunnels person, like they're not doing it <laugh>, they're not doing it anymore. So if you're starting out on this, like pod is going to replace four or five, six tools that you might be using or feel like you have to sign up for. And that to me is the real value in it is that it's just such an all-in-one platform for someone who's just getting started.  

Kristin:    00:55:25    Yeah. And if I could just add, this is not a sponsored podcast, but um, I think one of the reasons why I didn't create more digital products and courses in the past year or so is because I was probably in hindsight, like just overwhelmed with all the different pieces of technology that I needed to string together to make it happen. Whether it was MailChimp with lead pages, with ClickFunnels, you know, with all of these things. And I actually found Podia when I was looking for a better email marketing system because I don't really like MailChimp. And then all the, the email marketing systems are very expensive. So even if you're not doing anything with your email list, you have to pay a lot of money just to like have the emails on a list. Um, which is great business model for them. But's not good for small creators.  

Kristin:    00:56:12    Yep. And then I found Podia and I was like, this is too good to be true because you can have unlimited email addresses. Like there's no extra charge. You could have a billion emails and you would not have to pay anything extra for it. And the interface is just really easy. So you could do your webinars from podia, it's like integrated with YouTube now. Yep. You can do landing pages, you can do sales pages, you can send out email broadcasts, which is like really easy compared to using some of the other, um, pieces of software where it's like, I'm very smart. I have a MBA, you know, but I'm like, in these CRM systems, like how the hell do I just send one simple text email <laugh> to my list? And so I'm actually using the features. Yeah. Which is something I didn't do That's awesome.  

Kristin:    00:56:57    When I was paying for other stuff. So, um, we'll definitely link though to, to podia in the show notes that you guys can start with that. I did a, the free trial and then you guys hooked me in. But I, I definitely think that it will pay off and I look forward to creating like a whole ecosystem of different eBooks and, and courses and things like that, um, in there. So I feel like I'm just getting started and it's really fun. Yeah, absolutely. Like it's, it's also a creative outlet to, um, to build that. Um, and then, okay, so what kind of, we're kind of going over time, so I'll, we're good, cut this short. But, um, what kind of income are like small creators making on Podia? I mean, are these people that are like, that were freelancers and now they're able to replace their income with their online course income? Or what can people expect if they, you know, long term? And I know that you were saying in some of your blog posts that it can take a lot longer than you think for this to replace your current income, but what is kind of like the range over time that people are seeing from your statistics point of view?  

Matt:    00:58:13    Yeah, and that's a really good question. And I do think that it varies for people certainly. But one of the things that I do say that it, you, you saw in a, in a post that I wrote is that I believe people wait, creators wait too long to start monetizing their ideas in their content, but also oftentimes expect that, you know, like a complete six figure turnaround is going to happen usually faster than it actually will. But there's a lot, there's a lot that goes into it, including like your niche, your industry, your pricing obviously plays a huge role in it. Your audience size. 'cause you mentioned your friend that only has like, you know, maybe a handful of, handful of clients and, you know, did $20,000. If you have a thousand dollars a month offer, then that's, that's very doable. But you have to think about like, what can I offer that people would pay a thousand dollars a month for?  

Matt:    00:59:08    'cause those things do exist. It's just finding the right fit and positioning the right offer for your services or for your course, for your membership. Um, early on, I always encourage people to like set very specific, uh, revenue goals for their products, for their business. And one of the first ones that <laugh> I always like to encourage people on is see if you can make back whatever your podium payment is every month. So, um, like say you have an ebook i'd, I always, if let's say you have an ebook, one of the things that I do is I just say, okay, well charge $39 for it. 'cause if you just sell one each month, then Podia is paid for. If you sell two, then basically, you know, there's, there are two, uh, pricing levels with Podia right now. It's, uh, 39 and 79. If you sell two and you're on like the higher plan, then you've paid that off.  

Matt:    00:59:57    And so that is one way to think about it. And then I always encourage, like, again, thinking about it in terms of like, okay, now how, so that was one goal I had, and the next goal I had was like, okay, I spend, you know, about $150 a month on average at the time on like, all my digital tools. And so 150 bucks a month, how can I start making 150 bucks a month? Okay, I've done that. How can I make 500 bucks a month? How can I make a thousand dollars a month? And continuing to kind of build in that, uh, progression. Uh, there are, there are people who make a hundred thousand dollars a month on podium. Uh, they're, um, I think well over they're, yeah, well over like thousands of people who make a thousand dollars a month. And again, it doesn't all have to be that you have 10,000 email subscribers or 40,000, uh, YouTube subscribers, 10,000 YouTube subscribers.  

