Several months ago, Chris Guillebeau wrote a post on his blog called Qualifications.

It was one of the greatest blog posts I’ve ever read. It still is.

For months I’ve had it bookmarked. I must’ve read it close to thirty times by now.

(As you can tell, I strongly recommend you check out the original post!)

At first, I couldn’t identify what I loved so much about these words.

But then it hit me. Chris’ post was my life.

Sure some of the details were different. Some of the events, names, and places would need to be renamed. But the result was the exact same.

Like Chris pointed out, I’m not qualified for almost anything I’m currently doing today.

In fact, as I write this, I’ve been in Ohio for the past week with a team of 4 planning a documentary.

That’s right, we’re filming a movie.

Why?

Because I want to. Because I feel compelled to. Because it’s an important message and video is the best medium to share it with the world.

What background do I have in film?

You guessed it… none.

Actually, less than none.

I’ve never shot a single frame of video footage on anything outside of my flip cam. I’ve never budgeted a movie. I’ve never been trained in storytelling, cinematics, lighting, sound, or art.

I may be the most unqualified person on the planet to help spearhead a documentary film.

*****

But before starting this blog, I’d never written a single day in my life that wasn’t for a forced. (Think high school book report writing.)

I didn’t journal. I didn’t write for fun. I still to this day don’t enjoy the craft of writing. I’m jealous of people who do.

Before selling my first book through this community, I’d never produced anything and sold it.

I’d never been paid for my thoughts. I’d never published anything in exchange for someone else’s hard-earned money.

Before recording my first few videos online, I’d never publicly spoke before. I filmed it in terribly lighting, in my bedroom, with an unmade bed in the background. I didn’t know any different.

I don’t have a C.P.A. or a C.F.P. after my name – and I never ever will.

I’m not even close to “qualified” to provide financial advice. Courtney and I still have student loans. We still make plenty of mistakes in our relationship with money and business.

Despite all this, my writing has helped contribute to thousands of people paying off millions in debt.

Despite all this, I’ve given speeches that people later claim have changed their lives (still boggles my mind).

Despite all this, over the next 6 months, I’m producing a feature-length documentary.

Has it all been pretty?

Haha, of course not. Long-time readers know that!

I’ve been very fortunate, had great timing, and worked insanely hard.

But most importantly, I’ve learned that three things matter far more than “qualifications”:

1. The knowledge that said qualifications are worthless.
2. The support of close family, mentors, and friends.
3. The willingness to take action in the face of fear.

For me, the willingness to take action has been far more valuable than any letters I could have added to the end of my name.

Is it scary sometimes?

You bet, part of me is terrified right now.

But Eleanor Roosevelt said it best…

“Do one thing every day that scares you.”

Eleanor would be proud of the last few weeks of my life.

Sometimes I think the only reason many people have “real qualifications” is that they were too scared to do anything else.

Stop putting off your life until you’re more qualified.

Anything in life worth doing, you won’t be qualified for when you start.

Thanks, Chris, for the constant reminder…

Xoxoxo,

-Baker

*****

In Episode 4 of the Man Vs. Debt Podcast, we cover how you can “Rally Your Friends and Loved Ones.”

We’ve talked about this here on the blog before, as it’s one of the single biggest issues that holds people back.

Note: We also cover this content on the final day of Week 1 in You Vs. Debt. Registration for our new Kickoff 2012 class closes soon, so don’t delay! The class starts together on Monday!

What We Can Learn From The News:

At the beginning of each podcast, I cover three news stories from the past week. We attempt to have a little fun and pull out a positive nugget from each story featured.

• Story #1: Wikipedia Blackout a Grand Gesture or Grandstanding?
• Story #2: What Would You Do With A Billion Dollar Bank Error?
• Story #3: Heroes of the Concordia Crash

Why having your friends and family on board is important:

1. It’s been the #1 factor of any positive change in my life.
2. Realizing that “the meaning of any communication is the response it elicits.”

1. Realize you can’t change them.
2. Let them change organically.
3. Start with WHY it’s important to you.
4. Seek their input. Listen.
5. Leverage outside influences.
6. Lead by example.
7. Make it a routine.

How you can help the podcast explode:

Our first three episode have been downloaded or streamed over 25,000 times!  Whoo-hoo!

If you’ve listen and enjoyed any of the podcasts so far, would you consider leaving a quick, passionate review in iTunes?

Click here to view and/or subscribe inside of  iTunes!

(The newest episode may take a few hours to show in iTunes, but it WILL download if you subscribe.)

Thanks again for everything!

Xoxoxo,

-Baker

Is it possible to change your life in 15 minutes a day?

For the last 18 months or so, I’ve been on a quest to answer that very question.

Here’s what I’ve got so far… YES! It’s absolutely possible.

When you consistently apply your time toward creating the life you love, those bite-sized chunks will create an incredible surge of momentum. They compound. They stack. The efforts multiply each other.

In fact, we’ve found that the person who spends 15 minutes a day for a week – almost always has better results than the person who only focuses once a week for 2 hours.

*****

Today marks the launch of our next You Vs. Debt course – and it’s designed to change your life during the next six weeks using a series of bite-sized chunks that you should be able to knock out in 15 minutes each weekday.

As long-time readers know, we’ve poured a lot of sweat and tears into the development of this framework.

Here’s some of the new structure we’ve created:

• Daily lessons are delivered via video, MP3, and text transcripts.
• Each video contains a lesson, a specific challenge, and a worksheet that you’ll be expected to fill out.
• Our accountability forums offer a place to share your journey to debt freedom with others who are in the same place.
• We’ll send out weekly accountability surveys to track your progress and check your momentum.
• You’ll have the opportunity to unlock badges and publicly display progress on your profile and in the forums.

We all know what we “should” be doing with our finances.

But for so many of us – we’re not doing it. Like I explained in my TEDx talk, that was our situation as well – UNTIL we got serious about changing our habits and our way of thinking.

We’ve been talking about this concept in our posts and podcast episodes this month. I asked you to seriously consider where you are in the phases of debt reduction.

And here’s the awesome thing about You Vs. Debt. Because we’re designed to providing accountability and community support, and to building good habits, it’s an incredible resource no matter WHICH phase of your debt journey you find yourself in.

In our Fall 2011 class, we had people who were currently at their highest debt level ever – and some who started the course with ZERO debt, following the program to make sure they stayed consistent and debt-free.

The last You Vs. Debt class paid off more than $280,000 in debt – an average of more than $1,000 per person – during the six weeks of the course.

And more than that, these class members changed the way they THINK about debt and their financial futures.

For instance, check out this note from Sherice, who paid off $7,372 during the Fall 2011 class. You read that right – more than $7,000 in 6 weeks! She says:

“Your course gave me so much more than I expected. I think I can say my husband and I are successfully winning our battle with debt (but that’s the small part). The big part … my perception of debt was really suffocating me. So much so that I stopped dreaming … I lost my passion for me. You really helped me get that back and inspired me to find my voice again.”

