Three and a half years ago, I registered the domain SlowSimpleWealth.com.

That domain cost me $12 to register. (It’s actually available again now.)

For the two months that followed, I hee-hawed around thinking about learning how to install a blog and start sharing my personal finance journey with the world.

At the time, Courtney and I were already aggressively tearing through our debt, selling waves of our excess crap, and preparing to try and meet our goal of backpacking Australia with a newborn Milligan.

We had set this goal for ourselves. Not for an online community, not for a business, not for a blog. In fact, I didn’t even really know about those things.

It was only after we set our personal goal – and started researching websites to help us achieve it – that I was turned on to the power of the blogging community.

After benefiting from several months of following hundreds of personal finance blogs (I was kind of obsessive – go figure), I desperately wanted to join the community that had helped me so much.

“You know what, I could share my own journey, based on my own experience, and it would likely really help hold us accountable…”

That’s the thought process I had when I registered the domain.

But I put it off starting things for months, because I was scared.

I thought it would be too hard. I thought it would cost too much. I thought nobody would care.

So nothing happened.

But a few months later, Courtney and I received a $150 windfall. I forget the source, but I remember it was *exactly* $150 dollars.

We were so uptight, frugal, and aggressive with our money during this period of our “war” on debt – that we decided to reward ourselves by splitting this money and buying whatever we wanted with our parts.

I had $75 that I could spend on anything I wanted in the world.

So I pledged to use that money to start my little personal finance blog.

I wasn’t happy with SlowSimpleWealth.com – it just didn’t shout “THIS IS IT!” to me. It was a little too passive, it didn’t represent how we viewed our journey at that time.

Then, it hit me.

Nah, it’s probably taken. Nah, there is a show called Man Vs. Wild – they will sue me for everything (at the time that was the only Google result for Man Vs. brands or shows).

Oh well, let’s just see if it’s available…

ManVsDebt.com was born a few minutes later.

$24 into my business, I had only $51 left for expenses. I turned to a friend at the time who was pretty handy at Photoshop and graphic design (he had taken a course or two in college). I offered Dustin $50 to design me a banner to go at the top of my blog.

It was a hideous brown-and-white-based design and logo, but it worked. My blog was live and ready for the world to see. (Bonus points for anyone reading this that remembers the brown and white design!)

My hosting came free with the domain name.

I didn’t know about email providers, hiring employees, fancy stat trackers, customer service platforms, merchant fees, or anything else yet… but I just remember being shocked at how cheap it was to get started.

I honestly didn’t know personal finance blogs could make money.

I certainly didn’t know they could make ridiculous amounts of life-changing money (they can and do all the time).

All I knew was I wanted to quickly become part of the community that has inspired Courtney and me so much in our journey. And I wanted to be held accountable.

I wrote down a couple notes about how I would approach the blog:

• I’ll share everything out in the open.
• I’ll write more passionately than anyone else.
• I’ll act like I belong here.

That was my launch strategy. Share everything, be passionate, be confident.

And, frankly, it worked really well.

I was just hoping to recoup my $74 investment at some point.

*****

You all know how much this site has changed my life in the past three and a half years.

But it all started on just $74 and countless hours of learning, sharing, and growing in front of the warm glow of a computer screen.

We’ve done hundreds of thousands in revenue since then – and invested hundreds of thousands back into expenses, training, team members, and new projects.

But it all started on $74. That’s it.

You see, life-changing ideas no longer cost tens of thousands of dollars to get off the ground. They used to, but they don’t anymore.

You can start a profitable business that fundamentally helps people for a few dollars. It may not be for everyone, but it’s insanely doable – on a level we’ve never seen before.

There are lots of limiting factors that can and will hold you back when you try to start a business.

But I just don’t believe lack of funds has to be an excuse anymore.

You may *decide* it’s not worth it to start a business venture if you don’t have enough funds, but the far majority of ventures don’t *require* those funds to be successful.

If you’re hungry, passionate, and willing to bleed and sweat – you can launch something amazing for less than price of a fancy dinner.

The birth of Only72.com…

Flash forward a year and a half or so, and I stumbled upon another potential business idea.

A great friend of mine from the online world had run a sale where he packaged together several dozen of the best “minimalist” books online and sold them together for a super cheap price for a short time.

I put my first book, “Unautomate Your Finances,” in the package and it was a wonderful experience. I got a lot of new exposure, readers emailed me to thank me, and I even made a little money from the sale. Nice!

So I approached Karol to ask him about doing something similar in another area I was passionate about… genuine online business training. I bought many of these resources anyway, so I thought it would be amazing if we could bring together several of the people and courses we knew for a community sale.

We had about three weeks to put together the idea – and it would cost a bit more than MvD did:

• $10 for a domain name (we called it Only72.com).
• $15 for hosting.
• $100 for a spiffy logo and several affiliate graphics.
• $5 for e-junkie to sell the package.

$130 total to get everything up and running.

The website was super simple, the package of courses was amazing, and we decided to give 10% of every order to our favorite cause at the time, Charity: Water.

We sold $1,000 worth of courses for $97 for a three-day period in late November, 2010.

Almost 1,900 people bought and downloaded the training in three days. That’s just shy of $200,000 in revenue in 72 hours.

We sent tens of thousands of dollars to contributors and affiliates. We raised $30,000 for charity. We collected hundreds of thank-you emails. And, yes, we each profited $30,000 or so from the sale (I’ve shared the specifics several times here).

It showed the power of an idea, when money wasn’t used as an excuse NOT to do it.