Matt:    01:00:48    There's a lot of, there's a lot of variation when it comes to pricing and offer and interest. Um, so that is, that's a big, that's the big thing with it. I would also say, um, especially early on, especially if you've either been furloughed or you don't have a job anymore, think about how you can take maybe the skills that you built in your, in your past job, in your previous career and use that as a service for, for other people. Um, like, you know, how could, yeah. Just basically how could you do that? Uh, one, one lady who's on podia, she was the go-to person. Uh, and this isn't, she wasn't, you know, she's not a part of like the recent unemployment, but this was a few years ago. And she was the person at her work who was always the go-to person on, um, like Excel spreadsheets, Google Sheets.  

Matt:    01:01:36    Like she just knew everything, you know, everything there was to know about those. She, you know, showed people how to use, you know, all the things. And I'm not that good at Google Sheets at an advanced level like her, I need to take her course, but <laugh>, so she, same here. She transitioned, uh, into basically having a course about how to be an Excel, an Excel master. And that's what she started doing her work on. So thinking about the specific things that you have that you can teach. And I would also think about it in terms of, uh, people in terms of like, what can you teach that's going to make the most money? That's a perfectly valid thing to think about. I think about that a lot. Like what skills do I have that are most in demand that people are going to pay the most money for?  

Matt:    01:02:17    And people like to, um, people like to be healthier or they like to try to be healthier and they like to make more money themselves. And so if you know of ways that you can specifically just from a pricing standpoint, if you know of ways in your, you know, in your job or with your expertise, you're like, if you do this, you will lose 10 pounds. If you do this, you'll make a thousand dollars. If you do this, you will double your sales. Then you can take whatever that, you know, outcome is. And like tie a very, like really anchor a price to it. 'cause if someone came up and told me like, Hey Matt, I guarantee that I can double your course sales. I'd be like, oh, okay. Really? And you know, if they, you know, sold me well, I'd be like, yeah, my product is $5,000.  

Matt:    01:03:03    I might be like, okay, well if I double my sales, then okay, you know, that's actually a pretty, pretty reasonable thing now, you know, that you have to be able to deliver. You know, you people are going to the, I will say that the more that you charge people, the more they are going to need to be convinced <laugh>that they are, that you are worth paying that money to, but there's a really good chance that you are. And so I don't want you to like set your sights too low, you know, just, you know, work hard, keep putting products out there, keep putting content out there and you're going to find like that alignment between the content that people are interested in and the money that they're willing to pay that can build your business.  

Kristin:    01:03:41    Yeah, that's a really good advice. And also shout out to Podia for not taking a commission on the sales. Like, you guys just pay a flat fee of 39 to $79 a month and they're not taking 5% of everything you sell. So these other courses, like people have commented on my, like videos and stuff, they're like, well, isn't um, podia more expensive? And I'm like, no. And even if it's like a free platform, they're still taking a percent of sales. And so like in the first month or so you're gonna be paying them more and then it just goes from up from there. And then you have this huge massive switching cost Yeah. Where the company's taking a commission every month, but you don't wanna switch platforms 'cause then you have to like, upload everything to a new platform and whatever. Yeah. Change all of your links and like, it's like a big headache. So  

Matt:    01:04:33    Yeah, I had, I had someone that moved out just to that point. Um, and this is less, this is more common than you would think, but I had someone who started on a free platform. Uh, I won't name it because there are, you know, y'all can try and figure it out. But, um, 'cause I do have, you know, friends there and I like, like the people. But this is like someone who started on a free platform and, you know, built, built their audience and, you know, it was a, I think a 5% cut of sales. And when you, you know, when you're doing a hundred bucks a month, you are like, oh, five bucks, this is great. And then you do a thousand bucks a month, you're like, ah, 50 bucks not a big deal. I'm rolling. But then, like, this person had gotten up to, um, had gotten up to basically $10,000 a month that they were doing, and all of a sudden their free platform was $500 a month that they were paying, you know, month after month after month after month.  

