The old year is gone.
The new year has just begun.
What better period, then, for a review of the previous 12 months?
Episode 12 marks the comeback of the podcast after a long while without any new releases; sort of like having the show reloaded!
I guess it’s the most appropriate occasion for a review of my last year’s accomplishments and also… failures.
Listen to what happened with myself and my business in the previous 365 days; my breakthrougs, struggles, setbacks and all the invaluable lessons I learned throughout the year. I’ll end the episode on a high, letting you in on what I have planned for 2019.
What You’ll Learn
- What happened with my business last year.
- The reasons why the podcast was stopped for so long.
- The lessons I learned in 2018.
- What’s coming in the future for the OBFM show.
- Some super insightful quotes that will inspire you to change your life.
- My plans for the next 365 days.
Download the MP3 File
If you prefer, you can download this episode’s MP3 file to your device for later listening. Just use the link below and follow the instructions to do so.
Links and Resources Mentioned
Affiliate Disclaimer: Some of the following links below may be affiliate ones, which means I earn a commission — at no extra cost to you — if you end up purchasing anything after clicking through those links.
- OBFM 1: Introduction to the Online Business FM Podcast
- OBFM 11: How to Develop a Business Owner Mindset & Why You Definitely Need to Do It
- Online business models: Part 1 | Part 2 | Part 3 | Part 4
- Public Niche Site Project [Case Study]
- Louie Luc’s Instagram
- A Few Good Men (movie)
- Episode 10, Season 12 of The Big Bang Theory
- Better Life, Better Business Podcast with Bill Widmer
- Libsyn (media hosting)
- The Miracle Morning by Hal Elrod
Episode Transcription
OBFM RELOADED!! Review of 2018 & What’s Coming in 2019
Hello People of the World! Welcome back to the Online Business FM podcast.
My name is Louie and I’m here to help you start, grow or scale a profitable, successful online business; one that you can be proud of.
On this podcast, our focus is mostly on building niche and authority websites and all the digital marketing strategies, SEO tactics, growth hacks and blogging techniques that come along with those particular online business models. Which include, but are not limited to: link building, email marketing, social media marketing, online courses… podcasting even and all that good stuff!
And also, probably even more importantly, all the personal development and mindset tips that are crucial for reaching your goals and achieving success both in business as well as in life.
Yes, we are back following a break that lasted for so many months without any new episodes being released; we’ll talk more about that and why it happened in just a minute.
In this episode (which is going to be different from the usual type of episodes), I’ll review what happened with my business and myself last year, the lessons I learned, and I’ll tell you all about my plans for 2019.
2018 In Review
That being said, I’ll kick this off with my review of the previous year!
Highlights of 2018: What I Accomplished or Ended Up Doing
First, let me quickly tell you about my highlights:
On January 31st, this show here, the Online Business FM podcast, was officially launched. I actually published the intro episode on the 19th — exactly 1 year ago at the time this episode is being released. This date is important to me as it is the anniversary of my longest-standing website which is 14 years old today!
One of my goals for 2018 was to launch the podcast and I achieved it.
From January to July, I scripted, recorded and published 11 podcast episodes.
(Yes, I do script them because I don’t feel comfortable enough yet to simply have a bullet point list to look at and just talk. I’d probably just trip over my own words and that would take me even longer to produce an episode.)
In the second half of the old year, I went back to work on my niche website (which I’ll tell you more about soon).
I needed to increase the earnings generated from that project so I sat down, wrote and published a few more money pages.
I had been hiring freelance writers before but, this time, I decided to take care of the content production myself, in an attempt to rank quick and rank high in the search engines and start earning commissions from that fresh content before long.
I wanted my product review articles to be really, really awesome so I wrote them myself.
I’m not saying that you can’t get top-notch quality from freelance writers, but for product reviews you really need to know what you’re talking about and that takes time — which I hadn’t much of.
On a more personal level…
Last year, I meditated 2,654 minutes in 541 sessions.
Meditation was another one of my goals for 2018.
I had never done it before up until December of 2017 so that’s probably quite the accomplishment, going from never having meditated before to doing it consistently on a day to day basis.
On August 1st, I bought my first car ever.
