7 Principles That Eliminated 90% of My Competition | 0 to $1M (Jay Papasan)

If you want to do something big that has been done, go interview as many people that have done it and then ask the question, what do they all have in common? The things that all these top performers have in common tends to be a simple model that anyone can do.

I'm Nathan Barry. I'm the CEO of Kit, and today I'm joined by Jay Papasan. You have such an interesting story. You've co-authored a book that has sold millions of copies.

The Millionaire Real Estate Agent sold 1.6, and The One Thing is now at $3.5 million. Any creator can ask, what is my industry missing that I'm the solution for? And whether it's an ebook or a lead magnet, if you're willing to do the hard work, which very few people are, you can become a voice in your industry. How can I, in the least amount of time, have the greatest impact? A great business person would 3 hours a day. People want to go big and they want to act big to do it, but you will act small consistently. The discipline of doing the small thing opens the doors. Big things.

You have such an interesting story in that you've done a lot of things in the corporate business world, particularly in real estate and Keller Williams and like building this substantial business. You've co-authored a book that has sold millions of copies.

Yeah, so if you look at all of the books that we've written, we just, uh, crossed 6.5 million copies. Wow. Our first book has sold 1.6, The Millionaire Real Estate Agent, and our kind of flagship book, The One Thing, is now at 3.5 million.

That's amazing.

Oh, it's dream come true.

Now, there was something in there I want to dive into. I, I believe in The One Thing you reference the success that came from the first book, like it's sort of a throwaway line. I was listening to it and I was like, well, hold on, what, what was that? Uh, Something that I'm fascinated on is growing, using a book to grow a business.

Yes.

And I believe that the first book had a huge impact on growing the business.

I'd like to think so. I think that's why I'm still around and a senior executive 24 years around. When I started working at Keller Williams, there were 27 employees. No, it was 6,700 agents at the time. Okay. And today we have about 170,000 in 54 countries. Wow. So it's been kind of a rocket ship. But I remember we were struggling to make a name for ourselves. People said, Keller who? They're like, who's this company? Because we were growing and you show up, nobody knows who you are. And the way Gary talked about it, Gary Keller, the co-founder and my co-author, is that we just didn't have any staying power with top agents. Like, oh, that's a new agent company. Because we were great at training. That's for new agents. And how do we become valid with the top people in the industry? And so they did a brainstorm with this executive group. They did sticky notes. They put 100 ideas on the wall, just like they're told. And the one they walked out with is that Gary and our former co-author Dave Jinks should write a book about big success. And I joined the team. Gary did not know I'd worked at HarperCollins Publishers. And you live and breathe books. That is the through line of my life. Book nerd. I was a bookseller in college at a small independent in Memphis, Tennessee. I got English degree, worked in two publishing houses. You just name it, books has been the common thread. And when I ran into Gary, literally in the bathroom of that building, he was plunging a toilet and he said, look, the chairman of the board's not too proud to do the dirty work. He's made some crack. And I just said, Gary, I hear you're writing a book. Do you remember I used to work in publishing? And it was like almost job interview over. Yeah, exactly. But I'll skip the creation story. We ended up, I had a month to write the business plan. We wrote that book in 100 days. Wow. So like you've been working with creators for so long, like I might throw it out, like Gary had been doing that already for 2 decades at a high level, masterminding, coaching top people. So like he kind of knew the secret sauce, right? He already had theories. But to write the book that described big success, we just asked the question, what would someone have to do to net $1 million as a real estate sales professional? And no one had ever asked that question and answered it. When people say like, what is it about your company? You can literally say we wrote the book on X, right? So it's immediate validity. Even if the, I think the book hadn't been as well received, like it, a book delivers validity for folks. And I think that's very important for a business owner.

What's interesting to me is the positioning is exactly the opposite of how you were perceived in the market. Because I think people would've, if you're perceived in the market as the place for new agents to start, you know, how to pay your mortgage as a real estate professional, right? Like how do we, how do we achieve basic success or how do we earn a living? And you're like, no, no, no, we're—

let's think bigger. Let's think bigger.

Let's go straight to the top and explain that and say this thing, probably the thing that people are like, oh, it's not actually possible, or, you know, breaking it down. I love the reverse engineering type of thing to begin with where you're like, all right, well, what would it— what would have to be true? That's one of my favorite questions in life and business and all of that, because we go from a like, is this possible? Could we do this? Any of those questions are so obstacle and reality-based. And I often switch into like, what would have to be true?

Yeah.

And then you're like, all right, well, and you start to list it out that we wouldn't have to have this project, we'd have to focus here. We'd, you know, and so I love it.

You're working backwards from a clear goal, which is a big part of our canon, right? And our philosophy is it's not Jay or Gary or Dave Jinks wisdom, we draw it from the crowd. So we interviewed 27 of the top 100 agents. Back then they wouldn't take our call, honestly. Yeah. It was the Keller Who thing. And so we interviewed them at depth, we got copies of their P&Ls, we gave 'em to a CPA. So like we created pro formas, like we went deep down and like, I'd still philosophically believe if you want to do something big that has been done, go interview as many people that have done it. And then ask the question, what do they all have in common? And if you want to climb Mount Everest or run, you know, an ultramarathon, the things that all these top performers have in common tends to be a simple model that anyone can do. Most people won't because it's not easy, but it's simple.

So what's an example of that, either in real estate or in another category?

All of them. Like, we boiled the book down to 3 focusing principles. The thing that all of these agents did nonstop was they lead generated. It was in their blood. They were always looking for the next customer. And I think a lot of creators, a lot of entrepreneurs fall prey to— they work really hard to get the customer and then they spend all of their energy trying to wow the customer.

Right.

And when that contract ends, they look up and it's that roller coaster. And where's my next check coming from? And they never took the foot off the gas.

So when the book comes out, what are other things that you noticed that you would apply to a business like Kit or any of these other things where you realize like, oh, I could write the definitive guide to this or really get our message and build our brand through a book?

I think the thing that surprised people is that we gave it away.

Okay.

Like most people thought, well, if you have this knowledge, shouldn't it be proprietary knowledge?

Right.

Like literally we had our franchisee like, why are we sharing this? And Gary's vision was like, no, I want to become known as the place where entrepreneurs thrive. I want to be known as the place where we teach people to fish. And what better way to do it is then to make it brand agnostic. We interviewed a lot of people. There were only 2 people in our whole company that qualified to be in the book.

Okay.

That's how small we were. Right. So we were getting everyone. We didn't mention brand but twice in the whole book. And one of them was in our bios.

Okay.

Right. So that we wanted it to feel safe and all of our—

I'm not being pitched. I'm not. Yeah. Any of that.

Yeah. It's just like, here's the vision. Now let's all collaborate. And I think the key is in an industry, any wild industry, is can you create a common language? I remember being at one of the masterminds where we were looking at people's budgets. And we had people go up to the podium, but this is back when they had the clear overheads. Okay. Yep. Technology, right? And people started walking us through their books and finally Gary just said, "Stop," because no one had defined what marketing was.

