Episode Summary
where I'd actually like start with you is the newsletter cuz to me you in Tamsin Webster are battling for the best the most valuable piece of email content in my inbox every week and whether you know it or not I actually have like a ranking system that is arbitrary and so really personal but um but it is it's incredibly valuable so few people are taking the time to to really I see there's a slight movement back to email I think but it still seems like hey just let me drive you with the shortest number of words to this thing on my website that I can actually track and you do it completely different it's so long form there's so much value and I'm just interested in one what was you know what kind of spurred you to take an email newsletter on and why why you continue to be so lipped willing to almost add more value with each new addition on the newsletter yeah so about two and a half years ago if something like that I got an email from a guy who who lives in the Netherlands and he said you know I signed up to be part of your personal website at Ann Handley calm so not at MarketingProfs but at Ann Handley and I you know I never hear from you you know is there like a secret list somewhere like why am I not hearing from you ever you published there very sporadically I never get anything in an email at all I just I never hear from you at all I follow you on social but that's all I get so he said why is that you know he asked me the sort of fundamental question and you know like sometimes there are moments in your life when somebody asks you a question and you get like hyper defensive about it and then you realize that it's definitely triggered you in some way and that's essentially what happened that what he asked me that question and I got super defensive and I was just like well I mean I'm busy I've got MarketingProfs I've got a speaking I've got books I got no no and I realized I was just you know I I gave him this whole like flow chart of excuses you know if I were to map it out and I realized that you now I really he was absolutely right I was missing an opportunity I wasn't nurturing a community that had opted in to hear from me and just that that moment where I thought these people have given me their email address they have opted in to hear from me and I'm not I'm not engaging with them at all I'm not talking to them at all I'm not writing to them at all and it was really that iteration of my thinking as I thought more about that again about two and a half years ago that I thought you know I really need to think about this community a little differently and I started to really value that person who had opted into my email and my friend in the Netherlands who was sort of a proxy for that whole community at that point and it was very small there was only about 3,000 people that were on the list some people had been on the list for years just to receive you know basically what used to happen with that list is anytime I published a blog post which again was very sporadically they would just get an alert in their inbox and that was it like that was the extent of how I was using that platform and so I just started to rethink what is the value of a person who hands over their email address to you and I I was just sort of struck me that that is a really important moment and for the first time ever I really started to think maybe I really should do something with that which sounds ridiculous in a way for me because MarketingProfs my company has you know we've built our whole so much of our our business is centered around email in our email list is massively important to us for so many reasons but yet I wasn't translating that same thing to you know to my own personal stuff to my own personal website even though I had books and a speaking career and all that stuff and so yeah it was it was sort of a reframing and a REE what's the word I guess just just really a new respect for that individual who had turned over their email address to me and I realized that that's such an important and really precious gift that somebody gives you and I don't say that lightly I really do believe that that is something that we should really be valuing as marketers way more do you obviously enjoy it it comes through in in the way that you write and yeah obvious time that you take to curate everything from resources to funny images to the stories that go into them so and I've also noticed and I mean it's in a positive way they've gotten longer some of them some of them have gotten I mean I save them like resources in my inbox because I'm like oh that thing's amazing I don't have time to research it right now and then I actually have a folder this is gonna sound weird and please don't consider me a stalker I just do find it valuable I have a folder that I stick like yours and a couple other newsletters into people who I want to go back to because it there's so much value in there so I guess to me it's one I completely agree and I have I feel like I have undervalued my email subscribers at different times as well and what I did was I created a video newsletter so I 15 to 20 minutes talking through like you would put into a regular newsletter but I'm talking through it I just feel like I can be a little more authentic in myself and I can do it in a way that maybe differentiates but that's not the point the point was um you keep coming back and you keep adding more value to this thing I feel like a lot of people they just do the the least possible to get it off their plate why have you continued to invest into this thing and you know what maybe I don't want to just say like the ROI because that makes it feel shallow and and and I don't like that but like just personally what are you getting out of it that keeps you coming back to this thing that obviously takes time out of your day yeah so let me see how to what which question answer first I guess so yeah so that well let me just step back for a second so the reason why I chose to do an email newsletter instead of say a you know like a video newsletter like like you do or you know something on IG TV or you know instead of I wanted to do something episodic I knew that I wanted to be able to