We could have easily delayed the project to design a website worth several thousand dollars. We could have easily delayed the project until we had the right sales cart, affiliate program, or email list. There were lots of “better times” to start this.

But we didn’t wait.

We invested $130 ($65 each) and dedicated three weeks of our time to making it happen.

*****

Look, I’m not telling you that you should start trying to sell online business training. That was a passion of Karol’s and mine.

I’m not telling you to invest $75 into starting a blog. That was a passion of mine.

What I’m encouraging is to not let “lack of funds” be an excuse for you anymore.

If you want it – I firmly believe there is a way to make it happen for cheap. The timing for launching your business has never ever been better (even if just on the side).

It doesn’t cost nearly as much as you think.

*****

The Next Only72.com Sale Showed Our Commitment to That Idea…

Karol and I have run a few more sales since the first one, large and small. We run one or two a year max.

We’re incredibly fortunate to now have over 5,000 happy customers, over $50,000 raised for different charities, and to have worked with dozens and dozens of brilliant contributors and courses.

We just finished our most recent Only72 sale.

We teamed up with Chris Guillebeau to coordinate what we called “The $100 Startup” package.

The $100 Startup is Chris’ new amazing book, which we shipped anywhere in the world (at no additional charge!) with every package this time (the first time we’ve had a physical product as part of our sales).

In the book, Chris makes an even more brilliant case, including dozens of examples, of why your world-changing idea doesn’t need thousands of dollars to get started.

Though this Only72 sale is over, we would still love to see you check out Chris’s book here.

If you’re in the market for training to help you start or ramp up your business or income from creative sources, I firmly believe this is a great book. (And I also believe you should stay in the loop about our future Only72 packages!

If you aren’t starting or running a business… Or don’t have interest in leveraging your creative talents to produce side income… then don’t be silly and buy either the book or our future Only72 sales.

At the end of the day, if you never actually apply the training? You help no one.

*****

That’s it for now.

Remember, you don’t need thousands of dollars to start a business that can literally change the world. People are starting these micro-businesses every single day.

What’s holding you back?

I love Danielle LaPorte.

In a sea of experts talking about careers, entrepreneurship, passion, and life… she’s different.

She taught me to be genuine, unique, and passionate – no matter how difficult the process would be. And I owe her big time for that.

Once upon a time, Danielle charged hundreds of dollars (and then thousands of dollars) for one-on-one, in-your-face, no-holds-barred consulting conversations that rocked the worlds of people who had no idea what they had signed up for.

I had one of those conversations with Danielle once – and I walked away with a totally different view of my life and business.

Good news, though. She’s now boiled down all the wisdom from her website, speeches, poems, and one-on-one sessions into a single book.

The Fire Starter Sessions by Danielle LaPorte is now available for preorder.

I rarely suggest you buy a book. But this is the exception. You will love this one.

It’s different, unique, and in a style that both entertains and shocks the system with dozens of a-ha moments. (I think I averaged one a-ha moment per page of the book!)

If you took a highlighter to this book – the entire thing would be yellow!

One of my favorite things about The Fire Starter Sessions is what Danielle calls the “Burning Questions” in Chapter 4 (around page 80).

As I read the questions in the book, I remembered Danielle’s voice asking me them on the phone. Even now, it’s fun to see how my answers and perspective have changed over the years.

Question #1:  When someone at a party asks you “What Do You Do,” what do you say?  And how do you feel when you say it?

Wowzers, did this one hit me hard at different points in my life. I’ve always hated the “What Do You Do” question – even if I fall back on it myself in awkward situations at times.

I never had a good answer, because I always lacked confidence. And when I say “good” answer, I mean good to me. I never had an answer my own self was proud of.

When I admitted how I really felt when I answered – and how I always talked in circles explaining what I did – it clicked that something was wrong. I started not only changing how I answered, but what I actually did.

Question #2:  When do you feel powerful, passionate, free, incredibly useful, excited, inspired?

This was another tough, tough question for me to answer honestly at first. But the more I ask myself, the better I get at honing in on those times.

This is now the first piece of advice I give to anyone who comes to me and is “dead inside” from years and years of work that suffocates and traps them. Many have been out of tune with their positive, powerful, or free feelings for so long they can’t even remember them!

However, if you can be honest and up-front when you feel at your utmost best in life – you’ll have a big, blinking light guiding you toward your passion.

Question #3:  What’s chronic, repetitive, or inflamed in your inner or outer life?

Yikes, now we are getting deep.

Every major hurdle I’ve had in my business or life has been directly related to honestly identifying an inflamed or chronic habit, person, or ideal that has plagued my progress. Seriously, every instance I can remember.

I don’t like dwelling on the negative, but this question is about more than just complaining on the symptoms. This bites down to the problem itself.

When I’m honest about what’s really out-of-whack (specifically, not generally) and take action to break away from it – well, it’s painful up front – but oh so freeing after that.

Question #4:  What’s always in the back of your mind?

The back of my mind is a scary, scary place.

Like really scary.

But it’s also where my true passions, dreams, and ability to impact to others nestles most of the time.

As a society, we are taught to conform. To push our outside-the-box, scary, and uncomfortable ideas and values to the back of our minds.

Danielle helped give me permission to examine what’s been back there (sometimes for years). And I owe her big time for that!

*****

These are just 4 of almost a dozen burning questions in just one chapter of The Fire Starter Sessions.

It’s slammed with life-changing tidbits. It’s well worth the small investment and well worth your time reading it.

