145: The Self-Reliant Entrepreneur with John Jantsch

Hi, this is Charles Michael Davis. Toyotathon is on. So stop by your local Toyota dealer for incredible year end deals on the cars, trucks and SUVs known for their legendary reliability like the stylish and efficient Camry, the Ready for anything RAV4 or check out a rough and rugged Tacoma or Tundra, all with great financing and lease options available to qualified customers. Visit buyatoyota.com to find out more. Toyota let's go places.

What's next? This is a question we're all having to ask and answer more frequently. I'm Jenny Blake, your host of the Pivot Podcast and author of Pivot. The only move that matters is your next one.

For show notes from this episode, visit pivotmethod.com podcast if Change is the only constant, then let's get better at it. Here we go.

Hi everyone. I am thrilled to have John Jantz returning to the podcast. John is he may not even know how much of a friend, tour slash mentor he is to me, even from afar. He's also a marketing consultant, speaker, and author of Duct Tape Marketing, the Referral Engine, Duct Tape Selling the Commitment Engine, SEO for Growth, and his newest book, which is the topic of this conversation, the self reliant entrepreneur. 366 daily meditations to feed your soul and grow your business. John, welcome back to the show.

Well, thanks for that lovely introduction, Jenny. It's great to be back.

The Referral Engine I say this on our previous podcast, which is episode 70, in case any of you want to check it out. Pivotmethod.com 70 it was on the Referral Engine, which is one of the books that changed my life, changed my business. It just gave me permission to do marketing in a word of mouth sort of way and yet still systematious. But alas, today we are talking about the new book, which is really so beautiful because it's the culmination of your three decades of business experience. And I can tell that you're weaving in a whole sense of reverence and nature and spirituality directly front and center into this book, whereas it may have been more in the background for previous ones.

So I'm not as sneaky as I thought I was, huh?

I love it.

You're right.

It'S definitely front and center. I mean, it's probably, as you said, I've been doing this 30 years. There's probably a lot of just kind of my reflection on everything I've done, not only in my own business, but I've worked with tens of thousands of small business owners now. And.

I felt like I was expressing kind of how I see a lot of those folks feeling about the world.

That's what I love, that there's these 366 daily lessons. But it's so clear as I was reading through them that every single one has those decades of experience and what thousands of businesses that you've influenced, if not hundreds of thousands at this point. So it's really cool because yes, you're getting a daily nugget from the transcendentalists of our time. That's really the wisdom of the 19th century is the focus of where the quotes come from. But then I just love how you weave in specifically for the entrepreneur's journey, your take and your daily question for reflection. So it's just like it's so cool to have your depth of experience combined with transcendentalist wisdom and some romanticism as well. And then helping, using that, as you say, to challenge today's entrepreneur to remain fiercely self reliant while chasing their own version of success.

Yeah, it's probably more of a workbook than a book book that you're not going to read this book cover to cover. It is, as you alluded to it is a daily. You pick up, it's October 23rd and tomorrow's October 24th and you do that reading. So it's kind of meant to be something that works into what I would call more of a practice than a book that you're just going to sit on the corner of your desk and say, yeah, that one's next up for me to get to. It's my hope that a lot of people do, and I know a lot of people, a lot of entrepreneurs are doing kind of morning ritual kind of things that get them going, get them kind of charged up for the day. And this fits probably pretty lovely into that. It takes about 2 minutes to read one of the pages and then hopefully reflect a little bit on the question that I leave you with.

I was telling you before we hit record, one of the courses I took when I was at Union Theological Seminary where I'm currently on leave while working on my business. You could have been in this class, John. It was called American Theological Liberalism and it covered the big thinkers of the 1800s, which includes Ralph Waldo Emerson. And I even wrote an essay, I was looking it up for this conversation. I wrote an essay called the Apostle of Self Religion about Ralph Waldo Emerson. And he was a very progressive thinker at the time and saying that all humans are given the gift of reflection via their inborn soul. And just that notion was heretical in some circles, that each individual has access to the divine.

Well, and that even though we were all unique, we're all connected. Which is of course a very Eastern ancient tradition that I think the Transcendentalists were some of the first to bring to America. And you're right, that was a countercultural movement at the time. They turned a lot of heads saying no, you don't have to listen to the preacher or the teacher or your parents or politicians. You need to carve out and understand what your own unique path is.