Kristin:    01:05:23    Yeah, definitely. Um, that's something that people should set their sites higher because that first dollar that you make online can easily turn into $10,000 a month and you don't know when it's gonna happen. Exactly. Yep. I, I've seen this happen so many times, and you wanna have that structure set up so that when it rains, it pours and you have something to collect the rain in. Because everybody with a drop shipping store right now is crushing it. But they might have set up their stores five years ago, and so they positioned themselves without knowing there was gonna be a pandemic, and now they're making a lot of money. So they have an advantage over people who are like, let me learn how to do drop shipping now. Right. And so this is something that, you know, whether I was talking with Johnny talking from, um, nomad Summit.  

Kristin:    01:06:15    And he does like drop shipping and stuff like that. And we were talking about how there could be a nuclear war or like any other kinds of big disasters in the future. Uh, hopefully there's not. But either way, it's kind of like the worst case scenario has happened now. And so if you start to get yourself in a more diversified financial position now you're gonna be set up a lot better, even if it's 1% better or 10% better when the next thing happens, or when the next shoe drops or whatever the saying is. Yeah. And, um, <laugh>, you just don't, you like, even as a creator, even with a lot of knowledge on different platforms, you don't know exactly where your income's gonna come from because Right. I started writing on Medium before the partner program started. And then it started, and I just ignored it for a while because I was like, how much are they really gonna pay me for these articles?  

Kristin:    01:07:11    And then I finally signed up and I put in my, um, tax information, and then I made like $3 Yeah. On an article, <laugh>. And then one day I logged in and it said $1,500 from one article. Yeah. And like one month. And I was like, what? That's what. Yeah. And yeah, and like I was, um, I'm a gaming affiliate. Nice. Yeah. And, uh, that's like crazy. I mean, one day I got a payout, it was like 40 grand and I got this like, notification on my phone. I remember I was walking, I was outside of the Tower of London. I had just spent the day in the museum and then I was waiting for an Uber and I got this notification like, $40,000 was deposited in your account. And I just like jumped up and down. That's awesome. <laugh>. And this taxi driver was like, what happened? I was like, oh, I just got paid <laugh>. No,  

Matt:    01:08:01    No big deal.  

Kristin:    01:08:02    <laugh>. But, you know, then another month it might go down to $300 or whatever. So you just have to like, have a pieces in place, like a video that goes viral or meme that goes viral or some product that you make that everybody loves. Like, you just don't know when that's gonna happen. So. Right. Love that advice. Um, let's move into some productivity and procrastination stuff because it is a weird time right now with Coronavirus. So what does a day in your life currently look like and how are you staying productive working from home during this like, period of anxiety with a family at the same time?  

Matt:    01:08:48    Yeah. It gets, it gets challenging, but it's, it's good. So I have a lot of kinda systems set up already. 'cause I've been working from home for about five years now. Now I haven't been working at home with everybody at home <laugh> for yeah. For five years. That's just the last two months. Like everyone, like everyone else. But, uh, the things for me, um, I think that something, it just, just from the, just from the jump that's really important is, uh, my wife and I communicate a lot about like what my schedule's, like when I need to be on or off calls, um, what, you know, what my needs are. Uh, just, just from a professional standpoint. And, um, you know, she's, she's great and very supportive of my work. And she, she's a nurse and so on days that she works, I basically work very little to not at all <laugh> and, um, at least, at least right now.  

Matt:    01:09:42    And so, uh, we communicate a lot about what, what the timing is for everything. And the, the other piece of this is that, uh, other than times where I might have, you know, calls or interviews or like things that I have to be like on Zoom for, I try and be really flexible with, uh, stuff that, um, you know, stuff that my family might need. And so that helps. And then, uh, being, being in a, being in a position where, you know, I do work a lot of early mornings and a lot of late nights. And so that is kind of, that is kind of the trade off right now. Um, of especially doing the things that I want to be doing, both with Podia as my primary job and then my, my side hustle, my side business and YouTube. So there is not as much sleep <laugh>, uh, you know, just, there's, there's no other way for me to like say it besides that right now.  

Matt:    01:10:32    And I'll, I'll be more specific. Usually I'm looking at, you know, six, six hours of sleep, give or take, uh, top in probably seven hours. And then, you know, the, not an occasional night of say like, you know, five-ish hours. And so there is, you know, there is that. But I, in terms of I, in terms of like how do you like stay productive and focused <laugh>, especially on times where you don't have as much sleep, um, that's where the bullet journal, uh, really comes in very handy for me. So I write down at the beginning of the week, like all the major tasks and projects that I have in that week coming up. And I try and prioritize them based on impact, importance, um, you know, confidence that I can get through them, uh, time that it might take to execute. And then I basically try and like group them in today.  

