Hello, hello everyone. I hope you're doing well. Welcome to another live stream. I am
coming at you hopefully from a bunch of places including YouTube. I do need to tweet. I need
to tweet out that I'm live because Twitter changed their policy and now you have to have
the big plan. You need to have the big plan in order to live stream there. So I'm going
to grab the link. I'm going to post it on X and hopefully grab some folks over there.
I'm live right now. Okay. So today we are going to plan a solo episode or two because
I realized that my next solo episode is very retrospective. I'm not going to do this story
like the three act story. But I did realize that maybe this one is not the best representative
of my normal solo episodes. And part of the reason I am doing these solo episodes is where
are we? Are we here? Yes, this is where we are. Part of the reason I am doing these solo
episodes is because I have been thinking a lot about it. I wrote on Monday in my newsletter
about how, let me adjust my camera a little bit here because I feel like I'm very low
in the frame. Anyway, I've been thinking a lot about this. There we go. That's better.
Because I had a coaching call with my friend Alex where we talked a little bit about this
and then I was talking to another creator friend of mine and she was kind of surprised
to hear or to realize that her audience preferred her solo episodes. So this went out today
in my newsletter. If you may have read about it in the newsletter. But I talk a lot about
the benefits of having a solo show. This was something I called a mini podcast for a long
time. It seems like mini podcast is, that was the term I used because that was the term
that it seemed other people were using. But I think I'm going to start just saying solo
podcasting and I need to update this. This was originally published two years ago. So
it's definitely time for an update. But I thought today would be like a work with me
session and I would kind of show you my process for doing a solo episode. Now, if you are
watching, let me know in the chat where you're coming from. And as a note with the chat,
I should see comments from Twitch, YouTube and Facebook. So if you're watching in any
of those places, I should see your comments here. If you're watching on one of the other
places I'm streaming, which I think is, oh boy, I don't know if I'm doing Instagram
today, but I'm definitely doing LinkedIn. And I know that LinkedIn shared to my story.
I didn't want to do that. Share to my feed is what I actually want. I know LinkedIn comments
don't come through or like, like barely even show up, which is very frustrating. So I'll
be checking LinkedIn for comments, but honestly, it might be better for you to just kind of
come on over here to YouTube. Oh, Ashley, I do see Ashley's comment. This is a great
test actually. We'll see if I see Ashley's comment already, like it's going poorly.
Okay, so I see Ashley's comment here in my notifications. And oh, I see it. Oh, I see
it here as well. Okay, cool. So a couple of comments here actually, I know Susan made
this comment earlier, Susan Bowles. I just did my first solo and the workflow and it
was so much easier. Ashley says, hello, hello, Ashley. Thanks so much for being here. One
of my compatriots at rss.com. And I did see another comment. I forget now who I meant
to respond to this, but someone else said, you know, that their solo episodes take them
much longer because they are trying to get it perfect and they're doing a lot of retakes.
And I will say like, if you if you are not used to talking in front of a camera a lot,
that's that's it's a tough context switch. Obviously, I go live weekly and I do a lot
of stuff like this. I go on other podcasts where I'm comfortable kind of talking to a
screen or, you know, I'm not overtly worried about it being too. All right, Ashley joining
from from YouTube now as well. So thanks. Thanks, Ashley, popping in from LinkedIn.
I have LinkedIn up presently, but I don't know. It won't be up for long because I'm going
to actually get started here in a minute. But anyway, so, you know, I would say like
if you're doing a solo episode and you're not entirely comfortable, frame it like a conversation,
right? Like and imagine that you are talking to a listener, right? People say with like
your ideal customer avatar, picture one person to talk to. I would do the same thing. Think
of your perfect listener and imagine that you are talking directly to them. You ask them a question
and now you're answering that question as thoroughly as possible. And I think that you will
you'll have a better experience. And the other thing I would say is like you're not giving a
keynote speech. You're not giving like the state of the union address. You are imparting wisdom
on people. And so if you know, if you're creating good content, it doesn't have to be a perfect
take, right? I would I would equate it to seeing like a movie versus seeing a theater show, right?