Absolutely. And also it was so interesting studying American theological liberalism which really focuses on Christianity. That course did, because here you have this 2000 plus year old religion. But then Americans, which America was founded on freedom and independence. So what happens when Christianity collides with this American ethos of freedom and independence and then who is more staunchly freedom loving and independent than the American entrepreneur?

And that's why I think this writing actually is so timeless for entrepreneurs. I mean, think for yourself, go your own path, trust yourself. These are all things that entrepreneurs have to do do on a daily basis. And this was some of the first writing that really addressed that. And you mentioned the romanticism period of this. Not everybody that I cover certainly would have considered themselves Transcendentalists. But when I got into this, I initially went looking for Emerson and Thoreau and the people I knew. When I got into it, I realized that even the fiction at the time, books that we all had to read, Scarlet Letter, Little Women, Moby Dick, that was the first time that in American literature that the protagonists were fiercely self reliant as well. And so I think there was really a lot going on at that time. I mean we were, you think about it, 1850, we were on the cusp of the Civil War, women were marching in the streets to get the right to vote, we were trying to abolish slavery. I mean it was a pretty upheaval time. And so I think a lot of the writing kind of reflects the first people, I suppose, giving us permission to carve our own path.

Yes. And I mean it is such a fascinating period of time for all those reasons and those huge social movements that were happening. And the fact that I think we forget reading some of those quotes because they are timeless. Reading some of those thinkers, even today, you know, you include Mark Twain, Henry David Thoreau, Frederick Douglass, Emily Dickinson, some great Walt Whitman. I mean it's an epic list of people who you've sort of curated from. But America itself was just wrestling with who are we as a country? What do we stand for? You know, what does it mean to make it here versus anywhere else?

Yeah, a ton of European influence still at that point, for sure.

Yeah. So of course I caught on May 13th there's a great lesson called everyone pivots. So I'm going to read a little excerpt because it's related.

I thought you might have, you know, I thought you might have.

It's probably your birthday, isn't it?

No, my birthday is October 9th. And I also pulled today's today, so we'll get to that one too, because that's a, that's an epic one as well. In everyone pivots, you say self reliant entrepreneurs always pivot. It's become trendy and startup circle in startup circles, to use the term pivot as though it was created in the last decade or so. But it simply implies that you should question everything always and ask if there's a better way to do it. Try, measure, learn is a universal truth in business. And your willingness to change your mind is what keeps you both committed to your dream and self reliant. And then you say in parentheses, don't forget the measure part, or you'll feel the urge to pivot because you're bored.

So good. Talk to me about how you have navigated change throughout your, I would say, isn't it 30 plus years in business?

Well, at this point, certainly coming up on 30, yeah.

Okay. How you navigate change. And I'm also curious about the intersection of faith or spirituality and running your business. For you personally, how do those two things intersect? And how does your spiritual practice inform the decisions you've made in your business these last three decades?

Well, you know, a lot of these answers are kind of with the gift of hindsight. I don't know that, you know, that I necessarily went on a path that I said, oh, this is what I'm going to do and this is how I'm going to do it. I think you get, I think you get to where you get by experiencing a lot of things, by trying a lot of things, by being open to change. That was really the whole point of that pivot thing is that I think.

There is a balance. There are a lot of people that, as I said, just get bored and they think, I want to go do something different. Which actually can be okay too, because if you're bored, you're probably not doing your best work. But I think a lot of entrepreneurs get very locked into. No, this is what we said we were going to do. This is what I told my mom I was going to be. And we're kind of loathe to disappoint them. When we discover a better way, we discover something that's truer for us and we hold on way past the point where we should. That was hopefully what I was giving people the permission to do. But I think they're also for me. I do get bored pretty quickly. I do like to experience new things while I haven't. I've been duct tape marketing forever. I've been working with small business owners forever. But there's always an element of me trying to unearth new things. I mean, this book is a fairly radical departure from the way I have written and what I've written about. And for me, it was something I needed to do to stay passionate and joyful in what I'm doing.

I was just going to ask you about that because when I said to the pivot community that I was going to be starting at seminary school and again, I entered union the fall of last year, so fall of 2018, and then I went on leave halfway through second semester in the beginning of 2019. Any case, when I announced this pivot of mine and I was still running my business, I wasn't closing or shutting down any of my income streams or my business. But a lot of people responded to say, wow, this is so interesting. You know, I'm very spiritual myself, but I don't bring it to work, whether they were working within a company or as an entrepreneur. And so I would imagine that you must have gone through some question cycle for yourself around, hey, I'm known as the duct tape marketing guy. I work with businesses. Did you have any qualms about creating your next piece of thought leadership in this area? Or. In a way, I could also see it could feel like a big relief, like, ah, this is what I really love. You know, it also seems really fun to work on.