Oh, and for a final shot of inspiration, here’s Danielle’s “Credo for Making it Happen” video (brilliant):

This thing will make you want to kick ass and take names – in whatever project you want to tackle next.

Pick one of the questions in this post and answer it in the comments:

• When someone at a party asks you “What Do You Do,” what do you say?
• When do you feel powerful, passionate, free, incredibly useful, excited, inspired?
• What’s chronic, repetitive, or inflamed in your inner or outer life?
• What’s always in the back of your mind?
  

Go ahead, pick one. Let me know your answer!

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!

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

Jonathan Fields’ new book Uncertainty: Turning Fear and Doubt into Fuel for Brilliance is being unleashed into the world!

In the video review above, I share my honest feelings about the book along with my two major takeaways from consuming it over the weekend.

Note: Today is the very last day to take advantage of special pre-order bundles available at the book’s website. Tomorrow is the official launch (these offers go away)!

Uncertainty is something we all deal with.

Anytime we attempt a major life change, we face uncertainty. Anytime we attempt to solve a problem with creativity, we face uncertainty.

We all face uncertainty, but most of us go about this in the wrong way!

We attempt to eliminate uncertainty from our lives. We try to get to a point of absolutely certainty before we take action.

But if we wait around for a moment where we have complete certainty… we end up doing NOTHING!

Anything in life worth doing is going to involve massive levels of uncertainty.

If Jonathan has taught me only one thing, it’s that action in the face of uncertainty is the path to a fulfilling life. In fact, it’s a requirement of a fulfilling life.

Here’s a recap of my takeaways from Uncertainty:

• Major Takeaway #1: Our fear of being judged is keeping us from living the life that we know is possible. We must take concrete steps to counteract this. (Jonathan covers these early in the book.)

• Major Takeaway #2: 90% of the fear and doubt of a life change exists only in our heads. You’ll always have some uncertainty, but a few simple questions can dissolve the majority of it almost immediately. (This comes later in the book.)

Jonathan’s three questions (Chapter 9: Own The Story Line)…

My favorite part of the entire book happens in Chapter 9 towards the end.

Jonathan suggests that when we’re faced with any decision or major life change, we need to ask ourselves the following:

1. Question 1: “What if I go to Zero?” — Write down the worst possible outcome of trying and failing. Be realistic, but be honest.
2. Question 2: “What if I do nothing?” – Write everything that’ll stay the same if you take NO action to change.
3. Question 3: “What if I succeed?” – Write down what would happen if you DID accomplish the change or shift in your life. Be as specific as possible.

Whether or not you can get your hands on a copy of Uncertainty, I challenge you to apply Jonathan’s 3 questions to a big decision or change in your own life.

Write down (on paper) your answers to each of the 3 questions.

For me, I didn’t even have to spend time looking at the answers. Just the process of writing down my answers immediately dissolved 90% of the fear and doubt I had attached to a recent decision.

It was almost all in my head!

Give the exercise a try – and I strongly recommend you grab a copy of Uncertainty and read it this weekend.

For more information check out Jonathan’s raw, inspiring book trailer…

[Can't view the video? Click here for more info (and to watch it in your browser)...]

It’s one of my top three books for anyone who has to creatively solve problems in business or life. And I’m guessing you probably fall into that category.

Jonathan Fields is a brilliant man.

Uncertainty is a brilliant book.

How do you currently deal with uncertainty in your life?

*****

I’m a bit exhausted, but far more excited to announce that the newly-redesigned You Vs. Debt class is open for registration starting today!

We’ve designed the structure of the course to focus around daily, bite-size chunks that anyone can knock out quickly.

It only takes an average of 15 minutes per day, but when applied consistently over the 6-week framework, this amount of time can yield fantastic results.

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

• Daily lessons 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.
• 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.

But more important than fancy, new features is the why…

There are millions of people in financial situations that keep them pinned down. And the truth is, a big percentage of these people know better.

They even know exactly what needs to be done. But they still can’t manage to bring it all together and change their habits.

Over the last two weeks, we’ve talked about how habit change is not about simply knowing more. It’s about understanding how our emotional mind and logical mind work together to create lasting change.

I’m so passionate about this non-conventional approach, that I’ve designed You Vs Debt around it completely.

The entire focus is to get people to stick with the program and finish.

I’m CRAVING results for the people who jump in on this. We’ve broken it down into small pieces. We’ve installed game mechanics to help make it fun. We’ve brought together a community of other like-minded people.

I can’t make you (or anyone else) show up and focus for 15-20 minutes a day.

But I’m sure as heck going to try!

If you think this may be a good fit, go check out the guarantee we are offering on the class right now!

Seriously, we are THAT intent on getting results for people who show up and stick to the plan.

Your one-time enrollment also covers lifetime membership! 

Meaning even if you miss a week or two, you’ll be able to pick up where you left off in any future classes down the road.

*****

Lastly, I’ll be doing a no-holds-barred Q&A session this coming Wednesday at 9 p.m. EST.

It’s the first time I’ve done something like this and I’ll shoot out more information about it tomorrow. If you’ve ever wanted to ask about finance, debt, travel, business, life, or anything else you can think of… this is the chance. It should be a blast!

*****

Thanks again for all your support. If you know someone who can use motivation and accountability to passionately attack their debt – I appreciate if you forward them over to You Vs. Debt this week.

We’re going to blow the roof off this class!

I’d been putting it off for months…

I’d talked about starting a website, a blog, or an online store. I’d dreamt up designs, slogans, domain names, and dozens of “million dollar ideas.”