A live show, right? You're a little bit more forgiving. It's not going to be as polished as
a movie because there are there's like a team of people behind making a movie. And so, you know,
I think start there and you'll be more comfortable. Okay, the last thing I'll say is if you are not
on my mailing list, my mailing list gets notified of these live streams and usually
they get like the context of that inspired whatever I'm talking about. So you can head over to
podcast workflows.com slash join to join my mailing list today. Okay, so let's actually get into
the planning side of things. So I'll bigify this, I'll get rid of all of this stuff.
For those who are well, no, I need to move the comment over to my, my other monitor. So I'll be
able to see them. Okay. So let's share this screen here. So this is my planner. You can see I have
some episodes lined up and the next solo episode is called summer retrospective. I'm probably going
to call this something different. That's just like the note for me. It's really in the beginning of
the summer I published an episode called why we're not doing summer camp and how it's affecting my
business. And so this episode following up is going to be how it went, right? Like how did,
how did my summer go? And I know, well, this is like, I don't really like dark mode. So I'm going to
move it to light mode. Okay, so this is my new template of sorts. I accidentally left the
timestamp in the template. And so I shared this in a short form video yesterday, but I've made a
change to the way I'm doing my guest episodes, where I really want to tighten this up. Right.
I've noticed in reviewing my analytics that I was seeing a lot of drop off in the first three
minutes and it was I was taking a long time to get to the point. And so I decided a few things,
right? I wouldn't read. Usually I do like a multi paragraph summary with with the top takeaways,
because I want this to be useful for people who are just stumbling across the episode,
especially on my website. But reading that verbatim takes two to three minutes. And then I
have like a one minute long cold open. And then I do the actual intro. And so I really want to
tighten this up from seven minutes to like two minutes total. And so I'm going to highlight the
main takeaway for people instead of the top three takeaways. The cold open is going to be like maybe
20 seconds. And the shorter intro, where I'm shooting for 110 words 110 words is about a
minute. It takes me about a minute to read 110 words. So that's that's what I'm going for there.
So main takeaway built into the shorter intro, cold open, and then getting right into the first
question. And then I have a 12 second pre recorded intro for the audio only version. So that is one
minute and 30 seconds with the main takeaway and the opening jingle. So like, keep I want to keep it
to a tight two minutes, get people there immediately. I haven't I haven't done pre roll ads in a while.
The last one was just to let people know I was going on summer break. And then the one before
that was when I rebranded. So but I like to have these up here for my interviews. I don't know if
I'll really have it. You know, I think like short intro script would be like the story I want to
tell here. And then of course, if you've seen me talk this Oh, whoops, I there we go. Okay. I don't
even though I use notion like regularly, I don't really know how it works. I think I probably
clicked like add template too many times and notion got confused or I got confused about what
notion thought it knew. Anyway, so if you've been following along with me for a long time, you'll
know that I like to do my podcast episodes in a three act story where we have the setup, we have
the conflict, and we have the resolution. So because this is a solo episode, I can actually
think about the main takeaway here. The my main goal with the we're not doing summer camp
summer camp is to let other parents know here are my plans. Here's how I intend on running my business
when I don't have as much childcare as I have during the school year. And so whoops, and so I
can't turn away from the mic like that. And so the main takeaway I think for this episode is me
answering the question how did it go? Or the maybe the main goal, right? What's the goal of this
episode? So maybe that's a good note to make. Answer the open thread from episode 420 on how
my summer without summer camp went. So act one is going to be the setup, which is probably
probably just a quick rehash of episode 420, right? So recap of 420, decided not to do summer camp,
plans for childcare, vacation and modified schedule,
heavy reliance on nap times, and then kind of rearranging calendar, well cal.com, my schedule.
The conflict here, if I'm thinking about it, right, it's probably good for me to write down
some notes down here. Or up here actually, this is usually where the notes go. Pre show notes.
