366 Bites of Wisdom for Social Media Professionals

We’re making up something that didn’t exist before. Certainly applied to social media. Not only are we making up something that didn’t exist before 3574 people are going to copy it tomorrow and you have to make up something new. You’re right. It’s a sprint that is designed as a marathon.

Baer: Hey everybody, it is the Social Pros podcast. I’m Jay Baer from Convince and Convert. He’s Adam Brown from Salesforce Marketing Cloud; special episode with you today. You just heard some wisdom. Just a tiny bit of the gallons of wisdom you’re going to get in this episode from our good friend John Jantsch. You may know from Duct Tape Marketing, Duct Tape Sales and Referral Engine; all the work he does. He’s got a brand new book called the Self-Reliant Entrepreneur, which is really extraordinary. Adam, it’s such an amazing work.

It is on so many different levels and John’s book here is very different than his other books around the Duct Tape Marketing genre. I think is so appropriate. I think it’s appropriate for all of us as business people and entrepreneurs and whether we’re an actual true entrepreneur with a capital E or we’re entrepreneurial in our role, but it recommends and really encourages us to pause and reflect and start each day with a new little routine. I really was just blown away by John’s passion and enthusiasm for this and the applicability of all this for us as Social Pros.

Baer: It’s really something special and I think as a book that everybody who listens to this show should buy. It’ll make your 2020 a lot better. We’ll talk about it in the show. Also, stick with us through the whole episode because at some point, you’ll get to hear Adam read Margaret Fuller passages and I actually read a Thoreau passage during this episode. Not kidding folks, buckle your seat belts. Adam and I bring it all the way back to the 1850s and 1860s a for a little wisdom with John Jantsch. It’s a different kind of show here this week on Social Pros. Speaking of which, as I mentioned last week, two brand new things to tell you about from Adam’s team at Salesforce, the state of the connected customer report. They went out and interviewed 8,000 customers, which feels like an awful lot across the globe to find out what customers actually want, what makes them click, what makes them share, what makes them behave the way we want them to.

Baer: Really terrific report. It won’t cost you anything, download it if you haven’t had a chance to make sure you do it. It’s a bit.ly/customersrule. All lower case. It’s the state of the connected customer report from Salesforce. Also, new sponsor, big thanks to the folks at LinkedIn Marketing Solutions sponsoring the Social Pros podcast. They are going to give you a hundred dollars. A hundred dollars in free advertising credit offers to do some LinkedIn advertising. Go to linkedin.com/socialpros. That’s linkedin.com/socialpros for your free $100 ad .Credit for your new campaigns, terms and conditions apply. LinkedIn advertising is so powerful because they can use targeting capabilities that you just can’t get anywhere else. I do it all the time. Targeting by job title in particular is a really effective opportunity for B2B kind of stuff specifically so take them up on it. They’re going to give you $100, which is a pretty nice a thing for Social Pros. listeners, linkedin.com/socialpros. Let’s get right into it cause we got a lot to hear from today on the Social Pros podcast. It’s John Jantsch, author of the new book, The Self-Reliant Entrepreneur

Baer: This week on the Social Pros podcast it is fantastic to have back on the show, the founder of Duct Tape Marketing, legendary author, podcaster, speaker. He’s got a brand new book, my friend John Jantsch. John, welcome back to the show. I had to look it up. Last time you were here was episode 139 in 2014. Every five years we tried out John Jantsch on the podcast.

How is that possible?

Jantsch: I can imagine five years is like a generation ago.

How many dark years is that?It’s a 260 episodes. That’s what it is. We’ve been remiss in having John Jantsch back on this show.

Baer: Look, a couple of things. What we’re going to talk about the book in just a second, but I want to set up the episode and make sure that you listen all the way through so I’m going to tell you, I’m going to read for you friends, my quote on the back of this book.

Baer: Okay. This is actually on the back cover of the book. John’s new book The Self-Reliant Entrepreneur comes out in about two weeks from when you’re going to hear this. Here’s my quote. It says, “it’s not a game changer, it’s a life changer. This book is your guide on a journey of staggering depth to learn a crucial lesson. A better you makes a better business.” That is my quote on the back of this book. It is one of my favorite books in the last five years. I believe in it that strongly. I cannot wait to dig into it with John Jantsch. First though, John, a lot of people know you from Duct Tape Marketing, Duct Tape Sales, The Referral Engine, your other work; the Duct Tape Marketing system is licensed by more than a hundred different marketing agencies around the world. You’ve been doing it for a long time.

