[Transcript starts at 0:40]
Hello, hello, hello. My podcast people and thank you for joining me for Y, another episode of My favorite podcast, and by another episode, I mean episode 674. We are getting up there, folks. We're getting up there. If you're listening, tuning in, watching on the day that it drops. It is Monday. July 21st. I hope you are enjoying your summer 'cause it's flying by summer.
Is summering over here And y'all know every day I am so grateful for I for where I live. Y'all know that. I, I love it. If you're listening, then you heard that noise. That was me adjusting the mic. Uh, if you're watching, you saw, uh, but today we are talking about should you start over? What to do if you're thinking about starting over, when to start over.
And maybe this is a little bit of a misnomer. But also it kind of fits the best as it relates to what we're gonna talk about. So I just went with it, right? I stuck with it as a title. Um, I got no dedicated, no real dedicated life update section today because my life updates inspired this episode and I'll be discussing.
My life updates as part of this episode. So let's get into it. The question at hand is should you start over, and in this case, as it relates to your online business, but it could be in terms of anything. But we're specifically, we're talking about your online business and my online business. So I say that it's a little bit of a misnomer because as a title, because I don.
Think that it's necessarily truly possible to like 100% start over like from scratch, because if nothing else, you have your experience and that 100% carries over, right? Literally all of your life experience leading up to that and you know. All the things that you've done and, and that absolutely counts for something.
So, you know, for example, my foray into beach volleyball, I didn't play volleyball growing up in a little bit in, in high school, like in gym. Um, and I didn't really play an over an overhand, you know, overhead sport. But I played sports at a very high level and I played sports for many, many years and that definitely carried over and has allowed me to pick up volleyball very quickly.
Yes, this is, I'm starting over, I'm starting from scratch. I'm starting from, from zero, you know, in 2020 I was, but there was still a lot of, you know, it wasn't truly from, from scratch. Speaking of volleyball, side note, I miss being inad in Guad, I'm not gonna lie. Uh, and there's a good chance we'll go back.
Um, so we should probably start saving now 'cause it's not cheap. It's really the flights, right. Um. But it just felt so good to be there. It was a perfect amount of time. Like it's, it's tough. You can see him in the background. My little dude, Rupe. Uh, it is tough to be away from, from them, from a long time.
Moose and rupe. And, and that's like if I, if I didn't have them, if we didn't have them, I would have no problem staying longer. Um, but. It felt really good and relaxing and the time difference is a little tough, but like in general it felt really good to be there. Um, and that trip is actually definitely helpful with this kind of starting over, quote unquote of mine, um, because it is so.
Easy to feel what I do and do not want to be doing. I've always been like that and definitely, you know, I've been able to feel that. But when you go on trips like these, and I know that you know what I'm talking about, you go away and you come back and you just, everything's like just so clear. And you're like, hate that.
That's ghetto. Don't want that, miss that. Like that. Enjoy that. Don't want more of that, want less of that, want more of that. So, uh, but back to the main topic of starting over. When to do it, should you do it? What to do when you do it. Uh, I'm gonna start off by sharing my, starting over and then I'll dispense some advice, you know, concurrently.
So I'm starting a new podcast. Uh, I announced it to my email list if you're on it. Thank you. Uh, in the June monthly recap, the podcast is going to be called or is called chat, GPT, curious, and it officially launches on. August 7th. That is a Thursday, and then subsequent episodes will drop every Thursday.
Uh, the trailer is up. If you wanna give it a listen, we will link that in the show notes. Um, but. This podcast isn't going anywhere. I'm starting another one. I'm gonna have two. Uh, and that podcast chat, GBT curious is for anyone who's curious about chat, GBT, uh, and on it. I talk about what chat GBT is, what AI is, how to use it, and what it might mean for how we work, how we think, how we create, and how we move through life.
I am incredibly. Excited about it. I've been working on this for maybe, I dunno, six weeks, two months, something like that. The time goes by fast and move away for a bit. Um, and all of the online business things around it and. That's one of the things I speaking about when I'm like, I know what I wanna be doing, what I don't wanna be doing, and I wanna be spending more time working on that.
Um, it definitely excites me and brings me joy. Um, and I have built out an entirely new website for it. You can check it out. It's up, it's live chat gt curious.com. Um, and all of the things that were entailed with that. Um. You know, it literally, I do self-hosting, I'd say a WordPress web website. So all the things around that.
