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Late Night Internet Marketing and Online Business with Mark Mason
Late Night Internet Marketing and Online Business with Mark Mason
Conquering the Messy Middle: Balancing Dreams and a Day Job with the 12-Week Year Strategy [LNIM256]
No distractions can stop us, not even the high-octane allure of Formula One racing or the latest TV series that's just begging for a binge. We'll talk about how personal passions can throw a wrench in our productivity, and I'll reveal how I navigate the temptation without losing sight of the prize. You'll also discover practical moves to keep your eyes on the goal, from postponing pleasure to rallying your personal cheer squad for an extra push. Wisdom from the likes of Roosevelt and Churchill drops in, reminding us of the grit needed to face our fears and the urgency of action. So buckle up—we're on a mission to turn setbacks into comebacks and to fuel that fire within you to conquer every goal on your list.
Episode two five, six.
Announcer:Late night. Internet marketing.
Mark Mason:This week on the Late Night Internet Marketing Podcast, we're going to talk about how we're really starting to get into the messy middle of the year when it comes to looking at those 2024 goals. I had a misstep this week. I bet you've had some too, and I wanna talk all about what I did and what you can do to make sure that you stay on track with your 2024 goals. All this and more on the Late Night Internet Marketing Podcast.
Announcer:The Late Night Internet Marketing Podcast. You've been working for somebody else, but you want a business to run yourself. You wanna know how to start and where to begin. Can you get out your comfort zone, my friend? Yes, you can do it right. When it's late at night, at the end of the day, your dreams burn inside.
Mark Mason:So keep it up and you will find that you're building your business one night at a time, and now broadcasting late at night from a little studio in the big state of Texas, your host, mark Mason. Hey, hey, hey, how is everyone doing? I am Mark Mason, coming to you from the little studio in Dallas, texas. I'm headed out to a baseball game today, but before I do that, I wanted to share with you a little snippet of my week, a little behind the scenes, to let you know that if you're struggling to stay on track with your 2024 goals, that you're not the only one. This is a real thing that happens to everybody, even people who are apparently having some success doing whatever it is that they're doing, and behind the scenes, as consumers of content, you never see that. So I wanted to show you what it's like to be me a little bit and tell you what I've learned about these things that might help you stay on track with your goals, especially when it comes to a side hustle business project or something that you've decided to do for 2024. So let me tell you about my week last week and what happened. So I, as you know, am on the 12 week year sort of program. I run these sprints that I've adapted from Agile Project Management Strategy and I've got my 2024 goals broken out into actually eight eight week long sprints that I run during the year. And the reason I've broken it out that way is because that happens to correspond with my mastermind presentation schedule, where I tell about my progress to my mastermind group and I get feedback from them. But what I normally recommend for people that aren't adapting to a constraint like that is a three-month plan, a 12-week-year plan, and the reason that I've recommended that in the past is because when you're only focused on the next 12 weeks, it's immediately apparent when your schedule is slipping. If you've got a schedule that doesn't really come due until the end of 2024 in December, it's really hard to tell in February whether you're behind or ahead. But if you've got a schedule that is due in March, well you know exactly whether you're behind or ahead, whether or not you did what you needed to do this week, because if you don't, what you needed to do next week will also be behind. And so that's the power of the 12-week year and the people that created the 12-week year. They also claim that when you're focused that way, you can sometimes get a year's worth of stuff done in three months. So it has that added bonus of pushing you forward faster, and I really like that.
Mark Mason:But this week I took advantage of the fact that I know where I am at all times. I had a plan for the week. I knew exactly what I was supposed to be doing, but my day job got crazy. In my day job we hold several certifications that we need to maintain and part of my responsibility is making sure that we maintain those certifications through the process of external audits. Where you have people come in, it's exactly what it sounds like.
Mark Mason:It's kind of like if you've ever seen in the movie an IRS audit. You have some external auditor coming into your company and asking the people that work for you and that work around you difficult questions about what they did, why they did it, how they did it, where's the evidence that they did it, and so forth. It's a very, very stressful kind of thing. It also requires more than my normal hours during the work week to accomplish, because not only do I have to be involved in getting the auditor to and fro and so forth, I'm also involved with coordinating our response to the audit and getting people from my company where they need to be to meet with the auditor and when the auditor has a question that can't be answered in the audit session, getting together the data to support the response, and so forth, and so it's a very aggressive thing. There are multiple auditors in the building at the same time, and so I'm trying to manage all this during the week and that leaves very little actual time, because I'm working more than my normal hours during the week. Actual hours during the week are less that would normally be available for my business, and also my mental juice that I have left over. When I finally do get home is greatly diminished because this is a tiring thing.
