JOHN JANTSCH: DAILY MEDITATIONS – BUILDING SELF-RELIANCE FOR ENTREPRENEURS #288

All right, Kelsey, it's time to strap on that sparkly 4x4 that you own. Oh, cause we're about to discuss a brand new book out there called The Self-Reliant Entrepreneur. We're gonna explore all that and so much more in today's episode of Entrepreneurship Elevated. Kelsey, I'm Mike Michalowicz. I'm an author on a mission, mission to eradicate entrepreneurial poverty. Oh my God, is the world crazy? They think every entrepreneur is a multimillionaire. Just sitting back at their cash ATM. And the reality is we are crazy. We're working our butts off. It's a struggle. But we fix that on this episode and every episode of Entrepreneurship Elevated. Joining studio by the crew, Kelsey Ayers. Welcome.

Hello, friend. Please subscribe wherever you're listening.

Kelsey's president of Obsidian Launch, the MM brand. We also have Jacob.

Hello.

Who's now a full-timer with us. Congratulations to us.

—And to you. —Oh, thank you, sir. Thank you.

That's super exciting. It's super exciting. Um, Kelsey. Yeah? Uh, I was gonna tell you something that was totally uninteresting, and I totally forgot what it was. Oh, well, that's so great. Yeah, so how you been doing?

I've been doing so good. Yeah? Yeah, I'm trying to embrace fall, 'cause I'm a little bit doomsday about winter.

Did you notice we have an extraordinary amount of rain in the last few days? Yeah. Where prior to this, at least in this area, it was— So dry. So dry. Yeah, it's, uh, it's funny, there is a waterfall within walking distance of our house, but it's only during the rain, rainy times. But it is a ton of water. It is a, a legit waterfall. And I just wonder, when it has that much, it's more than just a creek, I mean, a stream or whatever, I don't know, it's such a volume. How come when it's dry, even for about 3, 4 weeks, all of a sudden stops. Yeah. Like, doesn't a river of that magnitude, that size, always flow? Or is it because maybe, maybe the sources are only elevated slightly higher and they drain out quickly?

Yeah, I don't know. But I will say, the creek in the back of my house, usually I can hear it, and for weeks I couldn't hear it at all. And then when I went down there, I was like, is it dry? There was some water, but it wasn't really flowing. Like, it was flowing a little bit, but you know. But now I can hear it again, which I love.

The source is probably a higher, larger body like a lake, and then once it reaches a threshold—

that's— oh, it overflows. Yeah, yeah. Or maybe— yeah, exactly. Maybe that's it, because this waterfall is near a top of an elevation point. So I wonder if the lake or the source is just slightly above it and then it clears out. Elevation point. Elevation point. Hey, hey, that's a good— there you go, brother. There you go. All right, I want to thank our corporate partner that makes the show a reality, Kals. Who is it?

Nextiva! When I throw it to you, don't— I didn't know what you were doing.

That was a throw. Oh. Don't you know this vernacular? Don't you know what we do in an industry like this? Hey, there's a sponsor.

Let's try one more time.

There's a sponsor that supports us, Kelsey. We defy the mold, Mike. It's Nextiva. Nextiva.com. We'll tell you more about those folks in a little bit. And I also want to thank Financing Solutions for the support they're providing us. I'm super excited to get to today's show. There's really— oh, do we have a listener shout out though? We do. Oh, let's read off that first. Okay. I want someone to laud about me before we laud about our guest. Oh, this one's a big one.

Hmm. So this comes from Allison. Well, Mike, as I said to my accountant today, I hope you are sitting down. For the first time ever, I was able to pay 100% of my quarterly tax obligations with additional leftover to contribute and slay another obligation similar to your 401(k) in which I had fallen behind by 12 months. I have followed every step in your Profit First book obsessively to the letter. From November 6th, no exceptions. I have haggled with the bank about the $10 monthly fees and they are now not charging this from November 1st. Thanks, Bill, for introducing me to Praveen Furth's book and thanks to you, Mike, for deconstructing how someone like me could possibly think and pitching it so well. I'm really grateful. Bank balance accounting has been my modus operandi forever and I love the way you have exploited my existing mindset to my advantage. Pure genius and brilliant coaching. Thank you, Allison.