Baer: What has changed the most on that side of your business since the last time you were here on the show? Five years is a long time but how do you think about marketing differently now?

Jantsch: Well, to tell you the truth, I think the biggest change for me is we are intentionally trying to do fewer things at a deeper level. Everything; content, what we’re doing in social media, even the paid search that we’re doing. I’m just really trying to laser in on instead of activity value, what’s going to produce the greatest value. I didn’t make that up. I know that a lot of people are doing that, but that’s certainly been it for us.

Baer: That resonates with me as well. We’re doing the same at Convince and Convert saying, “maybe we don’t need four podcasts at once. Maybe we just need two or one or being everywhere maybe isn’t the best use of resources overall” You’ve been doing your podcast for a long time; Duct tape podcast for a really long time. What’s changed on that side of your business? As the value of the podcast changes how you create the show or promote it differently? What’s, what’s new on that side?

Jantsch: Longtime listeners will know that I’ve kept the same format for about 15 years almost. I would say the biggest thing that’s changed is, as you know, people have jumped on the bandwagon for podcasts and that’s not just listeners, that’s also advertisers and people that you want to get and tap our audiences.

Jantsch: Why I do the show has not changed. I do the show cause so I can talk to cool people like you guys. I mean, that truly, if I didn’t have a listener, if I didn’t have a sponsor, I would still do my podcast because it’s opened so many doors for me by having these conversations. I almost look at it as a bonus that we’re actually generating some pretty significant revenue from advertisers because a lot of advertisers are trying to figure out how to get their message in new places. It’s changed in that regard in that we’ve always had advertisers or sponsors, but they seem to be coming out of the woodwork right now.

Baer: That’s great.

John, its so great to have you on the show. I’ve been a big fan of all of your books and whether it was Duct Tape Marketing, your books on SEO, The Referral Engine, selling, customer commitment; it’s pretty easy to see how all of those are linked. Although I do want you to talk a little bit about how those are linked. Secondly, you look at this new book, The Self-Reliant Entrepreneur, 366 daily meditations to feed your soul and grow your business. I think Jay articulated how important that is for business. It may seem on the surface that that’s a little bit different type of book but I think as you read this book and as you experienced this book, you find that it too is very much around a little bit larger picture of how we look at our day to day lives.

Jantsch: I would say it’s more than on the surface. It’s wholly different book for me I think in some regards. I think a lot of it is I’ve been doing this for 30 years. I think that in some ways, it was my attempt to kind- I love working with entrepreneurs and small business owners but I think being an entrepreneur is one of the most joyful things. It’s also one of the hardest things to do. I think that this book is an attempt to say, “Hey.” It’s not necessarily how to do anything; that’s what all my other books have tried to teach, but maybe more around why to do some of what we do and also maybe a little bit of, “Hey, you got this.” Jay, I’ve stolen that line “make a better you, build a better business. I use that all the time when I’m in interviews and occasionally I credit Jay for saying it.

Jantsch: That to me, I think, is the essence of what we do. I’ve worked under the label of marketing with so many small business owners. When you get in there, in small business owner particularly, everything is marketing. Life is marketing. You can’t separate. “Oh, we’re going to do Facebook ads.” We’re into the customer experience. We’re into how do you keep your people happy? That’s all marketing today and I think that in a lot of ways that’s what this book is, hopefully, helping somebody do; it’s to just stay on track, stay centered so that they can be and build a better business.

Baer: It’s such a good point, John, because I want to make sure that Social Pros listeners don’t think, “well, I’m not an entrepreneur. I run social media for a company X, Y, Z.” It’s like, of all the people in your company, whoever runs social is probably the most entrepreneurial, right? It’s sort of the nature of the role, right? Adam, you’ve run social for a bunch of big companies, You’ve run social for Coke and other huge companies and that is an incredibly entrepreneurial role. Whether you self identify as an entrepreneur or not, I feel like a lot of the same roles apply.