That’s what we know can happen when you surround yourself with positive influences. I can’t make you (or anyone else) show up and focus for 15-20 minutes a day.

But your life CAN change.

You can change it.

*****

Maybe you’re not ready to make that commitment yet. And that’s OK. But if you are, we’d love to tell you more about You Vs. Debt.

You literally have nothing to lose – because not only does your enrollment cover LIFETIME membership, meaning you can participate in the class as many times as you like – we also offer a DOUBLE your money back lifetime guarantee.

Put simply: If you invest the time and the work and you DON’T at least cover the cost of the course in debt paid off, we’ll not only refund your money, but we’ll add in a $97 Amazon gift card (yes, really).

*****

We believe we can empower you to make a difference. Check out You Vs. Debt here.

If you have friends who are ready to be held accountable and get started changing their lives, spread the word. Our team has a goal to help ONE MILLION PEOPLE get out of debt, and to do that, we’re going to need the help of those who have been positively affected by our message!

If you’ve read this far, I know you’re serious about leading the life you want – the one in which you’re truly your own “success story.” So here’s our challenge to you. Learn more about You Vs. Debt. Share the info with a friend or family member.

Then, leave a comment here with one positive change you’ve made in your life in the past six months.

No, silly, this doesn’t need to be a result of this blog or our course.

I just want to hear what sort of progress you are making…

Big or small, what’s on positive change you’ve recently made?

-Baker

Note: You Vs Debt opens today and closes this Friday. First day of class starts on Monday!

“What the hell are you doing, son?”

The words sounded muffled in my head. I sat frozen – gripping the steering wheel on the side of the dark, empty interstate.

“Shut your engine off, get your license, and put your hands back where I can see them.”

I did as I was told, silently.

Upon glancing at my license, the office immediately glanced up and locked eyes with me.

Starting at the beginning, I told him everything…

Story #1: The $10,000 Wake Up Call…

I was addicted to gambling.

Now, this was before getting back together with Courtney (before we were married) and far before Milligan was even a thought. We have to go back to the period between me failing out of college – and getting my life back on track.

At this time in my life, you’d be hard-pressed to find me awake and not sitting around a card table or in a poker room.

We lived and breathed it. We played most of the day – and when we weren’t playing, we were organizing tournaments and cash games (or dealing them for addicts).

During one six-month period, I worked one day each week (a 20-hour shift) dealing one of the largest cash games in Indianapolis. I made around $60/hour in tips and would take home anywhere from $1,000 to $1,500 in one sitting.

I did this every Monday night – and spent the other 6 days playing video games and online poker with my two roommates (neither of whom had their own job).

This was the most “stable” I had been in years.

*****

A few months later, I found myself pulled over on the side of the interstate – convinced I was about to be violently arrested.

I had just passed a police car going 130 m.p.h. at 3 a.m.

You see, I had just worked the entire day, taken my overpaid cash wages, and sat down at the poker table. A couple hundred dollars quickly became a thousand, then $3,000, then $10,000.

At 21 years old, I wasn’t content with $10,000 for two hours of work. It wasn’t real money to me. I wasn’t content unless I had every chip at the table. I wasn’t content until I sent every degenerate at the table home to their mortgages they could no longer pay.

Over the next 90 minutes, I lost the $10,000 as quickly as I had amassed it.

I don’t remember leaving the poker room or getting in my car.

*****

“What the hell are you doing, son?” The officer’s words echoed in my head.

Upon glancing at my license, the officer immediately glanced back up and locked eyes with me.

“Adam *Baker*… you wouldn’t happen to be ______’s son, would you?”

I swallowed. “Yes sir, ______ is my father.”

“Adam, what the hell are you thinking?”

He listened to all of it, before giving me a breathalyzer (I hadn’t been drinking).

The next thing surprised me the most… He let me go.

No arrest, no ticket, not even an official warning (although he had plenty of words for me).

At one of my darkest and most irresponsible times, I was pulled over by the only state police officer in Indiana that had grown up with my father.

Coincidence? I’ll let you decide what to call it.

On the rest of the drive home – moving a good 15 m.p.h. under the speed limit – I fought back tears as I vowed to finally change the direction of my life.

Story #2: Trapped in the Most Beautiful Place on Earth…

Flash forward five years.

“Get Milli and crawl slowly out of the car…”

I should’ve been scared, but for some reason I wasn’t. Even so, I wasn’t about to move.

Through the passenger door, I saw the waterfalls that were streaming down the mountain side and I took in the bluest sky I had ever seen.

As I turned to my left, gravity pulled my head toward a mangled mess of tree branches.

I squinted to make out what was beyond the branches.

… nothing …

Only a few trees stood between me and two hundred feet down the side of the mountain.

As I snapped back to reality, Courtney was twisting her body to unstrap a dazed Milligan from her car seat. She was fighting gravity to try and lift the rear passenger door and climb out.

I didn’t dare move.

*****

We had come to New Zealand 8 months earlier on a last-second decision from Brisbane, Australia. We had spent the last few months living in Auckland as Courtney taught a few semesters at a local elementary school.

It was one of the most freeing times of our life.

We had spent the last two years transforming our financial life. We had paid off $18,000 in consumer debt, sold all of our possessions, and set off to backpack Australia.

Somehow our journey had now brought us to the side of this mountain outside of Milford Sound on the South Island of New Zealand.

I didn’t dare move…

*****

After what seemed like the longest minutes of my life, I let out a sigh of relief as I saw Courtney and Milli climb out of sight to where we had slid off the road.

“I guess it’s my turn,” I thought.

I moved as slow as I could given the awkward angle. The car was nearly on its side.

As I stretched to try and force the passenger door open, I thought for sure the trees would snap under my shifting weight.

Luckily, they didn’t budge. Not a single inch.

As weak as they looked, the trees grouped together to form a safety net that had kept us from sliding down the mountainside.

Up on the road, we pulled out our cell phones and confirmed our suspicions – absolutely zero bars. We were 90 minutes from the nearest town on a road that is sparingly traveled that early in the morning.

We had no choice but to sit on the side of the road and wait.

Irony hit us hard as we soaked in the visualization of being trapped in the most beautiful place on earth.

*****

48 hours later, I found myself talking to an old man that owned the closest tow-truck company.

An Israeli family had found us stranded on the road – and had taken us to the only lodge within two hours of the sound. I rode in the back with their groceries. Milli rode on Courtney’s lap.

The lodge was booked solid for months, so after 18 hours of discussion (to make a long story short) we finally shared a single bunk bed with the employees of the lodge for a few hours of sleep.

I had spent hours on the phone over the last two days, trying to coordinate police, rental companies, and tow-truck drivers from a city 90 minutes away from the accident site.

*****

“Well, this isn’t going to be pretty…”

The seasoned tow-truck driver almost felt sorry for me through the dollar signs in his eyes.

He poetically laid out all the expenses he had incurred in retrieving the car.

Earlier it had been carefully explained to me that since I took responsibility for the accident that we’d have to cover the tow-truck charges ourselves (though the rental company would cover the damage to the vehicle).

