228 - Our 2024 review and 2025 preview

[00:00:00] Caroline: Welcome to Growing Steady, the show where we help online creators like you build a calm business, one that's predictable, profitable, and peaceful. We're your hosts, Jason and Caroline Zook. And we run Wandering Aimfully, an Un-boring Business Coaching Program, and Teachery, an online course platform for designers. Join us each week as we help you reach your business goals without sacrificing your well-being in the process. Slow and steady is the way we do things around here, baby.

[00:00:29] Jason: All right, cinnamon rollers, that's you. Let's get into the show. Here we are at the end of the year.

[00:00:41] Caroline: Welcome. It's the end of the year podcast episode.

[00:00:41] Jason: Yeah.

[00:00:42] Caroline: I love these episodes.

[00:00:43] Jason: Yeah, these are fun. I always love listening to a year-end review from someone love what people are looking forward to.

[00:00:49] Caroline: Well, it's fun for us.

[00:00:50] Jason: I want to hear all the plans that are not going to happen.

[00:00:53] Caroline: It's fun for us too, because obviously we do a lot of planning meetings and things like that, but it's just kind of like a casual chance for you and I to catch up and be like, wow, look back at the year. Where did we think we were headed? Where did we end up?

[00:01:05] Jason: Yeah, yeah, yeah.

[00:01:06] Caroline: And hopefully those of you out there listening will enjoy that.

[00:01:10] Jason: Right.

[00:01:10] Caroline: Getting a peek into our lives. And my biggest thing for this episode, because there have been years in the past where, yeah, we set a goal, and we nailed it, and things went really well. And I think we even said last year that 2023 was our happiest year ever.

[00:01:25] Jason: Yeah.

[00:01:25] Caroline: It was such a good year for us. But this year is a little different because I had such big goals at the top of the year, which we'll revisit and go over, and everything went off course and that's okay. And just as the amazing years are good to celebrate, the years that go off track, I think are really important to share as well, because that is life. You can't just control every aspect of your lives. We want to be intentional. We want to set goals. We want to know where we're headed, but we also want to be open to whatever happens and whatever curveballs get thrown at us. That's the Wandering Aimfully ethos.

[00:02:04] Jason: Mm-hmm.

[00:02:05] Caroline: So we're going to dive into that in this episode.

[00:02:07] Jason: Yeah. We've got a little bit of a format here that we follow when we do these reviews. And you can also find these reviews on our website if you want to read them at wanderingaimfully.com/articles. But we do what went well and then do a couple bullets and expand on that.

[00:02:21] Caroline: Mm-hmm.

[00:02:21] Jason: What didn't go well or what went off course. Do a couple bullets, expand that. A 2025 preview. What are we looking forward to in the next year? And then also our word for the year.

[00:02:31] Caroline: Yeah.

[00:02:31] Jason: And we've been doing some version of this basically for about 10 years now, which is kind of crazy. And I give...

[00:02:35] Caroline: That is crazy.

[00:02:35] Jason: Give credit to my friend Paul Jarvis because he was the first person that I had ever seen write a State of the Union, as he called it back then. And we've been doing these on Wandering Aimfully since, I think 2018 on that site and then before that on other sites. So at some point we should probably do like a 10-year look back on what we said in those reviews.

[00:02:55] Caroline: We did do a podcast episode that was like 10 years of entrepreneurship and 10 lessons we learned.

[00:03:01] Jason: Right. But this is more of like look back at that review and like...

[00:03:04] Caroline: Yeah. Okay.

[00:03:05] Jason: It's kind of like the...

[00:03:06] Caroline: React to...

[00:03:07] Jason: ...like my GQ. This is my filmography. You know what I mean? I actually thought that would be...

[00:03:12] Caroline: It's just like that.

[00:03:12] Jason: ...funny for all my crazy ideas to make a YouTube video and be like...

[00:03:16] Caroline: That would be fun.

[00:03:16] Jason: ...here was this idea.

[00:03:17] Caroline: The GQ style.

[00:03:18] Jason: Here's what happened, all that.

[00:03:19] Caroline: Totally.

[00:03:19] Jason: Don't have a lot of footage. I mean, I have some for something. Anyway, that doesn't matter. It's not why we're here. Let's get into the... You want to start with the goals at the beginning of this year, what we had stated?

[00:03:29] Caroline: Yes. I want to check back in on... You could go back and listen to our previous years if you want to. But just to set the context, here's where we left off at the end of last year.

[00:03:41] Jason: Yeah.

[00:03:42] Caroline: We were coming hot into 2024, and we were like, here's the plan.

[00:03:45] Jason: Yeah.

[00:03:45] Caroline: And it was really funny going back and reading our last year interview. And we were like... I forget how you phrase it, but it was like, we know this is going to be the biggest year for Teachery yet because we're going all in or something.

[00:03:57] Jason: Yeah.

[00:03:58] Caroline: Which funny enough it is.

[00:03:59] Jason: It actually did turn out to be the biggest year for Teachery.

[00:04:00] Caroline: It actually did, but not in the way that we thought.

[00:04:02] Jason: Yeah.

[00:04:02] Caroline: So here were our big goals. The number one big goal was that we really wanted to make Teachery the priority. It has been a side project for years and our goal was really to grow the revenue. We thought that was going to be through the monthly recurring revenue of Teachery. I was going to work on it. We were both going to work on both businesses, Wandering Aimfully and Teachery fulltime. Teachery is our software product. If you're new and you just showed up here. What are you doing here?

[00:04:26] Jason: Yeah. What's going on? How'd you find this?

[00:04:26] Caroline: Stay. Definitely stay...

[00:04:26] Jason: Yeah.

[00:04:28] Caroline: ...and hang out with us.

[00:04:28] Jason: Yeah, no, you can leave. You can leave.

[00:04:28] Caroline: But how did you get here? 

[00:04:31] Jason: It's fine.

[00:04:31] Caroline: So Teachery is our software product and it's always been a side business, so we were like we're going all in. And as we will get to that didn't... It did end up being our biggest year for Teachery, I would say, but not in the way that we thought. Okay?

[00:04:45] Jason: Yeah.

[00:04:46] Caroline: Number two, for some reason we mentioned at the end of this year, end of last year, we were very excited about switching from Drip to ConvertKit.

[00:04:52] Jason: Yeah.

[00:04:53] Caroline: And we did that, and I would say I'm very proud... We also ended up switching our website from WordPress to Framer, our front facing marketing site. Those were two big migrations that went really well. I don't think we have that as a bullet, but just like I'm proud of doing that and glad we did that. So goal, check, check. Continue Portuguese, which we did, we wanted to maybe travel. Didn't do that.

[00:05:15] Jason: Mm-mm.

[00:05:16] Caroline: And then the one that we didn't talk about that was like also really big on our list was we decided that 2024 was going to be the year that we got pregnant.

[00:05:24] Jason: Right.

[00:05:24] Caroline: We were going to try to have a kid. And as we will get to not pregnant, so we will see how that turned out. But just be aware that there is going to be a little bit of that combo. Not it's not going to dominate the conversation. But if you're sensitive to that right now, I totally understand and just wanted to give you a warning that that was going to be in this conversation.

[00:05:43] Jason: Yeah. And then our words for the year last year were "micro momentum for you."

[00:05:47] Caroline: Mine was micro momentum.

[00:05:49] Jason: Yeah.

[00:05:49] Caroline: And it was funny because I was like I didn't stay mindful of that the whole year at all. But I do think that it's somehow still through osmosis worked its way into my life because I do think I focused a lot more on just like daily habits. It doesn't mean like every habit was consistent. But just focusing on like one day at a time, one workout at a time, all of that.

[00:06:10] Jason: One life at a time. Yeah.

[00:06:12] Caroline: And it turns out that really also became very helpful with like all of the infertility stuff. And it was just like just try not to think of like the huge, big picture.

[00:06:20] Jason: Exactly.

[00:06:20] Caroline: Just get through this next thing hurdle that is in front of you.

[00:06:23] Jason: My word for the year last year... Well, for this year that I set last year was "revenants".

[00:06:27] Caroline: Yeah.

[00:06:27] Jason: And it was the combination of revenue and fun. And it just wanted to be a guiding principle for me to try and increase our revenue but also have fun doing it, some experimentation, which I'll talk more about. But yeah, I mean, I think did a decently good job of that. And again, like yours, and I think setting a word for the year, it's more really a word for the first quarter, if we're being honest, because after that, we all forget and move on.

[00:06:50] Caroline: Until you get punched in the face. Yeah.

[00:06:50] Jason: Exactly.

[00:06:51] Caroline: So that is the context of what we were trying to make this year about. Let's talk about where we nailed it and where things went off the tracks.

[00:06:58] Jason: Yeah. Cool. I'll just start with what went well in 2024 is our lives in Portugal. We continue to love it here.

[00:07:03] Caroline: Yeah.

[00:07:04] Jason: We didn't even really celebrate, but we just hit our two-year mark of living in Portugal a couple weeks ago.

[00:07:09] Caroline: Mm-hmm.

[00:07:09] Jason: And we did nothing to acknowledge it, but we're acknowledging it now. And super happy here. I mean, there's really nothing to complain about.

[00:07:17] Caroline: It's the best.

[00:07:17] Jason: And moving to a new country is a difficult thing. But I wish for all of you who are listening to this who have had that thought, I would encourage you to just go a couple steps further and I would encourage you to, it's overwhelming, especially those of you have kids. There's an even bigger hurdle that you have to deal with. But if moving anywhere else in the world is on your list, just know from two people that, again, I know we have a lot of things that are our advantage in that, but it's difficult for anybody and you just have to do it. You just have to get through it.

[00:07:50] Caroline: Yeah. I can't even put into words like how grateful I am that we took that leap. And I give so much credit to you for leading the charge on that. And of course, this is before we even knew how the election was going to end up this year in the states and all of that. But I think the place that you live has such an impact on the direction of your life. And I don't think we give enough credit a lot of times to the geography of things, but it affects everything. It affects your health, it affects the friendships that you build and the people you surround yourself with, which affects your mindset. It affects just the trajectory of your life.

[00:08:32] Jason: Yeah.

[00:08:32] Caroline: And so for us, I think this was the best decision we ever made, and we just continue to be so grateful that we made it.

[00:08:38] Jason: Yeah. And we did talk about, after our first year in Portugal, we recorded a podcast episode, so you can go back to that. But I think a couple just very quick things that might be helpful if you're someone who is thinking about doing that. We saved for years, and we kept putting money aside to have as a buffer to be able to move. So we know your financial situation might be very different from ours, but you can always set a plan and start saving now to build up some money for that. I 100% know that not everybody has the ability to move. And so, it may not even be in the cards for you.

[00:09:06] Caroline: Right.

[00:09:06] Jason: And I want to acknowledge that. But I think for a lot of people listening to this, you do have the ability. You're just so comfortable in your life, and the friction is so much more to think about moving than it is to stay and deal with what you're dealing with. And I just want you to know, on the other side of moving, with the bureaucracy of things and a different country with a different language and different customs and different people and all kinds of things that you're going to have to adapt to. I can tell you from our personal experience, none of that even matters when you just have a daily life that you enjoy, and you feel safe...

[00:09:38] Caroline: Yeah.

[00:09:38] Jason: ...and you feel like you can afford to live here and have a great life. And so, I just think all those things, I want someone who's listening this to hear that, who's on the fence about thinking about moving somewhere. It doesn't have to be Portugal. I'm just saying, anywhere that you have been thinking about, this has just two times now in our life we have moved, once across the country in the US, which not that big of a deal, but still we moved.

