150: Get to Know Bjork Ostrom

Today we talk to Bjork Ostrom about his most memorable podcast episode, what his favorite thing to listen to on Spotify is, and the very funny story behind his favorite Pinch of Yum recipe. Hey friends, you are listening to the Food Blogger Pro podcast and you might have noticed that things sound a little bit different here today. And that's because this is a very special episode. If you check out the title of this episode, you'll see that it is our 150th episode of the Food Blogger Pro Podcast. So we decided to switch it up and put Bjork in the interviewee seat. But before we get to that, I'd like to thank our sponsors. WPtasty WPtasty is our WordPress plugin business for food bloggers, and we have three different plugins. Tasty Recipes, which is our recipe plugin, Tastypins, which is our Pinterest optimization plugin, and Tasty Links, which is our newest plugin. It just launched last week and it's all about linking to affiliate links and other recipes in your blog post. So if you've listened to the podcast recently, you'll know that we like to include an actionable and helpful tip called A Tasty Tip along with the information about our sponsor. Today's Tasty tip is an exciting one because it's all about our upcoming free virtual event called the One Day SEO Bootcamp, and it's happening this Thursday, May 17th. We've had a few bootcamps in the past, but none of them have ever focused on the exciting and admittedly sometimes frustrating world of SEO. SEO stands for Search Engine Optimization, and it helps your recipes and posts rank higher on search engines like Google and Pinterest. Because this is such a technical topic, we're inviting two SEO experts to be a part of the event. First is Casey Marquis, and he's our SEO expert here on Food Blogger Pro. He also runs an SEO consulting company called MediaWise. And second is Raquel Smith, who is our WPTasty lead and food Blogger Pro developer, and she's a pro at the technical side of SEO. If this sounds like something you'd be interested in, you can Register today@foodbloggerpro.com Bootcamp. And as a reminder, we're going live this Thursday, May 17, so be sure to sign up if you're interested. And now the interview. I'm so excited about this interview because it's totally Unlike the other 150 other interviews we've had on the podcast. Bjork is the head honcho here at Food Blogger Pro. He co founded the popular food blog Pinch of Yum with his wife Lindsey. And he's just an all around great guy. That's why I thought it would be fun to do a little Q and A with him today. You'll learn about his management ideologies, how he works through tough situations, and how he helped build Pinch of Yum into a profitable business. And then we'll dive into some more personal and fun questions, like his favorite tunes on Spotify and his favorite things about living in Minnesota. So, without any further ado, Bjork, welcome to the podcast.

Hey. I'm on the other side of the mic, the virtual interview room, and I am so excited to be here.

Me too. This is definitely different from all of our other episodes, but I think everyone's gonna like it.

Yeah, it's going to be great. And this is the first time we have. This is a behind the scenes sneak peek into the Food Blogger Pro podcast. We've used Skype in the past, always whenever we conduct these interviews. So whenever I'm interviewing somebody, we log into Skype and then they call and I record that. But for the first time ever, on episode 150, not only did our main way of recording it break, which I use this software called Screenflow to record the audio, but also our backup didn't work. So we're doing it for the second time, for the first time ever.

Well, I'm glad that it happened on this episode though. I feel like it would have been super awkward with an other like, interviewee. So.

It is. I seriously dread the idea of that every time I think of it. I don't ever wake up thinking about work stuff, but if there would be something I would wake up thinking about, it would be having to ask a podcast guest or to tell them. Actually none of that was recorded. We have to go back and do it again. So we've switched over officially. We've wanted to do this for a while, but now we're using Zoom. So I'm still using ScreenFlow to record it as well as Zoom built in recording. And this is gonna get super off track. But the other thing that I thought would be interesting to talk about, the reason why it failed was because we're transferring. I'm transferring a bunch of stuff over to Google Drive. So we're starting to make this start the process of transferring our files over. So we're not storing them on an external hard drive. We're using this super cool update that Google has called Google File Stre along with Google Drive if you are a G suite member, what that allows you to do is upload a bunch of files and then it puts them in the cloud and takes them off your computer so they're still accessible. It's kind of like Dropbox without taking up a bunch of space, but in the in between, they're sitting on your computer. And so I. Basically what happened is I ran out of space on my computer and then the recording went on the fritz and then we didn't have anything. And then I had to message you yesterday, Alexa, and say, any chance you recorded like a backup to the backup? You're like, no, I thought about it. And so now we have three recordings going, just in case.

Just in case. So if this one fails, then I think it's just in the cards that this is just not going to happen.

Not meant to be.

Exactly. So it'll be an act of God, you guys, if. If you hear this right now.

Yes, yes.

So let's jump in on that note, if you don't mind. So we were talking about how you've run the podcast in the past before, and I was just curious if you have a most memorable podcast episode.

Sure. Yeah. One of the episodes that I really enjoyed, and then I also was really thankful that the FoodBuggerPro podcast community was able to listen to, was an episode that we released recently. I don't remember the episode number. Maybe you could look it up quick. It was with Shauna Nyquist. And Shauna is an author and a speaker and all around incredible person. And she talked about this concept around a book that she recently wrote called Present Over Perfect. And one of the things that I really appreciated about it was that podcast interview contrasted a lot of the things that we talk about on the podcast, which is this idea of hustle. Like you always have to be working in the margins of your day and late at night and early morning and on the weekends. And if you want to make this work, you got to be putting in insane hours. And, and there's truth to that, like, especially if you have a full time job and you don't have a lot of time in your day, if you want to build something substantial, whether that be a blog, a business, a nonprofit, a strong relationship, you have to put in a lot of time and energy outside of your day job in order to make that work. And that can stretch you thin for a period of time, or if you just do that all the time, it can stretch you thin in general. And Shana talked about this idea of letting go of some of that hustle mindset and just being present in the moment and not needing to constantly strive for this kind of carrot on a stick, this achievement mindset, or to always be working towards something, but to be present in the moment. And I just really enjoyed that podcast interview, not only for the interview itself and for what I was able to get out of it, but then being able to share that with the community and to provide another perspective, perspective on how you can operate your life. Because that's a lot of what we talk about on the podcast is, hey, we're talking in this really small niche of food and recipe websites, business building. But beyond that, if you take it a step outside of that kind of small niche circle, it's about finding ways to build a life that you enjoy and that's a good fit for you and that you're excited to do when you wake up in the morning. And that was a really important piece of the puzzle, that interview with Shauna. So what do you find that one by chance, what episode number it was? I can look it up too.