“Yeah, I was there”…  I mumbled back to the tow truck driver.

I remembered waiting several hours for the driver to wind his way through the mountains.

I remembered the driver and I blocking the road for 45 minutes as we tried to figure out a way to rip the car out of the trees it had nestled in.

I remembered the gas, the after-hours calls, the size of the truck that was needed to do the job.

I knew all along the price tag of this operation would sting.

We ended up negotiating it to around $800 New Zealand, which was around $600 in U.S. dollars.

Keep in mind we were camping in a broken tent to save money at this point in our road tour. An $800 tow charge at this time was extremely demoralizing after all our frugal hard work.

But here’s the difference between the two stories…

We paid the tow-truck driver in cash.

There was no negative thought, no added stress, and not an ounce of worry.

As shitty as that 48-hour moment in time was… I was proud.

It was the first time in our life we had a fully-funded $5,000 emergency fund, and the first time we had to use it.

In the first story, money controlled me. It controlled my actions, my emotions and my relationships.

In the second story, we controlled our money. It didn’t dictate our actions in this emergency. It didn’t change much of our emotions at all.

As I handed the old man $800 in cash… I was proud.

How much worse would this situation had been without an emergency fund?

How much extra stress, arguing, and worry would have come with it?

I lived my life for years like that, and I don’t even want to think about it.

So we did the only thing there was left to do.

We buckled back into our mangled rental car (with deep gashes running down the left side and no front bumper) and finished our driving tour of the South Island of New Zealand.

We weren’t going to let sliding down the mountain keep us from finishing what we started.

*****

Taking back control of your financial life doesn’t prevent this kind of stuff from happening.

It doesn’t keep you from getting into situations where you are trapped.

But when shit does hit the fan, having a flexible financial life makes all the difference in the world.

Trust us, we know.

The goal isn’t to make it through life without any scars…

The goal is to empower yourself to break free, heal, and bounce back quickly.

The goal is flexibility.

The goal is freedom.

*****

Note: Up until now, I’ve only shared these two stories with our You Vs. Debt students. Several of those students pushed me to share them publicly… thanks to them for the nudge. The next You Vs. Debt class starts next week (January 23rd). More info soon!

*****

In Episode 3 of the new podcast, we cover the “6 Phases of Debt Reduction.”

Having talked to thousands of people (on all different parts of their debt journey) over the last few years, I’ve noticed a couple patterns that have emerged.

It seems that almost everyone, regardless of income level, country, or age, goes through 6 clear phases when taking back control of their financial life.

What We Can Learn From The News:

At the beginning of each podcast, I cover three news stories from the past week. We attempt to have a little fun and pull out a positive nugget from each story featured.

• Story #1: The Most Unusual Job Interview Questions of 2011
• Story #2: NBC’s Super Bowl Ads Sell Out at Record Prices
• Story #3: If you think Suze Orman’s new Pre-Paid Debit Card is a bad idea, you’re an “idiot”.

I also pointed out what was the best Super Bowl ad last year (by far): Young Darth Vader.

The 6 Phases of Debt:

1. Free Your Mind… (I show off my singing voice – can’t miss it)
2. Wake Up!
3. Suck it up and Budget.
4. Stop Buying Crap.
5. Earn More Money.
6. Bringing it all together (for the long-term).

We cover an overview of each of the 6 phases, along with tips on what to focus on if you are in that phase of the game.

Help the podcast reach even more people!

We’re still Top 10 in our “investing” category of iTunes. And still being featured as “New and Noteworthy in iTunes”.

Help us keep up the amazing momentum!

Word of mouth is still the most amazing method to spread the news. Is there a friend, coworker, and family member that would enjoy the podcast? Send it to them!

You can also click here to view and/or subscribe via iTunes!

(The newest episode may take a few hours to show in iTunes, but it WILL download if you subscribe.)

If you are extra impressed, don’t forget to leave a review inside of iTunes. This really helps!

Which phase are you in?

Xoxoxo,

-Baker

For the last three years, I’ve been sharing our income report in some manner or another.

It started with a detailed breakdown of our household budget, debt, and where every dollar was being allocated. A year into this community, I began to consider the possibility of monetizing the website. When we made that decision, we started sharing monthly reports on any income generated along the way.

Recently, we’ve gotten away from the monthly reports for several reasons.

First, it’s a ton of work to publish the monthly reports. It takes away from other creative work that might be able to affect a wider percentage of the people who come to the blog in a much deeper way (not everyone benefits from these reports).

Second, there are half a dozen people involved in different ways behind the scenes. Some small, and now, some large. While I don’t mind disclosing my income, should I disclose theirs? I’ve not decided my position on this yet.

However, sharing the report in some way is still an important principle of this community.

Each and every one of you makes this journey possible. As a result, you deserve to know the inner working if you want to (in my opinion). Also, having a profitable community allows us to spread the core values and message in a way that we simply wouldn’t be able to do under any other scenario.

In short, I firmly believe that this *should* be public information. That there’s nothing wrong with it being public information. And the pursuit of a sustainable business ultimately means we help thousands and thousands more people.

Investing, Building, and Testing…

As I talked about throughout 2011, this year was all about investing and building.

I invested tens of thousands of dollars into creating courses and products (like You Vs. Debt), which haven’t yet returned the investment.

I also invested tens of thousands of dollars into building a team. A real, living, breathing team. With people I can trust… people who care about the business and the message themselves.

It’s far cheaper and less stressful to contract everything out – or to outsource recurring tasks to VAs based somewhere in Asia. For some businesses, this is an amazing route, but for mine I didn’t think it was a good fit.

I enjoy working with people, especially people who really do care about the business. And to accomplish our long-term vision, I’ll need to develop these relationships and learn to run a team (something I’m learning comes with lots of practice).

I’ve had several missteps. A couple of the first employees I thought would be a part of the team haven’t worked out in one way or another (much of the time this was my fault!). But I’ve learned an incredible amount and am starting to find the sweet spot.

The team in place today is the strongest, most passionate version we’ve had. I’m pumped.

2011 was also defined by testing.

We tested email services, shopping carts, affiliate systems, productivity systems, different team members, working on the road, working from an office, working as a team in person, working as a team remotely.

We spent a lot of time testing. We spent a TON of money testing.

Some of this was purely for business strategy. But most of it was for me personally.

Personally, I just didn’t know. I didn’t know what system I would enjoy. I didn’t know what environment I worked best in. I didn’t know what project management software I’d actually use.

I didn’t really even know what I wanted to be doing.

I didn’t know what my daily work would look like. I didn’t know what I wanted the hour-by-hour vision of my typical workflow to be.

Obviously, work isn’t going to be exactly replicated from day to day, but you’d be surprised how much your work routine, combined with the systems you use, can dramatically affect your creativity and productivity.

In 2011, we used the shotgun approach. We blasted a bunch of shrapnel and then went to see what actually hit.

