803. How to Create Instagram Reels That Grow Your Brand and Tell It's Story

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She who starts and fails will always be ahead of she who fails to start.

Welcome to the Earn your Happy Podcast. I'm Lori Harder, founder of Light Pink, best selling author, three time fitness world champion, and I'm a crazy multi passionate entrepreneur. My journey has taken me everywhere from being a broke waitress, barista, retails associate and personal trainer with massive anxiety and no belief in myself to later becoming a multimillionaire in love with my life. In 2007, my husband and I lost everything.

We found ourselves hundreds of thousands of dollars in debt. At rock bottom.

We had no ideas and I had no education to fall back on. This is when I found personal development and learned everything I could about business. Not by choice, but because I realized no one was coming to save me. The conversations on this PODC going to let you know that you're not alone.

And that we all feel like we don't know what we're doing.

We're going to give you the tools to help you face your fears, take action, start your business and grow those massive dreams that are keeping you up at night. It's time to create a life that you can't hide from and put so much on the line that your higher self is forced to come out.

You're going to stop waiting for someone.

To approve of you and you're going to anoint yourself. Because I'm obsessed about building businesses that.

Give women a platform. I want to feature you.

So if you text the word podcast to 310-496-8363, you can get your questions answered on our Q and A segment.

Along with a shout out.

And if you rate, review and subscribe to this podcast, we're choosing someone every month to get coached and featured on our show. It just might be you. So let's get started. Hey everyone, welcome back to the show. I have to remind you to go to lightpink.com right now because if you want to get exclusive discounts and coupon codes for all of your holiday shopping this year and maybe gifts for yourself because all my top picks are in there, all my top favorites, all, all about what are you going to wear this holiday? What are you going to shop for? How are you going to buy something unique for that person and those people that you love? And that's what this holiday gift guide is all about. Not just that, we wanted to give you some free gifts as well. So there is a free preset in there to make your pictures look freaking amazing this holiday to brighten everything up. So easy to use. And also you guys, we also have a membership to an exclusive program that you are absolutely going to love for free.

Three months free.

So go to lightpink.com and find all of my favorite top picks with discounts. And not only that, but you get the opportunity to shop small and support female owned businesses. So we have a lot of different businesses in there, but over half of them are female owned and operated small businesses that you can support and shop from. Because truly that is what support looks like. Supporting with your doll and supporting by sharing and getting the word out. So you guys definitely go to lightpink.com right now. And today I have Brock Johnson on the podcast. He's a 24 year old former college athlete with a passion for helping others grow their brands using social media. His specialty is short form video on Instagram and online storytelling. After less than two years in business, Brock reached a six figure income as a college student. He's a co host of the Build you'd Tribe podcast, instructor of multiple online courses, viral TikTok creator, and an Instagram marketing expert. Brock has helped thousands of entrepreneurs learn to build their business even with limited time and money. He has a specialty in IG stories and his mission is to help you grow your brand and effectively market using these platforms. I'm telling you, I was so inspired and I learned so much from Brock. And if you even just follow him on Instagram, you're about to learn how to make your reels so much better, so much easier. He gives you step by step on everything to do, even if you're someone like me who didn't know what the heck to do with reels. This podcast is gold. So let's get started.

Brock, I'm so excited to have you on this show. Thank you so much for coming on.

Of course. Yeah, Lori, thank you so much for having me.

We were just chatting earlier and I said it's just that it's that wonderful world of social media that we're actually going to talk about today that makes you feel like, you know, people I feel like I know you. I love your parents, they're fricking amazing. But also started following you and you do incredible things on Instagram. You truly are an account that adds so much value that it's, there's, there's no wonder that you've been able to just organically attract so many people to what you are doing and into programs. And, you know, I definitely know that this audience that is listening are people who are all either aspiring to grow a business, have a business, or just people who know the value of growing social media for something that they want to do in the future. So what even got you started on this path of wanting to learn how to grow organically? What got you excited about social media?

Yeah, so really going back to the roots of my first business when I was 19 years old, it was teaching moms how to keep their kids safe on Snapchat. So there was a piece of social media there, but it was different than what I do now. Now I'm all about Instagram and organic growth and marketing and business and that sort of thing. But originally it started out helping moms keep their kids safe on Snapchat, learning to use the platform. That very quickly grew and evolved. And that's the first kind of thing that I would recommend to any new business owner, or really any business owner, is the ability to adapt and change and also just recogn that whatever you're doing now is likely going to have to change and have to pivot, if not in the next few years, maybe even in the next few months. I think we all kind of had to deal with a lot of that in 2020, but. So that was my first business was helping moms keep their kids safe on Snapchat. Very quickly I realized I had just taught thousands of people who, a lot of which were network marketers, small business owners who own businesses. I taught them how to use a new social media platform, one that they hadn't been on before. So now I wanted to also help them. And really they were asking me, how do I use this new social media channel that I learned to use to keep my kids safe, but now I just know how to use it. How can I use this to grow my business? So I had that coupled with simultaneously, I was growing my business on Snapchat, thousands of viewers watching my stories on Snap every day, thousands of people following me on Snapchat. So I was building my business on Snapchat and I began teaching others how to do the same thing. Fast forward. A few years later, Instagram Kind of starts to take over the market. They introduce their own version of stories and really they siphon off a big part of Snapchat's demographic and Snapchat's audience. And so I kind of went with the mass, the mass exodus and moved from Snapchat over to Instagram. And that's really what brought me to where we are today, which is focusing on Instagram marketing and organic Instagram growth.