No, I did. Yep, it's 145. And we'll also link that to this in the show notes so you guys can check it out. But I would agree that that episode was just super meaningful for me, just as a business owner myself and then also as an employee and a full time job, like, I get burnout quite a bit. So, like just being able to, you know, hear from her that I can give myself permission to take a break, to sit back, to just, you know, take some, like you said yesterday, me time.

Yes.

And that really cringy term. But yeah, I just, I found that episode to be really powerful for me as well. So that's really interesting to hear for sure. Kind of going along those lines, was there ever an episode or two of the podcast where you've learned something that you wanted to, you know, hop off, you said goodbye to your interviewee and you're just like you, I need to implement this right now on Pinch of Yum or on Fublia Pro.

Yeah, sure. So the episodes that I think of that I really enjoyed in terms of actionable items, are any of the podcast episodes around anything like accounting or bookkeeping related. And that sounds like the kind of like the ultimate boring type of content.

Oh, dry.

Right. But what I found and what I really enjoyed about those interviews and what I was able to apply with those interviews was direct kind of business building tools and advice. And there was. I'm trying to think of the episode with Kathy scrolling through the episode list here. But she does accounting and kind of CPA type stuff for bloggers specifically. So she's in the niche of blogging and talked about just some of the best practices when it comes to building a business and when it comes to the bookkeeping side of things and the accounting side of things. And for any of us that are listening, I'm guessing the reason that you're doing this isn't because you love accounting or because you love bookkeeping or because you love taxes. I'm guessing the reason you do it is because you love the actual topic that you are talking about. You love talking about recipes, you love talking about a certain type of food, maybe it's a certain diet that you talk about that's been really influential in how you feel and operate and has been really important for a turnaround in your health. And that's the core of why we do it. But then if we want to do this as a job or as a career, and if we want to do it as a solopreneur, then we have to understand the mechanics a business. We have to understand expenses and revenue and some of those drier podcast interviews. I'm thinking of that one with Kathy. And then there's a personal finance one that's also really important with Jeff Rose, a friend of mine who has a blog about personal finance and investing and things like that. And those are fun interviews for me because it's not only the topic, a topic that I'm interested in, which a lot of people aren't, but it's a topic that that's interesting for me, but also because there's really applicable stuff. And a lot of times it's areas where there's a gap. It's really easy for us to talk about SEO and Pinterest and traffic and improving your photography and all of these things that are really exciting to talk about and think about. But the real levers of business building have to do with the stuff that's a little bit drier. It has to do with understanding taxes and cash flow and making sure that, you know, month over month, you're doing whatever you can to encourage business growth. And some of those things tie back to it, right? So traffic grows, revenue grows. But to understand kind of the behind the scenes I think is really important. So for everybody listening as much as possible, I would chalk some time out each day, maybe it's just 15 or 20 minutes, and start to learn the basics of some of those things. Accounting, understanding taxes and how taxes work. We just had a Massive overhaul in the tax structure for people that live in the US and it's called the Tax Cuts and Jobs Act. And that's really important for business owners of which everybody here is a business owner that's listening to this, even if you're in the early stages. So it's really important to understand those things. And so those two interviews stick out to me as ones that were really fun and for me, but also had some actionable item from a business building perspective.

Definitely. And that kind of stuff is the stuff that's like totally mind numbing to me. But it's something as a business owner, like you said, it's just so important to understand because ultimately you're reliable for all of that going well. And like I have an accountant who I hire to do all of my taxes, but it's important for me to kind of understand what he's doing.

Yes, exactly. And I think that's the important thing. And one of the things that we've learned, the more that we have done this, which is building, it's a, you know, we have a small business, a small team, but the more business building we've done, we've realized that we are ultimately accountable. And even if we have people that are playing that role of whatever it would be, HR accounting, somebody that's helping with taxes, like you can delegate that or have somebody doing it like we do and like you do. But like you said, you are the person that's ultimately accountable for that. And if you do not understand it and track along with it for certain there are things that will be missed, not just because somebody's going to do a bad job and miss it, but because nobody understands your business as intricately as you do. And you need to communicate those things to the people that you're working with in order for them to understand that. So what we found is the more that time that we invest in understanding that we get an incremental return on that time because especially later stages, that becomes one of the most important things is understanding kind of those behind the scenes mechanics of your business. So it's not super exciting, but I think once you start to understand the power of understanding it, then you can justify the time and maybe the effort that it takes to learn what would be considered kind of dry content.

Definitely. And another one that kind of stands out as kind of in that group of behind the scenes knowledge is a really recent episode. It was two or three episodes ago with Danielle, Danielle Liss 147. She talked about GDPR, which is it's gonna affect all bloggers, everyone who has an online business, who's making money for their blog. So I would definitely check that out. It's more legal rather than accounting, but it's still super, super powerful and super helpful.

Yeah, it's another great example of the type of stuff you need to understand to be implementing. And that's not the most exciting thing to understand and implement.

Not at all. So kind of going along those lines, how do you work through difficult situations or roadblocks? So if you're feeling like you really don't want to tackle a. To do on a certain day or any other kind of difficult situation.

Yeah, I think so. To that last point that you said, like, if there's a difficult decision that you don't want to tackle or you kind of procrastinate on it, I think one thing that we can always do is take some time to examine that and say and really understand the why behind your resistance to accomplishing that. And part of it might be that you are somebody that is like, if I look at something that I've been putting off over a long period of time, part of it might be that I'm not equipped to handle that certain task. And the option then is to become equipped. So learn something, take on a new skill, or to have somebody else do it. And one of the things that I've found over the past few years especially is that some of the greatest successes that we have within our business have to do with finding people who are excited about doing something and letting them do that. For sure.

