E279: 2019 Goals – Month 8 Update

Time truly flies. We’re just a quarter away from the holidays. That means a ‘goals update’ is long overdue. But, that’s not necessarily a bad thing as I get to cover a lot of ground and take you on the journey I’ve been on this year.

It was definitely an eventful eight months. I sold one of our best-selling brands, freed up my time, and am now able to spend time in the RV on extended road trips while doing the EcomCrew Roadshow.

There were misses here and there, but significantly more wins. If you haven’t listened to my previous updates, you can listen to them here and here. 

And now to the meat and potatoes of this episode. I’ve listed down the 19 goals along with their corresponding timestamps so it will be easier for you to follow along. 

1. Sell a brand. (3:52)
2. Position another brand for sale in late 2020. (4:38)
3. Getting back to location independence. (5:32)
4. Reducing debt to zero dollars. (8:04)
5. Hike the West Coast Trail on Vancouver Island. (9:01)
6. Take at least 10 weeks of personal travel. (10:59)
7. Record 6 or more episodes of the Roadshow. (12:53)
8. Invest in at least 1 ecommerce business. (14:16)
9. Lose 10 more pounds. (15:21)
10. Visit the Philippines office in 2019. (16:13)
11. Start selling our services for EcomCrew. (17:03)
12. Significantly improve the quality of the podcast. (17:50)
13. Film season 2 of the 5 Minute Pitch. (19:35)
14. Break each of our brands out into different companies. (20:40)
15. Start hosting personal events for EcomCrew. (22:09)
16. Speak at 6 industry events. (23:11)
17. Shift to doing things that only bring me immense personal fulfillment. (24:23)
18. Do intermittent fasting for all of 2019 and eat less meat. (24:59)
19. Not to drink the rest of 2019. (26:40)

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I hope you enjoyed this latest installment of the podcast. As always, feel free to leave a comment below. If you think this episode has been useful to you, please take a moment to leave us a review on iTunes.

Till the next one. Happy selling!

Full Audio Transcript

This is Mike. Welcome to episode number 279 of the Ecomcrew podcast. So glad to have you guys along with us today. And hello from sunny and beautiful British Columbia. Up here in Vancouver, it's a great time of year to be up in Vancouver, Seattle, any of these Pacific Northwest cities. I've gotten sucked into being up here in the past and almost moved here before we're thinking about it again after spending the last couple weeks up here. Its just a beautiful place to be in the summertime. And also, it's been a special trip and hanging out with Dave Bryant, Dave Coulliard, Mike Ketchum, my wife, Dave's family. It's been a really productive and fun trip, gotten a bunch of stuff done for Ecomcrew. Just been chilling out up here and enjoying the city. Dave was right in Vancouver proper and just walking around, getting good food, playing tennis, doing some hikes and things like that. A bunch of other things we'll talk about in the goals episode today, which is the topic for today. It's a long time coming. I feel like I'm a little bit behind on releasing a goals update. There's just been a lot going on with the podcast, too many episodes to fit this in. We did Women's Month, which was nine episodes in July and wanted to get this out before the end of August. So this was the last opportunity to do that. So we're gonna be going over all 19 of the goals that I had for 2019, making some great progress on these.

Some of them have been not such great progress. This is the problem with putting them out in public. But I think it's important for people to set goals and we'll talk about which ones are working and which ones aren't. Before getting into all that, I do want to remind everybody that we have a public webinar coming up on September the 12th at 10:00 a.m. Pacific Time. Now this webinar is going to be on how to develop products, product development. And if you've joined any of our webinars in the past, you know that they are packed full of lots of meat and potatoes and very little fluff. We try to do about an hour on the webinars, about 50 minutes of it is us just trying to do a brain dump and help the community as much as possible, about two minutes is a sales pitch. And then after that, we open up to Q&A, basically an Ask Me Anything style Q&A about what we've been talking about. So I think that they're pretty valuable. It's our way to give back to community. Again, 100% free of charge. There's no tricks up our sleeves, there's no upsell after you sign up or anything like that and you go to ecomcrew.com/webinar to register for that free webinar today. Again, that webinar is coming up on September the 12th, 2019 at 10 a.m. Pacific Time. Alright. So right after this intro, we're going to get into the 2019 goals update.