Mark Mason:So this happened to me this week and that's a very important thing that I'm committed to do with my day job. That absolutely must get done. You know, from an Eisenhower matrix standpoint, supporting that audit activity during my day job is both incredibly urgent and incredibly important, so it's something that absolutely has to get done, and so I fell behind, and I've fallen behind before, so I know exactly what that feels like, and I bet that you have fallen behind before and maybe, even if you're really honest about yourself, you've already fallen behind doing the things that you planned to do in 2024. That would only be natural, and you know Michael Hyatt calls this the messy middle. We get these plans and we have this outcome, but in between the plans and the outcome there's this messy middle piece that you have to deal with.
Mark Mason:That is not a straight line of progress. My buddy, aidan Booth, he says he draws a picture and he says you know, we want progress to be in straight line, going up and to the right. We started at the beginning and every day we make a little progress and it's this nice smooth line. But really what progress looks like in the real world is this crazy jagged stock market looking thing where you're going up and down and forwards and backwards and sometimes you make actually negative progress. Life is really crazy like that. So there's two things that you need to do whenever you're encountering resistance in the messy middle detect and assess.
Mark Mason:So for me, one of the magical things about this sort of a twelve week year approach or, in my case, eight week year approaches I know exactly what I need to have done at the end of eight weeks, and so when I started to miss some deliverables in the current week, I knew right away that I had a problem. I could detect the fact that I was falling behind. Now you contrast that to somebody again who's has a kind of a broader goal of I'm going to have a successful business by the end of the year, that it's harder for them to understand the impact of letting what they're doing this week slip into next week or the week after would have been easy for me to say, hey, I don't need to worry about this, I can just do it next week. This is just how the world goes, and to some extent that's true, but with this plan I could see immediately what I needed to do. So you need to detect it and then you need to assess it in the context of what impact it's going to have on your deliverables. In my case, I will have a meeting where I will report my progress at the end of these eight weeks, and I'll have to say I either accomplished what I set out to do or I didn't, and there are multiple things. So I could tell right away that this was going to impact two of the five things that I had set out to accomplish during these eight weeks, and so that's the first thing you need to do understand what the impact of this is, and then the next thing you need to do, obviously, is adjust your plans and adapt. Now you've got some choices here.
Mark Mason:The one choice that a lot of people end up accepting almost by default that I don't like very much is you could just miss your target. I mean, why not who's holding you accountable? But you. If you decide to miss your target, that's maybe just fine for you. It's not okay for me. I really want to hit these targets. I'm really focused. I've made a public commitment to accomplish the things that I'm trying to accomplish in 2024 to my mastermind group, and I'm serious about making sure that I make that happen. So I need to adjust or adapt my current situation so I can still hit the targets. Those are my parameters, and so I've got a couple of choices here. One is I can clear the decks and find some time next week to make sure that I catch up not just with this week's activities that I didn't completely get done, but also with next week, so I can plan and understand that next week I need to add in even more bandwidth. And what might that look like for me? Well, it might mean that I need to block some time in the evening or make a different choice, for example. Here's a silly choice.
Mark Mason:Recently I have gotten involved in formula one personally. I've become interested in it, and this is because of the Netflix special called drive to survive. If you haven't seen the Netflix special drive to survive, it's very good. And I got interested in formula one because a lot of the young engineers that I was interviewing in my day job they're also interested in formula one and, to be a good interviewer, I wanted to be able to talk about formula one at least a little bit. It kept coming up in interviews at universities and the reason is formula one is basically an engineering sport. Yeah, there's a lot of other kind of components to it, but engineers love it because engineering formula one cars is a very exciting part of formula one and so it appeals to engineering students. Those are the kind of students that I interview, and one of the things that has happened recently is that this Netflix documentary, docus, drama kind of thing has blown up interest in formula one racing, and so I've been watching that.
Mark Mason:Well, the new season of this show drops on Friday.
Mark Mason:This, you know, this coming Friday. Guess what this means for me? Probably means that I need to delay watching, or even binge watching, that formula one drive to survive show so that I can catch up with my project. Sometimes it's a simple choice like that. Sometimes it might mean that I need to call in some help. I've got outsourcing resources available virtual assistance and I may need to find something that can be done well enough by a third party and go ahead and accept that additional expense or change in plans to outsource more of the work that I was playing to do.