Yeah, that's super evident from my employee standpoint too.

Yeah, for sure. And you know, an example would be Alexa, like, you love writing and you're really good at it. And I'm not as excited about writing. And so that's a. If I had a task to like write an email or to do, you know, for Food Blogger Pro members, you're doing a, an update once a week kind of a newsletter for members and saying like, hey, here are the conversations that are happening in the forums and here's the podcast interviews you can catch. And you know, we have a live Q and A coming up. Here's the topic. So keeping people in the loop. For me, I wouldn't be super excited about doing that. But for you, you know, you talk about, hey, it's really fun when I'm able to unplug from kind of the day to day things and write out these emails. And so for people that are listening, if you have something that's been A recurring to do that you keep on putting off. It's probably important because it's on your list, but maybe you aren't the best person to get that done. And it doesn't mean that you have to hire somebody full time to come onto your team and take care of it. But I'm sure there's somebody out there, whether that's a college student or somebody that's a friend or family member that has a specific skill set in that area that would be excited to do it and would be able to come in and help you out with it. So think about, do I need to learn something new, or maybe I need to pass this off to somebody else and then allow them to take it and run with it. And the other thing I would say is sometimes you just haven't broken apart that giant task into enough smaller, actionable items. And an example that I think of is we wanted to start doing consistent AB testing on different pages with the different businesses that we have and to always have those kind of running in the background. And for the longest time, I had this item on my to do list that was start a B testing tasty food photography page. So Lindsey has an ebook on food photography, and I wanted to start doing an A B test to start to learn like, okay, what are the improvements we can make to increase the conversion rate on this page? But that's a really big task. And it was really easy then to put off because I was like, oh, that'll take so long to do. But. But in breaking that out into multiple steps, you suddenly learn like, oh, this big project is actually just a bunch of tiny little incremental steps. So the first step of that was email the designer we work with, his name is John. Email John and ask what information he would need in order to do to start an update on the page. And so it's like, oh, that takes literally 15 seconds. And then after that, then John replies and says, okay, here's what I would need. And so then it's putting that together and it's building out that bigger project into tiny little steps that you can take. Maybe when you have 15 minutes and you're waiting for a friend to show up at the restaurant, you just can pull out your phone and say, okay, I'm going to do a little bit of work here, get through some things while I'm waiting. Instead of, you know, scrolling through Instagram or the news, I'm going to make some progress. And if you had that giant task list or that giant single task, you'd look at it and be like, eh, I can't do that. But if you break it up into smaller steps, you'll be able to move through that a little bit easier. So I think those things are important. And then the other thing that I think is important and worth mentioning is that sometimes when you're coming up against those big decisions that you have Des Traynor, who is the CEO of this company called Intercom, which is kind of a customer support chat app, slash huge piece of software, and you use it all the time, Alexa. So you know Intercom very well, for sure. But he talks about being a CEO or for people that are listening, this being a solopreneur, essentially you're a decision making factory and your job is all day long you're kind of making important decisions. And one of the things that's been most helpful for me when it comes to making decisions or coming up against a roadblock and figuring out how to get through that, is having other people that I can lean in on and say, what are your thoughts on this? Essentially laying out the situation in front of multiple people and gathering that back from them in order to inform a decision. And then once I feel like I have enough information, making that decision and making that decision right. It's the difference between making right decisions and making the right decision. And I think too often we try and make the right decision as bloggers or business builders or creators. We think, what is the right decision? And we can totally wrap ourselves in a knot trying to make the right decision as opposed to making your decision right. And what that means is doing a decent amount of information gathering. But up until the point where you feel like, okay, I am 70 to 80% informed. And once you are at that point, then making your decision and then making that decision right. And what that means is instead of questioning and going back and wondering like, okay, maybe I should have done something else, I'm going to go back and change that. You stick with that decision and build on it and make that decision right, as opposed to waiting forever until the point where you are like, okay, Now I know 100%, this is the right decision, 100%.

And I think that informed decision part is key. We were talking about this during a meeting, just the two of us, a couple weeks ago and just basing our decisions off of data. And that's something that I'm not necessarily the best at. I'm just kind of like, I just want to get it done. But being able to do that research and then making that informed decision, I Just think is gold.

Yes, for sure. And a good example is that a B test that I just talked about.

For sure.

So we started running this AB test test on the, on the ebook page. And we have this beautiful designed page and it looks good, it's on brand, it was, you know, professionally designed. We developed it out. It feels really good. And I've just pulled this up right now. We use a software called Google Optimize, which is a free software, really powerful, really cool. And we've been running the test. It hasn't been a super long time. We've been running the test for two weeks. But it, it's incredible. It's crazy that. So the one page, the one variation has, it is 1 to 10. So like. But the interesting thing is the original is the 10. And so amazing to me the variant is the. Is the one. It's like one to eight actually it's is more accurate. But so that.

Oh, sorry.

The new. Yeah, go ahead, go ahead.

So that means that the older one is performing more. You're getting more purchases with the older one.

And I think sometimes we think we know what the right answer is. And in that case, I felt like I knew the right answer was, hey, we're going to push out this new design. It's going to look really good and it's going to perform better. But like you said, not having that data, we would have made that switch and it would have been a massive decrease in the amount of revenue that we're earning that page. So as much as possible, when you are, especially with websites, we can do this, we can test this and learn this stuff as much as possible. See if you can gather that data to inform the decision making that you're doing. In this case with the new design, it's easy because we can do an a B test. That's not always that easy, but I think that's a great point that you made as much as possible gathering data to help you inform that decision.

I just love that. That kind of leads me to my next question. You are like the ultimate decision maker. You juggle a bunch of different brands. Food Blogger Pro, Pinch of Yum, WP Tasty, nutrifox. So I'm curious where your management style comes from. Whether it's books or podcasts. I mean you manage an entire team across a few different brands. So I'd be curious.