So, so many things that you just said. I think one of the most important things is nimbleness, the recognition of when you need to pivot and that stuff, whether that is just in social media or in business or, you know, it also translates in life. I'd love to know just about a little bit about where what your mindset is around expectation, detachment, around that, a pivot, the risk, all of those things. How do you, how do you get in that mindset of just like, I don't know what's coming or what's next, but I'm going to, you know, make as, as best of a decision as I can. So tell me a little bit about that just in life and in social media.

Yeah, absolutely. So I was kind of slapped in the face with this, this reality of life and adulthood and just being a human being. When I was, funny enough, right around 19 years old, right around when I started that first business for the first 19 years of my life, a very clear, outlined, detailed plan for what was going to happen in sequential order. I can remember going all the way back to when I was six years old, having a clear outline. Yes, I'm going to do this in high school. This is what I'm going to do in college. I'm going to play in the professional football league in the NFL. This is like the series of steps. Then when I was 19 years old, a lot of things changed, and really they started to change when I was 17 or 18 years old. We don't need to get too far deep into that story. But the college that I went to originally wasn't a college that was ever on my quote unquote planned list of potential future colleges. Great university. I started out at Georgetown University, but it wasn't ever like where I saw myself going. After six months there, after my first semester, my fall first football season, I transferred. Another thing that I never thought I would ever do in a million years. Transferred from Georgetown University to UC Davis in Northern California. So now I'm at a totally new school, a school that I had never even heard of growing up. A school that, like, even though it's in my home state. I didn't even know it existed or that it had a football team. So a million things didn't go according to plan. So I was kind of forced to come to this realization that this idealized plan that I had come up with for my life, it was definitely not going to be followed. And kind of, you know, the conclusion of that sentence is that it's still working out for the best. All of it is still turning out so well. That's not to say every little day or every moment is joyful and happy and just the most amazing experience ever. But all of these changes in plan were ultimately for the best. They were way better, they turned out way better than the things that I had originally planned for myself. And then the one final thing that I will say about this topic is that when I was at UC Davis, one of our founding principles on our football team was detach from the result. That was something that was really preached by our offensive coordinator, who was also our quarterback coach and I played quarterback, so I was around him all the time. And that was something he really preached and believed in. Detaching from the result and boil that down, what does that mean? It's basically instead of focusing on the scoreboard and the stats that you put up and the win lose of the game, it's focusing on the daily practices, literally practicing on a daily basis. The habits, the routines, the workouts, the the film study and all of those small minor habits that ultimately make the huge differences in our life.

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What are you feeling challenged by right now? Just in general in life, in business.

Yeah, I think that kind of the biggest challenge for me right now is just learning who I am in business, separated from the rest of my family in business. Because for people who don't know who are listening, I was raised in a very entrepreneurial family. A lot of people know my mom, Shaleen Johnson. So I was raised around business. I was raised with Kind of a celebrity in the fitness world, at least being my mom. And so I was always kind of around this. And then in starting my business, she helped me out a lot. And we do a lot of business things together. We are co owners of my biggest, most like my biggest income stream, my biggest business. We're co owners of it together. And so a lot of the things I do is still very much tied to them. And it's not saying that I want to flip the script or that or I'm against my parents or anything like that at all, but just really figuring out who am I in business separate from or without my parents and this family that I was raised a part of. So that's probably the biggest struggle or challenge that I'm working on right now.

Oh, man, I love that. And honestly, I think we all have the first part of the sentence, so you're not totally alone. Like, who am I in business? Whether it's. Cause there's a lot of pros and cons with that, right? That maybe some people don't see, and not cons in terms of a bad thing in life, but identity. Just trying to figure out who you are after something. And I think it's either, you know, people who have been in sports. I was in the fitness world forever. And when I was pivoting, it was just like, it's finding that. That version of you with who you are now. And I think that's all honestly, whether it's you trying to figure that out with your parents, it's kind of like it's always going to be there, right? Like, wait, who am I now? Who am I now that there's no Instagram? Who am I now? You know, if these things happen in the future. So I love that. That goes right back to the nimbleness and the pivoting and why those things are so incredibly important. So we're gonna mix this in, guys. We're gonna be digging into. We're gonna be talking just about mindset, personal life, things that you're willing to share, and also Instagram, because I just. Instagram is life. I'm just kidding. Although, who are we without it right now? Something we have to figure out. Okay, so what are the keys? What do you think the keys are for people who have an idea, who have a business right now. I know even for me who's pivoting into products. I'm now in another phase of looking at Instagram in a different way, of how do I really organically build this audience even more and convert them. So let's chat about that. The steps to growing your Instagram.

Yeah. So there's a million different Instagram experts out there who are going to give you a million different strategies. Some of them are going to be more or less beneficial, some of them might be absolutely terrible, and some of them might make a difference in your account. But really, ultimately, I want to help people figure out a way to save the most time and make the most money on Instagram. So you're not spending 19 hours a day glued to your phone. That's not great. If you want to.