It has something that I've, you know, maybe it hasn't come out overtly, but it's something that I've been working on for 20 years. When I started my business 25 years ago or so, like all marketers, I got T shirts for my business to promote my business. And there was an Emerson quote on the back said, there is no object so foul that intense light cannot make beautiful. And so this vein of literature and this kind of spiritual path that I've chosen myself is something I've been doing for the better part of 20 plus years. And it just, to me, it culminated in kind of these two things, the transcendentalist literature and my desire to share where I think I've been and what. I mean, let's face it, this book's about what I believe. So it was hard and scary. I mean, there certainly was a point where I wondered if who in the world would think that what right I had to write this book. But.

I'm completely happy with how it turned out. And frankly, the response since people have started to get their hands on it has been overwhelming.

I have to say what I really love about it is there's a lot of daily. There's a lot of books with sort of a daily page that a person can read, but I've never seen one for entrepreneurs. And I love how you acknowledge that just the journey of an entrepreneur, you say, quote, the spirit of the entrepreneur is understood as much as a force of energy, as an institution. And that really struck me when I read it because it's just to say that it can feel lonely and confusing and overwhelming. And as you say, we go through cycles as entrepreneurs for that you mirror to the seasons and your cycles are planning, discovering, evolving and growing. And I would also imagine there's one phase that's kind of retreating or pausing or reconfiguring or pivoting, but that this book is like, oh, somebody wrote a daily bit of encouragement for me. You know, that's kind of how it feels. It just acknowledges the inner growth that the entrepreneur journey inherently has built into it.

Yeah. And it's funny because obviously everybody comes to something like this where they are. And I've really been pleasantly surprised, I suppose, by the amount of people that say this is, you know, yeah, you put entrepreneur in the title, but this is the self reliant person.

It's so true. Yeah, that's so true.

Because I mean really, it's about mindset shift. It's not about how to do anything, it's maybe about why to do it. And I think Jay, our mutual friend Jay Baer put on the COVID this is a book about making a better you makes a better business. And I think that's true of any endeavor. A better you is going to be better for the world no matter what you're doing, 100%.

Where do you see this fitting in with your business? Given that you've done so much in the duct tape arena? Do you have a new direction that you envision coming from this?

Most of my speaking, which I've done for a long time has been very practical, nuts and bolts, how to do things. I Certainly intend to.

At least present these ideas in much more of a what I would call inspirational kind of keynote format. So we'll see. I mean, if that becomes a direction that takes me into some new places.

I love working with entrepreneurs. I love that literature. Folks have been reaching out to me on this spiritual folks have been reaching out to me on this book. So I think it'd be really fun to go into some new directions, I suppose still probably will be entrepreneurs, but to kind of venture into some new communities maybe where the Duct Tape brand isn't that well known.

Yeah, it seems like there will be a lot of creative extensions.

Speaking of which, I want to read us so today, the day we're recording this is October 23rd, so of course I went to pull. Well, what is this day? So this one is your creator. And I'll just read the quote, the epigraph at the top from Ralph Waldo Emerson, his book Self Reliance. Ralph Waldo Emerson writes, character reality reminds you of nothing else. It takes place of the whole creation. A person must be so much that they must make all circumstances indifferent. Every true person is a cause, a country and an age requires infinite spaces and numbers and time fully to accomplish their design. And posterity seemed to follow their steps as a train of clients.

I'd love to hear your thoughts on that particular passage.

Well, I'd probably sum it up in the first line that I wrote. You're not a user, a vendor, a customer, a boss, a team member. You are your creator. And I think that spirit has to be what we embrace. Again, it doesn't mean you go out there alone and you don't get help and tons of help from other people. But. But that you get to decide what success is. You get to decide what you want to do, you get to decide what's enough.

And I think that that's. Hopefully.

Somebody described that the book is part inspiration, part kick in the pants, part make you think hard with the challenge question of if you really approach it seriously. And so.