Yep. Yeah, absolutely. I think one of the things that we've learned, it's really been in the past two or three years as we've built a small but mighty team that one of the things that I've learned is just there's something incredibly powerful about bringing on really capable people. Alexa, yourself being an example of one of those and providing some working together to say, okay, here's where we're going, here's where we want to go. And then giving as many resources as needed in order to help get there. But to not feel like then you as the manager, whatever you'd want to call it, leader, need to then be involved in the extreme micro details of all of that. And for people listening to this podcast, I would guess the majority of people listening to this, it's a strange when that time comes, if that time comes, it'll be a strange and weird transition because you're making this transition that Paul Graham, who's an investor for this company called Y Combinator, or it's this not a company, but it's a kind of an incubator investment company for businesses that come in that are just ideas or really infant stage businesses and then grow really big. Like Dropbox, for example. And so he works with these companies and he talks about this transition from maker to manager. And in that context, a lot of times it's engineers or developers who are makers. They're used to creating things and then they make this transition into manager. And for people that are listening to this podcast, if your desire is to continually grow, as opposed to grow to a certain point and then kind of cap that and say, I want to stay a maker, which is totally okay, it's not a bad thing to do that. But if you want to grow and continue to grow, there will be this time where you transition into becoming a manager. And that is a really strange transition because you are used to being the maker and to make that transition, you have to be okay with letting your old skills fall away a little bit and then becoming in essence like a completely new trainee for this new thing which is working with groups of people and making that transition into a manager role. So we've kind of learned on the fly what that looks like. And we have a unique situation in that we have a team, majority, remote team. And for us, it's been less about making the right decision and more about making our decisions right and building on that along the way. And we have had, you know, we've hit hurdles, we've messed up along the way. And what we've said is like, we want to do this. And the best way to do it is to step in and learn along the way. And Alexa, you know this because You've been with us long enough to see kind of a little bit of this evolution. But, like, there was a time when we were all working remote and none of us ever checked in. And we would have Slack and we would talk to each other when we needed to. But then in listening to you and in listening to Raquel, who works at WP Tasty and Food Blogger Pro a little bit as well, both of you were like, love what we're doing, but it feels a little disconnected. It was like, oh, yeah, for sure. So then it's taking that and kind of tweaking that a little bit and evolving as you go. And so we started doing this daily standup where every day we. We hop into Slack, which is a communication tool that we use. It's kind of like AOL Instant messenger on steroids where you have chat. Chat groups. And did you use AIM back in the day?

Are you kidding?

I didn't know. It was like, sweet spot for Lindsey and I back in the day. I was Bjorko 13 and she was Swim Chick 2312. So I remember, I remember, like, when Swim Chick would come on swim chick 2, 3, 1, 2. It was like, oh, yes, I can chat with Lindsey. And we still have inside jokes from, like, early high school when we would chat on aim, but it's so super cool tool. But we weren't, you know, we were using it to just kind of ask questions and communicate and stuff like that randomly. But now we're like, okay, let's create a channel where everybody's a part of this. And we all jump in and say, hey, here's what we did yesterday. Here's what we're doing today. Here's what I need some help with. So it's literally 1, 2, 3. And even that's evolving, you know, Raquel today posted, she's like, hey, I'm going to try something out where I'm going to post my schedule. What I'm going to actually try and do today from a schedule perspective. Or another example is we did this team meeting on Slack, which you can do video calls. And so we had. It was a bigger team meeting because we had recently welcomed Ann on as our customer. Support. Support success first and for WP Tasty. So we had a bigger crew that was logging on. And so one of my. I was like, okay, let's try this. Let's try having. Where we're all. When. Whenever anybody else isn't talking, then we. Then everybody else mutes and. Or whenever somebody's talking, then we all Mute. And after it was like, ah, that was terrible. Like we weren't, we weren't able to interact. And, and so a lot of it is. To go back and answer your original question, it's totally building the plane as we're taking off and trying to do as best of a job as possible for us as a team and then for me as ultimate decision maker to be aware of the areas that feel intention and to figure out why those areas are intentioned and to do whatever we can to resolve those. And that could be on an individual level, that could be on a team level. And that just comes from as much as possible trying to have conversations around that and to always being aware of the fact that there will be opportunity to improve and there's always going to be something that we can improve on. And being aware of that has been really, really important because it's an evolution and, and today is going to be different than it will be three months from now. And so we're going to have to operate a little bit differently as we change and evolve and to know that there is no right answer. And what's working for us might not work for you, listener, wherever you are with your team, whether that be actual team members or contractors that you're working with. But just being building in that time, even if it's five minutes to reflect and say, okay, what's working? What's not working? To have conversations with the people that you are working with and to ask them the same question then to evolve.

On that information, that evolution portion that you were talking about, that has been like abundantly clear to me since I started two years ago. We have one on ones with you. Everyone on the team has a one on one meeting with Bjork every month. And one of the questions that he always asks is, what's part of your job that you think we could either hand off to someone else or just something that's not really jiving with where you want to take your career and your life. And I just find that to be so fascinating because I've always worked in corporate America. So it's just such a different management style. And that's just so clear to me. And I'm really thankful for it because I feel like I've evolved as an employee and as a person much faster and much more than I would have in a more corporate setting. So that's really, really interesting.

Yeah. And part of it is we have this luxury of working in small company where if you were like, hey, I'd be really interested in learning about AB testing, it's like, well, we don't have an A B test person and an optimizer, so we can kind of shift and maneuver those. So that's one of the things that I love about small business and small online business like we have is the flexibility and we get to take advantage of that. Both Lindsey and I as owners of the businesses and we can also then create that culture with our team because it's flexible across the board. We don't have these set departments as much as possible, trying to figure out those ways to allow all of us, Lindsay, myself and our team to figure out ways to work on the things that we're excited about working on because it's so much easier to work on those things than the things that are a drag.

Definitely.

