Scott Monty in Defense of Deep Thinking and Eternal Content

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Hello, everyone, and welcome back to the show. This is a tremendous episode. I'm just going to leave it right there with you. We have Scott Monty on the show. Among other things, Scott is a speaker.

He's an executive coach. He was the first executive at the Ford Motor Company to head up digital communications and social media. He has a dynamic background. He's a former pre-med, and he's got MBA, and all kinds of accolades and experiences and expertise. But he's a tremendously deep thinker, and his newsletter, Timeless and Timely, is one of the best in the business.

It is absolutely a must-read for anyone who's interested in communications, marketing, sales, leadership. He pulls from a range of sources and his own experience to deliver value every single week. It comes directly into my main mailbox on my Gmail, and I read it as soon as I see it every week. I actually had a whole strategy or whatever you want to say research that I had done for my interview with Scott, and then his newsletter that came out this week just grabbed hold of me, and I had to talk about that. And that's how good his newsletters are.

And that's how good his newsletters are. And that's really the core of what we talk about is this deep conflict between eternal and ethereal content and the decisions that businesses need to make around where they spend their time and energy. You do not want to miss. You're going to want to listen to it again. And you're going to want to share it with all your friends.

And please do that. And also, if you're not subscribed, please subscribe to the show wherever you listen to podcasts. And if you listen on iTunes, leave a rating and review of the show. That helps more people, more amazing people like you find the Ryan Hanley Show. Thank you for your time.

I love you for listening. Let's get to Scott. So I appreciate you coming on the show, man. It's my pleasure. I'm honored to be asked.

Yeah. I don't know that we've ever actually met before. Actually, I know that we have not met before, but we've both been in speak and spill for a while, and I followed your career from afar. So, and I'm a subscriber to your newsletter, which is actually a lot of, a lot of what you've written in there is kind of, it was the impetus for me reaching out. So.

Okay, great. Yeah. So I want to kind of talk through that. What? It's working.

Yeah, no, it definitely is, man. It's, it's, it's really good stuff. And I just, I guess I just have like a lot of questions. Um, and I, just to give you background on the show, very conversational tangents are a hundred percent allowed and encouraged. So go wherever you want to go.

Uh, I know the great showrunner Jay Akonzo would be, uh, would, would be, would admonish me for my podcasting style, but really I have some things that I want to hit and where I'd rather do is go where you're the most interested. And I'm going to listen to what you say and try to guide us there. Um, and, uh, but anything you want to talk about that you think is relevant is fine. The audience is primarily, you know, business professionals, people who kind of interested in peak performance and sales and marketing, I'd say is the primary, primary veins. And then, you know, I talk, I interviewed just about anybody who, who I find interesting.

So you can talk about whatever you want. Okay, fair enough. Cool. So if that's, if that's all good, then, um, I'll do a little intro before, uh, before this. So we'll just rock and roll.

Okay. Sounds good. Yeah. So, um, so, so let's dive right into, let's, I want to dive into the newsletter. I just, that is where I have really come, um, become a fan of yours.

Uh, it's been, uh, uh, just getting biweekly or weekly emails. I don't know how often they come. You can't remember, but when they come in, I read them and it's called timeless and timely. And for anyone who's listening at home, I'll have to just go to scottmonte.com. You'll find the way to sign up or you can come check out the show notes for the episode.

I'll have links there too, but it's probably easier if you just go to Scott's website directly. But, uh, the newsletter is called timeless and timely. And I started subscribing. I don't, I don't know why or how, but obviously I've, I've known of you for a while and your work and I've seen you in our speak and spill Facebook group where a lot of speakers kind of just share stuff. And, um, and I just, I love the way that you attack the newsletter.

Um, from, from a, from both the tactical standpoint and the content that you actually put in. Uh, so I guess my very first question for you, and this is probably hyper tactical is like, why lead with a newsletter? Like, it seems like you, you push your stuff out into a newsletter and then you take it from the newsletter and you put it on your website. Like what is it about the email format that you find to be a, uh, I'm assuming you're finding to be a very positive and productive way of connecting with your audience. It is.

Well, first of all, uh, thank you Ryan for subscribing, uh, for your interest in, in what I do as a niche or different as it is. I don't know if it's niche, but, um, it's certainly different. And it let, let me, let me take on a journey through, you know, the, the, the time I've been publishing online and how I've thought through this. You know, I've had my own website for, she's probably going on 15 years or so. Now I started blogging maybe in the mid two thousands.