I think everybody gets to decide what this means to them. And I think that it will be wildly different than maybe what I thought. But I think that it's meant to be kind of a practice that becomes part of your thinking. Because what I've experienced at least over the years, is that if I do something like this, some soul searching before I start my day, somehow it shows up in the rest of my day. I mean, even if it's a really good positive thought that I think, wow, I need to work on that. And then you just Kind of tucked away in your subconscious, and then something happens, typically during the day, and all of a sudden now you're witnessing maybe how you're responding or how you're reacting, and whether or not that serves you or doesn't serve you instead of just simply reacting.

The challenge question from this day is what do you feel is the essence of your destiny? Are you living it? Which is such an epic question. You can see how this one question could be the meditation for the entire book. I'm curious, what do you feel, John? What is your destiny and how does it express yourself in business?

Well, I've always felt like I'm doing it. I suppose.

It'S morphed greatly, but I feel like the impact that I have is helping small business owners get their lives back, helping them survive one day at a time. I mean, that's what I've been doing for 30 years. And in a lot of ways, this book is a more creative approach to that, I suppose. But it's still meant to serve those people that want to do their own thing, that are doing their own thing, that are experiencing the joy and freedom, but also getting their life sucked out of them at times. It's kind of my goal to have us all go, you know what? This is an awesome thing we get to do.

Let's be joyful in that. Rather than experiencing, you know, pain in this thing that's supposed to be so freeing.

I love the way you put that of helping small business owners get their life back. And it feels like you do have such practical, powerful work with duct tape. Duct tape, everything. I'm just gonna say, and yet this is such a great compliment to go with it, which is the inner game and these practices of meditation and journaling. Another. Another concept that you said every entrepreneur should embrace is blendingly, as it perfectly defines the contradiction inherent as you struggle for progress. Can you share with listeners what you mean by the word blendingly and why that's such an important skill?

Well, I stole that, I think, from Melville, wasn't it? I'm not on that page, but I.

Think it's from me either.

Herman Melville writing. And just that word hit me. I remember reading it thinking, that is the perfect word. I mean, it has everything in it. It's got, first off, it's a made up word, but also, at least I think it is. But it's also got so much action.

Doubt, fear.

Security. It's just like all these things are baked into it. But to me, it's always kind of been a point of view.

And I think a lot of entrepreneurs share this. I don't feel like I'm that artist who goes, there's a blank wall. I'm going to create something really awesome. I've spent my entire life, I think, looking at this and going, oh, wait a minute, how can we put these things together? Or how can we rearrange them? Or how can we use a concept from architecture or calculus or something to bring into how to build a small business? I think that skill is probably the greatest opportunity for most entrepreneurial innovation. We're probably not too many of us going to create the next Google, but there's a lot of things that we can do to make our mark by looking at how we can rearrange the universe.

Oh, I love it. It's so true that so much of original thinking is a blend. I mean, even this book is a blend. It's a blend of transcendentalist and romanticist thinking plus business plus entrepreneurship. It's funny you mentioned Google because today I was listening to their most recent earnings call for investors, which is like one of the nerdier things I have done in my business because I thought, why on earth I even worked at Google. And I say that those five years were like the best NBA I could have gotten. But John, I have to say for the first five years of self employment, I didn't focus on business units. It was just me. I didn't divide it into marketing, product development, engineering. And so today, randomly, I got the inspiration actually, well, knowing we had our conversation to go listen to their earnings call and think like, what can I learn from Google? And I thought, I wonder how many solopreneurs are going picking their favorite public company and listening to their earnings call. And it just occurred to me that, well, why couldn't we do that? That seems like actually a pretty good idea. Not everyone has to listen to Google. Just pick someone, a public company that you appreciate their products and how they do business and go listen to that and just see what could we apply to our own business. So in a way that's a blending exercise. But it's also just, it kind of occurred to me, I'm like, I'm so grateful for your work because you do help with that structure to small business where small business owners are wearing so many different hats.

No question.

I know. That was also kind of a tangent. I just had to tell you that when you mentioned I think it's brilliant. Yeah.

I have a book by Christopher Alexander I'm turning around now. So.

It'S on the Shelf, but it's called a pattern language. And he is an architect and he talks about. Actually the book that I really love. He's got like three or four, but it's called the Timeless Way of Building. And it just talks about how communities are formed and what works and doesn't work when you're trying to build a community. He did a lot of designs for like universities and things like that. And I just. First off, he's a brilliant writer and it's beautifully written. You'd think he's writing about architecture. But I get so much from that book that I have over the years applied to the same idea of business community because it really is all about the human interaction.