And as much as possible, trying to figure out what those are both for ourselves, which we have to do on a consistent basis and also for the team as well. So it's fun to hear you talk about that.

That's great. So you are much more than your businesses. So we're going to switch gears a little bit. We're going to dive into some more personal stuff.

All right.

So this question, I think of you almost every time I hear it on the Tim Ferriss podcast and he typically does this section at the end of each podcast where he just rattles off some really quick and his interviewees give some pretty quick answers. But this one question always makes me think of you and it's what book do you most recommend or which one do you buy most as a gift?

Yeah, that's great. So I think people that listen to this podcast will know one of the books I often talk about is the War of Art and that was a recommendation from a friend, Andy Traub, who is actually on the podcast many moons ago and just a all around great guy and a close friend that I've known for a long time and knew him before either of us were operating kind of the online business world. And so it was kind of by chance that we both moved into this and he since moved to Nashville, which is it kind of become a weird hub of like people that are doing online businesses, especially in there's a lot of finance, personal finance people that have ended up there, which is kind of cool, but interesting. Yeah. Andy recommended War of Art when we he lived in Sioux Falls, South Dakota and I was in Minneapolis and we each drove, it was like two hours and met at this random coffee shop. It was awesome. It was so fun and we worked, you know, for three, four hours and just kind of connected and chatted. And while we were there, he said, have you ever read the War of Art? And I'd heard a couple people talk about it, but I hadn't read it. He said, what's your email address? I'm going to gift this to you right now via Kindle. So he sent me that and I read it probably that week or within that month. Really good book and some really interesting concepts as it relates to creators. And he talks about it, the author talks about it from the perspective of writing, but I think it applies to anybody that's doing any type of art. But I think that was. That would be one that I talk about a lot. But I would just universally, for anybody, if I was going to say, hey, I would love for you to read this book, I would point people to a book that is one of the only books that I've read multiple times. I've read a lot of books. I love reading. It's one of my favorite things to do. But I very rarely will pick up a book twice. But the book, Man's Search for Meaning by Victoria Viktor Frankl is one of the most influential books that I've read in terms of perspective and a lens to view the world through. And in this book, he's a psychiatrist who was in concentration camps and he lost his family and he was a survivor of the concentration camps and then went on to write this book, Man's Search for Meaning, where he talks about what that was like and tells stories of what it was and talks about this idea of suffering and how it's like in a lot of ways you can't avoid suffering. It's unavoidable. And what that then means for us as people living in the world, knowing that we will, if we haven't already, we will face suffering. And it is, it's. Yeah, like I said, it's one of the only books that I've ever read more than once. And every time that I read it, it is incredibly informative in terms of perspective piece on the realities of life for people and the amount of incredible suffering that people have gone through. And the idea of Nazi Germany being the most extreme example of that. And I think it really helps to have that as a perspective piece as you operate in the world, because it's a reality. And I think you can contrast that with your reality. And it's a constant reminder for me of what other people have experienced and therefore a gratitude piece for me in my worst days, knowing that there have been Other people that have experienced such incredibly terrible things and then also hearing him as a psychiatrist talk about what that was like in order to move through that. So if you haven't read it, I would really recommend is just pulled it up on Amazon. Here it is, the number one bestseller in the category of existential psychology.

Oh, wow.

Which sounds fancier than it is. I wouldn't say it's an easy to read book. It's not an easy. It's a deep and heavy book, but it's not like there's difficult words in it or it's not like it's difficult to understand. It's a really important book. So I would put that right up there. War of Art is a really interesting book that I talk about a decent amount on this podcast because it talks about the idea of creating and pushing through creative barriers, which I think a lot of people can relate to. But I would say Man's Search for Meaning would be the one that I would go to for recommendation.

Yeah, I'm definitely going to put Man's Search for Meaning on my to read list. I'm going to order it tonight. But I have read like half of the War of Art and just like a fair warning to all you.

It's.

It's a bit bizarre, but it's weird. Also really powerful and like the chapters are what, a few sentences long, if that. And it's just, it really puts things into perspective because we all are creators. We're creating recipes, we're creating photography, we're creating just content in so many different ways. And I get hit by the resistance, which is the topic that he, you know, he focuses on in that book so much. And it just puts that into perspective. And I think it is a super helpful book for creators like us.

Yeah, one of the, if you, if you don't end up reading it. One of the most important things for people that are listening that I got from that book was the idea that if you feel the resistance, which he considers to be the thing that like, keeps you from doing the thing. For instance, like, you are like, I'm gonna write a blog post, but instead you get up and do the laundry, which has happened to me, I'm like, ah, maybe I'll go do the dishes real quick. Like, if you are feeling the resistance, the thing that's keeping you from doing the work, then that for you is a signal that you are on the right track. And even that little gem is something that's important to tuck away in the back of your mind. So when that Comes up instead of you feeling like, maybe I shouldn't be doing this, instead flipping that and saying, like, no, this is me being on the right track. Because I'm trying to go and do something that's a little bit easier. My brain is kind of trying to distracts me with something else. I'm on the right track. I need to sit down and do the work. Because that feeling of the resistance is a little. It's a. It's a little clue that you're on the right track for sure.

And it is also a clue that what you're doing, that thing that you're putting off, has meaning to you.

Yes.

And that was something that I really took away from the book, is just that if I'm finding that resistance on something, then that means that it's important to me. I thought that was super interesting. So the reason why I wanted to re record. I was gonna try to piece together yesterday's recording, but it totally missed out on the question about Minnesota. And I am super passionate about where I'm from, which is Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. And I know you are, too. So what are some of your favorite things about living in Minnesota?