I had done personal blogging for a while, but, but blogging for business probably began around 2005 for me. And I, I initially started out down the road of social media, uh, and, and created a name for myself there on the site and, and interacting with other people, uh, on their blogs back before we had things like Twitter and Facebook. And to me, email or RSS at the time, uh, had been a key to getting people's attention, arriving in their inboxes or arriving in their, their feed reader, uh, as a way of regularly sharing content. And, and, and as I said, back then, uh, the community that we built was all based on reading each other's blogs or newsletters. And my, how cyclical the world is, you know, we've been bombarded with so many different social feeds and platforms and the algorithms have taken over.

And, uh, as, as Mark Schaefer has, has called it for years, we've, we've suffered from content shock. There's just too much stuff out there. And to me, focusing on an email newsletter, focusing on a list, focusing on that community that exists in inboxes. It's a much more intimate relationship and allows, allows the, the, the writer, uh, to go much deeper than they could on the superficiality of social sites. And yeah, you can create longer posts on Facebook, you know, notes and whatnot.

You can create threads on Twitter, but to me, they're ephemeral and the stuff that I'm writing through my newsletter and, and again, on my blog is meant to be something that is more eternal, more timeless, uh, as, as the, uh, the title infers. And for a while, the newsletter had actually turned into a weekly, um, almost link dump. It was initially called, uh, this week in digital that I changed it to the full Monty. And it just became overwhelming. There were scores and scores of links that I would share in eight different categories every week.

And it felt like I was trying to become all things to all people. And as you know, when you try to become, um, all things to all people, you become nothing to no one. And so I stepped back and I said, what am I doing this for? You know, what are the things that matter to me? And as I've moved further away from the specialization of social and digital, I moved more into the realms of leadership because this is, these are the lessons I've learned after having been in social and digital for a while, after having operated at a strategic level, at an executive level at a fortune 10 company, that there are bigger issues that we need to address.

And through my, my newsletter, timeless and timely. Now I'm taking these things that are still vexing us today, but that we can find usable and really time tested advice from history, from literature, from philosophy that assures us that we're on the right path that humans are still dealing with the same kinds of things. And the, even though the technologies are new, the issues that undergird them are the same that we've always had to deal with. And therefore email makes perfect sense in that regard. So there's a lot in there that I want to unpack, not to use classic podcast and cliche, but the, the first one I want is actually the last one you mentioned, and that's philosophy.

And, uh, one of the things that has been interesting as an observation to me just in the last few years, and it's probably has a lot to do with, uh, Ryan holiday though. He certainly isn't the first one is the mainstreaming of ancient philosophy and not just stoicism, which is his bread and butter, but you know, a lot of people now, uh, dissect and write about existentialism and transcendentalism. John Jantz just wrote a book on that and, um, and everything in between and even older and even older things, not that it gets too much older than stoicism, but, uh, the idea, one of the things, uh, so, so, so I've started talking about that as well a little bit and really digging in and I just read meditations and, um, I started reading, uh, one of Seneca's works and I have, um, I have another book coming in that I want to read and, and diving into a lot of that kind of stuff. And what I find most interesting, and this is particularly about meditations, um, is that here is a guy, uh, in Marcus Aurelius who was at the pinnacle of the world, right? I mean, he is the emperor of, of the, of the Roman empire.

Um, at, you know, maybe they're in the fading days of the empire, but still, I mean, this is the, the organization, the, the society of the world. He's sitting at the very top of it and he's writing in a journal, examining the same personality imperfections, um, and how to handle them and, and, and how to, and how to navigate days that like, you know, you and I are thinking about 2000 years later, you know what I mean? Like, wait, you know, how do you be a good, a good leader? How do you communicate well in situations where people are being aggressive with you? How do you not allow your own, uh, uh, uh, failings or, or, or, um, you know, the, the lustfulness of life to, to take over versus what's important.

I mean, like it, it, it's crazy to me that, that these ideas transcend that. Cause we think of ourselves as all, you know, we're, we're modern and w you know, we're considering, you know, higher level ideas, but, but really it's all the same stuff. Um, you know, how, how do you take that in and apply it to your own day? Cause I see you write about it quite a bit. And you have a lot of references to ancient philosophy in your work.

Well, you know, part of it comes from my own education. I, contrary to anyone's expectations, uh, when I went to school at Boston university and, and pursued a pre-med, um, path, you didn't have to major in science to be pre-med. So I chose to major in classics, classical civilization. I had taken Latin in high school and I always had some kind of enjoyment for the ancients, but it wasn't until my sophomore year when I, I consciously decided that I was going to, you know, kind of remove myself from the science track. Most pre-med, uh, concentrators were biology or chemistry majors.

And I figured, you know, if I'm going into medicine, I'm going to be scienced out for the rest of my life. Why don't I use the, the, the resources that Boston university's college of arts and sciences at the time college of liberal arts, uh, offers. Why not open myself up to, uh, the humanities. And so I took a course in Greek civilization. And as soon as I did that.