communicate on a regular basis I needed a schedule because I need that as a person as a professional if I don't have that I'll just you know it was I'll keep pushing it further and further down the field so I knew I needed that number one and I decided to do an email newsletter because you know I'm a writer that's that's how I started my career I started my career as a journalist and I wanted to be a writer since I was a little kid and so I've always identified as a writer and so I really wanted to you know just just communicate in that way because that's a way that I communicate well and I'm really comfortable in that and then the the second piece of that is that I did it I publish it every other weekend because that's the only like that's the cadence I can manage I can't do every single week and so I thought alright if I'm gonna do all these all of those things episodic it's gonna be writing and it's gonna be every other week because that's all I have time for really then what is it going to be and how is that going to be a differentiator and so I wanted to create something that felt like a you know like like something important when it comes into your inbox I wanted to feel like a kind of gift from me because if you're giving me your email address I want to give you something back valuable in return and so that's the way that I approach it and you know some weeks it's a little bit longer because you know as I start out usually with a story or a narrative of some kind that that sort of encapsulates the theme for that newsletter and then I'll carry it a few links that I think are interesting and I'll tell you why I think they're interesting and so it's a little bit of I mean it would probably take you all of you know 10 minutes if you're a fast reader just to read it and I have heard that you know some people say that they save them and I think that's that's awesome like that's very gratifying for me and so you know where I so I guess the motivation for that like where does that come from it's it's because you know I think you interviewed our friend Bryan fans outright to do interview him on this podcast yeah so one of the things that Brian talks about all the time is push the damn button right um did he probably talked about that with you on the show oh yeah and you know he's a good friend of mine and every time I've seen him speak he always like that's kind of his catchphrase and I realized that I wasn't pushing buttons anymore the further you get along in your career the fewer buttons you push and I wanted to push buttons again I wanted to have something that was just mine that I controlled from the writing to the packaging to choosing the images like those funny gifts and things that I put in there to you know choosing every little element so it's all me it's a hundred percent me and even in the deploying of it right the mailing out and then it goes out to people and then they write back to me and then that's all me yeah you know and so I wanted to really own that from the beginning to the end so why was that important to me why did I feel like I needed to do that it wasn't just because I needed that sort of psychic satisfaction of pushing the button but also I think you learn a lot as a professional when you stay in that mode of creating and when you stay close to an audience and so as I have gotten you know further along in my career I don't I'm not as close to the MarketingProfs audience anymore you know we have six hundred thousand people on that list and it's a massive community and I'm grateful for all of them but I don't like I don't put the newsletter together I'm not the one that's writing it and carrying it and putting it out anymore and I just I missed having that kind of connection I think it also just informs who you are as a professional and it keeps you close to an audience which only enriches everything else that you do so would you give would you use that your experience would you recommend that advice to other people who've ascended to a leadership role or a role in their professional career where they have maybe lost that direct connection then some sort of creating even if it's you know on a more extended cadence even beyond every other week if it's once a month or or whatever just keeping some sort of connection helps you overall just maybe mentally but also with actually making decisions in your biz this yeah 100% I mean I I think it's helped me so much just you know from from I mean so many so many points of view technology you know understanding how technology works now figuring around how to grow an audience again you know I started with 3,000 people on that list and when I started writing to them on a regular basis you know when I launched the newsletter just about 2 years ago now and I started writing to people through that you know through the newsletter some people were like whoa what is going on here like we never hear from you if I had a flurry of unsubscribes at that point so those 3,000 people were maybe only about 2,000 by the time you know they had sort of you know sort of self-selected themselves off the list unsubscribed and it's that I've now built it up to what am I just over I think I'm close to is it 23 or 24 thousand somebody's out there yeah so in two years you know it's not it's not massive growth but I've done it all myself and I've learned about how to market a piece of content right so how to market your marketing so to speak and so yeah and then also just having that connection to the audience and find out what do people care about small things what do they click on what resonates with them am i packaging myself well so that I'm describing what I do to this audience so that when people get the email newsletter then they understand you know who I am and what I'm all about like all those small little tweaks it really does help you take a broader view of you know how you're communicating how you're putting yourself out there and it informs like you said like how you make other decisions in your business so yeah I think and it doesn't have to be an email newsletter I think it's hugely valuable for anybody just to keep that connection you know publish on LinkedIn start something on