Thanks, Allison. I wonder, Jeremy, if I read that letter off the same way she read off, how many times you have mocked me during my reading, stumbling on words, bumbling around. John Jantz is— well, thanks for being so kind. John Jantz is a— well, I'm just— I'm— listen, I'm going to hug him out here. I'm going to hug it out, uh, verbally. Is, is. What is that? What? Is. Is a pregnant is. Is. When you, when someone, like Kelsey is a pain in the ass. Jeremy is an extraordinary human being. Do you understand the difference? So if it's a derogatory negative comment, they're an is. If it's an is, it's someone that you really appreciate, value. Jon Janss is an extraordinary human being. You know, I met him officially on the speaking circuit. A long time ago, there was this thing called eBay On Location. eBay was doing these conferences, and I met him, and this is a true story. Uh, I got to know John. Um, we— I pull him aside and said, I want to build something beyond just an authorship career. And he's like, oh, you need to start a recurring revenue stream, like a membership organization. John was the catalyst for Profit First Professionals, for Run Like Clockwork, all the organizations that we now have, Preventive Group, different organizations we have with membership. It was John who sat me down and, uh, just wrote this stuff out on a napkin, or, you know, the proverbial napkin, wrote this stuff out and became the inspiration for the organizations we've built. So that's awesome. I have tons of appreciation for John Jantz, and he is really a guy on a good mission to serve the world through his books. And he's also a great family man. So I've had the chance now a few times to visit with his family, and you know when you have good people in your family that you have to be a good person to be part of that family. Well, that's who John Jantz is, and today we're going to talk about the self reliant entrepreneur. John, officially welcome to our show.

Thank you. That was a brilliant, brilliant introduction. You nailed it. Okay.

Okay. Let's get right into this book. You know, this is a break from what you've historically done. Duct Tape Marketing, which is a perennial classic for small businesses. Duct Tape Selling, uh, The Referral Engine. I remember The Commitment Engine. I have actually on my shelf here, that blue cover. Um, You broke out of the kind of how-to series, at least for entrepreneurs, and you went into this introspective, meditative kind of concept. Why such a shift?

Well, you're absolutely right. This is actually my 6th book, and all of my other books have been squarely in some sort of how-to tactical aspects of marketing, which I still live and breathe today with small business owners, but I've also worked with now— I bet I've lost, I'm gonna throw out tens of thousands in some fashion, small business owners. And I also see that while they need the how-to, I think entrepreneurs really also need the why-to, the kind of the mindset to go out and do what we do every single day. And so I've actually owned my own business for 30 years and I wanted to write a love letter, if you will, to entrepreneurs because I do think that, I do think we're a special breed, frankly, and that we are, I think, probably one of the most, entrepreneurs are probably one of the most positive forces of nature in the world. And so, I wanted to write a book that really kind of gave them inspiration, shared my experience, gave them something to kind of act as almost like a daily practice for getting inspired, getting fired up, getting the right mindset, and then going out there and facing the world each day.

I agree, entrepreneur is a very positive force, but we as a community are overwhelmed by overwhelm. How do we handle that internal struggles that we experience? I'm not good enough, I can't do this. You know, I think the—

and I didn't make this up, but I think the real secret lies in being able to let go of the things you can't control, which is actually most of everything. The, you know, we can't control what other people think, we can't control that they don't understand why we do what we do or that we have this big vision that they think we're not capable of doing. We have to let go of that and we have to trust ourselves enough to let go of the other things. I mean, I call them the God things. Is it going to rain? Am I going to wake up tomorrow? I mean, the stuff that we lose so much sleep over and causes a greatest amount of stress. And, the topic or the title of this book is Self-Reliant. Entrepreneur. When we become self-reliant, we, we trust ourselves so thoroughly, uh, that we are able to spend a great deal of our time focused on the things we can control, which is how we show up and how we respond to everything that happens.

How do you define self-reliance?

Yeah, I mean, the, the ironic thing about writing about a book that is teaching you to be self-reliant is, you know, the self part's on you. You get to actually define that. But for me, The easiest definition is a self-reliant entrepreneur is somebody that sees their entire life, their entire journey as a work in progress, and that they are constantly working to build a better you so that you can build a better business.

Okay. Self-reliance— can people take this to an extreme and say, "I don't need others"? It could be misinterpreted. Do you see that happening in reality?