I love that. My parents are both. My dad's an architect, Mom's a landscape architect. So I wonder if that book is on their radar.

But it is so fascinating or so so. I mean, it's not a new book at all.

Yeah. Just the idea of patterns and pattern recognition. And I think that's another skill of the entrepreneur. I don't know if this relates to any of the daily essays, but pattern recognition, and I think it's so interesting. So I'm almost 10 years into doing this full time, which that's almost crazy to say, but it's like there does become a certain select pattern recognition that happens within one's field. It's almost like I've probably ignored many patterns that I could have paid attention to, but I have my slice of pattern recognition and I almost feel like. Don't you feel like on some level pattern recognition is unique to each person? And it goes back to that Emerson quote about your unique soul or destiny or expression. It's almost like we are each pattern recognition machines set up with a certain bank of curiosities that we're following.

Yeah. And I wonder how many people turn those off and clog them up and do all those kinds of things too? Because obviously it requires a fair amount of openness, I think, to not only have what you call pattern recognition, but as you also pointed out, the curiosity to want to go say, well, why does that do that? And why does that excite people? Why does that work? Why does that not work? I feel like that's to the point. Point where I drive people crazy. Sometimes I feel like that's almost all.

I do all day is pattern recognition.

Well, there's be curious about why things work and work.

Yes. And I would add there's the desire and the curiosity. And then I find it really helpful to have an actual tools for pattern recognition. So I use Evernote. And I have a notebook called Curiosity. So I'm always clipping articles, research data, organizations, personal anecdotes, people that I find interesting. I just clip them all. And I've had this now, this one folder for five, almost five years. I feel like there's a book in there. I just don't know what it is yet. Like, I collected a haystack. The haystack is a curated selection of something, but I just don't know what yet. Although it's there, the tool, it's a kind of. The pile is going to start shaping itself at some point.

Well, I tell you, the one for me that I get the most out of is nature. There's so much in nature that has patterns and has things for us to learn. That that to me is going and sitting under a tree in a forest is probably one of the most refreshing things I can do. And if you read fully through this book, you're going to find a couple essays. Obviously, everybody knows Walden was supposed to be about nature, but I have a lot of essays and a lot of opinions about nature being. Being such a great example for how to live.

Yes, we both shared. I say it a little differently in Pivot, but we both kind of have the statement, like, would you rush a flower to bloom? No. You know, so why are you. And that may even come from Zen writings. I'm not sure. But you also said something really interesting, which is that nature has no desire to succeed. And when I read that, of course, I did think about the counter argument, which would be that elements in nature are inherently driven toward their own survival. I guess that's Darwinism, but I love that what you meant it to say, which is nature has no desire to succeed. The seasons just are. The seasons aren't each trying to beat the other season. And who's a better season? We get all four of them, especially if you live on the east coast or in certain climates. We get all four. They're not in competition. They each have their time. They each have their purpose and their energy. So I'm curious, I'd love to hear you riff on this notion that nature has no desire to succeed.

Well.

The Walden quote, I think that's actually January 1st, isn't it? The Walden quote that accompanies that reading is really his take on the idea that why should we be in such desperate haste to succeed and in such desperate enterprises that.

We all have our path, we all have our nature, and that we expend significant amount of energy Trying to control the things we have no control over, like what other people think, whether or not it's going to rain. I mean, the only thing we really have any control over is how we show up and how we respond to what goes on. And I think that.

If we can release the need to try to control everything else, not only will we probably get to our destination in a way that maybe feels like luck, but we're gonna have a lot more joy and happiness on the journey.

I'm really glad you brought up luck, because there was another quote that I pulled. You said, isn't it possible that your lack of control actually created what you characterized as luck? You are letting go created your fate. And then the prompt for that day is, what does luck feel like? So that I've never really heard anybody combine a sense of surrender and going with the flow with luck. So that was really interesting. I'd love to hear your thought on what creates luck and what luck feels like.

A lot of this comes from experience. I mean, how many times you're driving somewhere and the road's closed and you're like, oh, great, now I'm going to be late. Whatever. You're stressed out about it, and then you encounter this amazing thing you've never seen. It was like you were destined to go that way. And I know a lot of people can get.