I think you articulated it perfectly, Jay. I think that’s where this book was really meaningful to me. I’ve had an opportunity to look through it because by definition in social media, we’re all about moving forward, moving quickly-

Jantsch: [crosstalk 00:23:42]and taking it up on the fly.

… There you go. Vamping and the such. One of the questions I had for you, John; in this industry that we’re in and even in this timing, I’d love for you to talk about the ‘why now?’ with The Self-Reliant Entrepreneur. It’s interesting. As I read the book, I was also watching TV and I saw an ad for the new Apple watch in one of the things they’re marketing. Actually in the ad around the Apple watch is of course, the breathe app, which is about meditation, about slowing down and pausing and reflecting and getting your blood pressure and your heart rate down and in a way, a lot of the actions and activities of transcendentalism and meditation, which is a big part of this book, are doing the same thing. Why is this all happening right now in 2019?

Jantsch: Well, cause I’m totally stressed out Adam.

Baer: Yes, I was going to say, maybe we need to set it up. The structure of the book actually we talked about 366 so there’s a daily entry. Every day starts with a quote or a reading from a body of literature, mid 19th century literature and then my take buyer-beware, my experience, my beliefs on what it’s like to be an entrepreneur today and then I’ll leave you with a question every day. So why now? For this literature, I still contend that, that this literature written from about 1840 to 1880 or so, is still some of the most entrepreneurial literature ever written. It’s no coincidence that we were all asked to read Walden and Little Women and Scarlet Letter and Moby Dick when we were in college than in high school and still today those books are assigned because that period was kind of one of the first counter-cultural periods in America.

Baer: If you think about what was going on, we were trying to abolish slavery; women were marching in the streets to get the right to vote. We on the doorstep of the civil war because we had such cultural and political divide that a lot of the literature that came out of that period; even the overt literature like Emerson, telling people to be self-reliant. Even a lot of the protagonists I think in the fiction work of that time were for the first time being told, “you are enough. You have everything that you need. You need to trust yourself to follow your own path. Don’t listen to your preacher, don’t listen to the politicians.” I think that was, that was sort of revolutionary.

Baer: They were labeled as these upstarts quite frankly but as you read this work; and I know we’re going to dive into a little bit of it and especially when you get beyond the Pinterest and Instagram quotes attributed to some of this work and you go deeper into their letters and their journals, it really is so relevant for today. In fact, one of the surprises I had in doing this research was, how often I would read a passage ago, that had to be written yesterday. There’s no way that’s 150 years old.

Jantsch: Nope, 1845.

Baer: Wait a second. How’s that possible?

Jantsch: Exactly. That to me was why this felt like the right path to explore.

One of the things that I really appreciated about the book was the time and effort you put in the structure of it. This is not just 365-366 random thoughts, but there is a construct to it. It’s an analogy of January through March being around planning; April, May, June, discovering; July through September, evolving; and October through December, growing. Talk a little bit about how you came up with that seasonal structure of the book.

Jantsch: A long time ago I wrote a blog post. They kind of touched on the idea that as entrepreneurs, I think we do evolve. We don’t evolve at the same pace. Sometimes it’s not in the same order but I think there is, in my experience at least, it was kind of an evolution to how we- if we’re going to make it. We’re stumbling around figuring it out, then we’re discovering what we’re going to commit to.

Jantsch: Then let’s face it, there’s going to be a period of resilience that’s probably going to have to kick in so that we’re overcoming some things. Then finally I feel like; a lot of people come to this later in life but; finally, I think there’s this point where a lot of entrepreneurs start to think about, “what difference have I made? “What impact am I having? There are 21 year olds that are actually exploring that idea as well. It’s not just, “I’m in the late season of my life or my career,” but I think that most entrepreneurs who really feel successful and happy, come to that point that they realize part of the difference they’re making.

I thought, “well, let’s carry that metaphor. We’ve got a year book that runs through the annual calendar so let’s carry that metaphor through as a way to organize the book and I will tell you selfishly, it was also a great tool for me to try to organize the research that I’d done as well; so each quarter, each season, further has a theme for the month. What that allowed me to do is instead of just reading book after book after book and going, “Oh, here’s a nice thought.” It allowed me to actually go hunting for readings and passages that would fit into the theme for the month and then it just created a nice, lovely spreadsheet.