Instagram start a YouTube show like it doesn't matter whatever platform you're most comfortable on but I really do believe that as a leader you've got to be creating something yeah well be if you're not on tick-tock then you don't exist it yeah you don't exist oh my god I am so addicted to tick-tock I don't create anything on there but Wow sometimes I'll start watching it in like an hour later I'm just like holy what this is just so entertaining I mean you have to believe in like the creative the creativity of the next generation is like I'm like I could never think of these things that these people are thinking of and from all different walks it's insane I know I had to delete off my phone just because I'm I do the same thing just boyish but like I just was going to these rebels and I said to my wife I was like I can't watch these stupid videos anymore like yeah it's so really funny like quick to side side note to that so my daughter is in college and over the past couple years like cuz I'm always looking at social channels probably like you are too just looking to see what's up and coming and what's out there and so I'll often ask her like you know how are you using Facebook or are you like are you on LinkedIn yeah cuz she's now getting she's she's been in college a few years so do you have a LinkedIn profile like just stuff like that I'm always curious like how the adoption works for her and her generation and so I've been asking you for about tik-tok for like a few years now at least right now however when it started and she kept saying to me no no that's like for middle school kids no that's for high school kids like no I'm not on that and now she is completely addicted to it now she posts a tick-tock so it's really funny the way it's bubbled up just yeah like to the early 20s now and and and Natalie can I see people on there who are my age and it's like it's just it's kind of interesting just to see its evolution yeah I did on I posted like and please well please no one go and check it out it's not a solid representation of what I like but like I I liked posted a couple things and I just literally became I would love to consider myself at least a fairly creative person but I immediately realized that this is not the venue in which I am creative like this thought process I'm just so over matched and I was just like I'm just gonna watch this one I I believe in its power and like that if you know if you can speak it in this way and communicate it's powerful but like I just was overmatched by it you know it was like did is I just I was watching some baseball video in these like these college kids were doing this thing and I like what I'm like that's so much fun that's so fun yeah I feel completely the same way that way when I view videos on there I'm just so blown away by the creativity and there you know how I feel when I look at anything creative is like I usually have one of two responses the first is wow that's amazing I could never do that or wow that's amazing I can do that or at least close to it you know those are usually what I react to are those are my those the way I react and so with tick tock I'm absolutely that's amazing I could never do that it's just it's not the way that my brain works either it's not how I work as a as a creative person but yeah it's just hugely entertaining though you know that kind of takes me into where I wanted to go with you next like your persona and just in general you you're it it feels like and I don't mean that in a negative way if you feel very authentic transparent vulnerable the way you speak about yourself you're very self-deprecating you know and and it comes across very inviting and even though we've never met and this is the first time we've ever spoke it feels very natural and easy to talk to you like I think a lot of people a lot of people struggle with that particular thing and they see that they see that characteristic as almost like a superpower and I have tried and in the spaces that I operate to help people understand that through practice like maybe some people are a little more predisposed but it through practice and just pushing the damn button you can you can start to develop these things and hone them and I'm interested in in your journey with with this with this type of topic with being authentic was it natural did you have to hone it and what advice you have for people who struggle with this yeah it's it's not necessarily natural to me but I think that what is natural to me is is that I don't I can't like there's no artifice with with how I am online because I honestly don't know how to do that I mean and that that's it's not false humility I just don't know I don't know how to be anything other than Who I am you know so I think the tricky part there and I think why people sometimes struggle with it is that there is a vulnerability that right that if you are just who you are and if you just put yourself out there that people are not necessarily going to like you right that they're gonna react to you in a negative way and but I what what I have learned is that that's just that's just kind of part of it you know that's kind of part of being out there as a professional I also think that there's a difference between being personal and being personable and so I I am authentic and I share you know who I am and I show my beloved little dog and I show my family and I show like what I love and who I am on on social media and through my writing and through my work but I don't really get personal because I feel like there's a line there and I think it's that'll shift depending on who you are as a professional but for me like I've found the place where I'm comfortable like I'm comfortable you know being vulnerable to a point but but not over sharing you know and I think it's I'm struggling a little bit with articulating that but I think it's a very personal thing you know I think you've got to decide how much you're willing to show and for some people that's gonna be way more than I do and for some people it's gonna be a little bit less I don't think it really matters where that line is I just think you have to figure out where you're comfortable with that line being number