[00:09:58] Caroline: It felt like a big deal at the time.

[00:09:59] Jason: Yeah. And the second was obviously moving to a whole different continent. And that both of those moves have ended up being absolutely the best inflection points in our life to increase our happiness and just reinvigorate us to work on our businesses and give a whole new set of things to do in life that you just, like new adventures you get to go on and share...

[00:10:18] Caroline: Mm-hmm. And new challenges. And so, you feel like you're growing as a person, which feels very fulfilling in your happiness bucket. And I told Jason we were on the walk, again, not to bring it back to the infertility thing, but there's no way that I could have known what we were going to be up against just a few years later. And because I just feel so happy that we are dealing with some of these challenges here in this country. We love our doctors, healthcare is affordable. And I just feel so grateful that because we took the leap before that we knew that.

[00:10:54] Jason: Yeah.

[00:10:55] Caroline: We put ourselves in a position where this hard thing that we're going through isn't made harder...

[00:11:01] Jason: Yeah.

[00:11:01] Caroline: ...by a convoluted medical system and all of those things. And I'm not saying the medical system is perfect anywhere.

[00:11:08] Jason: Of course.

[00:11:08] Caroline: But I think we're in a much better position than we were when we were in the US.

[00:11:11] Jason: Oh, that was my other takeaway that I wanted to say. If you're someone who's thinking about moving, especially to a different country, there is no perfect move.

[00:11:19] Caroline: Yes.

[00:11:19] Jason: There is no perfect country. There is no perfect place. It's just like nothing will ever be 100 % check all the boxes.

[00:11:25] Caroline: Yup.

[00:11:26] Jason: But in the scheme of life, you're always going to have a couple boxes unchecked that will make anything not perfect. And I just have to tell you, from this is, at least from my perspective, but I think I'm speaking for Caroline, too. Like, we have so many boxes that are positively checked here that we had not had checked before. And all of the little things that just aren't as comfortable or as...

[00:11:48] Caroline: Convenient.

[00:11:48] Jason: Convenient or any of those things, they do not matter when you...

[00:11:51] Caroline: Compared to the big stuff.

[00:11:52] Jason: ...love where you live, and you love the little community that you have, and all that. So don't want to harp on that too long, but just wanted to share because I think it is such an important thing that we did, and it can get dusted under the rug because then we just move on, and we talk about business on this podcast. But I really do think it is a pivotal thing that we've done now twice in our lives that has proved to be absolutely amazing.

[00:12:13] Caroline: Definitely.

[00:12:14] Jason: Okay, next up, let's talk about...

[00:12:16] Caroline: Business.

[00:12:16] Jason: WAIM has continued to be the best business decision that we've made in the past six years, obviously. We started this thing back in 2018. And actually, even before that, Wandering Aimfully, we had purchased the domain, and we thought it was going to be a travel website...

[00:12:32] Caroline: Mm-hmm.

[00:12:32] Jason: ...where we were going to have a travel blog, which is so funny of us.

[00:12:35] Caroline: Cute.

[00:12:35] Jason: And then came together to combine our businesses. And we've talked about that a bunch before. But the thing that I really wanted to hit on here is, while this year is not going to be the most revenue that we've ever made for Wandering Aimfully, it's still past our first enough number.

[00:12:51] Caroline: Yeah.

[00:12:51] Jason: And it is still something that to this day, I remember in the second year recording that video where we were at like $9,000 in monthly revenue.

[00:13:01] Caroline: Mm-hmm.

[00:13:02] Jason: Or maybe it was like 6,000. And I just, I felt like we were never going to get to our enough number, which at the time we setting is over $30,000. And we got there and it's just a reminder that like, getting to your goals, whatever your goal is for your business, it's never going to happen overnight, it's never going to happen as fast as you want. But you just keep moving forward and you keep doing things and you keep creating and you keep experimenting. And then when something doesn't go right, you have a floppy launch. It's okay, you rebound from it, and you keep going because you really want to achieve the thing that you want to achieve and you're on a mission to do the thing that you want to do.

[00:13:35] Caroline: And it's about the journey and it's about the process. And it's okay if there are ups and downs throughout that. Like I think this year was such a powerful lesson in just how resilient WAIM as a business model is for us, because as we've discussed on the podcast, we still kept with our launch model. We didn't change much with it. We experimented here and there with like for example, the Calm Launch Formula in the Fall launch and making that the focus. And though it didn't compare revenue-wise to our best banner year, which was 2023...

[00:14:06] Jason: Which, by the way, just to put in perspective, it's a 9% difference.

[00:14:10] Caroline: It's a 9% difference, exactly.

[00:14:11] Jason: Yeah. It's not that different.

[00:14:12] Caroline: So that's okay. And it's like we learned so much this year. Not a day goes by that I am not so, so grateful for the way that we have structured our business and the predictability and the calmness that it brings us. And it's why we're so passionate about teaching people that there is this other way to do online business, which is having a calm, a predictable, profitable and peaceful business. Because so many people are out there trying to tell people to maximize profit at all costs, no matter what it takes to sacrifice your own lifestyle just to hit these arbitrary goals so that you can feel successful. Meanwhile, all of the things that have made you enjoy the journey have fallen away in the process and you're at the top of a mountain that you don't even want to be at.

[00:14:54] Jason: Stuck with a business that you hate working on.

[00:14:58] Caroline: And stuck with a business you hate working on. Yeah.

[00:14:58] Jason: Two things I wanted to share as well with WAIM.

[00:15:00] Caroline: Yeah.

[00:15:01] Jason: For those of you who don't pay attention to every single thing that we do.

[00:15:03] Caroline: Interesting.

[00:15:04] Jason: We upped the price of WAIM Unlimited from $2,000 lifetime price to $2,800 lifetime price to start the year. This was a, obviously, a huge change for us. Even though it's $800 is not like when you compare the two, it's not like we doubled the price of it. But we were really nervous at how this would be received. It was the first time we had ever raised the price and it was because we had invested so much into WAIM in six years. And while we had less sales per launch this year, again, our revenue was only 9% difference lower than it was the previous year. And 2023 was our best year ever because it was the final two launches with that price point.

[00:15:40] Caroline: Yeah.

[00:15:40] Jason: So I just want to share that because I think that's maybe a little bit of a nudge for those of you who are worried about raising your prices. We don't think you need to just raise prices to raise prices, but you should charge what you're worth. And I do think that as the economy shifts and you have things like inflation and all that, like your business does have to go up slightly to make sure that you can continue to cover all your bills.

[00:16:00] Caroline: Sure.

[00:16:00] Jason: So that's not to say that just raise your price because eggs are more expensive, but it is to say...

[00:16:04] Caroline: No. You have to make smart business decisions as well.

[00:16:07] Jason: Yeah.

[00:16:07] Caroline: And that was part of it for us. And as we'll talk about in the look ahead to 2025 when we talk about the preview, I'm really glad we did that because... And I'm glad we stuck to it because now I do feel like there's this opportunity for us to then supplement our offer stack with these offers that are maybe more accessible and approachable to certain segments of our audience that might be just getting started. They're not ready for the full financial commitment of WAIM Unlimited. But I'm glad that you really saw the vision of this is what its worth, like it is a lifetime deal. We continue to pour our heart into it every single month. We see people getting results. If you apply what you learn in Calm Launch Formula like our friend Leah just did, and 7x her launch, it pays for itself. Right?

[00:16:53] Jason: Yeah.

[00:16:54] Caroline: And so, I think it's just, it's a little bit of balance of standing by the value that you believe in your products and also recognizing where is the market, where is your audience. And so, if you need to fill in your offer suite with some things that are more accessible, you can also do that.

[00:17:08] Jason: Yeah. Okay. Let's move on to the next thing that went well, which was our first Black Friday/Cyber Monday deal in seven years, promoting our newest program, which is the Calm Launch Formula. And in our 2023 review, because I'm the one who typically writes these reviews...

[00:17:24] Caroline: Yes.

[00:17:24] Jason: ...when Caroline adds in some sections. We mentioned that we were thinking about doing a Black Friday deal last year, but it didn't happen because we had hit our enough number. Our two launches did so well, and we also were traveling and so there was just like it would have been forcing a square peg into a round hole and we didn't need it. And we talk about all the time like, yes, it's a very privileged place to be, to be able to leave money on the table, but as a business owner, you get... You know what? I don't need to make an extra $5,000 by giving myself 20 hours of work this week. It's okay. I've hit my goals.

[00:17:55] Caroline: Mm-hmm.

[00:17:55] Jason: So we started this year with no plan to do a Black Friday deal. It wasn't even on our radar. It wasn't in our grand plan. But when we released the Calm Launch Formula to our WAIM members, they loved it. And I think this is probably the most excited response we have seen to a program...

[00:18:14] Caroline: Definitely.

[00:18:14] Jason: ...in the six years that we've been doing Wandering Aimfully.

[00:18:15] Caroline: If we ever create a program in the future, I'm going to follow the exact blueprint that we did for Calm Launch Formula. These very digestible, very bite sized lessons, fun branding, AI prompts to help you with every step along the way. Like I think this could become a blueprint to do other tailored... Like whenever we figure out the content formula that works for us, I could see us doing like the Calm Content Formula, et cetera, and like use this as a base.

[00:18:40] Jason: Yeah. So yeah, we got such great feedback from our WAIM members this summer when we released the Calm Launch Formula and the fall. And so, we just decided that... And then we'll talk about more of this in the preview. We know we want to sell Calm Launch Formula separate from Wandering Aimfully as the first product that we've had on the side. And we had talked about this with the Notion starter pack which we released. It was in 2022, I think when we did that.

[00:19:02] Caroline: Probably.

[00:19:03] Jason: But that never came to fruition. We never ended up making a sales page for that or putting up for sale. So when we did the Black Friday deal, our low goal was 40 sales. Our high goal was 100 sales. We ended up with 90 sales because we just did a full episode on this that you could have listened to last week. But that was really just a proving moment for us of like, oh, okay, people are interested. And again, not just our WAIMers, but other people who bought that gave us feedback right away saying that they got such great value, and they were accomplishing more things in their business in 15 minutes with the AI prompts that Caroline created than they were in three months of trying to slog through it.

[00:19:36] Caroline: Yeah. So we're very excited. And again, we'll talk about a preview for 2025, but that went really well. We're glad that we did that, and we're excited to take that learning into 2025. And then the last thing, I think... No, three more things on this list of what went well in 2024.

[00:19:53] Jason: Yeah.

[00:19:54] Caroline: Tell everybody of how Teachery... This is kind of a combo because it's like, what went well and what went off course at the same time.

[00:20:00] Jason: Well, you can start with the what went off... Well, let's go with the what went off course separately, because I think they are separate. So let me just start with what went well.

[00:20:05] Caroline: Okay. Okay. Go ahead.

[00:20:07] Jason: Yeah. Because I like to keep it...

[00:20:08] Caroline: I know.

[00:20:09] Jason: We're clean, but family. And this is staying in butt arena.

[00:20:11] Caroline: I know. Okay.

[00:20:12] Jason: So what went well? The Teachery lifetime plan experiment, which we did not have on our radar to start the year. What we did have on our radar was Caroline was going to work more on Teachery. She was going to become a SaaS mom.

[00:20:22] Caroline: SaaS mom.

[00:20:23] Jason: And I was become a SaaS dad. And we were going to have our SaaS baby do really well. And one of the things that we looked at when we started this year was in January of 2023. So basically, almost two years ago, our recurring revenue was over $11,000 per month with Teachery. In January of 2024, we started this year, our revenue had come down to $10,300 per month in recurring revenue. So you're losing a thousand bucks.