Mark Mason:And then, finally, another thing I can do is I can reassess the work that was planned and make sure that I'm really doing things that are absolutely critical and there's not a reason to either cancel or reschedule. That still allows me to meet my deadline. So, for example, maybe I am building a course and I was planning on Extra bonus worksheet. That's not really part of the minimum viable product. Maybe I don't really need that part to actually make my milestone. It was just a nice to have. I can take some of those nice to have and move them later in the project.
Mark Mason:Now I want to be careful about that. I don't want to end up extending this project a long time because I keep pushing stuff out past the deadline, but you can understand that maybe there might be some places to take inefficiencies out of the things that you need to do. And I think the other thing you can do is, you know, look for Support from people around you who are involved in your goal. You know, have them cheering you on and helping you and maybe even Helping you take care of the kids, so you can get a little extra window to work on your project and get caught up. Whatever you need to do so that's the thing is to take action now, and this is one of the magical things about that, because now I'm taking action now Instead of waiting until December and going well, I didn't get that done. I mean, I can't tell you how many times in my life I've started out with a goal for a big goal for the year and, you know, come February or March, I get distracted and busy and then it's April or May or June and I'm like, well, I guess I'm not gonna do that or I need to start over. You know, sometimes I even forget about it completely and I that's just part of human nature. I think weight loss goals are often like that. I know a lot of you can relate to this kind of idea that you know, sometimes you just don't get it done, and this sort of Focused, short-term approach, I think, is really the magical thing that can keep you on track.
Mark Mason:Speaking of magic, I was looking you know, researching this for this episode, and I saw some, some quotes from famous people on the internet which is, you know, where all good things come from these days and I thought there were a lot of really great inspirational quotes related to this topic. The first one I ran across was from my buddy, frankie D Franklin Roosevelt. You know I'm a big fan of history, us history in this time period, so I like Roosevelt and Churchill and a lot of these guys, and One of the things that Roosevelt said was the only limit to our realization of tomorrow Will be our doubts of today, and so you know that applies here so much because Underneath, this thing of getting behind is giving up. So you get behind a little bit, you start to doubt your ability to get this done. I mean, I even had this, had this feeling.
Mark Mason:This week is kind of like gosh. Is my other real commitments in life? Are those commitments Going to even allow me to be able to accomplish this big plan I have for 2024? I mean, I, I have some really big goals for 2024. And here I am, and it's it's only February, it's barely past Valentine's Day and I'm already struggling. And is that, I mean God? That doubt Just creeps in. And what Roosevelt is saying is man, that's the limit, that's what's limiting you is it's the doubt itself, not whether or not you can actually do it, but considering the fact that you might not be able to, we've got to get rid of those thoughts. We've got to recognize them and kick them out when we see them. That's the kind of thing that zig-ziggler would have referred to as stinking thinking. So don't, don't allow yourself To bring yourself down that way.
Mark Mason:The other thing from that time period Churchill said Success is not final and failure is not fatal. It's the courage to continue. Continue the count. So this week I failed, you know, I didn't get all my checkbox items checked. And Last week's success, where I did get all my checkbox items checked the week before, that wasn't final. I wasn't done, and so I didn't fail. I haven't finished. What I need to do is go forward. It's the courage to continue that really counts for me, and that's what counts for you too, and that's what you need to be focused on.
Mark Mason:And then my good buddy, confucius. I love Confucius. I don't really actually know much about Confucius. My Far East Asian history is really terrible. I mean, I didn't study that much in school and it hasn't captured my imagination the way that More recent US and European history has. But Confucius said it doesn't really Matter how slowly you go, as long as you don't stop, and I think that's particularly Relevant here, because that's what tends to happen.
Mark Mason:You have some defeats, you have a couple of weeks that don't go Well and then eventually you really do decide to watch Drive to survive or whatever it is for you, instead of working on your goals, because it's easier to give up and really Progress is what matters, not exactly the rate we're. I like to say I say this all the time we're running a marathon here, not a sprint. This is especially true with side hustle businesses. You may sprint occasionally, but the race that we're running is really a marathon, not a sprint, and the most important thing in a marathon is to keep putting one foot in front of the other. Finally, I'll leave you with this other crazy quote that I love you may encounter Many defeats, but you must not be defeated, maya Angelou. So I love that I mean you're gonna get knocked around some when you're building a business online, that's gonna happen. What you have to decide is that those small defeats won't define you and your goals. You will not be defeated. You'll keep pushing forward. I think Maya hits it straight on the nose.