All right, guys, welcome to this episode of the EcomCrew podcast. And as promised, we're going to be going over 2019 goals. Again, the major theme that I put out for this year is less is more working on fewer things throughout the year, trying to reduce the number of things that I'm working on and doing more quality on those things that I'm going to continue to work on. And that's really been working well and we'll be talking about that through the Goals episode. And the other thing is doubling down on Ecomcrew, which we'll talk about as well on the podcast. And then the third thing is me working on me and just some personal goals that I've had. So we'll get into all those things that's just– but that was the overall theme that I set for 2019 and then set these 19 goals around that. So without further ado, let's dig right into the first one here, which was to sell a brand in 2019 if you've been listening to the podcast at all. You know that we sold ColorIt Back on April 5th, 2019 was the official transaction date and it's been pretty life-changing for me since that's happened.

Certainly not from the money perspective, it was really weird seeing this large sum of money come into the bank account, which I'm grateful for. Don't get me wrong, but I've had that happen before. For me, it was what it meant in terms of lifestyle and freedom and stress. And since that moment, it's been a much better lifestyle for us. It's been a lot less stress and things have been much better in that regard. So pretty excited about that. And the second goal was to position a brand for sale in 2020, still deciding which one of those brands it's going to be. But one of the other goals that we have in here kind of goes along with this as well. But just trying to get the most out of what we have working on increasing sales on existing skews, not working on developing new projects and things of that nature, just working on what we have. And it's worked really well. Our sales are up significantly this year with the things that we already have. We haven't launch any new products. It's all been focusing on what we have re-optimizing our listings, putting better photography up, doing keyword research, working on PPC, working on SEO for current projects and things of that nature.

And again, it's working really well. And then at some point later this year or early next year, we'll decide which is the next brand that we'll look to position for sale in 2020 and I'll keep you guys posted once we know what that is. #3 here is get back to location independence. And it's so funny. I think you always want what you don't have. The grass is always greener on the other side. And while we were location independent in 2012ish, this 2011-2012 timeframe, we wanted to settle down, be in a house which was great. And we end up getting an office which was less great and just kind of being stuck there. And over time, that really wore on me. You know, it's just everyone again, works in different ways better. I'm pretty clearly ADD and have a hard time focusing for long periods of time. And when it's time to take a break, I operate much better in that environment, I've been way more productive. My total volume of work has actually gone up, even though number of hours I've been working has gone down and I've certainly been working in sprints at different times throughout the day.

Waking up in the morning, getting stuff done and going out and doing something, then coming back and working some more in the evening has worked really well for me. But we are 100% location independent at this point. It's been pretty awesome. It's a pretty huge change for us this year. We've positioned ourselves to close the warehouse that we had in California. We only have one person left in the United States. We've moved to all Filipino staff for the most part, which has helped with location independence. We have sold our house, we have purchased an RV that we are running around the country in throughout the rest of the year, we're going to spend over in Asia quite a bit of time with the Philippines office next year. And we're just independent in terms of location. There is a lot of ups and downs. I might even record an episode about this in the future. Lots of people kind of pat us on the back and said, you know, awesome and I wish we could do the same thing kind of thing. And my response always is, well, you can, you know, if you set your mind to it, you can do anything. But there's a dark side to it as well.

I mean, it's hard to have the same kind of friendships in that world. For us, it's been really good. And again, stress levels are way down. Seen some really cool stuff. We'll talk about that throughout this goals episode because there's other goals that this ties to. But definitely happy to say that we are 110% location independent at this point.

Again, right now recording this in Vancouver, working just as if the same way as if I was in San Diego, going to be down in Bellingham and Seattle after this. Same thing, location independence, heading over to Torino and then down to Las Vegas. Able to work from anywhere as long as we have Internet, which is the one struggle when you're on the road, it's amazing how difficult it is still even in 2019 to have good Internet sometimes.

But regardless, we are definitely location independent, which is cool. #4 here is reduce debt to zero. This probably has gone a long way to helping with the stress reduction, which wasn't a goal per say, but I am definitely happy to say that we have zero debt of any kind. Credit card, cars, homes, vehicles of any kind, properties of any kind and all that stuff.