So I guess the main question I should answer is like how do I feel it actually went?
It went okay.
I don't feel, well I landed a couple of coaching clients, which is good.
The days I wasn't motivated felt amplified. So like, you know, I mean there are some days
throughout the week where you're just like not feeling it. And because I was working three or
four days on certain weeks, if I wasn't feeling particularly motivated in one of those days,
the pressure was on, right? Actually, I'm feeling a little bit of that today, or I was until I found
out my father-in-law is actually watching my kids tomorrow, because I'm going to podcast
movement next week, which if you're going to be there, say hello. Let me know. I'll be around. But
I was really feeling that this morning, because I was like, man, I really need to be productive,
because if I'm not, like I'm not working tomorrow, and then I'm not working for most of next week,
and I was like really feeling that pressure. So that's one of the things that like probably
needs to change. I don't think I really scaled back the stuff I was trying to do. I don't, yeah,
this is good. I don't feel like I scaled, scald, back the amount of stuff I was trying to do. In
fact, over this, like I agreed to become the president of my kids' home and school, like my
kids' school's home and school association, kind of blind. Like I'd never been to a home and school
meeting. I wasn't serving on the board before that. They needed somebody, and they asked if I wanted
to do it. And I do want to be involved in my kid's school. So I actually might have taken on
more than I should have, right? I also took on two LinkedIn learning courses. It was like,
I said like I'm trying to do less of those because most of them are programming focused,
and I'm fully focused in my client work on podcasting stuff. But it was like,
the offer felt very stupid to say no to as far as like level of effort and compensation.
And so I am doing those. So like I took that on, I took on the HSA might have taken on more.
And on top of that, something I noticed that I started getting a lot of coaching requests on
my form. I sold a couple of audits. I sold a few coaching hours here and there. And so
I feel like things are starting to pick up. And I'm glad it's starting to now. Like I don't know
how I would have handled it if like things started to pick up in early May. And then I'm like, oh,
man, I'm going away for the summer. Now, one nice thing is that for my son's birthday,
I was able to kind of knock off on ex unexpectedly and go to the zoo with them. The
the larger context is that my wife tried to set up like weekly play dates with her co workers
every week for, you know, for the people who weren't doing summer camp or something else,
who had small kids. And one was the zoo that day happened to follow my son's birthday, but it wasn't
for his birthday. And then everybody like it was like, right, it was like kind of a crummy day.
And so everybody bailed. And so it was it was going to just be her and the kids. And then that
felt to me like, well, now it kind of feels like it's for his birthday. And we were also getting
new furniture that afternoon. So like I knew I wouldn't be working that afternoon. And I was
like, you know what, this is why I'm doing what I'm doing. And I knocked off of work for that day.
And there were no repercussions. So I think this is probably representative good of what went on.
It went okay. I landed a couple coaching clients. The days I wasn't motivated felt amplified.
I don't feel like I scaled back. I might have taken on too much. But I was able to take extra days
when needed, disconnected for family vacation. That was another thing. And I didn't work that,
I didn't work too many weekends. Didn't work any, I didn't work any weekends. I didn't work
didn't work any full weekend days, right? I might have capped like, grabbed a couple of hours here
and there when the kids were napping or my wife was out with my oldest or something like that. So
okay. All right, so I think this is good. This is kind of round one on how I plan a solo episode.
I'll write down some notes. Sometimes I'll write it in a notebook or in Apple Notes.
Apple Notes because it has like the handwriting thing. So I'll like do hand in notes in Apple
Notes. Just kind of stuff I'm thinking. That's like kind of step one here. And this replaces the,
I should say this replaces the research phase. If you are having a guest or doing like a deeply
researched topic, right? There are sometimes where I'm, I'm like actually I'm thinking about doing
an episode about micro segments because in my product ladder episode,
in my product ladder episode, I talk a lot about micro segments, but I don't,
I don't really define what they are. And I don't really define mine because I haven't done that
exercise in a while. And so when I, when I do that, it'll be, there will be more research. I'll be
gathering kind of information from this retreat I went on a couple of years ago where we really
talked about micro segments and product ladders. And so, and I'll talk about kind of the importance
of that for solo per new artist, right? So like of my, I guess it's, I should say like of my solo
episodes, there are kind of two types of solo episodes. You know, one is like the teaching
kind of solo episode. And one is like the behind the scenes how I'm running my business
kind of solo episodes. And so if I look at why and how I'm fixing my newsletter,
that's definitely like a, let's sort this by live date. Whoops, descending.