Yeah, it does get misinterpreted. In fact, Google the term self-reliance and you'll find websites that teach you how to build your own house and make your own furniture. Yeah, there you go. You know, render a pig that's out in your backyard. And, it's actually, in my view, it's just the opposite. It's not this idea of being isolated. It's actually more like trees in the forest. Every single one of them is unique, but they all depend on each other to protect each other from the wind. And, if you look down at the roots, they all are intertwined and they feed each other and nourish each other. Uh, so I think what it's really more about is finding your unique, you know, true piece of the puzzle where you fit in. Uh, but, but certainly understand that there are, we're actually all, you know, very connected. Um, I actually think that a self-reliant entrepreneur not only trusts themselves, but they actually have more empathy for, uh, the rest of the world as well.

So your book has 366 daily meditations. I think I know why 366, but I want to hear from you. Why?

It's funny how many people have stumbled on that idea, but I have a brother that was a couple years younger than me that was born on March 1st, and had he been born on a leap year, his birthday would have been February 29th. And I just didn't want him to miss, you know, that day. And so all those leap year people, I want them to have their birthday in this book. Oh, I love it.

So in practice, how do we use your book?

Well, it— you— the practice is a great term. Um, our friend Seth Godin said this isn't a book, it's a workbook. And I think that's really a great way to look at it, is this is— every day is a dated page, and every day you pick it up and you've got about 2 minutes worth of work. You read that day's entry. It is based around a theme, and we can talk about kind of how I constructed that. You hopefully get you know, one good nugget out of that, and you hopefully take that question that I ask you at the end of every page with you kind of into the world every day so that it just kind of sits there in your subconscious and you start thinking about, you know, how, you know, some of these questions are hard to answer. Some of them you might not have the answer to, but I think if you're thinking about them, you're going to start witnessing how your days unfold maybe around those questions. So you're not going to pick this book up and read it, you know, on a weekend and go, okay, I'm self-reliant now. What this book suggests is that this is a practice that you pick it up daily. And, um, and I guarantee you, when you come back around to January 1st on year 2, um, that reading on January 1st is going to mean something completely different than it did the year before because you're going to be a different person.

Is there change afoot in the entrepreneurial space? Ryan Holiday wrote The Daily Stoic, I think it is. You wrote The Self-Reliant Entrepreneur. There is a theme going on here, at least in what authors are doing, but is there change that you see in the entrepreneurial community to absorb this kind of meditation, stoicism?

I think there definitely is. I mean, we have all written so many books about how to do everything, and I think that in fact there's probably nothing left to describe on how to, you know, to do what we need to do as an entrepreneur. In fact, a lot of us have all the knowledge that we need about how to do what we should do. It's kind of like a diet. We know how to lose weight. You know, I think it's the mindset shift that, that we need to work on that, that in many cases holds people back from, A, pursuing the dream in the first place. I mean, they're stuck in a job that they hate, but that's what they're supposed to be, that's what they train to be. And so it stops people from, from kind of taking that leap. Or, or I think it really holds people back from not only creating something that is true to their dream, but I think enjoying what it is that we're doing. I think a lot of entrepreneurs, the joy and happiness is sort of sucked out of what they're doing because they don't have the right mindset.

So, tell me about your own practice. What have you been doing?

Well, in a lot of ways, I couldn't have written this book 10 years ago, I don't think. But in a lot of ways, for the last 20 years, I feel like I've been working on myself. I turned about 35, I was like, I got to figure out, you know, who I want to be, I think. And so, you know, I've been reading, you know, a lot of the literature that shows up here, a lot of, you know, I read a lot of self-development books. I've meditated and done yoga and, you know, all the things that, you know, physically I think to get the mind, body, and spirit, you know, kind of right every day because I love what I do. But it's, you know, as you know, it's challenging. And so, we have to do a little bit of maintenance, if you will, on ourselves to keep the car running. So, in a lot of ways, what transpires in this book is kind of my journey and my experiences along my own journey as well.

So, I do want to pinpoint you into a little bit of a how-to. Do you have a routine that works for you that complements this book? Waking up at a certain time and doing certain activities?

Yeah. I mean, and it definitely has evolved over the years. I mean, I don't have young kids at home anymore, and so I'm free to kind of get up at 5 o'clock, and I do meditate daily. I do journal. I do read something that inspires me. And obviously, this book could certainly fit into that daily reading. And I do try to exercise some fashion every day. So, my morning ritual might might take hour, hour and a half. But I feel like I get that time back in spades just in terms of productivity and just kind of my whole attitude about the day.