I’m not suggesting this as an ultimate business strategy for you. I’m giving you an honest breakdown of what defined our 2011.

2011 By The Numbers…

All numbers are rounded. Income is rounded down. Expenses are rounded up.

This is how we teach people to budget, because it makes it easier to project, analyze, and envision what needs to be done (without needing an accounting degree).

Income from Products ($28,000)

• You Vs. Debt — $14,000
• Sell Your Crap – $12,500
• Unautomate Your Finances – $1,500

These are the products that I’ve produced, filmed and written and that we sell as part of the community here to help people with specific problems.

Unautomate Your Finances was our very first premium project and isn’t for sale any more. It’s been upgraded and replaced by the much more in-depth and impactful You Vs. Debt 6-week course.

Many online business people have a business model that relies on publishing a NEW product or course on a DIFFERENT topic every 6 months or so. While this may work for some, it’s not at all what our team wants.

We know there are a couple, very specific, and deeply tangible problems our community faces. We need to obliterate debt and we need to ditch our excess clutter and crap.

That’s not changing. Those issues affect almost everyone. There’s no reason for us to release new products from a slightly different angle every 6 months. We’ve got the solution right here.

So instead, we’re focusing on making the You Vs. Debt and Sell Your Crap courses the best available premium resources on those problems. It’s a 10-year product, not a 6-month product. Sure, we’ll improve them every few months – but most of what we do is focusing on how we can get amazing results for the people who get these resources in the future.

In 2011, we planned, shot, and edited You Vs. Debt TWICE. The first time was decent, but it wasn’t mind-blowing for people. We had our pioneers take the course and provide us with feedback needed to improve it.

We then completely went back to the drawing board and came up with a new approach (mostly the same content, just broken down more, and presented much better). We released the first version of this new course in the fall.

The second YvD version clicked! We had more than 100 people go through the course and in just the first few months, they’ve paid off more than $300,000 in combined debt; those that finished the course averaged nearly $1,400 in debt paid off in just those 6 weeks!

We didn’t take the shortest path, but ultimately our time and money invested paid off with amazing results. Our strategy in 2012 is to relaunch You Vs. Debt 3 to 4 times, improving and adding content each time.

We’ll ruthlessly track each and every individual to be able to analyze what makes the people who actually complete and succeed different from those who drop out at one point or another. It’s a huge project, but a worthwhile cause, and what I believe will be an amazing business venture as well.

Sell Your Crap was completely and utterly ignored in 2011. It continues to sell every week, but in the next few months will get an impressive overhaul. We’re strongly considering releasing a shorter, compact version of the “Main Guide” as a Kindle eBook.

This would allow us to move the more specific strategies (and technical tips) for eBay, Craigslist, garage sales, and Amazon to a new video course structure. We’ll be featuring more live examples and case studies than we did with the first version.

In summary, You Vs. Debt will continue to be a flagship product. We’ve found the right setup now and will have several classes in 2012. Sell Your Crap will receive a huge facelift, but will continue to help solve the same important issues.

*****

Income from Side Projects ($35,500)

• Only72.com — $29,000
• Hustle Project — $6,500

Many of you know that my friend Karol Gajda and I run a large sale twice per month over at Only72.com. We bring together online eBooks, courses, and apps and sell them for a short time at a large discount. We organize the sale, build the infrastructure, and take good care of the customers.

The sales really are a fantastic deal (if you are in the market for that training) and generated a large amount of sales. There are a whole host of income and expenses that are associated with just that side business; it would be too confusing to break this all down inside of the MvD income/expenses breakdown.

Once again, we did do more than $200,000 in revenue in 2011 (as we had the year before). After all was said and done, the portion the Man Vs. Debt team saw come in was around $29,000. Some of that will pay some of our expenses listed below, but much of that is profit from hosting the sales.

Overall, Only72 had another great year and two useful sales. I’d be lying if I didn’t tell you I expected it to do even larger numbers, though. Karol and I learned a lot from our most recent sale. As is the theme, we tested several new features and strategies that didn’t work as well as our initial one.

I feel blessed that I can experiment with different strategies and still have success with that side project. We have our own passionate community of people the enjoy those rare sales when they pop up.

The Hustle Project was another side project I took on with my good friend Corbett Barr. It was an attempt to offer something for those of you on the “Do What You Love” part of our journey here.

My favorite part of this whole process was getting to work alongside Corbett. He’s a fantastic guy with brilliant business savvy.

While I really enjoyed the webinars and the community of hustlers, I don’t think the format of bi-monthly webinars is a long-term solution for this particular problem. It would require a much more robust backend for users and several added features to be completely viable. Talking about business is profitable, but not quite where my heart is fully right now.

I want to focus on solving the debt and clutter issues first, before turning my focus to building and growing a business based on a cause you really love.

*****

 Income from Affiliated Resources ($8,650)

• Travel Hacking Cartel — $5,200
• Unconventional Guides — $1,600
• Amazon.com — $450
• Thesis (My Theme) — $350
• HostGator — $300
• Nerd Fitness — $300
• PocketSmith — $180
• Aweber — $160
• Benny Lewis — $60
• FireStarter Sessions — $50

For those of you that don’t know, affiliate marketing is a huge source of income for many online websites and communities. What happens is instead of paying for traditional advertising, many product or service creators pay a certain amount of the price to trusted allies who refer sales.

In some cases, it’s extremely small. For example, Amazon pays me 4% of a sale if I link to a book I enjoy and you end up purchasing. In my case, that relationship made me $400 last year (linking books or gear I use, etc…)

In other cases, you may get something like 50-80% of the sale. If you click my recommendation for Chris Guillebeau’s great Unconventional Guide books, I get roughly 50% of that sale (in this particular case).

That said, I do almost no active affiliate marketing.

There was only one post I did in 2011 that was a direct recommendation to check out a specific product or resource that wasn’t my own (Travel Hacking Cartel). As it turns out, that was a pretty good choice as many of our community members here have decided to join and stayed as customers.

In this case (as you’ll see), Courtney and I are also customers of that program. In fact, we don’t affiliate with anything we don’t either use or have used extensively in the past. This is why I’ve never pushed affiliated resources that much.

Some of the other income is from tools I use to run my business. I list them for people, but don’t actively push Man Vs. Debt readers to buy hosting or web themes. This simply isn’t the concern of most of the readers. Those who do want to start websites can find the resources very easily.

However, in 2012, I do think we could actually do a better job of affiliate marketing.

For example, there are many services and products I simply can’t offer, don’t want to offer, or have no freakin’ idea what I’m talking about around.

I’ve been searching for a good online bank account to recommend for two years, but haven’t found one yet. I may try harder to test a few out.

I have no idea what I’m talking about when it comes to investing strategy. I simply haven’t studied (nor do I want to right now) that arena. However, there are some readers and fans on that part of their journey. What should they do? Once again, I could try harder to find a resource I trust and recommend.

Overall, I’m much more concerned with knocking our own solutions and products out of the park. After all, these are the topics I study and talk to people about every single day.