Anything that we own or have, even inventory, whatever it is, is all paid off. There is no debt. Definitely, totally different world from where we were before, where we had $1.3m in inventory, $70,000 in debt at our peak. And, you know, obviously other debt as well in our personal life and that's all completely gone now. So it's a pretty cool feeling. And it's amazing how just a few months can make such a big difference after the ColorIt Sale. That's certainly helped reach this particular goal. So pretty cool stuff for us and my wife as well. So pretty excited to say that #4 here is also checked off.

So, so far, so good here. The next one on the list is hike the West Coast Trail. That's actually the main reason that I was in Vancouver at the time I've been up here. Obviously again, it's been awesome to see Dave and hang out with him and probably would've made an excuse to do that anyway this summer. But having the West Coast Trail hike on the calendar forced us to be here at particular days. And we just got back from doing that, it was an awesome experience. It was honestly significantly easier than what I originally thought I was signing up for. I've done some other hikes in the past that have been more strenuous in terms of elevation gains and losses and just the elements and stuff. The biggest challenge on the West Coast trail is that nothing ever dries out. So every step you take, you feel like you're about to slip and fall down, every tree root, every ladder, every piece of boardwalk plank or whatever is pretty slippery.

We were actually keeping score of number of falls at one point. It is actually can be dangerous and there are evacuations every year, people that twist ankles or bust knees up or whatever from that. There are also some challenging parts where you're climbing, some ladders that are like three stories high and I'm kind of afraid of heights, so for me, that was a pretty interesting endeavour. But overall, it was mostly flat trail compared to other things I've done. We got blessed with amazing weather. I feel like we hit the weather lottery. One night, it was actually completely clear skies. We got to see all the stars. We were able to start fires on both nights around the trail. We did something like 36 kilometers, I believe was the total, trip over three days and two nights. All four of us guys that went set to do it. No one got hurt. Everything was good. We were all happy, I think. And it was just a great bonding experience and just a great opportunity to get out in nature and be in a spot where there was literally no cell phone service for three days period, end of story. There was just nothing out there, which is good, I think, to just kind of clear mind when you're used to being on the Internet all the time. So that one's checked off. I can rest easy the rest of the year knowing that the West Coast trail is now completed.

Alright, for my 6th goal, we have here at least 10 weeks of personal travel to visit Iowa and North Dakota, which are the two states I have not been to in the U.S. to this point and go to at least one new country. So I was planning on doing the Iowa/North Dakota thing. But as I was planning out the trip for the summer, it was becoming realistic that it was going to be like an extra thousand miles just to be able to cross this off and not going to see a bunch of other stuff that I really wanted to see. So what I ended up doing is going to Colorado, picking up some other friends that travel with me for a couple weeks, going up through Yellowstone. And those meant got to spend some time with Andrew Youderian from E-commerce Fuel, headed up in the Glacier National Park and then into Banff and Jasper over into the Kona Wine Valley. And then into Vancouver. It was an awesome road trip this summer and wouldn't have had it any other way. To go east just to be able to cross off Iowa and North Dakota on this trip just seemed like a waste just to be able to check that off. And it was more about what's going to be the most enjoyable trip and knowing that at some other point we can get the Iowa/North Dakota thing crossed off the list so. And then the other one here was one new country. Actually did that as well earlier this year. Of now, actually officially been to 50 countries. We went to Japan on our way back from Asia this last spring, I guess it was. And then going in to the end of the year, we're going to also be going to Thailand. So going to be getting another one in early next year. Also, Vietnam and Australia. So definitely feel pretty good about this. Unfortunately, not going to get the Iowa/North Dakota part done, but the 10 weeks of personal travel, the new country. I'm going to give us one a check mark, because it was elective to not go out of the way to do Iowa, North Dakota this time.