[00:20:47] Caroline: And it was on a decline, I think.

[00:20:48] Jason: It is not good. And then In June of 2024, it got all the way down to $9,300 in revenue.

[00:20:54] Caroline: Which is the lowest it got. Right?

[00:20:55] Jason: Which is the lowest it has ever been. It's basically a $2,000 drop that is a ton for monthly recurring revenue. And I have in here, if you want to listen at home as like an audio adjustment, go ahead and add follow up while we're going down. And you can play that in your own headphones. I'm not going to add it into the thing because I don't feel like doing it. But anyway, we worked on Teachery together and it just, it didn't really work out. And so, in June, I basically said, you know what? I can see the writing on the wall. Like I'm hearing from customers, they don't want to pay for SaaS anymore. I can see Teachery's revenue is declining. One of the other things that I saw was the amount of time that people were staying customers what used to be like 24 months on average got dwindled down to like 12 months. So it's like, okay, customers are canceling a lot faster because they're realizing like this isn't the right tool for them or what have you. So in June, we started, we brought the lifetime plan back, which we did have in 2015 to 2017, it existed. And we tested different price points every two weeks and so talked about this more in another podcast episode, but basically went from $400 or $600 starting point down 50 bucks every two weeks down to 400. And the way that it worked out was the $550 price point was the one that basically had the most sales. And during that little testing period that we did, we had 25 total lifetime sales, and it was $13,000 in extra revenue. So obviously, it's not monthly recurring revenue because it's just a one-time payment. But I was like, okay, this is a really interesting result of this experiment. And then, I didn't even think to do it, but I did it afterwards. I looked at the average customer lifetime value and over the past two years it was $557. So it was like...

[00:22:38] Caroline: So funny.

[00:22:38] Jason: ...oh, very interesting how that all worked out. So fast forward to the end of the year. As of recording this, we will basically bring in an extra $100,000 in revenue...

[00:22:48] Caroline: Wow.

[00:22:49] Jason: ...on top of what is still around $9,000 in recurring revenue for monthly and annual subscribers. So Teachery for the first time will make over $200,000 this year. That is the first time it has ever made over $200,000. So it is the best year so far...

[00:23:02] Caroline: Yes.

[00:23:02] Jason: ...forever for Teachery.

[00:23:03] Caroline: It is the year of Teachery. We just...

[00:23:05] Jason: And went about it a really weird way. 

[00:23:07] Caroline: I want to pause here because, and I know you're not going to like this because we're going to jump around. But I think the lesson is really important, which is we're telling you what went well this year, and it was this Teachery lifetime experiment. But what's very important to notice is that this experiment would not have happened if things didn't go poorly first.

[00:23:23] Jason: Right.

[00:23:23] Caroline: So the first quarter of the year, like we mentioned, we are firing on all engines. It's going to be all in on Teachery. And I was giving it my all. I was trying to be a SaaS mom like you said. I was like...

[00:23:36] Jason: Did you say you were like a SaaS mommy?

[00:23:37] Caroline: I would never say that. Please don't ever say that again. But I was really trying to put on this hat of running this software as a service business. I was really looking forward to the challenge of it. I got us all set up with our metrics. Like I had my own plan. Right? We can talk about it in the later sections of why that was a not a good fit for me.

[00:23:57] Jason: Yeah.

[00:23:57] Caroline: But the results did not bear out any of the things we were doing. Then we tried to we were going to do all this content that was going to be the marketing for Teachery. We were going to see that, the results from that didn't bear out because also life hit us in the... That was when all of the miscarriages happened. And I was like, okay, well, this content extravaganza is not sustainable. Doing content for two businesses is not sustainable. So it's like everything that I was trying, I was putting so much effort in trying to force a square peg into a round hole and really trying to go out there and assert my will on results and trying to make results happen. And every time it felt like I was trying to put more and more effort, I was getting less and less in return. Until all of that, I just finally got exhausted and said, this isn't working. And that is such a blessing in disguise when that happens. Because almost when you go down that route and you go, I can't do this anymore, you become so much more open to experimentation because you just go, well, none of this effort is working, so why don't I try something off the wall? And this is when you were like... I was like, I need to take a step back. And you're like, okay, cool, I'm going to step up. I don't want to do content. So what do you think about this lifetime idea? And we had a couple conversations about it, and I just said, run with it. Just go for it.

[00:25:14] Jason: Yeah.

[00:25:14] Caroline: And we both worked on the lifetime testing together with the site and everything. But we never land on this direction for Teachery if we don't first have those things that didn't work out.

[00:25:25] Jason: Exactly.

[00:25:25] Caroline: And so, I'm just sharing that because you listening to this right now, you might be at the end of this year and be like, I was trying so hard to grow my Instagram or I was trying so hard to grow my email newsletter or trying so hard to get this business off the ground. And it felt like the more effort I put towards it, the less results I was getting. Okay. That happened.

[00:25:43] Jason: Yeah.

[00:25:43] Caroline: But now can you maybe take it as a dead end? Take a step back and go, great, now anything's possible. Let me try something completely off the wall. Let me do something different. Let me care less, you know what I mean?

[00:25:55] Jason: Mm-hmm.

[00:25:55] Caroline: Like, let me have a more playful approach to it. Because the way that perhaps you've been going at it with such a rigid and I would say results focused and hustle mentality, if that's not working, then you become free to try something different.

[00:26:10] Jason: Yeah. And I think the biggest thing for me this summer was just zigging when everybody else is zagging with Teachery.

[00:26:17] Caroline: Yeah.

[00:26:17] Jason: And so, you see all these bigger course platforms that have investors, and they have money milestones that they have to hit to like cut dividends and do things. And like, they can't introduce a lifetime plan.

[00:26:28] Caroline: Yeah.

[00:26:28] Jason: That completely screws their business model. But we're a smaller company and like, we can do whatever we want. And so, I think for you listening to this, you might be selling a service, you might be selling a product, and you're just copying the way that all of the other people in your market are doing it. But like, could you just go a completely different direction and actually see the numbers still work out in your favor? And that could be charging less. I know we just mentioned about raising prices, but like it could be charging less, but like supplementing it in a different way. It could be charging more, but having it be like a one-time payment or something like that. So just a little encouragement there to think outside the box. Don't just keep doing things the same way forever. And I'm actually very excited because I think the next year for Teachery, I definitely believe it's going to be bigger revenue-wise. And I'm already thinking of like all the different ways that we can promote Teachery being the only course platform that's a lifetime sole platform. And just all of our competitors can... We're going to get business away from them, but I just care more that people feel like they're getting a great deal and that we're getting the revenue that we want.

[00:27:26] Caroline: Definitely.

[00:27:27] Jason: Okay, next up on what went well to finish this out here. Stayed consistent with exercise.

[00:27:32] Caroline: Wow. This is my favorite first year ever working with a trainer.

[00:27:36] Jason: Yeah, we upgraded you to a trainer.

[00:27:36] Caroline: I upgraded to a trainer. I...

[00:27:40] Jason: Well, here, let's give a quick timeline.

[00:27:41] Caroline: Okay.

[00:27:42] Jason: 2019, hated exercise.

[00:27:45] Caroline: I hate... Loathed exercise.

[00:27:46] Jason: Probably worked out one to two times a week, if possible.

[00:27:50] Caroline: If possible.

[00:27:50] Jason: But absolutely hated it.

[00:27:51] Caroline: Hated.

[00:27:52] Jason: 2020, we all know what happened, but we created a tiny little home garage gym.

[00:27:56] Caroline: Yes.

[00:27:57] Jason: And you turned the beat around.

[00:27:59] Caroline: 2021 is when I did my goal of exercising every day.

[00:28:04] Jason: Yeah.

[00:28:04] Caroline: That became my goal.

[00:28:05] Jason: But in 2020, I would say you shifted away from "I hate this so much"...

[00:28:10] Caroline: Yeah.

[00:28:10] Jason: ...to "I can do this."

[00:28:11] Caroline: Yes.

[00:28:11] Jason: Then 2021, you were like, oh...

[00:28:13] Caroline: I can really do this.

[00:28:14] Jason: Okay. That's...

[00:28:14] Caroline: Yeah. And that was my goal, was like, operation don't hate exercise. All I wanted was just like to work it into my daily habit in a way where I did not dread it. And that worked. By the way, if you're thinking of a personal challenge to yourself, I think 10 minutes was my low bar.

[00:28:29] Jason: 10 minutes, yeah.

[00:28:29] Caroline: I was like, 10 minutes. If I can do 10 minutes. And I did walking workouts on YouTube and I did our little home gym. And like, I tried experimenting with a bunch of stuff and it was fantastic. And that really was a big step forward for me. Then 2022 fell off the game because we were traveling.

[00:28:43] Jason: Yeah.

[00:28:43] Caroline: That was hard. And then I said, okay, 2023, I'm got to get back into it. And I would say I was like fairly consistent.

[00:28:49] Jason: Yeah.

[00:28:50] Caroline: But this year I was like, you know what? It was taking up too much mental effort for me to have the self-discipline to do it every day. And for the first time, I was like I just want to try having a coach. And...

[00:29:02] Jason: Because me as a fitness coach does not work.

[00:29:04] Caroline: We have found out that, yeah, Jason as a coach doesn't work for me.

[00:29:08] Jason: Yeah.

[00:29:08] Caroline: He's my husband, not my coach.

[00:29:10] Jason: Yeah.

[00:29:10] Caroline: And luckily in our neighborhood, we have a trainer and a friend who trains other people in our neighborhood. And so, I would see him working out when we would go into the gym. And I was like, okay, I think I'm ready to try this. Best decision I've ever made in my entire life. We started working together in February. We work out three times a week for an hour. And when I tell you... First of all, I'm the strongest I've ever been.

[00:29:33] Jason: Yeah. You can do some pushups.

[00:29:34] Caroline: I can do pushups.

[00:29:35] Jason: I think you can do a full pull up by yourself.

[00:29:36] Caroline: I can do a full unassisted pull up.

[00:29:39] Jason: Yeah.

[00:29:39] Caroline: We're working towards 10, so it's going to take me a while, but...

[00:29:41] Jason: Of course. But yeah.

[00:29:42] Caroline: But my stamina has increased. Like, just my overall health has increased. Like, my resting heart rate is better. So I just feel like... You and I have talked about this a lot. I know not everyone is in a financial position to be able to hire a personal trainer. I absolutely understand that.

[00:29:57] Jason: Yeah.

[00:29:57] Caroline: But I'm sharing it because if you have been on the fence, I just think there's no better money you could ever spend in your life than investing in your health, because I think that that money comes back to you tenfold in your quality of life, in the lack of healthcare that you're probably going to need down the road. It's so good for my mental health and...

[00:30:19] Jason: And?

[00:30:19] Caroline: What?

[00:30:19] Jason: How good your butt can look in jeans.

[00:30:21] Caroline: And my butt looks fantastic.

[00:30:23] Jason: I'm just saying like metaphorically. Everyone's butt.

[00:30:26] Caroline: Everyone's butt.

[00:30:27] Jason: Yeah.

[00:30:27] Caroline: So that has just been a really good thing this year, and I'm really proud of myself for sticking with it. And like for example, we just did a workout today, and it was really hard. I was not feeling it. But the fact that I get in there and I go because I have someone, I'm accountable to, I would never in a million years have worked out today if it was just me. But because Nuno was there waiting, I was like...

[00:30:45] Jason: Nor would you have continued to work out as hard as you did if you were by yourself?