Oh, so everybody's running their P&Ls differently. Everybody's using different terms.

Nobody had a consistent chart of accounts. We had to get an accountant to come through and say, like, go through their ledgers and make it normate. So like, I can't know what someone is spending on lead generation. It's 10% on average for all those groups. A dollar out of every 10 they were putting back in the kitty to grow the business. Yeah. And so we started to see a pattern that then people could make decisions on. But when everybody's not speaking a common language, it's the blind leading the blind, right? The worst thing I hate hearing entrepreneurs is like, oh, do you have an assistant? How much do you pay them? And they're like, well, Nathan's really smart. But I'm like, that's ridiculous. What's the cost of great labor in Boise or in a virtual company compared to where I am? And what's their job description?

The job description is a huge difference. Like managing email, you know, like, yeah, you get all these titles that there's a huge range in.

Yeah.

And you're like, like, you know, my assistant or chief of staff or executive assistant or all those things that mean radically different things.

Right. I just think as founders of any business, small or large, I like the strategy of Can you take the position that your industry is fundamentally broken and you're the solution? And so with the Millionaire Real Estate Agent, real estate agents were seen as salespeople. Like, outside of Modern Family, name one instance of a realtor being seen as positive.

Yeah, that's not—

no, it's not. Or as a business person, right? And so what they craved was to be seen as business people. And so we gave them the guidebook. And I think any founder, creator can ask, what is my industry missing that I'm the solution for? And whether it's an e-book or a lead magnet, I like books because like, I don't care if you give me a $50 glossy brochure, I have zero like inhibitions about throwing it straight in the trash can. But like, people don't throw away books, right? They send them to the used bookstore and your marketing lives on, or they give them away to someone who needs it. So I think if you're willing to do the hard work, which very few people are, of writing the book, you can become a voice in your industry.

Yeah, and so then what, well, actually, one thing I want to go to is the idea of like, why me? You know, like for each individual, I think about this at conferences. Like, I remember being at Chris Guillebeau's, uh, the World Domination Summit, which brought together so many really great creators. He ran it for 10 years.

And— Love Chris.

Yeah, just amazing creator. And I remember thinking, you know, there's 3,000 people in an auditorium listening to him and it was sort of like, why him in particular? And, you know, so much of his work is inspiring and all that. And he, he pulled people together. Or like another example was thinking of Michael Stelzner, who founded Social Media Marketing World.

I know I'm not familiar with that.

So he, you know, it's like in San Diego, 4,000 people at the San Diego Convention Center.

Wow.

And he's giving a talk. It was like 2015 on the state of social media, you know? So it's like the State of the Union address for the social media world. And I was like, huh, I kind of had it similar. Like before showing up, I was there as a vendor and all of that. I didn't know who Michael was. And I was realizing no one said like, oh, Michael, you are in charge of social media. You should give the State of the Union for the, you know, like we elected you president. He just said like, I made this conference, I will be on stage, all of that. Like, I imagine it's similar. You know, no one's saying like, you know, Gary, Jay, etc., we need someone to like, you are our saviors to fix this industry. You know, or to explain the solution. It's like, no, we're going to do it. And you choose yourself and go out there and then, you know, like you're saying, go do the 25 interviews, standardize everything, compile it and say, this is what actually works. Anyone who has some level of credibility and expertise, like I don't want to discount that, but then who decides to come in and break it all this down, can't do it. Like another example is this woman named Chanel who has a newsletter called Growth in Reverse.

Yeah.

And she's built a great following saying like, I'm going to study what all the great newsletter creators did, how they built their audience and break it down. And no one said like, oh, you're credible enough to do this. Like she built the credibility over time.

Yeah.

So yeah. What do you think about choosing and being like, oh, I'm going to be the one to fix the industry, define the standards, any of those things?

Well, there's a mindset thing for everybody. We all know how prevalent imposter syndrome is for any entrepreneur. So you definitely have to get help getting past that. But I like to lean on what we talked about earlier. If you're drawing the wisdom of the crowd, you're just a curator. And so we could only get 27 people to do interviews with us. Today, like, our standard is we don't stop till we do at least 100, okay, top performers. And so, like, the Millionaire Real Estate Agent, I got to interview 120 net worth millionaires. And go through their portfolios. I knew nothing about investors, but you do 120 interviews, you transcribe them, you highlight them, you look for patterns, and you are an expert now, right? And the thing is, nobody else has done 100 interviews. Now podcast hosts have, right?

But that's like the level of targeted focus and the research with it and all of that.

Like, you could say, I've done this forever, and that builds credibility. I built Kit, that builds credibility. I host this conference that builds credibility. But I like when you source the wisdom, right? Because you also are giving ownership to the crowd. And when there's a we involved versus an I, I think people are that much prouder of it. Like, it becomes this thing. Look at what we built. Like, if you look at the acknowledgments on our books, they're ridiculous. Like, 14 pages.

Yeah.

We mention everyone who contributed and we send them copies because we want them to feel ownership of the work. So I think that it's about positioning yourself to have an interesting perspective on the industry, maybe a little contrarian, which is great. And if you catch the right zeitgeist, you can run away. I'm thinking, what are the 37signals guys? They wrote Rework.

Yeah, 37signals.

37signals.

I dropped Basecamp, Rework. Yeah, a bunch of those things. Yeah, very much a contrarian take. And have just put out a lot of really great content over the years.

And that put them on a bigger map.

Oh, by far. Yeah.

And like, but who knew them and Atlassian and all of that before? Like it all made it just, but boom, they stepped in, they had a provocative view, they made it very digestible and they just leveled up in terms of their authority.

Yeah, I mean, just absolute step function. Yeah, you know, like Jason Fried had a column with Inc magazine for years, you know, at a, at a time when like that gave him a huge amount of credibility and he got it through publishing the books and, you know, having this unique perspective on business. Yeah. So where'd you go from there? Like what, what made the jump into from a real estate book into writing The One Thing, which, you know, is much more of a mass market book?

It was a bit of an accident. So one of my— at 3 different times I've run all education for our company. And I was running it. I'd just written a big course for what does an entrepreneur have to do to earn the right to bring on their first employee was the question we asked. Again, in our industry, we kind of did the math and it was around 36 transactions. You should be thinking hard about bringing someone on to amplify your business. That doesn't apply to anything else that we're— anybody we're talking to, but that was the math. And I remember I asked Gary to review it and he said, can I write an intro? He came back. On Friday and handed us a 14-page essay called The Power of One.

And you're like, not quite an intro. That's a little different than we had.

That's typical of him.

Yeah.