But there’s certainly room, from a business perspective, to increase the type of people we partner with to help a wider variety of people (with problems we can’t help them with ourselves).

We’ll keep our eyes open for genuine matches for this style of marketing.

*****

Sponsorship Income ($20,800)

Most of you know that at the beginning of 2011, we kicked off a 6-month RV tour of the U.S. We had a blast and met thousands of people along the way (by far the most rewarding part)!

Along the way we got to host many meetups, parties, and events in various cities. The intensity of our schedule and the hosting of these gathering was only made possible through a partnership with Adaptu on the tour.

We designed a bright orange wrap for the RV (many of you got to see it live!) and negotiated a very genuine, light-touch way to partner for the road trip.

Adaptu was a fantastic partner to have. Honestly, we couldn’t have asked for anything more. Even when we decided to come off the road (for reasons many of you know), Adaptu understood and allowed us the flexibility to do so. That meant a lot to us.

At the same time, I’m not sure I want to throw my hat into a “sponsorship” ring again. This particular RV tour was a perfect fit, but those kinds of arrangements are few and far between. Working with a large company presents its own challenges – and anything more than the tour itself could have easily caused a conflict of interest.

I don’t mind partnering, affiliating, or developing relationships with companies. Not at all. But there’s a fine line between finding a great match (which we did this time) and compromising your values or message for money reasons.

*****

Consulting Income ($9,800)

Consulting was something I offered more in the beginning of 2011. I worked with some larger companies and some individual entrepreneurs.

Within the first few months I phased this out though (at least actively having it offered). While extremely profitable and enjoyable, it still involves me actively trading my time for money.

I’m much more passionate about scaling our solutions to much bigger problems. And, in retrospect, I get much of the same personal fulfillment from speaking that I do from consulting with clients.

I don’t mind working with one or two people per month. In particular, I enjoy the deep friendship that is formed after working several months with a person. But I don’t foresee this being a public offering again, nor a huge part of our projected 2012 revenue.

*****

Other Income ($1,800)

This include a small amount of freelance writing I did earlier in the year (more than $1,000 of this), as well as some random income such a returned purchases, banking rewards, unclaimed affiliate payments, etc…

*****

TOTAL INCOME — $104,550

*****

Expenses Related to Sales (-$6,650)

• Man Vs. Debt Affiliates — $4,300
• Processing Fees — $1,400
• Refunds — $950

Overall, I’d love these expenses to be MUCH HIGHER in 2012 (these all go up with more sales).

We need to do a much better job of giving our own affiliates the tools to successfully recommend You Vs. Debt and Sell Your Crap. (By comparison, we paid out more than $100,000 this year to Only72.com affiliates.)

We know what needs to be done to help others share our message, we just need to step up and organize this better.

Processing fees are what they are. You pay them and move on.

Refunds are still only happening on a very small percentage of our sales. The far majority of these refunds are for “my personal situation has changed and I need the money” reasons.

Because we offer 100% lifetime guarantees (for any reason), sometimes that does pop back up to backfire on you. But the percentages are so low, and the trust we gain with customers is so high, that it’s not even a question of whether it’s worth it or not.

I wouldn’t feel right if people weren’t allowed to get refunded at any point for any reason. So we won’t be switching this any time soon.

*****

Team Member Expenses (-$49,880)

• Permanent Team Members — $41,200
• You Vs. Debt Film Crew — $6,400
• External Tech Help — $1,300
• External Design Help — $520
• Transcripts — $460

And BOOM, here comes the big whammy.

As I suggested, we tested a lot of different setups with team members in 2011. We’ve rotated among four different “permanent” team members, at different times for different purposes. Ultimately, we’ve settled on two moving forward for 2012 (we’re a three-person team now).

This small team can handle most of the operations – design, filming, editing and content production – we want to have in 2012. We’ll still need to contract out a few technical issues and smaller things like transcripts, etc.

We didn’t even come close to using our money efficiently in this area in 2011, but I was more than happy to invest (or even lose) money in trying to figure this out. The next few years will be so much better because of this investment.

I’ll introduce our current team more in the coming weeks!

*****

Operation Expenses (-$8,460)

• InfusionSoft — $2,750
• Email marketing, shopping cart, affiliate program, etc.
• PremiumWebCart — $375
• Former shopping cart, replaced by InfusionSoft
• Optimizely — $500
• Used for split-testing different version of a shopping cart or sales page
• Clothing — $475
• Purchased for filming You Vs Debt or public speaking events
• Aweber — $300
• Former primary email provider, replaced by InfusionSoft; might go back
• SnapEngage — $275
• Allows for live chat during launches or sales period (with potential customers)
• AppSumo — $275
• A “bundle package” that offered discounts on some different design packages, icons, etc.
• Employee Gifts — $350
• Self-explanatory
• Wufoo — $250
• Software we use to survey in You Vs. Debt (and Man Vs. Debt) and sort responses
• Travel Hacking Cartel — $300
• Program we use to earn miles and find discounts for business travel
• GoDaddy — $300
• Domain names. Some necessary. Many not!
• Wishlist — $300
• One-time plugin that we use to manage You Vs. Debt community membership
• Amazon s3 — $200
• Fast, easy hosting for many of our videos and our course content
• Wrike — $300
• Project management software we tested; replaced by free option
• Mailchimp — $200
• Another email option we tested; easy to use, but replaced by InfusionSoft
• iDev Affiliate — $250
• Old affiliate program, replaced by InfusionSoft
• HostGator — $180
• Hosting for Man Vs. Debt and You Vs. Debt communities
• Lynda.com — $150
• Training on editing, design, software for team
• iStockPhoto — $120
• Various images bought for Man Vs. Debt
• Dropbox — $120
• How we share and back up our files
• E-junkie — $120
• How we formerly sold Unautomate Your Finances
• Bank Fees — $100
• Fee to make 1-day ACH payments to contractors and employees; also, some wire fees
• Shipping — $90
• Mostly books we have given away to readers
• Misc. — $90
• Everything random that didn’t fit or was unknown
• Spotify — $50
• Listened to and used every single day in our at-home office
• GetClicky — $40
• Tested for use in real-time analytics and tracking; not used any more
• JewelBeat — $5
• Music for podcasting and programs

Whew.

First and foremost, as you can tell, we learned a lot about what DIDN’T work in 2011.

Of this entire list, fewer than half are things we’ll be using moving forward in 2012. Many of the moving parts were condensed as we started using InfusionSoft to do multiple things.

That said, InfusionSoft is expensive – and I’m not sure we’ll keep it long-term. In theory, it treats each person as a real person (instead of just a name on another list). It allows you to segment people very specifically; you can customize the way you reach out to those who’ve clicked but didn’t buy in a different way than you might for people who are brand new, etc.

Ultimately, this would allow us to offer better solutions to different people. It would keep people from seeing messages that don’t apply to them. It would make for a better experience overall!

But in practice, it’s a clunky software and requires a ton of training to be able to properly use. We aren’t leveraging it anywhere NEAR its potential.