Um, you know, buying the domain, linking the domain, uh, the, uh, what do I wanna call it? Media buckets. Um, just a lot of things that I like to have control over and. Doing all of that. I started a new ConvertKit account for email marketing, uh, and have a newsletter for it. I started a new Instagram account for it and we'll link all of the things.
Um, but like I said, I will be continuing this podcast and I'll be continuing my current newsletter and I'll be continuing my current Instagram, even though I haven't done like shit on it, really, I just haven't really been into it. Um, but none of those things are going anywhere. Which kind of further highlights this idea of starting over as a, a slight misnomer.
Um, but the, the reality still exists that as far as assets go, I am starting from scratch, right? And, and making all new ones. Um, but as far as the audience goes and the experience goes, I'm not starting from scratch, but it is a departure from the very well traveled path that I was on. Um, I hope I, there's a good chance I'll do like a full episode, you know, devoted to the, to that.
New podcast once it's actually launched that after that August 7th date. Um, but I wanted to put it on your radar because I'm legit super fucking pumped about it. Like. You've, you've, if you've been listening to this, I've had people, some of you reach out and be like, I hear that you're either thinking about doing something else, like you're thinking about a different direction.
I honestly didn't know, and this is what's, you know, keeps coming up. And so I'm leaning in and I'm definitely excited about it. Um, but wanted to talk about it in this episode and use it as a springboard to talk about shifting careers and changing interests and, and what that looks like in action. Right.
So the first thing is like, should you burn it down? The thing that you have that you're like, I'm not as into this, should you burn it down? In general? I believe the majority of the time the answer to that is no. Right. To me, this feels no different than when people come to me and they're like, I don't like my job, and they wanna like, you know, start their side hustle or go in on the side hustle or, you know, in person, brick and mortar person wants to like start their own practice.
I personally never meant, never recommend burning the ships. I think it creates urgency in a bad way, and then you need the thing to work and then you just make decisions out of desperation and the energies isn't good. Instead, I suggest that you do both things and yeah, you're gonna grind for a bit until you have proof of concept and it's this new thing is doing well enough that you can start to pull back.
On the other thing, it's how I've always run things. I always have that safety net there, and it's how I'm gonna be doing things. That way now with, I'm gonna be running both podcasts and both newsletters and both Instagrams and you know, everything for the time being until I figure out what exactly I wanna do with this chat GPT thing and, and see what comes about with it.
So, next part, should you start a new website? So I should actually back up and summarize. Should you burn the ships now? Next one, should you start a new website? Only if it's a completely new business, you know, or business idea that needs a separate, that needs to be separated, especially if it needs to be separated legally.
The example I'm thinking here, I work with some brick and mortar owners, uh, in our lecture mom lecture remind program that I'm with Lex and. Oftentimes they have a website for their brick and mortar, and then they're building a personal brand that's gonna be going B2B or going through, you know, a different audience.
And in that case, yeah, it makes sense to have a different, different website. Sometimes people can get away with having it like as a dropdown on the current website, but, uh, you know, if it doesn't fit under the current umbrella or the umbrella of your current business, then. You start a new website, right?
Especially if you have the bandwidth to start one, the knowhow, the wherewithal, the tech tenacity or the money to have someone build it for you. Um, like I said, I built a new one out for chat, GBT, curious, um, and I'm really enjoying it. Like I built my first website on Squarespace and then my second website I had it built out, and it's on the current one that you folks know, uh, that is on WordPress.
And, uh, I needed more functionality. I wanted to have the podcast on there. I wanted to have a membership on there. Um, I was thinking about doing courses. I wanted to have full control, and so that's what I went with, with WordPress, but didn't know any shit about it. And so I got a referral for my guy, Joe.
Uh, no, I got two Joes. Um, and, and he built it out and it was the best thing that could have happened. Um. Past, I don't know, I guess six months. I don't know. Uh, I've been like digging more into it and realized how much functionality I had with that website. Then I could host multiple memberships on it, and then I started a paid newsletter through it.
Um, it integrates so well with, with, um, it integrates really well with. ConvertKit. But aside from that, I could have basically what Substack does, but on my own website, um, I have a course that I built up for the mafia that, that lives there, uh, through MemberPress. It's just so much control over things. And then I, you know, started understanding PHP files and, um, FTP clients or F-S-F-P-S-F-T-P clients, which maybe means nothing to you folks.
