The sun rises on a new year

In 2010, I started a new habit of setting goals for the upcoming year. This year is no different.

I started the process by looking back on 2011. With the year behind me and a lot learned, I’ve now set goals for 2012.

The process of setting goals for an entire year is more time consuming than you’d think. Looking back took me the better part of the day, and after I realized how poorly I’d done it took me two more days to think through what I need to do about it.

Before I go any further, I need to let you in on my goal setting process. (more…)

Remember where you came from

Last year I did a short series where I looked back on 2010, set goals for 2011 and encour­aged you to go out and do the same. This year, I’m doing it again.

It’s been a crazy year with a lot to look back on. There was change, new begin­nings, and lots of failures. I called it the year of massive change and it turned out to be an appro­priate title.

In 2011 I:

• Married my beautiful wife, Rachel,
• Quit my job to work at the blog full time,
• Read 36 books,
• Took two amazing vacations (Jamaica and Portland),
• and wrote and published my first guide.

By all accounts, it was a really good year.

Unfor­tu­nately, there were also some failures: (more…)

My library isn’t that cool…yet

In 2010, I set a goal of reading 36 books in 2011 (3 per month). I missed a few months and played catchup in November and December. On the 28^th, I finished my 36^th book (though I haven’t stopped reading!). Here are my 10 favorites from the year followed by a list of all 36 books.

The top 10 list is in no partic­ular order. (more…)

That’s what I use to look like.

There is nothing as important in a financial plan as sacrifice.

As a money blogger, I talk a lot about what you gain from budgeting, investing, and saving; while down­playing all that you give up along the way.

Unfor­tu­nately, sacrifice is a reality. Killing it finan­cially means giving things up along the way. Embracing one oppor­tu­nity means leaving behind 10 more.

Sacrifice is rarely bad; but it is never easy. (more…)

Have you ever wondered what the world’s largest water balloon fight would look like? Wonder no more; the stunning video below shows just that!

If you can’t see the video in your email or RSS reader, click here

Water is every­where! Colored balloons fly through the air, the fighters are smiling, fun is everywhere.

It’s awesome.

I also like that they showed how hard they worked for this moment: filling the water balloons, sitting in the sun lining them up, getting the fighters ready; not to mention getting permis­sion to use the field, having a video crew and water-proof equipment, etc.

It was a well planned amazing event that millions will enjoy.

What’s Your Waters Balloon Fight?

The video is really repre­sents something much bigger than a water balloon fight: you.

If you follow the advice on this blog, you will get out of debt, have a budget, be prepared for retire­ment, and have a nice emergency fund in place; aka, you will be doing really well finan­cially.

But if that’s where it ends then my advice is is useless. This site equips you to live your dreams. The main way that happens is to give you the ability to fund them. Don’t let it end with money.

You need a big, hairy, dream. You need something bigger than yourself.

Maybe it’s a giant water balloon fight, maybe it’s a year off from work so your family can travel around the world, maybe it’s starting a non-profit orga­ni­za­tion, or a business from your garage. Maybe it’s as simple as having enough money to try something new.

The dream needs to be big enough to scare you a bit.

What is your dream? I’ll go first.

Another month text text text

The blog’s best month yet!

As far as hits go, July was my best month yet! Every statistic had a positive change and the site grew really well. I started the Money 101 series, turned 25, my writing got much better, and I finally feel like I’m coming into myself as a blogger. If you’re writing and writing and you feel like it’s not as good as you want it to be keep going! I’m still not where I want to be, but after 7 months I am seeing major improve­ment. (more…)

Starting and running a business is a lot of work.

I’ve always known that intel­lec­tu­ally. I’ve even said it to people looking to start a business, but I never under­stood it until I actually quit my job to start and run my own business.

The hardest part is doing the work. Sounds basic, but I’m finding it difficult to want to work. Steven Press­field explains it well in The War of Art:

It’s not the writing part that’s hard. What’s hard is sitting down to write.

He calls that diffi­culty resis­tance. (more…)

June was a crazy month for me. I started the month off by quitting my job. My wife and I flew out to Portland to enjoy the Storyline Confer­ence. I made my first commis­sion check from the Only72.com Sale. And I started writing my first Guide (which I haven’t offi­cially announced yet).

Top 5 Posts

The top 5 most viewed posts in June 2011 (starting with most viewed):

• 5 Reasons to Tell a Story With Your Life
• Quitting My Day Job
• Employed, Self-Employed, Entre­pre­neur: What’s The Difference?
• How Entre­pre­neurs Think
• Entre­pre­neur, Start Your Business

Two notes about this: (1) the About page was the second highest viewed page this month, but it’s not a post so I didn’t add it and (2) the Only72.com sale was one of the highest viewed posts, and although I am proud of it, I consider it a bit more of an adver­tise­ment than a post and didn’t include it in the list.