You see, Courtney and I had passionately been attacking our clutter and our debt for the past few months.

Round 1 of our stuff had been listed and sold on eBay and craigslist – and for the first time in several months our budget was starting to actually work.

One fateful night – several months earlier – we had pledged to sell everything we owned, pay off our $18,000 in consumer debt, and move to Australia.

Since then, we had picked up some serious momentum.

Everything in our personal life was clicking. Our mission was clear – and we were executing it like madmen.

But I had this funny habit.

Whenever it would come time to actually do something about my business ideas… I’d buy another business book. I’d tell myself I needed to learn more… that reading, thinking, and planning were an important part of the process.

I desperately wanted to be an entrepreneur.

I wanted to build a business that could support us as we traveled.

But, at the time, in this one area of our life… I just didn’t know how to take action toward that goal.

Looking back, I can see that it was a combination of naivete, laziness, and lack of clarity. What a nasty combo!

The Tipping Point:  ”Something just snapped…”

As it turns out, the two dozen business books I read were worth a tenth of the value I got from just one night of action.

It started around 3:30 p.m. – something just snapped. I was tired of waiting and fed up with putting off this idea any longer.

I registered the domain ManVsDebt.com and spent the next 4 hours walking through tutorials on how to set up hosting, domains, DNS servers, and WordPress.

To this day, I still remember feverishly searching the archives of ProBlogger for walkthroughs on how to get the technical stuff set up.

I had absolutely zero idea what I was doing (and zero technical experience). The only way forward was to put my head down and bust through it.

As night set in, my dream started to come to life. It was ugly, unoptimized, and bare bones… but it was alive.

I didn’t stop there.

Into the night, I outlined my first six posts. I focused on topics I was deeply passionate about and researched each of them for hours.

I started writing.

The last time I had written over 1,000 words in one sitting was high school. But somehow I couldn’t stop writing that night. Time moved quickly… or slowly… I wasn’t quite sure. I was in the zone.

When Courtney woke up early the next morning, she came to check on me. I was still typing. I was working on the 5th full post – some 8,000 words later.

Only in that moment did the feeling really hit me…

As the sun peeked over the horizon and in through the window, I could only think of one thing…

“I’m an online entrepreneur.”

I hadn’t had a single visitor to my website yet. That would come in the next few days.

I hadn’t got one person to subscribe to updates. That would come in the next week.

I hadn’t made a single sale. That wouldn’t happen for another year.

But I knew.

In the buzz of that all-nighter, I just knew.

“I’m an online entrepreneur.”

*****

For those of you that have been following along for a while (a few of you from that first month several years ago), you know there are three main areas that have driven Courtney and my quest to reshape our life.

1. “Sell Your Crap” – Our initial rejection of consumerism and purge of our possessions has radically shaped our life these last few years.
2. “Pay Off Your Debt” - Our journey to attack our $18,000 in consumer debt is well chronicled – and has freed us to focus our time, money, and energy on our passions.
3. “Do What You Love” - The last part of the equation for us involves cultivating that entrepreneurial spark to align our passions, purpose, and “work” lives.

I fully realize not everyone wants to be (or should be) an entrepreneur or business owner. That’s fantastic! There are tons of ways to align your work and passion with starting a business or movement.

For me, however – and many of you (based on our conversations) – entrepreneurship is a natural extension of the personal finance journey.

Building Man Vs. Debt has been extremely stressful, but extremely fulfilling at the same time. It has and will continue to play a central role in Courtney and my life. And we don’t plan to stop there as Courtney has her own entrepreneurial aspirations and goals to foster.

You see, I have no problem being an outspoken fan of entrepreneurship – because I believe that people building business and movement around their passions is fantastic for our culture.

Introducing ”The Hustle Project”…

That’s why I’m so proud to announce “The Hustle Project” with a good friend and mastermind partner of mine – Corbett Barr.

“The Hustle Project” is the third leg of my own business tripod. Along with “You Vs. Debt” and “Sell Your Crap”, it’s the third area where I can really help positively impact people’s lives.

“The Hustle Project” is a membership community for entrepreneurs looking to grow their online presence and revenue.

We have three very simple objectives:

1. Arm people with the concrete tactics (and examples) they need to build momentum.
2. Incite them into action.
3. Hold them accountable to the actions and their goals.

“The Hustle Project” is part mastermind group, part mentorship group.

Our goal is for every member to add $12,000 in revenue to their online business over the next 12 months.

This isn’t a get rich quick program. It will require focused time, a lot of effort, and a bit of stress. But it’ll be worth it.

This certainly isn’t for everyone. But if you’re serious about online entrepreneurship – and ready to invest the time and effort we all know it takes – you need to check out this new project.

[Click here for "The Hustle Project" details]

*****

That one night – over two years ago – changed my life forever.

Another 6 months of planning couldn’t have come close to the feeling I got from just one night of focused action.

How much different would my life be today if I had read another book that night?

I don’t even want to think about that.

One of the most common questions I get from people (when they find out we work/travel full-time in an RV right now) is… how?

How do I work on the road?

What do I use for internet?

How can I stay up with my business?

What kind of gear or gadgets make this possible?

To be honest, it’s really not that complex. Over the years, I’ve refined the minimal amount of stuff that I need to carry around to ensure I can handle just about any work situation that may come up.

Everything I need is stored in my laptop bag at all times – which means within 30 seconds I can be packed up and on-the-go without worrying that I forgot something that I’ll need.