Matt:    01:11:21    So like, okay, well this matters at, to get done at the beginning of the week. And so I'm gonna try and knock that out by Monday or Tuesday. This can kind of weigh towards the end of the week. So I'm gonna like, and then I do a lot of time blocking. And again, that goes back to the communication piece with, uh, my wife is that again, even though I try and still be really flexible, I might say like, Hey, from, you know, I start at nine and until 11 I'm just gonna be, you know, like, doors locked in the office, noise canceling headphones on. If you need me, text me. 'cause I'll see the text as it pops up, but I probably won't be able to hear anything <laugh>. Um, noise canceling headphones are very good if you're, you know, working from home and you have, you have the kiddos.  

Matt:    01:12:01    Um, and so just having those, because then even when I have my tasks written down and I know kind of how I've ranked them, then when I'm in that block of time when I'm in my work day, then it takes away from some of the like, you know, laziness or distraction that I might be tempted towards. 'cause then all I have to do is look at the notebook and be like, okay, well I can do this. This is the next thing to do. And in terms of procrastination, the biggest thing that I have found besides having like just a list of things that I know I have to do is making a deal with myself mentally that, um, at least at the beginning of any kind of task, I don't go into it actually thinking that I have to do a very good job at it.  

Matt:    01:12:45    <laugh>. I just have to get started at it. And I have to, like, sometimes, like if I'm really feeling kind of unmotivated, then my only goal for starting a task is to, is literally just to half-ass it. And <laugh> be like, can I, can I like, you know, give it the old try on this. And once I'm able to do something for say like 15 to 20 minutes, uh, then I really do kind of get back into my normal groove. I'm like, okay, I'm doing this. I've started, I'm in it. I'm gonna do a good job. I'm gonna keep working on it. Uh, this was, uh, two nights ago. Yeah, Wednesday night, 10:30 PM had a video that I wanted to put out. I was like, I'll just get in here. I'll make kind of a half-assed run at the initial edit. Like, get out the ums and the ahs and the parts were like, well that kind of, that part kinda sucked.  

Matt:    01:13:32    I'm gonna move past that. So I was like, I'm just gonna, you know, kind of half-ass it, make a quick edit, get out all the ba you know, all the main, the main cuts that definitely don't need to be in there before I really like chop it up. And then an, you know, hour and a half, two hours later it's midnight. The vi the edit is basically done at that point. 'cause 30 minutes in, I was like, okay, well you know, I got that half-ass part done and I'm kind of on a roll now. So let's keep going.  

Kristin:    01:14:00    Yeah. I definitely think that that, that helps a lot. And something for everybody to take note of during this time and to have compassion about is that everyone's on a crazy mood swing right now on Yeah. On top of everything else. So you really just might not feel like it. And you might be living in an apartment in New York or Mumbai with like four other people and you're not usually there 'cause you're just working all day and you guys commute to work in the morning and you come home late at night and you, or you go out to dinner or whatever. And now everyone's stuck at home for the sixth or seventh week in a row. And so yeah, it's gonna be hard to get into slow state or if you have your kids, you're trying to edit a video <laugh>, you know, like jumping around.  

Kristin:    01:14:45    So, um, I have felt that this week spec specifically, there's something about, um, self-sabotage and procrastination that kind of go together. Absolutely. It always brings me a lot of comfort to know that it's just part of the human condition. And nobody is immune to it. Nobody feels motivated and productive all the time. And philosophers have been writing about this for thousands of years. So it's like tale as old as time not going away. <laugh>. Yeah. And so what I did, um, this week for whatever reason, I was having a really particularly hard time, maybe because it was the last week of my course. And so it's like building a house. Yeah. The last part, like that last 10% takes as much time as the first 90% Right. And everything felt like it was never gonna get done. And so what I would do is I would write down specifically what I had to do next.  

Kristin:    01:15:43    like, I knew I had a lot of stuff to do in that day. And I'm like, all right, what do I have to do in the next 30 minutes? What would that thing be? And it was like research, you know, templates for cold emails. Okay. Yep. I did that and, and I just did that throughout the day, like kind of like a toddler kicking and screaming and then I had to, um, reward myself. Yep. So it was like, okay, if I do this task, then I can eat a snack. Yep. If I do this, then I can go for a walk. Yep. And then that's perfect. There I was at 2:00 AM editing the last video <laugh> and uploading it. But like I couldn't even get to that point until after I had cut out all the bad parts of the video and cleaned it up and, and, and so yeah. It's just like, there's no shortcut. So even if Yeah. If you're feeling bad, I guess you just gotta push through it and come up with tactics to, um, reward yourself and also like convince yourself to do stuff. Because that's kind of the way that we've been trained, I guess as humans, it's like, if you're good then you get a treat <laugh>.  