That reminds me, Kelsey, was it Hal Elrod? He came on, did the Morning Miracle, right? Yeah. He said exactly what John shared, an early start, reading, writing, journaling. Hey, John, I'm just curious, Why the early start? Because this is just interesting. I see this consistently with people that we're interviewing that are successful. It's an early start. Can you put some parameters around why that's important? Do you even know?

You know, I swear it probably started, well, it started when I was growing up. My dad wouldn't let us sleep in. And that was, you get up and we lived in a farm community and we had a lot of property and so we had chores. But so it probably started way back then. But I just— there's something about the morning for me. I mean, I just absolutely love that time. And I will say, of course, the flip side of that is I have trouble— I had trouble staying up for the World Series game last night, 10 o'clock. And it's like, I'm out. But I just find that to be just the most inspiring part of the day for me.

Yeah, it's interesting. I'm the same way. I can't stay up late at night. I get up early. 5:30 pretty religiously. I actually haven't used an alarm in 10 years except if I have to go to like a 2 AM flight or something. Right. So sometimes it's not 5:30.

What was that, John? No, I was— yeah, the 2 AM flight. Yeah, yeah, right.

Oh, you're an alarmless guy too?

Oh yeah, yeah. I, I— every now and then I set it if I'm worried, you know, that I'm gonna miss something, but never do.

Yeah. And I wonder if at night— at night it seems I definitely can't be productive at night because I feel like the energy is expended. So then it becomes frivolous activity, watching the news, right?

Drinking. I would say I'm a night owl, but it's only because pretty much like my entire life.

Well, you're a chef.

I was always working late at night, so I adapted to it. I love getting up in the morning. I felt bad. I sent Kelsey a text last night. It was like 11 o'clock and she never responded. I was like, ooh. After 9 o'clock.

Yeah, but does that wake you up? You don't have the phone next to you, do you?

I do, but it didn't wake me up. Oh, so good.

Hey, John, what about the demons and the internal conversations that go on? I think many of our listeners have heard and want to be more self-reliant. They want to have that morning routine, but the demons in their head says, "You got to work harder. You're not good enough," and there's this negative conversation going on. What do we do to combat those issues?

Well, I think that's just— I think it's a daily fight. I mean, I think the first thing is you have to start realizing the control they have over you, because I think it is the insidious part is that it is a lot of times our own thoughts that were hammered into us by, you know, heaven forbid, a parent or a teacher or somewhere along the way. You know, a lot of those things, you know, I remember distinctly having a teacher tell me that I was never going to amount to anything, you know what I mean, in like you know, 6th or 7th grade. I'm like, you know, you grow up and you realize that was actually more about sort of their fear, you know, than there was any truth to it. But I think that it is something that you have to start— I call it witnessing. You have to start witnessing when those thoughts start showing up and start questioning them. And that's, you know, that's not easy. I mean, you don't just go, you know what, I'm just going to chuck those things out the window now. But I think until you start seeing that they exist and seeing how they're holding you back and you start dealing with kind of each day responding in a different way when they do show up, you're never really going to get past them.

Now, I know why when I started reading your book, that first page, now I know why it says, "Grab this book, walk over to your 6th grade teacher, drop the book on the desk and say, 'You said I was never going to amount to anything,' and walk out." So, now I get why you have that in there. Hey, did you ever think about that? Maybe it's a little bit too late to go back to your 6th grade teacher, but do you ever— have you ever gone back to people that challenged you and said you wouldn't amount to something, you won't be successful, you wouldn't achieve something, then you've achieved it? Have you ever gone back to those people, John, and said, look at me now?

No. Why would we spend energy on that?

You know, like I said, absolutely.

I don't, you know, like I said, I think, I think we, as you, as you grow a little wiser as we do with age sometimes. I think you start to realize that that wasn't about me, that was about them, you know? Yeah. And, and, you know, God love them. Hopefully they found a way out of that, you know, that state of mind at some point in their life. But, you know, I'm just rocking and rolling.