But he made it all about the— he just said a great business person would lead generate for 3 hours a day. And like, it's funny, it went from 2 hours to 3 hours to eventually 4 hours. Give out half of every day to lead generation, to growing the future business while you're maintaining it. But that was the one thing, like, that was the first thing I mentioned in terms of what we learned from all these top agents is they focused first on growing their customer base, right? And then serving them. And they were unapologetic about it. And people would say, oh, but those big teams, they don't give the best service. It's not like my boutique. But you go to the other side and you have nationwide boutiques, but you have to go through that messy middle. You have to earn the right to get there. So he made it. And I just remember sitting down. I said, Gary, I think this is a book. And he goes, I thought the same thing. And as someone who'd worked as an editor and acquired big books in New York, I was like, what I loved about it is having worked with him then for 7 or 8 years, the philosophy lined up with all of his success. Very few people, very few founders, because we've talked about this, you've got all of these ideas that you want to pursue. He was willing, and he's very much guilty of that too, but when he found the right one, he would give it all of his time and resources until it was done. Everything else went away. And it was crazy how dedicated he would be to his one thing. And like those 100 days we wrote the first book, not much else happened in his business world except for that book. He let the fires burn or gave them to someone else until it was done. And that's rare, but I was like, this is concentric. This is not an idea book. This is an idea and experience book. Right. And that started a 5-year journey. It took us 5 years to write it, and we got distracted on a book about focus and wrote another book in the middle. But that's a story for another day. Yeah.

So, all right, I want to dive into this idea of that level of focus on the one thing, because I can be very determined for a long period of time. Like, one of my traits that served me well is I will stay on something, you know, longer than other people think is reasonable. Uh, but I will come up with like 12 different ways to accomplish the same goal. And, uh, you know, so if the, the goal is like growing, you know, Kit as a software company to serve creators, then I'll, I'll jump into like, you know, not only the core feature set of the product, but, you know, we'll launch the creator network so everyone can recommend each other. We'll acquire SparkLoop to build in paid recommendations. We'll launch a sponsorship network so we can, you know, fit this, this core message of like getting money in the hands of creators.

Yes.

And then outside of it, you know, I write my blog and newsletter. I host this podcast. I have this creator flywheels concept that every time I teach at a mastermind, people are like, I love this. Like, where's the full course? I'm like, well, I'm, I'm making that, you know, but it's, a year in the works and all of these things. And then of course I have, I think, 5 books that I wanna write.

Oh, wow.

You know, but I tend to do everything in parallel rather than in sequence. What you're describing from Gary is doing it in sequence.

Yes.

And so I just open it up for your thoughts.

Okay, well, like, you're not alone. And we go through periods where we suffer from it as well. I think the number one thing when someone reads "The One Thing" is they, I don't think it's only one thing. It's just one thing at a time. So you said the key word, success is sequential. But like, even when Gary was writing the book, he didn't neglect his wife or his son. Right. Right, he still worked out every day. He still practices the guitar, but he built a system, a schedule that he lived that allowed him to focus. And at that time it was about 2 or 3 hours in the morning. We would come together, we would brainstorm. I would take all the flip charts, go into an office, My job on that first book was to turn around about a 14-page chapter every day. The next morning we would review it. They would give me the edits that we'd start brainstorming the next, and we'd just repeat, repeat, repeat, repeat. His day was very focused. Everything revolved around making that a productive 2 to 3-hour block. There were other things that were happening, but that was the thing that he made non-negotiable for that period of time. And I think everybody, if you're out there listening, you're jogging or driving the car, just sitting at your desk watching this on YouTube, like there's a time that you knew that you had to be all in on something to succeed at it. Whether it was studying for that final exam so you graduate from college, or completing that course so you could launch it by deadline. We go through periods where we do this. And we talk about this as the day before vacation miracle. Like the day before vacation, like we are productivity machines. Yeah. Like we don't read any crap email. Like we just get stuff done because we have a really good reason to do it. We want to not work on vacation. And I think it's impossible to live that level of focus because we don't always have a vacation the next day. But can we remind ourselves of what's at stake around the one thing and be really clear about both the the reward of succeeding, but I also think equally the cost of failure. Like, that's my guide as being a husband and a father too. Like, when we came in here, you were being a father first, right? Hey, we can't start the podcast because I've got dad duty, which I respect 100%. And I love that because you know the cost of failure is something that you don't want to regret in the future. And I think a lot of people focus way too much on the rewards of success and they become yes machines in business. And they— and entrepreneurs are optimistic. They don't think about the cost of failing at those things. And if someone says, I really want to write 5 books, I'll say, let's go in the future, Nathan. You're on your deathbed. You didn't write any of them, but Kit was a massive success. Kids all love you. They're all gathered around your bed. Wife is with you holding your hand saying, I've made the best choice of my life. Do you regret not writing those 5 books? And you don't have to answer on the microphone. But if the answer is yes, then I would go, which one in particular? Right. Now let's start there and put it on a schedule. And it could start with 30 minutes a day. I mean, John Grisham wrote his best book riding on a train every day, right? You find him, I think it's Toni Morrison was an editor. I might get it mixed up. And she, Ryan Holiday told me this story. She had 2 kids, single parent. She had to go and work at a big publishing house. She was writing her novel. She said, I had to write every day before anyone said mama. And so she just got up earlier, which meant she went to bed earlier, but she found that hour or 2 to methodically do her one thing while also keeping her life in balance and just figuring out what am I making a stand on? When can I time block time I can control to do it? However limited, if it's really limited, it just means it's not a long timeline. Yeah. And then I don't divert from that until it's done.

It makes me think about the idea of being able to look at someone's calendar and see their priority. And I think for most people, you couldn't do that. Like if you look at their calendar and it's like, all right, here it is. I printed out my calendar for the last 3 weeks. Look it over, Jay, what am I focused on? What is my biggest priority? You'd be like, that, okay, hiring new team members seems important.

You know, like you flip through it and you wouldn't be able to tell.

And what you're describing is look at that calendar and be like, seems like writing a book or, you know, whatever it is, is really important to you. Yeah. And so with no other context, could someone determine what's most important to you?

And I think if you show me enough of your calendar, I can take a really good guess at your values.

Mm-hmm.

Right. And I do think that how we invest our time is often an expression of it, but a lot of times we're just spending, we're not investing our time.

Yeah.

So like the key is like, how do we get enough buffer time in our lives to make a little bit better decisions? And like, nobody has a perfect day every day, but like, that's the whole point. Can you have one perfect hour and just play the tortoise and the hare game for the rest of your life? Right. And people underestimate how much they can achieve in 5 years while they overestimate what they'll do in 1. Right. And they just play that game again and again.

One thing that stands out from your story of writing The Million Dollar Real Estate Agent is the tight feedback loop. I think today, maybe it's because of the way we approach remote work or our, like, respect for each other's schedules or whatever else. The most common thing is like, hey, why don't we have a, like, a weekly cadence, right? The most common thing is, you know, like, hey, could you get this done? Yeah, yeah, I'll have it done by the end of the week. And the end of the week is not a deadline or a timeline that makes any sense, you know, but it's like, okay, well, oh, is it a 5-day task? I didn't realize that, you know, it's actually a 12-minute task. But, you know, but in this case, you said a chapter a day and we're going to meet. It's not call me when the chapter is done and then we'll schedule a time to talk about it. It's like, well, I will see you back here at 9 tomorrow morning and we'll go through whatever we have. And so that the cadence and the feedback loop and everything is very, very tight.

