I really should have started the blog off with this post since it’s already nearly November, but oh well, better late than never. I recently wrote a post about finite games and infinite games in entrepreneurship, and I focused on the value of shifting your mindset to an infinite game to make your entrepreneurial journey easier. But today’s post is all about finite games, I’m going to share with you all the smaller finite games I’ve created for myself.

All these games are specifically goals I want to achieve by the end of 2017. I don’t know whether I will reach these targets, and if I was to base it on my track record the chances are genuinely only 50/50. Nevertheless, I always set goals and milestones for myself to keep myself motivated. It’s really important to me that I have clear goals to work towards. I find it makes me more focused during the day and less likely to waffle around feeling “lost” with what to do next. By setting goals, I easily know what I need to do or focus on to move along my entrepreneurial journey. So here are my goals for the rest of this year.   1. Hit 600 subscribers on Youtube My YouTube channel started out as an experiment to learn YouTube’s algorithm, but what was going to be an experimental channel has turned into a promising income stream. So why not roll with it and carry on expanding it. I started the channel on 7th September 2017. I got to the 10,000 view count under a month, which was really surprising and also the point where I decided to take it more seriously since it meant I was eligible for adsense. As of right now, the channel has 237 subscribers, 37,211 total views and $9.1 in total ad revenue earned. Humble numbers, but also extremely promising considering the speed of progress. So I’ve set myself a goal of hitting 600 subscribers by the end of this year. Why not 1000 you ask? Well as much as I like neat numbers, an increase of roughly 400 more subscribers from now until 31st December seems more realistic. Also, I’ve learnt customer loyalty is extremely valuable and I’ve been fortunate enough to gain loyal viewers from very early on. People who tune in for every single video and leave comments on the regular are far more likely to actually watch an ad in full, press an affiliate link and follow through with any call to action I ask for. I rather have a small loyal group of viewers that convert consistently than a horde of subscribers that aren’t emotionally attached to my content. Quality is key guys. The number of subscribers doesn’t determine the amount of money you make on YouTube, nor does any of the other common stats people focus on. They’re all indirect indicators that we can make assumptions on ONLY. But saying that, an increase in loyal subscribers would definitely correlate to more ad revenue and income generating power later down the road. I’ve managed to give my viewers a good amount of control over my channel content and this strategy seems to be working very well. I plan to continue this strategy and even increase it up a notch by making the feedback loop smaller.   2. Dominate 5 keywords on Amazon My kindle business has been running smoothly for a while, but it has been hitting a bit of a roadblock lately. Old books are sliding in the search rankings and ranking new books are getting harder than before. So I’ve switched up my approach quite a bit to focus on a few profitable keywords that really have the potential to generate a sizable kindle income for me. I identified 5 keywords that collectively already make me $1000+ consistently every month, but if I was to dominate these 5 keywords than they would easily be making me $3000+ every month. That’s a lot from just 5 keywords. Instead of the traditional approach of using multiple keywords and constantly looking for new ones, I’ll be able to minimise the amount of work needed by focusing my efforts on a selected handful instead. It makes the whole process a lot easier since you’re not spreading your efforts across a whole portfolio of keywords. It took me a long time to make this decision, as the conventional way of kindle publishing was to pump out publications across many areas, niches and keywords. The idea is to diversify risk by not having your eggs concentrated in a small basket. But after being in the business for over 2 years now I have made some observations that gave me the confidence to take this approach. One of the biggest observations is: Rankings in search results aren’t as turbulent as you think. Books that sell consistently for the first few months do not fluctuate in rank over the long run even if sale numbers dip. Sales fluctuate throughout the year no matter how great the keyword is, but books that managed to keep their sales figures up over the first 6 months seem to stay still within the search algorithm. I have several books that are 100% passive. I don’t even check on them other than the monthly bookkeeping I do. And that just consists of me looking at dashboards to see how much they made that month. As of right now, I have completely dominated 1 keyword and am on track to dominate another 2 by the end of November. I’m not too sure about the other two as they seem to be a bit more tricky, however I’m still confident I can do all 5 by the end of December.   3. Finish setting up this blog This blog isn’t exactly complete, even though I’ve been posting on it consistently since day one. I’d love to finish setting this blog up properly so I have everything in place for readers to fully enjoy the content. Right now the blog isn’t looking it’s best and I really haven’t spent any time on the theme. I want to get this blog to a point where it looks a lot more professional and a whole lot easier to use. Since the navigation right now isn’t the most straightforward. I know this goal is pretty vague compared to the other two, but I think a good set of directions would be to:

• Customise the theme more or change the theme completely
• Structure the blog for easy navigation so everything is within 3 clicks away. (Tough challenge)
• Develop a consistent aesthetic style for the blog that accurately represents me

  4. Get involved with the digital nomad scene in Hong Kong One of the reasons why I wanted to start this blog was to really put my story out there and reach out to others that are on a similar path as mine. As of right now, my journey has been rather isolated. I don’t really work on the road like most others who pop into a coworking space even when they travel. (I barely work at all when I’m travelling) And I never needed to go to seminars or workshops for the particular business models I’ve been involved with. The result. I haven’t been involved with the community much and it’s really unfortunate, because after a few years on this adventure you really notice how little the general population knows about not working a normal job. The amount of explaining and confusion I get from the average person is starting to wear thin on my patients if I was entirely honest. At the best of times it’s great to expose people to an alternative life they too can also enjoy, but when you’re met with a lot of non-belief then it starts to make me wish for a community of friends that are on the same journey as I am.

I’m not joking when I say non-belief. It’s like a bunch of flat earth believers denying basic science. More people than I would like to admit  refuse to believe I’m able to make a living without sitting in an office cubicle. I don’t know if it has anything to do with Hong Kong culture, but that’s been my personal experience when telling people what I do for a living. I don’t plan to start working at co-working spaces or attending workshops on a regular, but I do want to get more involved with the scene in Hong Kong. So, I probably will make the effort in going to these places just for the social networking aspect and for nothing else.

Other resources you should check out:

• Find out if I achieved any of these goals in my final post! 
• Learn how to set better goals to make achieving them easier 
• Start your own Kindle publishing business with my 6 video lessons 
• Read how I got my YouTube channel monetising within 1 month!