So first one, reclaiming control, navigating the hosted versus self hosted dilemma. I was inspired
to do this because a couple of weeks ago, my friend Matt Medeiros
talked about how he like, he didn't get like deep platforms, but he was using a platform that
was like holding his money hostage and it got fixed and everything. But it really got me thinking
about like, you should have your own platform for your website and like where you're going to make
money. And then like why and how I'm fixing my newsletter, this is like a little bit of
behind the scenes on why I need to fix it. And then like the lessons I've learned to get me there.
So those are the two, you know, kinds of episodes I do tools check in, like these are always really
popular. Some of the tools that I'm using and why gives people a good peek behind the curtain.
And so this episode is definitely more of a behind the scenes where we behind the scenes,
how's my business going, which does make like the usually that's like the pro show topic.
So I got to come up with something different for the pro show, but when I do these, it's,
it's I really try to gather my thoughts and then turn that into a story, right? So act one, maybe
I'll call this how did like, I'll just answer the question right up front. How did I do?
And so because I did talk about all of this in episode 420, so like I'm definitely going to
point people in that direction. So I'll even include that here. I do the link so that my VA
knows to include those links in the show notes. There we go.
So how did I do? So let's maybe I'll give myself a grade here. I'm going to say a B.
I think I did pretty good, right? Because if we if we weigh the pros and cons,
I was able to disconnect. I didn't even bring my laptop, like I was totally disconnected.
I would I would open my email app. I think I responded to one email from a friend.
So it's like that's really good for me. And I know it's really good for a lot of people too,
because I said like I didn't bring my laptop and people are like, Oh, you forgot your laptop.
And like, no, no, I purposely did not bring it. So I think that was a big win. The zoo trip was
a big win because I didn't feel so overwhelmed that I couldn't take time away to spend with my
family on my boy's birthday, right? But you know, again, those days, I wasn't feeling motivated,
felt amplified. I don't really feel like I scaled back much of anything. And like I get that travel
anxiety, right? Like the whole week before our vacation, I was like, am I going to be able to
do this? And again, I'm kind of feeling that right now before podcast movement. And like,
yeah, I'll bring my laptop for podcast movement. That's not family time. And I will have downtime
and I will probably do some work. But you know, I'm not going to be at my desk. I'm not going to
be in front of my recording set up. And so like, and I won't be as responsive, right? I'm doing a
bunch of these brain dates with with other podcasters, like I'm hosting a couple on automation. And so
you know, it's it's it's that like that pit or like that pressure in my chest is something I want
to alleviate next year, right? Ashley saying I barely get any work done when I am at conferences.
I mean, same, right? I don't and and also that's good, right? Like I don't understand
the the people who go to conferences and they're just on their laptop the whole time. Like
I and I see this at at technology conferences, especially, but it's like, my man, you
you paid hundreds of dollars, maybe thousands of dollars, or maybe your company did, right? Maybe
that's part of it. To be here and and you're just working like you could do that for free at home.
So like I definitely I'm I'm not going to work. And I'm a social I actually I think you and I are
both pretty extroverted people. Maybe I've misjudged that, but it seems like you are and I
definitely am. And I love networking and talking to people. So I'm definitely not going to
sacrifice conference time, right? But if I'm feeling like, you know, I'm staying at the conference
hotel, this is going to be a short sidebar. But I'm saying at the conference hotel.
This is something for a while I was doing like Airbnb's because they were a lot cheaper.