Working from home or in a close-by office which is what happens to me (and I’m so grateful for being that lucky) obviously doesn’t require me to own a car. But I definitely need a vehicle of my own whenever I decide to go and visit my family who lives far, far away in the northern part of my country.
I took my foreseeable usage of a car into consideration and simply bought a used car instead of spending a lot of money on something I wouldn’t be using very frequently.
Funny thing: months before I was telling myself “I think I will never need to buy a car. I’m a walker, not a driver” and then… I bought one. I still see myself more as a walker than as a driver, though.
On October 11th, I adopted a new kitten (or, should I say, he adopted me, I don’t know). I wanted Chiquinho, my other cat, to have a company. I named him Ronnie Mickey “Pinguim”.
“Pinguim” is “penguin” in English and is the name that was given to him by the lady who found him in the street. I decided to keep it as kind of a surname, if you will.
He is really cute, sweet and a true pirate when he decides to start playing around. You can see pictures of his arrival at my house on my Instagram profile — my handle is “louie.luc”… L-U-C.
Throughout the year, I ran a lot.
Since I only bought my Garmin watch last June and I didn’t track all of my activities with it, I don’t have all the data. But my activity report tells me that I ran over 225 kilometers (around 140 miles), spending over 21 hours running….
[*whistle*] Wow, that’s almost an entire day!
My goal was to run 10 kilometers (6.2 miles) in under an hour, but going out for a run twice a week got me really tired and made me run slower so I revised my goal to try and run 5 km (around 3.1 miles) in under 30 minutes and I accomplished that goal.
Okay, these were the highlights of what I did or end up accomplishing.
What Didn’t Go As Expected or Didn’t Happen at All
Let’s now see the flip side of the coin, the things that didn’t go as expected or didn’t happen at all.
As far as the podcast is concerned, I stopped publishing new episodes after Session 11 which was released on July 19th (again the 19th, right?).
Why?
Well, there are several reasons as to why I stopped publishing new content on the podcast.
First and foremost, life got in the way. Something in my personal life changed and, for some time, I didn’t have that much time to focus on my work.
Honestly, though?
I think this is only partly true.
The truth is… «You can’t handle the truth!», remember that movie?)…
The truth is that something unexpected did happen but, at the same time, and this is probably a more determining factor, during my summer vacation I began losing all my good habits as far as work is related. I broke my habit streaks and started slacking off.
«Hey… wait a minute, Louie: what do you mean by ‘losing all of your good work habits during your summer vacation’?»
What I mean is that I took my laptop with me and planned on working in the morning and after lunch to continue producing new content and keep my websites in good shape.
When I returned home from my vacation, I did have less time to focus on my work but, with a good strategy, a solid time management plan and good productivity habits in place, I could have gone back to work much sooner than I did.
I guess I used that unexpected event in my life as an excuse to just slack off and be lazy.
Secondly, during the first semester of the year, I almost exclusively worked on my podcast and put everything else on the back burner; I left everything else on stand-by.
This led me to feel frustrated in part, as I didn’t have time for all my other projects. I felt they were basically going to waste in a way.
Thirdly, another one of the reasons is that I got overwhelmed and then burned out by the amount of work that I needed to get done for the podcast.
You see, my aim is to keep producing quality content; content that’s better than yesterday’s content. As such, I put a ton of pressure on top of myself which leads me to feeling that way and getting paralyzed.
What made it even worse is that in July / August I had planned to produce and schedule 3 new episodes, just before leaving for vacation.
My plan was to have everything ready so I could just go and enjoy the rest of the summer with no worries, knowing that my media hosting company (… hey, it’s not really mine per se, it’s just the one I’m using, right?!)… knowing that they would publish the scheduled content on the exact dates.
Trying to achieve that contributed a great deal to the feelings of overwhelm and burn out.
All these reasons combined sort of forced me to stop the podcast for so long.
Lessons Learned
So… what did I learn from all of my last year’s accomplishments and failures(?); a few valuable lessons that I want to share with you.
Lesson 1: Set Clear and Measurable Goals
My accomplishments taught me that if you set a clear goal that’s measurable, has a predetermined time frame, a strong “why” behind it and really focus on working toward that goal, the chances of you reaching it go up exponentially.
Lesson 2: Failing Doesn’t Mean You Have to Quit
My failures, on the other hand, taught me a ton more.
