It's week five of the BET time for
our very first monthly check-in.
I've been really excited to do this
episode, honestly, and I can't help but
notice how similar this feels to doing
weekly check-ins with my physique coach.
How I used to do that every week
I would submit photos of myself
and along with my measurements
and all my metrics, and I would.
Answer questions about my sleep and
my training and what were my wins from
the week and what were my struggles.
And it's kind of like that we're weighing
in, showing up as we are for the month.
, Except here, there's no coach
waiting to give me feedback on
the other side, it's just me.
I'm both the athlete and the coach
here, and it is up to me to track
the data and make the decisions
about how to move myself forward.
Make the decisions about what
I think are actually gonna move
the needle over the next year.
Welcome back to the bet.
Every journey starts with a
choice, and mine is a bet.
For one year, I'm gambling
on energy over strategy.
No more forcing and no pushing.
Just the courage to show up
and see what happens when
reality becomes my playground.
This isn't a podcast.
It's a real time experiment
in the lab of my life.
Welcome to the bet.
Time to look at the metrics.
Let's start with this podcast.
So in the month of September, the
bet has a total of 49 downloads
across nine episodes, which averages
out to about four downloads per
episode in the first 30 days.
So we have lots of room for improvement
and yes, I am laughing as I say
that I do always think about this.
In terms of being a scientist, right?
If we want to show growth, if we want
to show improvement, there is no better
place to start than at the bottom,
'cause we've got nowhere to go but up.
And I'm not really surprised about
this number, honestly, because I
haven't really told anyone about this.
It's not like I'm hiding it, but I
haven't made a point to share it at all.
Like zero promotion, which
means anyone who shows up here.
Is from a purely organic state.
I've had one person tell me that they've
listened to an episode or two, so hello.
If you're out there, you know who you are.
And overall, I would say I'm spending
about two to three hours a week
between recording, editing and
posting, which is pretty manageable.
Okay, let's turn to Instagram.
Instagram is working.
September brought in looks like 18,400
views from 64 pieces of content.
I did, let's see, 30 daily posts
and the rest of the content came,
I guess from stories 'cause I
didn't do any reels in September.
And according to my Instagram report
here, everything is trending up.
My views are up, my interactions
are up, and I've got 37 new
followers in the month of September.
I don't know how many people left my
account, so my September experiment of
keeping it dead simple has paid off.
I've spent no more than five minutes
each morning to screenshot a thought
from my notes app and post it.
No design, no templates, no overthinking.
Well.
Until last week when I did catch
myself starting to edit and rethink
captions again, but we talked
about that in the last episode.
Okay.
Onto my substack.
Substack has surprised me.
This was a completely brand new
territory for me with my very first
article ever going up in September.
I didn't have a plan to do this.
Something just pinged inside
of me to share it there.
And.
Off I went.
So we're off to the races on
Substack, although there's
still a lot of room to grow.
So far.
I have 16 subscribers and my
three articles have yielded,
where did I write that down?
337 views.
So I'm currently doing one article
per week, which is taking me anywhere
between 60 and 90 minutes to write.
I would say.
But I'm loving it.
I love having space to go deeper than
Instagram allows, and this, to me feels
like a better fit than LinkedIn, which
I briefly dabbled in earlier this year.
Substack feels different, feels like
I have my own column in a journal, and
I'm getting to share my perspectives
with anyone who wants to read it.
It's a really nice twist to September and
it feels more like a hobby than part of my
business because I really wasn't expecting
to enjoy long form writing this much.
Okay, let's switch over to my email list.
My email list took a little hit.
I lost six subscribers when I
sent out the link for my new.
Human design, deep dive offering that
I'm planning to launch later this month,
and I have never had that happen before.
I don't think I've ever had more
than one or two people unsubscribe
from a particular email, so I
was a bit surprised by that.
But I was also surprised by my reaction
because my very first thought was, good.
Good, good.
I'm glad that you know
what you do not want.
I'm really happy because I want people to
know whether or not they want to be here.
And if mentioning human design or
if putting an offer out in front
of somebody that I'm so excited
to share makes you unsubscribe,
then we're probably not a match.
And this also tells me that my
messaging is getting clearer about who
I am and what I am compatible with.
And in telling you these numbers,
it seems kind of silly to say all
this because I know so many people
with huge email lists and they would
laugh at losing six subscribers.
That's nothing.
But my email list has
never had rapid growth.
It has been a very slow, very deliberate,
very intentional kind of list building.