You can get overboard with that idea, but I think if you start embracing it, then all of a sudden, something that looks like a roadblock, you might actually start going, oh, awesome. This was supposed to happen. I'm supposed to encounter something even better. Because that, to me, is, I think, the way the world works.

When we get all upset about, oh, this thing didn't work the way I thought it was going to. We create all this stress and unhapp, and we yell at somebody, which is just crazy.

So imagine if we, in our entrepreneurial journey just looked at so many of the things now. I mean, there are things that we can do where we mess up or we make a mistake. We weren't ready to do something, and so it felt like a failure. But what if we looked at pretty much everything that happens? I didn't get this order. I didn't get to meet this person, that there was a reason that that happened, and start looking for the reason.

I feel like that is the most sane way to go about life and business, because then everything becomes learning. Every single thing that happens is part of the learning and the growth journey. And it's interesting. I mean, I just love hearing your take on it. And there's a saying, expectations are resentments in waiting. The same is true for business. So the more we expect an attack to outcomes, you're so right. It creates tunnel vision and then we miss a lot. And I've certainly found that the less I attach to, of course, exactly as you're saying, the more luck we can experience because we're more open and we're not attached to any one route or path or outcome. And in fact, I'd love to get your take on this because for about three years, even when Pivot was launching, I had no attachment to how many books I sold or my rankings. I certainly was committed to doing the best launch I could could. But I was also marketing with magic and serendipity, and those were my driving, those were my drivers at the time. And then this year, I've been doing a big business restructuring deep dive into business books and even business thinkers. And there are so many who would say you have to set clear revenue targets and then you have to work toward them monthly, and then you have to check in every week. And I feel like that sets up so much attachment. And, and, and of course, you could kind of set a revenue goal and then say, oh, and I'm not at all attached to it, but the minute you choose a number, you know at any given moment, whether you're succeeding and failing. And some people seem to really like that and it really motivates them. And I just, for me, I struggle with it because I feel that sets up expectations, whereas great things can still happen and my revenue still grows year over year, even without that, like, targeted obsession. I'm curious because you've worked, worked with so many businesses where you fall on this kind of business goal setting.

Yeah, I probably fall closer to yours. I mean, to me, it immediately kind of robs some of the joy in the journey. Right. And I do also know that particularly when organizations start having, it's not just me, and I get to decide what I want to do and if I'm happy, then who cares? When you start having a team and you start having people that are trying to understand what their impact is and trying to understand if they're making progress. I do think having metrics is extremely important to measure what's working, what's not working, who accomplished, what do we need by when? I mean, those are all things that when you start having multiple people in an organization, they become extremely important to just make sure there's not chaos. But as you said, I think where a lot of companies get Knocked kind of out of congruence even is if we're going to make our number. I mean, you've probably encountered the salesperson that is so driven to make their number with something that they're willing to throw any kind of value or core values out the window. And I think that that's where it starts to really be a negative.

It reminds me the Basecamp guys, the two co founders, they look for year over year growth, which I think is a sane way. They call it a calm company. That's like a calm way to run a business is definitely year over year growth without obsessing over any one specific target or some far off goal.

Yeah. And I think it's kind of fun.

To come up with metrics that are actually more a marker of you're living your brand purpose. So you mentioned my book the Referraling. And I work with a lot of companies where referrals are their ultimate measure.

They set up systems and they set up things to get more of them. But they also realize that first off, revenue is going to be there because they're getting high quality referrals. But it also points to so many other things working. The experience is great, the client got the value or what was promised to them. A lot of times there are markers that are way better than rest.

That's a great reminder. And even just that we can have certain markers or metrics that are indicators of so many other things in the chain going right and exactly. Referrals are one of them. For me with my books, I always think word of mouth is it like if every reader tells one friend it will sell and it will sell over and over, over time. So that was always my goal with my at least two so far two books was that it be good enough, helpful enough, inspiring enough that someone finishes and they their friend, hey, you got to read this book.

Yeah, my marker is that I just want everyone to take a damn selfie with the post it on Instagram. That will make me happy.

Okay, you hear that everybody? You're listening. John wants a selfie. He wants a selfie and a bookie. That's like a book selfie.

You said this was so good. This is from a course I took with Pamela Slim almost five years ago now. But I've re listened to and you said make sure you're a product of your product. What do you mean by that? And how might it tie into one of the concepts you talk about in the new book?

I mean, I'll probably get around to answering that last part. What it meant to me was that.

If there's any possible way that you can do what you're telling other people to do.