Baer: Well, it is so much work though friends. When you get your own copy of the Self-Reliant Entrepreneur, you would appreciate how much time John spent putting this together because, he had to go read. How many books you have to read for this?

Jantsch: I [inaudible 00:16:20].

Baer: Dozens and dozens, right?

Jantsch: That’s my answer.

Baer: Dozens and dozens of books written in 1800s language. It isn’t always the easiest, breezy, content to consume.

Jantsch: For sure John

Baer: Then figure out all the passages and the relationships you went through like a thousand highlighters and then had to organize it and then had to write his own take on every single one of those quotes and then create a challenge question for 366 entries. What I love about this book is that is that all the business books we talked about here on Social Pros; the books that I’ve written are all, “Hey, here’s my idea, read this idea and then put it into practice.” It’s how business books work. That’s how all of John’s other books work. What I love about this is it doesn’t actually tell you what to do as John mentioned, but it tells you something to think about, but it will literally friends, take you two minutes a day to go through this, right?

Baer: It’s two minutes every single day. Keep it by your bed. First thing, open The Self-Reliant Entrepreneur, get a little dose of perspective; I guess that’s what I would call it; before you jump on your email and I think you’ll be a better person for it. I am going to give it as a gift to a lot of people that I know, certainly everybody on my team at Convince and Convert and a bunch of other folks too because I think it will make 2020 a lot more successful for you if you grab a copy of The Self-Reliant Entrepreneur.

You talked about the challenge question that’s at the end and I have to give you full credit for making that suggestion. I don’t know if you remember it or not, but I sent some early drafts of the workout to folks to get some feedback; when you’re in that point like, “am I ridiculous writing this book?”

Jantsch: Well, especially cause this was a much different book, right? This is like I’ve decided to go to bluegrass. Does this feel like a thing that I should do?

You wrote back and I actually was flirting around with it at the end of the day. I was kind of like, “today, think about this.” You said, “I think I want to ask a question.” I was like, “duh.” That brought the whole book together. I give you a lot of credit for your fingerprints on this book in it and I hope you will see that in the acknowledgements that I gave.

Baer: Thank you. I am honored commission check. I’m sure it’s in the mail on your advance.

Jantsch: It depends on how many books you buy.

Baer: Right. My question earlier was, do you think you, John Jantsch, despite your long and very successful career, could have done this work 10 years ago? Was this a book that you could have put together or was it that you had to have enough of your own perspective and enough lessons learned, both good and bad to be able to have the ability to sort of drill down this deeply on these kind of topics?

Jantsch: This is a question that is impossible to answer, but I’m going to say, I’m going to guess, no. I don’t think I could. A lot of what ended up going into this book quite frankly is coming to terms or really being at peace with what success means to me. 10 years ago I was probably still doing way too much flailing around saying, “look at me. Look at me.” I’m on social media before everybody else saying “look at me,” and a lot of what we do. I think that I’ve certainly come to terms with my definition of success and that, I think helped me write a book that I hope is more useful.

You talked about you the different format of this. One of the things that particularly English majors, in your audience will come to appreciate perhaps is that there’s no first-person in this.

Jantsch: I wrote as a member of the reader group. I feel like I am one of who I’m writing to and for and it’s funny but just as a literary device, it changed the tone and the voice of the book. I didn’t realize. I’m glad I made that decision because I feel like it’s meant to read like, “Hey, we’re just sitting next to each other talking about this stuff.”

Baer: Are you going to use that for all your new books too? Is everything’s going to be second person? I love it. I love it.

Jantsch: Well, the ironic thing about writing a book about teaching somebody how to be self-reliant is, I can’t. I can’t teach you to be self-reliant. It’s on you.[crosstalk 00:20:45]

Baer: No doubt, yes It’s in the title. Because the book is broken down into daily meditations and your reactions and then the daily challenge question, It seems as though that would lend itself to bite-sized, to snackable social media content, right? That we talked about that last week on the show with Amy Woods of Content10X. It feels like the book is sort of tailor made. Do you plan to, in 2020; say, “okay, it’s February 6th, here’s today’s thing from the book,” and make a social media post every single day and essentially give the book away for all intents and purposes, one day at a time. Of course that will probably generate more books sales [inaudible 00:21:24] but is that the idea of on the marketing side?