Sorry, I said that sounds great. Let's do it.

Yeah. Like, if you want to, you know, scroll Instagram for hours and that's. That's your thing, then go for it. But I think most of us would like to live our life outside of Instagram. That's really what I want to help people with. So boil it all down. Instagram growth is ultimately about three things. And honestly, this is the same way to grow on Twitter, on TikTok, on pretty much every social media channel. They all pretty much work the same way. Step one, clearly identify your niche. It's a scary thing. It's a scary topic. People hate the idea of niche. If you have no idea what niche means, it's basically like a focus or an expertise or a subcategory within a general industry, if you will. But you start with your niche. You absolutely have to start with your niche. There's too much competition out there. It's Instagram, all these social medias, there's too many voices, millions of people clamoring for your attention. The way you stand out is by getting really specific with what you're talking about. So that's step one. Identify your niche. And then kind of like one B is make that clear in your bio. Like, when we read your Instagram profile or your Facebook bio or whatever platform you use, it needs to be really clear to us what it is you're here to do. Like, why should I click on your profile? Why should I subscribe? Why should I follow you? What is it you're all about? That's step one. Step two, post consistently. I'll give you a definition for what I mean by consistently multiple feed posts per day. Not just one, not just a few a week, not just whenever you remember to. But if you want the honest, hard truth, it's multiple feed posts per day. And the reason for that is that the more you post, the more you grow. Every single post is an opportunity to reach those new followers and bring them into your business, bring them to your account. And then the other part of posting multiple times a day is that it serves and keeps you connected with your existing followers. So you need to post more than once a day. And I know that that's not the fun thing to say. And I know a lot of other Instagram experts are gonna say, no, no, just like post a couple times a week and you'll be fine. And that's because they're trying to hold you, hold your hand and keep you having a friendship, a relationship with them. But I'm going to tell you the honest truth and I'm going to tell you what has been researched and proven to be true and what our data supports, which is that if you want to grow on Instagram, at least in 2021, it's multiple feed posts per day. And my little asterisks that I'll put on that is that those feed posts should all, of course, relate to your niche. It shouldn't just be like, hey, here's what I had for breakfast. Hey, here's my kid on their first day of school. Hey, here's me out to dinner. They should relate to your niche. So that's step one is niche. Step two, post consistently. And then step three for growth is to start to build those relationships, those direct message conversations, those back and forths within the comments section, those engaging with other accounts, going out of your way to go interact with other profiles and have conversations and answer questions and serve people. Not only will that help you, you grow your following, but also when it comes time to sell, that's gonna make leaps and bounds of difference when you are converting these followers into customers because they have to build that trust with you. They have to have this relationship, this back and forth, this real understanding for who you are. And that happens through the daily small habits and conversations and back and forth dialogues that we have primarily in the direct messages and partially in the comment section.

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Tell me about the things that you like are scrolling and you just kind of cringe.

Yeah. So I think that the overly perfected photoshopped feed, very popular in 2016, 2017 and it worked really well. And I think people, they have a general idea of what we're talking about. You know, the, the same font on every single picture and the same like hues in every photo and everything is photoshopped and looks just absolutely gorgeous, like it's the COVID of a magazine and everything perfect and fake. And what we've realized is that that's inorganic, that's inauthentic, that's not real. And people don't want that. People no longer are attracted to this like fake, idealized, perfect life. Instead people want what's real. And really ultimately people want to be served. They want you to serve them on Instagram. They want you to give them value. They don't care how pretty you and your family look. In front of a private jet. Like, that's awesome. And that might get a lot of. Like, that's not gonna bring in customers, and that's not gonna bring in business, and that's not gonna bring in real followers. That's gonna bring in people who are interested in vanity and wanna follow you because they think your life is perfect and you're making it look pretend perfect on social media. So when I see that stuff, it makes me cringe when I see these professionally done photo shoots with fancy editing and graphics. And just to me, it feels like this is putting a lot of work into the vanity and the visuals and not putting a lot of work into the actual substance and the actual value of your Instagram. So when I see stuff like that when I'm scrolling, it definitely makes me cringe.

Tell me about how long people should be kind of waiting or setting their expectations at before they feel like they can sell or. I think we know so many people or have seen so many people who. They don't have an audience, and then all of a sudden they're like, but I have a course in me, or I have a book. And I'm like, oh, gosh. Oh, my gosh, we need to talk. So tell me a little bit about what that process even looks like from. I think I want to be an entrepreneur. I think I have a product I want to sell something to. I haven't even been talking to my audience.