Goal Report (more…)

May Stats

You may remember a month ago when I set some goals for May. Overall I felt the month went fairly well. I increased the visit, the pageviews, and the averge time on site. Also, my Bounce Rate was below 60% (something that is pretty good in the blogging world). Unfor­tu­nately, my New Visits and pageviews went down. But even so, I feel the percent­ages were good.

Top 5 posts

The top 5 most viewed posts in May 2011: (in order starting with most viewed)

• 9 Lessons I learned in Jamaica
• May 2011 Goals
• The New Direction
• Close Your Creative Gap
• Define Entre­pre­neur

I was surprised that 9 Lessons I Learned in Jamaica was my number 1 post; it has gone a bit viral. What better way to learn about life than in Jamaica? If you haven’t read it yet, check it out.

Goal Report

As far as my goals are concerned:

1200 page views — I didn’t make this one but, I was only 14 short. You can see the month started strong (the blue line) but then started to taper off near the end. The main reason for this is the new direction. Before May most of my blog posts were about living your dream and setting goals (I brought in a lot of traffic from these keywords); but in May I shifted that focus to entre­pre­neur­ship and money. Google has slowed up for a bit, but I trust it will catch up quickly.

Create a three or more post series –Although I’m only two posts in, I did create the What is an Entre­pre­neur series which will total six posts. I’m counting this as a win!

Be more involved in the community - I have pretty much caught up with the blogs (I’m still about a week behind) and I have commented more often. I’m not at the level I want to be, but I am noticing a signif­i­cant improvement.

Tweak the design — Haven’t done much here (or have I?). Lots going on behind the scenes…

Thoughts About May

Overall, I consider May a middle-of-the-road month. Nothing espe­cially fantastic happened to the blog. Although there was some improve­ment and several of my long-term goals saw some action, my short-term goals didn’t move much. These kinds of months are necessary for all busi­nesses and this blog is no different. That being said, I expect to see signif­i­cant improve­ments between May and June.

June Goals

I plan to make some signif­i­cant strides in June.

• 2,000 page views. Tough, but doable.
• 700 Visits. This will come easily if I can score 2,000 page views
• Finish the What is an Entre­pre­neur series and start a second series. I already have the series figured out, all I need to do is execute!
• Review 1 book. It’s harder to write reviews than I thought it would be, but practice makes perfect.
• Be more involved in the community. This is an on-going goal. I will probably never be perfect at it, but I plan to get much better than I have been.
• Write and publish a guest post. I have some thoughts on guest posts. A few of you may be getting emails soon…
• Tweak the design. This is on-going, but I hope to have a few major reveals by the end of June.

More goals than May, but I also have more time to accom­plish them. Thanks for being a part of my journey.

What are your June goals? Let me know in the comments…

I am feeling intro­spec­tive today. I can hardly believe that this blog is 4 months old. In the short life of this blog I have made friends, focused my niche, and seen a dream turn into a reality. I have a long way to go before I reach the end of this race, and it’s been a wild ride up to this point, but I wouldn’t change it for anything. I love what I’m doing.

Up until recently, I used the shoot from the hip style of writing: I write my blogs a day or two in advance based on random ideas I have throughout the week. Sometimes I don’t have any idea what I’ll write about until I actually start typing.

Overall I’m happy with how this has turned out, but I know it will be better if I had a plan. Plus, not having a plan has been weighing on me. It was under­stand­able leading up to the wedding, but now I need to get back to my roots. Changes are coming and I want to let you in on them.

First, though, let me show you where I’m at. For a new blogger, I think I have don’t pretty well — here are some of my stats.

Averages

Every month has seen an increase in page views. In February I had 600, March had 750, and April had a massive (for me) 950 page views! I am honored that my blog is being viewed so many times!

My daily averages have been going up as well. The first few months I was stuck at about 24 page views per day. But in March and April I was able to get over 30.

My biggest problem is consis­tency. I will have four or five great days and then a few days where no one comes by. This may be my update schedule, but more than likely it is a marketing and content issue. Sometimes my blogs aren’t very good and sometimes I go weeks at a time without marketing myself (I blame a lot of the marketing drought on the wedding).

May Goals

This is something new I’m going to try out: letting you in on some of my goals. Not all of them (secret projects are secret for a reason!) but enough where you can keep me account­able. This is also a great way for you to see how I set and achieve goals.

Here are my goals for May:

• 1200 pageviews — if the last few months are any indi­ca­tion, I think I’ll hit this.
• Create a three or more post series — I have one I’ve been thinking of doing for awhile. It’s time I write it out and post it. I want to incor­po­rate more series into my blog. It’ll help me hone my niche.
• Be more involved in the community — You guys are amazing and I feel like I’ve been slacking. No more!
• Tweak the design — This is nothing new. I have been working at this on-and-off since February.

There it is. Not too many goals, I want to see how these pan out before I challenge myself too much. Thank you to everyone who reads and supports the blog, it means the world to me.

What are some of your May goals?