We’re sticking with it for now, because we’re slowly starting to squeeze our value out of it. But the bottom line is there is no “best” option for email marketing, shopping carts, sales, and customer management yet.

In fact, I know dozens and dozens of bloggers making their livings online – and not a single one of them is ecstatic about this part of the industry. I hope someone figures this out (and soon) to the benefit of everyone!

At the end of 2011, our team sat down and evaluated each expense and whether or not we were fully utilizing it. We cut 75% of them (even ones we were sort-of-kind-of using). Armed with our knowledge of the different options, we’re starting from a clean slate.

If you have any more specific questions about all these apps and software, ask in the comments. I’ll do my best to answer them.

*****

Hardware Expenses (-$10,350)

• Laptop Gear — $4,700
• Camera Gear — $3,900
• Podcasting Gear — $1,300
• Books/Courses — $450

In 2011, we invested in a wide variety of equipment that we’ll get years of use out of (but which cost us up front, out of pocket).

First and foremost, we bought two laptops. The first was purchased for as an “advance” for a team member who’ll be handling all the video editing, audio editing, and design work.

The second, unfortunately, was my own.

Why buy a new laptop, you ask?

Because mine was stolen from the dressing room of TEDx Asheville while I was giving my talk on stage.

Talk about a good way to ruin an otherwise amazing day!

I’ve traveled around the world and around the U.S. – I’ve worked in HUNDREDS of coffee shops and public spaces (not all the nicest of places) and never had anything stolen (at all). The one time I do get my laptop jacked is in Asheville, NC, at a TEDx conference. Oh, the irony.

TEDx didn’t have insurance. The theater didn’t have insurance. All right, whatever. Buy a new one and move on. I didn’t have to replace my MacBook with a MacBook, but I did. I love my MacBook (as expensive as they are) and work on it every day.

On the camera front, we invested in a Canon 5D Mark II to film the videos for the You Vs. Debt course, as well as the upcoming MvDTV Youtube videos. Along with tripod, lenses, bag, etc… it was a big investment.

Courtney is a photographer herself, so we are able to get dual business use from this. But for Man Vs. Debt, we’ll also use it to record speeches, events, and publish amazing video. It’s not even close to a necessity for what we need, but it does give us an amazing level of professionalism to live up to.

In December, we also invested in a professional podcasting microphone, mixer, and recorder to produce our new Man Vs. Debt podcast. In addition, I hired Cliff Ravenscraft of Podcast Answer Man for an hour of his valuable consulting time.

Cliff’s time and expertise saved me countless hours getting everything set-up, configured, and working. Essentially, we were able to focus right away on the content and the approach, which let us get the podcast out the door with almost no friction (a really big deal around here).

Once again, the professional microphone and setup will allow us to shoot better video, better interviews for different blogs, radio shows and other outlets – in addition to helping us to produce a great sounding podcast.

The podcast is going extremely well (off to a fast start) and we’re really excited about its potential in 2012!

*****

Communication Expenses (-$1,260)

• Cell Phone — $610
• Internet — $390
• Mobile Wifi — $200
• Coworking — $60

Not sure why I separate out this category, but I always have.

There’s nothing especially wonderful or helpful for me to explain here!

*****

Food / Eating Out Expenses (-$4,700)

No, that’s not a typo. We really did spend $4,700 on food in various business-related expenses in 2011.

Keep in mind that for the first half of 2011, we were traveling the country on a daily basis hosting meetups. Our sponsor helped pay for some of this cost, but not all of it. Several times, we bought the food for dozens and dozens of people at the meetup.

We also defaulted to connecting with people over food (we still do, although certainly not as much). In my mind, there are few things more powerful than sharing conversation and a meal.

This also accounts for all food bought or purchased during traveling for conference or speaking engagements, etc… Once again, this should go down in 2012 as we’re on a much slower travel schedule.

*****

Travel-Related Expenses (-$3,010)

• Airfare — $1,650
• Other Transportation — $690
• Hotels — $520
• Parking — $150

None of “these” travel expenses are related directly to the RV tour. Meaning, for example, that lodging isn’t counting campground fees. These expenses were related to non-RV travels to conferences (mostly).

2012 will likely see some of these go up, but hopefully so will the compensation for attending and speaking at various conferences.

*****

TOTAL EXPENSES — (-$84,310)

*****

Net Profit From Business in 2012…

$20,240.

Unfortunately, I’m not missing a zero.

After all the work, sweat, and tears I put into Man Vs. Debt this year, we took home around $20,000.

And even more sadly, this doesn’t account for ANY expenses we incurred as part of the RV tour (other than meetup food). So our taxes this year might even show a loss (or a break-even year)… we’ll leave that to the professional accountant.

But, it’s important to note, I’m not at all down about this number.

In fact, I’m proud.

Sure, we were wasteful in many parts. We focused too much on testing software and systems. I made mistakes in my initial team-building attempts. We bought equipment that wasn’t a bare necessity to deliver value.

On the flip side, look at everything we’ve accomplished:

1. I’ve found a great team and a fantastic set-up for 2012 (one of my biggest goals). It cost me, but I’m happy with the result.
2. We invested in a wide variety of gear that’ll help us increase our professionalism for years to come (on many projects).
3. We’ve honed You Vs. Debt to the point where it’s delivering results we’ve never been able to get (from anything else) before.
4. I’ve learned more about business this year than in all my previous years combined. School of hard knocks, anyone?
5. We prioritized making an impact and delivering long-term value over a quest for sheer dollars. It takes both to survive through the long haul, but I’m glad we didn’t give up to chase more money right away.

Trust me, folks. I want to make more than $20,000 a year when I’m dedicating this much of my life and effort to something. (If anyone tells you that this is *easy*, run the other way quickly!)

Courtney and I will have to net more than that in 2012 in order to live!

But I’m not discouraged. Nowhere close.

I’m excited for 2012.

I talked about this just a few weeks ago, but here’s the short summary of our agenda:

• Launch You Vs. Debt 3 to 4 more times. Make it the best course on attacking debt anywhere.
• Revisit Sell Your Crap and give it a nice facelift. Potentially create a Kindle eBook.
• Record 35 episodes of the new Man Vs. Debt podcast.
• Launch and routinely film MvDTV on YouTube.
• Redesign Man Vs. Debt.
• Record a documentary.
• Analyze the problems of our audience that we can’t solve and partner with genuine, trustworthy solutions.
• Explore developing our own budgeting software and app.
• Speak 12 times this year. Have travel expenses compensated (at minimum) for most of these appearances.

Our choice to invest so much this year was a conscious one.

This doesn’t mean we didn’t make plenty of mistakes, but we chose to go down that path consciously.

Now it’s time to show off what that investment can do.

And, for that, I’m honored to have you along for the ride.

Ask any questions in the comments. I’ll do my best to respond!

Xoxoxoxo,

-Baker

Our instincts as animals constantly push us to embrace a scarcity mindset.

Do you know what I mean when I say “scarcity mindset”?