Sure. And I'll say this. I think one of the great things about rerecording is that whenever I have anybody that I. This isn't across the board, but sometimes people will be like, oh, I recorded that interview, and now I wish I would have said this for sure. That essentially allows me to have that experience where it's like, we do the interview and it kind of paves the way. And I'm like, not only do I know where I'm going now, but also I can say all of the things that I wish that I would have said. So this interview will be doubly as good because of the double recording, because now I can say all the things that I thought of after the fact. We love Minnesota. So we were both raised in Minnesota. Both Lindsay and I were from the same small hometown in north central Minnesota, Cambridge, Minnesota, which is a tiny town. And we. I think that this will be like a place where we will always call home. If not, we don't have any plans to move, if not permanently. I think we'll always have some type of deep connection here. But I think the number one thing that I love about Minnesota is that it is. Well, I'll say two things. It's the people of Minnesota and how people in Minnesota view the world and operate. And I think sometimes we get cast as a flyover state. Right. So there's the Coast. And then there's the flyover states, where everybody just flies over as they're going one place or the other, which. I love the idea of being a flyover state. I wouldn't. I would. I wouldn't want to be the place that is the coolest place ever. I've always liked the idea of kind of being cast in the, like, forgettable category. And I feel like. Not that Minnesota is that, but I think some people have that perspective on Minnesota. Like, oh, it's kind of the flyover state. One of the things that I love about Minnesota, and you could say Twin Cities, but just Minnesota in general is true, is that we have these really incredible seasons. And this is happening right now where the. All of the leaves are starting to come onto trees. And just two weeks ago, we had a foot of snow. Yeah, it's really, really crazy how drastic the seasons can be and how quickly they can change. And as soon as you are getting through one season and feeling like, okay, we've been here for a while, the next season is right around the corner. The most obvious example of that is in Minnesota is the winter. And it's like, winter is really awesome. And I am a 100% winter person. And even yet, when it's like March in this year, it was April. Once you have feet of snow on the ground, you're like, okay, I'm kind of ready for spring to come. And spring comes, and it's like the greatest thing ever. Like, people. It's 45 degrees, and people will be like, you know, running with shorts and have their windows down. And, like, we're just all so ready for spring and acknowledge the incredible reality of what spring is when it comes. And then it's like, in a couple months, it'll transition into summer, and then it will be fall, and then it will be winter. So we have these really defined seasons that just make it a fun place to live because something new is always around the corner. And I just love the Twin Cities. Like, we have such so much that we can access. We have incredible theater. For the gift this year, Lindsay gave me season tickets to the Guthrie. So we've been going to this theater in the Twin Cities and seeing different plays and just what a gift that is to be able to do that. Incredible restaurants, and yet we can drive an hour and be in, you know, incredible at a lake with, you know, lots of trees and nature and all of that stuff. So it's a great place. Love living here. And we have super deep connections with family and friends, so we just feel really thankful to be in Minnesota. And for all of you that have never visited, you need to come and visit Minnesota. I just read an article this morning that there has been 3% growth in tourism in Minnesota, which doesn't sound like a lot but I think that comparably it is a relatively fast growth rate for tourism. So congratulations Minnesota on the growth.

There we go. Yeah, I've never been there to be honest with you, but I know we have a retreat planned for this team meetup. Yeah I'm so excited this summer. But I'll also fun fact be flying through not over Minnesota tomorrow on my way to everything food. Yep. So I'll get a nice tour of the airport.

You should swing by Caribou Coffee. I'm drinking a caribou coffee right now and that is the started in Minnesota. And if you are true Minnesotan, you go to Caribou over Starbucks. So see if you can find one.

On your on your stop in 100% will I. It's bright and early in the morning so I'll be in desperate need of some coffee. So moving on a bit to music. So I know every once in a while in Slack, which is our communication app just for the team, you or someone else on the team will be like, you know, I just need something new to listen to.

Yeah.

So if you open up Spotify, what's typically your first go to channel or search?

Yep. So it depends on the context of when I'm listening. So there's I'll listen to different music depending on the type of work or non work that I'm doing. So so my if I am let's say doing just stuff around the house, I'll go podcast or working out. Usually podcast. If I am working on something difficult I'll use a playlist like Productive Morning which is kind of this ambient spacey type music. One of my favorite artist from that is Yost and he has this song that like when Spotify did the most songs listened to in 2017. This song Moon by Yost Y O S T E was my number one song and I just listened to it over and over and over and over and over again and he's. I think he's this like young kid from Australia and not super well known but has made it onto a couple playlists and then once he was on I sort of listened to his other stuff. So really like that if I'm working out and listening to music I will queue up. I have a workout playlist of which Chain Smokers gets a Lot of play on those. Which is the ultimate, like generic, bubblegum medium, millennial pop. I don't know what category they would be in, but for some reason I've just been like, well, I'm going to pull up chain smokers again.

Maybe something new will happen.

Yes, for sure. And then I'm trying to think of some other ones. I always go to Discover Weekly, which is really good. If you don't use Spotify, they have this category where they create new playlists. Discover Weekly, which is really good. And then one of my favorite bands of all time is Nickel Creek. And they are. They kind of. They just had like a comeback tour. I've never seen them live, but I remember as a kid I was maybe in. Gosh, I was probably in seventh or eighth grade and for Christmas I had gotten a speaker set, Iowa, which is a Iwa, which was like the coolest speakers ever. At least I felt like they were. It was a 3 CD changer and I had a Nickel Creek soundtrack. And I remembered it was just laying in my bed listening to Nickel Creek and it was just like the greatest thing ever. So those are kind of my go tos for music. What about you?

I'm a huge Avett Brothers fan. They're actually coming to Pittsburgh and they sold out within like a week, which I'm super sad about.

Oh, bummer.

They have a bit of everything. If you're more interested in kind of upbeat stuff, then they have that. And they definitely have some more thought provoking songs as well.

Yes. One of my favorite songs of theirs is I and Love and you'd. It's like. Oh, and I think that's the name of the album as well. Is that right? Yep.

Yeah, exactly. So that album, if you're looking for one to get into them, that is the one I would highly recommend. They're just wonderful. And if you have hbo, they also have a. A documentary that Judd Apatow, he shot and produced, I think. And it's. I just watched it last week and it was. I was like crying the whole time. It was amazing.

Yes. So one of those documentaries for sure.