And then I kind of realized what Ariel realized in the little mermaid that I want to be where the
people are. And so like the cost difference was worth it for me to be closer to the action,
right? And so as a result, if I'm feeling like I'm not really totally extroverted until my social
battery runs out, yeah, that's that's exactly what this is the exact point I'm approaching to,
right? It's like, I mean, for me, I feel like it's just like, I get physically tired.
I like I don't know for me if it's like, I'm not really sure. I'm not really sure.
I get physically tired. I like I don't know for me if it's like my social battery as much as my
physical battery. And so like, I just want to like go sit in the quiet for a minute.
You know, maybe then I'll kind of veg and sit in air conditioning, right? Because I also run
hot and like these conferences also generally run hot. So it's just like thousands of people
in one place. It's hard not to. And so like, yeah, maybe I'll find some time to do some stuff. But
in general, I'm not going to do that. So that was a quick digression. I guess the
the two endorsements I would make there like, even though it's more expensive, the conference
hotel is worth it. And if you're going to go to conferences, don't spend the whole time working
because you can work for free at home. Okay, cool. How to do conferences. Also,
I guess I should say there's no live stream next week, because I'll be a podcast moment.
Okay, so how did I do link to just to recap, I would give myself a B for all of the reasons I
say it's all right, like C pre show notes here. Well, I don't want to, I don't want to do that.
I'll just kind of copy some of the things that I want to say here. So the days I was feeling
motivated. Okay, so let's make an outline here. The bad.
These two things.
I'm like, I can't. I can't do the good, the good, the bad and the ugly now. And that's like,
if you're if you're wondering what it's like to peek inside of my brain.
I'm like, well, I can do the good, the bad and the ugly, but now I have to do the good first.
I see another comment from Ashley here. So let's bring that up.
Oh, man, why can't I see that now? Okay, don't spend the whole time in classes,
either the magic happens and networking the expo halls and the restaurants. Heck, yeah.
Yeah, I spend most of my time in the the hallway track is what we would call it in the WordPress
space. I like like most of the time, right? I, I'm going to go to a few talks to support friends,
right, and like be there as a friendly face in the crowd. But other than that, like,
I learned way more from talking to people than I do from sitting in in the classes or the talks,
right? This is why like those brain dates are going to be amazing, right? It's like real,
real good one on one time, or like one on, you know, I think like five, it's a max of five people
in a group. So I'm really excited about that. And then yeah, like the community events and the parties,
right, just like going to dinner with random people. Super valuable, right? Super valuable.
So I'm cosign on that, right? The, you know, when I was dating, when I was a dating man,
people would always say that a movie was a terrible date, a terrible first date,
because you don't get to know the person. You go to a movie theater, you talk for a little
bit before the movie. And then if you're not like a rude idiot, you don't talk for the entirety of
the movie. And then you go, what'd you think? And then you go home. I feel like conferences are
the same way, right? Like, I go to talks if there's something that you really, really want to learn,
or there's a speaker you really want to see, sure. But I would say, I mean, especially at
podcast, like there are so many talks at podcast movement. There are so many talks you can't
possibly go to all of them. But what you can do is make time to see people and have conversations.
So yeah, that's my two cents. If you really want to see all the talks, like by the digital pass,
I never buy the digital pass or the virtual pass, because I'm not going to watch them. Like,
I'm just like, being honest, I'm not going to watch any of those talks. So yeah, that's my
two cents to add on to Ashley's two cents. So thanks, Ashley. Thanks for being here for contributing.
I don't let me check the other places really quick before moving on. I'm sorry if I'm streaming
somewhere and I have forgotten. And you're like making comments and screaming into the void. I
don't think you are. But in case you are, I'm really sorry. YouTube is definitely the best place for
for us to engage because that's where I happen to hang out the most. Okay, so how are we doing
on time here? All right, great. All right, so the bad might have taken on more too much. Let's do the good.
And the good would be I'll talk about these three things, right? Especially the didn't work any full
weekend days. Because it would have been really easy for me to sorry, you can't see what I'm doing.