It’s the belief that “there’s not enough to go around.” That you need to protect, maintain, guard, defend, or hoard.

It’s basic survival-of-the-fittest.

It starts with a spark in our brains and then manifests itself in our attitudes and actions.

In its most dangerous form, the scarcity mindset can be the default way most of us deal with any situation that enters our life. Good or bad, we immediately turn to how it affects the limited supply of what we have.

Obviously, this isn’t a new discussion. People have been talking about Abundance vs. Scarcity for far longer than I’ve been on this planet. But I’ve been spending a lot of time thinking about it recently, as it’s starting to reveal itself as an issue in my own life.

3 years ago, we had an incredibly powerful scarcity mindset in our financial lives.

And, to be honest, I believe our scarcity mindset was an asset at this point in our lives. We needed it. We had been living unsustainably for a couple years and needed to ruthlessly focus on what we had, what was left, and where EXACTLY to put that extra money.

By leveraging this survival-of-the-fittest mindset we made some incredible strides in taking back control of our money.

But too much of the scarcity mindset can be poisonous.

Focusing through this “lens” for too long or too hard will cause you to become reaction-based, scared, stressed, and selfish.

Luckily for us, our travels throughout the world and my induction into this amazing blogging world helped radically jolt my perspective in this area. Slowly, but surely I began to realize that this isn’t a “zero-sum game.”

My eyes were opened to the possibilities that existed if I could (as my friend Chris Guillebeau says) increase the size of the pie for everyone.

No longer was there a limited supply of resources. No longer was there a fixed amount of income I could generate. No longer was there a fixed potential for what we could accomplish financially in our lifetime.

This was an extremely freeing time for us.

But I’ve realized that an abundance mindset is only really possible (and beneficial) when you actually have the breathing room t0 let it grow.

Let me use an example now. As our business has grown, I’ve picked up a couple team members. With these team members a vital part of this community and my business now – a positive thing – my overheard, expectations, and pressure to perform have all gone up exponentially as well.

This added pressure has generated stress, tightened our breathing room, and made things in general less flexible from a purely financial standpoint. As soon as we began to feel this restriction, our scarcity mindset began to creep back in.

Now, let me point out that intellectually I know this is part of growing any mission in the world. To grow, this is a necessary step along the way.

So the question is… how do you keep a mindset of abundance when times are financially tighter than others?

A scarcity mindset, within reason, can help us ensure we keep our focus. It can help us budget, plan, and forecast so we don’t implode by stepping on a financial landmine in the future. It can help us allocate our resources in the best way possible.

All of that is fantastic.

But in business, just like in life, we  can’t completely lose sight of the abundance mindset that has made this incredible journey possible.

Can we?

I can’t confidently tell you I’ve found the balance, but at least we are aware of the issue. We’re still exploring.

When a scarcity mindset can help (based on my own life):

1. When you first wake up (in life), leveraging a scarcity mindset to rapidly get yourself breathing room is extremely powerful. This is the basis of the passionate “war on debt” and  battle against clutter we always talk about.
2. Once you have sustainable breathing room, it’s important you don’t let the scarcity mindset poison your attitude and outlook. Focus on finding work you love or a mission you care about. This is the best way I know to show you just how abundant the possibilities really are.
3. When you come across a growing pain or downswing, don’t immediately revert back to the scarcity mindset. Be conscious. Evaluate. Slow down.

Most importantly, just be conscious of this dynamic. Be able to enter into and out of these mindsets as you need them.

The scarcity mindset gets an incredibly bad rap from many people. But I know firsthand how powerful it can be in giving you that breathing room to make other dramatic life changes possible.

Are you stuck in a scarcity mindset right?

I’m interested on your own thoughts and experiences in this arena.

• Do you feel at times you’re stuck in a “there’s not enough to go around” mindset?

• Do you feel like it’s ever been beneficial in your life?

• How do you keep from snapping back into it whenever adversity pops back into your life?

Whether you share your answers or not, you need to answer these questions in your own life.

I thought I had this figured out, but maybe not. I’ll keep you updated!

Xoxoxo,

-Baker

Episode 2 of the new podcast is now live!

We are so happy with the amazing response to the podcast! After just the first episode we were featured as “New & Noteworthy” for the Business category of podcasts in iTunes.

Not only that, but we also cracked into the Top 10 Investing Podcasts in iTunes! (For those wondering, iTunes really only has one category called “investing” for all financial topics, even though we rarely actually talk about investing concepts.)

Yet again, you guys have given us some great momentum for a fun new project. Thanks so much!

Notes on Episode #2:

• We continued our popular “What we can learn from the news!” section with stories on Louis C.K., Verizon’s new $2 fee, and Wikipedia’s enormous end of year fundraiser!

• We then talk about what I call “traditional” goal setting approaches. This includes picking multiple categories for your goals and setting short, medium, and long-term goals for each category. We cover the well-known S.M.A.R.T. system and what we like and don’t like about this system.

• Leo Babauta, popular blogger at Zen Habits, joins us to talk about his “No Goals” philosophy and why he’s choosing to move away from traditional goal setting practices. Leo provides some great points and really helps open up the conversation about when setting goals can be good… and when it can backfire!

• Next, I provide my own spin on goal setting and resolutions, along with what my team and I will be using to measure our progress and success. (Hint: It’s actually in between the traditional planning and Leo’s suggestions!)

• Finally, we wrap up with a specific challenge for you to take (you’ll need a piece of paper)!

I really think you’ll enjoy this episode! Give it a listen over the weekend and let me know what you think!

Help the podcast reach even more people!

The best possible way to help is share the podcast with people who you know would enjoy it! Word of mouth is still the most amazing method to spread the news.

You can also click here to view and/or subscribe via iTunes!

(The newest episode may take a few hours to show in iTunes, but it WILL download if you subscribe.)

If you are extra impressed, don’t forget to leave a review.

Thanks to “Patty2Cakes”, “MvDfan”, and “Cliff” for the first couple reviews in iTunes!

Here’s to all of us having an amazing 2012!

Xoxoxo,

-Baker

2011 was a crazy, crazy year for us.

It was full of ups and downs, twists and turns, and big lifestyle swings.

In case you’ve forgotten (or haven’t been around that long), here’s a short list of some of best, most intense, or most controversial posts of 2011.

Most Popular:  24 Quick Actions You Can Do Today That Can Change Your Financial Life Forever

The competition wasn’t even close this year for most popular post. In fact, the above “24 Action” post *nearly* beat out all other posts in 2011 combined. It was shared a staggering amount of times on Facebook and Twitter and inspired several other posts around the blogosphere. It’s one of the best places to start if you are new!

Most Important:  Thoughts on Losing an Unborn Child…

Within three days, this became the most commented post (300+) in Man Vs. Debt history. That meant a lot to us (still does). Writing the post was more therapeutic than anything else, but I’m really happy at the personal emails I’ve received from people it’s deeply helped through their own tough situations.