one and then number two I do think you have to be relatable and personable and so that's another thing that Brian fans oh and I have in common we we talk about it in different ways but we talk about being relatable and so that's what I strive for all the time because there's nothing I hate worse than seeing somebody you know who have who is in a position of power who has been who has accomplished a lot in their career say or any of those things and they just feel like they're not like they're not approachable and they they try to they they sort of have this artifice about them and there's sort of a wall set up and I don't like I don't understand that I don't know why people do that and again I don't really know how to create that wall so so yeah for me I guess it's it's been an evolution because I'm I haven't always been willing to do that but once I started just allowing myself to be to show a little bit more Who I am that I realized oh you know that this is this is good like this is feels comfortable to me um this is something that I've struggled with my entire career yeah because and and I almost struggle it with it to the other way so for me I'm the same way I don't know how to package myself in any other way than exactly who I am like so like I'm I'm such a I'm a terrible liar like my wife always says like I know when you bought a Dunkin Donuts coffee because I can see it in your eyes like you can't hide it from me right like did I I just don't I just can't like I just I don't have it in me like I start to I look down I'm just terrible like if I'm not being exactly who I am then I'm it's so blatantly obvious so I've just tried not to be that way but what I've struggled with is the so you talked before about like packaging up you're who you are and what you deliver and you're your offering and that kind of stuff and I have actually in my career now for other people as a as a marketing and sales professional I'm able to do this for them but for myself like packaging myself I am terrible at it like I I just feel like when it comes to right though what am I gonna give you it's like all of a sudden the pen stops the ink goes dry my arm cramps up like now I'm hungry and I can do anything except for package my ideas of what I'm going does that make sense to you like I just watch with that yeah because it feels like I'm being I don't know why but there is this personal I feel like now that I'm packaging myself in a positive way um all the sudden all the breaks all the resistance comes in and I can't actually use any of my creative abilities at all is that yeah yeah that's interesting what if you what if you talked about it not in terms of what you do but what you do for others so in other words rather than focusing on packaging you what if instead you talked about a client you helped or one person who is affected by advice you gave them or you know something like something along those lines so take you outside of you in other words and and frame it more in the in the results that you gave one person yeah yeah you know that that usually be then I just talk to myself in the third person like I usually like this Ryan over here does this stuff super cool and you should pay for all his stuff timber wait but why do you follow him yes yeah yeah yeah that just reminded me of like his monkey his monkey buddy well sometimes I got a dog sleeping on a chair right over there and sometimes I just talk to her yeah her name's Isabella and it just it gives you like a person or a thing dude I mean that poor dog knows more about me than she ever cared to know about so yeah well just like just to go back to the like even to the the newsletter or creating content or you know starting you know any kind of channel or content program or way to communicate with prospects and customers in your audience that's exactly what I do though I talked to one person I've I've talked about this a number of times but just really thinking about that one person who I'm writing that letter to that email newsletter every other Sunday that's the only way that I can really get out of my own head and and sort of get out of my own way because I'll focus on one personal I won't say like you know dear Ryan but I'll say you know I'll be thinking about you and my head as I'm writing and it really helps me make it conversational and make it ultimately really useful to the person I'm writing to and as a result like you know the rest of the audience as well by proxy just by thinking about that one person having a lot of a lot of well-known authors have done this as well like didn't Ben Franklin right to is his his cousin or something or his brother and you know even though he wasn't actually writing for that person and yeah you know they you pick an individual and there's another famous example that I'm missing but I talk about yeah Warren Buffett writes his letter to shareholders to his another ones yeah yeah I talked about that on stage quite a bit I talked to I was at a talk yesterday which is why I had to postpone our our conversation that we're rigidly scheduled for yesterday until today because I was speaking to a group in Boston and somebody came up I told that story about writing to one person I told the Warren Buffett story and someone came up to me afterward and they said it's so funny you said that because I write to my mom every time I have to sit down to write an email sales letter you know that's so great it's like hey mom here's what's up you know yes it it it's funny how it's funny how some of these you know tricks or hacks that ever you wanna they really do crack whatever that wall is that was keeping you from getting to the words or to the idea it's like whatever it is you know if maybe it's getting hyped up on caffeine or maybe it's going for a run or a walk or listening to you know sometimes hardcore denying these gangster rap like just whack it just cracks it you don't mean like you know little wu-tang just gets everything going and you're you're ready to go and I think it's so specific for everyone but you do need to find that thing because so often the people that I find who want to create more but are struggling to do so it's because they don't have they