Matt:    01:16:53    Yeah. Yeah. There's a lot, there's a lot that goes into that. And you know, that's kind of, if you've read Charles d Higg's books, the power of Habit, that's kind of like habit building. Motivation 101 is, is you find a cue that gets you started, you go into the routine and then you give yourself a reward and, you know, that works. It's, you know, it sounds overly simplistic, but it will work. I'm glad you brought up the reward part and you know what I normally tell people with this and you know absolutely. Like give yourself grace, give yourself a break. It's a wild time. But I'll also say that one of the things that keeps me, uh, like sane and happy and feeling like more motivated and fulfilled even now is like knowing that I'm still like getting stuff done. That I'm still being creative.  

Matt:    01:17:38    And even if it's not at the level that maybe I would have preferred before this, uh, just knowing. 'cause I always know, and this is something that I always keep in mind, I've been talking to my kid, my 5-year-old about this, is like, even if you don't wanna start something, just starting really small and like seeing how far you can get before you're just like, okay, well that, that's it for now. Like, the feeling when you get to the end of that, whether that is, you know, writing a post or editing a video or working on a podcast or, you know, shooting a video for me or like doing a workout. You know, anything like that. Like starting, starting small and then getting to the end of even just that little phase feels really good. And so I just kinda chase that feeling of, even if I don't feel great about this at the beginning, I know I'm gonna feel really good about having made the efforts at the end.  

Kristin:    01:18:28    Yeah. And the end might not come today, it might come later this week or later this year if it's a big project and you can't set your, your thoughts that far ahead 'cause it's too demotivating. So just focus on those small wins and know that if you start something, then that is usually the biggest hurdle. Like I know if I press play on my workout, my home workout video, if I press play, I will workout for an hour. If I don't press play, I won't workout <laugh>. Yeah. So it's not like you're gonna get halfway through and just quit. Yeah.  

Matt:    01:19:04    Yeah. Uh, yeah, I mean, James Clear talks about this a lot in his book Atomic Habits, that basically if you set up your, like your starting point then uh, he references a story from Twila Tharp who's like a choreographer, like composer. She's just, you know, brilliant. And she used to say like her goal wasn't necessarily to get into the dance studio every day. Her only goal was to like go outside and hail a cab. 'cause she knew if she walked outside and like, you know, called the cab, that's all she had to do. Because if she did that then you know, he was going to deposit her at the studio and she was gonna go in and dance. 'cause that was just the thing. And you know, I've kind of done that some too, if I don't want to, you know, get up early and go to CrossFit, which obviously I haven't done for seven, seven weeks now.  

Matt:    01:19:49    But when I was getting up and going early, I kind of use that same idea. I was like, okay, well all I have to do is get up and go sit in the car. If you're gonna sit in the car at five 15 in the morning, you're not usually gonna get back in the house. Just be like, well, I'm here <laugh>, I might as well drive. Drive. Um, so that is, yeah, like, just thinking about like that first like little, little system that you can put into place where your body's like, okay, yeah. This is the thing that we do with the stuff and the things  

Kristin:    01:20:15    <laugh>. Yeah, totally. If you just put your shoes on and go outside and lock the door, then you're probably going for a walk. Yeah,  

Matt:    01:20:23    Exactly.  

Kristin:    01:20:25    Oh man, that's so funny. Okay, we'll get to the lightning round now. Um, I'm drinking kombucha over here, but what is your morning beverage of choice?  

Matt:    01:20:36    Coffee Strong? Uh, I actually drink, um, this, uh, I think it's, it's cute. Mostly like a Cuban blend from Costco, that great local coffee shop. Costco, <laugh>, wholesalers. Um, now they sell this, I, I really like it. It's uh, called May Orga. It's in a big yellow bag and it's very strong and roasty and tastes like chocolate and dirt and the earth. And I, not really dirt, but uh, it's coffee.  