But suffice to say that playing around with the website. Because of the help of chat GPTI was like, wow. So much functionality and so much control and you all, no, I love having the control. Um, but it just really prepared me to make this new one. And I was excited to make this new one. 'cause my original one is, it's big, it's a big website.
Um, and so this new one I was like. I have, I can under, I understand what this is and I could move away from Amazon. I was using Amazon hosting, um, I was using Amazon for storage and so I moved away from that and went to Digital Ocean, their spaces, um, and their, uh, CDN, native CDN that they have. So I know these are like things that I'm, if you're into tech and websites, you know what I'm saying?
And maybe that excites you. If you don't know what I'm talking about, that's cool too. But suffice to say. This is, I have the tech tenacity and understanding to be like, yeah, I can build this out. Um, and that's why I went with what I went with. And in addition to that, I built a new one because. My goal, my goal is to have this thing as a podcast, right?
First and foremost, it is a podcast chat, GBT Curious podcast. I wanted something that would be easy to do that, and WordPress works really nicely to be able to create a new post and that uploads as a new episode. If I wanted to integrate it with newsletter, it's very easy to do those things. Uh, so that's why I went with it.
And also the familiarity that I have. Um. Again, it's really, I'm really excited about it. I'm really excited about building that thing. Um, I know self-hosting isn't for everyone but me and my control issues love it. Um, if you are like, fuck, that sounds terrible. You don't have to do that. The majority of people do not need anything that I just said.
You don't need any of that. Um, so all that to say, if you're like, what I want to do doesn't fall under the umbrella of the, the website that I currently have. Build a new one. I would suggest using Squarespace. If you want templates, you want help with that, check out Lex lex landcaster.com. She has templates.
She, she helps people doing this. So, but this will be all through Squarespace. Um. Lastly with that, at least buy the fucking domain. Like even if you don't make the website, just like go and grab that domain. It's like 15 bucks a year this way. Just in case, give yourself the option. I own like, I don't know, 10 domains of of names and ideas that I thought that I'm like, I might do something with this.
Um, or iterations of things. So go buy it. I use name cheap. You can use whatever you want to buy the domains. Um, but buy it and hold it for when you're ready. I. Next thing should you do, should you start a new, new Instagram, new socials? Again, it depends on how different this new venture is. I actually just, someone saw someone of a former client who popped up again on Instagram, who's a, she's some sort of doctor.
Um, and she's come back and she's switched her handle and now it's a travel account. It's still like docked as doctor, but the whole thing is now going to be about, about travel, um, and. If it's viable to shift the account, go ahead and do it. Like technically it's always viable. Sometimes this is not as good of an idea to do that.
Um, I went from the movement, you know, the, my show and talking all about movement to talking about all about online business and, you know, I had a significant following, but it wasn't that much of a departure, right? It was still B2B I was talking about movement, but going business to business. And then I went into, uh, into online business and was still going.
You know, business of business with the health and fitness within the health and fitness space. So it wasn't this like radical pivot and it could, it made sense and I was okay losing some people, right? I think if it's a like really, really super new direction, a new account probably is a better idea. And to be like, go to this account and tell people like, Hey, I started a new one here.
Go follow me there. Um, mainly because I know that people don't wanna give up the numbers, right? You have an account, you have like a, a following on there, but those people follow you for something else. And when you go into the shift of this new thing, like they don't wanna be there, they're not gonna follow for that, especially if it's radically different.
So it can make sense to start a new account and then ask people and be like, Hey, if you want this content, go over there. To me, it feels like when CrossFitters get pregnant and I have nothing against it, but CrossFitters get pregnant and then it becomes a, you know, a pregnancy and postpartum account and I'm like.
Good for you, but also adios, like that's not what I came here for. Right. So you can pivot the account if you want, but just don't expect all the people to stay, don't expect the numbers to hold true. It can actually skew your data and it might make more sense if it's a pretty big direction. You know, big, big shift to have a new account in general.
I'm pretty, you know, anti having multiple accounts, especially when someone is just starting off. Um. You know, and if people are trying to use it as a solution for the fact that they're multi-passionate, I'm like, I have an account for this, an account for this, then I'm kind of like, just put all fucking on one and figure out what your thing is.