In the video, I go through every item in my simplified ready-to-go work bag.

For those of you that can’t watch it, here’s a quick list of every item (w/ amazon links) ranked by importance:

• Brenthaven Prostyle II-XF Laptop Case - This is the glue that holds it all together – or at least the bag that holds it all together. I really enjoy it.

• 15″ MacBook Pro – This is my primary weapon of choice. I love this computer. I also carry around the charger of course.

• (2) Moleskine notebook – All my ideas, concepts, blog posts, or projects start in these notebooks. It’s essentially what I use (in combination with gmail) as my productivity system. Again, I really enjoy these notebooks.

• Pilot G-2 Pen [3] - My favorite “everyday use” pens to jot down those amazing ideas.

• iPhone 4 Black – The amazing Chris Jourdan sent Courtney and I new iPhone 4s earlier in the year! I use the apps Yelp, Mailchimp, WordPress, Paypal, Chase, and Skype for business on the road all the time. The charger comes with me, too.

• Virgin Mobile MiFi - This gives us wireless internet anywhere we can get 3G. It’s $40/month with NO CONTRACT which is why we initially got it! Still works pretty well.

• iPhone headphones - Still stuck with the very basic headphones. Looking for an alternative that is more comfortable for multiple hours of use.

• Jawbone ICON bluetooth headset - I use this to take calls or do interview while driving in the RV. I’m not convinced it’s really that great, but I guess it does help reduce external noise a bit.

• Spare set of business cards – Just in case I meet someone who needs some more information!

• A Deck of Cards - Always need a deck of cards – you just never know.

• BodPod paperwork - I keep the “BodPod” bodyfat measurements paperwork I got at the beginning of my weight loss journey with me (as a reminder to stay focused).

That’s it! As always, I’m more than willing to answer specific questions in the comments below!

*****

I’ve told you *what* I use to work, but nothing about *how* I build my business while on the road. That would simply take too long to do in blog post format!

Which is why early next week, Corbett Barr and I are opening the doors on what we are calling “The Hustle Project”.

It’ll be a series of webinars (twice per month) with insights into the exact step-by-step tactics and strategies we used to build momentum in our online businesses. Along with live Q&A sections, audio downloads, full transcripts, and accountability profiles.

Here is our theory, boiled down into a simple formula:  Action + Accountability = Momentum

This project will only be for online entrepreneurs who are serious about building something sustainable, it’s not meant to be for hobbyists, people deep in debt, or casual businesses. Sorry!

If you are interested in the “do what you love” part of my message (and are serious about it), sign up here to be notified early. If you aren’t interested in building an online business, that’s cool too – back to regular programming next Thursday.

xoxoxo,

-Baker

Each month, as part of an ongoing transparency project, I share the income, expenses, and master plans of my pursuit to earn a living online. This includes many of the expenses related to our RV lifestyle.

Personal finance should not be a taboo subject in our society. The more light we can shed – and the more examples we can share – the better off we are!

April’s Business Income/Expenses…

Sell Your Crap income:  $1,261.64

You Vs. Debt income:  $5,107.60

Additional Income:  $1,368.89

• Travel Hacking Cartel:  $503.37
• Consulting (off the market):  $385.19
• Pocketsmith:  $183.80
• WhitePixel:  $82.07
• Unconventional Guides:  $80.58
• UYF Sales (off the market):  $47.50
• Amazon Affiliate: $37.63
• Language Hacking Guide: $33.50
• Bank Fee Refund: $15.25

Direct Expenses:  -$6,734.12

• YvD Launch Consulting:  -$4000.00
• WDS Conference Tickets: -$610.84
• YvD Graphics: -$501.25
• Affiliate Payments:  -$393.77
• Food/Meals: -$289.31
• Cell Phone (final): -$175.32
• Website tech work: -$130.00
• YvD Transcriptions: -$112.15
• AppSumo Deal: -$99.00
• Premium Web Cart: -$79.97
• Optimizely: -$79.00
• Aweber:  -$49.00
• Virgin Mobile: -$40.00
• Rebel Strength Guide: -$39.00
• Cloud Blogging Guide: -$37.00
• Wufoo: -$29.95
• Travel Hacking Cartel: -$25.00
• MailChimp:  -$15.00
• E-junkie:  -$10.00
• DropBox:  -$9.99
• Domain Name: -$8.57

Net (Income – Expenses):  $1,004.01

Over the last 13 months, this brings the average net to: ~$5500/month.

Want to know even more details? My friend Corbett Barr (from ThinkTraffic.net fame) and I will be hosting a live Q&A this coming Wednesday on “Building Momentum for Your Online Business”. We’ll leave no questions unanswered, but there are only 100 spots on the webinar. Here’s the link to save your spot if interested.

As you can see, we successfully launched the very first private “You Vs. Debt” course behind-the-scenes last month. We’re in the middle of the course now, tweaking and testing the content, gathering feedback, and helping people radically change their financial approach.

It’s thrilling to see the first group of people take the course, as I’ve never before approached my courses/eBooks in this manner. I can already see the impact it will have on the eventual public release (likely late next month).

Even still, there is a lot left to do – the grunt work is far from over as far as the course is concerned!

You may also notice a $4,000 payment to a team member. Keep in mind this actually represents several months of hard work – and is an investment in a piece of my team that I want to play a core role for years to come.

As always, I’ll answer any questions below!

