First, thanks to everyone for your support. It may sound strange, but your initial feedback in form of supportive words & sending me the 💸 to invest more into myself, the writing, and improving ~ wooohoo. It meant a lot. And it found fertile ground.
One day I will write about how difficult it is at the beginning. It's not easy to get the initial confidence to self-express, then share more and more stuff and not worry. I pretty much overcame this. But I guess I'll never be fully over it though. Not sure whether that's the case for many, yet, the interaction with the world (despite mainly online) gives me feedback and makes me realize how much I already went through.
I'm pretty bad at seeing the achievements, while I'm great at imagining how much I can reach in the next months or a year. It's difficult for me to dream long-term. I think that's fine in this turbulent age. So, that's why I wanted to make a quick summary of what changed & what was done in the first half of the year:
What changed
I got clear about my niche >> I want to promote freedom. It's the core idea 'behind' that's interconnecting my content anyway. I've realized how much we can broaden our opportunities, and that this is exactly what I live. This can be, seriously, life-saving, if you have some backup plans with a flexible mindset. I realized this when I left after the war started for a couple of months to Asia. Not everyone can do it in a matter of hours without losing their job, stability, and kinda everything. This is the 'behind the obvious' value that I want to make people rethink. I want to dedicate to this lifestyle (that's what it is, in the end) a book that I'd love to write in 2022.
Of course, I will keep writing about remote work & travels & some hacks :D because, in fact, they kinda improve your freedom anyway.
Achievements:
I improved in content bulking. I try to get out of my way and simplify my work, identify what's unnecessary & connect the idea across the platforms. To get a better reach, I also started focusing more on videos. I opened a TikTok account and a YouTube account.
I attended 4 interviews that will help others to rethink their opportunities. I am glad to spread the word and seriously improve the lives of thousands.
I hit 3mio at one LI post. Yet, I've realized that traffic is not my key issue at the moment. I must focus on product creation.
I got 10k followers on LinkedIn by the 1st of August.
I gave 2 (will be all 3) free 1-hour consultations to people interested in Remote work. In the end, we covered mainly the transition in work, the way how to increase the value of one-self, and such. It was super valuable to the guys and I am so glad to stay connected with the community as well!
I attended a top conference for content creators in Russian. It was truly motivational and helped me to rethink the way I write, present, and create content. Also, it was valuable from the management's perspective. I will implement the takeaways as I go.
I hired an assistant part-time. She helps me resolve mainly some operative stuff, but also with some research. This saves me tons of time and mainly mental energy I can invest elsewhere. I will create a video about this 100% because it changed the way I work a lot. She has, of course, a lot of freedom in terms of the way to work. I schedule her tasks for a week & for a month and we cooperate async. (When there's something very urgent, then we call, but it's not very common).
I bought a tripod :D
I bought lighting - this will improve my future video content, yay!
I also started voluntary cooperation with Liberland and I became their representative in Georgia. It will improve my network - valuable connections and possibly will lead to some future cooperation.
I read at least one book per week. It improves my writing, vocabulary, and mainly, perspective, understanding, and knowledge. It brutally helps me to get to the next level. So thanks, I will keep reading.
Next free content aims
I will keep creating one post per workday on Linkedin
I will focus on the short videos - some educational, some a bit of fun:) yet, I already have some footage + I will take some more. These will be on IG reels, TT, and YT.
I want to publish one post on the blog per week. It will cover some more broad topics. (Usually, my blog posts are pretty long :D)
In September, I will start my Twitter account with extracts from some of my articles or older IG stories that were inspirational/motivational. Or, some valuable thought :) This is rather to broaden the traffic on another platform.
I want to create more videos for YouTube (longer videos).
I want to attend one conference / interview per 2 months :)
Interested in anything else? Let me know!
Next steps I want to achieve outside the free content
I want to launch the online courses covering remote work from different perspectives - one for complete beginners (before even having the remote work), then another one for those who already work remotely but do not kinda understand its full potential - how it can be done differently, what are the needed steps and so forth.
I wanna write a book this year covering the aware broadening of one's opportunities in life.
What I want to invest into next
I want to buy a mic for a better sound: either Blue Yeti or RODE Wireless GO II (~ 300 $ / once)
I want to buy a paid version of Descript for the video edit - www.descript.com - it is AI-driven and will save me tons of time & will improve the output. (15$/month)
I want to buy a content scheduling tool to not be unlimited in the number of posts I can schedule & prepare things at once (from 15$/month).
I will continue paying my assistant ~ around 370$/month
I will keep reading one book per week (at least) - next, I'd love to buy the fs.blog mental models 3 books (each at around 10$ for the kindle), and I have many books on my reading list.
Thank you so much in advance for your support!
Take care,
Sam