Yeah, absolutely. So, of course, this is really variable, right? Depending on what are you offering. Are you offering a free product or are you offering a $10,000 mastermind? It also depends on, like, what is your niche? Are you in beginner rock climbing? Are you in crocheting? Are you in Instagram growth? Like, what is that industry you're in? Because every industry has a little bit different expectations. I don't think. Let me say this. I don't think that you need a certain number of followers to be successful. I think there's plenty of documented cases of people with millions of followers who can't sell squat, and then people with, like, a couple hundred followers who are making hundreds of thousands of dollars a year on Instagram. So I don't think there's necessarily a set number of followers to achieve, even though there is a great article, a great essay written by an economist that argues that you need 1,000 true fans. That's a really powerful study that was done, and I would recommend people look into that. But basically, what that says is, and I'll boil it down is you need 1,000 true fans to make $1 million a year. So 1,000 true fans. A million dollars a year. That's really not that many people, if you think about it and you think about the potential reach on things like Instagram and TikTok. Like, how long would it really take you to get to a thousand true fans? And that's for a million dollars a year. Like, what if you had 500 true fans or 250 true fans? So what I will say though, because everyone wants a number. Everyone wants like just how long do I need to do this for? Everyone wants to know what the minimum is. Give it 90 days. If you can consistently, every single day for 90 days straight, talk about one topic and really establish your credibility and your trust around this one topic. By the end of that 90 days, your followers should either be large enough that you are ready to start promoting or talking about whatever that offer is, or at least that you'll have followers who are invested enough. Maybe you won't have thousands and thousands of followers at the end of 90 days, but whoever is following you is ready. They've been there for the last 90 days. They've heard you talking about this one topic over and over again. If they're still following you at the end of that time, they're most likely ready for the offer or whatever it is that you have to sell.

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So good.

So you know, there are so many things that you say that like many people on here, they might know, but you're a consistent. Like, it's funny because I know reels work. Every time I post one, they work. Except. But it's almost like I need this reminder and I partook in part of your challenge. I was one of the people who fell off. But when I was doing the few days of your. I think it was like 30 reels for 30 days or something. I think I did like three. Very proud of myself. But you're a consistent reminder. And honestly, I think if people listening who have any businesses or anything like that, you can make a business out of being a consistent reminder of, of the basics. It's not like there's a secret that I think some people might be coming to you for, like, tell me the secret. And you're like, okay, we're gonna do this again. Here's how to be consistent. And then you do a lot of really amazing things. Like, you really kind of like share how simple it is. That's why I think the work that you do is so powerful. But I'm saying all of this because I want to know what are the. I mean, like, we know what it is. You've shared the steps. We could go and do that. We can create the content, what stops people and what makes good content.

Yeah, absolutely. So first of all, let me tell everyone a little bit about that 30 reels in 30 days challenge. That wasn't like some genius marketing plan that we thought of. That wasn't like, hey, I'm gonna grow my following with this. That was literally, Lori. That was me challenging myself. I was like, listen, listen. I preach consistency. I preach daily posting and I preach about the power of reels. What if I did a reel a day for the next 30 days? What would happen? So that was April 14, 2021. When I started that, I had about 80,000. I think I was at like 79 point something thousand followers at that time. And I said to my fiance on day one, I said, I bet you by the end of this 30 days I'll be over the 100,000 follower mark. That's my bet. So I bet I'll grow by 20,000. Well, at the end of 30 days, I was over 110. I think I was at like 114,000 followers. So it was like 34, 35,000 followers in a 30 day period. And I stuck to it. I did a reel a day, and some days I even did two reels. I think there was even a day where I did three reels. In one day, all posted to my Instagram feed, all about the same topic. Every single one of them was about growing on Instagram. That was the topic of every single one of those reels. And I invited people to do it with me. Like you said, you did a couple of them. Like a lot of people tried their best and there were people who, you know, they posted a few and they had good results and they weren't able to do all 30, but even just posting a few, they saw the difference. So anyways, I got to the end of that 30 days and I was like, well, shoot, that was successful. I'm going to take the weekend off, I'm going to go camping and I'm going to try it again. So I did a round two and I went from about 115 to somewhere over 140,000. So again, another 30,000 follower growth. And now I'm not officially continuing it. I'm not doing a round three right now. But just because of the habits that I've built in myself, I still post about a reel a day. And now I'm over, I think 165,000 followers at the time of recording this. So since April 14th, in basically a three month span, I've doubled my followers from 80,000 to 160,000. It's basically just a reel a day. That's really like if people want the secret growth strategy is just post more reels. And I think the hang up you asked, like, what's the roadblock that people run into with this? I think it's two things. First of all, you need to create habits and systems for success. I have multiple dozens of different habits around creating, around editing, around posting, around planning my content, around coming up with like, what the heck am I even gonna post about? What are my ideas? You gotta create the habits there. You can't just like think, write down the strategy and hope you're gonna implement. Write down something and hope you're gonna stick to it. You have to create the habit so that it can really be implemented into your system. That's the first thing. And the second thing with reels and this I think really goes for all posts on Instagram. The reason why people struggle with consistency is because they feel like their posts need to be super high quality. Part of this comes from like the, you know, what we talked about earlier with like the whole perfect feed and the Photoshop and all that stuff. But I had this realization recently when it comes to this debate of quality versus quantity. Because what I'm telling you is the Quantity's gotta be high. If you want to grow, the quantity's gotta be two or three, like multiple feed posts per day. So then the struggle is, how do I keep up with the quality? And here's kind of the realization that I've come to Laurie. It's that people set the bar way too high for themselves. They set the bar of like, okay, I need to make a level content or a plus level content. And you could call it the procrastinator in them, the perfectionist. You could label it however you want. You could go to therapy and work on all these things, but really it's just setting the bar too. Like, setting the expectation for yourself way too high. So what I tell people to do and what I do myself is I don't try to make A plus content. I don't try to make a. I don't even try to make B plus content. I don't even try to make B content. My goal is somewhere between a C and a B minus. That's where I'm trying to create my content. If I can get a passing grade, that's good enough for me. My goal is not to create a perfect post. My goal is not even necessarily to create an excellent, above average, awesome post. It's just to make a post that's good enough. He is good enough. Is good enough. Good enough is good enough. I think that when people realize that and they recognize that, they can breathe a sigh of relief and a breath of fresh air and start creating more content, start reaching more people, start serving their audience more regularly and not constantly be stressed out and bogged down by all of the different challenges that come with trying to create excellent content. So rather than one a post a week week, let's post multiple B minus, C plus level pieces of content every single day. That's really. That's. That's the stance I'm taking on the whole quality versus quantity thing.