RV Tour Updates… Keep Rollin’ Rollin’ Rollin’…

April saw us visiting and hosting meetups in the cities of Phoenix, San Diego, and L.A.

The Phoenix meetup was especially fun – as we had a BBQ out at a local park – and 30-35 people, including several families with kids were able to swing by. This was a welcome unique-twist to our normal gatherings!

In San Diego, I was interviewed and featured in the San Diego Union-Tribune (which was fun). Our meetup had a smaller, but very mighty turnout – featuring what ended up being mostly other entrepreneurs and bloggers!

We also had a great time while staying with friends in Hollywood, Los Angeles. We had a strong showing of personal finance industry folk and bloggers turn out and share some great tamales and stories at the meetup.

Let me pause here to share that at each step of the way our sponsor, Adaptu.com swooped in and bought free food for everyone – at each meetup.

To be clear, this isn’t something they are supposed to do. Nor is this something I’m required to talk about here. I’m just extremely fortunate to have found and created a really great relationship with the team over there.

They’ve been a fantastic company to work with – and offer a valuable service that is completely free. Thanks again to Adaptu for help making this tour a great experience for us so far!

Next stop: SAN FRANCISCO!

May brings us into San Francisco (where I’m writing this as of now), for the first couple of weeks.

In mid-May, we’ll spend a week driving through northern California and southern Oregon. We hear these areas are especially beautiful for driving.

Ultimately, we’ll pull into Portland, Oregon toward the end of the month – and are looking forward to a couple weeks with good friends and allies before the World Domination Summit in early June.

RV Expenses/Lifestyle Cost…

Speaking of the tour, here’s a glimpse at the expenses related to our RV lifestyle (for April).

Gas: $605.03 (-58%)

Whoo-hoo, down over half! While gas prices have continued to go up, up, up… we’ve driven less, less, less.

Essentially, we drove only two legs: from Phoenix to San Diego and from San Diego to L.A.

Campground Fees: $489.50 (-13%)

We stayed the far majority of the time at campgrounds this time, but did benefit a small amount from having cheaper parking with friends in the Los Angeles area at the end of the month.

As it seems moving forward, $500 appears to be a realistic and comfortable budget for us. We *could* do it on much smaller incomes, but we also could easily spend more as frequently as we are moving.

Hotel/Hostel/Lodging: $0 (0%)

Once again, we’ve avoided any extra cost from lodging outside the RV – making two months in a row now.

This isn’t much of a feat, but early on we had several circumstances that forced us into more expensive lodging.

Propane: $35.06 (+100%)

We only had to fill our propane tank once in April (after not filling it at all in March).

It appears as long as we stay out of cold weather, propane won’t add any significant pain to our budget. It’s actually fairly affordable.

Tolls/Parking: $0 (-100%)

April didn’t see any toll roads, parking garages, or miscellaneous fees that we encountered on the road.

We did get stopped along the Mexican/U.S. Border – but all they wanted to know was if I was a U.S. Citizen. Check.

Repairs: $ 55.25 (-40%)

As with last month, we only had one very minor problem with the RV or Jeep this month.

It came to our attention that we had the wrong size of “hitch ball” that we were towing the Jeep with. While it had still towed several thousand miles, it was starting to warp a bit – and wasn’t the most safe option.

In addition, the wiring jack that connects the RV lights to the Jeep lights when we were towing was shorted out (this is important so the brake lights and such work on the back of the Jeep when towing).

I’m proud to report, I fixed both problems myself with a trip to AutoZone. Now, these are the most simple problems in the world for anyone who works on… well, anything. But for me, splicing the wires and installing the proper trailer hitch are HUGE accomplishments!

I’m very happy with our expenses this month. We saw reductions in nearly every category. We live a VERY comfortable RV lifestyle (and a fairly mobile one) and our expenses are becoming much more controllable.

Hoping to keep it up!

*****

As always, I’m willing to tackle any questions you may have in the comments below.

I’m excited to have you along for the ride – and to have a community where I can share so openly.

Xoxoxo,

-Baker

It’s my huge pleasure to share an interview with Steven Pressfield on habit change, resistance, and doing the work.

I’m a fan of several of Steven’s past books (check out the transcript for more info), so it should come as no surprise that I’m currently in love with his latest book – Do The Work – which releases today. It’s a quick, powerful read.

Quick Recap:

• [00:30] – Steven outlines the enemy of change… what he calls “Resistance”.
• [02:15] – How to know when Resistance will kick in…
• [03:30] – Steven’s number one tip to overcoming the Resistance.
• [04:50] – The most important takeaway from Do The Work.
• [07:10] – Common resistance points people struggle with in finances.
• [08:45] – What to do when family or friends try to pull you down.
• [14:00] – Steven’s question for you!…

Full Transcript Below…

Hey everyone. This is Baker from Man vs. Debt. And today I am joined by Steven Pressfield.

It is my pleasure, because Steven is a fascinating author, and dare I say a prolific author, with his wide range of works. From The Legend of Bagger Vance to The War of Art, which I enjoyed, and my personal favorite, Gates of Fire.

Steven, thanks for joining me.

Adam, thanks for having me. It’s a pleasure to be here.

I want to jump right in and talk about what—I believe you brought this up in The War of Art, but correct me if I’m wrong. The topic of the Resistance. Can you explain to the readers of Man vs. Debt, what is what you call the Resistance?

It’s—I call it Resistance with a capital R, and it is—If you’ve ever joined a gym and found that you stopped going after about a week and a half, then you know what resistance is.