Um, but the ultimate goal for me, honestly, is that you take action. And if having separate accounts, I'm thinking about my sister here, right? If, if having separate accounts allows you to take action and keep going and do the things, then fucking go do it. Go do it. I love it. Right. And also give yourself permission to, at some point just focus on one account and let the other ones kind of go to sleep.
'cause that will probably happen. But if this is a start over time in your career and you're like, I'm leaving this path that I was on, I'm going a different path. Right? It's a new niche, a new problem you're solving. A new account may very well be. The correct or the better answer. So I would say initially get ready for that double lift.
Um, definitely looks to cross promote where it makes sense. For me, I don't know how much Instagram I'm gonna be doing. Um, that is on the back burner. First and foremost is the actual podcast. Then the newsletter is second, and then we'll see what happens with Instagram. But I did secure the handle and I suggest you do the same.
So that, that's a good segue, segue into the next thing is should you start, you know, a new email marketing service account If you're going to a fully different audience or if you're starting a new LLC? Yes. Start to get a new one. It is very difficult to run two businesses under one account and the things get mixed.
It's a lot of tagging. I don't recommend doing it, just start a new account. Right? Because theoretically you'll end up paying the same, right? In the beginning it won't necessarily be, but you pay per subscriber anyway. So if you have like twice as many subscribers, but you're just on one thing, it'd be the same if as having half as many subscribers on two different things.
So. Just separate them. It's easier. Right? And you can have it with the, you know, you get the new domain email address as well because you had bought the domain, you made the new website. You attach that to, to the new email marketing service as well. Um, so for me, my, my suggestion, it's easier to keep everything separate.
Um, you can use your own affiliate link too. I did that. I actually had to restart, but suffice to say I use my own affiliate link and I was like, yeah, I'm gonna paying twice. Let me see if I can make a dollar off of this. Um, again, this will be a double lift. And it's not something I recommend for the beginner.
Absolutely not. But if you're, this is, again, this episode is really about this person that's like starting over, which means that you're along in your career and you're like, Hey, I got a new thing that I'm, that I'm thinking about doing, then yeah, it can make sense. So the summary, the overview of all of this, part of the reason that I made, uh, you know, the new, the new website, the new email, the new socials is for me.
I'm personally, I'm looking to give myself options in the future. Right now the focus is the podcast and secondarily the newsletter and probably gonna make a blog from it. I have no idea what it will become, if anything, but I have the tech familiarity, the tech tenacity, and it was, you know, it is exciting for me to create these things.
So I leaned in, I. Of note, I'm not just talking about it, nor am I just building stuff with no intention to ever bring it public facing. Not that there's like, I'm not trying to say that in like a bad way, like how you're just talking about it, but for me, like this is moving the needle and I'm launching it and it's part of the reason that I put it in the newsletter and I'm talking about it now, is it's, you know, that public accountability piece.
'cause this thing is coming, this thing is getting launched, we are moving in this direction. Uh, and so if you know that it's helpful to have that public account accountability. Then do that. Tell your people, lean into that, and then, you know, hold true on your word. So. Those are my thoughts on should you start over?
When to start over, what to do if you're starting over, quote unquote, starting over. Uh, yes. This was largely just an excuse to proudly announce my new podcast and the new endeavors surrounding it. Um, but I've always said that if you're feeling a certain, you know, kind of certain kind of way, there's a good chance that your people are feeling that way too.
So share it. And my interests very much go on these like five year cycles. I went all in on online business in 2020 during COVID. I was still teaching, moving with the maestro when COVID hit and I had to cancel my New York course. I never did a New York City course, canceled it, moved it online because of the pandemic.
Uh, and so I was still in the movement space in 2020. We're in July of 2025 and my interest. In the online business space is waning, right? It's been five years, so still doing it, still enjoying it. I do still love helping people, but I'm very much enjoying diving into chat, GPT and ai and I'm a lean in, right?
No burning of the ships, just leaning into the new while continuing with the old. And seeing where things go. Alright, looking at the time, that is all that I got for you. I hope you check out the new podcast again. It's called Chachi P Curious. It officially launches on August 7th. Episodes will drop every Thursday after that.
The trailer is live right now though, if you wanna check it out. Alright, that's all I got for you. Again, thank you as always, endlessly, endlessly appreciative for every single one of you next time friends. Maestro out.
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