I love it. I mean, can we be great at being below average? Certainly, you know, no, it's so good. I actually had. I've. I have literally gone through this with myself so many times. Like you Ju. I've just given up on the perfect page. I've given up on. I don't care if the photos are from last year. I'll literally just like, just get back in the habit of putting out content. And it is so weird. Like, even some of the things that you post, like, yeah, some do not get any engagement and you go through this thing of like, should I take this down? It's like, no, leave it up, do it again, leave it anyway.

That's.

I don't know if that's correct to do, but I'm just like, leave it up, do it again. So. And it's all feedback, right? So for you, just in life in general, which I feel like it all applies to everything that we do, right? It's our patterns, it's our habits. What are three beliefs that you have had to let go of that maybe you had growing up, maybe were instilled by something someone said to you, a coach, Something in your life that you have had to let go of or unlearn in order to become the Brock of today?

Yeah, okay, really great question. I think the first one is that I have to be perfect. I have to be perfect. Perfectionism, something that I really struggled with growing up. So, you know, I might have gone on a few rants today talking about how you don't need to be perfect, it's not necessary, and good enough is good enough. That took me about 20 years to learn. So you don't have to be perfect. Another belief that no longer serves me that I really had to get rid of. It's just that it's okay to fail, really. Like, it's okay to fail. It's okay to mess up and make mistakes. And like you said, sometimes you're going to make a post on Instagram and you might think it's great, but it does terrible. You know, like, some people might see that as a failure, or some people might see posting B minus level content as a failure, but that's really something that social media is gonna force you to learn. You're gonna get a kick in the butt if you're scared of failure, because either you're never gonna post on social media or you're gonna be confronted with failure on a daily basis because algorithms change. People are unpredictable. Like, things happen. It's Instagram. We don't control it. We don't control TikTok. You know, you're going to fail all the time on social media. So letting go of perfectionism, letting go of that fear of failure, those are really, really the two biggest lessons I would say that I've had to deal with. And then I think probably the third that I've had to let go of or deal with is just the recognition that you're not going to be able to make everyone happy. Not everyone's going to like you. Not everyone's going to be for you. And that's totally okay. You don't like everyone. Not everyone is for you. You don't love everyone. You don't instantly just admire and love and respect every single person. There's gonna be people who you don't like, and that's okay. There's gonna be people who don't like you. There's enough fish in the sea. There's 8 billion people on this planet. There's a billion people who use Facebook and Instagram. There's enough people. There's enough potential customers, if you will. And I know we're talking about business. There's enough potential customers and clients and potential followers or subscribers to go around. Not everyone is going to be for you. But when you try to be for everyone, you end up stopping being yourself. When you try to be this jack of all trades and wear every mask and appeal to every single person, you end up appealing to no one, because you're not even a real person at that point. You're just trying to play all these people at the same time rather than being yourself and recognizing that, hey, hey. A lot of people aren't going to like me, but also a lot of people are. And those are my lifers. Those are the people in my tribe. Those are the people who are going to subscribe to my podcast and who are going to follow me on Instagram and subscribe to my YouTube. Those are my people. The only way to attract those is to be you.

Yes. So tell me about. I want to know about your. What you feel is your absolute zone of genius. Like when you are just like, you love who you are, you're so in it. You're in flow. And then I want to know about the weakness where you are just like, this is. No, this is either. This is not for me. I'm going to hire someone for this.

I'm terrible at this.

This is where I'll break down. This is a disaster.

Yeah. So I think that my zone of genius, I think I'm really. I've developed this skill of taking trends, taking things that are popular, first of all, just recognizing that they are trends, that they are popular, figuring out why they're trends or why they're popular, and then creating my own spin on them or applying them to my niche. And that's really what I've done with these reels on Instagram. So, like, my. My zone of genius, I think, is being able to hear a sound that's trending and popular on TikTok or on Reels or whatever, and very quickly being able to figure out a popular, relatable, effective way that I can put my own spin on that and make it applicable to my niche. I really enjoy that too. Oftentimes they're goofy and funny and silly and I get to play characters or put on funny hats and wear wigs and dance around a little bit. That's very much who I am. That's very much in my personality. Love doing that. And I think I've developed a good skill at it. Something I'm not good at is every little detail. Checking off the boxes, remembering every little detail. My brain is often checking out, zoning out and going back to this creative space of I'm going to think of a real idea when I should be paying attention to what's being told to me at the dmv. So that's what I try to outsource. I try to outsource as much as I can. Making appointments and managing schedules. My schedule. If it wasn't for my assistant, I wouldn't show up to any meeting. I would have triple booked every single podcast interview and it would not go well. It would not be very successful. But I've learned through outsourcing with my assistant, through relying on my fiance and her skill sets that really complement mine, that these things can be manageable. Some of them can be improved and some of them I just got to deal with the best I can.