Mark Mason:So what do we learn today? We learn that it's really valuable to be focused in kind of a 12-week year mode, understanding what your goals are for the month or for the quarter or, in my case, for the two-month kind of eight week period. Have those written down, know what the plan is week to week, so that you can do the very first thing, which is detect and adjust. You need to always be detecting your progress and adjusting it versus the plan. That is a critical idea in project management. And when you make that adjustment, be open to Doing things that make you more efficient, that make the project itself more efficient. Be open to asking for help, to outsourcing, to doing things that can get you back on schedule. Be maniacally focused on Staying on that overall schedule. And when you do that day by day, week by week and then month by month, by the end of the year, you will accomplish amazing things, and you are going to be so excited when you do that and when that happens, I want you to email me at feedback at Late night. I am comm and tell me your stories of success. I love the stories that you send me, and when you send them to me, with your permission, we can even share them on the show and we can get other people Excited about the work that you're doing. I'd love to hear from you again at feedback at late night. I am comm.
Mark Mason:You know this is the kind of work in a lot of the coaching that I do, even in my day job, where people are trying to accomplish a thing and they're struggling to accomplish that thing. I have recently been delivering a very few complimentary Coaching sessions and, as I mentioned on many occasions, I've really enjoy the coaching aspect of the things that I do. So if you're interested in applying for a complimentary coaching session, reach out to me at latenightimcom. Forward slash, apply. That will take you to an application for a no strings attached complimentary coaching session and I will tell you and I just apologize in advance. There is absolutely no way that I can accommodate all the applications.
Mark Mason:What I try to do is pick the ones that get me excited and the ones that I think I can help. So be specific in your application. Let me know what's going on in your business, let me know what you're trying to accomplish, let me know the kinds of things you're trying to overcome, and if that seems exciting and I think I can actually help you move forward, that'll put you in good position to possibly receive a completely no strings attached complimentary coaching session. I'd love to hear from you again. Latenightimcom forward slash. Apply to check that out Until next week. I hope everything that you do is absolutely amazing and I hope that you have a fantastic week. I'll talk to you again next week, ciao.
Announcer:You can do it right when it's late at night. You've been listening to the Late Night Internet marketing podcast.
Mark Mason:Be sure to visit L-N-I-M podcastcom today to leave feedback for Mark, download special bonus content, access the show notes and more. See you there.
Announcer:Until then, go and make some great progress on your internet business one night at a time. I'll see you then in your business one night at a time.
Mark Mason:Hey, it's a great week. You know I didn't mention it in the episode, but another thing that is impinging on my time that I would normally use to work on my business is baseball, and you know, as a parent, my son's a junior. He's gonna play this season and next season and maybe never again, ever. And so, from a life goals perspective, I'm not missing any baseball. I'm not going to miss a single pitch if I can help it, and so that means that I've gotta get creative about my scheduling. But this is a value that I have, right. That goes beyond whatever goals that I'm setting in my value system. Investing in my family, capturing these moments that will be gone for a lifetime, is an important thing to me from a value standpoint, and that's something we haven't talked a lot about in this podcast, and maybe we should. But encompassing all these goals that you have are what your life values are, and I put a strong value on family, and you know I love baseball too, so it's easy for me to want to spend time watching my son play baseball, because I love baseball and I have this value of family time, and so that's a great overlap and it's not by accident, right, and so I think that it's important to make sure that you keep all these things in context. I personally think the last thing that you want in your life is to build this fantastic business only to realize that you've compromised on the things that were really or should have been really important to you, like your family or your moral character or any of those kind of things. I mean, you've got to keep those things first, and that's what I'm trying to do here, and so that puts extra challenges on this business, but I'm committed to make all of it work and that's where we're headed. So if you're listening to this podcast on audio right now, you may not realize that there's a YouTube version of this podcast now, also as something that I started at the first of the year. I had done a little bit previously, but now I'm actually putting in a significant effort into the YouTube version, because YouTube is starting to embrace podcasts as part of Google's strategy.
Mark Mason:And while I've been talking about baseball, I actually ran a clip of my son destroying a baseball and hitting it out into right field. He got an outside pitch that he could handle and he drove the ball to right field for a triple with the bases loaded. So that's a three RBI triple and that's a cool video. So that's a reason if you want to see my kid hit a baseball. That's a reason to go over to latenightimcom forward slash YouTube. That's the easiest way to find me. Of course, you can also search for me on YouTube. If you search for late night internet marketing on YouTube, you'll find it. Look at the podcast playlist and shortly after the release of this on audio, the video version will be there. This is episode 256. You should be able to find it there, and right around the end of the podcast you'll see this video that I'm talking about. Until next week, I invite you to crush it, but do that while keeping first things first in your life, because that's really what's most important. Ciao.
Announcer:Late night. Internet marketing.