[00:30:49] Caroline: 100%.

[00:30:49] Jason: Yeah.

[00:30:49] Caroline: Never.

[00:30:50] Jason: I got to have a little bit of fun in that gym that we're speaking of, because the owner of the community that we live in had asked earlier this year, it was like, "Do you want to do anything to improve the gym?" And I was like, "Sure."

[00:31:02] Caroline: You asked the right person.

[00:31:03] Jason: Yeah. And so, basically, loosely designed some changes, we added a strip of like 30 meters of turf, so there's like black turf that we can push and pull sleds on, which I really love. And just added a couple of different machines and things, some big mirrors. We've got a chalkboard wall now, and it feels like the gym is 10 times cooler now, which is great.

[00:31:25] Caroline: Yeah. It's fun to go to.

[00:31:26] Jason: So that was just fun that I don't think I ever would have gotten to be a part of a small community gym, and I'm helping choose the different things are going with it and it just makes it all the more enjoyable, so.

[00:31:36] Caroline: Benefits of investing in the community.

[00:31:38] Jason: Yeah. Okay. The final thing here in the what went well. I added this into our review last year and I really like this because I like hearing these things from other people, so I'm sharing them for us as well. It is the best purchases that we made in 2024.

[00:31:49] Caroline: Okay.

[00:31:49] Jason: One for Life, one for business. And we're not all about buying things, but we all know that there are some things that make a big impact on your life. For you, ma'am, your best life and your best business purchase.

[00:31:59] Caroline: I already said this, but the best money I spent this year by far is hiring a personal trainer.

[00:32:03] Jason: Yeah. Shout out to Nuno.

[00:32:04] Caroline: And it had the biggest impact and will have an impact on my life for years to come.

[00:32:08] Jason: How long do you think you're going to work with Nuno?

[00:32:10] Caroline: As long as he'll have me.

[00:32:12] Jason: Have you? Really.

[00:32:13] Caroline: As long as he'll have me.

[00:32:13] Jason: You think so?

[00:32:14] Caroline: Yeah.

[00:32:14] Jason: Okay. And then your best business purchase, was this hard to choose?

[00:32:17] Caroline: This was hard to choose. So I didn't choose, I would say either upgrading to the paid version of ChatGPT.

[00:32:24] Jason: Yeah.

[00:32:24] Caroline: Or what is it? Pro, I guess they call it.

[00:32:26] Jason: Yeah.

[00:32:27] Caroline: Or I thought I might have written this last year, but I don't think I did. But by far, the thing that I pay for that I'm the happiest to pay for every month is Canva Pro.

[00:32:35] Jason: Mm-hmm.

[00:32:36] Caroline: When I tell you that Canva has changed my life, I use it for everything in our business. And I fought it for a really long time because I thought it was like I was an Adobe girl. I was working in Adobe and like I would do Keynote for our coaching sessions, and then Canva just, they continue to up the game and I just love it, and it saves me so much time, makes me feel creative. Best money I spent.

[00:32:59] Jason: Your best business last year was Icons8.

[00:33:02] Caroline: Yeah.

[00:33:03] Jason: That was your pick last year. Okay. For me, my best life purchase...

[00:33:07] Caroline: Which, by the way, I don't pay for Icons8 anymore because I don't need to because Canva.

[00:33:09] Jason: Wow. Many of you are going to know this because you also purchased this thing from listening to this podcast and maybe just seeing it on TikTok over and over again.

[00:33:18] Caroline: Because you're an influencer.

[00:33:18] Jason: The Ninja CREAMi.

[00:33:19] Caroline: You're an ice cream influencer.

[00:33:20] Jason: I've made 100 pints of ice cream this year with the Ninja CREAMi. And I continue to make them, I continue to eat them. The only reason I'm not eating it that much now, twofold, it's cold outside. Not the best time to ice cream. But number two, there's so many baked goods flying around this house. So...

[00:33:34] Caroline: So many baked goods flying around.

[00:33:35] Jason: I am still using the CREAMi because the one I make that apple pie, guess what it needs? A scoop of ice cream on top.

[00:33:40] Caroline: Do you think that you'll make biscuits soon?

[00:33:43] Jason: Okay. Interesting time to bring that up. How about you make some biscuits?

[00:33:48] Caroline: What?

[00:33:48] Jason: And then my best business purchase was definitely us switching from Drip to ConvertKit.

[00:33:53] Caroline: Yes.

[00:33:54] Jason: I remember, and I...

[00:33:56] Caroline: Excuse you, Kit.

[00:33:57] Jason: Excuse me, Kit. I'm going to have a hard time switching to Kit. I remember seeing those monthly statements come in for Drip and just not liking that we were paying for that platform. And I know you listen to this, have some of those things that you have make the switch. I know it's hard. It was hard for us to move.

[00:34:15] Caroline: It was a big project.

[00:34:15] Jason: 12,000 subscribers, 279 tags, all these automations and everything. Big shout out to Natalie who helped us move as the migration team over at ConvertKit, but that is one, big...

[00:34:26] Caroline: That is a huge accomplishment for this year.

[00:34:29] Jason: Well, the website and the email list being moved over.

[00:34:32] Caroline: Totally.

[00:34:32] Jason: Those are big things. All right. What didn't go well? Let's shift the vibe, huh? What do you think? Let's just like, let's just trauma dump on everybody.

[00:34:39] Caroline: No, we're not going to trauma dump. However, warning, we are going to talk at the top here about our fertility journey. So if you don't want to hear about that, give it a nice little fast forward. The biggest thing that didn't go well this year. I thought I'd be pregnant by now.

[00:34:54] Jason: Yeah.

[00:34:54] Caroline: I'm just going to be honest with you. Really thought I would. We fully anticipated that our goal was like first half of the year, go hard on business and get things all set up. We were going to see big early signs of Teachery doing well, we were going to see that revenue increase, then we were going to try to get pregnant and it was going to work out perfectly, and boom, bada bing, bada boom. No, no, no, no, no. That's not how life works out. I do want to say it's not like I was delusional in thinking that we were just going to like, it was going to happen right away.

[00:35:24] Jason: But I think we had some signs from...

[00:35:26] Caroline: We did. I don't think we've shared that much about this on the podcast, so I'm happy to do a future episode about this. But in 2023, we froze embryos.

[00:35:36] Jason: Yeah.

[00:35:36] Caroline: So we basically went...

[00:35:38] Jason: And for those of you who don't know what that means.

[00:35:40] Caroline: Yes. We went through basically the IVF process here. So you take some drugs, they basically harvest your eggs however many they can get. Then we opted for not just freezing my eggs, but because we're together and we know that we...

[00:35:57] Jason: You want my goods is what you're saying.

[00:35:59] Caroline: I want your goods. We went ahead and fertilized those eggs so that they become embryos, and then you can freeze those embryos, which has a better shot at that point in the process of becoming...

[00:36:09] Jason: Right.

[00:36:10] Caroline: ...ending in what they call live birth. Right? And so, a lot of my choice to do that was this timing thing, because you and I had many conversations about waiting to have kids. I was starting to feel the pressure biologically of my time. I didn't want that to be the reason that we made a timing decision around when to have kids. Like I wanted us both to be fully on board. And so, my compromise was like, okay, let's sort of like, freeze time, if you will, and we'll do embryo freezing, and that way we won't have this big pressure looming over us. Well, thank goodness we did that.

[00:36:42] Jason: Well, and also, the point that I wanted to bring up with that was in doing that, we found out that you have very good eggs.

[00:36:46] Caroline: Yes.

[00:36:47] Jason: And I have very good sperm.

[00:36:48] Caroline: Yes. He just means yes. It was very successful for us.

[00:36:53] Jason: Yeah.

[00:36:53] Caroline: And so, we felt like, great. That gives us a good indication that maybe this will be not a challenge for us. The thing that I had prepared myself for was it might take a few months or whatever. And so, I was preparing for that. What I did not prepare for was that staying pregnant would be hard for us.

[00:37:11] Jason: Mm-hmm.

[00:37:12] Caroline: And so, it has just been such a rollercoaster ride of imagine you wait all this time, we waited so long to have kids. We get pregnant the first month, we lose the pregnancy.

[00:37:23] Jason: Yeah.

[00:37:23] Caroline: I'm like, whoa, emotional whiplash. We try again, we get pregnant the third month, we lose the pregnancy. Like it's just been this crazy rollercoaster of the thing I did not prepare for was the staying pregnant, and that being the issue. Now, what I will say is I'm very grateful that we found out what the issue is. We did a whole episode on that. I have two blood clotting conditions that's likely what is leading to the early losses. And so, we have a treatment plan for that. But I would be lying if I said that the curveball of it all isn't challenging at times.

[00:37:59] Jason: Yeah, for sure.

[00:37:59] Caroline: And I think that 90% of the time, I live in this optimistic place where I make peace and I accept that this is our path and our journey, and I can find peace in that, and I can find all the silver linings that I want. And then there's a 10% of the time where I just feel my feels. The timing is excruciating. The heartbreak is excruciating. I want this thing so badly that I can't have right now, and that hurts. I'm fearful for what if it doesn't work? And what if this and that. And I would say that's 10... Maybe not 10%, 5% of the time, which I think is totally to be expected. And it's just been a little bit of a rollercoaster to live in.

[00:38:43] Jason: Yeah. Yeah. I mean, leading up to it, I think we were both like, all right, well, we feel like this will work out and it will be okay for us. And you have friends who get pregnant fairly easily, and so you're like, okay, well, we'll be like that. And then to not have that happen, obviously, it's a big curveball, and it just, it adds a lot of complexity to other decisions you're trying to make and other things you're trying to do and just going through daily life. It's like we show up for a coaching call every month for our members, and it's like, if the day before you're having a situation and it's really terrible and you feel awful, but then we need to flip on the camera, that it makes it very tough. And so, I think it's just been a lot of difficult challenges to navigate. And we know that a lot of you listen to this, have dealt with your own fertility journey things because so many of you reached out after we shared that episode, and we appreciate all those kind words. And we're just going to keep trying.

[00:39:37] Caroline: Totally. And yeah, we reassess every month. And I'm sure we'll be on here and keep you clued in on the process, just because it is very healing both ways, both for me to share, because it can be very isolating to go through this, and people don't want to ask, and I understand that. So it's healing in that sense of I get to just share and express. But also, I think for those of you who are listening who might be going through something similar to know that you're not alone also.

[00:40:06] Jason: Yeah.

[00:40:07] Caroline: And that it's harder for some people, and that's okay. And I try not to spend my time in the place of why me or why us or why is this harder for us? Because everyone has a challenge in life, not just around fertility, but everyone gets dealt different cards. And so, rather than focusing on why did I get dealt these cards, I just try to ask myself, what can I do with these cards?

[00:40:32] Jason: Mm-hmm.

[00:40:33] Caroline: What is this here to teach me? And like I said, I try to make space to also feel the hurt of that and feel the feelings, but just sort of not stay there in that cave because it doesn't get me anywhere that I want to be. And I told Jason that we're on the journey right now, and the biggest thing that I want is not to look back and think that all of this time, the waiting, so to speak, the uncertain time, I don't want to feel like that was wasted time. Like I only get to do life this one time, and I don't want to feel like it could be a year, it could be two years, it could be three years. I don't know what the journey holds for us, but I don't want to look back on my life and say that those three years were just lost to the sands of time, and I was a shell of myself, and I was sad all the time. I don't want that.

[00:41:13] Jason: Yeah.