Yeah, I feel you on that.

The creative brain.

So when you were younger, how did that affect you? Like, I know that now. You know to outsource, right? You've been around that, you have these conversations, you know that a weakness is not a bad thing. But what was maybe a belief that you held about yourself? Like, did you think, oh my God, this side of me, I know that this is a problem or why is it like this? What was that?

Yeah, so I think growing up, I didn't even really recognize that in myself or recognize that that was a problem. I think that I was so wrapped up in the people pleaser, the perfectionist tendencies that I really just drove myself to take every little note, pay as great of attention as I could be the best student I could sit in the front row, review, always turn in my homework on time to dot every I and cross every T. And I forced myself to do that. And that was very much fueled by the anxiety that I felt, the pressure that I placed on myself to be perfect and to make everyone happy. And so I think it's kind of the double edged sword of like, as I've begun to release that anxiety and alleviate that pressure and stop being such a people pleaser and perfectionist. That also, you know, some of those perfect tendencies have also gone away, which I think is a great thing.

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So I definitely have the people pleaser in me. So it makes me wonder if you could elaborate just a little bit more of because the perfectionist can bring really great things in your life, right? Like it can bring you a lot of achievements and it's makes you show up in a certain way. It's, it's just, it can bring really wonderful things. But can you tell me about some of the just Tell me how some of the things negatively have affected you in your life or what that's done and how you've worked through some of those things.

Yeah, absolutely. So definitely I can relate to that. The first 19 years of my life, I was, you know, back to back state champion high school football player, playing for my dad and my grandpa. I was the state player of the year. I was the quarterback, I had the cheerleader girlfriend, like check off every box from a Disney movie. And that was my life for the first 19 years. But also behind the scenes, when the camera was turned off, I was sure still like a happy, positive, goofy kid. But I also dealt with a lot of internalized pressures and a lot of anxiety and a lot of real fears of letting people down and making people upset and quote, unquote, failing people by not being perfect. So that was something that not a lot of people saw, not a lot of people knew that I deal with. And honestly that I kind of denied to myself, that I even dealt with, you know, for the first 19, 20, 21 years of my life, one way that I really tangibly allowed myself, kind of like forced myself to break through this people pleaser and this perfectionist tendency that's scared to fail was I set a challenge for myself. And I think this was like February of 2017. I challenged myself that in the month I had to ask for something and be told no. Like I had to be told no, denied, fail, whatever you want to call it. I think it was like 50 times in that month and I was single at that time. So like part of it was like asking girls on dates. Like I had to just like be bold and like walk up to a stranger and be like, hey, can I have your number? I'd like to go on a date, whatever. And so like in dealing with that, in learning that I deal with a lot of rejection, a lot of no's, you know, asking for discounts at restaurants, just like out of the blue, hey, can I have 15% off, no questions asked, it's not even a holiday, just like 15% off. Like most, you know, it's cool because it's a win, win situation because either you're going to get told no and you're going to get to work on your, your fear of rejection and perfectionism, or you're going to get told yes and you're going to get 15% off your burger. So it's a win, win. But that was something I challenged myself to do and I really think it helped a lot. And then ultimately we haven't brought this up or talked about this so far, but something that's absolutely central to my story and my growth was therapy. I started going to therapy a few times when I was little, growing up here and there. My parents had me go a few times for things that I was working on or challenged by. But then when I was about 19 or 20 years old, that was. That's when I went to therapy and really realized a lot of these things about myself, realized these tendencies I had. And since that time, for the last five or six years, I still go to therapy on a regular basis. I saw my therapist on Wednesday. My fiance and I, we do couples therapy every other week. So I'm a huge believer, huge proponent of therapy and specifically EMDR therapy.

It's funny, I was just talking to your mom about that last time I saw her. So she's like, how have you not done that yet? I'm like, I'm gonna do it.

I'm gonna.

I can't wait. So, okay, not that this matters, but you are in a relationship. How old are you?

24.

Okay. So I got married young. I was married at 24. And it's just a different. That was 15 years ago now. So it's a different landscape. I think about this all the time with people because it's totally different dating landscape than when I was younger. What are some of the things that you. Because I can only imagine from the family that you're from and how you guys talk about everything and how you've used therapy. This is kind of along those lines. What are some of the things that you feel like have made your relationship successful? And what are some of the things that you want to incorporate and adopt as you both stand together and look out at your future together?