It would have been really easy for me to cop out here, right? And say like, oh, well, I'll just
I'll just work on a Saturday. But like, the whole reason we're not doing summer camp aside to save
money, which by the way, it's a good thing we did because our fridge and our dishwasher died this
summer, was to spend time with my family, like to be with my kids. During this magical age,
my son is going to full day pre count. Oh my God. You know, my son's going to full five day school
in a couple of weeks. And so gosh, that hit me out of nowhere. So two of my kids will be out of
the house most of the week now. And like that bums me out, right? It doesn't bum me out when I'm
with them and they're being annoying. But writ large, it bums me out, right? Because now we're
entering a point where like other people are going to have them more than me, right, for their waking
hours. And so the summer is really a time for me to for me and my wife to get some of that time
back, right? Not outsource the job. So you know, if I worked on weekend days, it would have
I don't know, it would have defeated the purpose, I think. So you all should know if you're watching
this and you're like, what what just happened? I'm Italian are very we're very sensitive. We're
very emotional people. So okay, so that's I got to reorder this. The good, the bad, and the ugly,
the ugly inside of my business, there was not a lot of ugly. There were maybe some missteps in
communication, just because I had a lot of things going on in communication. And like rushing through
a few things that I shouldn't have rushed through. But a lot of the ugly came through.
I'm thinking about how I want to word this, right? There were times where my wife and I didn't see a
lot of each other, just because like she would work and then come home late, or you know, I would
work late to finish up some things. And so like we weren't checking in with each other as much as
we could have. And that led to some stress. I mean, luckily, we are both really good at recognizing
that. And we're both really good at giving each other space when we need to. We're like
confronting things when they need to be confronted. And so, but you know, I mean, nobody likes
strength, like no one likes not seeing their spouse, I would imagine. Maybe I'm just speaking
for happily married people. But you know, so it was like there were some some personal things that
made you know, my old man like fell at the beginning of the summer and he's fine now. But
there were some personal things that kind of tacked on to an already stressful
time, right? And so like nothing insurmountable. It's mostly because I want to do the good,
the bad and the ugly reference. But if we're talking about like the worst parts of it,
maybe the worst and unforeseen things. The stress on my personal life was something I didn't
foresee because I just thought well, life is my personal life. And it's just that I'll be working
less. But it's really there were a lot of plates in the area at a lot of times, right? And so I
think this is good. I think this is a good outline. Gosh, if this is a rubric, I probably wouldn't get
a B. But the good is weighted more heavily than the bad and the ugly. So, you know, I'm going to give
myself a B. Okay, so Act two is usually where I introduce a conflict. And so if Act one is the
setup and that's how did I do the conflict is asking the question, was it worth it? Right?
Right? Was the amount of money I saved worth the extra stress that I felt? And conversely,
was it worth the extra time I had with my kids? Because I think something that's tough is
kids are dysregulated pretty easily over the summer. Because they don't necessarily like we,
I mean, we, we definitely didn't do a good job of having a set schedule every day.
My wife was way better at it than I was. I'm like a little scared to go out with all three of my
kids at the same time. Not that I didn't do it. It's just like, I'm very choosy about how I do
that. And maybe it's like, I think this is like a therapy session with me really quick. But I
I something I did not see coming is that I am more of a helicopter parent than I thought I would be.
Like strong like death is all around us vibes. And so I do feel like a little bit more stress
than I thought I would in certain situations like but that said, like, you know, our, our,
our parish had a carnival that my kids loved. And so like, one day my wife was working and I,
I took them. And like we like kind of skipped nap time to do it, which is like,
very tired and ramy kids, but it was it was good, right? You know, I took them out to
for fourth of July, we do like a good neighbor day where there's another carnival and events and
we actually walked to that it's a little more than a mile but like we walked to that and it was great.