There was accountability for me and knowing someone was going to be there waiting. It's like when you're trying to build the gym habit, maybe you pick a friend and say, we'll meet at the gym at 6 AM, right? I did that one year. The other guy slept in, but I went 'cause I am like, I am powered by trust. You trusted me to be here, I'm here. And then I would work out alone. But like, I think there is power in accountability of knowing someone's waiting on you for something specifically. Just to be clear, there were plenty of days I came in, I was like, I only got 2 pages done, I'm lost, I didn't ask you the right questions, and we'd start over. But there was always progress being made.

Yeah, I mean, 2 pages in a day, even your like, you know, fairly mediocre days. Yeah. You're like, that's a lot of progress.

I think your friend James Clear, like one of his quotes, which I'll butcher, is like, when you think about this idea of identity habits and the person who goes to the gym, like your best days are the days that you didn't feel like it, but you showed up and did a crappy workout. Right. You just— showed up. And so, but stringing those together creates a kind of momentum in itself.

Yeah, okay, so then I guess in order to do that, that assumes that we've chosen the one thing that we're going to focus on. The problem that I run into is— hopefully this doesn't sound arrogant, but I have a lot of great ideas.

And so Well, here's, here's the thing. I actually have— I used to think that great ideas were incredibly valuable. Now I think they're really cheap. Yeah, right. Executing ideas is actually, as a founder myself, like, you realize, like, I love the idea, but let's make it work, right? So ideas that get executed are the ones that are truly valuable. But do you have a compass for deciding if I had to choose, which one would it be? And that's the question everybody hates. I ask it to my people all the time. 2 things. You want to do this, great. When are you going to do it? That forces them to look at their calendar and ask the question, how much time will this take? Right? So that they have to give an informed yes. And the other one is, of all these things you say you want to do, if I told you you could only do one, which would it be? And I used to think people wouldn't know the answer. But people actually do. Like, they're very clear. They're like, it would be this one. Or it might be narrowed down to 2, right? But it's, it's actually a lot easier to choose, but people aren't taking the time to choose and they don't have anything to consult when they do it. Like, I've got my core values, I've got them on my phone. Every time I unlock my phone, it says impact, family, abundance. And my rule is that a big decision has to be a 9 out of 10 on all 3.

Okay.

And so I delay all my decisions until I can do that math. So I've got a, you know how you can type in TY in your phone and what does it do? Thank you. Thank you. Right. Is there a programming word for what that is? I don't even know.

Yeah, just an autocomplete or shortcut or autocomplete.

You can create those on your phone. Yep. So I've got one where if I type in no social, it'll pre-populate. Hey, thank you so much. I'm trying to avoid making commitments through DMs and social media. Would you mind emailing me this to my email address so that my chief of staff, Carly, and I can get together and find out when we could do this together? Right. Thanks so much. All it takes is 4 letters before it pre-populates, and then I send it. If they can't be bothered to email me, right, then they weren't that serious about it either. But it puts it into one bucket, and now I'm making decisions looking at all my choices. Right, versus making them about the first good thing that's in front of me. And like, delaying things like 24 hours is not that big of a deal. Yeah, you just— I've just built the habit of saying, awesome, can I get back to you on that? And most people are okay with that.

Do you have other little things like that? What, that hacks? Yeah, the hacks or the tricks of how you make this easier on yourself.

Well, I think the value thing for big decisions.

Yeah.

I don't pull that out when my wife and I are trying to pick what to stream on Netflix. Right. Right. It's like, what do we wanna watch? Let's just—

It's only a 7 outta 10 on the impact, so. Yeah.

This is not, Peaky Blinders is not really a family-friendly movie. So we're not gonna watch it. Yeah. No. But I do think that the hack of delaying decisions, I like to put hurdles in front of people. I remember, Someone, Gary, was talking about when he was first launching the company, there was always a line outside of his office and saying, can you teach me how to do this? And he's like, did you go to the class? And they're like, no. He's like, when is the class? Well, it's next Tuesday. And they're like, but I need it now. And so this is back in the day. He started videotaping his classes. Like today, that's so easy, right? Live, whatever.

Yeah.

And I just say, if you— he would say, watch this video, hand them the VHS, and if you still have questions, come back. So when we wrote The One Thing, it was like, you know how this can be. There's a lot of people that are founders that want your time. Will you give me advice? And people gave you advice, so you want to say yes. If you're saying, Jay, will you help me write a book? And so I went to our big convention, I taught a class. I've taught it 5 times now, videotaped it every time. And when people say, I say, absolutely, I would love to help you. If you'll email me here, my assistant will send you an hour and 15-minute class I taught on it.

Right.

And if you still have questions, circle back. So putting that little block, like, if you do this, I will do this. I tracked it for 3 years. Only 1 in 7 people circle back for time.

Oh, interesting.

And so either they couldn't be bothered, which means they were going to waste my time to begin with. Or I did a good job and I answered their questions, but I did it through like an FAQ or whatever else. So like, I just think I—

you just leveraged that situation because you took something, you know, you productized that knowledge into a free class, you know, and then you, yeah, gave them that answer, that information without you having to do it live.

And I found that if they watched it, I gave us a common language for talking about business books. And we could actually have the conversation in about 30 minutes, right? Whereas if we were just sitting down cold, I would spend like a half hour educating you on what you needed to know to make a good decision, right? So like, just think of, could I make an investment today that saves me time for years to come? And I think about this with delegation, like Rory Vaden. I don't know if you know him. He taught me that, and there's no science, but I believe it. That if you do something really well and it takes you an hour, it'll take you about 30 hours to train someone on your team to do it at a level that you'll accept. Okay. And so every week you show up, you got the hour-long task, and you're faced with this dilemma. Do I make the investment or just do it myself? What do we do? We almost always do it ourselves, right? Because I'd rather spend an hour than think about the investment And it's not like you do 30 hours in one block, but you would spend weeks doing it. But every year you don't make that investment of time to teach someone how to think about that thing, every year you're losing 22 hours. Yeah. So like, it's just in those, those deficits add up as your business grows. And so like, now we have wikis, we have Loom, like we have so many tools.

It's so much easier. Yeah, because the first version of it now is you just record yourself doing it.

Yes.

And you're like, do you have questions?

Yeah. So like there's— I think the 30 times doesn't apply for things that aren't highly skilled anymore. But are we taking the moment to make the investment to train someone to do it to our standards? It also requires us to be clear on our standards, which I think a lot of people are.

Yeah, I mean, that happens a lot.

So those are the ones off the top of my head.

Yep. I like that. Yeah, Dan Martell is another friend and he is really good at recording like, you know, his SOPs and processes and all of that. Something that he does whenever he gives feedback on something to make it really easy for him, he calls it the camcorder technique. And what he does is on his iPad, he records a screen. And so if he's like, you know, it might be an essay that he's giving feedback on or designs or something like that. And he just marked like, screen record, mark it up, talk, like, talk over it, and then fire it off. And then he'll have more and more of these examples of him doing it or teaching this thing.