haven't built a prompt into their life whether it's spreading to one singular person whether that be an individual or a persona you know writing to their self thinking in the third person talking to their dog wu-tang they haven't done that work of fighting finding what that thing is I love that I love just like a series of prompts you just gave I love that so much that's so good yeah just before this call today I was feeling very like very low energy I got up super early this morning I didn't get a lot of sleep last night and I was just super low energy and I thought okay I've gotta like figure this out so I'm in Boston in Boston today it's about zero degrees Celsius so it's very cold actually it's colder than that I think it's like 11 degrees out or something like that and so I went out just ran around the block just super fast like get myself going and it just it really helped a lot just in terms of getting my energy up getting back into it and so I do that a lot like in one of my promises I made to myself last year is outside everyday one hour and it's just really changed a lot of how I go about my day because I scheduled that hour just like I scheduled a meeting you know just like I scheduled this call with you because and I and I don't break it every single day outside one hour and it shifts my mind it gives me the space to think about you know with more intention about what I'm doing throughout my day and sometimes that relates to you know what I'm creating on the content side of things and sometimes it just relates to just break from your email from the grind you know just taking a step back a little bit and just having that space so that's another thing that's it's not whoo tang but it helps me a lot listening or listening to something or silence it depends on the day lately I've been listening to a lot of podcasts and so sometimes we'll do a podcast I'll listen to sometimes like a Oh actually yeah did you have Joe pulizzi on here yeah yeah yeah so you don't hear this wrote this murder mystery yeah so I read his book and now I'm listening to it I was he was he was generous enough to give me an early version of it nice I'm listening to it and I expected that he would be reading it and he wasn't so at first I was disappointed but now I'm really getting into it so that's the other thing too right now yeah he so he asked him about that about whether he read it or not yeah and he said that because you have to do the different voices and it like you have to hire like an actor it's a guy you know someone's profession is to walk through these different stories and he just was like I didn't want to he goes it would disappoint more of my of my fans if I actually read it than if I didn't so I thought that was interesting you know I've struggled with the podcasting I love podcasts I love them to death what I struggle with and I guess this is the next question is about inputs is sometimes I feel like I get lost on other people's ideas it's it's like there is an amount of input from from other places which is very productive and then there's there's a line at which it starts I feel like I'm just filled with noise and it's in it yeah sounds a little jumbled I'm just interested in how you take in inputs how you know is it is it reading obviously you do podcasts audiobooks but you know like how do you take in inputs and how do you make sure that you even though you're taking in these inputs you're true to your thoughts and if that's even an issue for you yeah that's funny so the way that I try to balance that is that I first of all I totally agree with you because I have fallen into those situations where you know like I'll be I'll have a thought and then it'll occur to me no witness was that my thought or did that extra did I hear that on a Seth Godin podcast you you know and it's like that's the last thing you want so so so that my brain doesn't get too saturated with ideas from other people that outside one hour every day I typically if I'm listening to a podcast it's not a marketing podcast I read marketing books but for podcasts and anything audio for the most part I don't listen to anything marketing related because that like that for me that outside one hour every day would be my podcast time or my like my eBook time or my audiobook time and so I can't I need a break from marketing for that time and just to ignite different parts of my brain so I listen to non marketing podcast I listen to non marketing stuff that's why I'm listening to Joe's book right now because it's not about marketing although he has some funny Easter eggs in there for these of people who are marketers and and if you know Joe it's even funnier so or I listen to like lately I've been listening to Dax Shepard armchair expert I don't know if you're a fan of that it's like it's completely he interview celebrities or you know sort of higher profile people and it's like it's you know it has a it's it's not business at all and so I need that just sort of complete separation from yeah marketing because if the intent is to separate your body from your work for an hour I also need to separate my mind so I try to match those two up you know like if I'm taking a break I'm taking a break I'm not gonna sit here and like listen to you know somebody talking about marketing because I do that all day long yeah I am so I I really love conspiracy theories like not because I believe in all of them there's just something about them that really hooks me like you just did and like if I can catch a podcast of someone trying to convince me of like aliens or like ancient civilizations like I am in but what's funny and this is is that I started down this rabbit hole and like I listened to this one episode of Joe Rogan and this guy was on Graham Hancock and he talks about this early civilization which is actually freaking fascinating doesn't matter I won't you know but then I go down this rabbit hole with this guy and now all of a sudden I'm like not doing my job because all I want to read about is these humans that existed 25,000 years ago that he's trying to like convince me and I just said like well I got pumped the brakes like I need to I need to make sure that if I go down like I