If not oppressively hot. So this is the question. So, so this is the conflict question I'm asking,
like, was it worth it? And I'm going to say, yes. Yes, it was stressful. But the time I got with my
family was important. I clarified a lot of my business. And I, I landed more work. So it's,
I think if I'm trying to figure out what would have happened, what would have needed to happen
for me to say no, what would have led me to say no. I think if we weren't,
if I felt my kids were worse off,
that would be one. And like, don't get me wrong, there were times where I wasn't patient or my
wife wasn't patient. But like, we're, we're trying to improve and be more patient, right? I think
that's, we're not constantly screaming at them. And we try to explain things to them and we did
try to stay active, right? So, you know, if my kids were worse off because of it, if my business
completely fell apart, you know, like I lost, I lost work or I lost contracts or
more stuff didn't come in. You know, if I would, if I was in a worse position on August 26th,
then I was on May 27th. I think that's, that's what would make me say no. So, you know, I think
this is the good con. What was it worth it? Should you have just done summer camp? And no,
I don't think we should have. And so now like, so how did, how did I do, was it worth it? What's
next? So this will be Act 3. Close things out with the resolution. Obviously, you can't predict
the future. But I'm hoping by next year, I'll have a little bit more flexibility in my business.
I'm doing a lot of things now to put myself in an even better position. I saw some growth this
year so far. But I'm trying to do things to put myself in a better position for 2025. Maintain
the relationships that I have and, you know, manage my time maybe a little bit better than I
have been managing it. And so I will still have small children. I think my youngest will be old
at St. Joe's in the 2025-2026 season, school year. And so, you know, will we be able to cut off day
care completely? My daughter will be older. My son will be older. Will they be less needy?
So this is obviously stuff I need to talk to my wife about.
But based on how this year went,
I can definitely see us doing this again next year.
Changes I would need to make. I, we need to make more structure. More check-ins.
And then I think I need to do a better job at time blocking or time boxing
and building in margin, right? If I look at the bad, the days I wasn't motivated felt amplified.
I think if I had built in some margin, it wouldn't feel that way. And so I think that's going to be a
really important one. And I think maybe just like save a little more money.
Financially, this was fine for us. But you know, saving a little more money to do some more activities
would also be good, right? Because there were some days where we were bored and we're like,
well, you know, our activity budget for the week or for the month is up.
We leaned on our babysitter a little bit more than I expected this year. So like having a
little bit more scrolled away for that too would also be good, right? And so,
you know, I think that these things will make next summer, summer 2025 more successful.
So, okay, so I think that's a really good, I spent more time on this than I thought.
So, I mean, I think the big thing that I would do in an educational, more educational episode
and less of a retrospective episode is, well, so first of all, I need a better title for this,
right? And that's going to be, was skipping summer camp worth it? Right? Because I think there are
probably parents out there who decided to do summer camp and they're wondering was it,
was summer camp worth it? So we'll, we'll answer this question for them. So, you know, tying it
back to the takeaways, because this is always something that, or the actionable advice,
this is something that I want to include in every episode, no matter what, know your schedule,
build in time for unknowns, save some extra money. I think part of it was like, we're going to save
all this money and it's not going to get spent. And it did get spent on stuff. Some extra, like,
so I mean, don't, don't count the money you save as money you have is maybe a big lesson here.
And then create some margin in your work schedule is a good one. And cherish the time you have with
your children. I think it's really easy in the moment to get frustrated with your kids. And then
you remember like, hey, their home. And starting in two weeks, I will not see that most of the day.
So, yeah, I think remembering that I need to remember that more. I wish I had remembered it
more over the summer, but I think we had a good summer. So, okay, and then the pro show topic,
gosh, this is a toughie. I feel like I left it all out, right? If I was like, if I was kind of a
jerk, and I just wanted to get people to buy the membership more, I would leave the what's next
for the pro show, but I don't want to do that. So, I think looking at my schedule for this,
I talked about product ladders. So, I think in the pro show, I'll do like why I want something more
scalable. Talk about scalable products. Let's go about level. It's probably a good opportunity to
do some time tracking check in, right? Because I do track my time and sometimes I'll give a report
because I also think like I may not be spending my time the most wisely, right? So,
talk about scalable projects, time tracking, check in. I think those will be good, right?