[00:41:14] Caroline: So I'm trying to make the best of it. I'm trying to just see what silver linings I can find along the way. And I know that there's going to come a day where we get to meet whoever that person is. And I say to myself, man, it was all worth it.

[00:41:31] Jason: Yeah.

[00:41:31] Caroline: I know. And so, I just went on my toughest days, I focus on that future that I'm working towards.

[00:41:37] Jason: Right. And if absolute last case scenario, we end up with nine dogs. Absolute last case scenario.

[00:41:41] Caroline: And honestly, that's not a bad case scenario.

[00:41:46] Jason: If that's the worst case, we're going to have nine dogs.

[00:41:48] Caroline: It's very true.

[00:41:48] Jason: So that'll make up for it.

[00:41:49] Caroline: Very true.

[00:41:49] Jason: All right. Smooth transition. The other thing that we put on the what didn't go well list is that we didn't travel much in Europe. And I think for me, this is just like a, we've moved to this continent with all these different countries that we want to see and there's so many possibilities, and there's so many great places, and there's so many cities that are on our list, and there's just so many things to see. And it feels like we're sitting here not seeing any of that, and it's not like it's going to go away. They've all been here for a long time, and they're going to still be around for a long time. But it does make you feel like, well, we're here, why didn't we go spend a week and Slovenia or why didn't we go to Prague and have a week there? This year, obviously, our main focus, I think, was on the fertility part of the journey. And so, it would have been very difficult to travel, and that's okay. I just share this as like a you can even move to a place and have all these opportunities, but still not do those things because life gets in the way, and that's okay. It's not a huge deal.

[00:42:52] Caroline: And I think it's also sitting back and going, is this something that I want to do or is this something that I think I should do?

[00:43:00] Jason: Right.

[00:43:01] Caroline: And that's where I think travel fell for us a lot this year, is we... You even said it, you feel like we live in this place where it should be easier to travel, and these things are more accessible to us, and so shouldn't we want to do that? But the truth is but we love living here, and do I want to get on a plane? Maybe not. That said, though, you and I both have conversations where it's like, we could maybe go a little bit further in terms of being more intentional about planning some adventures. Not just we love our house so much, we love our neighborhood so much, but not just being homebodies all the time.

[00:43:34] Jason: And I do think the traveling every single week for almost an entire year in 2022, it's like anything else. Like it just burned us out a little bit on it.

[00:43:42] Caroline: Totally.

[00:43:42] Jason: So it's like, even in the moments where I'm like, okay, I want to go to the lake in Italy and spend a week in an old villa and eat at the local restaurant down the street, and I'm like, yeah, but I don't really want to get on a plane. I don't want to have to deal with that. I don't want to book everything. I'm like we did so much of that in 2022. And again, Tiny Violin is playing right now, but...

[00:44:01] Caroline: Of course.

[00:44:01] Jason: ...I'm just sharing that. Okay. So we can keep moving on from there. Let's get to the Teachery. You are not meant to be a SaaS mommy.

[00:44:11] Caroline: Ew, buddy...

[00:44:11] Jason: And I know you want to be a SaaS mommy real bad.

[00:44:14] Caroline: Buddy, I don't like it.

[00:44:15] Jason: But working on Teachery is just not the right fit for you.

[00:44:18] Caroline: It's just not the right fit for me.

[00:44:19] Jason: Yeah.

[00:44:19] Caroline: Like, listen, I learned a very important lesson, which is I just had such a chip on my shoulder, I wanted to prove to myself that I could play with the big boys and...

[00:44:29] Jason: Would you say...

[00:44:30] Caroline: What? No. No.

[00:44:32] Jason: ...a SaaS mommy?

[00:44:33] Caroline: And steer this SaaS company and be strategic and all those things, and I still believe I could do that, but I don't want to do that. It is not a good fit for me. The amount of imperfection required to just sort of like move fast and break things does not align with me. And I wasn't passionate about it. So I think it was a big wake up call to my ego was kind of, like talking more there. And that's just a bad recipe for doing things that you don't really want to do.

[00:45:03] Jason: Yeah.

[00:45:03] Caroline: So I feel a huge amount of relief. And also, it was like a little bit of needing to push myself to balance two businesses to know that I don't have the capacity to balance two businesses.

[00:45:15] Jason: Mm-hmm.

[00:45:15] Caroline: I wanted to believe that I could do both, but I needed to experience what that really felt like on a daily basis to know that I just, I would much rather devote myself to Wandering Aimfully and be the lead on that business, while you're the lead on Teachery. And that's a better fit for us.

[00:45:30] Jason: Yeah. Yeah. And I think even for me working on Teachery by myself mostly for so many years, I had a development founder for multiple years. And then I've worked with developers and then you've helped here and there on Teachery stuff. It actually, for me, it gives me a lot more positive momentum because I don't have to ask permission to do something, and never that I felt like you were...

[00:45:57] Caroline: No, no, no. Yeah, you don't...

[00:45:58] Jason: But it's like I don't need to be like, okay, well, this is what I want to do. And you're like, well, I don't think that it should go that way.

[00:46:01] Caroline: Totally.

[00:46:01] Jason: And it's like, okay, well, I was really excited about that. I wrote up the Notion doc about it, like et cetera, et cetera.

[00:46:07] Caroline: Yeah. You don't have to water down your vision to collaborate with another person.

[00:46:11] Jason: Yeah. And right now, I'm working with our designer, which, again, not going to have you do any design. I'm going to go back to just paying a designer because we have an awesome designer that we've worked with for Teachery for years. And I'm just excited. Like there's a new feature that we want to work on and I just this week was like, oh, I'm just going to start working on this. Like, I'm not going to ask you any of your ideas. I'm not going to show you a wireframe of what I think it's going to do. I'm just going to do it myself. And then once it's ready to be released, then I'll show it to you because then I want to get your feedback as like a user of the platform to be like, okay, what do you think about this? Is there anything we should change? But...

[00:46:42] Caroline: And again, this is me looking for silver linings. But to me, this is the benefit of sometimes you do have to go like balls to the wall to be able to say you left it all out on the field.

[00:46:53] Jason: Yeah.

[00:46:53] Caroline: So what I mean by that is like now hearing you say that and saying that you're going to do this new feature and like, no part of me feels like it's hard for me to let go and surrender that to you because I now know viscerally the experience of trying to do it the other way.

[00:47:12] Jason: Mm-hmm.

[00:47:12] Caroline: And I know how exhausting that was. So it's like there's someone out there listening to this who's like, well, how do you let go? Like, how do you let someone delegate or how do you, whatever. And I think sometimes the answer is like, you have to know the experience and how you have to experience trying to do it all yourself and burning yourself out to then have so much peace letting things go. Does that make sense?

[00:47:34] Jason: Yeah.

[00:47:34] Caroline: I know I didn't communicate that very well, but the point I'm trying to make is like, I'm so glad that I tried balancing both businesses and that it didn't work out because now I have so much ease in giving you the keys.

[00:47:48] Jason: Yeah. And I think a practical example for the people listening is because I think this is a lot of our audience, is you currently work with clients and you know, digital products are like the scalable answer, and you would have to put in three to six months of trying to build the digital products version of your business. An online course, an audience, a content around it, getting a sales process going. I mean, Calm Launch Formula is going to make your life easier launching it. But you might go through all of that and put all that effort in only to realize I don't like all those things. I would rather just work with like three clients a month. And like that's easy.

[00:48:19] Caroline: Mm-hmm.

[00:48:19] Jason: That's okay. And I think it is helpful to try those things figured out. So that's what didn't go well with Teachery this year. But again, I think if the best thing that came out of that was like now you can let go of like decision making in Teachery.

[00:48:31] Caroline: Yup.

[00:48:31] Jason: I can have full control over it. I'm 100% in charge like Marcus Lemonis. And not many people get that reference, but some of you will. And Teachery's revenue has gone up and now I'm looking forward to. I'm actually really excited to work on Teachery, which we'll talk about in our preview.

[00:48:44] Caroline: And I'm really excited to work on WAIM.

[00:48:46] Jason: Fantastic. Last thing here on the what didn't go well. Some of you may remember the content extravaganza this summer.

[00:48:53] Caroline: Yes. Yes.

[00:48:53] Jason: And there was a whole couple of podcast episodes that went up. There were a whole bunch of YouTube videos that went up.

[00:48:59] Caroline: We were going to make long YouTube videos for both businesses. We were going to make short videos for both businesses. We were going to do Instagram. Like what were we thinking?

[00:49:07] Jason: TikTok. I think this is what everybody else is thinking when they were hearing us talk about this. But we were really excited about this, and I think we had like a good plan of action. But I think that it just really showed us that like, first of all, that was right in the thick of when the two miscarriages happened.

[00:49:24] Caroline: Yeah.

[00:49:24] Jason: So that was very difficult. But also, I just think it really showed us like where you don't want to be working on Teachery at all. I don't want to be creating content. Like it is just, I think I have gotten to the end of my time of like especially short form vertical video content. I think YouTube I could probably still dabble in in some way, but I'm just like not interested at all in that game. And I think there are other games you can play to have the same result and that's okay. And so, I think for us, like getting in this process, like every time that we were meeting about these things, all I was thinking to myself was...

[00:49:59] Caroline: I don't want to do this.

[00:50:01] Jason: ... I don't want to do this.

[00:50:01] Caroline: Yeah.

[00:50:01] Jason: And so, I think it was another one of those moments where it's like we went all in, in the planning and the ideation for this. And it was helpful for me to be like, cool. I'm so happy for you if you want to keep doing these things. I just need you to know, though, I don't want to be doing these things.

[00:50:14] Caroline: Mm-hmm. I just had a weird light bulb moment. And it's not a very well-formed thought. But I wonder because as you're saying that I'm like, I still love creating content. I really do. And I wonder if it's because I love communicating and you love action.

[00:50:32] Jason: Yeah.

[00:50:32] Caroline: It's like, I love, like thoughts and ideas and insights. I just, I could talk forever about understanding and sharing and teaching, and you just could not care less about talking about it. You just want to do it.

[00:50:47] Jason: Exactly.

[00:50:47] Caroline: You want to build a business, you want to figure out a puzzle. You don't want to tell people about it, you just want to show them. And I love unpacking stuff. I love talking about it. I love digging deeper. I love communicating. And I just wonder if that's why content is a better fit for me, because it is a lot of communication and storytelling and sharing and expressing. And you just don't want to talk about anything. You just want to go and build businesses.

[00:51:13] Jason: In the scheme of life, I want to snorkel in all the best spots and see all the things, but I want to move to a new snorkel spot as often as possible. You want to scuba dive. You want to get down there. You want to inspect every piece of the reef. You want to see every little moray eel's home. You want to look at where the lobsters find their little crevices, where the grouper are just nestling into that little place, and you just want to stay there. And I'm like, get me out of this water. I got to move to another spot. I'm ready to move on. That was my snorkeling... metaphor.

[00:51:39] Caroline: I do like that metaphor. I'm not sure that that aligns with the thing I was trying to say, but because it's like a shallow versus deep thing.

[00:51:48] Jason: Yeah.

[00:51:49] Caroline: But I think that's also true, is what I want to end with.

[00:51:51] Jason: It is true. Yeah. Yeah.

[00:51:51] Caroline: I think that's also true.

[00:51:52] Jason: All right. Let's move into the 2025 preview. So what is next?

[00:51:58] Caroline: What is next? What is next? I'll tell you what. I'm ending the year because of the way that this year has turned out in a very amorphous place where I'm like, no fricking idea. I don't even want to know what 2025 is going to be for us. I can only look like a quarter ahead at a time.

[00:52:13] Jason: Yeah.