Jantsch: It sounds like a great plan.

Baer: Thanks. That’s why I host the show.

Jantsch: There’s absolutely no question this is made for that, right? As you said. I have been doing readings in podcast, I have been doing Facebook lives kind of teasing the content out because, it is so snackable as you say. What my hope is that- maybe we can get into this later in the show, but I believe more self-reliant entrepreneurs will save the world. So let’s just start there. I really think that this is tailor made perhaps for a community of people to really start thinking and sharing. There’s an exercise at the end of every day; the challenge question. We a couple of lines in there for those who don’t mind writing in their books to maybe jot down a couple thoughts; discussion about the challenge question every day. I think it could be a really cool discussion.

Baer: Tailor made LinkedIn group, Facebook group, online community; that’d be really interesting. Some sort of really robust online community. Sort of large, distributed book club, if you will.

Jantsch: Yes. Absolutely.[crosstalk 00:22:41]

Pretty cool.

Baer: Let’s talk a little bit about the book. As mentioned, there’s 366 daily meditations. I’m familiar with the book because as I mentioned, I’ve got a quote on the back so I’ve had a chance to go through it a couple of times now and I pulled out a few different passages, a few of the different dates that I think are particularly appropriate for Social Pros listeners. We’re going to do something a little different here on this show that we’ve never done. Adam, this could be a disaster.

I consider it really not.

Baer: This could be,[crosstalk 00:23:06]

Jantsch: Its going to be great.

Baer: This could be where we started losing everybody, but we’re going to try the best. Adam and I are going to use our best 1850s and 1860s literary skills to interpret the quotes that John has identified for four different dates and we’re going to have John react to them as he does in the book and talk about why they’re so relevant for social media professionals and you, the Social Pros listeners. So we’re going to start with a February 6th. This is the meditation for February 6th in the great book, The Self-Reliant Entrepreneur from our guest this week on Social Pros, John Jantsch. On February 6th, it says, “every now and then a person’s a mind is stretched by a new idea or sensation and never shrinks back to its former dimensions. After looking at the Alps, I felt that my mind had been stretched beyond the limits of its elasticity and fitted so loosely on my old ideas of space that I had to spread these to fit it,” from Oliver Wendell Holmes Sr. “The Autocrat of the Breakfast-Table” in 1858. This really resonated with me, John and Adam because, if there’s one industry or one sort of subsection of marketing that needs a constant stretching of your creativity, it’s social media. It’s kind of a creativity contest. John, what do you think?

Jantsch: Well, there’s no question. In fact, you can just apply that beyond social media. Just being an entrepreneur we’re making up something that didn’t exist before. Certainly applied to social media, not only are you making up something that didn’t exist before 3574 people are going to copy it tomorrow and you have to make up something new. So you’re, right. It’s a sprint that is designed as a marathon.

Baer: I love that. A sprint designed as a marathon. I’ve never heard that phrase. I liked that. That should be the slogan for the show. Well done my friend. Adam, you got the next one?

Sure. I even want to talk a little bit about that one. What really gets me excited about this book John, here is a quote from 1858 that is still highly relevant. As I read this as a social media pro, it made me realize that there’s so many times that we don’t know what we don’t know. In our industry we’re always doing new and different things and we have to recognize and remember the fact that not only do we not know what we don’t know, but our audience doesn’t either and we really need to kind of reconsider that. That’s what I took out of this particular reading.

Jantsch: Well, if I coach anybody in anything, in this one, I’ll read a paragraph. Consuming a diverse regimen of art, books, culture, food, and music is the secret to greater focus and greater confidence in your thinking. The key to developing breakthrough ideas is discover how to make the complex simple. Ironically, when you have access to a greater storage of seemingly random ideas, you’ll more readily recognize the patterns required to do just that. That’s the advice really that I think keeps me creative is that I read books on architecture and on calculus because they have amazing ideas that the authors of those books had no intention of applying to what we’re trying to apply to, but it’s the patterns that you are able to recognize in exploring diverse random stuff that allows me to stay creative at least.

