It’s Friday, so that means it’s time for another Hack My Midlife Crisis episode!

Today I share an update on my data collection progress, talk about how I select a mentor or teacher to help me achieve goals and learn new skills, and I share a few of the hacks I’ve discovered for getting great deals on audiobooks.

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Update on data collection progress:

Journaling is going well. I do it first thing in the morning. Here’s what I’m tracking:

Amount of sleep the night before
How I feel, sense of well-being as I begin each day
3 things I’m thankful for
Reflection on significant accomplishments or experiences from the previous day
Reflection on things that are front of mind about the day ahead

Besides writing in my paper journal, I’m also tracking my daily schedule in ATracker Pro and recording my weight every morning in the Health App.

Here’s more information on the specific tools I’m using to keep daily notes and compile the data I’m collecting:

Moleskine Evernote Smart Notebook – I chose this particular notebook for several reasons. First off, I’m old school and still love taking notes on paper. This particular Moleskine notebook is designed to take advantage of Evernote’s Page Camera feature, so you’re able to capture the pages of your notebook with your smartphone or tablet and upload them directly to Evernote. It was also very important to me that I work with a bound notebook for this project. In the past I’ve used legal pads, but my notes are too easily misplaced. This notebook will allow me to successfully keep my notes in one place.

ATracker Pro – Daily Task and Time Tracking – ATracker Pro empowers you to get a handle on how you’re actually spending your time each day. This is critical as you strive to understand your schedule and work to discover time that you can recapture to put towards achieving your goals.

Health App – The Health App is included out of the box on your iPhone. The primary thing I track with this app is my daily weight when I wake up each morning.

Do you have a daily journaling practice or apps that you use to make sense of your habits and daily schedule? I want to find out what’s working for you. Leave a comment below or e-mail me at show@ShaunTabatt.com.

Steps to selecting a mentor or teacher:

Ideas from many of the world’s best teachers and mentors are widely accessible these days. It’s critical that you look for somebody who has successfully achieved the goal you’re striving for or mastered the habit you’re working on. It’s also important to look for a mentor who has a track record of long-term, ongoing success.

Here are the specific steps I use to find the people I want to learn from:

Ask my friends – If you have friends with similar interests, they can be a great place to start. I find they often help me to skip a few steps in the search process and introduce me to a more curated and niched list of possible teachers. Send an e-mail, give a shoutout on social media, or grab coffee or dinner with a friend or two. All of these are good options for quickly finding exactly who or what you’re looking for.
Ask Amazon – Whether you have a list of suggested mentors from your friends or a few that you’ve come up with on your own, the next place to go in your search is Amazon. I especially love the part of each product page that says: “Customers Who Bought This Item Also Bought.” This is where I often meet many great authors and their books for the very first time.
Ask iTunes – iTunes is another great place to discover your new mentors. Here are a few of my go to shows for marketing and personal development ideas and resources:

How do you find the people you want to learn from? Are there any podcasts I’m missing out on? I’d love to hear your ideas, so leave a comment below or e-mail me at show@ShaunTabatt.com.

Hacks for finding great deals on audiobooks:

If you’ve been following me for any length of time, you’ve no doubt figured out that I’m a huge fan of audiobooks. Between my daily commute, weekly runs, and if you take into account the weeks that I’m traveling for work, I sometimes have between 8-24 hours in a week that I can multitask and listen to an audiobook while I’m doing something else.

Here are the hacks I’ve found for keeping my Audible library filled with new books without breaking the bank:

Become an Audible member. As an Audible member, you get a credit for one audiobook per month. You also get a discount on the more than 180,000 audiobooks available in their library. If you’d like to give Audible a try, be sure to use my promo link AudibleTrial.com/Shaun. You’ll get a free audiobook download and a 30 day free trial.
Before you buy an audiobook, check out the Kindle edition first. Amazon has a feature called Add Audible Narration, which allows you to pick up the Audible audiobook edition for just a few dollars more.

Here’s an example using Michael Port’s excellent book Steal the Show:

Regular audiobook price: 20.99
Audible member price: 14.69
Kindle edition price: $4.99
Add Audible narration price: $2.99

If you buy the audiobook of Steal the Show via Add Audible narration, you get both the Kindle and audiobook editions for $7.98. That’s a savings of $13.01 off of the regular audiobook price and $6.71 off of the Audible Member price.

3. I’ve also found that searching on social media sites like Twitter and Facebook can be a great way to discover free audiobooks. There are often a number of companies partnering with Audible each month, offering a free premium audiobook download. The search termss I’ve had the most success with are “Free Audible” and “Free Audiobook.”

Do you have any hacks for getting great deals on audiobooks? I’d love to hear your ideas, so leave a comment below or e-mail me at show@ShaunTabatt.com.

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