All Around Growth
All Around Growth — reflections on faith, freedom, and finding purpose through Orthodox Christian living, formation, and the long work of becoming.
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All Around Growth
Ep. 370 - Self Employment, Life Planning, and Podcast Monetization
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Tune in for a more casual "free talk" episode today as Rob discusses his past 30 days of self-employment, the action steps he's using to plan the life and career of his dreams, and some ways he's considering monetizing the podcast.
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Ep. 368 - Career Moves...What to Do Next?
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SPEAKER_00Well, hi there, and welcome back to another episode of the All Around Growth Podcast. My name is Rob Kaiser and I am your host. Today is Wednesday, June 15th, 2022, and this is episode number. What episode is this? This is episode number 370 of a show that provides insight and tools to build the life and homestead of your dreams. Now today's episode is going to be a brief update of my journey in the world of self-employment. What we're going to talk about today is the past 30 days of my self-employment. The second thing we're going to talk about is the tools used for my life and career planning at this point in time. And thirdly, we're going to talk about the podcast and some ways I'm going to go about monetizing it. Now, for those of you who liked the episodes where we were covering the seven areas of a balanced life, do not worry. We're going to get back into the swing of those episodes soon enough, covering those seven areas. And in case you're wondering what those areas are, if you're not already aware, they are financial, physical, personal development, family, spiritual, social, and career. Those seven areas that we are working on equally to achieve a balanced life or a life of all-around growth. However, for today, I wanted to get an episode out there into the ether since I've neglected to do so this week. And since it's already Wednesday, this is what we've got. This is going to be a less formal show, more of a free talk episode, kind of like we did back in the old days when I was driving. And we're going to just talk about uh my self-employment status. And in the show notes, I'll link to some episodes, several episodes where we've talked about self-employment and career over the past month. For those of you who uh are jotting down notes or want to make a note to yourself, this is the time to do so. Specifically in Overcast. I think you can do that in other podcast players, but Overcast allows you to share a podcast at a specific timestamp. So if you email yourself notes, put them in Evernote, Nosebe, To Doist, whatever your task manager is, you can make notes from podcasts, and I do that a lot. Those podcasts that I'm talking about on self-employment and career over the past month were episode number 368, titled Career Moves, What to Do Next. Episode number 351, Wildcard Wednesday, and that was Self-Employment Day 5, episode 349, which was a Men of Order Monday, title uh covering an article I wrote, Six Steps to Succeed in the Great Resignation. And that was over a month ago. I need to get on it. That was the last article I wrote for uh Men of Order. And finally, episode one, 346 rather, and that was Wild, another Wildcard Wednesday, with an article titled Why I Quit a Dream Job. Now, like I said, I'm going to simply talk freely about the last month or so and share what's been happening in my world and how I'm going about approaching all-around growth, both in my life and the show. So let's get right into it. I'm going to pull up a document that I've been working on called My Self Employment Journal. And I started this way back way back when, and I actually started condensing all of this into a singular document that I began on the 17th of May, day four. And um, this was Tuesday, and I began journaling on Monday, May 16th. The first Monday where I was officially self-employed. Now, my decision to move forward with self-employment is something that uh I had been thinking about for quite some time, but my plans got accelerated. And the details behind that acceleration of plans are irrelevant at that time because that's in the past. Here we are right now. So what am I doing? All right, the first couple days, all I did was take a couple days to myself. I got a massage and I prepared myself for Wednesday. And Wednesday, Thursday, and Friday, that first week off, I just helped out with some landscaping. Helped out the guy that cuts our grass here, and he needed an extra hand for a couple of weeks with some spring cleanups, shoveling stone, mulch, basically general labor. And for three days a week for the first two weeks, I worked with him along with working with dad, and by week three, I was basically full-time on the farm, or I am basically full-time on the farm. Weeks three and four consisted of me working very diligently with dad, as well as my mom, at the farmer's market. I look forward to working with mom in the future, learning how to make soap, hand creams, and all the various bath and body products that she makes. But for now I am focused on working with dad. Um, it's it's it's kind of weird. Uh I feel more busy now not working than I have while working full-time. And it wasn't just a full-time job. I put in a lot of hours there. And um and the fact that I have been as busy as I have been is in large part why I have not been putting out episodes this week, Monday and Tuesday. This past weekend was family dinner. My brother came over Saturday afternoon with the kids while we were at market, connected with family that evening, and then spent all day with family on Sunday. So between the market and family on Saturday and family on Sunday, I fell behind in my 48 days work. I was able to get caught up a little bit on Sunday, but luckily I was able to spend almost the entire day grinding out this uh the work in this 48 days plan. Uh 48 days to the work you love application guide. All right, and what this application guide consists of is the 48-day schedule, the uh online community interaction and real-time updates, digital ebook stories from Dan's sample resumes, cover letters, and interview questions to ensure that you are fully prepared, creative job search strategies to put you ahead of the crowd, and