And, and was just opened up to this world of history and drama and philosophy and architecture and all the other things we studied by some amazing professors who were themselves great storytellers. I realized that I could take that basis of critical thinking of essay writing and there was a lot of essay writing and I could apply that to anything I did in my studies. Long story short, I ended up going to the first year of medical school, added an MBA with healthcare, uh, as a concentration, healthcare, uh, administration and worked in the managed healthcare field. And then, uh, consulted in the biotech and medical device area for awhile before moving over to high tech and, um, and, and social media. And what I've found over the course of my career is that I go back to that education or to the basics of that education more now than I did while I was, while I was undergoing the education.

So I have a whole wall of books here of, as I said, history and philosophy and, uh, literature. I'm a, I'm a biography junkie. Um, and, and I do enjoy a lot of stoic, uh, philosophy as well. And I'm just overjoyed to see that making a comeback. And I've just realized that it's, it's all been done before.

Uh, as a matter of fact, there's a, there's a quote in, uh, one of the Sherlock Holmes stories where Sherlock Holmes says, there's nothing new under the sun. It's all been done before and will be done again. And, and I think if you just understand that about human nature, about who we are as a species, then you can, you can predict for any kind of leadership situation, any kind of new technology or platform that's coming along. The formula is there and not enough people study history or take the time to look back at what we've done. They're always looking forward.

And particularly for this digital generation who are mostly digital natives, they haven't made the same mistakes that those of us that are digital immigrants have over the course of the last 20 years. We found out the hard way, but the things not to do the things to avoid the things that work. And some of them are coming to the table, you know, just five years in as if they've been, as if they're Prometheus, that they've discovered fire. And the news is it's been around a lot longer than you think. Do you think your education, do you think that helps you, um, be able to carve out what has the potential to be eternal from what is ethereal?

Cause I couldn't agree with that concept more. And it's something that I have, uh, shifted. You know, I recently actually, I just deleted Instagram from my phone a couple of weeks ago. Um, you know, I've, I've really tried to focus on, uh, delivering value in places that I believe have more of an eternal nature, uh, and, and less ethereal. Um, and I'm, I'm interested in what, what parts of your background you believe allow you to start to carve through that and, and what, how other people can look at their own work and find the things that, that have a more lasting nature.

Um, you know, that's, that's a tough question, Ryan, because to me, it's partly a sixth sense, if you will. And I don't know if I'm, if I'm eligible to say that or not. And I guess it's, you know, perhaps part of the futurist in me, which it's interesting that, you know, a classics major would talk about being a futurist. Um, I just, I have a, it's almost a smell test, you know, when, when Silicon Valley, uh, and it was pretty much led by Silicon Valley in the last three years or so was saying that autonomous vehicles are going to be here within the next three to five years. And, and, and talking about it in a very mainstream way, I knew that wasn't going to be the case.

You know, I look at the data points from a bunch of different perspectives from working in the automotive industry from, um, you know, dialoguing with people here in the Midwest. Uh, and, and, and people who are not in the city centers all around the country. Um, you know, being exposed to a lot of different viewpoints, I think helps inform that. And I knew that we probably won't see a mainstreaming of autonomous vehicles, driverless cars. You know, the, the fantasy where people are sitting in the back seat and their cars show for them from place to place.

We probably won't see that for decades because the reality is we're going to see a mixed medium of driving. There are going to be drivers on the road behind the wheel. They're going to be people with semi-autonomous vehicles or already are. There's going to be people, uh, in fully autonomous vehicles, but it's going to differ based on geography, based on ethnography, based on age and a whole bunch of other things. Right.

So in, in understanding all of those data points and, and understanding it in, you know, just in a moment. I can sniff out BS and call it out and discern what's going to actually take root and what isn't in the immediate future versus the long-term future. And so it's, it's, it's, you know, it's funny. It's when I first graduated from business school, which, you know, was basically following on my undergraduate education. I really had no significant work experience other than having been a writer for the national healthcare reform project under the veterans affairs department.

And I wanted a job as a strategist. Well, you don't really go directly into strategy, fresh out of business school, unless you've got some significant work experience. Why? Because strategy is the amalgamation is the consummation of having studied finance and accounting and operations and organizational behavior and all of the elements that make a business. And when you see how they work together, then, and only then can you become a decent strategist.

So for me, it's about putting all these things together and understanding them in context and then being able to make a, you know, semi-valid prediction or a reasonable recommendation to, to clients. Yeah. I just, I just, in my life, I do, I do newsletter as well, except it's a, it's video. So I, instead of writing every, I love to write. Um, but I just felt like I could potentially deliver more context, um, through, through video.

