How I made $14,100 online this month traveling. That is four times as much as last month. Now I will explain how and why this happened.
My name is Dan of Vagabond Awake, the Youtube channel for VagabondBuddha.com. We teach people how we retired early overseas in paradise to live a better life. We show you what we believe is a better life in videos and written reports all over the world.
People enjoy our content showing that the world is a beautiful place. Some of us are able to live a better and more meaningful life by living outside our home country, going on an endless adventures, and discovering a new way of living overseas.
For this reason, my Youtube channel and my retire cheap in paradise memberships continue to draw attention online. That attention has translated into $14,100 in revenue this month.
YouTube will be paying about $4500 this month (December 2022).
Another $9600 will come from memberships this month.
So, sharing my hobby on the internet this month made $14,100 this month. That is more than three times as much revenue as last month.
Last month, in November of 2022, Youtube paid me $2100.
Plus, I earned another $1700 in memberships in November of 2022. So, I earned $3800 last month in total.
So this month’s earnings of $14,100 were more than triple the $3800 I made last month.
You are probably thinking that tripling my previous month’s income is all good news.
Well, it is not all good news. I will explain why in this video. I will also explain what was going wrong and how I intend to fix it next year. This is sort of my new year’s resolution, for my hobby retirement income for next year, 2023.
But first, I have a question for you. Do you think I should split my channel in two? Share information about retiring overseas on one channel, and making money online on another channel. Or should I keep one channel and let you decide which videos you want to watch?
Please share your thoughts in the notes below this video.
If you have never heard of me before, you will probably think I am leaving out part of the story. This video is more for people that have watched my channel grow over a few months and years.
But I will give you links to my retire cheap reports membership and my course that teaches you how to make money online at the end of this video. This will help you understand what I am talking about.
Basically, I travel around the world and share the best places to retire cheaply in paradise. People watch my videos and read my eBooks and take my course to save time and money deciding where to live or retire overseas.
You see, my favorite hobby is traveling the world and sharing it with people. I actually make money traveling for a living. That is my hobby. But my online business model, and my hobby income course teach how to set up a webpage like mine for a hobby of your choice. More on that later.
Okay, so what went wrong this year?
Before tripling last month’s earnings to make $14,100 this month, my previous monthly high was $6500. But that was 18 months ago as I explained in this video in June of 2021.
So I went 18 months without setting a new personal best. So my retirement hobby income was not trending upward in the general sense in 2022.
You can see from my membership income in 2022, that I was slowly trending downward until it exploded upward this month of December for reasons I am about to explain.
While membership income was trending downwards, my Youtube income continued to trend upwards in 2022.
That means that while my YouTube audience continued to grow in 2022, new memberships were not growing at the same pace. And yet, although YouTube was trending upward, I was still making more money overall from memberships ($36,500) than I was from YouTube ($25,200).
So why am I motivated to correct this in 2023?
I am motivated by two principles in my early retirement. The first is personal growth and the second is helping others with what I learn along the way as I grow personally.
Personal Growth
Money has never been an issue in my life. Somehow there always seems to be enough money around when push comes to shove. So, I do not operate from fear about money. But I do like to feel like I am growing in my life. I think of it as a way to keep my brain fresh and my pockets full in retirement.
Plus, I have an 18-month itch cycle. That means I get bored with doing the same thing all the time. I have to introduce chaos in my life to remain engaged in life. So, I am going through a knowledge execution cycle right now. I have started applying things I have learned over the last few years.
Executing knowledge that I have learned over the last few years, re-engages me, and introduces chaos back into my daily routine, which creates excitement and momentum in my daily activities.
I studied my notes from multiple other sources I have learned over the last few years. I looked for ideas to implement from other sources I respect. That is why I made more money this month. More on that in a second.
Helping Others
I like to share what works for me. Not everything online works for me. Most of what I learn online is just a distraction. So when I find something that works, I like to share it with you. I see this as sifting, sorting, and trying and ultimately as a sharing function. That is how I see myself helping others. I clear distractions in front of them.
Don’t do this, it didn’t work for me. Don’t do that, it makes money, but it doesn’t really help people. Sift through the crap, and share what works. Once I internalize something that really works for me, I share it with you. And a few of you have explained that you appreciate seeing me try things out before I recommend them to you.
The truth is, I am not the most creative guy in the world. But I am really good at execution. I can get myself to grind away at an idea, giving it a sincere go. So if it works for me, and you are willing to grind as I did, it may work for you too.
So I shine a light on a path if it works. Only if it provides actual value to people. It makes me feel good shining a light on what I believe in. It makes me feel good helping people.
Okay, here are the ideas I am implementing now that helped me make $14,100 this month.
Things I Implemented: From multiple respectable sources
I keep notes of what I learn online. When I start to see patterns in multiple people I respect, I try those things out. Here are some of the notes I have from multiple people. Since these show up in multiple places I respect, I have and will continue to do them.
After I share them, I will compare my actions during 2022 to see what I need to do differently in 2023. I share my new year’s resolutions next.