Alright, #7 here. Alright so for #7, we had recorded six more episodes of the Ecomcrew Roadshow, if you've signed up for that, thank you for signing up. Again, you can go to Ecomcrew.com/roadshow. The states that we'll be visiting throughout the rest of the year are pretty filled up but if you're in Nevada or California, there's a very good chance we can add you to the Roadshow, or Arizona. So Ecomcrew.com/Roadshow to sign up for that and what we do there is I come out and visit you for two days. Each day is a half day. First, going over your business, all the things you're struggling with and things of that nature. And then spending the second day helping people. We have a couple of those Ecomcrew Roadshows coming out, those episodes coming out later this year, which I'm excited about. And this is hopefully going to continue to improve the quality of Ecomcrew. Should be no problem getting to 6 of these by the end of the year, I think I've already done four. And again, if you're interested in being on the Ecomrew Roadshow, Ecomrew.com/Roadshow, it's 100% free and going to be doing some more of those in Washington and Oregon and Nevada, California and Arizona this year. So if you're in those states, please go over there and do that. If you're not in those states, still sign up anyway. I end up in random places throughout the year. Things like Austin, Dallas, things of this nature and Florida are things that are on the radar for the rest of the year. So you never know where I might be. Ecomcrew.com/Roadshow.

Alright. #8 here is invest in at least one Ecom business in 2019. Not sure exactly how this is going to play out. I have been doing this indirectly with something called KickFurther. You can go to Ecomcrew.com/KickFurther. We have them coming up on the podcast actually, which is an awesome interview that I'm excited to put out in September. And basically, it's a platform that allows you to invest in co-op inventory opportunities, which I have done. So I guess I've invested that way. But I think when I first wrote this goal down, it was going to be investing in some other business and helping them out. One of the things that came up during this trip is potentially buying another e-commerce business. So we'll see how this plays out in 2019. I wasn't quite sure what the goal was here, but I think that I've at least accomplished it indirectly through the KickFurther platform. Again, Ecomcrew.com/KickFurther if you're interested in that, either investing in other people's, other businesses inventory as a co-op or potentially getting funding yourself. And that's what the whole episode was about.

So it's really interesting stuff and I've been really pleased with the results for it on the investing side so far. #9 was to lose 10 more pounds, definitely can check this one off. I don't have a scale, that's one thing that I don't have with me, but pretty confident, just judging by the new clothes that I've had to buy that I'm 10 pounds down. I'd love to hop on a scale and just see where I am actually at, but I'm pretty sure that I've lost ten pounds just training for the West Coast trail. I've been doing intermittent fasting, been actually doing One Meal A Day for quite a part, last couple of months. I'm just eating healthier in general, that has not been easy to do up here in Vancouver. I'm sure it won't be easy in Seattle, but days that I'm out on the road have been a lot easier to– you buy healthy stuff and it's around you and that's what you eat. And also just been eating fewer meals. That's been really helpful in getting way more exercise. So definitely can check that one off, which is pretty cool and I hope to lose even more weight by the end of the year.

#10 is visit the Philippines office at least once in 2019. That one's already checked off, that one we did early in the year. I won't be making another appearance in the Philippines office this year, but definitely going to be going back in 2020. That'll be another goal that we'll put on the calendar for 2020. Each trip that I go there, it seems like we spend more and more time. This time we were there for two full weeks. I think the next trip will be even longer. It's always awesome hanging out there, I feel like we get so much accomplished. It's an intense couple of weeks of just non-stop meetings, but the results are awesome to see and definitely want to do that again next year and always encourage people to be thinking about hiring there. We have quite a few articles on Ecomcrew and podcast about this so if it's something you've thought about, just type in “Philippines” in the search bar on Ecomcrew.com and you'll find a bunch of information about that.

#11 is to start selling services for Ecomcrew. The idea here is we just– through Ecomcrew premium and obviously for the podcast and other things that we do, lots of people always asking us if we're for hire to do their graphic design or maybe some content writing or PPC and things of this nature. So we've been thinking about how we can structure this for Ecomcrew and charge a fair rate and make it something that's interesting for us. So we've been doing a couple test cases right now for some things that– for a couple of people, to do some before and afters and things like that for some graphic design and photography. And we'll see where that goes if we can get this checked off by the end of 2019 but that's something that we definitely want to do. It'll probably be an Ecomcrew Premium only thing to start with, just so we don't overload our staff and then potentially roll it out to other people later in the year.

