3 Focuses for Leveling Up in 2019

1. Be A Man About Town

I’m not out and about as much as I want to and nowhere nearly enough as I should.

I’ve gotten really good at not going out, justifying it with early mornings and other excuses. Although there’s benefits to this routine, in 2019 the major value will come from being out in the city.

There’s so much awesomeness happening in Austin that it’s a damn shame to not participate. People are building / changing / improving things and meeting up to talk about it so in 2019 I’m going to be more engaged in the conversation. I want to meet more people who are making moves, connect with different social groups and get more involved with the city’s action.

HOW :

I’m going to seek out events by creating time to research what’s happening in the near future, putting them on the calendar and prioritizing attendance. When it goes on the calendar, it happens, so scheduling and sticking to activities will be the key.

To start I’m finding one event per week to attend, scheduling one “Icebreaker Chat” per week and also at least one coffee connect.

Meeting people isn’t hard but taking the next step after the initial connection is so I’m going to practice better next-stepping through Eat Dinner Save the World, Thursday Co-Work at Native and one on one coffees.

2. Making Money

I’ve never really focused on making money, instead finding ways to not spend money. Until now keeping financial obligations to a minimum and finding ways to be financially scrappy has worked but in 2019 I want to make real money.

HOW

I’m going to make personal income by helping your business make money.

After 10 years of living in the entrepreneurial world I’ve developed a solid understanding of business, mainly in the digital marketing space, mainly pairing engaging content creation with a Facebook Ads strategy to gain awareness, build an interested community and convert them into paying customers.

I have a diverse understanding of how entire process works but diversity doesn’t make money so I’ve built a deep, specific understanding in the “video marketing story telling space” with a Messenger marketing funnel that will help you find and talk to the right people who want to buy your stuff.

The second part of $ is that LIVE A GREAT STORY hasn’t solely focused on making money, either. Our focus has been building an impactful brand and trying to figure out how to best do that through a variety of strategies. We do make money through income verticals but the focus hasn’t been profit.

Now the focus is profit because I’ve realized that the best impact we can make is through selling the shit out of merch. We’ve tried everything under the sun in the lifestyle brand space but the best and biggest impact we can make is through selling an insane amount of gear that says LIVE A GREAT STORY because those words are incredibly powerful. So in 2019 we’re going to sell sell sell.

HOW

People relate with LIVE A GREAT STORY on a deep human level so the scaling comes from 1) finding the right people 2) telling a great brand story 3) selling them gear that makes an impact.

To accomplish this we just launched a completely new site that’s optimized for one thing : selling

By telling a more clear story through digital marketing and driving traffic to an optimized site while releasing continuously awesome products we will scale our e-commerce revenue.

In 2019 and moving forward all LIVE A GREAT STORY does is sell incredibly dope and inspiring gear.

Check out the site to see what I mean :)

3. Creating More

At my core I’m a creator. Bringing ideas to life is what fuels me. For the past four years I’ve been solely creating for LIVE A GREAT STORY but I realized recently I needed an alternative outlet which is why Common Vandal came to life. I’ve posted over 20 articles, almost daily, and that’s just the start to more creating.

HOW

1) Writing on Common Vandal.

I love writing so launching this site has been an amazing outlet for sharing ideas, lessons and stories. I’m going to keep publishing content here often in a variety of ways.

2) Icebreaker Chats

Chatting with someone who’s on fire with pursuit and making things happen is incredibly energizing and part of what really keeps me energized in my pursuit.

Often I’m hopping on calls to connect with new people are doing rad things and recently I’ve started recording these calls. In 2019 I’m going to be releasing these recordings in a series called “Icebreaker Chats” which are basically intro-calls with rad people who are doing cool things.

3) Releasing Videos

Most people don’t know that I’ve been creating videos for the past 5 years, ranging from short brand videos to digital marketing ads to talking head educational videos. Because I’ve been solely focused on building LIVE A GREAT STORY for five years I haven’t shared much of this side but going into 2019 I’ll be creating more videos. If you want to check out some of my favorites so far, click here