Then not every business works that way. But for example, I train a lot of marketing consultants. That's part of my business model. And we tell you gotta have a Google my business page. We tell our clients, you gotta be blogging, you gotta be getting reviews, all the things we tell them to do. And nine times out of 10, we're not doing them ourselves. So there is a very practical nature to being a product of your product. In my opinion. It makes it much easier for you to demonstrate to somebody why you are saying this works. If in my business, if you came to Kansas City, Missouri and Googled marketing consultant and I didn't show up, number one, shame on me.

No pressure.

Well, I mean, that may or may not get me any more business, but if I'm going to tell you, plumber, that you need to be showing up, number one, when somebody types in Kansas City Plumber, then wouldn't you want to hire the person that actually was doing it themselves? I mean, that's the bare essence of that idea of being a product of your product. Product.

And I'm going to pause you right there and say, listeners, John started his podcast in 2005. So if you want to talk about being a product of your product and being early to marketing and getting your word out there, I just think that's so incredible, John. I really. That's one of my, like fun facts about you that I think is so epic. You've done so many episodes. You are living it. You do consistently put work out. And we talked on our last Pivot podcast, episode 70, about just the foresight and the willingness to experiment that that required. It's not like you could see the huge podcast movement coming, but you were willing to get in there and do it when there were nearly the amount of tools that there are today. Or listeners probably for that matter, may.

Get on my soapbox for a minute with that.

I love your soapbox.

Go for it. So the reason that worked for me is because I didn't go into it because I thought it was the next big thing. I looked at it and said, this is going to give me an opportunity to talk to Wonderful that had. I sent them an email and said, hey, Seth, you got about 20 minutes for me. I got to ask you some questions. Seth Godin. I'm talking about, of course, what other.

Seth would there be?

I probably wouldn't even gotten a reply, but when I started saying I would like to interview you so I could promote your book. I was an invited guest now to have that same 20 minute conversation where I got to ask him a bunch of questions. And so I think a lot of times people look at some new thing and they think, oh, I'm either going to do what I see other people doing with it or this is the next new thing. What I've always done is looked at Twitter and all the things that came along as I was building my business. I said, how can this help me do more of what I'm already doing? That's where I think the real disconnect is that a lot of people jumped on the podcast thing in the last five years because they thought, oh, I see XYZ person getting all this ad money and talking about how successful they are because they have all these listeners. And so I'm going to do that and maybe abandoning what their air quotes real business is in order to go chase that thing. Everything I've done is tried to say, look, here's my core business. Does this thing help me do it better? And I think that that's such a great filter for looking at some of the things that you want to do or how you want to use your precious time.

Yes. And I just love what you said in there about you didn't go into it because you thought it was the next big thing. And that's such an important distinction. There's entering a new space for the like the business ROI purpose of it. And then there's what you did, which is saying, how can I authentically connect and is this aligned with my core business? And that that's going to bring so much more joy. I mean if we do connect it to the self reliant entrepreneurs, I would say actually, you know, part of this conversation is being self reliant of you're not looking at just what everyone else is doing or how others are doing it, or even what metrics are acceptable. It's like you're kind of relying on yourself, your intuition, your spirit, your business's spirit or essence and what that purpose is. And as you say, these are daily meditations to feed your soul and grow your body business. So it's kind of like always retuning in to who am I, who is my business and where are we called to go, not just where should we go.

Yeah, and I think that what that also does is it helps you, it gives you staying power. I mean I had three listeners maybe when I started, so, you know, it wasn't about the listeners necessarily, or about the audience or about advertising.

You know, I knew that maybe that was gonna come, but. But there's a lot of things that we do that we have to put in the work. And if you don't have some other sort of secondary thing, the staying power is tough.

That brings to mind because I think what the metrics focus does is say, oh, this isn't working. I only have three listeners. I should quit. So I also think someone's likely to pivot too early or shut something down versus if you can find that inherent joy or as you described, action access. I mean, I'm very thankful too. I had questions for you, but I'm. I was just gonna save them for this podcast, you know, like I actually. And I'm happy about it. I don't really worry about reaching out to you and saying, john, could you help me with this business thing? No, it's like I'm really happy to chat with you every time you have a book coming out or, or get you on the podcast. And it is, it is a great way to connect with people in, in a way that is so beneficial to all of you involved rather than that sole self focus. So I love. There's some built in paradox to your new book. Yes, we're self reliant and that allows us to connect really authentically with the communities we serve and with our colleagues in whatever space that we're in.