And you can just create a library for your business. I mean, I think a lot of people do now. Yep, that's big.

So you have this interesting balance between a very traditional creator, like Endeavors and all of that, and then being a full-time team member and exec at Keller Williams. And you have, I think, of 3 main buckets really of the writing, the, like the whole business that you're building as a creator, and then your work as Keller Williams. They overlap. Are those 3 buckets kind of right?

Those would be my professional buckets. Okay.

Yeah. How would you break down and describe the main buckets of your professional life?

So I've— I'm an employee still and an executive at Keller Williams, and I run 3 departments there. But I've— I also allowed myself to hit a ceiling I accepted. That's not the company I wanted to be CEO of. I wasn't ever going to be as qualified as some of the other candidates. Yeah. And I wasn't just going to chase that for ambition's sake. So I found the role that aligned the most. It's like I'm in charge of strategic content. It's a completely made-up title. I designed it so I wouldn't get as many cold DMs on LinkedIn because no one's got that title. There's chief strategy officers, there's chief content. Like, I made a mashup, but I do our books, our podcast, and I consult on our courses and stages. And so, like, all of that aligns with my work as a creator. Like, I'm kind of in that hat most of the time.

Yeah, you're, you're this in-house creator and executive.

Yeah. And it lines up with the philosophy of the one thing. Like, I got really clear. I'm like, the thing that I've done that has helped the company the most is help the founder write books that create thought leadership in our industry. And the longer I sit there while writing courses, stage speeches, whatever that is, developing that content, I'm doing my one thing. And I believe that I will get paid the most in that role I can if I'm doing it at the best level I can, whether I'm there or anywhere else. So I tried as much as I could to negotiate aligning what I was doing. And there have been periods, like one disastrous, I mean, they thought I was a great manager. They're like, I'll let our marketing team, I am not qualified to lead a marketing team for 2 years. But I did it because I'd been around and they needed a writer. It's like there are moments where I'm very much kind of out of my depth. Running the productive company is something I did last year, stepped into the CEO role, and that is actually a tension now because I don't think being a part-time CEO is wise unless it's completely automated business that doesn't really require—

Yeah.

And so I'm resolving some of that by negotiating my time between the two worlds because Gary's a part owner of that business too. So we have a win. But for me, navigating when do I get my creative time has been the hardest thing to fit in. So I write early in the morning. I sometimes write after work, which I don't like as a habit. And I have— we're mostly empty nesters. I have a 20-year-old and an 18-year-old. And my wife runs a business too. So a lot of Saturday and Sunday mornings after I walk, like, I find that wonderful big creative blocks and I get a lot done.

Yeah, I'm the same way that like a 2-hour chunk on the weekend can be really, really good.

I have the benefit, and I know a lot of people don't, of having a chief of staff, EA, assistant, whatever you— whatever that role is for you that helps me navigate my calendar. And I just always tell her my number one is how do I get at least 4 creative blocks every week? Mondays I've just given up because that's when everybody needs my vision or help making sure their priorities are right. So we do line up all of our team meetings and as many of my one-on-ones And that allows me to have that creative time, usually between 10 a.m. and 2 p.m. during the week. The mornings are also— I show up and there's a fire burning. So it's not like I get to go into like my writing closet or whatever that is, but on my headphones, I usually need to— we call it clearing the decks, clear the decks so that everybody's kind of good. It's like, great, don't bug me until 2 o'clock. And so I can get those blocks. And I've had a coach now for 15 years, on my 5th one. And the number 1 thing I ask them to ask me every accountability session is, how many books did you read since the last time we talked? How many writing sessions do you have? And so I've got 4 metrics total that I know are habits that if I do, I will be successful. And they have to ask me, or I tell them I will fire you. And they're like, but you always do them. And it's like, but the point is you have to always ask me. Because if you ghost me on that, I might start cheating, right? I just threw a lot at you. I'm sorry.

No, I really like— so I'm a huge fan of coaching, and I really like this model of that very deliberate accountability and the clarity that comes from, if you don't do this, I will fire you. Um, lots of things in life are implied or like a few steps removed, you know, like you don't say, hey, if you don't show up or do your job, I'm going to fire you. Like, it's sort of understood, you know, in general business. But like, that level of clarity of saying like, this is really important to me, and like, I have not done that with my coach, of saying like, these are the two metrics that I care about the most. I want you to ask me about it every single time. Because you're absolutely right, like, I will do it for 3 weeks or 4 weeks, and then I will slip and all that. And so having people in your life who will continue to ask you, like, what's most important, how can I help you, how can I keep you accountable to that— yeah, that's a really good thing.

It's, it's the clarity of me figuring out the 4 metrics over time was huge. And it's weird, like, I— because I'm a nerd, like, my— I do a 4-1-1, so we call it where I have my annual goals, my monthly goals, and every week I break them down into weekly. Okay. But 4 of those goals flip to a chart where I track how many writing days I've had over the last— like going back to 2008, 2009. Okay. Wow. And I can see the periods where it was bad and good and like in the last 6 weeks, last month I read one book and I went through my entire history and I've never read less than 3 books in a month. So many things converge.

Yep.

That I dropped it. And so my whole last coaching call was around how do we build that time and space, right? And I was like, I just sit down to read and my brain goes to all these other flames in my life. And so we came up with a plan, but like, he did his job. We went to that thing every week. I try to do one thing to promote books that are out there. It used to be saying yes to a podcast. I'm doing one, check. Yep. Right. And I track those and then I track adding people to my database. So as an introvert founder, I knew that I would get some doors open, but I remember sitting down with my coach and saying, should I go to conferences? And it just filled me with dread. I was looking at FinCon and all these things like, how will I network? And I was just getting a cold pit in my stomach. And I got invited to an interview. A woman wrote a blog called Coffee with a Stranger. I don't think it still exists. Okay.

And I just—

tell me about this. She goes, Every week I meet with a stranger and then I write about it on my blog. It's an excuse to write. I was like, I'm stealing that. And so I had a Wednesday date since like 2000, maybe '11, where I just try to add one person to my database that's talent so that, like my wife laughs, she's a realtor, she's never met a stranger kind of thing. Like one person to your database a week, that's the slowest success plan I've ever heard. But if they're talent, like the people we meet at this mastermind, you earn the right to get their information and stay in touch is the rule. Like, let's trade information, let's stay in touch. Well, 50 a year over 10 years, right? You've got like a golden database now.

What do you do? And like, from a— I guess it's less of a tool or tech question, though maybe there's an element of that from like a personal CRM. But I'm curious, like, I know really a lot of people, but I'm not good at having, having systems. And yeah, tell me all about it.

