Hey, it’s Sean McCabe with a mini sabbatical episode. Long-time listeners know I take Seventh Week Sabbaticals, and have since 2014. When I take off that seventh week, I could just take a break from the podcast and have no episode go out on the feed. But the reason I do these mini sabbatical episodes is to remind you of the importance of rest. My hope is that when you hear me talk about being on sabbatical, you think about the importance of rest.

Now, I don’t always talk about sabbaticals on these mini sabbatical episodes. Often, I’ll talk about a random topic that may touch on rest in some way. But I’ve wanted to share more on the topic of sabbaticals. That is what my next book is going to be about. So I’m excited to share a new place I’ll be doing just that, and I’ll tell you where to go at the end of today’s episode.

I’m actually recording today’s mini sabbatical episode on the day it publishes. I’m in the middle of a 30-day challenge, and I wanted to wait until I had a few days under my belt so I could share that experience.

What if the most important thing of your day was the first thing you did?

For me, that thing is writing. Writing is the seed of everything that I do. It all starts with writing.

I was a night owl all of my life. I hated waking up early. So why did I change?

One day, I decided to log my output and run a test: do I write more at night or do I write more in the morning?

After several weeks, I had the data in front of me: I wrote twice as much in the morning.

Okay, so obviously I’d get results if I woke up early. But we still had a problem: I hated waking up early.

How do you wake up early when you feel like it isn’t something that comes naturally to you?

Good news: waking up doesn’t come naturally to me either! But I’ve developed a system that works.

I made a 3-month guide to waking up at 6am consistently that I share with you in today’s show. I’ll also share 5 tips for getting out of bed at 6am.

Welcome to Part 2 of our series on building your personal brand on social media. In Part 1, we explained how you have a personal brand whether you like it or not—and ignoring it doesn’t make it go away!

In Part 2, we cover four major platforms (YouTube, Instagram, Facebook, and Twitter) get practical about how to develop your brand using video, audio, and written content.

I break down the strengths of each platform as it pertains to video, audio, and written content.

To help you visualize it, this is what we cover:

• How to approach video content on YouTube.
• How to approach audio content on YouTube.
• How to approach written content on YouTube.
• How to approach video content on Instagram.
• How to approach audio content on Instagram.
• How to approach written content on Instagram.
• How to approach video content on Facebook.
• How to approach audio content on Facebook.
• How to approach written content on Facebook.
• How to approach video content on Twitter.
• How to approach audio content on Twitter.
• How to approach written content on Twitter.

We also touch on a couple of bonus platforms (email newsletters and podcasts).

Many people think “having a personal brand” means being that obnoxious person on social media who is full of themselves.

Those people definitely exist.

However, being obnoxious and having a personal brand are different things. Don’t confuse the two!

You have a personal brand whether you like it or not. It doesn’t even matter whether or not you use the internet, post to social media, or have followers.

You have a personal brand even with your small circle of friends. It’s how and what they think about you when you’re not in the room. It’s how they talk about you with others. It’s how they see you.

• The friend who’s always late to the party.
• The host who takes care of everyone.
• The shy, quiet person who keeps to themselves.

Every one of your friends has a personal brand and so do you.

You do not get to choose “whether or not to have a personal brand” any more than you get to choose “whether or not to have personal health”. You shape it, or it shapes you.

Today’s episode is meant to help you understand the personal brand you already have and how to go about developing it on purpose.

The key to success is to show up every day. You will not find a truly successful person who did not work hard. You have to put in the effort.

The reason passion matters is because you won’t show up to something you hate. You can’t just love the idea of something, you have to fall in love with the process.

Show up every day for two years. And it’s not that there’s something magical about two years necessarily, but things tend to click at that point. Two years is also the point at which you are likely to start seeing results. Don’t expect to see results in the beginning, but know that the results will come in time.

Things will never be perfect, but if you show up every day you will continually improve.

Don’t wait for motivation to start. Motivation is not a source but a result of doing. Showing up every day starts with a commitment, it’s that simple. When you show up and trust the process, the motivation will come. Do something every day that gets you a little bit closer to your goal.

Last year, I spoke at the first Craft + Commerce conference. My wife and I enjoyed the experience so much, we got tickets to go again this year.

(Spoiler alert: we already bought our tickets for 2019!)

I got to meet Casey Neistat. I’ll tell you the story.

We actually flew up to Boise, Idaho a few days early to do some hiking in the mountains (since we happened to be on a sabbatical week). That was wonderful.

But even with the likes of Casey Neistat speaking, conferences like this, for me, are all about the people. It’s the deep conversations over a meal or in the hallway that really leave an impression.

I’ll tell you all about that and more in today’s show!

You may have heard in the last episode, we’ve made all of the podcasts free and publicly accessible.

We already addressed and solved the issue of rewarding our loyal customers. Current Gold Members now have access to every program we’ve ever made inside their Vault. Past Master Class customers will receive over $1M in membership credit in total.

The real question is: why are we doing this?

People regularly say they have learned way more from the seanwes podcast than they did from college. The episodes are obviously incredibly valuable, so why give them away for free?

It’s a reasonable question. In fact, I asked myself the same question years ago and came to the conclusion that we should lock them all up in the Vault where people had to pay to access them.

I don’t fault my past self for coming to this conclusion. At the time, we’d built this massive content creation business (and team) around cranking out quality content in high volume.

Only… we weren’t making enough money.

We also didn’t monetize our content like the majority of people do with sponsors and advertisements. We didn’t have a solid business model.

So as a patch fix, we decided to stop giving away so much for free and start charging for the information we were providing.

But in hindsight, I see this as fighting a trend: information wants to be free. Information is more accessible and more affordable than ever and it’s not trending in the direction of becoming less so.

That’s what I want to talk about today. If information wants to be free, what does that mean for the future of business? Does that mean you can’t sell books or courses? No, but it does mean you need more than just information.

You need to provide transformation.

You’ve no doubt heard about Instagram launching their new long form video platform, IGTV. You can now publish videos up to 60 minutes long.

IGTV is built in to the Instagram app, however there also a standalone IGTV app you can use to watch and upload videos…

Portrait videos, that is. Yes, the platform is built entirely around portrait orientation videos. I was definitely skeptical at first (you might be too).

But I’ve actually come to love it. It feels really natural.

This is going to big BIG. There is a shift happening.

People in the Community who have been thinking about starting a YouTube channel are now saying they’re seizing this opportunity to embrace video and go all in on IGTV.

It’s an exciting time to get in at the ground level of an emerging new platform.

The engagement I’m seeing is incredibly HIGH. Thousands of video views in a matter of hours. It’s really something.

I just got back from a mastermind retreat, and I’m feeling clarity unlike what I have in years.

We are simplifying what we’re doing significantly at seanwes.

The feedback I received helped me realize just how complicated things are and how confusing it can be for someone looking for solutions.

Unification. Everything is going to be simplified and clear.

People who don’t pay us money are going to get more value. People who pay us money are going to get even more value. The people who have paid us the most money will get the very best value.

Finally, we as a team will have a simpler model, less stress, and greater focus.

I’m incredibly excited to share what we’re working on in today’s show.

In full disclosure, I actually was not planning to share any of this today. It’s all still very fresh and in progress.

However, I want to go back to our roots at seanwes. I want to iterate in public, document, and share the process. We’re taking you along the journey. The things I talk about today are not yet a reality. There is much work to do! But I thought you might appreciate getting a behind-the-scenes peek at what’s going on.