Kristin:    01:21:07    I'm a dark roast person myself. I just got a recommendation, um, from an ex-friend. Well he is like a friend slash Bumble date. <laugh>. Yeah. I keep in touch. I keep good, good relations. That's awesome. And um, he sent me a, we used to both drink, we drink a lot of iced coffee. We're from Florida. And, um, it's hot here. I'm sweating right now. Yeah. And so he sent me this picture or it was like Lalo I think is how you pronounce it. Yeah, it's I have never had it before, but they have a concentrate that's very strong and I had it for the first time today and you have to like dilute it with water and ice and milk and whatever, but it is so good. That's, so I'm glad that he shared that with awesome me. So I'll probably like your Costco one too. I have to make a note of that.  

Matt:    01:22:01    Check it out. Yeah. Big yellow bag starts with an M Cuban. It's great.  

Kristin:    01:22:06    Um, and what is the most important part of your morning routine?  

Matt:    01:22:11    Uh, journaling? Journaling for me, definitely it helps like set my mind up for the day and then I am like super proud of myself. <laugh> I'd say like, one thing that I've added in over the past, uh, one thing that has been nice that I've actually added in, uh, over the last several weeks is I've been, uh, meditating much more consistently, which I've never really been able to do. Um, but yeah, I've, so journaling and meditation, I'll say like both of those together normally take me 15 to 20 minutes. So I don't give myself like, okay, it's gotta be an hour or it's gotta be three pages. It's like, it's kind of similar thing that we just talked about is, you know, I just, you know, kind of journal initial thoughts for the day. I don't try and like do too much or go overboard. It's a very similar thing for meditating. I normally try and hit five to 10 minutes for each and uh, yeah. Just kind of move on from there.  

Kristin:    01:23:04    Totally. It's the ritual, but That's good. And what is your favorite remote work or work from home? Tool or app?  

Matt:    01:23:15    Hmm. That's a good one. Besides the bullet journal, uh, one that I've been using that I really, I really like when my, actually, my 5-year-old doesn't steal it is this thing called the time timer. And it's like a kitchen timer. You can use it, but it's a nice, actually my, my son told me about it <laugh> in a way. 'cause they use it at school. 'cause you know, a child doesn't, a 4-year-old doesn't know what time. If you tell 'em they have 15 minutes left in something, they're like, great. Might as well be 15 hours and 15 hours might be 15 minutes. Doesn't matter. But, uh, this nice little thing with the time timer, it is like a kitchen timer. And so like you just turn it to like, the amount of time that's left visually. And so I'll, if I wanna do like a Pomodoro productivity like session, which is like 25 minutes on or 50 minutes on and then five to 10 minutes off, then that's, that's what I'll use and I'll just, you know, kind of set that next to the desk. Um, and just, you know, go as long as that, uh, that time showing up.  

Kristin:    01:24:12    That's cool. I want one of those. Yeah, they're great. This, uh, that does bring me to what I was gonna ask you. Analog or digital.  

Matt:    01:24:19    So from a productivity standpoint, I do tend towards analog because, uh, it's a a very literal like, single task object and I can only focus on that when I'm using it. I do use a lot of other like digital productivity tools. The two that I'm using the most right now are notion and research. Uh, those are the two that I have liked the most this year. And I've been using Notion for about a year. But, uh, the way that I kind of think through this, and I'll just give like a little, a little version of it, but I do a lot of my brainstorming planning and um, like daily task list productivity analog in the bullet journal for long-term projects for collaboration, for research, editing, building, especially like courses or products that all is done digitally because you know, obviously that makes the most sense. You know, you wanna save versions <laugh> and be able to update and edit and make all those changes.  

Kristin:    01:25:13    I'm, I'm the same way. I am analog and digital depending on what it is. And my new analog daily thing, let's see if I can hold it in front of the camera. It's like a daily to-do list pad and you can just rip off the page when you're done. And so it really forces you to choose up to three priorities for the day. Love it. And then it's broken into hours. And I just got it on Amazon 'cause I was looking for something like this. And, uh, it forces you to just be realistic with what you're actually going to do that day. Yeah. And if you put too many things, then you have to keep rewriting it on the next day until it annoys you enough that you just do it or you delete it or you delegate it or something. Yep. And uh, that's good.  