If you’ve ever brought home an abdominal machine. If you’ve ever signed up to do any kind of project and crapped out on it, as I have done many times. If you’ve ever started a book. If you’ve ever started a screenplay. If you’ve ever opened a business and gotten halfway through and dropped the ball, that’s what resistance is.

Resistance is the internal self-sabotage that we all face. It’s sort of the negative forces that kind of radiates off a blank page or off a work in potential that’s trying to keep us from doing it. That’s what I call Resistance with a capital R.

All right, so I think this is such an awesome topic, because it can be applied to a wide variety of situations. From anything from entrepreneurship to just creative work, even to personal finance, which is where I would like to take this.

And people not only having to overcome resistance to lose weight. [They] not only have to overcome resistance to start a business or start a creative project. But whenever they start to do any changes in their life.

What are, let’s say, your top three tips?

Or what—If I came to you and said, “Steven, I’m just really having this problem. I really want to get XYZ in order. How do I overcome this internal Resistance with a capital R?”

Let me back up one second, Adam. ‘Cause one of the characteristics of Resistance—and I know what you mean about personal finance—is Resistance will kick in when we’re trying to move from a lower level to a higher level. That’s the only time it’ll kick in.

I say in The War of Art, if you’re working for Mother Teresa in Calcutta, and you have an idea that you want to start a career in telemarketing, don’t worry about Resistance. It’ll give you a complete free pass.

But—And maybe—See if I’ve got this. I read an interesting book called The Automatic Millionaire. Have you ever read—You familiar with that?

I am familiar with that, yes.

I forgot the author’s name, but I know that—

Bach.

I think that he had a bunch of clients, and he wanted to get them to automatically pay themselves first. In personal finance. They were entrepreneurs. And he said, “Let me set it up for you.” And everybody said to him, “No, no, no. I’ll set it up for myself.”

Anyway, bottom line, out of 100 clients that he pitched this to, not a single one of them did what he told them to, and that’s purely for Resistance.

Resistance seems to be when we know something is for our own good, Resistance will keep us from doing it.

So the question that you asked, Adam, was how do you overcome it?

Exactly.

Now, for me as a writer, what is—The Resistance takes the form of facing a blank page. So what worked for me, after a million years of failing, was to—What I call turning pro.

And it’s just a change in attitude, from thinking of yourself as an amateur to thinking of yourself as a professional. Now an amateur, when an amateur runs into adversity of any kind, they’ll just fold up their tents and crap out.

You know? If we’re playing basketball for fun, and our ankle starts to hurt, we’ll knock off. But if it’s Kobe Bryant, he’s going to keep playing through the pain.

So a pro, if we just have the professional attitude of a hardcore but cold-blooded, get the job done attitude, then we’ll do the right thing.

Yep. I completely understand that. And I guess what you’re saying is that you just need to step up and do the work. If I can be a little pun here. Because—

Exactly. It’s as simple as, just do it. That’s all there is to it.

Yep, yep. So—And let’s talk a little bit about that. Because your latest, I guess, creative release into the world is called Do the Work. And it’s a joint project with The Domino Project, or a collaboration with The Domino Project.

What are the two big takeaways that you want to convey with Do the Work?

That’s a really good question. Do the Work is—It’s about—It’s sort of a manual that takes you from the start of a project to the finish of a project, hitting the points of Resistance that will come up as they happen. And they’re amazingly predictable.

You can see that like—Just in, say, a screenplay. Let’s say you’re writing a screenplay. You’ll plunge—First there’s a Resistance to even start. You’ll come up with all these reasons: “Why me? I’m not good enough. I’m too old. I’m too young. I’m too stupid.” Whatever.

Then you’ll plunge in on pure enthusiasm. You’ll get to about 1/5 of the way through, and then you’ll panic because you’re outside the sight of shore, but you can’t see the other side anyway.

So to boil it down to your question of takeaways from Do the Work, it’s that for one thing, if you hit these sticking points in anything you’re doing, you’re not alone. You’re not the first person that has hit this thing.

Everybody hits it, whether it’s Neil Young or Donald Trump or anybody that’s doing anything. And there is a way through each one of these points that you will hit.

And a lot of it comes down to that professional, and it’s sort of a do the—That’s why it’s called Do the Work. There’s no sort of mystery to it. It’s just making yourself face each challenge and push through it, no matter what.

And I love that. Because I think that—I haven’t read it yet, but you bet I will.

It’s an easy—It’s an easy read.

Yeah. So, but each—I think that the key thing that you said there, especially when it comes to the personal finance world, is for people to understand that there is a series of steps through this process.

Yes, each person’s life circumstance/creative work/screenplay/movie/book/whatever may be a little bit different, but each step along the way, as you’ve mapped out, has been encountered before.

And by doing and channeling and focusing, you can get over that into the next step. I’m sort of paraphrasing what you’re saying.

Exactly, yeah.

Because that’s what we talk about in the personal finance world all the time here.

Let me ask you a question, Adam. When you talk about personal finance, give me a specific. What would be a Resistance point that clients might have?

Internal Resistance points? Oh gosh. They can range from anything to they think they just can’t do it. A lot of people self-identify as being bad with money.

So they’ll get into a certain rut, and they just can’t identify as the type of person, like you said, that can step up and just do the work. So they’re just like, “I’m always bad with money,” or, “I can never do this.” They don’t think they’re good at math. They think they need to be great at math in order to budget.

And all of these things are just not true. It’s just finding the system for them. And I think a lot of people encounter fear, too. Fear of what—The amount of work it will take to make a change. Which is oftentimes a misconception. Does that make sense?