It's one of those things I have been
trying to expand and I feel like I
haven't cracked the code here yet,
so I am very interested to see a year
from now where that email list stands.
Then there's a memo.
Oh, memo.
We'll talk about you more in a minute.
Zero.
New subscribers.
And one cancellation plus the
whole platform transferred debacle
where all my emails went into the
void, and I still don't know how
many people got lost in that mess.
So we'll circle back to memo
later because there's more to say
here, but that's just the numbers.
Okay, revenue for September
$356 and 95 cents.
Yep.
That is my revenue this month.
Now, granted, I didn't have any
launches at all, so it's not like I had
offers up for people to purchase aside
from Memo, but that's where I stand.
This was all from recurring income,
just reporting this as part of
the overall business picture.
Actually, actually I'm gonna
stop myself right here.
I'm gonna stop myself from glossing
over this because I feel like I need
to touch base with you on something
here that revenue number 3 56 95.
I actually have been debating whether
to share that with you for the past
two days, like debating up until
the point where it came time to hit
record and actually make this episode.
Because for some reason, sharing
your revenue feels exactly
like sharing your weight.
You know what I mean?
When somebody loses 50 pounds, they've
no problem telling everyone I lost 50
pounds, but they're not walking around at
the beginning of their journey announcing,
Hey, I weigh 180 5, like nobody does that.
As I'm sitting here telling you my
September revenue, part of my brain
is screaming to explain it, to tell
you about the months when I've made
way more than that, or to justify
why it's so low, or to add a bunch
of disclaimers about how this is just
maintenance income, no launches, no
promotions, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah.
But you know what?
This is the starting weight.
It's a starting weight.
This is the starting revenue when
you change course in your business.
This is what it actually looks
like when you are not actively
selling anything and you start
experimenting with a new way of being.
This is what it looks like when you're
in between things, when you're figuring
out what wants to emerge, and I don't
know anyone else who is putting their
actual monthly numbers out there,
especially not when they're this low.
Everyone else is sharing their best
months, their six figure launches,
their record breaking promotions, but
these kind of moments stay hidden.
People keep them hidden until they
have some breakthrough to attach it to.
Then they're all about sharing it.
But I am here to build this differently.
. So there it is.
3 56 95.
I'm gonna say it even though it feels
like I'm stepping on a giant ass scale
out in public, but in, ultimately, I
want this documented because that's
what this experiment is all about.
Okay, big breath.
Let's move on to other kinds of numbers.
Let's talk about time.
My total time investment.
For all my content creation, including the
bet, Instagram Substack memo, maintenance
of my web pages, I would say is averaging
six to eight hours a week, which is
not nothing, but it is manageable.
However, I have to keep in mind that I'm
not launching anything right now and I'm
also not running a program right now.
That time doesn't include the
time I spend in planning mode
each week, which is easily another
three to four hours minimum.
So if I look at just the weekly
mechanics of keeping this business
running right where it is, we are
at nine to 12 hours a week, which
is outside of my full-time job.
So as I said, it is doable.
What I'm finding is not doable
is the mental energy I'm spending
waffling about the future of Memo.
I've been in this mental loop over what
to do with Memo for several weeks now, and
this indecision is creating the problem.
The energy around it is
confused and confused.
Energy doesn't grow anything.
This push pull that I have
going on with Memo has honestly
been there since day one.
When Memo started, my initial instinct
was to make it a public podcast, but
I didn't want to commit to more than
a year because I didn't know if I was
going to actually like it and enjoy it.
I didn't know if it was
gonna be able to sustain it.
I didn't know if people
were gonna want it.
So I made it into one of my
experiments so that I didn't have
to obligate myself to it forever.
I committed to just one year.
It's one of my one year bet on
myself, situations just like this.
And now it's been well over a year.
February will mark two years since
the first episode dropped, and I still
don't know what memo really wants to be.
The options keep swirling.
Do I make it a standalone,
one-time investment?
Do I take it public as a regular
podcast like I originally considered?
Do I create monthly subscriber experiences
with themes or masterclasses or q and as?
Every option I come up with
feels both right and wrong.
That's why I'm meeting with one of my
business coaches on Tuesday, not to
have her tell me what to do, but to
help me work through this waffle state.
When you waffle things
stagnate memo is proof of that.
Now you might remember I talked about
this I think briefly in September.
I invested in a podcast
guesting intensive.
Basically learning how to get booked
as a guest on other people's podcasts.
The idea is to reach new audiences
by sharing my expertise on shows
that already have engaged listeners.
Instead of trying to build my own
audience from scratch, I would go
where people are already listening.