Yeah. Now you speak the absolute truth. For all of us, it's about us, right? Yeah. So with The Self-Reliant Entrepreneur, you make the shift from Duct Tape Marketing, Duct Tape Selling, Commitment Engine. What's been the feedback from your readership? Now, I know the book just launched recently, but I know you— there's a lot of reviews coming in. There are 5-star reviews. People are loving your book. But are some people saying, John, this is a whole new you. This is different. It's not in synchronization with your other stuff?

I don't think anybody's questioning. There certainly are people that are like, wow, you know, this isn't what I expected. And that's You know, that's to be expected, I think. But I think people that know me well, this is not a huge departure. I've always worn my heart on my sleeve. You know, I've always, you know, talked about, you know, the small business heroes that, you know, that I serve and that, you know, in a lot of ways, this is the only real difference is that, you know, some people are a little surprised by the highly personal nature, you know, of some of the writing in this. In fact, you know, one thing we ought to do, and hopefully this won't blow up your show or anything, but maybe we ought to read a page because, you know, it takes— Oh, lay it on me! And, you know, that way, because we've been talking in circles about what this book's about, but let's show people what this book's about.

Is this the one where it says, "I spotted him across the room, his blue eyes, his flowing hair, his name was Michael." There's no character development in this at all.

We just, we go Straight to the truth.

So what page are you going to read from?

All right, so you and I are recording this today on October 31st, Halloween of 2019. So depending upon when people listen to this, this is the reading for today, but obviously, you know, you can start anywhere in the book when you get it. But every day starts with— there's a title to the page, then a short, sometimes short reading, sometimes a longer reading from some literature. And we probably ought to talk about why I chose this literature to anchor the book with, and then my take on it to make it relevant for today, and then a challenge question. Then do that whole—

do the whole set. The floor is yours, sir. All right, here we go.

October 31st. To think is to act. Why should we be cowed by the name of action? 'Tis a trick of the senses no more. We know that the ancestor of every action Is a thought. Ralph Waldo Emerson, Spiritual Laws, 1841. Emerson continues in his essay to put an even finer point on this: To think is to act. Not much of a leap here then to suggest that your thoughts control your eventual destiny. So be careful what you think. It's kind of like carrying around a loaded gun all day. Our thoughts can motivate us to do things we once thought were beyond our ability. Our thoughts can lift and change the trajectory of someone's future. Our thoughts can also reinforce the myth of our life. This might be the point to suggest that we can also freely change our thoughts and in doing so impact our words, actions, habits, personality, and destiny anytime we choose. The only thoughts we control are our own, and that's a great place to start and end. This is where we often get bumped off course trying to change the world around us. Wayne Dyer, author of numerous self-development books, offers the following advice: "Never underestimate your power to change yourself. Never overestimate your power to change others." At the end of each day, you might find it helpful to take stock and see how many little things, seemingly insignificant things, went extremely well. The first step to creating thoughts that create positive action is to appreciate how great we've got it on the whole. Oh, and you might try to meditate. Your challenge question today: what's one problem you're thankful you don't have?

So, uh, you convinced me I want the Audible version now. I love that. Just hearing you read that. Thank you. That was almost meditative in itself. Thank you.

Thanks. Yeah. And I do think that the Audible version will be popular.

I suspect it will. To think is to act. John, you know what? I don't want to take it any further because I want people to ponder what you just shared. This has truly been remarkable in hearing this, and it's been remarkable being an observer of your journey and a participant in it too. So, thank you for coming on the show. Jon, where can people pick up The Self-Reliant Entrepreneur and get more info on you too? You bet.

So, it can be purchased anywhere that books are purchased. As you mentioned, the Audible version. There's an ebook Kindle version. Support that local corner bookstore if you've got one of those. They can bring it in for you if they don't have it. And, if you want to just read a little more about the book itself, what other people are saying about it, some of the interviews like this I've done, you can find that at selfreliantentrepreneur.com. Reliantentrepreneur.com. And then of course, for the work I've been doing for 30 years at ducttapemarketing.com, which is ducttapemarketing.com.

Great. We'll have both the show links at the bottom of the show notes here today. John, as always, a joy. In this case, reconnecting. We haven't talked in a while, so it's just a pleasure connecting with you again.

Yeah, awesome. And then, and, uh, Hopefully, with your new book coming in 2020, early 2020, we can do this on my show as well.