insight into non-traditional work opportunities, one of which I'm working on or actively working on right now. Sorry guys, I've got things on the computer, timers going off, um, all the various things to keep me on point and organized. But I decided to stop my note taking or note creating and just roll with this episode because I've still got some things to do tonight, and we're pushing 730 as I record right now. So that was a pretty good segue into a discussion of the tools used for my life and career planning, and um there, I this 48 days. All right, some of you guys are like, oh god, here he is talking about 48 days again. And you know what? That's what I'm doing. Um I'm talking about it again. It's a big part of my life, and this is the primary tool that I am using for my life and career planning. Yes, I've talked about it at great length in the past, specifically episode 368, career moves, what to do next. Episode 363, personal development. Episode 353, feedback from an eagle coming from an audience member who is also a member of the 48 Days Eagles community, and episode number 324 with Motivational Monday, The Path to a Fulfilling Life. In those episodes and many, many more, I've talked at great length about the 48 Days program, the book written by Dan Miller, the application guide that accompanies that book, how I bought it, why I bought it, and the fact that I'm working through it right now. And for whatever it's worth, um I did not participate in the 48 days plan until uh week three of self-employment. Okay, so I made the commitment on Monday, May 30th, and had a special episode dedicated to that, episode 359, the Memorial Day special, All Beginnings Are Hopeful. And that was when I talked about how we are going to move through the following seven topics: financial, physical, personal development, family, spiritual, social, and career, and um basically discussing the balance to the show with those seven topics that fully represents the concepts and ideology behind all-around growth and the fact that it took 350 episodes to get there, and um here we are. So, what day are we at today? It's day 33, day 17 of the 48 days program. I've never felt more confident in the work that I've done to move forward with my life, and it's really helping me think outside of the proverbial box and look at my experiences, look at my career, look at my life through a different lens, including the lens of other people, because some of the tasks that we are assigned in this work involves talking with other people and doing a lot of introspective work. As a matter of fact, one of the facts that's repeatedly presented to us is that finding the work that you love involves 85% of the work being done internally, and then 15% of that work being done externally in the form of applying for jobs, sending out cover letters, and so on and so forth. Alright? So if you find yourself at a stuck point, um this is what you want to check out 48 Days Application Guide. Now, enough about that. Let's talk about the podcast. Alright, I want to talk about monetizing the podcast. Originally, this show today was going to be on budgeting with an irregular income, but I didn't want to take the time to put together the notes for that because well, I missed a couple days. Some of you guys may be wondering what's going on, and that's what's going on. I am busy, it's crazy busy. And when I first started this podcast and I went through Financial Peace University years ago, I decided that I was going to uh stop this, stop this podcast, like, and um stop paying for it, that is, and stop everything associated with it. I even let the domain name expire. I had allaroundgrowth.com secured several years ago. I let it expire, and somebody bought it up and is now holding it for ransom to the tune of, I don't know, three grand, something like that. So to prevent situations like this from happening today, and in an effort to monetize the podcast, which is more important now than ever because I have that irregular income. I don't really have at this point in time a whole lot of extraneous income that I can just spend on things like subscriptions to my podcast host, which costs money. So here's what we're gonna do to monetize the show. I tried to monetize it uh in the past um by putting on a Patreon thing, but then I never did anything with Patreon. Thought a lot about it. What could we do? Zoom calls, things like that, um special things for uh group, well, audience members who want to support the show. And of course, you guys who are already in the Telegram group, you guys will get in this without any kind of Patreon support because you guys have been with me this whole time, and a lot of you out there have been with me since day one. That says a lot, and I appreciate that. And if I, or since I'm going about uh taking steps to monetize this podcast, um based on the support that you've given me over the years, I want to make sure that I give back as well and put anything out there that is going to be through Patreon or whatever, you you guys will have full access to that, alright? So monetization efforts in the past were poorly executed and never really took off. Something new that was recently released with Buzz Sprout, who I host my podcast through. I'll link to them in the show notes as well. Because if you're ever if you've ever entertained the idea of a podcast and you're wondering what host to use, there's Libson, there's you know, all sorts of hosts, um Anchor, Buzz Sprout. I looked at them all and I chose BuzzSprout because of its ease of use, its ease of pushing through to other uh podcast players and platforms. And when I did this, when I started this up, I went through something called the podcast movement by Jared Easley and followed his steps to launch the show. And that was back in 2019 when I first when I did the first iteration of the show at 10 episodes only, and then I took a break and then came back in 2020 with the show as you know it now, following a lot of what I learned the year prior. So here we are, two years after that, and at this point in time, uh Buzz Sprout is the preferred platform or host of Podcast Movement. Um they have a partnership together, and it's just a great platform. I fully support it, I think it's great. And um, if podcasting is something that you're interested in doing, this is an easy way to do it. There are ultimately other ways, but this is the way I did