have to like I do have to come back to sales to marketing like this is what I do for a living but I agree with you I don't listen to marketing podcasts either i-i-i-i produce one I guess I guess this is my marketing podcast time is me trying to steal all your good thoughts for my audience yeah I should say like I do listen to marketing podcast but not when I'm not when I'm out on a walk like not when doing that one hour thing I'm like can I listen to the marketing smarts podcast but I listen to that like I like at my desk you have time and so like that's just the break that I need to take so that I don't get those so that I balance out that you know taking in like the input with with the output so I'm not taking in too much because you know to your point there is so much right I mean you can't you know you there's there's so many podcasts to listen to there's so many blogs to read and newsletters and so I have to curate that pretty carefully and so I try to find the people who first of all don't think the way that I think that's another another reason or that's another thing that I look for and how I don't get too saturated with it like like there are some marketers who who are sort of in our world that like I have a very similar outlook to them and so their stuff I find that even though it's super valuable I like I it's almost too close to what I talk about and so it's harder for me to really read too much of their stuff because I start to get influenced by them like you know and it's in a good way but it takes away a little bit of my voice and my own thoughts and so I'm careful about that a little bit so for example just super specific example I read Avinash Kaushik right he's a data scientist at Google I love Avinash he's such a good friend he thinks about things that is like so different than the way that I think about things my friend Chris Penn I don't know if have you ever had him on this I had him on a long long time ago wait like 2014 yeah yeah he's got some new stuff going on so he's another guy like I read his newsletter because he and I like we talk about the same thing but we have very different takes on it and so like those are the people who I seek out because I you know I need that to balance my own prejudices like as a marketer that that's valuable to me but also they're so different that I don't get saturated because sometimes one of their something that they'll publish sparks something in me and I have always a different take on it you know what I'm saying yeah no I think to me those are the those are the types of inputs I think it's probably why I like conspiracy theories yeah like if you are a hundred percent convinced that aliens exist I might even be like 82 percent there but if you're a hundred percent you're thinking about the world differently than I'm thinking about it and I just I don't care so much about the topic I mean literally input this crazy conspiracy theory with anything but it's like how did they get their mind to that point and like what was it about like how did they connect that dot to that dot and I didn't like for me those two things don't connect but for them they do and right or wrong you know whether you know you insane or not it's interesting from a behavioral standpoint to understand how they got to that how they made that jump like I just I don't know I find that so interesting ya know actually makes perfect sense and what I really like about what you're saying too is that that's the exact exercise that I talked to marketers about all the time because what you're describing is why do you see the world the way you do you know and how did you get to that point like how did you what informed that decision and so that's really thinking about things from a very empathic point of view you're not saying you're crazy and just shutting it down because you believe in aliens and you're insane you're saying you know how why do you think that you know how did you come there what happened before you started thinking that like what informed that mind share that mindset and so I think that's a really valuable skill as a marketer and it's just it's I mean ADEs understanding your your understanding of other people but I think it also can really help you as a marketing and sales person from a behavioral standpoint from really understanding how you can build trust with somebody because the people you're marketing - they may believe in aliens I mean I don't know depending on what you sell you know maybe you sell anti-alien you know repellent or something like that and if that's the case then you've got to understand who you're talking to you so asking those questions thinking about the world from a worldview that's not your own super valuable it's really hard but I never like I never thought about listening to podcasts like that my friend where he bhargava talks about reading magazines that are not intended for you as a way to sort of builds empathy yeah and I do that like I do that a lot of times when I'm traveling so if I'm walking through an airport you know you walk by those Hudson News and I'll pick up I don't know Car and Driver or country living or something that's completely not what I would ever read because I'm curious in the similar way but also how do they package it like how are they what are the ads in here who are they actually focusing on how are they talking to them so just as an exercise to build empathy I think it's a really fascinating it's a really fascinating thing to do yeah I just did last thing I'll talk about this topic and I have one more question for you and then I want to be respectful of your time but um I actually did this experiment the other day where I listened to a podcast that was anti nuclear power and just take the politics out of this but it was anti nuclear power and then I went and found a respected podcast that was Pro nuclear power and I and I listened literally listen to them back-to-back and I had to listen to one before the other so I listened to the anti one first and then the pro one second and it was fascinating fascinating to hear and they were both done not in annex like an extremist way these were well-thought-out here's my case rational arguments