And I get to talk about Kit doing this. This is great. So about a year and a half into it, the first year I did 50 and quit. That was my goal, 50. Okay. And then you didn't do any more? Well, to the rest of the year, I gave myself the rest of the year off because sometimes you got 2 in a week or something. And, um, the next year, because I showed up with no agenda other than I've heard you're a great founder. I've heard you're a great designer. I heard whatever. I'd love to get to know you as the invite. Yeah, they would say, I know this person. So the next year I did 79, and the next year I did 120 before I scaled back. Okay. These are one-on-ones. One-on-ones over coffee. Okay. Right. And I'm very consistent with getting up and getting coffee, whether at home or somewhere.

So like, right, why, why not have another human there?

Yeah. So doing it an hour earlier, like I had to navigate the drop-offs with my wife, but we could do that. But then my coach said, and how are you staying in touch? And I was like, well, they call and email me. And he's like, that doesn't work.

That's not a system. And that's my system, to be clear.

Yes, yes. I'll be so successful, they'll reach out to me. Yeah, exactly. But he said, no, I want you to come up with a plan. So I had a month, and that's when I started my personal newsletter. And it's called What I'm Up To. And I would just write 2 or 3 paragraphs of what me and the family had been up to that month.

Yep.

I would write what books I read for the month, another form of accountability, 'cause now I've got whoever's listening. And then what movies and shows we watch, 'cause that's my complete turn off the work brain, watch a show. And it's very personal. I would tell people it's not a public list. I'm not trying to grow it. I'm not trying to sell anything. It's just a way to stay in touch. At the end of every one, I have, please reply back and tell me what you're up to. And it started, I think I invited 60 people And now it's on ConvertKit. We could look it up because I moved it to ConvertKit since I met you. I think we've got 600 people on there that still are subscribers. Yeah. And I get 30 or 40 replies every month like, oh, that was really cool. I saw that movie too, or whatever. And it creates energy, right? And so I can stay top of mind. Did I not ever invite you to my What I'm Up To newsletter? Because that's— I think so. Okay, well then I will.

Nathan@kit.com.

Uh, that you'll have to confirm it in your inbox.

Yeah, yeah, I'll make sure to do that. I really like that because I notice how the times that I'm active, like posting to Instagram stories or something like that, which I, I go in waves. Like, I might be at an event and I would post a bunch of stuff, and then I'll go a month without posting anything. But like, I've realized just being top of mind with people and the replies that I get, and I'm like, oh, I had no idea that this person was, yeah, paying attention to my stuff or followed me. And, and I just love those little interactions. And so you have a really good system for it.

And I just like, I believe in if you know something will make you successful, like one of the fundamental, like my number one keynote is around building a power habit in your life. So like what makes you successful and can you turn that into a habit? And we refer to it as like what's the What's the first domino to building that habit? If you want to meditate, don't start by going to a Zen center and doing it for an hour because that'll fall apart. Right. Like now you have to plan for the trip and an hour of your day. But like you can get on Headspace and start with 10 minutes right beside your bed.

Yeah.

Like, so what's a small thing that you can build the habit and then build on it? And so for me, like a monthly newsletter was a lift I felt like I could commit to. And sometimes it's a grind. But I felt like I could do it. I've been doing it for 7 and a half years now. And it just now, again, momentum. You keep doing the thing and it makes you that much more likely not to break the chain. Right. You don't want to break the chain. People love streaks. We love streaks. Oh yeah. And so just don't break the chain.

I like it. Okay. So the other thing I want to go back to is your metrics that you're tracking.

Yes. It was books read, writing sessions, writing blocks. Yeah, right. Books read. I try to read 50 a year, half of them nonfiction. Okay. And then I have my promotion per week. I've also tracked my keynotes, but that's just more of like, is the business going up or down? Yeah, it's not a key one. And then did I add someone to my database? The follow-up now is automatic. In the beginning, I was like, did I write my newsletter? Right. And that was a thing.

But, and then that dropped off of being a key metric because it's a habit. It's a habit now. Yeah.

Yeah. I've got to write it on the plane home. Right.

Yeah. Oh, that's so interesting. And so are you tracking this in a big spreadsheet? What's—

Yeah.

And unsophisticated, but there's something special about that where you're just like, yeah, check it off.

It was kind of— well, yeah, I mean, the story we tell in the book is of Seinfeld. He was at an open mic and an engineer who wanted to be a comedian came up to him and said, Mr. Seinfeld, I want to be a comedian. What should I do? And Seinfeld immediately said, go get a big giant wall calendar and every day write a joke. And every day you write a joke, put a big red X, and pretty soon it won't be about writing a joke. It'll be about not breaking the chain, which is where that comes from.

Right.

Just build the habit. And you just— people I can't believe that writing one joke a day could make you a comedian. But like every day Seinfeld writes a joke. He's been doing it his whole career. And it's like the discipline of doing the small thing often opens the doors to big things. And it's not intuitive. People want to go big and they want to act big to do it. But we will act small consistently. That focused action that leads to that, that's the thing that you can do every day. Yeah, I like it.

The consistency.

Yeah.

I'm trying to think for me, like the creative blocks would be a good way to frame it because then it could expand beyond writing.

Yes.

You know, and it's whether it's creating the podcast or, you know, recording video content or something like that. Like that's the biggest thing that gives me the most leverage because all the interaction with the team, um, conversations, all of that will fit into the empty space around it.

If you, um, when we teach people how to block a calendar, the first thing we tell them to put on is their vacation, which is ironic. Not their one thing, but their vacation. Because you know this, if you're going to be successful, it takes energy, which means you have to have rest.

Yeah.

And as Americans, like, if you're listening to this in the United States, we don't take our vacation time, right? And I work in an industry of entrepreneurs where burnout is very prevalent. I would imagine you probably know more than me if burnout I talked to some writers that these weekly deadlines, they get burnout. So how do we rest and restore? And people are like, but I can't do that. I'm like, yes, you can. If you, it's like putting a boulder in the stream. Like I'm going to go on vacation for 2 weeks. I don't even know where I'm going, but I'm going to block my calendar. And because your calendar is blocked, when people try to book you, say, you know what, I'm going to be out of the country then, or I'm going to be whatever. It's like, can you do it before or after? Work will flow around it. But if you don't plan for it and block it, it's the same with your writing block. The key is like a meeting with yourself to do your most important work, which is what, how we call it in The ONE Thing, your writing block. Someone says, can you meet tomorrow at 9? You look at your calendar and say, I'm already booked. Can you do it later? Right. You never say I'm writing then. Yeah. Because they might ask, could you skip a day? Right.

Or could you shift that to the afternoon or whatever else?

You look at most people's calendars, nobody makes appointments with themselves. They're all appointments with other people. So their assumption is like, you have to be pretty arrogant to say, will you cancel that for me? Like, nobody does. They just immediately fall in line and say, great, I can do it at 2. That's the principle.

Yeah.

And just a handful of those every week over time, I believe, and I've seen, will transform how you perform. Yeah. That makes a lot of sense. I'm kind of on my soapbox here.