Yeah. So great question. Something that we're really talking about ourselves and starting to deal with now as we plan for our wedding, which is about a year from now, and planning the future of where we're gonna live and starting our family and stuff like that. So this is a lot of what we. What we're talking about now. My parents were strong believers. Date whoever you want. You can marry whoever you want. My mom said the only rule, the only rule I have for you, I'll never judge anyone. I'll never tell you yes or no. My only rule is that your spouse, whoever it is that you're going to marry, has to at least be willing and open to go to therapy. And so what did I do? I married someone who's going to be a therapist. She's currently in grad school pursuing her. Her degree, her certification in marriage and family therapy.

You're saving time and appointments. So, yeah.

Yeah. So she is going to literally be a licensed therapist. So she took that, my fiance did, to the absolute extreme. But I very much think that her and I are very much like yin and yang in that. Sure. We're on the same wavelength in a lot of things. We have a lot of the same beliefs and ideals and passions, interests, hobbies, whatnot. But we very much complement each other, too. Our brains work very different. She's very organized, very type A. Like, our brains are just. We're on different wavelengths, and because of that, we can really compliment each other. Now, sometimes that leads to headache and frustration because sometimes the waves crash into each other. But for the most part, we're able to really complement each other. And I think that moving forward in our family, you know, having a therapist for a mom, which my kids will, and being married to a therapist, which I will be, I think we're just going to really value and prioritize that open line of communication with our kids, really encouraging them, if not challenging them to be able to have this dialogue with us, to have a complex emotional vocabulary, to really understand boundaries and understand consequences and understand their rights and their autonomy as children and all of that that goes along with it. So I'm excited for this next chapter, and I'm really thankful that I get to go through it with someone who's literally going to be a therapist. But I'm sure that we'll continue to kind of also encourage our kids to go to therapy as well.

That's so great.

Yeah.

Marriage is quite literally, I think for me, in my experience, has been the best thing in the entire world. So it's just right when you think it's like, you're like, this is the greatest thing ever. It gets even better, I think, when the communication's open, you know, and you're willing to grow and you're both, like, I think, you know, goal oriented because it's so fun to go after things together and dream together. So my question for you, in those moments, those like, you know, I'm not gonna dig in too deep here, but like, those private, quiet moments or like when you're just dreaming together and you're, you know, just, you know, the juicy moments where you just feel like you're like, ugh, this is like, literally what it's all about. And people would never maybe know this about us from the outside. Like, what are the things that you Guys are talking about that just like it's what is the glue? It's what excites you guys about having those moments together?

Yeah. So I think that those moments, they actually come up quite a bit for Tay and I, Taylor. And we're very intentional in our relationship. And I think that's something that I can really thank her for, something that she's brought to the relationship, but also something that was very central and important for me in finding a partner and in my life before we got together and started dating is just really, really being intentional. So setting aside time where we have relationship check ins, which is something we do every two weeks, is we sit down on Sunday night, we have a list of questions that we go through and we kind of like just reevaluate and check in. How did the last two weeks go for you in our relationship? Like how you doing, what you working on? What are. Acknowledging what we notice in our partner, acknowledging what we would like to happen in the next two weeks. And that can be as tangible, like, hey, I'd like to go on a date or go camping or it can be something that's more of an idea like, you know, I want more quality time together or I want more alone time. And so just being very intentional with that is something that I really, really enjoy. Like that's really the peaks in our relationship. And then intentionality around like our morning routines and intentionality around, like, hey, after dinner we're not going on our phones, we're not working. Like we're sitting together and we're spending some quality time watching Netflix or whatever. So that's really like the juicy stuff. That's our special moments and we treat our relationship. It's not just kind of an afterthought or something that we just kind of let exist. We're very intentional with how we manage it and how we kind of are thoughtful, really with our love and our appreciation and our interactions together.

So good. You're going to be even better than Grace.

Great.

It's gonna be wonderful. You're gonna love it. So with looking out at your future and your business, is there anything that you have in your head that you're like on the bucket list of? We'll start with like business on the bucket list of business. Where do you see yourself just as like, you know, when everyone says, you know, reaching, reaching your highest self. What is Brock doing as his, his.

Highest self in the future? Future?

Yeah. Retiring. One of my big goals.

So good at that too.

It might sound outlandish to people, but One of my big goals for myself is to retire by the time I'm 30. So I'm 24 right now. I got six years to do it. I want to retire by the time I'm 30. And someone asked me a great follow up question to that recently, which is like, what does retirement mean for me? Retirement means for me still having passive income and maybe working a few hours a week if I want to, but really ultimately being able to spend as much time as I possibly humanly can with my kids, being able to just do whatever I want, being able to enjoy life and not have to post three reels a day, you know, every day for the rest of my life. So that's something that I'm really striving towards and working towards right now. In the near future, I want to definitely create something with my fiance, Taylor. Like we have plans in the works of a few different business ideas that we're working on. But long term, I would love, absolutely love to retire at the age of 30.

I love that. So what are some other things in we'll go back to Instagram land. Maybe for somebody who's struggling with we'll go back to reels because they're hot right now. Creating content. Some tips around how you plan your do you sit and consume for a while and go look at where do we find?

You know what I mean?

Like looking at reels. Where do you create ideas from?