Baer: That’s good to know. If you need any math help, folks, just send an email to john@ducttape.com. He’ll do your trigonometry homework, whatever it is that you need. He’s got his full service over there.

Jantsch: Yes, I’m actually more geometry.

Baer: Okay. [crosstalk 00:26:51] There you go.

Jantsch: Shapes are my thing.

Alright. I think for our next reading, we fast forward to October 6th. This quote is attributed to William Cullen Bryant. A few years later, in the ripe old age of 1862, “Weep not that the world changes. Did it keep a stable changeless state, it were cause indeed to weep.” As I read this, I remembered an executive I had at Coca Cola. One of the things that Coca Cola really pushed, me and our team on, was to try new things; to evolve, to never stay the same and to recognize so oftentimes we’re going to make mistakes, but when we make mistakes we need to fail forward. It’s a piece of advice that I’ve really tried to live by. As I read this John, I would love to hear your observations on this quote and your selection of it. That’s really what I got. The change is hard, change creates resilience and that we need to benefit from change even when it’s not as successful as perhaps we initially wanted.

Jantsch: Yes. I think the real message is it’s inevitable. When we master Clark, for example, as a social platform and put all our eggs in that basket, you better be paranoid. I think that that’s social media because there’s so much come and go. Folks in social media are experiencing change every single day, but the real advice in this is that ready or not, change is going to happen. How we grow and mature with change is a key to how we survive it. While change for the sake of change may prove risky, resistance to the seeming inevitable may cost you everything. The challenge question is relevant here as well. What area of your business do you need to be paranoid about right now? I know that sounds sort of negative or cynical, but I think if we don’t keep the feelers up for how things are changing and what aspect of our business is maybe going to be decimated by some change, we’re going to hold on to something or stake our position in something well beyond when it’s valuable to us.

I cannot think of a business meeting that I’ve had recently where I haven’t asked our sales force customer or prospective customer a very similar question, John. That’s what keeps you up at night. That really is what makes you paranoid, what should you be paranoid about?

Jantsch: Should you, I think is a real key, because a lot of people are sleeping really too well.

Baer: One guy who did sleep well because he’s like the LeBron James of mid, 19th century authors is Henry David Thoreau. This is the October 29th entry from The Self-Reliant Entrepreneur by our guest this week, John Jantsch. It goes like this. “Your moonlight, as I have told you though, is a reflection of the sun it allows all sorts of bats and owls and other twilight birds to flit therein. I am very glad that you can elevate your life with a doubt for I am sure that it is nothing but an insatiable faith. After all that deepens and darkens, it’s current and your doubt and my confidence are only a difference of expression.” Man, I love that. Your doubt and my confidence are only a difference of expression. I really love this one John.

Baer: I’m going to talk about this probably enough on this show. The truth is if you’re managing social media for anything above a bake sale, you’re faking it at some level. You are pretending to know more than you actually do. It is endemic and inherent in this line of work. If you are not wracked with self doubt; I’ve been hosting this show every week for or 400 episodes and I still sometimes feel like I have no idea what I’m talking about. I think it’s just part of the culture of social media and the constant change as we talked about in the previous passage. This one really hit home for me.

Jantsch: Well, I think before I kind of talk about the idea, this was from a collection of letters that he wrote to friends. He corresponded with Nathaniel Hawthorne a lot. Can you imagine opening an envelope and getting a letter like that from a friend? What do we type now?

Baer: Now that was just emojis. That’s your next project, is Thoreau as emojis. I want to see [inaudible 00:31:27] incredible social media. That’s the social media promotion.

Jantsch: Yes, exactly. I like it. I might have to bottle that up. If you had no doubt, you were certain something was going to work, come on, how fun could that really be? You’re going to have doubt. You want doubt, because otherwise someone else just would do it in your place. Your doubt is assigned that that thing you were doing just might be worth doing. The encourages his friend to elevate his life with a doubt and that’s precisely the point of view all entrepreneurs need to carry into the battle against their fears. You possess the confidence to be wrong, patient and brave simultaneously. I think that’s the key, right? We are all going to have these doubts. How we overcome them, how we’re patient about them, how we’re bravely going to attacking them. Your doubt and my confidence are only a difference of expression. That’s like saying it’s just a choice and that’s what I really think that he’s saying now.