[00:52:14] Caroline: But I can tell you that in general I want it to be a much more not so like rigid, is what I would say.

[00:52:24] Jason: Yeah. I mean, I think that there's a lot of structure to this year.

[00:52:28] Caroline: Yeah.

[00:52:28] Jason: Especially working on a software product. Like you can't be as loosey goosey with things because you have developers are working on things, you have designers working on things, you have other stuff, you have customers that are... And I think that WAIM as a business, it presents itself a little bit better to being a little bit looser and like a little bit more free flowing.

[00:52:44] Caroline: The best way I can describe it is 2024 felt like or the way we were approaching it at the top of the year, was setting these targets out in front of us and trying to hit the targets. And so, I was always like in search of hitting the target, hitting the target. In 2025, the energy is like no targets. I just want to look, go inward and ask myself like what do I want to make? I very much want it to unfold rather than trying to assert my will of a destination. Does that make sense?

[00:53:13] Jason: Yeah.

[00:53:14] Caroline: Much more about the journey, much less about the destination.

[00:53:16] Jason: Yeah.

[00:53:16] Caroline: Now obviously, the biggest goal for us is continue to try to have a tiny Zook into the world.

[00:53:24] Jason: Yeah. Right.

[00:53:24] Caroline: Would love to be able to come back to you at the end of 2025 and best-case scenario...

[00:53:30] Jason: Present to you.

[00:53:30] Caroline: Present to you, we have a small human being.

[00:53:33] Jason: Right. Here it is.

[00:53:35] Caroline: Second place scenario I will take, I'm pregnant.

[00:53:39] Jason: Right.

[00:53:39] Caroline: Third place scenario I will take still not pregnant, but...

[00:53:43] Jason: There's hope.

[00:53:43] Caroline: ...there's hope. Last case scenario, we have nine dogs.

[00:53:47] Jason: No, no, no, no, no. We'll have two dogs by the end of the year. We can't have nine by the end of the year, buddy. We got to work up to nine. We'll have two..

[00:53:52] Caroline: Okay. But I'll be so sad.

[00:53:53] Jason: We'll have two, though. I'll promise you two. That's our last place scenario.

[00:53:55] Caroline: You promised me two.

[00:53:55] Jason: Yeah.

[00:53:55] Caroline: Okay. We will take a worst-case scenario is we have two dogs so that's a great way to look at.

[00:53:59] Jason: Just so you are all aware, we have zero dogs now. So we will be...

[00:54:02] Caroline: But that's going to be the goal. That's what we're going to work towards.

[00:54:05] Jason: Yeah. And again, we are just very grateful for the healthcare system here. And also, we've talked about it before in other episodes. The easy way to describe it is a medical concierge is a service that we pay for annually, and it is just under $400 a year. And it is amazing because we basically have a registered nurse.

[00:54:22] Caroline: Medical concierge sounds like you have a private doctor who comes to your house that's not what you have.

[00:54:26] Jason: You don't. You have a registered nurse that you can WhatsApp constantly with all your questions.

[00:54:29] Caroline: Yeah. You just have a person who can help you, which is very helpful.

[00:54:32] Jason: Right. And maybe she's just ChatGPT. We don't know yet. We've never met her in person. But no, I'm just kidding.

[00:54:35] Caroline: No. Yes, we have. She's wonderful.

[00:54:38] Jason: All right. In 2025, we will also continue our Portuguese learning journey.

[00:54:51] Caroline: [speaks in Portuguese]

[00:54:51] Jason: [speaks in Portuguese]

[00:54:51] Caroline: [speaks in Portuguese]

[00:54:51] Jason: [speaks in Portuguese]

[00:54:52] Caroline: That's close.

[00:54:52] Jason: Both verbs conjugated there, which doesn't work. But as you can see, we are at an interesting place where we can both read...

[00:55:01] Caroline: [speaks in Portuguese]

[00:55:01] Jason: ...the majority of Portuguese. Like we're not going to be able to read all of it. And even depending on what you get, you're not going to know a lot of words. But like I get an email, and right now, if it's all in Portuguese, I will 100% know what the email is about.

[00:55:11] Caroline: Yeah. Yeah, on a website. Like I just got a UPS notification. It's like the website's in Portuguese. I know exactly what they're trying to say.

[00:55:17] Jason: Exactly. Listening to people, we are, by far, so much further along...

[00:55:23] Caroline: So much further along.

[00:55:24] Jason: ...than we were before. Now, if someone has an interesting accent or some of the older Portuguese really smush their letters together, so it's hard to hear.

[00:55:30] Caroline: Mm-hmm. Or somebody who's talking super-fast. [speaks in Portuguese]

[00:55:33] Jason: Or if someone's Brazilian because then they speak Portuguese differently than we are used to hearing European Portuguese.

[00:55:38] Caroline: [speaks in Portuguese]

[00:55:38] Jason: So that's much better. But speaking is still the toughest part. And anybody who's learned a language knows that's kind of the thing that comes at the end. But our journey here, and we've talked about this before, was never a learn Portuguese as fast as possible and just become fluent.

[00:55:51] Caroline: Like fully immersion. That's not our approach.

[00:55:54] Jason: We have too many other things going on. And also, I hate learning things, so.

[00:55:58] Caroline: True.

[00:55:58] Jason: Especially languages, because they're very hard for an older brain like mine. But our goal is by what I wrote here, and I think you would agree, by the end of 2025, we still won't be fluent in Portuguese, but we should be able to hold a decent conversation with someone more than just the formalities of hello and whatever.

[00:56:14] Caroline: Mm-hmm.

[00:56:14] Jason: And be able to have better sentences, because like right now I just say three words to get my point across, and it works, but it's not a sentence. Like I'm not saying a thing. So that's good. And then eventually in the next couple of years, we will be fluent.

[00:56:28] Caroline: Yeah, I was trying to think of where we were at the beginning of this year. Was that when we said...

[00:56:33] Jason: I think we got to A2 to begin this year.

[00:56:35] Caroline: Well, when did we tell Anna we wanted to do all of our lessons in Portuguese? That was at the top of the year.

[00:56:39] Jason: I think so. Yeah.

[00:56:40] Caroline: So that's when she started holding our entire lessons in Portuguese. I think that really got us further this year.

[00:56:45] Jason: Yeah.

[00:56:45] Caroline: Because she... Are...

[00:56:46] Jason: Also, if you want to talk about people that we love here, we have Nuno, your personal trainer, and Anna, our...

[00:56:52] Caroline: Professora.

[00:56:53] Jason: Professora, is amazing.

[00:56:54] Caroline: She's amazing. Yeah, she started doing our lessons 100% in Portuguese. And I think we told her... I remember now. I think we told her that our goal was by the end of 2024.

[00:57:06] Jason: Yeah. And then she just started...

[00:57:06] Caroline: And she just started doing it. And she was like, okay.

[00:57:09] Jason: Yeah. And there are many times when we're like, [speaks in Portuguese]. We didn't get what she said, so. Yeah, we'll continue.

[00:57:16] Caroline: Yes.

[00:57:16] Jason: All right, let's get into some of the work stuff here. Well, here, let's go. Let's actually bop down.

[00:57:22] Caroline: Let's bop.

[00:57:23] Jason: Because this one makes sense. So we're going to try to see more of Portugal next year.

[00:57:26] Caroline: Yes. And I think all it's going to take is for us to sit down and pick out some adventures. We have a list of cities that we want to see, and we just need to choose dates for it. I literally just got done watching on YouTube, what's his name, Jesse Itzler, maybe, has this planning framework that how he plans the year. And he talks about these mini adventures every other month. So six mini adventures that you wouldn't normally do in your life, but that can dot your year so that you can look back on the year and be like, man, I did like, six really cool things. And all it takes is a little planning, right?

[00:57:59] Jason: Yeah, for sure.

[00:57:59] Caroline: Is like, this is the weekend we're going to do it. This is where we're going to go. And so, I want to follow his framework to put that on the calendar. And because even whatever happens with pregnancy or this or that, we can take a road trip...

[00:58:12] Jason: We can get in the car, for sure.

[00:58:12] Caroline: We can get in the car and go.

[00:58:14] Jason: Yeah. I think the goal for us is like Portugal is a pretty small country, so from where we live, which is basically almost like dead center on the coast, three hours north, you hit the top of the country. Three hours south, you hit the bottom of the country.

[00:58:25] Caroline: Right.

[00:58:25] Jason: So it's not that far, and we could drive pretty much anywhere. The roads are fantastic here. So I think, yeah, like you said, we'll probably end up trying to pick maybe it's six adventures next year.

[00:58:36] Caroline: Yeah.

[00:58:36] Jason: And just find some fun places to stay, make some memories, see some things, and just see a little bit more of this country that we love and that we know has so much more to offer.

[00:58:45] Caroline: Yeah.

[00:58:45] Jason: All right. Let's finish the 2025 preview with the work stuff.

[00:58:50] Caroline: Work stuff.

[00:58:51] Jason: So I'll start with Teachery.

[00:58:51] Caroline: Okay.

[00:58:51] Jason: Obviously, things have gone well with the beginning of the lifetime pricing experiment. That will definitely continue. I also, for the past two months, have been working with a paid pay per click advertising company. So I pay them a management fee. They set up all of the pay per click ads. So far, we have spent $5,000 in ads, about $5,000 in their management fee, so call it $10,000 total. That has generated 15 total sales of, whether it's a plan or a lifetime deal, it basically equates out to about $8,000 in revenue. So in the second month, we didn't anticipate that we would break even. So it's kind of we are where we are. But I had a chat with them this morning. They feel really good about where things are. They think we can get the cost per converted customer down because it's like $334 now, down to half of that or less, which would be really great. And I don't know if I'm going to keep doing the pay per click ads because the clear thing that I would like to do is once they get the ads going, I don't need to pay them to manage setting everything up.

[00:59:53] Caroline: Right.

[00:59:53] Jason: You front load all the work they have to do to figure out the ads. So my hope would be that maybe by the end of January, we've figured it out and I can reduce their management cost way down. And then as long as we're making like a 2x multiple on the ad spend, then it feels really good.

[01:00:08] Caroline: Mm-hmm.

[01:00:08] Jason: But if it doesn't, then I'll just stop it. And it was an experiment, and I get to keep that feather in my cat for Teachery. A couple of the other things that I'm excited to work on, number one, we have a brand-new landing page builder, which is going to come out before the end of the year, which is going to be a huge improvement. I want to work on a new course template that is going to be much more modular and customizable. A new checkout system, so this is going to make our checkout pages less customizable visually, but way better for mobile checkout, other checkout payment options.

[01:00:38] Caroline: Yeah.

[01:00:38] Jason: It still won't be PayPal in the US, but it will be PayPal in Europe because that's connected in Stripe. And then a marketplace to sell themes and designs, which will hopefully be up in the Q1 time of 2025. And then I also want to dabble and just see if maybe Teachery could be a way to sell something like a digital product, just like a PDF very simply and just have like a very simple checkout. So got that stuff going on and then I'm going to basically do every three to four months some experiments. So like right now, I have a secret AI generated blog that I've been working on.

[01:01:09] Caroline: Very top secret.

[01:01:10] Jason: Which I'm not going to tell you the URL. And please don't sleuth around to find it because I want people to find it organically, if they can. But essentially this is a daily blog post being generated by GPT.

[01:01:19] Caroline: To see if it brings traffic.

