#028 "Matt Ragland - The Journey to Becoming a Full-time Creator"

The Brandon Zhang Show

Today, Matt Ragland joins the show to talk about his recent decision to become a full-time creator, how to get better at bullet-journalling, and what goes into a perfect coaching experience. Matt used to work at both Convertkit and Podia, two companies geared towards helping creators turn their passions into a career. Matt has joined the ranks of the creators he used to help, as he decided to go full-time on his Youtube channel, a podcast he is launching next month, and his products, courses, and coaching.
Links:
1. Matt's Youtube
2. Matt's Twitter
3. Brandon's Twitter
4. Brandon's Website
Mentioned:
1. The Annual Review
2. Daily Journal Prompts
3. Matt's Courses/Masterminds
5 Key Takeaways:
1. A goal that I had, internally, was to be able to replace the salary that I had at Podia, three months in a row with what I was doing as a creator.
2. I turn down way more sponsorships than I accept and not just and it's mostly just from a fit perspective. But the sponsorships I do accept are all related to notebooks, productivity, productivity, apps, time management, time tracking, and that has been a combination of me outreaching and having a list of brands, as well as brands contacting me.
3. I feel like I have a huge opportunity to really start that practice [of creating in the mornings] for myself and be intentional at the beginning with what I do in the mornings. It was inspired by the Paul Graham essay "Maker's Schedule, Manager's Schedule," where I try and have a maker's schedule in the morning and a manager's schedule (taking calls, interviews, meetings etc.) in the afternoon.
4. Bullet journaling, particularly to me, the reason I like it is that it is very tactile, like having a physical product in my hands. And so being able to write ideas down, connects a little bit easier with me. Also, it's one less app that I have to open to like do a specific thing I do like, like all the research shows, like single-tasking works.
5. [On successful mastermind groups] But people in any kind of a group need to feel safe. And they need to feel like secure and open with what they're going to be talking about. The way that I talked about is like, almost everyone who is in the group is having, like, some specific, big issue with how they're doing work or you know, sometimes not doing work. And if we can't, like be comfortable with that, like if we're not secure enough to talk about those things. We're not going to get to the heart of the issue.