Yeah. They're just wonderful and wonderful people. So definitely check it out. And them out. Yeah. So along those lines, I know that you played guitar and sang. So can you talk a bit about that experience?

Sure, yeah. That was kind of behind the scenes how I. Well, not. That's a behind the scenes look into Bjork V1. So in my previous life, college, it was kind of like late high school college, a little bit after College. That's kind of how I paid the bills. Like I had a couple of random odd jobs here and there, but for the most part it was doing coffee shops and colleges and opening for different artists and was able to get connected enough to play a couple shows. It probably ended up being like a show or it was probably like three to four shows a month at its most. And it was awesome. I loved it. It was such a gift to be able to do that. And would you just kind of standard typical singer songwriter type stuff. And we're in looking back at it, I think one of the interesting things is to see how that version of me is similar to this version of me. And I think one of the things that I enjoyed most about that process was not only to be able to write and record and play music for people and to connect via that medium, but also the process of building a thing. And one of the things that I've realized about myself is I just really love building things and that was one of the things that I built. So it had to, you know, there's all different in some ways. It's like you're a little entrepreneur and you're putting together a website, you're putting together a product, you're marketing that you have an email list. A lot of the same things that cross over into what we do now. And those are some of the same things that I, that I really enjoyed. And there were very non musical things. I think it's the things that most people would kind of dread doing and consider to be kind of the necessary evil that goes along with recording and playing music for a career. But those are the things that I actually really enjoyed.

What are some of those things then?

Yeah, so like the idea of learning what you had to do in order to put together a five song ep. So it's getting the UPC label. One of the things that I think about is like people would put out an email list thing where you'd set a little clipboard out and then people would sign up for the email list. And I remember thinking like, how do you. Nobody's signing up for this. How do you get around that? And so like in the middle solving that problem. So in the middle of a show, what I would always do is stop and say, hey, here's the deal, here's this. Email us if you want to stay in the loop on what we're doing. You can sign up for it. And then I would just literally hand it to people in the first row and then have everybody pass it around. Instead of getting, like, three random people by the end of the day, you know, if there's 200 people at a show, you have, you know, 125 people that have signed up. So it's things like that that I really enjoyed. It was getting T shirts designed and then ordering those and then having a system for those. So it was all stuff that when I look back, it becomes evident as, like, oh, that was. I think one of the reasons why I was able to do it was because I enjoyed that as opposed to just only enjoying the writing and playing of music, which I did. That was a really enjoyable thing. And especially to be able to connect with people through that. But that was something that I really enjoyed. Or another thing was I learned that. And this was like. It's interesting to think about because I went to the library in Capital City here in Minnesota, which is St. Paul, they have this resource library. And I learned that you can go to the resource library and get information about TV producers and music supervisors that are called for TV shows. And there's a book that had all that information. Apparently it was. I think it was available online, but you had to pay. I don't know. It was a substantial amount, at least for a college student. And so I went to the library and copied off all these pages of music supervisors, and then, you know, created this letter and then put a CD in and mailed this out to all these music supervisors saying, hey, would love to have one of my songs featured on your TV show. So kind of this little hustle around getting placement for tv and then would intentionally follow up on those and eventually got connected with somebody who. It was a music company called Buna Murray. And so anytime there's a reality TV show like Anthony Bourdain's Parts Unknown or Road Rules or Survivor, there's always a production company that happens behind the scenes with that. An example is somebody feed Phil the interview we did with Phil Rosenthal. Rosenthal. He worked with a production company to shoot that. And the production company, one of their jobs is to find music. And so I was able to get this list and email people and was able to connect with somebody from Road Rules. They're like, hey, we'd love to use one of their songs, ironically, a song about Lindsay and I breaking up when we were in high school. And I wrote her song about driving back to college after being home and kind of missing her and being sad about that. And so they used that for this, like, going away scene when this couple on Road Rules, like, the girl comes to visit and then she goes away. And so it was the music part, but it was also that kind of problem solving around the business building or getting in front of people or making connections. And I think some of that stuff still exists in what I do today. And this is the same type of stuff that I enjoy. But yeah, that was previous life. We had talked about this. I think it's on Spotify.

Totally is.

I didn't know that. So if you stream a Bjork Ostrom song on Spotify, I'll get half of a. Half of a cent. Yeah, definitely.

Go check it out and screenshot it so we can see for sure.

The song that was on Road Rules was called Long Drive Home. So it was my sad song about breaking up with Lindsay.

So sad. And it all comes full circle, kind of.

Yeah.

So going along with that, Lindsay, she is your partner in crime, your wife, she is the author of the very popular food blog Pinch of Yum. And you guys started it eight years ago. So that's eight years of breakfast and desserts and lunches and all of the delicious things. So do you have a favorite Pinch of Yum recipe?

This is funny because there was a time when Lindsey and I were hanging out with friends and somebody asked that same question. They're like, what's your favorite Pinch of Yum recipe? And I was like, I was really searching for it. And then Lindsey interjected and she was like, name one Pinch of Yum recipe. And I had this panicked moment where you can imagine like the, like the guy in my mind who finds the memory files, like suddenly was tasked with this thing and he realized he didn't know where he put that file. I was like running around everywhere, sweating, frantically pulling out files everywhere, creating these files. Yeah, I was like. And the, the, like the random file that he eventually grabbed and like brought to the front of my brain was this like 6 year old panini with deli meat and like strawberry jam sandwich that she made way, way, way back when. And so now anytime that comes up, that's the one that, that I, that I say, and I don't even know the official name of it, I would have to look it up and see.

We'll link it in the show notes. If any of you are interested in making Bjork's favorite recipe.