So I basically package up a video like a newsletter, um, and just deliver it via video. Um, and in the last one, it was talking about preparing for the end of social media and not that it was going to happen anytime soon, but that the idea of social media in, in, as a tool for the, as an organic growth engine for your business was coming, was coming to an end. Um, and I look in, in your, a lot of your writing, a lot of your viewpoints and not that I, I'm operating under the assumption that you share that viewpoint, but you, you have been, um, I don't want to say harsh, but, but critical, particularly of Facebook. Um, and I, I don't disagree with, with what you're saying. I'm just incredibly interested by it.

It's a viewpoint that I think outside of, I don't see a lot of people who have a marketing background taking. I see a lot of, uh, politically oriented talking head figures, uh, taking shots at some, at some of these, but it feels very surfacy. Um, the way in which you dive into some of your analysis of the platforms, um, particularly Facebook and the things that Zuckerberg is doing, it's incredibly interesting to me. Um, and I would love if you could just break down in particular, I'm thinking about, um, this is one of your more recent ones. It may even been the most recent one.

It actually is your, the leadership's guide to handling deception, where you dive into like some of Sasha Barrett Cohen's, um, talking points, which I watched that speech. It's, it's really, it's really interesting. Um, but what is the, maybe using some of your, your comments around Facebook as a, as a framework or a context, like where do you see these things going and why do we need to be careful of, um, what companies like Facebook are doing, uh, for our discourse? Well, I, I, I think it's a, an important observation, Ryan, and, and before I get too far into this, um, how wonderful is it that you do a video newsletter? Um, I think that's fantastic.

Um, and as much as you're, you've cut yourself off from Instagram and you know, I, I, I think there are a lot of good reasons to do that. Um, doubling down on video, just like doubling down on email. Uh, I think it's the same kind of thing and it allows you to build a relationship with people. And we are, let's face it, humans are a visual species. Um, we've communicated, we communicated with images before we communicated with language back to the cave paintings that were found from tens of thousands of years ago that were evidence of how humans communicated with each other.

And it is still universal the way we can look at someone and, and discern things. Um, and, and, and I, I completely agree with that direction. So specifically with Facebook and the issues I have there, my issues are not political. You know, I don't care what side of the political spectrum you fall on, whether you're conservative, liberal, moderate, et cetera. My problem is with ethics, integrity, and hypocrisy.

And what I've seen from Facebook again and again, and, and it really relates to the title of, of, um, this week's newsletter is about deception, how they've deceived users, how they've gotten into this business. Uh, the, the, the, the very first issue or, or, or notion that we had of Mark Zuckerberg and his intentions comes from, uh, IMs that were exchanged from his dorm room in Harvard. Where, and I, I believe it's from a transcript of a deposition or, uh, some kind of investigation where we actually have the documentation of he and somebody in, uh, in Harvard, IMing each other. And the guy says, well, how, how is it that you were able to, to put this, this thing together, this thing that would later become Facebook? And he said, I don't know.

People just gave me their info. They trust me. Dumb, you know, expletives. Yeah. Well, right there from its very inception, Facebook was predicated on duping people, on getting them to submit personal information.

With some false premise of trust. And that's exactly what has driven Facebook these last 15 years and, and still drives them. They don't care what you think, as long as they're getting their advertising money, as long as they're expanding, you know, and now between WhatsApp, Facebook, Instagram, and messenger. They reach one third of the world's population. And they're taking things fairly cavalierly on the one hand, they're saying, well, uh, we know what's best for us.

But on the other hand, we're too big to manage all of this stuff. Right. Which is kind of a, uh, an argument that eats itself. You know, if you are so big that you can't self regulate, then why should we allow you to be so big? And why does free speech need to happen on such a large platform?

And, and I think, uh, Sasha Baron Cohen, uh, put it so succinctly when he tore apart the argument that Facebook was making regarding freedom of speech and political advertising. Right. People can pay to lie or tell falsehoods. And Facebook is saying that's, that's fine with us. We're okay with that.

Cohen said freedom of speech is not the same thing as freedom of reach. Right. So you can lie all you want, but don't expect to pay for it and to allow publishers to publish that lie. Thanks to your payment. Right.

And that's, that's the fundamental difference here. So if you want to, and, and people will, will cry censorship all day long. Well, no, no, one's being censored. These people can still say whatever they want. But when it comes to, when it comes to weaponizing that monetizing it and scaling it so that more people see it and it becomes a form of propaganda.