Yes, I did fail a LOT in 2018 — I’m not afraid to say it.
I’m just another human being like you or anyone else out there who fails and I’ll keep on failing throughout the rest of my life.
And you know what?
That’s okay, because there are great lessons to be learned from failures, too.
As George Sr., Sheldon Cooper’s dad, said…
[SPOILER ALERT: I’m going to be referencing something from Episode 10, Season 12 of “The Big Bang Theory” titled “The VCR Illumination”. If you haven’t watched it yet, turn down the volume or skip 1 to 2 minutes over this next segment.]
As George said at the halftime interval of one of his high school football matches (that’s American football, for all of you non-American listeners out there), has he said, there is something to be learned both from your successes as well as from your failures, especially from failures.
His team was down by a lot and they were definitely not going to win the game. Nevertheless, George asked his players not to quit. And if they did lose, that wouldn’t make them losers.
He turn to them and said:
«You learn as much about who you are and what you’re made of from failing as you do from success. Maybe more.»
They (the football team) were now facing only two options: they could spend the rest of the game feeling sorry for themselves or they could get on to the pitch and make their opponents’ lives much, much harder.
I heard this same lesson on Bill Widmer’s Better Life, Better Business podcast recently.
Bill put it like so in Episode 1 titled “Failure Is Feedback” of his show:
«Failure is not the end. Unless you let it be. The only real failure is someone who gives up.»
Wasn’t it Michael Jordan, one of the greatest basketball players of all time — if not the best — who missed more than 9,000 shots in his career? Did he quit? Or did he keep on trying?
The bottom line is:
I failed, but I don’t have to quit.
Instead, I just need a new and better strategy to keep pushing on and get to where I want to be.
Now, I think I’ve identified many of things I’m either doing wrong or not doing at all, many bad habits that prevent me from being as productive as I need to be. I just need to go and correct that.
To knock this lesson outta park, I’ll share with you four super insightful and even inspiring quotes from Hal Elrod that I found in his amazing book The Miracle Morning which I have just finished reading for the second time in a row.: [Affiliate Disclaimer: This is an affiliate link, which means I earn a commission — at no extra cost to you — if you end up purchasing this product through this link.]
Quote #1:
«Give up the need to be perfect for the opportunity to be authentic. Be who you are. Love who you are. Others will too. »
Quote #2:
«There is nothing to fear, because you cannot fail. Only LEARN, GROW, and become BETTER than you’ve ever been before. »
Quote #3:
«The average person lets their emotions dictate their actions, while achievers let their commitments dictate their actions. »
And last, but not least, quote #4:
«The moment you accept responsibility for EVERYTHING in your life is the moment you tap into your power to change ANYTHING in your life. »
Plans or Goals for 2019
Podcast Relaunch
As for my plans or goals for this year, one of them is happening right now, as I speak or as you listen to me speak and it is relaunching the Online Business FM podcast.
Not only that but, hopefully, be way more consistent at it and regularly and continuously keep releasing new episodes.
I need to find a way to stop putting so much pressure on me to avoid feeling overwhelmed and getting burned out all over again.
One of the ways I believe might work is picturing me talking to… myself! Just talking to me like I were an element of my target audience. I need to stop trying to do everything 100% perfect on the podcast and on the blog and… wherever.
If I look at it as having simple, casual conversations with a friend, someone who would appreciate authenticity, someone who would enjoy getting good advices, someone who would prefer the real thing, the real me, learning from my mistakes and failures, from the things that go right and the lessons I learn along the way, someone who would take something from all of that and get some help on how to build a successful online business… it wouldn’t be that hard for me!
If I look at it this way — just talking to a Louie that would really move his projects forward learning about all of these experiences, experiments and lessons — I think it would make things way easier and lighter.
In fact, if months from now I decide and listen to some old episodes, I hope to get a lot from them: things I forgot, stuff I used to do and don’t do anymore, lessons I need to hear and be taught again… it would be really good to have someone reminding me of all of that. (And what better person than my own self, right?!)
This might sound a little selfish of me but, trust me, it isn’t.
Instead, it’s probably the best solution I could think of to deliver good, solid content to you, the listener, on a more consistent basis, if I just picture me talking to my future (or past) self.