Alright, #12 here is significantly improve the quality of the Ecomcrew podcast. This is going to probably end up happening by doing fewer podcasts. One of the things that Dave and Dave and I agreed on during this trip up here in Vancouver was to just do fewer podcasts. And this may or may not make some of you listening happy. We've asked this question before, how many podcast episodes would you like to listen to a week and we've gotten answers of three to seven. Sometimes it's kind of interesting but the reality is I do agree that the quality is probably going downhill a little bit just by trying to put out two per week. And so for the rest of the year, I think we're gonna try to just do one per week and try to make each one of the episodes higher quality.

So better quality interviews, better topics and things of that nature, putting more planning and things of that nature into each one of the episodes. So September through December, you'll be getting just one podcast per week in your ears. We're not sure what day of the week we're going to release those yet, but we're gonna move to one per week for the remainder of the year and we'll see how that goes from here on out and then we might make a change in 2020. Certainly there is no discussion of discontinuing the ecomcrew podcast or anything like that. This was not a matter of because the location dependence thing I talked about at number three or a lack of desire to do it or anything like that. This is just a Can we make a better quality podcast by doing, you know, less is more, which is one of the overall themes of the year, right. So I think hopefully we can accomplish that and we have some tricks up our sleeves for the rest of the year of what we're gonna do to accomplish that. And I think the roadshow is certainly one of those things. I think those are really good podcasts. We have some really good interviews lined up, things of that nature which I think you guys are gonna love. All right. So #13 is film Season 2 of 5 Minute Pitch. That one we wrapped up Season 1. I'm not sure what we're going to do with Season 2 yet.

We have a lack of consensus among the four of us. There's definitely a few of us that are really keen on doing a season two and then one or two that aren't. We're going to try to wrap up this discussion by the end of September. We're gonna be talking about again during Scott Voulker's event down in Texas called Brand Accelerator Live. If you haven't signed up for that yet and you are thinking of going, I would highly recommend doing that as soon as possible. There's only a few seats left. He just sent out an email this morning, think it's gonna be an amazing event. He's got some crazy, awesome speakers there. Definitely looking forward to meeting them and speaking there myself, which will be cool. I'm gonna be talking about the sale of ColorIt with Joe Valley from QuietLight brokerage and potentially the company that bought us might be there as well. Doing a discussion about that on stage, there's also just some other really cool topics. I'm looking forward to being a part of it and also all the people hanging out there. So we'll know where we're gonna be with Season 2 Five Minute Pitch by the end of that, I think. Number 14, which is to break each of our brands out into their own company. This goes with number two, which is to position the brand for sale in 2020. So we've already done this. We can do a checkmark for break each of our brands out into their own company.

It's been a lot more difficult than I thought it would be. It's a gigantic pain in the butt. So for me, it's difficult just because I hate dealing with stuff like this. I hate having to get on the Nevada Secretary of State website and create the LLCs and then, having to go to the IRS website and make EINs and of course, the IRS only lets you make 1 EIM per day and it just like all these like little particulars. And you got to go get a bank account open for each one and credit cards made for each one and it's just a pain in the rear end and getting everything switched over. It's just been not fun. And, you know, I like doing things that are more enjoyable in the business, but the reality is, is that we're way better off for it. We can look at our profitability per company way better, our expenses are all segregated way better, and we're way better positioned for, again, goal number three or two, which is to position a brand for sale in 2020. So by having things separated out, we won't have these arguments that we had when trying to sell ColorIt over what expenses belong with what. It's just all going to be completely separated and segregated. It's good for a bunch of other things as well. It does make it hard to share and co-mingle expenses, but we've just gotten better at not having to worry about that. So I would say this one is done, although there's some details to still clean up. Officially, we have broken out each of our brands into their own company.

Alright, #15 is to start hosting in-person events for Ecomcrew more regularly. We just did one of these here in Vancouver. We had about 20 people show up so thank you to all of those listening who came. I had some drinks with us and some bar food and great conversation. Definitely love having these meet ups. We have some amazing people in the community. Some Ecommerce Fuel members also came out. If you're not familiar with Ecommerce Fuel, I would encourage you to check out ecommercefuel.com. It's a private community for I guess, seven-figure sellers at this point. And so some of the people from that came out. Just a great meet up again, great conversation, met some people I had never met before, had some great conversations. And I wish we could do these more often and we're going to try to do more Ecomcrew meet ups, especially as we're going around the country, but they're hard to coordinate. We were lucky that Dave lives here and knows the area. And there's lots people up here that he knows. So that made it easier to get one up here scheduled. But we'll hopefully do another one of these before the end of the year. So stay tuned for more information on that.