Baer: Adam, you got the next one?

I do. We’re going to go back in time to February 25th and we’re going to go back in time to 1856 to Margaret Fuller. “For there is no escape from the weight of a perpetual creation. All other forms in motions come and go. The tide rises and recedes. The wind at its mightiest moves and gales and gusts. But here is really an incessant and indefatigable motion. Awake or asleep, there is no escape. Still its rushing around you and through you. It is in this way I have most felt the grand door, somewhat eternal if not infinite.”

Margaret there, John, is speaking about her experience of Niagara falls for the first time and as you write the challenge question for it and as you kind of wrote your explanation of it and I really agreed with, for me this was about looking and approaching something and even as a technologist; as we all are spending eight, nine, ten, twelve and fifteen hours a day in front of a screen, small or large, sometimes we’d need to step back and sometimes we need to have a ‘no technology Thursday’ or ‘no screen Saturday.’ I think that’s what John wanted in the pieces of advice that you had here for your readers.

Baer: Yes and I think this is also a case where readers might want to have a dictionary and a thesaurus handy. As they read through some of these things. They use some fancy words in some of their writing back then. But, you’re right. It’s interesting if you didn’t know the context of this and that’s why a lot of times I put the context. If you didn’t know the context of the [inaudible 00:34:10].how to[inaudible 00:34:18] and how to enjoy the wonder of things because our output just like computer programs do, has a lot to do with the input that we take in.

Baer: This idea of viewing and continuing to view everything with the wonder that you bring to something the first time you’re experiencing. Obviously Niagara falls is something completely majestic that everybody can agree upon but I think one of the secrets to success is bringing that kind of level of wonder and curiosity into everything we do. If I have any value for my listeners and readers, as I talk about social media, it’s just that I’m curious about how this stuff works and I want to explore it. I think it’s fun to do and I think if you can keep bringing that level of joy and happiness and wonder to what you’re doing as opposed to trudging through it, then I think you’re going to be more successful.

For me as the Social Pros, I read this, we oftentimes, Jay and I talk about this on the show on the importance of storytelling, but I was reminded, even as you just articulate your observations, sometimes we need to stop focusing on the tech and get back to telling a story. You need to get back to a single powerful image. Even if we’re tactically how to use Instagram, get back to creating a smile. Maybe it’s more about creating that, than the call to action to the marketing message.

Baer: I think we’re so tech-oriented in all of our creation today that one the bits of advice that I give in this one; in fact, it’s called analog creative, is to get analog. Go analog today. Do something that requires your hands, not on a keyboard, paint a wall, write in a journal with a pen. Pickle some cucumbers or sketch arbitrary objects in the park. The power of random unplugged activities to free your mind to create is miraculous if there is a tip or a practice to go after. I think unfortunately we have to intentionally pursue that stuff today because, it’s not necessarily sitting right in front of our computer.

It doesn’t happen by default. You’re exactly right.

Baer: You’ve got to step away from the keyboard. This one spoke to me. I had a similar experience when I saw Niagara falls for the first time about three years ago. Maybe four now, close to four; and I was pretty blown away. But then the shock that she describes, for me was more. I observed that there was three different wax museums within two blocks and I couldn’t figure out how that’s possible. I was surprised that they could all stay in business. That’s really what my takeaway was. That didn’t make the book The Self-Reliant Entrepreneur, but perhaps a second edition.

Jantsch: Great observation though.

Baer: Thank you.

One of the themes that also runs throughout this book, because it ran throughout the literature too is, nature is a tremendous analog creator. In countless posts I talk about getting out, sitting under a tree, taking a walk, doing something that helps you observe nature and how trees don’t try to grow. They just grow, they don’t strive. I think that that’s such a wonderful lesson in nature. I’m recording this call today with you guys. I’m at 8,600 feet in the Rocky mountains and I have large pole pines and aspens all around me in my front yard and backyard and to me that is the greatest analog break that was ever created. Go sit under a tree.

Baer: Trees don’t worry about engagement rate. There’s your headline right there. They almost never focus on organic reach although, all reaches organic if you’re a tree.