just one took a set of facts and pointed in one direction and one took a set of facts and point in the other and and they weren't trashing the other side that's why I liked what I liked about this and and it was fascinating to compare this they would bring up this there were certain of evidence that they both used and in one case they used that piece of evidence to point in one direction in another cape they used that same piece of evidence to point another and the persuasion techniques that these podcasters were using to make their argument was like I mean for like I mean I'm assuming for you to but like for people like uh it was like candy it was like it was like walking into a wall for me a cookie store like if I'd walk into a cookie store that's what this was like oh my god look at all these different things that they're doing and the way they're framing this argument and it's the exact same study the exact same conversations it was it was awesome and in the end you know coin flip on which one is right it's you know you all everyone has their own beliefs and who really cares that what the politics weren't the point it was just it was so interesting to listen to this topic that most people don't even think about we will never consider hour-long podcast trying to convince one way or the other it was awesome why did you do that that's freaking insane seriously think about what made me think of it was I'm one I mean I'm incredibly interested in what motivates people to do certain things like it just drives me nuts I I hate chef I shouldn't a he needs a strong word I try not to accept shallow answers to questions which is why this this is really as much about getting information and sharing information with my audience as it is practice for me to get below the surface with whoever I'm talking to but in this particular one I was referred to this podcast called congressional dish and it's by a woman whose name is asking me at the time but if you search congressional just you'll find her and she did this podcast on the federal Federal Reserve which again I'm just interested in these things not this isn't political so because I because really I don't care um but it was so well done this guy just a person I respect tweeted if you've ever been interested in the Federal Reserve in any reason this is the best podcast ever created in the history of how the Federal Reserve was started that was enough for me to go I am slightly interested in the Federal Reserve I'll give this a listen and she was tremendous it was it was so tremendously done that I said I want to give another one of her episodes a try so I gave this nuclear power one a try and I did I disagree with her take on nuclear power I think it can be a clean source of energy that gets us off of fossil fuels which is ultimately what I would like in a rational way that isn't perfect but whatever so I disagree with her point so I said I wonder why I made this argument and I saw certain persuasion techniques she was using to make her argument and I said I wonder what the counter-argument for this is so then I went and searched for a podcast and I can't remember which one I found because I did this like three or four months ago but like I found another podcast that gave the pro-nuclear power thing and I was like I'm gonna listen to hers again and then immediately listen to this one which was two and a half hours of my life but was still worthwhile because in the end I was like I still think I'm right about nuclear power but I it is incredibly interesting to think and in you know in in some in some cases on they are asking you to take leaps of faith with them there were some interesting gaps in their logic because you could see where in certain points certain sides of the argument forced you to take leaps because they were biasing in a certain direction and they both had to do it to make their point which was really interesting like in some places she had the logical next step and in some and the other side had to take a GAAP leap to make their point and then Buddies versa and it was just you know once you kind of listen to both sides you started to see where they were like forcing you to take logic gaps to or jump you know jump over gaps in the logic to follow their argument and this is probably not interesting to anyone but but yeah that's that's that why how I got there well it's interesting to me I mean I just think it's it's interesting just that you that you saw that though right I mean just you saw that the difference between you know somebody can take the same research study or the same findings or results and see something completely opposite and so yeah just like as an exercise in developing empathy and thinking about things from another person's point of view and allowing yourself to be challenged like that I think it's kind of interesting yeah that's cool yeah I think too like what I what it also did for me was I gained more even though I disagreed with her opinion I gained more respect for her because what it did was it validated that even though there were certain at places where she was you know forcing you to take a jump in the logic it wasn't in a nefarious way like she wasn't twisting the facts she was just saying my you know I I think that this takes us this way and you know and really it's my by my perception that you know when the other way so it was just really interesting but what it takes you back to I guess for me was in getting taking it all the way back to marketing right you are there are gonna be certain aspects of your offer of your product of how you enamor an audience to you of how you try to connect with the right people whose problems your your product and solve potentially like there are certain moments where you're forcing them to take a logic gap or I keep saying logic up a leap in yeah their logic over you know to get there and I guess what I struggle with is some I always want to err on the side of being as transparent with that happening as possible and I don't want to be huckster II right I don't want it to be an assumptive leap I want to be like look here's the leap I'm asking you to take but if you believe this come jump with me not I'm gonna