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Create value in people’s lives (information, entertainment, tips, tricks, etc.) |
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The real value is generated via emails, not videos |
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Email is the best way to help others and increase engagement |
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YouTube creates interest in what you do, but you need their email |
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Give something of incredible value away for free to get their email address. |
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Make time-limited offers in your emails |
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Offer your expertise in paid training courses or memberships via emails |
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Share the best courses of other experts in your emails |
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Youtube is how you find your audience (but internalization comes in deep dives) |
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People internalize value in deep dives (concentrated courses, eBooks, etc.) |
Your online retirement hobby will have your content and your personality. But these fundamental concepts must be present in your online hobby in order to assure that your income is sustainable and continuous.
So I had to take a look at my online hobby business and be honest with myself. What am I not presently doing that I need to add to my activities in 2023? Not only to protect and insure the relevance of my hobby income stream but also to share with you to insure the vitality of your hobby income stream.
I will also use this self-evaluation to set my New Years’ Resolution for 2023.
My New Year’s Resolutions for 2023
Create more value in people’s lives: What have you done for me lately? I just create the Retire Overseas Course and I have been getting terrific feedback. I also add new eBooks to the membership constantly. Based on your feedback, I am adding valuable content for you constantly. I intend to continue to do that in 2023.
The real value is generated via emails, not videos: Here is where I was failing in 2022. I was only sending 5 emails when people first got my free eBook, called: How I Fired My Boss and Travel the World for 15 Years. Make sure to grab that if you don’t have it already. So, 4 weeks ago I started sending emails to you offering you my new content and memberships and you all started joining my Membership and Courses. My membership sales went from $1700 last month to $9600 this month.
Email is the best way to help others and increase engagement: By only sending you a few emails per year after the initial 5 free eBook signup, I was reducing your personal engagement with me and my online courses. So I started sending emails 4 weeks ago. I sent 5 emails in the month of December 2022, and that is why membership enrolment went through the roof. I will continue to send at least one email per week during 2023.
YouTube creates interest in what you do, but you need your follower’s email: My hobby income course already teaches you how to get your follower’s emails and how to increase engagement with emails. I just wasn’t taking my own advice. So, I started following my own advice over the last 4 weeks. Engagement with my shared hobby went through the roof. When I was a kid, I remember my father saying that the plumbers’ pipes were all leaking, the dentist’s teeth have cavities, and the doctor is sick. It was time for me to start taking my own advice and start sending emails. It is now clear that email engagement can not be delayed in 2023.
Give something of incredible value away for free to get their email address: I already give away one of the most valuable tools on the Internet that teaches how to retire cheaply overseas. It is called: How I Fired My Boss and Travel the World for 15 Years. I teach you how to do this in the hobby income course. So, no changes are needed here in 2023. I will just keep up the good work.
Make time-limited offers in your emails: People just need help making up their minds. One of the best ways to do that is to offer them a time-limited offer at great savings. One of the main reasons, people started joining this month is that I created a time-limited offer in my emails. I explained that I am increasing prices. But I have been sharing that almost exclusively via email. So, if you are not on my email list, you need to join now. My time-limited offer expires at midnight on December 31, 2022. Join my email list right now, so you will get my time-limited discount coupon before the end of the year. I will send out the last coupons at 3:00 PM, Pacific time, on December 31, 2022. You will be able to use that coupon until midnight of December 31, 2022. Jump on my email list here: How I Fired My Boss and Travel the World for 15 Years. Do that now to make sure you get the discount coupon in time. The savings will be substantial.
Offer your expertise in training courses and memberships via emails: Honestly, I haven’t been sharing all the new content I have been creating in emails with you. That has probably been one of my biggest mistakes in 2022. So I promise to send at least one email per week sharing information about new videos, new eBooks, and new courses as I create them, in 2023.
Share the best courses of other experts in your emails: This is something I have never done for you. So this year, I will continue to take courses created by other experts in various fields related to online businesses. I will try and then try out their ideas in my business. Then I will share the ones with you that actually work. Some of them are a big waste of time and money so I promise not to share those with you.
Youtube is how you find your audience (but they internalized value in deep-dive content): I found you on YouTube. And I provide my greatest value to you in my eBooks and my courses. So I will keep doing that for you so you internalize it better in deep concentrated dives.
Your audience will internalize value in concentrated courses, eBooks, and seminars: It is the concentrated content over many days where I seem to get the most value, That is how I am able to internalize concepts and use them in my life. So I will continue to identify important concepts and help you internalize them with deep concentrated dives that I think are worth your time.
Additional Actions I will take in 2023:
One. I joined a course (a few weeks ago) that teaches Facebook advertising. I will test that out and share it with you if it works.
Two. I joined another course that teaches how to sell a single highly valuable eBook for really cheap. The idea is to use the revenue from the sale to pay for more advertising. It is promoted as a way to create a series of new customers that love the valuable eBook and are willing to try your other courses and memberships since the eBook was so valuable. I will test that out and let you know how it goes.
If you are new to my channel, make sure to check out the following two videos:
My Retire Overseas Course Syllabus and My Hobby Income Course introductory video. And make sure to sign up for my free Ebook which will add you to my email list so you will receive your discount code by email. Don’t worry, all of this is in writing with links to everything I talked about. Just click the first link in the notes below this video.
So that is what I am up to for 2023. Thanks for checking out my report, How I made $14,100 online this month while traveling.
This is Dan of Vagabond Awake, the Youtube Channel for VagabondBuddha.com. The world is your home, what time will you be home for dinner?