[crosstalk 00:38:09]that probably, Oh yeah, thanks.

Baer: That’s why I couldn’t write this book. I’m way too much of a smart ass to write this book, but I can certainly appreciate it and you will too. It’s The Self-Reliant Entrepreneur from our good friend John Jantsch. John, I really appreciate you putting this book together, man. I can’t even fathom the time and effort that went into it. Congratulations. It really does make a great gift folks. Because you really want to start at Jan one. Like you want to, do it everyday in the same count that the book is structured, so get a copy now, hold on to it, browse through it over the holidays and then come out fast and hard on Jan one. That’s certainly my plan absolutely. John, I’m going to ask you the two questions we’ve asked everybody on the show, including you five years ago. I did not remember to look up your answers from five years ago to see about you’re consistency of thought. We’ll do that after the fact. You could give our listeners one tip for folks who are looking to become a Social Pro, what would you tell them?

Jantsch: Well, I’d say take it a day at a time. You don’t necessarily need to have the grand plan go out and experience as much as you can because I think where people get in a real challenge is that they decide, here’s what I need to do and then they work tirelessly at it for three years and come to the conclusion that they hate doing that. Be open to experiencing new things. You’re going to find your purpose because you’re going to bump into it, not because you sat down and had a thought session about it.

Baer: I think that’s particularly germane for so many of our guests here on this show Adam, right; who didn’t set out to be social media director for whatever corporation that just kind of happened. They got the short straw in a meeting or had some level of early aptitude and got thrust into it. I think as time goes on, there’ll be more people set out for a career in social and then say, “that’s what I want to do because I’m into it.” and then they climb the ladder. I think we’re still sort of at that cusp where a lot of people who are running social and big brands in particular, it just kind of worked out that way. [crosstalk 00:40:16] Yes, it’s pretty interesting. John, if you could do a video call with any living person, which rules out to Thoreau; who would it be and why?

Jantsch: Oh wait, I didn’t know they had to be living.

Baer: Yes, see, sorry.

Jantsch: Just because this is the first name that popped into mind, I would love to sit down and do an interview and we would jam as well with a James Taylor.

Baer: Nice answer. Nice answer. James Taylor. That’s the first time we’ve heard James Taylor on the show. I’m going to go double check the database, but that’s a terrific one. That would be really fun. You can make that happen. You’re a big deal John. You could just conference call James Taylor.

Jantsch: Well it is so appropriate too in this case. I’ve seen interviews with him. He about killed himself. He was a serious drug addict in the mid to late sixties, before he of found himself and now, he’s going to have a 50 year career as being somebody who has evolved and changed. He’s not out there, I mean sure he’s playing fire and rain every single time because everybody wants it but he also still making new music that’s relevant. I think he is a really cool example.

Baer: Is that going to be you? Are you going to be doing readings like, “Tell me about Duct Tape.” That’s your fire and rain?

Jantsch: Well, he has a lyric in one of his later songs; he says something about they come to pay their money to hear fire and rain again and again and again. I like that. I’m tired of talking about Duct Tape.

Baer: Well, you don’t have to, at least for a while because the Self-Reliant Entrepreneur is a real treasure. Please go out and buy it. Support the effort that John put into this. I guarantee you you’ll be a better person if you take the time; two minutes a day for the next 366 days in 2020. It’s really fantastic. John, thanks so much for being back on the show and congratulations again on a terrific book. I hope to see you were face to face pretty soon.

We’ll see you back in 2024 for new episode. Back on the show for some other book, Entrepreneurship’s A Big Fat Lie,’ there’ll be something. Soon the [inaudible 00:42:33] the other way, Old Jaded, Never Leave The House, will be the title of the book, it’s going to be great.

Baer: We’ll see you then. Thanks so much. Friends, don’t forget to go to the socialpros.com for links to the special advertising opportunities we talked about at the beginning of the show. Also, obviously links to John’s book and make sure you look for John and social to follow the different snippets so he’ll be delivering here in the book launch period. I am at Jay Baer from Convince and Convert. He’s Adam Brown from Salesforce Marketing Cloud. This had been the Social Pros podcast. Visit us at socialpros.com and we will see you next week.