All of my ideas just come from other people. Definitely not a creative genius. All of my ideas are just, hey, I see other people made this viral video. I'm going to recreate it and put my own spin on it. That's really all I do. And I think my biggest tip there is just to consume with intentionality because we all fall victim to consuming for hours unintentionally just scrolling through TikTok and Instagram. And there's a time and place for that. And sometimes you need a mental break. I understand. But when you're in this business mindset and when you're using Instagram for your business and you have limited hours and time in your day, consume with intentionality. And so when you're scrolling through reels instead of just being entertained, notice why you're being entertained. Why did this video hook you in? Did you hear this sound four times already? Oh, maybe that's a clue that this is a trending audio and you should hop on the trend and reuse this audio to yourself. You know, if you're scrolling through your Instagram feed, why did I like this Image versus why did I save this one? Versus why did I scroll by these three? What were these three doing that these two didn't? And constantly just basically treating it like a giant research project or like an investigator and just studying your own behavior on Instagram. I think that that's a great tip for people to just move from this place of passive consumption to really intentional use of whatever social media platform you're on.

That's so good. That's literally. Even when I post any reels, that's the only thing I'm like, oh, I just watched this six times and I think I could do this one. And I think sometimes we start with I observe myself looking at these reels and I'm like, that's so great. And I'm like, but that's so complicated. So I'm probably not gonna start with that one because it's just gonna frustrate me. So I literally pick them apart. Like how this is. Are you ready? This is my level of laziness because I'm busy in so many other areas right now. So is everyone else. But I' like, how easy is this? And is it entertaining?

Absolutely, absolutely. Like, start there and that's a great place to start. Like, especially when listening. Who's scared of reels? Or struggles with consistency. But don't challenge yourself. Like, I did this green screen reel recently and I'm sure a million people are going to challenge themselves to recreate this green screen effect. And I was like, like, don't. Don't start with this crazy complex one. Start with a reel that doesn't even have an edit. Like it doesn't even have a cut. It's just one little four second video of you mouthing one sentence. Add one piece of text and you're done. Like, make it as simple and EAS easy as possible. Yes.

Prove to yourself that you can on that first one and keep doing that. That's literally just like. That's the theme of life with everything. Just like the 15% off discount at dinner. Give it a try. Just start with one simple sentence and see how it feels to get rejected. So fun. So what are some things that you do you have anything on your heart that you want to share or that you wish more people knew?

Yeah, I think that kind of my Go to my fallback, if you will, is like to just get started. Like if you're scared on Instagram or you're scared of YouTube or scared of whatever social media or you're scared to start your business is really to just get Started. I always say, she who starts and fails will always be ahead of she who fails to start. So good. You just. Thank you. You just got to get started. You just got to get started in it. And I feel like so many, you know, business tycoons and experts, like, I always feel some version of these quotes where they say, just get started. And it feels like, okay, they're not telling me the whole truth. Like, there's some secret there that they're not telling me. There's this, like, power that the ultra wealthy, that the wealthy and the business owners and that the successful people in the world know that the rest of us don't. There's no special secret sauce. It's just they got started and they failed and they failed and they failed. And I heard this great quote recently. I forget what book it was and in, but it was, if you want to double your success rate, triple your failure rate, failed three times as much. If you want to have double the success. And basically that's just this idea of, like, get started and then just keep failing. And you learn. You fail and you learn. You fail and you learn. And before you look at it, people are like, oh, my gosh, you're winning. You're crushing it. You're so successful. And you're like, I've just been failing and learning over and over again for the last few months.

Yeah.

So feel that my whole life. The faster you fail, the quicker you can win. So good. Well, thank you so much for this. What do you have going on right now?

Where can we.

So if we want more Instagram help, all of the advice maybe keeping us consistent. I know you do so many great things with helping people follow through. Where can we find more?

Yeah, absolutely. So my mom and I do have this membership together, this little Instagram club where we help people save time and make money on Instagram. We do it together. There's live videos, there's prerecorded, and that's called the Insta Club Hub. But rather than even hopping into that, I really encourage people to just follow me on Instagram. Start for free. Start with the lowest cost of investment possible. My Instagram is Brock11Johnson. So that one. One in the middle, Brock11Johnson. Just follow me there. Like I've said a million times today, I post multiple feed posts a day that are going to help you grow on Instagram. Quick tips, quick advice, little tiny reminders. I might make you laugh, I might post a relatable thing about Instagram growth, but it's all about Instagram growth. And if you want to learn more about the Insta Club Hub, you can DM me. Shoot me a message. It's me responding to all my messages. People every day are like, oh, my gosh, I had no idea you were going to respond. I respond to all of my direct messages, so go ahead, shoot me a dm. We can chat. And, Lori, thanks so much for having me today. I really, really do appreciate it.

Yeah, no, I'm so grateful for you, truly. When you were doing those challenges, it was the thing that made me look at reels totally differently and just made me stuck, stop overthinking it and trying to be perfect. So look what you struggled with. You taught. And then I let go of it, too. So, so powerful. Thank you so much. And you guys know that the biggest thing that we can do for our guest is to let Brock know what your biggest takeaway was and to go follow him on Instagram. So let him know what was the value that he added to your life. Are you going to try one of his challenges coming up? Are you starting to follow him?

What?

Tell him it's one of the greatest things that we can give is letting them know the value that they added to your life. So, you guys, thanks so much for listening, listening, and until next time, earn your happy. Bye, everyone.