Matt:    01:26:01    Yeah. And my favorite planner for that, um, I don't know if you've seen it, is called the Full Focus Planner. I have that. Yeah. It's Okay. Great. Yeah, that's my favorite, favorite type of structured planner. Is that one, 'cause it does like a lot of what you basically just said, which is like, what are your three big tasks? What are like the other ones? What's your, what's your day look like? Yeah, it's really  

Kristin:    01:26:20    Good. I love that one. I did it all last year. I'm taking a break because I felt like I spent too much time planning <laugh> when I used that. And sometimes I'm like, okay, I know what I need to do. I just need to like get to it. I don't need to strategize it as much as I used to, but that's 'cause I spent a lot of years and like deep brainstorming strategy of my life, but I'm in a different phase. But now it's like action oriented. Do you theme your days as well? Because you said that you, you batch your tasks and your focused deep work. Do you also do that?  

Matt:    01:26:52    Sometimes that's kind of hit or miss because I have so many different things going on. Um, but I do try and keep, for the most part, like mon usually Mondays and Thursdays are my days to not do as many calls. Like I'm, I'll have a podium team call on Monday, uh, just to set up with the team for the week, but then I just focus on my tasks and same thing on Thursday, Friday's a little more, a little more flexible. But yeah, I, I do it sometimes, but it's, it's maybe not as much as I would as I would want to. But I do try and really, uh, control my calls that I have. But a lot of that I'm better at it when it's not in the middle of a pandemic because now <laugh>, um, like I don't do calls on days that my wife works at all. Um, and so where that would normally be like Tuesdays and Thursdays are my call days now it's just like, okay, what days does she work? And I'd <laugh> you know, not gonna do anything on those days. So just kind of depends.  

Kristin:    01:27:52    My other question is, can you just tell us, I was gonna ask like what do, what is your biggest work from home struggle or weakness? And then can you tell us a little bit about your distraction journal that might relate to that?  

Matt:    01:28:10    Uh, my biggest thing at home is, um, just stopping working, which is like, kind of sounds like, um, that like classic interview answer. Like, oh, you know, what's your biggest, what's your biggest struggle? It's like, well, you know, I do tend to work too hard and commit too much to the company. I really should work on that <laugh>.  

Kristin:    01:28:31    It's true though. It is hard for remote workers to, uh, cut off. Yeah. Because, and now everyone knows that.  

Matt:    01:28:36    Yeah. And I've, I was talking to my brother about this and he was like, when do you stop working? I was like, exactly. That's the tough, that's the tough part. And so for years, and I've, I've told people this for years, like the great thing about working remotely is that you can work anytime, anywhere. The downside of it is that you can end up working all the time everywhere. And so that is still very much a challenge. It is a challenge even more so with, you know, people around all the time or like days that my wife works trying to squeeze in a couple hours after everyone's gone to bed and then I don't sleep as much. And that, you know, can lead to some of the burnout that I'm in that you mentioned and I've talked about in the past, is if you, you know, I know that when I, when I say I, you know, sleep in five, six hours a night, that's not ideal long term.  

Matt:    01:29:20    Yeah. It's kind of been a little bit of the reality lately, but I know that that's not ideal long term. But that has, that's always been my biggest struggle is, um, being really present, uh, when I'm not working and, you know, just kind of turning off the work mind, um, to be more present with, uh, with my family, with my friends, uh, when I'm, when I'm around them. And then the Distraction Journal is a thing where, uh, I have a couple of pages usually it's not so much in my bullet journal occasionally, but I, I also use like little field notes, notebooks a lot also. And I'll often, like, I pretty much always have one of those near me or in my back pocket. And if it's something that's kind of distracting me from the work that I know I have to be doing at the time or like what I've blocked off time to do, even if it's like a good distraction, like, oh, you know, I need to email this sponsor, or Oh, I need to email this affiliate about setting up a webinar.  

Matt:    01:30:17    If that's like the easier thing to do in the moment, then it's really easy to get distracted by it and like pull myself away from writing a course lesson or recording a video. And so I'll write that down in my distraction journal. And sometimes it's just something silly, uh, that I, that is a liter that is very literally a distraction. It doesn't matter. Like I don't need to give any time to it. Um, the ones that can be trickier are the ones that you need to do, but aren't as important in the moment. So I'll just write those down. And then when I get into a little bit more of a time where I'm like, okay, I have a little bit more flexibility, or maybe it's just time to bang through some tasks. I'll go look at the things that I have to do and whether it's my, you know, task list for the day or looking at the distraction journal and be like, okay, I did, I did need to email Kristin back and make sure that we're, you know, set up for uh, set, set up for the interview. But I, you know, shouldn't be like stopping like the deep work, the creative work that I'm doing in the  