No, but I like it. I think as we talk about a lot of professional creators, they often stop doing the very thing that got them to the stage they're at.

Yeah.

It seems like that's something that you resonate with.

Yeah, I did. I did. I mean, Gary and I haven't published a book in 10 years. We've republished some books. We've updated them. Yeah, I keep it going. But I'm— I've got— I think I have 20 days left to finish a manuscript I'm working on right now.

Okay.

and it's like, it's such a relief to come out the other side. But I'll admit for the first 2 or 3 years, my coach was like, your writing blocks aren't being used on books right now. They're being used on keynotes and things like that. But the velocity of The One Thing, I just said, I think I owe it to myself and the future to give this book everything I have every week, right? Until that velocity slows. And so I was okay with that for about 3, 3 and a half years when that launch was just crazy. Yeah. We went up, I think, 7 straight years in a row or something crazy.

Like selling more copies than the previous.

Before it kind of leveled off. And some of that was international audiences that come online much later. Right. But then I started getting antsy and I'd like, you read a post from Ryan Holiday or somebody like, yeah, you're doing all the things. Around the success you created, but none of the things that created success. So honestly, you were part of this. Like, one of the things that got me back writing was I dedicated myself to a weekly newsletter, and we put it on, uh, then ConvertKit, now Kit. And I'd never had a weekly deadline ever in my life. Writing books, you're like on year timelines.

That's what's so hard for me is that like the deadline is always so far away.

Yeah. And so having that weekly diet, I described it to my wife. She's like, why are you doing this to yourself? And I was like, it's a Rocky movie. You know the part where he's chasing chickens and stuff? Like, I'm doing that right now. I'm in training. And I can tell you when I sat down to write this book, all those muscles were strong. All those muscles. I was like, it works. Like, I am writing as fast, like without a hard deadline, like the 100 days we gave ourselves for the first one. I'm writing as fast and as well as I've ever written in my career. And I owe it to, I think, that discipline of doing it every week.

And so now as you're diving into the book or finishing the book, like, are there other ways that having the weekly newsletter has served you? So it's built that muscle.

Well, I mean, you know, a lot of people do this. I'm pre-writing ideas. Right. One of the things I want to do in the next 2 years is come out with the second edition of The One Thing. And there are chapters we cut that I want to Actually, now I wish we hadn't. And there are new things we've learned. And I get to pre-write those ideas multiple times and find the right fit. And then I think when I sit down, I'll just be pulling from the articles in The 20%-er and going, all right, what did I write about core values? And that's not in the book. We write about purpose. And purpose is hard to figure out. I can get you your core values in 30 minutes. Okay. The low-hanging fruit. Everybody's looking at the next opportunity instead of looking farther out. Like there's these things that we know undo the one thing and like I get to pre-write them.

Yeah. So going back to The One Thing, what do you think made it so successful of the, like drove to, would you say 3.6 million copies?

Yeah.

So that's obviously a very broad question, but I'm—

I don't know who else has done it, but I've been a part of 3 million copy bestsellers.

Yeah.

So Body for Life is still— I heard from my old editor that in all editions worldwide, it sold over 6 million copies. Wow. So I hate saying that. It's like I was a high school football state champion, right? Before I even knew I wanted to be a writer, I had maybe my biggest success yet. But I'm counting on the one thing getting there. Right. But I got to see that up close. The Millionaire Real Estate Agent became a million copy and then The One Thing. And I think what all of them had in common is they presented a new perspective on an existing idea. And they also caught a moment in time where people were receptive to it. And so the millionaire, I think, The Body for Life, he said cardio is not how you burn fat, it's weightlifting. And he was the first person to say that. He might not have been the first. He was the first to write a big book about it, right?

Yeah. It's something that we widely accept now.

And that changed the paradigm, right? Millionaire real estate agent is you don't have to be a salesperson. You can actually be a business person. Change that paradigm. We have 3 agents in our ecosystem now, a franchise system. They're all independent contractors that are moving towards 100 million, and one of them that's approaching a billion-dollar valuation for the companies they built. I don't— that might have happened, but I feel like we accelerated this idea that these entrepreneurs would start thinking beyond selling the next house. They built other businesses. It's not just selling real estate. But so, yeah, you can do that. And the one thing I think showed up a few years after smartphones became hugely prevalent with the iPhone like by the time, I think it launched in 2007.

Yeah, 2007.

So we came out April 1st, 2013, and by then almost every high school student had one, right? And so now when am I at school? When am I not at school? When am I at work? When am I at work?

It's all blurred together.

It's all blurred together, and people were feeling overwhelmed. And I think that was the zeitgeist, and people look up and go, one thing, well, tell me what that is. And I don't quite buy it. And I could go book by book, million copy bestseller, and tell you what I thought the zeitgeist that they tapped into. So I think you approach it like you're gonna write a copy that could sell forever, a timeless book. And there's a little bit of luck, if I'm honest. Yeah.

Yeah, there is in everything, but it's how do you increase that luck surface area?

Exactly.

Yeah. And then now what you're doing is you're diving back into another creative project of like getting behind the mic on the podcast.

Yeah.

Which on one hand you're doing a bunch more things. On the other hand, it's probably another angle for you to refine these ideas and ties into your writing and a bunch of other things. But talk about that.

So when I look at my role in our company Productive, which is the one thing training and coaching, I should be at the top of the funnel, not at the back. Okay. That's my philosophy.

Explain that a little bit more.

So the number one reason we have that company is I co-authored a book. That went out to millions of people. And that book drives a lot of people to our website to become customers. The second biggest top of funnel thing we built was our podcast, and my co-founder anchored it for the first 7 years of the journey. And then when he left the company, we had a couple of interim, and it's not— it's just flat, right? And so when I look at the top of the funnel, like, how can I in the least amount of time have the greatest impact? And it also aligns Like, I like this. Like, I'm enjoying talking to you. I get to get on my soapbox and talk about the things I'm passionate about and learn a lot. And so it's another thing I have to fit into my creative schedule. But stepping behind the mic for The One Thing podcast allows me— the first time me or Gary has been the host of the show— step into it and say, we're going to reset the bar about what these conversations should be. And so I feel like I know it's not an hour a week. You know it's not an hour a week, but it kind of comes down to a couple of hours a week that you can batch and get creative. I've got to build my calendar to support making that a habit so that I can find a rhythm, because I know once I do, I am really good at the marathon. Tell me the training regimen and I will follow it. And if I— because I've just— that's so much of my success is those handful of habits that I just say, It's non-negotiable now. I'm gonna do that thing. So I've just gotta find that on the podcast and hopefully I don't get fired from it. I think I'll be okay.