And, and, and as, as, as Baron Baron Cohen said, democracy, which depends on shared truths. Uh, it, and when that's in retreat, um, and autocracy, which depends on shared lies is on the march. This is the crux of the matter we're dealing with right now. And when you reach a third of the world's population, you have a moral and ethical responsibility to ensure that harm is not being done. Or said another way that more good than harm is being done.

Yeah. I, you know, it's so interesting to me cause I'm, I, uh, I have, I have so many thoughts. So one, I, uh, as a, as a marketer, um, and as a former, uh, executive myself, I, you know, there, there's, there's like this certain, to reach certain customer bases. You know what I mean? You use these tools and you actually mentioned it and, you know, further down in your article where you're talking about how at the brand level, it's going to be difficult to convince brands to move away.

Right. Um, and advertising or messaging done well on these platforms or, and hopefully well and right, uh, can, can help a business reach customers and grow and deliver the right product at the right time to the right person. Um, and I think that there's at least an argument to be made for that. Uh, on the other hand, uh, as a, as a human, I struggle with Facebook. So much, um, because I've seen, you know, you, you just watch them change the rules so many times, just take out the depth of this particular issue.

Right. Which I, which I do want to come back to just at a surface level, the number of times they have changed the rules or change the game. And I get that, you know, Hey, it's a free platform. Hey, it's a free platform. And what do you expect for free?

And, and, and I, and I guess I can understand that argument to a certain extent, but just the number of times that they said, here's, here's how we want you using the platform. And then they changed the rules. And then you use the platform that new way and they changed the rules. And they use, and to think that even if it's not nefarious, that you could trust that, that you could trust the platform that consistently changes the rules. Um, even if all those rule changes aren't nefarious, uh, I just find that very difficult to deal with.

Um, and that, that in of itself makes me skeptical. And then, you know, I see, you know, like what, you know, I watched the same testimony of, of Zuckerberg. And, uh, though, I feel like, unfortunately, our political leaders often make a fool of themselves when they're doing those things. Uh, his statements, um, you know, have to be taken at face value. And, and it's so disheartening to hear, uh, you know, some of the things he said.

And, but the counter argument to that, and this is the fine line that I'm, I'm super interested in your perspective on is who determines what's a lie. That's what I always come back to. Right. Like, and I, and, and I, I mean, you know, I'm, I don't mean that to be political. Like who, if you believe one thing and I believe something else, which one of us is telling the truth and which one is lying.

Yeah. You know, and that's the part that really scares me because as we go further down this vein, because, because even though, and I don't mean to be on a soapbox here, I'm supposed to be interviewing you. I just find this topic to be so you, I didn't even plan on talking to you about this. And then I read this and I was like, this is what we have to talk about. Um, I just, you know, I, I watched, I watched Sasha Baron Cohen's thing and I would say 80% of it.

I was like pounding the table saying, you know, amen, bro, you know, very good stuff. And he's also frigging hilarious. Um, but there was this part of it that I can't help. And maybe it's, you know, my recovering libertarian side or whatever that says, what you're saying is your truth, not the truth. What if your truth isn't my truth?

And, and, and I don't, I mean that not politically, just in general, you know, I'm not taking a stance. I'm saying who, when the, the, the issue with these platforms for me in general is that someone is getting to determine the truth. Like any individual human who is always, and then, and going to, going to end up being biased one way or the other for, for, you know, even if it's not political, maybe they just don't play as many bills highlights as they do. New York giants highlights. You know what I mean?

So, you know, I, I'm a Buffalo bills fan. So, um, you know what I mean? Like something silly like that, but the, the idea that, um, as we go towards the truth, you know, this statement of, uh, democracy is based on shared truths, not shared lies is always who gets to determine which things are truths and which things are lies. And, and should we even be concerned about that? Well, what you've touched on here is one of the great philosophical debates of all time.

You know, how, how we determine what is, what is true and what is not. And, you know, it's, it's almost the George Costanza school of philosophy. Uh, George Costanza, that wonderful character from Seinfeld once famously said, Jerry, remember, it's not a lie if you believe it. And, and I, I forget that there, there actually is a philosophical debate about that very topic. And I forget exactly who the philosopher was, uh, off the top of my head.

Um, well, most recently it's Jordan Peterson. Well, right. But it, but it goes, it goes further back into the realms of philosophy. Um, and, and I, I, I just read something about this the other day that made that spring up and I can't remember who it was. But, you know, as, as, as we say, it's something that humans have been debating for a long time and it's not going to change anytime soon.

Now, look, there will always be certain empirical things that are backed by data that we, we can all agree on. Well, that we should be able to agree on. I think things have gotten more contentious and the situation that we're in right now, particularly politically, we've seen so many things questioned. And this is, this is part of the, uh, the strategy behind this. If you question enough things that are actually true, you begin to make doubters out of people who don't think for themselves.