Kristin:    01:31:13    Moment. I love that I'm adopting that strategy because when we try to ignore it, but we don't do anything with the thought, the distracting thought, then it just gets embedded back into our subconscious to come up again later. 'cause our brain's gonna keep serving it to us until we do something about it. It's like, did I close the garage door? Did I turn off the coffee maker? Like, you're gonna keep thinking of it. So I think that's a great idea to just write it down and then, and then do it later. Because our brain does like to have the path of least resistance and shooting off that one email. It might take you five minutes, but then you might Yep. Start answering email for an hour and then you're burnt out and you don't wanna do your Yep. Course module. So <laugh> let that be known everyone that, even course creators and people who work at course websites, for us, it's still like some of the hardest deep work and most focused work is taking concepts and teaching them to others and putting them into a framework that other people can consume and learn from.  

Kristin:    01:32:18    So this is the hard work, but I'm glad that, uh, that we're doing it and we're encouraging each other and everybody else to Yeah. To do it. Absolutely. And you're gonna learn your stuff better. Like I am a much better at explaining the things that I teach now than I was when I knew it three years ago, but I had never articulated it or written about it or made videos about it or all of the other things, so. Right. Great. And then my last question is, it's kind of a two part question. What do you miss the most about daily life during quarantine? Where are you going to travel first when this is over?  

Matt:    01:32:56    Yeah, great questions. Um, I miss the most, uh, like going to CrossFit and you know, just hanging out with friends, especially as the weather has gotten nicer, this would normally be a time that, you know, hanging out a lot with friends, going to the park, going to people's houses, doing cookouts, going to the pool. All of those things would kind of be in full swing right now. And so I miss, I miss that very much. And the first place that I'm traveling afterwards, um, it's one of two pla we, if kind of some of this is died down by early June, we're probably gonna go down to the beach in Florida and like, you know, in Jacksonville where my parents are or um, if not that. I also do, uh, since you brought it up earlier, I do have a trip planned to Austin in the beginning of July. So probab hopefully one of those two if not that, then we have a trip planned to, um, to LA in late July and I'm really hoping <laugh> that at least that one happens. <laugh>.  

Kristin:    01:33:57    Yeah. Hopefully California opens up by then. I had trips to Austin and California in April that were canceled. So it looks like I might be going in September or we'll see. But well if you do come to Florida, maybe we can cross paths since we're from the same 9 0 4 area code and um, right on. I look forward to definitely going back to Nashville at some point and sharing a craft beer with you guys and uh, that'd be great. Reminiscing on this time and taking a break from being so productive and just enjoying the moment.  

Matt:    01:34:34    Absolutely.  

Kristin:    01:34:35    And so thank you so much Matt. Where can people, uh, connect with you to um, get become more productive, get all of your bullet journal tips and uh, follow your vlogs?  

Matt:    01:34:45    Yeah, the best place is on YouTube, so just search for Matt Ragland at YouTube and it's also youtube.com/mattragland. And then, um, mattragland.com is my website. I'm actually in the process of redesigning it, but I mean there will be a site there the entire time and there are journal prompts and time management challenges. There are a bunch of different things that you can do to be more focused and productive.  

Kristin:    01:35:08    Awesome. And we'll also link to Podia too. If you guys wanna create your very first online course, Matt and I recommend it and you can bother him with, uh, support tickets if you have questions. Yeah,  

Matt:    01:35:19    Please do ask for me by name.  

Kristin:    01:35:22    And Matt has a lot of great tutorials on the podium website that I have consumed as well. So I spent like a good three days just reading the How to guides on their website before I started. So we pro. Yeah. Well thanks so much, rah. I will let you go and enjoy your weekend. Thank you everybody for listening to Badass Digital Nomads. If you wanna see the full video version of this, including my gourmet coffee shop and Matt's virtual Casey Nice dot garage, then you can support my content for five bucks a month over at patreon.com/travelingwithKristin. That might end up on podium at some point too. So thanks guys. <laugh>, stay safe out there. Take care, wash your hands. See you next week.  

Matt:    01:36:08    Thanks everyone.  

Kristin:    01:36:20    Thanks so much for tuning into this episode of Badass Digital Nomads. You can support the show by leaving a review in the Apple iTunes store or becoming a patron for as little as $5 per month at patreon.com/TravelingwithKristin. And as usual, you can get all of the links and details to everything we talked about this episode on the show notes page linked to wherever you are listening to this podcast right now, or on TravelingwithKristin.com. And simply click on podcast at the top of the page. See you next week.