Most Pride Generated:  My TEDx Talk: “What Does Freedom Mean to You?”

I’m extremely proud of my recent TEDx Talk (I know I just posted it), because it sums up the experience we’ve been on over the last three years so well. If you are new to the community and haven’t invested the 19 minutes, please do. I think you’ll find it a fantastic overview of our message!

Most Discussed:  Do You Give to Panhandlers?

This generated over 230 comments on what turned out to be a fantastic discussion on principles, perception, and charity. The comments section contains great points made by both sides. The jury is still out for me!

Most Controversial:  The Cost of a Dead Osama Bin Laden

This is a short post that a few people provided some extremely harsh feedback on. The topic is obviously a bit polarizing, but I didn’t set out to make it controversial at all. Still goes to prove that you have to be very careful when navigating waters like these!

Most Facebook Likes:  [Infographic] Why Student Loans Suck…

Three posts this year broke the 1,000 Facebook Like mark, but this infographic I shared earlier in the year beat out even the “Most Popular” overall post with 1,300+ likes on facebook. Turns out everyone hates student loans!

Most Reminiscing:  10 Truths I’ve Learned on the Open Road… 

As most of you know, Courtney, Milli, and I spent the first 2/3 of the year traveling around the U.S. in our R.V. We met so many amazing people, learned so much about ourselves, and had a lot of fun. Of all the posts in 2011, this post made me smile the most as I reread it recently.

Most Bang For Your Buck:  It’s O.K. to Change Your Course

An extremely short and punchy post that cracked the top 5 this year in most metrics. If you are looking for the biggest impact in the shortest amount of time, this is likely your favorite of the year!

*****

Overall, Man Vs. Debt had close to 600,000 unique visitors to the site in 2011. These visitors viewed just under 1.4 million pages.

We didn’t quite hit all our “benchmarks” I had set early in the year (for goals like subscribers, pageviews, Facebook fans, etc…), but that’s OK. We made great progress toward all of them on what averaged out to be about 2 posts per month only!

What to Expect in 2012!…

I’m going to take a slightly different approach to goal-setting this year. Instead of measuring many of the traditional, larger metrics – I want to measure our creative output as a community.

One of my biggest goals for last year was to build a small team to help magnify what is possible for the community. It wasn’t easy or simple, but I believe I’ve found that mix now. Starting this month, you’ll get to know them more.

GOAL #1: Find a fun way to consistently produce valuable content.

My desire to consistently produce content went down in 2011. I actually don’t think I produced any LESS overall, but much of it was invested in to products like “You Vs. Debt”, speeches, etc… In other words, I didn’t produce as much free-to-the-masses value as I had wanted!

As a team, we want to up that to 8-10 creative content pieces per month! This involves me getting more into podcasting, video production, and other ways to deliver inspiring and impactful content without getting burned out (which happens when I write all the time).

For years, I’ve been the only voice on the website with only a couple guest posts per year. I may bring on an occasional fresh voice from time to time this year to spice things up and provide another unique perspective. We won’t do anything crazy, but in moderation this will really help our first goal.

GOAL #2: Be everywhere (inspired by Pat).

We just launched the new podcast and have set up the studio here at the house for regular video productions. My goal for 2012 is to finally expand into audio and video to complement the writing we do around here.

Specifically:

• Reach Episode 35 of the Man Vs. Debt Podcast.
• Reach Episode 26 of MvDTV (new).
• Get Youtube channel to 1,000,000 views (this includes other videos outside of MvDTV alone).
• Film and produce a documentary (this won’t be about MvD, but will be on a topic related to our message).

GOAL #3: Generate $250,000 in revenue

This is a purely business goal, but one that means we can pay for all our expenses, support our small team, and still have fantastic money left over. I firmly believe a healthy business side to the community will ensure that we can spread out message for many more years to come.

GOAL #4: 1,000 new You Vs. Debt alumni

In 2011, I invested tens of thousands of dollars (and what seemed like that many man hours) recording one of our two flagship courses. After completely scrapping the first version, we’ve finally struck gold with our second attempt. Students from the Fall 2011 class are doing phenomenal on average – and we plan to have 3-4 different classes in 2012.

Having 1,000 new people go through the course and graduate will make a huge impact, make the course even better than it is, and give our community hundreds of new success stories for inspiration.

What are your 2012 Goals?…

As you can see, I’ve moved away from tracking the “big” numbers as it pertains to the website (and even my personal life). But I’m interested to see how you approach reflecting on past years and planning for the new one.

In my personal life, I’m attempting to dedicate this year to fitness (and nearly fitness alone). Instead of having 10 different categories and 10 different sub-goals. I’m going to channel focus into fitness.

Last year was up and down in this area. Some good progress and then some setbacks. But I’ve never fully dedicated myself to this (I’ve always prioritized other commitments and projects over my health).

So this year is about prioritizing the habit of fitness over any other (even this community).

One focus. One vision.

We’ll see how it goes!

What are your goals for your business and life in 2012?

I’m really excited to launch the first episode of the brand new Man Vs. Debt podcast!

Our team has been working hard on exploring the ins and outs of the podcasting world – and to be honest – I’m really, really enjoying it so far.

We’ll be taking off next week for Christmas, however starting in 2012 this will be a weekly podcast. One hour a week of action-packed, non-stop fun! Whoo-hoo!

Notes on Episode #1:

• We start with a section that will be named “What we can learn from the news!” in future episodes. News is typically boring, negative, annoying… or all of the above. We try to spin that around and actually learn something from it!

• Next, we talk about finding your “Big Why.” That’s the deep reason that you desire a change in your life.

• Then we visit the audio from my recent TEDx Talk which explores the question, “What does FREEDOM mean to you?” Even if you’ve already seen the video, you may be able to pick up something new while playing the audio in the background.

• Before we wrap up, I share a quick interview I recorded with Hannah Loaring. Hannah is a MvD community member who recently paid off $26,000 in just 9 months and completely changed her internal confidence and key relationships. She sheds a lot of insight into her recent success!

As always, I really appreciate your insight, comments, and suggestions.

We have nearly a page of improvements, features, and fun things we’d like to add in the next couple of episodes – and I know you guys will help us add plenty of fantastic ideas to it!

A special thanks goes out to Cliff Ravenscraft for working with me on getting set-up and optimized and Pat Flynn for inspiring me to “be everywhere” with the message.

How you can help the podcast jump out the gates!

The best possible way to help is to listen to the first 2-3 episodes as we put them out – and let us know what you think!

Click here to view and/or subscribe via iTunes!

(It may take an hour or so for the podcast to show in iTunes, but if you subscribe it WILL download even if it’s not showing yet.)

If you really enjoyed the episode, please leave a quick review (this is done by clicking “view in iTunes”). Great reviews is how iTunes knows which podcasts to share and recommend with others!

So as you are SAFELY driving to your friends and family this Christmas and New Years (or you are hitting the gym for that new workout), pop in the podcast and give it a listen. Exciting times!

Have and amazing holiday season!

Xoxoxo,

-Baker