Alright, #16 here is to speak at, at least, six industry events. I think I'm gonna be at least– I guess I should say, I'm going to be at six exactly this year.

I think I'm gonna cut this number down a little bit next year, it is actually quite a bit of work. You know, so it's gone from something that really intimidated me that I felt like it was a challenge to even be able to do it and be comfortable with it to something now that it's just a ton of work. Like I said, especially as we're more nimble and moving around like, you know, I had to book a ticket, for instance, from Reno to Dallas. And now I have this date on the calendar where I have to get to Reno by a certain date, which, there's just more pressure if you're some place and you're liking it. Now, I gotta get down there by a certain date and make that happen. And so these events become just a little bit more logistically difficult to deal with. I'm having to book tickets, you know, closer in and don't know exactly where I'm going to be coming from to get it done. When I had to go down to Austin earlier this year, I kind of figured on the map, Okay I'm going to fly from Calgary. And, you know, these things are kind of just again, just logistics make it more difficult.

So I think in 2020, there'll probably b`e a couple less events, but so far, so good. At least this year we're going to hit six, which was the goal. And we'll see what happens in 2020. Number 17, here is an obvious shift towards only doing things that bring me immense personal fulfillment. So just working on projects that I enjoy more and not feel like I'm not– that it's a drag, that I'm having to do it. We all have these things in our business that we have to do. And I'm under no illusions of having this perfect life that I might be living where nothing is a pain in the butt. However, definitely want to shift that from 80 percent of things I'm doing being feeling that way to maybe 20 so flip that 80-20 rule the other way. And I feel like we're on the right path for that. And I think we've definitely gone the right direction when it comes to this. And I'm pretty happy with the results of that so far. Number 18 here is to intermittent fast all of 2019 and eat less meat. Feel pretty good about this.

I think I've only cheated on intermittent fasting in terms of the 16:8 thing, which is, you know, I've been eating between noon and 8pm only a couple days all year. I really just don't have an appetite for breakfast anymore. I miss it from a social perspective, especially when I'm hanging out with our people. But most people are having three meals a day, which is understandable.

I used to be that way myself, and so, when you're just like, I don't want to go eat breakfast, it's like I mean, that's kind of a bummer. Or if you don't want to also eat lunch because I've been trying to do OMAD, which is One Meal A Day, it makes it tough from that perspective. But when I'm not faced with that, it's quite easy. And so I'm working towards compressing my fasting schedule from 16:8 to something probably more like 20:4 where I'm only eating during a four hour window within the day. So far, that's been what's worked best for me, I'm having something really small when I get hungry between 2 and 4 p.m. and then having the rest of my food some time before 8pm. It's been working really well, even something as small as a smoothie seems to tie me over and it's worked with Goal#9, which is lose 10 more pounds. I believe that intermittent fasting has been a huge part of that and I was actually talking to someone at the Vancouver meetup who skips a couple days a week where they don't eat at all. So they fast 42 hours, twice a week and I'm not going to even try doing that. We'll see, that's starting to push a little bit. It's hard to kind of get through the day without eating when you're not used to that. But the longer I go and the more I do this, the easier it becomes and definitely want to continue at a minimum, the 16:8 and like I said, push towards 20:4 or possibly just OMAD, which is One Meal A Day.

Alright, the last goal here, #19, not to drink for the rest of 2019. This was going so well and Dave is in the room as I'm recording this and he's snickering in the background because this has been, I guess the only way you can measure this as a fail, because not to drink at all means not to drink at all. And I certainly haven't kept up with this the way that I wanted. When I first set this goal, I set it because I legitimately thought that I might have a problem.