We're like trees in the forest, Jenny.

Yeah, I love that. Or leaves on a tree.

Every single one of us is unique. We don't, I mean, we, we protect each other from the wind by being together. Our canopies don't get into each other's canopies, but if you look at our roots, they are connected and we're feeding each other and helping each other through that. So how's that for a really sappy metaphor?

Well, sappy is a good tree pun as well.

There's a book, I haven't read it called the Hidden Language of Trees, but I own it.

It's amazing.

Have you read it?

I have. I loved it so much. I got. There's an illustrated version that is, I mean, the photography is amazing. Wow. So it is such a great. Well, it so aligns with how I think about, you know, our place in nature. The trees don't need us, by the way.

No, of course not. Right? Of course not. We're like interfering with.

We should both. Because I know you have a podcast too. We got to get that authority. I'd love to talk to him about the hidden language of trees.

I think it's.

Is it a woman?

I think he's like Scandinavian or something. Yeah.

Wow. Fascinating. I love the tree metaphor as well. And I was just thinking, as you were picturing that, I was picturing sometimes there's a baby tree and you're like shaded under a bigger tree, and that tree provides some shade or protection from the elements. So this forest metaphor can go far. I'm into it.

Well, when you get into that book, I mean, you'll see all the connections about how the. How the trees actually do help each other and talk to each other.

Oh, my gosh.

It's amazing.

That's incredible. It's funny. I brought that up in a class at Union. I said, you know, trees talk to each other. And someone. It was kind of a sometimes a crazy environment. Like someone was like, duh. We all know that. We all know that trees talk to each other. And I said, actually, we don't. Because if you look at what's happening in the world, like we here at Union in New York City might have the sense that trees talk to each other, but certainly the rest of the the world. Not everybody seems to be protecting our precious trees.

I know.

So now I'm off my soapbox. John, it's always a joy to connect with you. Thank you so much for being here. Can you please let listeners know where they can find you and keep in touch and get your book?

Sure, you bet. So the book's available pretty much everywhere. People buy books. There is an ebook version, but I'm making a case for this is an analog book. You want this on.

I second that. I agree.

Bedside table. But there are other options available anywhere books are. Are sold. If you want to just find out a little more about the book. And I've collected all of the interviews like this I've done in one place. It's just self reliantontrepreneur.com and you can find what I've been doing the last couple decades@ducttapemarketing.com d u c t t a p e marketing.com and I think. Jenny, what do you think? I think that this book will make a great community. So if you think about it, everybody's going to be on the same page the same day, theoretically. So I think there's a real opportunity for people to maybe be able to go deeper into some of these. Not only the writings, but how they're wrestling with the questions. So I do plan to start a community called Daily Self Reliance.

Oh, I love that. And I agree. I have the digital version because I got an early copy to prepare for this conversation. And I remember saying just a few pages in, I was like, I gotta go get that hardcover. Definitely. It's that kind of book where you'd want to hold it. You can even there's a prompt so some space to write in it. And I agree. For these 366 daily meditations, it's the kind you can turn to at any time or flip open anywhere you want. So I can't wait for the community. That's exciting.

Well. And I even talked my publisher into putting a ribbon in it so that you, you can mark your place for the day. I was adamant that it had to have a ribbon.

That's fancy. I love books with a ribbon. That's how you know you've made it. John Jance.

It was touch and go, but they relented.

Well, way to get that ribbon. What color is the ribbon?

It is a nice royal blue.

Cover of the book is orange. Very bright orange. And so I thought that those two went together well.

Oh yeah. Perfect. My goodness. I love it. And everybody. The book is called the self reliant 366 daily meditations to feed your soul and grow your business. And as always, the show notes from this episode with the links are@pivotmethod.com podcast John, thank you again. It's such a joy to have you here.

Awesome. Thanks, Jenny.

Thanks so much for listening to this episode of the Pivot podcast. Make sure you don't miss an episode or my insider tips and templates by signing up for Pivot List, a curated twice monthly newsletter where I share the inside scoop on what I'm reading, watching, listening to and the latest tools I'm geeking out on. Sign up@pivotmethod.com pivotlist get show notes for from this episode@pivotmethod.com podcast and connect with me on Twitter ennyblake.

Remember, build first, then your courage will follow. Hasn't it always.