And they then began to seriously doubt things that are always empirically. I mean, look at the flat earth society. How is it possible in almost 2020 that a flat earth society with tens of thousands of members actually exists when empirically it can be proven that the earth is round and in, in many different ways, you know, and, and these people fervently believe it. And why they, because they take it as a belief, they don't take it as accepted fact. Right.

Right. So, so bring this back to, to the likes of Facebook and, and their decision about a punting on political advertising. You know, their attitude is, well, who are we to say what's true or what's not? Well, exactly. Which is why you shouldn't be in the business of political advertising at all.

Right. You shouldn't be picking and choosing which things are true and aren't just get out of the political advertising business period. Right. Before let's say for political campaigns. Right.

Because if you, if you extract yourself out of all political issues, advertising, then suddenly you're in the realm of, I don't know, pro choice versus abortion, anti-vaxxers versus vaccinations, which that's another thing that's on the realm of flat earth society. Yeah. Yeah. There, there, there's a whole climate change, you know, there's a whole host of issues that are out there that we can debate on. Um, and that's certainly people can still weaponize, but at least if you take the, the political campaigns out of the advertising business on Facebook, that'll be one section removed from, um, continuing to spew some of these outright lies.

Yeah. I, I, um, philosophically, I, I, I agree with that point. And then I see someone like Andrew Yang, right. Who, if it wasn't for Facebook, we wouldn't even know that he existed like Facebook and Twitter, because you know, he, he, I shouldn't say, I shouldn't say this as fact. It is my perception in my, in my professional opinion.

I'm not even really a Yang supporter. I just, you know, I, I really like the Yang gang. They seem like they're pretty fun. Uh, and I am not anti Yang in any way. I just don't know that I'm sold on UBI yet, but, but he seems like a problem solver.

I don't want to get political. I just, I find him very interesting. He seems like a very interesting candidate to me. And out of all of them, if I had to see someone go up against Trump in a debate, I feel like he's one of the few who could take some of the punishment that would come. I don't know.

But, uh, uh, and again, I don't mean, I'm not for against Trump in any way, either way. I just don't mean to put political, but, uh, I just find it interesting, right. I want, I want, I want it to be, I want it to be good debate, not just yelling at each other. And, uh, I, what I see is it feels like, um, the story in mainstream media is very much a scripted story. And someone like Andrew Yang wouldn't have a shot if he didn't have a chance to reach an audience on these platforms.

And he's developed a very large following. And actually, because I don't believe political polling from mainstreams, I actually think that he's a scarier candidate to some of the front runners than they give on. And that is like entirely because of his ability to reach on the platforms. So like, if I'm thinking about it, like my gut tells me, ax political advertising from, from all social media. It, it's too divisive.

It's too easy to rig and game and all the thing, you know, and be deceptive and take a singular fact that, you know, if, if we're both looking at the number three, you can make that number three look good for you. And I can make that number three look good look for me. And no one knows any idea what that number three stands for, because it's meaningless to begin with. And, but how do you then coordinate that with someone who is not a mainstream favorite, who, who still has a voice and wants to be part of a campaign? How do you, is there a way or is that the kind of collateral damage of a decision like this?

Well, I, I think you've hit on, on a great point or counterpoint to eliminating political advertising on social media. And that is, it gives the income, if, if you were to eliminate political ads and social, it would give the incumbent the advantage. And certainly that's not what we want in America. I think we always want a, a fair fight. We always want people with good ideas to be able to come to the table, regardless of how minor they are as players.

This has always been the American dream. Anyone can grow up to be president. And, and certainly they have, you know, to me, I think back to the 2008 election. And of course that was the year that Obama won this guy who was not really known outside of a very few circles was a junior Senator may, you know, managed to have this amazing victory. And a lot of it, at least publicly was the, the success was contributed by social media that that's what really drove the success.

That was the popular opinion. Well, when I was at Ford, we brought in the consulting team that was behind the digital campaign for Obama. We wanted to learn from them. If we were to use a campaign style communication for a big corporation, what would it look like? What are the best practices?

And we brought them in and lo and behold, they told us that their secret was email. So here we come right back to email where we started, right? They said all they needed from people was a first name, a zip code and an email address. That's not too much data to give up, is it? And from there, they were able to build a relationship with people.

They were get, they were able to get people to opt in more and more to share more information. As they moved ahead, they could see the type of content that worked with them. They had, you know, amazing tools to, you know, arrange content, work with colors, do lots of testing on subject lines, etc. And they said all they needed to do in every single email was to present three things. Here's what you missed.

