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Welcome to Stuff I Learned Yesterday. My name is Darrell Darnell, I once beat my brother 100-7 in Joe Montana Football on the Sega Genesis, and I believe that if you aren’t learning, you aren’t living. In today’s episode of Stuff I Learned Yesterday I share stuff I learned from setting goals.
Are you a podcaster or have you ever thought about starting your own podcast? If so, I want to invite you to Podcast Movement. Taking place in Dallas on August 16 & 17, Podcast Movement will be an incredible opportunity for you to network with and learn from some of the best podcasters and teachers. There will be over 40 breakout sessions that will be broken down by beginner sessions and advanced sessions. Featured speakers included Chris Brogan, Cliff Ravenscraft, Jamie Tardie, Rob Cesternino, John Lee Dumas, Cynthia Sanchez, and MANY more. I will be there leading an advanced session on audio editing, and Derek will be there too. If you want to take advantage of early bird pricing, act right now as early bird pricing goes up after tomorrow, July 15. Visit www.goldenspiralmedia.com/podcastmovement and join the movement today!
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What I Learned Yesterday:
I’m really excited about Podcast Movement. As the days tick by and Podcast Movement draws closer, my excitement grows. I love the opportunity to learn from other people and this conference will have some amazing leaders and teachers. The thing I look forward to the most is meeting new people and reconnecting with others. I learned quite a while ago that the best moments from conferences are normally found in the hallways and the coffee lines. Those are the moments when one-on-one conversations and real connections are made.
I’m also looking forward to this conference because it will mark a milestone achievement for me. It will be the first time I have have led a solo session at a conference. Back in 2012 I had a goal to speak at a conference. That was really the entirety of my goal. It didn’t matter what context or conference. I simply wanted to be invited to be a speaker at a conference. I saw it as an opportunity to test the waters for the future career goals that I had and I saw it as a way to challenge myself and grow. In June of that year I was asked to organize and lead a podcasting panel at Blog World in New York City.
Since that time my goal has been to increase the number of speaking opportunities that I am given. I consider a speaking opportunity any appearance on someone else’s podcast, speaking locally, participating in a webinar, or speaking at a conference. These are all opportunities to share my knowledge, encourage others, challenge myself, and improve my communication skills.
This year I set several goals. Here they are:
- Add 3 new clients by my 1 year anniversary
- Add 3 new shows
- Earn $10k per month
- Create 3 Digital Products (free or paid) that share my knowledge with others
- Read one book per month
- Participate in at least 6 speaking engagements
When I first set the goals, I looked at them every day and had a time each week that I evaluated my progress and brainstormed ideas to help me achieve the goals. I found this process very helpful. I also kept close contact with Derek and we gave each other updates on how we were doing with our goals.
At some point in April I really started to get off track. I don’t know if getting off track is the best way to phrase it. I didn’t get off track in the sense that I started to slack off or veered off from making progress on my goals. I got off track in the sense that I stopped having regular brainstorming sessions and reviewing my goals each week.
In a strange way, one reason this happened was that I achieved my first goal. I started getting so much work from new clients that I started to struggle with juggling my ever changing schedule. As I added new clients and appointments started coming in at various times of day, I failed to set aside a dedicated time to review my goals and brainstorm. Derek did a good job of checking up on me and trying to keep me on track, but his prompting did little to help me stay on top of my goal planning.
Once I got out of the routine of checking my goals, they were out of sight, out of mind. Even on days when I did have time to review or brainstorm, I didn’t even think about it.
Fortunately, as I mentioned before, I did keep making progress on my goals. I easily achieved goal number one. After reaching it so easily I realized that I should have made the goal number higher and I should have made a distinction of recurring clients and one-time clients. Still, this goal was the only one that didn’t have a December 31st deadline. My 1 year anniversary was May 3 so I felt like it was a pretty challenging goal at the time I made it.
Goal number two was made when I already knew that I would be launching this show, but I had not launched it yet. With that in mind, I knew that it would keep me focused on launching this show and still challenge me to launch 2 more shows before the end of the year. As of today, we’ve launched 5 podcasts this year and a 6th one was announced today. It’s called Central City Underground and it will be dedicated to the upcoming show, Flash, on the CW. We could still launch another 3 or 4 podcasts this year. That just blew my mind a little. My goal was 3, and it’s conceivable that we’ll launch 10.
Goal number 3, like the 2 before it, seemed lofty at the time I made it. I still have a ways to go before this goal is met. I do believe it is possible to reach this goal by the end of the year. Losing TV Talk income has really put a dent in my monthly income, but I know I have the skills and infrastructure set up to achieve this goal.
Goal number 4 has also already been met. This is another case where I should have been more specific. When I set this goal I wasn’t sure if I would be able to find the time to do any product demo videos or training videos so I made this as broad as possible. So far I have a video that is an unboxing and a first look at the Zoom H5 digital audio recorder, a demo of the Audio Technica AT2005 USB microphone, a demo of the HTDZ HT-81 shotgun microphone, and a comparison between the Heil PR40, Shure SM 58, and Audio Technica ATR2100 microphones. These videos have done pretty well for me. The last one fluctuates between the number 1 and number 3 video in YouTube search results for Heil PR 40.
Goal number 5 is also a goal that I have not met. It’s a bit unique in that I technically can’t achieve it. I read a book in January and February. I started a book in March but never finished it. However, I think that the spirit of the goal is to improve myself by reading. I can achieve the spirit of this goal by getting back on the horse and read a book each month from here through the end of the year.
The final goal brings me back around to Podcast Movement. Podcast Movement will be my 6th speaking engagement this year and will signal the achievement of the goal. I am also working on two video training products that will be ready before Podcast Movement. These products will help me achieve my income goal, my new client goal, and my digital product goal. My time at Podcast Movement will also very likely help me connect with other podcasters that could lead to other speaking opportunities.
This week when I pulled up my list of goals I was really happy with my progress, but it has reminded me of a few things.
Here’s what I learned.
While it would be easy to pat myself on the back and congratulate myself for already achieving 4 of my 6 goals, I don’t think that’s the best approach. Had I been keeping a better eye on my goals, I could have modified them a while back so that I could remain challenged through the rest of the year. That is what I will now do, but I’ve lost some time by allowing myself to lose focus.
The other thing that could happen here is to lift off the gas pedal and be content with having achieved 4 out of 6. But that would be foolish. Instead of letting off the gas as we get close to achieving our goals, we need to refocus and make sure we’re doing all we can to finish strong. Just as Luke Skywalker and the other rebel squadron pilots were attempting to blow up the Death Star, Gold Leader implored them to “stay on target” as they drew closer to their goal.
The truth is, I have a lot of work to do. Even if I had already achieved all of my goals (except for the book one, since that one requires a full year to fulfill), I could not rest on my laurels. Now that I have refocused, I’ll brainstorm to come up with new objectives, schedule time on my calendar to make sure I don’t lose focus again, and keep learning from past experience to help me get better every day.
I’m Darrell Darnell and this has been stuff I learned yesterday.
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