So what is the breakdown in that company of, 'cause you've got your conference events, there's masterminds, there's—

No, no. So the one thing, like you saw me last year, you were a huge help. You looked at our SKUs and it was like, dude, you need one thing. Business. Like, yes, you're right, and I will. Um, kind of easiest advice to give, the hardest advice to take. I know, I know, because you want to do all the things, right? So I think right now we start with the book and the podcast. Can we teach people the principles? There's a certain number of them that say, I want to bring this to my work. And so we have one-on-one coaching. Uh, we have an annual event. It's usually— it's been a goal-setting retreat for the first 8 years, and this will be the last one. Next year it'll be a One Thing Summit. I may steal a few things from Craft and Commerce. I like the design. Yeah, right. But people want to hear more voices than just me and my wife talking about how we use the book to build our lives. And then we're going to have group coaching that will launch and eventually a membership. So I streamlined it and I tried to make a flywheel, but like some things naturally follow. Yeah, like if you have people in group coaching, the next logical step is do they want to be in a membership? Because that's where they get to practice at a lower cost and have a community around them. Those become the stories that I hope to feature on the podcast, and then that will attract more people, right, into the training.

Well, that's something we talked about, uh, quite a bit, I guess. Was it just a year ago at the same event? Okay.

Uh, I had you, I had Dan Martell, I had Dr. Ben Hardy.

Like, I had—

oh yeah, we had a killer circle.

That was Yeah, that was a great time. But thinking about that, the flywheel of creating success stories and then featuring them back on the show, the newsletter, is really, really good because it drives social content. It reinforces this loop that like, hey, we create success. And then if you put in the work as a student, as a member or whatever that is, you could also get this credibility and notoriety of being featured, whether that's something that they're actively thinking they want or not.

Or you might become one of our coaches, right? Or like, I think— yeah, I can't remember her name— you founded this podcast with that was like— I'm— yeah, Rachel. Rachel. I was like, well, that's brilliant. Of course, that's where you groom the next people to go out and lead this and develop all of your talent. Yes.

And there's a— yeah, there's an amazing flywheel.

3 people on my team started in our community. So they were like true believers, right? Like a job opening. I want to work here.

That is like— I talked to so many creators where they're like, I cannot hire someone for this business. I posted on all of these job boards and I just didn't get people who understood what I was doing. And I just can't hire good people. And I'm like, how many people are on your email list? Like 50,000. And would you say those 50,000 are excited about your content? Oh yeah, people love it. The other day this designer was emailing. What role are you hiring for? A designer. And I'm like, it's the only— your audience first to hire people.

I'm old enough to know Acres of Diamonds. You remember that old thing? It was like a self-help book that got passed around when I was a kid. And it's about this person that went out in the world to find their fortune, only to find out that their backyard had acres of diamonds. You don't have to buy the book now. That's it. But it's like, don't neglect to look like right in your— literally your own backyard. You, you're probably building the talent within your team, or it's a referral away, right?

Yeah. So I love that of, you know, broadly hiring from your audience is one thing, but then as people have taken, you know, your courses, your coaching, become certified in your program, and then hiring them either as coaches or into other roles, then like you said, they're true believers. They absolutely love the mission, what you're about, the community, and you're just not having to explain why we do what we do.

That it's like the ultimate cheat code. If you can build the environment to hire from, I think all businesses, if you can hire from within, it's just a beautiful thing. Sometimes you do need to bring some from the outside to bring new ideas and energy. But I do love that in general.

Yeah, that's awesome. So just as we wrap up, I'm curious, where should people go if they wanna follow all of your content and subscribe to the newsletter? Obviously they have to have coffee with you in order to get on the Friends newsletter.

There we go.

But for the general newsletter.

If they go to jpapasan.com, it links to the One Thing website, everything, my newsletters are there. I think I'm the only Jay Papasan among 8 billion people on Earth.

That's pretty impressive.

So like from a business standpoint, right, it's great to have a weird name. I found out my friend Monroe Rayburn is launching his own practice. He's been like a therapist at a university for years. And I looked him up and I said, do you own MonroeRayburn.com? He goes, no. I was like, dude, there are no results except for some dead guy in Ireland 150 years ago. I was like, that's gold for a business. Oh yeah. Like, and it's like, people know your name. It's like, so jpappasan.com is kind of where all the stuff is.

On the name thing, as a creator, you know, you don't choose your name.

Right.

Right? That's given to you. Oh, you know, people do change their name or change it slightly. But I think about—

Who was it that kept emphasizing the D?

Matt D. Smith.

Matt D. Smith.

Yep, he's coming on the podcast.

Phil M. Jones. You can take a generic name and add one letter and make findable.

But what Matt said is he's like, you have to put the D in there because otherwise it's a very generic name. And you can Google Matt Smith and you will never find me. Matt D. Smith, designer, you will find. But I think about some of these people who have, you know, like James Clear. I'm like, you just have a really good name for writing a book that sells millions of copies.

You know, it's like having a British accent and being a public speaker. Yeah, it's just, that's just cheating. Unfair. But I think about The—

like when I was getting started online, there was another Nathan Barry that had— didn't dominate the search results, but he'd like written for Wired and he'd done like not a lot, but some.

Yeah.

And when I beat him out of the rankings, that was a really good thing. But I think of another friend, Justin Jackson, who like built a great online business. He owns Transistor, which is the podcast hosting company that I use. And, uh, built up this whole following. And then some high schooler named Justin Jackson had the nerve to go get drafted into the NBA. Yes. Like, become a really great basketball star.

And so these things that you, like, you can't control with anyone. No. Well, we started— I thought it was super innovative when we launched The One Thing. I put hashtag on the COVID And that was pretty early in the social. So like right there on the back it had #OneThing. Well, it was awesome for me for just client discovery. I'd met so many of our first clients by just following them on Instagram, reaching out. Do you want me to Zoom in? It wasn't Zoom back then. Do you want me to Skype into your company meeting? And I got to connect with a lot of people. Well, I think Shakira came out with a song called "One Thing." And then there was a boy band that came out with a song called "One Thing." We're like on our third hashtag now. It was a good idea. Like, so if you want to do that, just build something that you think nobody will copy.

Yeah, that's one problem that I have. So with ConvertKit, if you put those two words together on the internet, you are talking about our company. If you say kit, you could be talking about a lot of soccer jerseys, a lot of soccer jerseys. And so, you know, like we have @kit on pretty much every social handle. So it's like tag us if you want to reach out. But that is one thing that I was able to— like, before I could search people talking about ConvertKit who didn't want to tag us, you could find that. So I feel like in the name change, that's something that we're giving up. We're gaining a lot, but you know.

Well, go be successful enough that you dominate.

Yeah.

There you go.

All soccer jerseys.

It's only the number one sport in the world.

Yeah, no big deal.

Yeah, sounds good.

Well, Jay, thanks so much for coming on.

Thank you so much for having me. I love this podcast. I am an actual fan. I'm a— I will be a 3-time ConvertKit user. Yeah, I'll get user as well. So just an example of what we were talking about.

I love it. If you enjoyed this episode, go to the YouTube channel, just search Billion Dollar Creator and go ahead and subscribe. Make sure to like the video and drop a comment. I'd love to hear what some of your favorite parts of the video were and also who else we should have on the show.

Oh!