Yeah, for sure. And the funny thing is, like, obviously we'll, like you said, have all of those recipes, but once I think people probably assume that I'm more integrated into Pinch of Yum than I actually am. Like, Lindsey, there'll be A decent amount of stuff that she'll publish. And like, I just won't get around to reading it. So it's not like I'm seeing every post that's published or being a part of all of the content creation side of things. So I will. Like, just last night we had this super tasty salad that she made. But it's like, in terms of the final product of what that salad is, like, that doesn't register as a thing for me. So I have these, like, abstract understanding of like, what the different recipes would be and what I like about them, but not the, like, ability to retrieve them as a brandable thing to say. Like, oh, I liked the. And the example I'm thinking of is Golden Soup. That's a recipe that she created that people talk about a decent amount, but I just don't have that as much as she would. She's like, probably knows intimately each one of the recipes. And apparently I know two Golden Soup and that random panini.

You just don't have that food mind, which I think is so interesting, working in the food blogging space.

Yeah, for sure. And I think that's one of the things that actually works out well for us is that that we don't step on each other's toes very much with the type of stuff that we do. And I think there's probably times when Lindsay would love to have somebody who's like, oh, you know, critical feedback on a recipe as opposed to kind of like general feedback that I could give. Yeah, exactly. But I think the nice thing is that it allows us to operate in our own spheres and then act in a lot of ways of what like a quote unquote normal couple would in terms of saying like, hey, here's something that I'm, you know, that I'm working through or trying to figure out. Do you have any thoughts on it? Not as somebody who's, you know, a total expert, but as somebody who's like, hey, I'm going to speak to you as your significant other to this situation kind of in general, broad strokes. And we are each able to kind of have our own separate work days and not overlap too much, which I think is just massively beneficial for, at least for how we operate, that we're not like sitting in the same room, you know, constantly going back and forth on, revising, you know, copy for an email or something like that. And I think that's probably a misconception, a little bit of what people think of when they think of, of who we are and how we work together is. I wouldn't be surprised if a lot of people think like, oh, you're just working together, like, literally in the same room all the time. Whereas in actuality, our days are pretty separate. And then at the end of the day, that allows us to come together and say, like, hey, what were you up to today? What was the stuff you worked on? Which is really nice.

Absolutely. Yeah. It's just a way to separate your personal life and your business life. Although you do work together, you don't work together, which I think is super helpful. So we're going to wrap up here, but I just wanted to say, 150 podcast episodes, that's pretty amazing. How do you feel about that?

It feels great. I think one of the things that's worked well for the podcast is figuring out the things that I enjoy doing and then as much as possible doing the things that would keep me from not doing the things that would keep me from doing that. And an example would be. So everybody that listens to this podcast owes a huge debt of gratitude for Alexa and before that, Raquel, because, Alexa, you do all the editing and scheduling and the behind the scenes stuff for the podcast, and that allows me to have these conversations with people. And that's what I love doing, is jumping on and having these conversations. And if not for you, Alexa, then it's like these podcasts probably wouldn't get published if I was the one that then had to jump in and edit them. And so I think it's an important takeaway for people as they think about building their thing. And it ties in a little bit to what we talked about before, but just how intentional you have to be to be aware of your own limitations and then lean into your strengths. So I think that's a huge part of the success of the podcast has been, you know, Raquel got it up to speed and was the one that was kind of behind the scenes doing the editing and scheduling and stuff. And then, Alexa, you've recently taken over. It's probably been about a year plus now that you've been doing it. Yeah. And so want to acknowledge that and say thank you for the work and also for Raquel for her work on helping to make this happen. I think the other thing that's interesting with it is like it's three years, almost three years of doing the podcast, and yet it's like we still probably have a year, two years, three years before it really hits its stride as a standalone thing. And three years seems like a really long time. But Then you think of Pinch of Yam and it's eight years, right? And it's like, in a lot of ways, it wasn't until year 4, 5, 6 that pinch of Yam was hitting its stride. And the content creation game just has a really long on ramp before you're fully up to speed. And it's fun for me to be able to participate in that alongside other people who are also doing the same. And the irony is that it is a podcast about blogging, but the thing that I think is important to point out is finding the thing that fits well with what you do and how you operate. And for me, that is a podcast. For other people it's blogging. For others, it's video. But finding the thing that allows you to consistently create and then sticking with it for a long period of time is so critically important. And I'm honored and grateful to have a medium in which to do that and to have a team to be a part of that as well, and listeners to make it all worthwhile. Which we just want to thank you wherever you are listening to this because if you weren't here listening, we wouldn't do this. So honored to be here at 150.

And we are honored to have you. We just so appreciate you both, both as a team and as a food blogging community. You and Lindsey have just been such an impact on all of us. So we really appreciate your leadership and your friendship and your mentorship. So thank you so much.

Yeah. And thanks for doing this. It was fun to do and a great idea and it's just been a blast, so. And great job being on the other side of the mic doing the interviewing.

It was an experience for sure.

Yeah. You did a great job and twice doing it twice.

Absolutely. So. But thank you so much. This was a lot of fun and I hope you guys enjoyed this kind of different kind of episode.

Yeah. Thanks Alexa. Super fun to chat and thanks for listening. And we will back be back here next week with a new episode. Woohoo.

See you then. Thank you so much for being a part of the 150th episode of the Food Blogger Pro podcast. We really appreciate you tuning in every week. Whether you are one of those people that tunes in every week or this is the first episode you've ever caught. We really appreciate you listening because as I said before, the podcast is one of my favorite things to do at my job ever. So I really appreciate it and we all do from the team. So now it's time for a review of the week and this one comes from angel from the blog Shelley cheftographer and it says Great podcast. Bjork is a great interview and the guests are interesting and informative. I really enjoy how the overall message is very positive and helps me as a new blogger feel like I can do this 1% infinity right. Thank you Bjork and Lindsay for being such great teachers and sharing your knowledge in such a positive way. Love this podcast. Such a great review. Thank you so much. We really appreciate it angel. And just as a reminder, if you're still interested in attending our SEO Bootcamp, you still have a few more days to register. It's going to be this Thursday, May 17, and all you have to do is sign up@foodbloggerpro.com Bootcamp. We hope to see you there. Thanks so much for tuning in and from all of us here at fbphq, make it a great week.

Sam.