And this is something I'm always sarcastic and joke around about things. This is something where I always like to preface this by saying that this is one of the few things that just isn't funny. And yeah, I mean, I was just drinking a lot more drinking to really reduce stress or to kind of forget about the day or whatever it might be. And it was happening more and more frequently and to a point where I was like, man, I don't know if I can even stop. And so I did stop and didn't drink for about four months and realized just how easy it was not to drink. It became less of a challenge for me to continue to do it. And when I first made an excuse, okay, I'll go ahead and drink was the day that we sold ColorIt. The guys that I was with that day were like, well, we have to celebrate and we're gonna buy you a bottle of champagne. We're gonna have a toast and I was like, fine, I'll do that. It's one glass of champagne. And this is where the slippery slope part comes in. And once I did that then I was like, well, I kind of broke this goal for the year, I'm gonna continue to stick with it for the rest of the year. Then I get out of the Philippines and got peer pressured by our Philippines office to drink during karaoke night, which we do there every year. And that was the first time that I had more than one drink. And so since then, it's been very sporadic. I mean, most days I try not to drink at all, but there's definitely times where I have. And, you know, I want to continue to drink less and less. I mean, I don't really have the desire to do it anymore. I think that also just comes from the lack of stress. I mean, now that compared to before. So, you know, these things coupled together has definitely made it way easier not to drink. So I'm typically looking for reasons not to drink rather than to drink. I have not gotten drunk or plastered, as you might say, at all in 2019. The most I've had in one night has been three drinks and– but again, it's definitely a fail, I'm just obviously making excuses why this goal just didn't happen. And I feel bad probably more about this goal than any other goal that I've set and talked about on the podcast, because I know there's a lot of people that are rooting for me to get through the year without drinking, other people that have done a similar thing and other people who do have a problem that were probably, you know, kind of rooting along with it as well.

And I apologize to those people who are in that boat. And if it's ever something you want to talk about, please reach out, I'd love to chat with you, one to one about it. But, you know, I definitely internalize that myself not making excuses because, you know, I know that's something people do that do have a problem. But pretty clearly, you know, I just I can take it or leave it. But there are times where a cold beer taste really good or the wife wants to go to a winery like we were in Corona when we were visiting that part of Canada. And it's, you know, it's pretty difficult not to get sucked into that environment and have a glass of wine or two. Definitely way healthier approach to it than it was before. I'm going to try to continue that into 2020 and beyond, where just like I don't really want to get S-faced every weekend or several times a month cause it's definitely not healthy. So that's where that's gonna leave us off for the 2019 goals, 19 goals for 2019. Unfortunate, the last one here is kind of the bummer. I wish that #19 was in the middle so I could have buried that in here. But also I think it's important to be honest, just like I have been with everything else on the podcast through all the years, that this one just hasn't happened.

But I'm pretty, pretty happy that basically 17 or 18 of these goals are going to get done for 2019. And that's a pretty good track record, especially since some of these were pretty ambitious. So that's where we're at, if you've got any questions, comments, concerns, thoughts, want to comment about any of this stuff, we'd love to hear from you. Go over to Ecomcrew.com/the episode number, which is 279 so Ecomcrew.com/279 to leave us a comment about this episode. Love to hear from you like I said, if you want to reach out personally, like many of you have in the past about the 19th goal here, which is the drinking one, please do that as well over at support@ecomcrew.com, love to hear from you and discuss this goal. And again, don't forget about the webinar we have coming up here on September the 12th at 10am on product development. And you can go over to Ecomcrew.com/webinar for that, Ecomcrew.com/webinar to sign up for that free webinar, Dave and I am going to be doing an awesome webinar on product development that I hope you guys will enjoy as well.

Alright, guys, that's going to wrap it up for the 279th episode. Hope you guys enjoyed this update on goals and don't forget, nothing is wrong with your podcast player.

Coming up in September here, we're going to be doing one episode per week throughout the rest of the year. And hopefully you'll find that the quality is higher. And please leave a comment and let us know what you think about that as the year progresses. If you think that the quality is going up or it's unchanged or getting worse, which I hope is certainly not the case. And if you enjoy that more, if you'd like us to go back to two episodes per week, it's always good to hear from the audience and know kind of where everybody stands with that and what you're thinking. So again, appreciate everyone's support through all this 279 episodes of the Ecomcrew podcast. If you have an opportunity, go over to iTunes and leave us a review, Dave and I really appreciate that. And with that until the next episode, happy selling and we'll talk to you soon.