So I'm meeting with that consultant
on the 14th to review all the planning
and start booking appearances, and
the goal is eight to 12 podcast
bookings over the next few months.
But here's the catch.
I need to determine my messaging.
What do I wanna talk about?
What am I even sharing?
If I don't know what memo is?
What's my core offer?
When someone asks, how
can people work with you?
So this needs to be settled
because this confused energy does
nothing but keep everything stuck.
Last Friday while I was recording a voice
note to myself about whether I should
publicly promote this podcast, the bet.
I started thinking about my history
with business when my son was a baby,
I accidentally started a business
on eBay, reselling his baby clothes.
I had no idea what people would
pay for these gently used European
baby clothes and it snowballed
into way more than I planned.
It turned into a fully fledged business
with a customer loyalty program, a
website, shipping department, everything.
It all started because I needed to
generate some cash while I wasn't working.
Same thing happened.
Later with a D drapery business, I
accidentally started, I was redecorating
my house and I wanted these silk
drapes from Restoration Hardware.
I needed something like 24 panels and they
wanted, it's either 400 or $600 a panel.
I thought that was ridiculous.
So I found this amazing silk mill in
India that would make them for $37
a panel if I ordered 200 of them.
Which was gonna be less than if I just
paid full price at Restoration Hardware.
So I placed the order, I kept what
I needed, and I sold the rest on
eBay, think for like 89 bucks each.
That ended up working so well that I
ended up turning that into a business.
We had different sizes, colors, the works.
That lasted for about two years
until the factory realized they could
just sell these direct to consumer,
and the margins weren't worth the
effort for me to do it anymore.
It wasn't even like I had a
passion to go into this business.
I had really no desire at all
to go into the drapery business.
It just turned into that.
But I realized in both instances,
the business developed from
filling a need that I had.
The business part was never intentional.
It was accidental.
I think about irresistible mind,
which is my very first program.
My signature program kind
of started the same way.
I really wanted to master my own mind.
I wanted to build a mind that wins.
I was fascinated with how energy
and mindset work together.
I already knew all about brain
mapping from my clinical work, but
I was really curious about how the
energetics of human design could
inform how we program our brains.
So I decided to build out a whole
curriculum because I wanted to study
it for myself, and I also really
wanted to test it on other people
. And so, even though I was
technically selling it.
I was offering it in exchange for money.
It was never about making money.
It was about can I study more and more
people to find the common links here?
What energetic patterns can I spot?
I was just so driven to investigate it.
I was so intrinsically motivated to
combine human design with brain mapping.
I wanted to experiment to see
if it worked on other people.
So the thought was, let me see
if this works on them, was not,
Ooh, how can I market this?
So that might also help explain why
Memo feels stuck, because it feels like
I'm actively trying to sell something
versus sharing how I made it for myself.
It's so interesting because when
I look at this whole thing through
the lens of my own human design,
the pattern makes perfect sense.
I am a one three profile.
The investigator and the
experimenter, I go deep, deep
into things for myself first.
Then I share what I've discovered
through my own experimentation.
Plus, I also happen to have a ton of
what's called individual circuitry.
Individual energy isn't about
the collective or the tribe.
It is about mutation, about bringing
something new that doesn't exist yet.
It's about individuals who
create from their own unique
perspective, their own timing.
So we're not here to
meet an existing demand.
We're here to create things that
don't exist yet, things people
don't even know they need.
So of course, my successful
businesses started from my own needs.
That's literally how I'm designed
to operate, create for myself,
experiment with it, and if it works.
Other people will be naturally drawn
to it, not because I marketed it,
but because it carries the frequency
of authentic individual creation.
All of this awareness I'm having is
really shifting something because I'm
also seeing now how showing up here
every week is creating a lot of energy.
For me, it is creating.
A sense of purpose and almost an
urgency in my day-to-day mindset.
Knowing I have to show up every Tuesday
with something real to talk about, makes
me incredibly intentional about how I
am spending my limited time each week.
My life is busy.
October at the university is packed.
November is gonna have some breathing
room, but October is wall to wall,
just like September, and knowing
I have to move myself forward each
week so that I can share the progress
introduces this really sharp question.
Do I want to spend my time running
programs or creating material?
And can I build a business model that
actually supports my particular energy?
So this Tuesday's meeting with my coach
is not going to be just about memo, it's
going to be about re-envisioning all my
offers, including stand and irresistible
mind for my current lifestyle.
How should those be structured now?
What actually works with the
time and energy I have available.
We have been told that successful
businesses focus on one thing.