[01:01:20] Jason: To see if it brings organic traffic based on keywords for our target customers. I have no idea if this is going to work or not, but I just find it a fun experiment and it's not costing too much. And then I might do some user generated content paid to have other people create content for Teachery. And then might also probably like summer or fall, get into some sponsoring podcasts, email newsletters, industry specific events, all ways to market Teachery next year in ways that we've never done before.

[01:01:45] Caroline: Amazing.

[01:01:46] Jason: So that's my focus. And my SaaS mommy has left me behind, but that's okay...

[01:01:49] Caroline: Buddy...

[01:01:50] Jason: ...because I'm SaaS Papi and I can do everything myself. Yeah.

[01:01:54] Caroline: Hey, guys. What's up with SaaS Papi?

[01:01:56] Jason: What's up with SaaS Papi? And yeah, I'm just excited. And for all of you who listen to this that use Teachery always up to here, the features that you want, the things that you like, the things that you don't like, you can always go to roadmap.teachery.co to see our roadmap and what we're working on. Sometimes I keep that super up to date. Sometimes I forget about it for a couple of weeks. So just let me know if you don't see anything updated there.

[01:02:15] Caroline: Amazing.

[01:02:15] Jason: What about WAIM, Carol? What do we want to do with WAIM?

[01:02:17] Caroline: I love hearing all of that. All of that was so exciting for me to hear because I'm not even in the 1:02:22.3

[01:02:22] Jason: You're not doing any of it. Yeah.

[01:02:24] Caroline: As for Wandering Aimfully, which I'm very excited about, the biggest thing on the horizon is really, I alluded to this before, but filling in our offer suite. So forever, we have been huge proponents in having a chef's kiss offer. We talk about this a lot. That's what WAIM Unlimited has been. I still stand by that is such a crucial part in building your business so that you can focus and really double down and focus on getting one predictable product or income stream that's working. Now, we're at the point where because we raised the price, I really see an opportunity to spin off products that are at a more accessible price point so that people can get in, get our style of teaching, then decide that coaching is for them, then decide that they want to upgrade to WAIM Unlimited.

[01:03:09] Jason: Yeah, I think a really good goal was, so this year we're going to end the year with essentially 100 buyers of WAIM Unlimited.

[01:03:15] Caroline: Mm-hmm.

[01:03:16] Jason: 100 total customers. So you can do the quick math, 100 times 2,800. Obviously, that revenue isn't all paid at once, but it gives you an idea. I think the 10% indifference of what we made last year, if we can do that 10% or more through these lower priced products is a really great...

[01:03:32] Caroline: Like metric.

[01:03:32] Jason: ...the goal for.

[01:03:32] Caroline: Yeah, yeah, yeah.

[01:03:34] Jason: Goal for that. And I think, if anything, actually it's probably very realistic to do double that amount. So really if we're just talking about it's like $30,000 to $60,000 in additional revenue.

[01:03:44] Caroline: Yeah.

[01:03:44] Jason: I think that's very feasible with having what we're looking at is three additional offers besides WAIM Unlimited.

[01:03:50] Caroline: Exactly. And so, Jason and I sat down and mapped out what those offers would be.

[01:03:55] Jason: I think we'll do a full podcast episode the start of the year.

[01:03:56] Caroline: Okay. We'll probably do a full podcast episode, but that's sort of what's top of mind right now. And then as far as content goes.

[01:04:04] Jason: Huh?

[01:04:05] Caroline: I think...

[01:04:06] Jason: Very interesting. Hold on one second, let me just get ready for this.

[01:04:09] Caroline: Those of you that listen to our Instagram episode will either be happy or unhappy to find that, I think Jason brought me over to his side.

[01:04:18] Jason: If you don't know what she's talking about, the title is Our Messy Social Media conversation that we showed.

[01:04:22] Caroline: Yeah, I was really excited to go back on Instagram. And I still feel that way. Like, I really am excited to create content right now. But the thing that Jason helped me see from a different perspective is I know that YouTube and Instagram are where I want to put my attention in trying to grow those channels for Wandering Aimfully and trying to see if we can get new people into the audience. Right? But I took a step back and I thought to myself, why am I trying to do both at the same time? Like why not choose one and then get things going? Have this like, very layered approach. Right? And so, when I think about where I want to spend my time at the moment, I think YouTube is where I want to spend my time.

[01:05:01] Jason: Interesting.

[01:05:01] Caroline: So that's going to be my focus for the next quarter. And then if I can get that to a place where I'm in a regular cadence. This is also learning lessons from this past year, right? Is like not trying to do it all at once. So if I can just get to a rhythm, I really like the cadence, then I can layer Instagram on top of that. And I think even the YouTube pursuit will help me to find my style of creation. Because where I want to go with it right now is not trying to create some formula for views. I want to go back to like the very human, behind the scenes approach of what is it like to run a calm creator business. I want to talk to people in an authentic way. And then if that's not getting views, I can adapt down the road because I definitely want to get results for my effort. But as I said from this year, I learned, I don't want to be so results focused. I want to be more process focused until I find what works for me.

[01:05:54] Jason: Right. And just to put that into like actual specific terms. A weekly YouTube video is what you're thinking about?

[01:06:00] Caroline: Yeah, I'm even thinking maybe twice a week.

[01:06:03] Jason: Okay. Interesting.

[01:06:04] Caroline: Because if I can create in a more sustainable way.

[01:06:06] Jason: Right.

[01:06:08] Caroline: Like I'm literally calling it like Lo-fi, like Lo-fi creator diaries, like in a very simple to create way.

[01:06:15] Jason: I wouldn't call this a content extravaganza. I would call it...

[01:06:18] Caroline: No. It's just a content...

[01:06:20] Jason: Bonanza? I mean, it rhymes, though. It's nice. It's a small content bonanza.

[01:06:26] Caroline: It's not even a bonanza. It's just...

[01:06:27] Jason: It's a mini bonanza.

[01:06:29] Caroline: A monanza. Okay.

[01:06:30] Jason: A monanza. Yeah.

[01:06:31] Caroline: It's a content monanza.

[01:06:31] Jason: Wonderful. We live together.

[01:06:33] Caroline: And the other thing is like I have gotten back into creating art again.

[01:06:37] Jason: Mm-hmm. The ckelso account on Instagram.

[01:06:40] Caroline: Ckelso account. Pop it back on.

[01:06:41] Jason: Dusted the cobwebs off.

[01:06:42] Caroline: Dusted it off. But I think that's also played a role in me not wanting to dive so much back into Instagram, because I'm just enjoying it for my own personal art right now. And I'm very much in an exploration of what does short form video look like for my art account. Because my hypothesis is that if I can just use it as a means of creativity and expression without the business angle on it, I will be more motivated to try to create short form videos for my art account, that will teach me short form videos, what videos I like to create. I will hone my skills in the process.

[01:07:13] Jason: Mm-hmm.

[01:07:13] Caroline: And I can bring those learnings to our business content whenever we inevitably dust that account off.

[01:07:18] Jason: Right.

[01:07:18] Caroline: So that's like my hypothesis.

[01:07:20] Jason: Okay.

[01:07:20] Caroline: And so, creating art again and then just back to micro momentum. I'm meditating more, journaling more, and just really prioritizing my physical and mental well-being, which as we know is very important for getting ready to become a parent. But also like this health journey with the blood clotting and everything, it's become very clear to me that it's even more important than ever that I take care of my stress levels and my physical and mental health, because now I have this like very real thing that sits in the back of my mind going if you're not taking care of yourself, your immune system flares up.

[01:07:58] Jason: Yeah.

[01:07:59] Caroline: The clotting gets worse, et cetera.

[01:08:00] Jason: Yeah. Yeah. I think I didn't even write this down for me personally on the meditation, journaling part of things is like I have no personal goals of my physical health or anything like that. And I think it's just because, for the most part, I feel really good, except for my... 1:08:18.4

[01:08:18] Caroline: You're like keep on keeping on.

[01:08:19] Jason: Yeah. But I think the only thing for me is just continue to strengthen my knees.

[01:08:22] Caroline: Yeah.

[01:08:22] Jason: Really, it's my legs. So that this like arthritic condition I have in both of my knees from playing basketball for 20 years stays off for as long as possible.

[01:08:31] Caroline: For sure.

[01:08:32] Jason: So yeah, we'll see. Okay. The final category here of what we're focusing on in 2025 and then we'll get into our words for the year, is just working towards our second enough number.

[01:08:43] Caroline: Mm-hmm.

[01:08:43] Jason: So just to put this in context, in 2018, we set an enough number of $33,000 per month, which is what we wanted to hit in revenue every month. And we hit that goal in 2021. And for a year, we were just super happy that was our number. And then in 2022, basically, when we ended up moving here, we decided, let's reevaluate because our circumstances have changed, and there's a couple other things that have come up. We want to save for a house. We want to have money set aside for taking care of parents. We want to set aside money for our kids. We want to donate more, we want to invest more. All that. So we reevaluated our enough number, and we've talked about this before, but that new number was $56,000 per month. And I know we're talk...

[01:09:20] Caroline: In revenue.

[01:09:21] Jason: In revenue, yeah. And I know we're talking about money, a lot of people feel a different way, good or bad. I know that people have very different circumstances from us when it comes to generating revenue. I just like to share transparently because I find it so motivating to hear how other people talk about money, to be like, okay, that works for me. I want to go down that path, or I don't like the way that sounds. That's not for me. And I move on.

[01:09:43] Caroline: Totally.

[01:09:44] Jason: But this year, essentially, we got about halfway to that number.

[01:09:48] Caroline: Mm-hmm.

[01:09:48] Jason: So we ended up at about $40,000 per month, which is amazing. And I want to celebrate that because I think that it's so easy to set a goal, and then along the way toward the goal, it's not like a marathon where you just have to only celebrate at the end.

[01:10:04] Caroline: Yeah.

[01:10:04] Jason: It's like we're actually running little tiny marathons along the way, and we can celebrate like, oh, look, we got to this point. Oh, look, we got to this point. And so, I think it's just really helpful to, maybe for you all, to also see you're working toward a goal, and where you were five years ago is so different than where you are now. But because you're not at your goal, you might not feel like you've achieved anything.

[01:10:24] Caroline: Yes. And I know this is very complicated to think about, but this is also why the enough mindset is so important, because we reached that first enough number, like it wouldn't be an enough number if it didn't make you feel content that you would hit that. Does that make sense?

[01:10:40] Jason: Yeah.

[01:10:40] Caroline: So it's like, yes, we have these new financial goals, and we are working towards those that are tied to very direct things in our daily life. Like Jason mentioned taking care of parents, having house, all that stuff. But the difference is that what an enough number does for you that we already hit is, I don't go, I'm not happy until I get those things. Right?

[01:11:00] Jason: Right.

[01:11:01] Caroline: Like, those are fun to think about. Those are fun to tie to my version of a rich life, as Ramit would say. And those are fun to work towards. But the beauty of setting an enough number is truly our enough, enough number was that first number. And I'm good. Like, we are good.

[01:11:19] Jason: Yeah.

[01:11:20] Caroline: Like, of course, there is stress that comes along with not being able to... Wondering how we're going to pay for parents who are aging and as their health declines and things like that. Of course. But are we okay? Are we good? Do we live a beautiful, abundant life? Yes. And so, it's like, it's complex because...

[01:11:39] Jason: Yeah. Of course.

[01:11:40] Caroline: ...as all money things are. But I just want to say that, and that's the mindset that we bring to it, is like in these moments, we can both hold at the same time, working towards this new goal and also feeling extremely content at the same time.

[01:11:53] Jason: Absolutely.

[01:11:53] Caroline: And that's what the enough mindset does for you.

[01:11:54] Jason: And that's why it doesn't feel like a failure at all, but at the end of this year...