use you know everything from you know CLD knees book to get you to make this jump even though you don't really want to do it I guess that's maybe a check on myself yeah yeah that's interesting yes yeah and the other thing that that just reminded me of is you know Stu go back to what we were talking about a few minutes ago about how difficult it is to package yourself and describe it what you do sometimes when I've packaged myself in a certain way or even through my writing when I'm describing a scenario or when I'm you know sharing a story sometimes the feedback that I'll get back from from readers or from newsletter subscribers is like what they with that what they hear is different than what I said you know and so that's another really I think important reason why just being a constant creator just creating something on a regular basis and talking to an audience makes you a better marketer because you are able to get that immediate feedback loop and you see that maybe sometimes what you say or sometimes the way you interpret it or the leap that you took is not necessarily the leap that your audience is taking or that your customer or prospect will take for your product or service and so so I think it just strengthens that empathy muscle I also think that it strengthens the communication muscle because you're taking that in and then saying all right that's the way she interpreted it well that's interesting because I took this in a different direction and that's a lesson that you can apply to growing your business as well yeah I also think and and I if one more question that I want to ask you this just interesting okay you know your your you know I feel like and this is I'm interesting your take on this like to me you get you buy yourself mrs. when you create more because it's more about your body of work and then the impact that that has but then so if your frequency is very minimal you're creating once a year or or you know just very rarely then every single thing that you create is scrutinized if you're more consistent or there's a cadence to it then it's more about the general flow of value that you provide to people than it is any one particular topic because you know we're all gonna miss or not have a connection on certain topics I mean it would be illogical to think that the other case so that consistency and stuff allows people to flow with you it feels like I don't know does that make sense no I like that you buy yourself an you buy yourself a Miss or you buy yourself missus is that what you said yeah yeah I like that a lot yeah I think that's really really true and I hadn't framed it in that way but yeah 100% I agree with that that's good okay here's my last question I promise we will not take any more of your time this is unexpected the trajectory of this conversation has been unexpected in a very good way so you know good I am yeah I don't have a plan but like this crazy notebook starts to form and then that's how I get to where I'm going this would they would put me in a padded box if anyone ever looked at this notebook with the things that I write in here um but you on your you're a speaker and you are very highly regarded speaker and my favorite thing to talk about which we are not going to get to but I just want to get your general feel for like what is your favorite thing about being us so I'm also speaker mostly to the insurance industry that's that's my area that I just love it's the closest thing to the exhilaration because I was an athlete it's like when I get up on stage it's the closest thing I can get as an adult like I'm not I have kids I'm not jumping out of an airplane like I'm not you know doing anything super crazy go and cliff jump in or whatever because I want to be here for them but like getting up on stage I get that same rush of adrenaline and I'm just interested in like what does it mean to you like what is your feelings when you're out there and you're killing it or not like what is that like what does that mean to you what is that feeling to you I just yeah that's interesting so I never wanted to be a speaker you know as I said I started my career as a as a writer I always wanted to be a writer and I didn't think of myself as a speaker you know like a lot of speakers I'm you know I'm more introverted I tend to I mean I'm not super introverted but I definitely get my energy not from being around a ton of people and so that said like you know being in a minute being in an event is like it requires a lot for me I mean I love it but it also does require a lot of energy from me that I need to then restore with that one hour a day typically outside but so I've never really craved like that moment like I've we have some speaker friends who like they love being on stage they live for stage they did theater when they're in high school I miss maybe for you like being out on the aesthetic field would be a similar sort of rush like I I was never that person I was always very much behind the scenes but then I realized that you have to be seen you know to have your to have an impact you've got to be seen and I and I felt like I had something to say I had I feel like I well I do have a way that I have a take on things that's different than other people I have a sense that I can help marketers and businesses and so I wanted to deliver that message and so that's really what drove me to get on stage you know I I wrote a book I had to share that message and that sort of was the the trigger that got me there but the but though the when I got there I realized just how powerful that platform really is and I realized that I'm good at it and I worked at it and I really loved it like I loved being on stage and I love talking to people because I loved entertaining them and making them laugh but I also loved you know sharing really important lessons that are sort of wrapped in that wrapped in that humor so it's one part Entertainment one part education and there's really no other way to deliver that then being on stage at a live event there's so many things that can go wrong there's so many things that can go right and I love that sort of that that tightrope that you're walking constantly there's so there is that tha