Oh, that'd be a joy. And just be fun to see you on the road doing some keynotes together again. You bet. All right, John, have a good day. Thank you. Thanks, John. All right, Kelsey, in a second, we're gonna recap what we learned. We're gonna play a game and you guys better bring the heat and have some fun here. And you better bring the heat. I'm gonna bring the heat. I think I've been the funnest of all of us. You guys aren't—

I'm just saying it better be a good game.

You know, it's a good— it's— well, you know, the game is coming. It's— this one is better than last week's.

Um, this one's gonna be milking kittens.

Yeah. All right, so we're gonna do all that, but first I want to thank our corporate partner, who is Nextiva voice over IP phone system. You know, I'm not going to make a funny thing up. You know, I made up all those things. You know the mother loop? No. Oh really? You thought they were real? Real? You thought they were real? He has the worst acting ever. I hope you have that on video. I can't wait for the next—

I am literally the worst actress ever.

I can't wait for the next, uh, what do you call that thing? Like the, the video you made, the sequence, a montage. Oh, I can't wait for the compilation. I can't wait for the next compilation of—

Are you gonna do one of Mike? Oh yeah, I actually— No, I already, I already know which one I'm gonna do, do for you.

Okay. Yeah. Well, good. It's gonna be way funnier. No way. Yours are the best. No way. But you should put that on your compilation. Do you make a note like, oh, I gotta get that one, I gotta get that one as we're talking?

No, but what I do is when I go through and edit the videos, like I'm starting to create timestamps to put in. Oh, so smart, dude. So then it makes it easier to keep track. There's one video, I can't remember which one it was off the top of my head, but somebody said something and you go, ah! And like you didn't mean to and it was just this really like super high pitched like scream. Oh really? Yeah. Oh, that's a good one.

That's a good one. There's that one.

The one, you laughed, it was the funniest laugh, but it wasn't an appropriate time for me to laugh, so then I would just start laughing. Oh, you just swallowed it?

Yeah. Oh, you're good.

But the video catches me.

Yeah, I love that. All right, so all those things about Nextiva, I make them up. They don't have a hurricane tornado weather system that is a cat meowing. A lot of people, we've gotten a lot of calls saying, I don't know if that's really a good safety mechanism. And I'm like, it's a joke.

So many calls.

At least zero. Then we got a load of calls saying, you know what, phones already come in black. They were not the innovator of the black phone. And I know.

Loads of calls.

And then what was the other things we made? Oh, the wire is curled up so that it uses less space. What was the like ultrasonic?

It was supposed to be cordless phones, but you called it like ultrasonic.

Wave system or something. Yeah, cordless phone. And then of course the best was True Voice. And then I think J. Clop, Clop, didn't know we were joking around.

No, to be honest, I actually did think— I thought that was like one of their—

he was like, what, what is the—

like, I, I thought it was like a, uh, high fidelity, uh, yeah, True Voice.

It's your actual voice heard over the other side. Well, because you guys had that joke going way before you, before you started participating. So all that stuff, I want our dear listeners to know is all just having fun with Nextiva. They are a great phone company. They have a very comprehensive suite that is offered at the lowest cost point you can imagine. Compete with the big boys by using Nextiva.

I can add, I called them yesterday. Their customer service is pretty good, right? Yeah, I love their customer service.

Yeah, super awesome. And I know you have one of their phones. I was joking about that, but for the first like 20 times I asked, I wasn't joking. I know, that's what made it funny. I know, I know. You're like, Kelsey, we gotta get him a phone. I know, you're like, we have.

He's had it literally before he started.

I know, I know. Uh, okay, so, uh, Kelsey, what'd you learn today?

Oh, I love this so much. Um, whenever you say love, we're gonna hit that.

We gotta get a button for— you know what, they're like that verbal bingo. Like, we should do that. We— could we do it? Like, make up these bingo charts with words that we all use. You have the Mike bingo, like, we'll have our own words, and then you yell bingo once you get across or diagonal, you know what I'm talking about? Yeah, yeah, totally. Okay, I want to do that for all of us. I gotta get you some more sound effects. I know, I know, that's your job now, dude, you're full-time, bro. Yeah, I'll get you some sound effects. Yeah, no, this is all— this panel is gonna become yours. This is your spot once you're here full-time, and I'll sit over on whatever. All right, go. Because he's gonna control this stuff and do the timestamps and stuff.