[01:11:59] Caroline: Yes.

[01:11:59] Jason: ...two years after setting that new enough goal that we haven't hit it.

[01:12:02] Caroline: Exactly.

[01:12:02] Jason: And at the end of 2025, if we still haven't hit it, that's also okay.

[01:12:06] Caroline: Exactly.

[01:12:07] Jason: So I just wanted to share that because I do think it is, again, helpful to hear people talk about money and speak specifically goals and how they feel about them and what they do with them and all that. All right. Let's finish it out with our words for the year. What's your word?

[01:12:23] Caroline: I'm not totally sold on this yet...

[01:12:25] Jason: Oh, okay.

[01:12:25] Caroline: ...but it's the best one that I could come up with that encapsulates the feeling that I want to encapsulate. And so, my word is "flow."

[01:12:32] Jason: Okay.

[01:12:33] Caroline: And I touched on this before, but what I want that word to mean to me is letting go of control. I want it to mean allowing things to happen instead of trying to control them. Creativity. I want my creativity to just flow from a place of true intrinsic motivation. What do I want to express right now? It's just like it's a softening. It's not so rigid. It's the opposite of SaaS mommy.

[01:12:59] Jason: She's back.

[01:13:01] Caroline: And just enjoying the process, not being so rigid around business right now, being in just this like softer place with the way that I approach everything.

[01:13:11] Jason: Cool. That's good. My word for the year is one that I actually used, I think 10 years ago, which was "experimentation."

[01:13:18] Caroline: Mm-hmm.

[01:13:19] Jason: And so, coming off of the ... word for this year, I want to play more. Especially with Teachery stuff, I think you can hear I have lots of ideas for Teachery. Thankfully, we have some financial leverage with Teachery, and we still don't really even pull that much revenue out of Teachery at all. So it's got a nice little cash reserve that I can use for experiments and I'm just excited to play. I'm excited to see how can Teachery just be so different from the Kajabi, Teachable, Thinkific, like all these other competitors in our field that it stands out so much that someone looks at it and goes, yeah, I'm going to pay 550 bucks for this because this is all awesome. And I also really like all the content they're creating. And like, it doesn't just feel like I'm buying a piece of core software.

[01:13:59] Caroline: Totally.

[01:13:59] Jason: Like it's actually more fun. So we'll see how that goes for the year. And then I might, again, this is in the frame of experimentation. I might start posting more on BlueSky. In fact, as of recording this, I've already been posting some things.

[01:14:10] Caroline: Interesting. Which I don't even know about.

[01:14:12] Jason: Yeah, you can find me jasondoesstuff on BlueSky. I don't even know how to tell you to search for me on BlueSky. That's how much I don't know about it. But jasondoesstuff is a very easy thing to search. I might update Threads. I might post some things on Threads.

[01:14:25] Caroline: Interesting.

[01:14:26] Jason: I don't know. I might, this year, use Instagram and YouTube and start my own Substack.

[01:14:31] Caroline: Stop it.

[01:14:31] Jason: I have no idea. All I know is...

[01:14:33] Caroline: You just said that you didn't want to create content.

[01:14:35] Jason: All I know is that I'm open to experimentation.

[01:14:37] Caroline: You're going to experiment.

[01:14:37] Jason: I know I don't want to create...

[01:14:40] Caroline: Business content.

[01:14:40] Jason: ...specific, like business content.

[01:14:41] Caroline: Got it.

[01:14:42] Jason: Like if I create an Instagram, it is going to be about...

[01:14:44] Caroline: Baking.

[01:14:45] Jason: ...baking or coffee.

[01:14:45] Caroline: Okay.

[01:14:46] Jason: Or something else.

[01:14:48] Caroline: Okay.

[01:14:48] Jason: But it's not going to be around business, that's for sure. Especially if it's like Instagram or YouTube stuff. And then my Substack is just going to be my opinions on obviously like the best Christmas movies.

[01:14:59] Caroline: Right. The really important stuff.

[01:15:00] Jason: And what candies you should eat.

[01:15:01] Caroline: Mm-hmm.

[01:15:01] Jason: All of those important things.

[01:15:02] Caroline: Yup.

[01:15:03] Jason: Okay. I think that's...

[01:15:04] Caroline: Did you already start a Substack? You didn't tell me.

[01:15:06] Jason: No, no, not at all.

[01:15:08] Caroline: Okay. Just checking.

[01:15:08] Jason: I have not. I'm not mentioning. 1:15:10.4

[01:15:10] Caroline: Don't do secret Substack. Okay?

[01:15:13] Jason: Yeah, I do have one and a half secret blogs going right now, though, which is hilarious.

[01:15:18] Caroline: Yeah, but I know about them, so.

[01:15:19] Jason: I know you do. All right, that's it. If you...

[01:15:21] Caroline: What a year, Jason.

[01:15:22] Jason: ...if you end up writing a yearend review post, we always love hearing your yearend posts that you folks who listen to this do, so feel free to send those to us, hello@wanderingaimfully. Also, if you record your own podcast, go free to share that as well.

[01:15:34] Caroline: I want to end the episode by asking you one question.

[01:15:37] Jason: Me, specifically?

[01:15:38] Caroline: Yeah.

[01:15:39] Jason: Really?

[01:15:39] Caroline: What are you most proud of when you look back on 2024? It could be business. There's no right answer. It could be business. It could be life. It could be just like, when you look back and you're like, I am proud of blank.

[01:15:53] Jason: Yeah. I mean, I think the easy answer is just how seeing you be able to handle all this difficult stuff.

[01:15:59] Caroline: Like you're proud of me?

[01:16:00] Jason: Yeah, I'm proud of you.

[01:16:01] Caroline: Oh, my God. No. It has to be your own self. The best...

[01:16:03] Jason: That's the easy answer.

[01:16:04] Caroline: That is really sweet, and you're really going to get some major points for that. But I meant like in yourself.

[01:16:09] Jason: What ... 1:16:09.1 some SaaS mommy points. I don't know what that means. Proud of myself. I mean, I think it's reinvigorating my excitement for Teachery.

[01:16:18] Caroline: Mm-hmm.

[01:16:19] Jason: Because there was definitely a certain time there where I was just like, it is what it is. The business is going to be a side project. I'm not really going to mess with it at all, and it's fine.

[01:16:26] Caroline: Yeah.

[01:16:27] Jason: But I've completely reset how I feel about that business, and I think that doing that is it's a challenge. Teachery is 10 years old.

[01:16:36] Caroline: I know.

[01:16:36] Jason: It's been around for a long time.

[01:16:37] Caroline: I know.

[01:16:37] Jason: And so, I do feel very proud of myself that it's not something that I just quit on or just let slowly die. It's like, no, I'm excited to work on it again.

[01:16:47] Caroline: Yeah.

[01:16:47] Jason: How about you? I have one question for you on this.

[01:16:57] Caroline: ...

We can make it easy and you can just, you are proud of yourself for how your body...

Yes.

[01:17:02] Jason: ...has handled this year.

[01:17:03] Caroline: Of course. That's the main thing is I'm really proud of myself. Really, from a weird perspective, all the physical stuff actually, like the doing the blood tests, the physical toll it takes on your body to go through the hormones and the miscarriages and all that stuff. We went through a cycle of had to do all these shots, and I was really scared to do it, and I just handled it like a boss. And I think it has allowed me to see myself in a new light, which is maybe I am way more capable and strong than I think I am. And that's like a new way for me to see myself. And honestly couldn't have come at a better time before having a child.

[01:17:42] Jason: Yeah.

[01:17:43] Caroline: Yeah, I'm proud of that and just that I keep my optimistic spirit in spite of something that's really hard. And sometimes I know that the perception is like, oh, that's toxic positivity, or that's this or that's that. And it's just like, I don't know how else to be. Like we only get this one life, and I'm not choosing to suffer through it. Like, I can't choose what happens to me, but I can choose how I respond to it. And I just do not want to suffer. And so, whenever possible, I try not to feel sorry for myself, and I try to find the silver lining and everything. And if that means its toxic positivity, then that's what it is.

[01:18:20] Jason: Yeah. I want to end this with you've said that multiple times now. We don't know if this is our... Or this is our one life that we get.

[01:18:27] Caroline: Yeah.

[01:18:28] Jason: And I just want to say that you don't know that you might come back as a lobster.

[01:18:31] Caroline: It's true.

[01:18:32] Jason: In which case, you might lay 10,000 eggs. So I just want you to know that that's a future that might be coming for you.

[01:18:37] Caroline: Lobsters. I'm sorry. Sorry. So sorry.

[01:18:39] Jason: They lay 10,000 eggs.

[01:18:42] Caroline: About 10,000 eggs.

[01:18:43] Jason: But the unfortunate part is because there's so many...

[01:18:46] Caroline: They die?

[01:18:46] Jason: ...they literally get three or four actual babies from them. Yeah.

[01:18:50] Caroline: No.

[01:18:50] Jason: It's pretty nuts, huh?

[01:18:51] Caroline: Buddy.

[01:18:52] Jason: Yeah. These are the things you learn on Instagram when are scrolling through.

[01:18:55] Caroline: Really? 10,000 eggs and only three or four become lobsters?

[01:18:58] Jason: Yeah. It's pretty wild, huh?

[01:18:59] Caroline: Oh, wow.

[01:19:00] Jason: You're welcome, everybody. I feel like the end of this podcast really took a turn for some people, and they're like, well, that's a fact I have to share with everybody I know.

[01:19:07] Caroline: That's wild.

[01:19:08] Jason: Yeah.

[01:19:08] Caroline: I'm going to do a deep dive after this.

[01:19:09] Jason: All right, everybody, thanks for listening. Hope you enjoyed another year of our podcast. If you listen this far, you...

[01:19:15] Caroline: Love you so much.

[01:19:16] Jason: ...are number one, a cinnamon roller. Congratulations.

[01:19:17] Caroline: Yeah, you're definitely a cinnamon...

[01:19:19] Jason: Number two, I think you probably have not left a review on our podcast feed in iTunes or Apple, wherever you leave podcast reviews these days.

[01:19:28] Caroline: Oh, this man is hunting for reviews again.

[01:19:30] Jason: I'm just saying it's the end of the year.

[01:19:32] Caroline: It's the end of the year.

[01:19:32] Jason: You guys are all offering me a Christmas gift and I'm willing to take it.

[01:19:35] Caroline: Okay.

[01:19:36] Jason: And it would be to just leave a review of our podcast on Apple podcast.

[01:19:38] Caroline: Just leave a review.

[01:19:39] Jason: Pop over to it, find the feed, hit whatever stars you feel right. Leave a little note.

[01:19:43] Caroline: Nugget. What do you enjoy?

[01:19:44] Jason: And if you joined Spotify, I think it's just, you just do a star thing. I don't even think you leave like actual reviews on Spotify.

[01:19:49] Caroline: Great.

[01:19:49] Jason: But it just, that would be my Christmas request. My one Christmas wish. I don't want a bike.

[01:19:53] Caroline: Your grown-up Christmas wish?

[01:19:55] Jason: I don't want a red wagon. I just want a review on Apple podcast for our podcast.

[01:19:59] Caroline: I think that's you don't get what you don't ask for. Someone told me that once.

[01:20:02] Jason: Okay. All right. That's it.

[01:20:04] Caroline: Thanks for listening. We love your faces. We will... Is this our last of the year?

[01:20:09] Jason: This is the last episode. We'll see you in 2025.

[01:20:10] Caroline: See you in 2025.

[01:20:10] Jason: Bye.