Because I want to remain a solopreneur, but I also recognize that I'm going to need to do some
things to make ends meet a little bit better. So, yeah, I think that's it. Checking the comments
here. What do I see? I see things blinking. I don't see any comments over on Facebook. I think
they would have made it over. So, yeah, I think that this will let's let's sum things up for you.
What did I do here for my solo episode? I thought about, I had, first of all, the title wasn't
really the title in the beginning. It was just the thing I wanted to talk about, right? I think
that's really important. I did some pre-show notes. I thought about what's the purpose of this
episode? What's the goal of this episode? For this one, it was a follow-up from an episode
at the beginning of the summer. And so, in another episode, right, for my micro-segments
episode, it's going to be teach the listeners about why solopreneurs should have micro-segments.
Ashley, thanks so much for your kind words. Insightful. Good peek into my brain.
Yes, I'm sorry you had to see that. But, yeah, I appreciate that. So, thank you so much for being
here and for your comments. So, I think that the pre-show notes helped me just get a high-level
overview of how did the summer go, right? I really thought about this. But my goal was to answer this
open thread while tying it back into how this is helpful for solopreneurs, right? Especially,
like, in the description, I say, busy solopreneur parents, right? And when I do an episode on
growing your email list organically or, like, how to do good presentations or some of the other
stuff I'm talking about for the rest of the year, time and task management, this really good episode
with Terry, home studios with my friend, Jeanade, this is stuff that, something about my birthday,
I hate that. It comes out the day after my birthday. This was definitely just, like, a very tired note.
But, like, some of these other things, like, they are relevant to most people, how to do social
media without burning out. But I am a solopreneur parent, and I want to really deliver on that
promise. And so, this episode was a good one for that, tying it back to, hey, if you're a parent
who's trying to run a business, how do you manage those things? How am I managing those things?
And I think I'm in a pretty good position to do that because I've been a freelancer since I was 14.
So, like, every stage of my life, I have run a business, right? Like, 14, no real things.
There were no real stakes, right? It was just money coming in. And that was basically the case,
like, through school as well, like grad school and all that. And then running my side hustle
while having a full-time job, a similar full-time job, right? And then leaving that with a family,
right? The complete opposite of running a business at 14. There are a lot of stakes on the table.
And so, I'm glad I have that kind of life perspective. I'm sure a lot of people do,
but maybe not the, you know, I don't know how many people were freelancing at 14, though. So,
yeah, I think that this is really good, right? And so, I do the pre-show notes. I have the
post. I'll do this later, right? There's probably not going to be a cold open for this one.
The main takeaway is probably it's all about the known unknowns. I think that's probably the thing
that you're going to have to remember going into a summer where your kids are going to,
it's going to be a chaotic summer. The shorter intro, I don't need that either, right? That's
really just for after, like summarizing the interview a little bit. And then the three act,
act one, the setup, how did I do? Act two, the conflict, was it worth it? And then act three,
what's next, the resolution, with the actionable advice. Okay, this was fun. Let me know if you
enjoyed this sort of thing, how I could have done better. Or if you just liked it and you're
done to see more content like this. I came from the web development space until my live streams
were almost exclusively like watch me work live streams, like people would just watch me write
code or design something. And moving into this more, I don't want to say thought leadership,
because I hate, I don't think I'm a thought leader. I think I have thoughts,
if I say them out loud. But moving from that to something where it doesn't really make sense to
watch me do things. I'm trying to find the right balance. But I do love this like watch me work
sort of stuff. So let me know what you think, maybe like right with more right with me sessions
or things like that. But thanks so much for watching. Don't forget, if you are not already
on my mailing list, you can head over to podcastworkflows.com slash join like and subscribe
to this channel if you're watching on YouTube. And until next time, I'll see you out there.
If you're going to be a podcast movement, let me know. But thanks so much, everybody. I'll see you
later.