It’d be like a journal in which you write regularly and sometimes go back and read what you were thinking of or experienced at those times and get to learn what you’ve already learned before all over again.
Remember one of my favorite sayings?
If “teaching is like learning twice”, then learning the same lessons more than once is the best tactic to really get to understand them; repetition is a surefire way to engrain anything.
Reasons for the Relaunch
So that‘s one of the workarounds and, simultaneously, one of the reasons that I have discovered to not only relaunch the show but to keep producing new episodes more frequently.
Another one of the reasons and motivations behind my wanting, my volition to do this are the podcast download numbers.
It seems that this show continues to have people downloading its episodes; even more interesting is that it reaches its weekly peak of downloads during the weekends, specifically on sundays.
And this has kept happening in all of these months without any new episodes. In December, it actually broke the record number of downloads for months without new podcast releases.
New Episodes Coming Forward
Okay, so basically… what does this mean to you, then?
It means that new episodes will start being released coming forward.
And yes, you’re right. My original plan when I launched the podcast one year ago was to publish a new episode every 2 weeks and then it changed to a monthly episode and then it just stopped… mainly due to the circumstances I described earlier.
I will try my best to continue that frequency of a monthly episode. Let’s see how it goes; fingers crossed…
Oh, and by the way, there is a super special episode coming your way in a just few days.
I promise, you’re not going to like it — you’re absolutely going to love it! Trust me!
You haven’t done so already, be sure to subscribe to this show on whichever podcasting directory or app you prefer. That’s the best way to avoid missing out on the new releases!
Niche Site Project
Likewise, my aim is also to make this podcast a lot more practical.
Most of the episodes so far are more theoretical in nature than the ones I have been thinking of for the coming times.
In order to do so, I’m planning on bringing my “Niche Site Project” series back from the grave.
As you may well know (or… not), in 2015, I started my own public niche site project case study where I built a niche website from scratch and took it into profitability while describing every little step and secret I took and used to get there on my blog.
I wanted to show people — not just tell them — how they can earn money online from one the simplest online business models available.
Having reached that objective, I began to focus on other stuff.
As with everything you don’t actively take care of and with competition kicking in, that niche site slowly died off.
It’s not profitable anymore. It went from having made around $1,200 in Amazon commissions to almost nothing recently.
Now is the right time to bring it back to life and push it up to a whole new level.
As I told you before, I’ve already started working on it again and I have a lot of insight to share with you going forward.
Write Every Day & Two Possibly New Sub-podcasts
My second goal for 2019 is to write more, to do it every day.
I need to form the habit of daily writing.
It will help me come up with new blog posts or podcast episode scripts much quicker and the benefits of having such an habit are… immense.
To achieve that goal, I’m considering starting two journals: one about my journey as an online businessman and the other one about the management, production and inner workings of this here podcast.
Those journals would be publicly available for you to read and, hopefully, learn a thing or two.
Also, whenever it would make sense, I could come up with two distinct series of episodes, or sub-podcasts, if you will, each one of them related to each of one of the journals. Those would have to be short 5-minute episodes, like quick updates, without too much of an additional effort on my part to make them feasible.
As I said, I’m still in the consideration phase so I’ll get back to you with all the details when I have finally reached a conclusion and made a decision.
Conclusion
And… that’s it!
I hope you’ve enjoyed listening to my review of 2018, my accomplishments, failures and lessons learned, as well as knowing about my aspirations, plans, goals and projects for the new year.
Subscribe to Our Show
If you’ve liked it, please subscribe to this podcast on your favorite podcasting platform.
There’s great content coming your way — and that special episode that I’m sure will break every record of the Online Business FM podcast! Make sure you do it today so you won’t forget and get all the updates from us for free!
All Links & Resources
You can get all the links and resources mentioned and the episode’s transcript in the show notes page over at onlinebusiness.fm/12. Onlinebusiness dot fm slash one two.
Thank You
Thanks so much for giving this a listen!
Join Us Next Time
Hope to see soon, don’t miss the next episode.
And… always question everything that you learn, shake it up and help change the world!
From Lisbon, Portugal to the World, this is Luís Miguel Correia a.k.a. Louie Luc and I’m signing off!