Yeah, so my favorite thing was he made the analogy about self-reliance to trees in the forest. That was good. You know, each tree is unique, but the roots underneath are all interconnected. So as entrepreneurs and as people, we can trust ourselves but still have empathy for those around us. I love that.

I've heard some miraculous stories about trees. And did you know this isn't a tree, of course, but this is a plant? The sunflower actually turns and follows the sun. Yeah, I did hear that. And during rain, purportedly, they actually huddle. Now, of course, this is not— well, who knows what's going on.

I feel like purportedly should be his word. Yeah, purportedly it should be.

It should be. You're just doing a mockery. Anytime you mock me— that's not a word. I know, but it's an action. Yeah, purportedly, that should be my word. I use that way too much. Yeah, I use that a lot. That's a lot.

Yeah, and I suspect, suspect you use that a lot.

And I suspect purportedly is not applicable all the time, you know. What did you learn, Jay Shlone?

I suspect you learned a lot. I suspect I did. I do use that word a lot. Well, purportedly. No, so I really liked— he said the mindset shift is what holds people back, not the steps that they need to complete. Everybody pretty much knows what they need to do to be an entrepreneur, but it's just the self-talk. Yeah. And what you're telling yourself that's holding you back.

Yeah, so you just took the words right out of my paper because mine here says, uh, we already know how to is our mindset that is required to shift to actually complete. Um, I like these as a daily fight. Like, like I asked him about the, the naysayer, the internal voice, and he's like, yeah, it's a daily fight. Yeah, for sure. I think the— I suspect often purportedly it is taught to us to once and for all defeat that internal demon. That doesn't happen.

No, it doesn't happen. It keeps coming back.

It's the same thing with meditation.

When I talk about meditation to people, it's a cycle. Like, sometimes you can concentrate pretty easily, sometimes your thoughts will run wild the entire time. It's just having grace with that whole process. And I feel like humanity in general, just having grace with it. Yeah, it's never going to be perfect. It's always going to be a process.

We should interview Kelsey one time. That actually— that would be— that would be pretty interesting. We should do that. We should do that.

I don't think it'd be very Interesting. I think it would be.

Okay, so we want to know what you learned too, our friends, so post that in the review of our podcast when you subscribe. I'm kind of persuading you to subscribe. All right, you want to play a game, guys?

Yeah, I'd love to.

Okay, you ready? Yeah. Okay, so we're just gonna go with the first chunk here. Here it is, it's called Bizarre Jobs, Kelsey. Okay. What's the most bizarre job you've ever had?

Um, I would say I would say probably customer service at Vermont Teddy Bear, but it was also like a pajamagram. That's right. Yeah, that was the weirdest.

So like, what do people call— like, what's the customer service calls? Hey, my teddy's not nuzzling up to me.

Yeah, well, I told you that the time when, um, the fella— tell this story on the air.

Have you heard this one?

This is not like an appropriate story, but there was a fella who, um, I didn't realize at the time but made a habit of this, but would call and like he was ordering a teddy bear, so he would like go through the process of picking out the different components of the teddy bear that he wanted, but he would just keep going on and then it would like, it sounded like he was running up and down stairs. So it was like this like huffing and puffing. And he would always be like, oh, just a little bit. I got to get my credit card. I'll be right there. And then like, keep going. Yeah. It turns out he was masturbating. Do you know what's really hilarious about this?

I worked at a place and we had a similar experience.

But I think it's a thing.

So the guy—

you had experience?

Yeah, the guy would call. No, I was smart enough to realize what it was and immediately would hang up on the guy. But other people who would pick up, he would call and he would start telling this elaborate story about how his wife was wearing this outfit. So disturbing. Really? Yeah, he would describe in detail his wife wearing this outfit and how this guy was hitting on her. I can't finish the story with you doing that.

Yeah, there's a sound effect. It makes it real. That's awful. I'm sorry.

That's awful. And he would keep him on the phone for— I'm not even joking— this one time they were on the phone for 40 minutes with this guy, and he just kept running with it.

Yeah, I was on the phone for a really long time.

Those are long masturbatory experiences. Yeah. What's the climactic point of the teddy bear? He's like, oh, then you put the shorts on? What is he doing? You really got your goat there. Oh my God.

Was it the stuffing that got you?

But you think if it's taking that long, then something's not right.