One thing, and you make it repeat.
Boring is good.
Boring is scalable.
Boring is profitable.
I've been trying to follow that advice
with Memo, but Memo is not expanding.
So now I'm questioning do
I stick with Memo for this
upcoming podcast tour planning?
Do I spend real time making it its
own solid product, or do I lean
into creating variety since that
seems to fit with me energetically?
Then again, look at my
Instagram experiment.
Making it simple, making it boring
has allowed me to do so much more.
Five minutes every day instead of 45
minutes of design work, same content.
I actually think it's better
content, but different approach.
The September Instagram project proved to
me that stripping away complexity actually
increased my engagement and my results.
So this makes me think
about Memo differently.
What if the problem isn't what Memo is?
But that I've been making
it too complicated.
What if, just like Instagram, the
answer is to strip it down to its
simplest, most sustainable form.
Simplicity is the power.
When Instagram became simple,
it became sustainable.
When it became sustainable,
it became effective.
So maybe Memo needs the same treatment.
Just pick the simplest version
that I can maintain without drain,
even if it does feel boring.
Maybe that's the lesson.
Not that I need one product, but that
each thing I make needs to be simple
enough to maintain without draining me.
I don't wanna just make myself busier.
The goal is finding a business
model that matches my energy.
Maybe my individual
circuitry needs variety.
Maybe the one thing model works
for tribal or collective circuitry,
but not for individual circuit.
People like me, although I do
have tribal energy as well,
what I really don't like
is showing up in the same
questioning state week after week.
Still waffling about
the right way forward.
By next week, a decision will be made.
I will be moving in a definite direction.
That is me speaking from a place
of commitment and self-leadership.
So what did month one teach me?
First?
Building from my own
personal needs works for me.
Every successful business I've
accidentally created proves this
when I solve my own problem,
other people want the solution.
Second, and this has been huge.
I've caught the pattern of
proving myself repeatedly.
I never would've seen that without
intentionally doing this work.
The proving pattern costs so much energy.
And I'm really proud of myself
because when I caught it happening
with the mini memos, I pulled the
plug instead of making myself stick
with it because that was the plan.
Third, I'm really seeing how the
energy of confusion creates stagnation.
. Memo is all the evidence I need on
this one until I decide what it is.
It cannot grow.
Fourth, I have proven that simple
consistency beats complex systems.
Instagram proves this to me daily,
five minutes with zero formatting,
outperforms everything else, and
now I have sailed into October,
carrying forward the same system.
I'm using a new backdrop for
the month and a new theme, but
otherwise the same strategy.
It's become a very
easily repeatable habit.
And finally, I have learned
that weekly accountability
creates focused intentionality.
The bet might be the
biggest win of month one.
This podcast, not in terms of
downloads, but in terms of forcing
me to see what I've been blind to.
That Friday question I was asking myself
about whether or not I should be promoting
this podcast or whether I should protect
its energy by keeping it close to me.
For now, part of me understands that
learning in public is a very powerful
way to keep yourself in a state of
growth, but part of me also knows that
it is important to keep things close to
the vest until they are strong enough.
To withstand other people's opinions
and other people's energy, like a
little sapling that's sprouting from
the ground that needs protection
before it can handle a storm.
And maybe that's okay for now.
Month one needed to be protected.
Month two is gonna bring decisions.
All the more reason to continue
catching myself in these waffly
moments and make the damn call.
So October is going in a new direction.
Tuesday's coach meeting will
bring clarity to the memo question
and a decision will be made.
The human design deep dive launches at
the end of this month, small group, 30
days going deep into individual designs.
That feels so clear to me and so exciting.
The podcast tour prep is going to continue
meeting with the consultant on the 14th
to finalize planning and start booking.
The messaging will become clear
once memo's Identity is decided.
October stays busy at the
university, but the bet continues.
The weekly accountability continues.
The experiment of energy
over strategy continues.
Month one is complete.
49 downloads.
Mini memos are gone for now, and I
had one major revelation about how
I actually build successful things.
What if success isn't about
finding the one thing, but about
honoring how you actually create
every business I built that worked
started with solving my own problem.
No selling required natural demand
for something that already worked.
The bet itself is that kind of creation.
I built this for me to keep myself
accountable to document this experiment.
If others find value in it, that's great,
and they will find it if they don't.
I still got what I needed.
Clarity, accountability,
evidence of what works.
Month two begins with decisions.
Clear, definite, forward moving decisions.
The experiment continues.
The documentation continues.
The bet continues.
Go bet on yourself.