Here's what's coming next. Here's how you can get involved. Now that's a formula and that's a technology that anyone, regardless of their size, whether you're a small business owner, whether you're a local politician, whether you're somebody who's just starting out in, you know, coming out of college and want to make a name for yourself, you can do that. It's a simple formula on a universal technology that works wonders if you do it well. Yeah.

You remember his website? It was just a landing page. I do. It was just a land. It was just a single.

I mean, any hack who can download, you know, who can go to, uh, uh, Squarespace or whatever, download a standard theme from WordPress could have that website. You know what I mean? It was just a simple call to action with his picture in a, in a, in an, in a, uh, an embedded form. And, and that was really, that was the whole deal. Yeah.

That that's absolutely it. Yeah. I mean, take social media out of this entire, uh, equation and, and the basics are still there. Yeah. You know, it's funny to me cause I feel like the, so I am much more in this.

And this, if we were to call this the, um, if we were to call this the eternal camp, right? Uh, if there's a lever and one side of the, of the, uh, or, you know, uh, if there's a spectrum and one side of the spectrum is you create something and you can only do it once a year, but it lasts for all of history. And the other side is you can create a million things in a day, but every single one of them is gone by the end of the day. Um, you know, I would skew and I feel like you would too, more towards that, that, uh, eternal side. And if to, you know, using your, your terminology, the, the more ethereal end of the spectrum, you know, we have someone like, like Gary Vaynerchuk.

Right. And, uh, you said the other day in one of your newsletters that, you know, the often misunderstood or miss quoted or something to that nature. And, and I, and I agree with that sentiment that I think, uh, I think his message is often, um, misconstrued, uh, taken at a very shallow from a very shallow vantage point, which, which misses a lot of the depth of what he's trying to teach people. Um, but, um, it feels to me like you really have two options today and in the middle is where you get lost in the shuffle and you're just the noise and it is either doing something like what you're doing, uh, with timeless and timely. Um, it's solid, it's lasting, it makes you think, I mean, I've taken one newsletter that you sent out, I think yesterday, and we've had an entire conversation around it.

Um, because of the depth of, of the topic that you're addressing. Um, and then the other side is you go, you know, so, you know, Gary obviously has like a 30 person team to help him, but there are versions of this that, that even an individual can do where it is tons of, you know, the, the, the depth of the content is spread out over a thousand touches. Um, do you think it's fair to say that you really have to choose, you have to choose one way or the other and go swing far to, to be in that middle where you're creating a couple pieces of social media and then occasionally do something long. Like it's really difficult to be in that middle section and be successful with your message, regardless if you're promoting a business, a brand, a political campaign, whatever. Yeah, I, I think if you do anything in half measures, you're going to get half results or less.

Um, and, and look, I've, I've taken a very deliberate step in the direction I have, and there are not a lot of people out there that are clamoring for deep thinking and, and timeless messages. You know, there were there, I see all sorts of, um, well, you know, the social media quote unquote gurus out there who are getting business hand over fist because they're selling all of these get rich quick schemes. Basically, uh, they're telling people to focus on, Oh, you got to do a Snapchat story. What's your TikTok strategy? Um, you know, and on and on and on.

And I'm tired of chasing the latest trend and I'm tired of seeing executives with shiny object syndrome. Uh, and, and particularly at a time when CMOs tenure is as low as it's ever been some 18 months or so. You need as a, as a CMO, you need to sit down with your CEO and have a frank conversation about strategy and about the long term approach because chasing numbers and trying to meet, you know, monthly or quarterly quotas and, and trying to simply satisfy wall street is an impossible game. Um, and you're going to lose if, if, if not sooner, you will later creating a long term strategy, building relationships with the constituents that matter, whether it's customers, certainly employees, suppliers, shareholders as well. You know, this is part of the whole business round table, um, um, uh, statement of purpose of a corporation, uh, that came out a few months ago.

It's part of the, the, the Davos 2020, uh, statement that was just put out and businesses need to exist for more than just their shareholders. And you need to put a stake in the ground and say, all right, either I'm going to, I'm going to do this short term chase because that's simply the dance that my CEO is requiring me to do. Or I'm going to have a frank conversation about what our business means, what values we have, what our mission is, what we're trying to accomplish and determine the best way forward to do that. Yeah. Yeah.

Um, Ron tights new book, think, do say, or thinks, think, do say, do say, Oh, Jesus. No, I'm going to butcher it. I apologize, Ron. Uh, purpose before product. Right.

I mean, he just, that's, he pounds that over and over and over again. And I had him on the show a few weeks ago and, um, and he's, you know, we, we just pounded that topic. Cause I could not agree with you more. I couldn't agree with him more. Like this is the driving factor.

