December 2010 “Virtual CEO Goal” Monthly Report… I Did It..!!!

Virtual CEO Goal Note

First and foremost – Happy New Year, everyone! I hope you all had a tremendous holiday season with family and friends and everything that goes with it! I know I certainly did.

With a 10-day posting hiatus behind me, I am very proud and extremely excited to announce the fact that I have achieved my 2010 goal of becoming a Full-Time Virtual CEO..!!!

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Merry Christmas to All of You!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Vb0TX2j31Rc

As I will now be taking a well earned rest over the Christmas and New Year period to spend serious quality time with my family, I wanted to get all us Ducker’s together a shoot a little (literally 51 seconds!) ‘Thank You and Merry Christmas’ note for you all.

This year has been great, and I sincerely want to express my gratitude to each and every one of you who have subscribed to the blog, followed me on twitter, ‘Liked’ our Facebook Page, retweeted anything I’ve shouted out, downloaded even just one episode of the VBL Podcast (however, you really should subscribe on iTunes!), and for all the general support you’ve all shown over the last 12 months.

When I started the blog in January this year I never expected it to grow to where it is today. We have such an amazing community built up with some of the best entrepreneurs, internet marketers and digital nomads I’ve ever come across.

I am very humbled by the entire journey this year, and I promise to try and kick it up a notch going into next year.

So, until January 3rd, 2011, which will be my next post – thank you once again for everything this year, and I look forward to seeing you all in the New Year – have an awesome holiday season, everyone…

November 2010 “Virtual CEO Goal” Monthly Report

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=i3Jj5cempSk

Number of Days in the Office: 13, Total Number of Employees: 215

I thought I’d shoot a video for this months report – hope you enjoy it. Its been another busy month, with the large majority of my focus spent on working with my management team, to be able to hit that Virtual CEO goal of mine by the end of the year!

You’ll see in the video, a widescreen shot of the lovely desk that I had custom built a few years back. Although at first I loved this desk, I have slowly started to loathe it, and what it stands for. It has become way more than just a working surface for me, and has stopped me from living the life I have been wanting to for a long time now.

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Ask the Readers: What are Your Top 3 Online Tools for Getting Things Done!

First up, I’d like to send out a massive HAPPY THANKSGIVING to all my brothers and sisters from the ‘other side of the pond’, as we say in England – hope you guys have an awesome day with your families…!

Welcome to another VBL Discussion post. For those of you who haven’t been here before (read the first one here), every Thursday (I may skip the odd one!) I kick off a discussion with my two pennies worth on a topic related to the Virtual Business strategy, and then you guys pitch in with your take on the subject.

Hopefully, in the process, we give each other a ton of new ideas on how to get more productive, live awesome lifestyles, be excellent at what we do, and a whole lot of other important, interesting and inspiring stuff. So, today, I am opening things up on the subject of the three top tools that you use, online, to get things done.

For me, as someone about to become VERY virtual, I’ve been studying up in regards to online tools more and more and more recently. At present (and this might change in the future) my top three online tools for remaining productive are as follows:

Gmail & Google Calendar

Being able to check my email (across several accounts) from any device or computer connected to the internet is just a pure Godsend. Plain and simple. The fact that I can also access my entire schedule is even more awesome (although GCal has had a couple of brain farts recently that I haven’t been all that pleased about!). This set-up is a MUST HAVE for any virtual entrepreneur. Check it out at Google.com

Dropbox

I work with several staff in my company, and several staff that do not working directly for my company. Dropbox gives me the freedom to share files with everyone I give access to, they can then update them at your end and upload the newly amended file to everyone else in the Dropbox folder to stay up-to-date with everything. Sheer genius. I use this every single day, without fail. Check it out at Dropbox.com

Evernote

Since becoming an iPad user, I use this device a lot more than I do my laptop. I love that fact. Evernote gives me the freedom to make notes, jot down ideas, and to capture great content from the web to read / listen to / watch at a more convenient time. You can also attach images and audio recordings directly to your notes. It’s super powerful. Check it out at Evernote.com

Over to you guys!

The ‘Passive Income Threesome’, with Pat Flynn (Part 2): Ideas for Different Types of Passive Income

Hey! If you’re visiting via the Smart Passive Income blog, thank you for dropping by. You’ll love the content that Pat and I have put together for this video series this week!

On Monday I posted the first part of this 3-part video clip series on the subject of passive income, that I recorded with good friend and fellow blogger, Pat Flynn whilst we were both in Vegas last month for BlogWorld 2010. We had some great feedback from it – if you contributed, thank you. In that video we discussed what passive income actually is as a business model and how it fundamentally works.

In today’s video myself and Pat discuss several different passive income streams ideas that anyone out there can get involved with almost immediately – as long as you’ve got something of value to bring people, obviously!

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The ‘Passive Income Threesome’, with Pat Flynn (Part 1): What Actually IS Passive Income?

First up, if you’re coming over from the Smart Passive Income blog, thank you for dropping by. You’ll love the content that Pat and I have put together for this series!

As some of you might already know, passive income is a big part of living what I like to call the ‘Virtual Business Lifestyle’. It’s a subject that we’ve discussed on the blog more than once, for sure, and one of the best-received posts we’ve done on the subject was the second edition of the VBL Podcast with Pat Flynn, from the SPI Blog.

Last month, as some of you may know, I attended BlogWorld 2010 (if you haven’t read my report and checked out the video, do so here). After striking up a great friendship with Pat this year, through our online entities, several Skype conversations and the fact that we share Filipino blood (well, kinda!), it was nice to sit down with him on more than one occasion to talk, eat, laugh and discuss business. It was one evening, however, when we spent a good amount of time together, that we shot this 3-Part video clip series on the subject of passive income, that I begin unveiling today…

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