Yeah, and I would imagine too that money is a tremendously emotional issue, right? And it’s tied up, I imagine, with self-worth, and all kinds of things like that.

Yeah. Go ahead.

I myself have issues with money. So I can relate to who you’re talking to. I will say to myself, “Oh, I’m not good at that kind of stuff. I need somebody to help me with it.” And I know I’m wrong.

Again, it’s that sort of attitude of turning pro. If I were lecturing myself, I would say, “You used to get 100s on math tests. You can think of this. Just think of yourself as a money pro, and make that change in your head, and then it’ll be a piece of cake.”

Yep. Yep. I love that advice. And I want to take this. And I don’t know if I necessarily read this from you or not before, but what about external? We’ve talked about the internal Resistance. And what about external?

Because this is big in personal finance. Like people’s family and people’s friends, and this thing about personal finance being that a lot of people see the resistance as not only internal, but they feel pressured or blame or place a lot of the blame on these external forces.

Do you have any tips? ‘Cause I know I do this as a creative and an entrepreneur as well. I tend to blame my environment, blame my circumstances. And that keeps me from looking at the internal problems that I have. Does this make sense? I’m sort of rambling but I’m—

No, absolutely. In fact, I think one of the characteristics of a Resistance is that we tend to blame other people. I wake up in the morning, and I’m almost always in a really terrible mood. Coming off the freeway and I’m bitching at everybody. This is just Resistance.

I’ve got work I need to do today. I’m afraid of it. I don’t want to do it, so I’m projecting this outward onto other people and being a pain in the ass. But at the same time, there’s another form of—Where not only will you sabotage yourself, but people close to you will sabotage you if you try to change.

The one—The analogy I use in The War of Art is if there’s a bunch of crabs in a bucket, and one crab tries to crawl out of the bucket, the other crabs will grab it and pull it back down, ’cause—Did you by any chance see the movie The Fighter with Mark Wahlberg?

I have not seen it yet, no.

Well, it’s a great movie. I highly recommend it. But it’s really about this exactly. The story is, this fighter, played by Mark Wahlberg, who is managed by his brother, Christian Slater, or what’s—Christian Bale, who won the Oscar. And his mom. He’s trained by his brother and managed by his mom, Melissa Leo, who also won an Oscar.

And this story is about, as he gets good as a fighter, his family tries to sabotage him. They—The opening scene in the movie is they overmatch him, with a fighter that’s like 20 pounds heavier than he is. And the guy just gets his clock cleaned.

So the whole story, in my view, is about this sort of group sabotage, where he’s trying to overcome his own internal things, and his family’s dragging him down. And what’s interesting is, in the movie he has a girlfriend, Kay—whatever her name is, who stands up to the family. And it’s really an interesting story.

And it’s just—it’s scary how the creative world—and I guess just attacking your personal finances, and stepping up in the money world is the same thing as doing that in any creative endeavor.

But there are so many parallels, because exactly what you just went over, it happens to people so much in personal finance. They finally are able to step up and take personal responsibility, and then they also have influences that don’t want to see them succeed with money.

Right.

They like them right where they are, because it makes them feel better about themselves. They don’t want them to elevate themselves.

One of the—I’m sorry, go ahead.

No, what was your point there?

One of the things that I say in Do the Work is that friends and family can be one of our worst enemies. Not always. I’m not—But friends and family do have a vested interest in us as we are. Right?

And so they want to keep us as we are, and if we’re trying to make a big change, that can be threatening to friends and family. They say, “Geez, what if Adam starts taking off and making a million dollars? He’s going to leave us, he’s going to”—whatever. So they want to keep you right where you are.

Yeah. And I guess, to channel this into an action for people to take, again, does it come back to just channeling that in, and focusing in and turning on pro mode and doing the work?

I mean, is there any other way? Is that what it all comes back to, even—

There’s no real mystery about it, you know? It’s doing the hardest thing.

I was reading somewhere. Somebody said something that was just as simple as the trick to something—I forgot what—is just doing what you don’t want to do.

And that sounds so simple, but there’s—That’s where people fall down, particularly in our culture today, seems to reward instant success, no work, take a pill, buy this little machine and you’ll lose 100 pounds, you know? It doesn’t work like that. Life doesn’t work like that.

Yeah. Nope. I love it, your message. Simple, straightforward, exactly what I preach in the personal finance world.  And in your books and yourself, you’ve been a big influence on me. So I want to ask one more question, and then we’ll wrap it up.

And the question is actually for you to ask a question. And I do this—And we didn’t talk about it beforehand, but I like the people that I interview to ask a question of the Man vs. Debt readers.

So this doesn’t have to apply to personal finance. It can, but you get one question. I’ll ask it. And hopefully we’ll get some intelligent answers back from the readership.

Now say that again?

Sorry.

—of your readership?

You got it. What one question do you want to hear from my readership to sort of sum up the interview and continue the conversation?

What would be the worst thing that could happen to you if you listen to what Adam says?

Haha—I might change the end of that. But I love the framing of that question. What would be the worst thing that—

What would be the worst thing that would happen to you if you took good advice and followed it?

Exactly. Again, thanks Steven. I appreciate you taking the time out of your busy schedule to be with us today.

Thank, Adam. Thanks for having me. You ask really good questions. It was fun.

Steven’s Question For You:

*What’s the worst that could happen if you made the change you wanted?*

Share your comments below!

Xoxoxo,

-Baker