Touch the Vermont teddy bear hard. All right, it's called Bizarre Jobs. That's your bizarre job. Mine was, I worked for dry cleaners and I had to clean out the pockets. My job was to clean out the pockets at the dry cleaners and people sometimes leave money in there. And if it was under $5, you're allowed to keep it. If it was over $5, you had to return it. So you're always open for $4.99. Yeah. But you sometimes find things you don't want to find. Opened. Sticky. Ugh! Stop. A pack of gum. Yeah. Yeah, something like that. Bizarre jobs, here it is. Professional sleeper. Stop, drop, and sleep. Test out different beds to see what offers the most comfort and quality sleep. For the first time ever, you're being asked to sleep on the job. $100 per night. There's a dollar figure for you.

Ooh, I can do that. $100. A night. Pornography Historian.

No category has more feature films than the porn industry, yet all the great material can get lost— all the great material can get lost to time without a historian. As a porn historian, you will catalog films, actors, categories, and more. Imagine watching what you already love while serving the fan base. Pay is $69. Hilarious. That's like— I was reading ahead and laughing. All right. I added the pay on that one. Dog food taster. Dog food! Dog food taster. Stick your face in the dog's food bowl and start munching away. Your new job is to test and rate the taste of new dog food products, including bones, tinned meat, and biscuits. For pay, we will throw you a couple bones. So one of those jobs is a fake. Two of those are real. We're gonna start off with Kelsey, 'cause last week we started off with Jacob Blount.

Okay, I will. I'm gonna say professional sleeper is a fake.

Yeah. Okay, any— do you want to share any reasoning or anything?

No, it just feels like it wouldn't be a job.

I don't know. Yeah, okay, I got you. Yeah, that kind of weird. Yeah, I'll just go to bed. Yeah, here's $100. All right, the pay, the pay though, I just got to be clear, I just make up the pay because they don't have the pay. I just made that up. Okay, I don't want to influence you.

I think the, um The porn historian's real, and I think the paid sleeping's real.

I think the dog food taster is fake. Yeah. Okay, so I just— final answer. Okay, so I'm gonna say for the first time in a long time, I finally tricked both of you. Oh, the porn historian is not a position. Now, it was just—

I actually think that that might be a real thing.

I Googled it, and this guy comes up, porn historian, but it's an urban legend, and I looked thoroughly, so I could not find— if you can find it then you can dispel this.

Or it's a new job opportunity.

Could you imagine, like, every listener right now is like Googling porn.

Great, now I gotta go incognito on my phone.

Yeah, you gotta go incognito. To debate this. I wanna be a porn— yeah, I bet you right now—

I feel like we should check it out on the darknet though.

Yeah, it could exist. But let me tell you about the Professional Sleeper. There's a hotel in Finland right now that's hiring a member to be part of its staff as a Professional Sleeper to test their comfort beds. They have 5 different bed variants and are trying to get different ratings and so forth. So it's an active job. You rate and review your satisfaction sleeping. Yeah. And plus, I guess you have a regular job on top of that because all you're doing is sleeping. Yeah. Dog food taster. Sure enough, there are people that actually eat dog food, smell and taste their dog food before giving it to their dogs. There's seriously people— there's people that have cats. There's people that have cats. And supposedly there's some guy out there that has this tongue you can clamp in your mouth and you can lick your cat. Do you know what I'm talking about? Yeah. Yeah, there's people like that. I think I know him. No, no, I've never used it.

Um, so I was on the fence about that one because, um, uh, pet food has become so clean. I mean, like, the, the high-end pet food is basically— I mean, there was a guy who was a survivalist and he said if there's ever any major event, the first place you run to is the, the pet store because everybody's gonna wipe out the grocery store. It's like you go to the pet store, you get the, the high-end chicken. Yeah, meal. You can eat it. Yeah, it's crazy. I mean, it's food in there.

Yeah, that's pretty amazing. That's a good little tip. That's a good way to end it. Yeah, your survival skills. Cal, anything you want to wrap us up on?

No, but thank you so much for listening and please subscribe.

Well, that's what I meant, like, you know, just wrap us up on saying that. Oh hey, uh, check out mikemotorbike.com. That's our website. We got tons of free tools for you. Maybe J Bone can put a survival thing up there. Cat food supplies and places to go. Run to Petco. Um, and run over to the Get the Tools button because we have downloads for all my books. We have free resources, and you can also get some blog posts at mikemotorbike.com. Do it now, and we'll see you later.