it. This is not necessarily the way I would do it if I were moving forward, and if you want to find out why, just join the telegram group at t.me slash allaroundgrowth, and I would be happy to share with you the pros and cons of podcasting the way I've done it, and uh some alternative thoughts that I've had about it moving forward. Now, one new thing is ads. There's gonna be ads in the show. I select the ads. I don't want certain ads in the show, but I feel pretty comfortable with the ads that are running in the show. Alright. But if you don't like that, I get it. I listen to a few podcasts too where there are advertisements, and I am not a big fan. However, if you don't like the ads and you find that a bit of a turnoff, but you like the work that I do, what I would encourage you to do is click on that Patreon link. Support the show, $3, $5 a month. I haven't done the math to break down what that uh is in terms of. You know what? Let me grab a calculator here. Five bucks a month for over 300, this is 370 episodes. Um you know we're we're looking at uh a fractional amount of money on a monthly basis to support me, the work that I do, the audience from where a lot of these ideas come from, and everything about the show. So I would really encourage you to do that and not just sign up for Patreon and say, here's some money, Rob, good job, but help me out with some ideas on what would be the best value for you. What can I provide you with if you're gonna give me money for the podcast and the work that I do? What can I do with you? Zoom calls, phone calls? I don't know. You tell me t.gmail.com. I would love your feedback, I'd love to hear um from you about the ads, what your thoughts are on them, and uh what we can do in Patreon to ensure that supporters of the show, well, get what they feel they deserve. And um, I don't want to shortchange anybody, but this is where it's at. My income is limited, it has been drastically reduced. I've got income from multiple sources at this point, and until I get that up to where it was, and or exceeding where it was, rather, because that is what I'm going to do. I'm not just looking to replace my income, I'm looking to grow and exceed my income from where it was to what I something I never thought I could reach and attain. I'm realizing that I can do it. And you need to realize that you can do it now. If you've been stuck in your dead ass, dead end job for years and you're fat and miserable and unhappy, change your. Life. Like you, you I understand working for a goal, and I understand that your life is different than my life, and I don't have the experiences that you do, and I don't have the challenges that you do, and I don't have the family that you do. But you know what? My life is different than yours. You also don't have the experiences that I do and the challenges that I do and the neurological disabilities that I do. Alright? So stop fucking complaining. I don't want to hear it. Like we all have issues and problems, and you know what else we all do? We all make choices on how we deal with that. And if you don't make choices, then by default you are making a choice by choosing not to do something different than that which makes you miserable. Alright? So we all make choices. And this is the choice that I've made. I've got to make some changes in my life. We've got to make some changes in the show. And I'm currently working on making changes in my life and my career. And moving forward, I will be working on making changes to the show. In addition to covering the seven areas of a balanced life, for those who again are curious or don't remember, those areas are financial, physical, personal development, family, spiritual, social, and career. And moving forward, we're going to cover those in depth with each episode. And I almost said on a daily basis, but quite frankly, guys, I don't know if this is going to be daily. I'm going to drop episodes when I can. And hopefully, as time goes on, I will work through and develop a new routine. But lately, over the past month, uh there's been very little routine because my mornings have started much earlier, and I don't have the morning routine that I used to with computer time where I could do this and upload and get things out in the schedule that I used to keep. So over the past few weeks, episodes have been being released in the evening, just like this one. And things are going to continue to change. Episodes may not be daily. I hope to get back to the point where I am doing this daily. Because at the end of the day, the reason I do this is because I truly enjoy it. But I also want to provide value for you. Because if I'm not, then what's the point? If it's only providing value for me. It you see what I mean? We don't listen to and consume content that doesn't provide value for us. We've got a lot going for us right now. We've got a good community on telegram, t.me slash allaround growth. I suck on social media. Would really uh would really appreciate some help on social media with float, Facebook, Twitter, I'm pretty good on, mines. Um pretty much just float and Facebook, specifically Facebook. So, guys, if you're an active Facebook user and you want to participate in the show, help it grow, try to reach more people, and also have something that you can add to your resume. Because this is something that people look for, being an admin of social media groups and communities. And if you can help us grow this along with some help me grow this, no, help us along with some tools and strategies that I've uh learned. It's just a matter of applying them and executing them. Man, I'm all about it. So hit me up in the telegram group, t.me slash allaroundgrowth, or at allaroundgrowth at gmail.com, and I'd love to hear from you. Would love to have your help, would love to have you participate in the show with me, co-creating good content in an effort towards all around growth. So that's it, guys. Until we meet again, this is Rob Kaiser, and thank you.
SPEAKER_01What can I do? The needs are many and the answers a few. And I wonder why. If I can help somebody that I wanna try. People may think that it's all that I believe in Prince and love. Truth is always the best way to the world that makes me talk. I've been odd fellow. I've been odd fellow. I've been not fellow if we stand together. We'll never fall. We can make a difference.
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