And, and I, and I know you don't know a tremendous amount about my history, but most of my, uh, most of my tenure has been inside the insurance industry in particular and in particular independent insurance agents. So, um, not the guy goes in state farms and these big brands, but, but, uh, you know, smaller, relatively smaller carriers and in some instances and, and, and smaller agencies. Uh, and you know, this idea of hammering home purpose, right? We, before we think about product before we think about, Oh my God, think about, uh, our, our investors or our shareholders, our shareholders, like the value that they derive is meaningless. If we're, if we, if we haven't backed all the way up, but, uh, we've gotten into this space and, and, and you even said it of people chasing tactics and selling courses.

You know, one thing is that's a, that's a real shitty life. Like if your life is the next tick tock ebook, because you know, Gary V just put out a, put out a video about it. Like you're, that's a shitty life. Like I don't want that life. And, um, but I do believe I'm going to disagree with you on one point.

And you, you, you, you started your last answer with, there's not many people clamoring for deep thinking. And I could not disagree with you more on that topic. I think that people are dying for deep thinking. They don't know where to go with it and they don't yet know who to trust. But I believe that if, if Joe Rogan, if, you know, and I, and I do follow these, you know, the, whatever it technically called the IDW.

I just, I like the way that they attack things, even though I don't agree with them all, all the time, this long form diving into really complex topics and having respectful, um, but product and productive disagreements on things. I feel like this is the, this is the discourse that people are dying for there. There's, there's, they're just had the pendulum hasn't swung back far enough yet. There there's only so many people like you doing a newsletter like this. I would love to hopefully think that my, you know, 18 to 30 minute video newsletter, that that could someday be part of that conversation.

Like this type of deeper, richer, more dynamic conversations, um, or beginnings of conversations I feel are what people are dying for. They just don't know where to go to get them yet because there aren't enough of you out there creating them. And, uh, you know, hopefully it's conversations like this that, that point more people towards resources like yours. Well, I, you know what, Ryan, I, I, I would agree with that assessment. I think there, there is a need for this out there and, you know, I'm working on a book, uh, right now and it's going to be largely informed by the newsletters and blog posts that I've done.

Um, but I'm still trying to put some shape around it and it's going to be something deeper. It's going to be around virtuous leadership and, and what that means. But the, the thing that I haven't seen come to fruition yet is people hiring for this kind of thing. People bringing in executive coaches, advisors like me, uh, to help them think through these things. They haven't gotten to the point where it's a business requirement yet.

Uh, and, and I'm sure there are CEOs out there, but this is a particularly C-level, uh, discussion, um, or C-suite discussion who, who are beginning to think that way. But I just haven't seen it, um, spring out yet as far as I'm concerned with people who want advice, who want help to work through some of these thorny issues, uh, within their organizations. I agree with that point. I, I completely agree with that. Like I, I, I think that it is a need that they are, if I had to guess, and I'm speaking from more, this is specifically to the insurance industry.

Cause that's where I've done the executive, um, kind of coaching that I've done. Like it's there, but it's the conversation you have over the glass of scotch at the bar. Not when you're sitting in the conference room, working the whiteboard, talking through ideas, listening to game, you know what I mean? Like when you're doing the work, you get the, what you would expect from a, you know, 20, you know, two, you know, 2019 leader, right? All the cliches.

And then you go have the glass of scotch afterwards and decompress. And now all of a sudden you start to dive into these things and you're like, why didn't you say that when we were sitting in the room? Like, that's where we need to go. And I find that so, so, and this is why, like my perspective, you know, that I shared before with you was that I just don't think the pendulum has swung back enough yet where people are comfortable having these conversations in the open. And it's why when I can have someone on like you and have a conversation like this that includes a little bit of vulnerability and some, some, some insightful connections into deeper topics, I think it's important because what I hope is it shows people that these type of conversations are okay.

That it's not, you're not showing weakness by hiring Scott Monty to come into your office and work you through how you be the best version of your position. That that's not a sign of weakness. It's a sign of strength. And I think that's where we need to get. Well, you know, Ryan, I, I, I think that's so well put and it, it kind of underscores some of the thinking and the references I've made recently.

And it's not just because it's, it's trendy because of the movie. It's, it's something I've thought of for a while. If you go through my, my archives, my website, et cetera, you'll see it's, it's there throughout. And that is the, what I've come to appreciate again, as an adult, just like I've come to appreciate my classics education. Um, I appreciate the wisdom of Fred Rogers more and more and his simple truths, his willingness to slow down, you know, to, to, to slow the cadence down, to listen to people, particularly to children.

And to encourage them to simply express what's on their minds and to say, it's okay with who they are. Um, I think if we can take that same kind of philosophy and apply it to business, we'll achieve the outcomes that you were just talking about, um, with regard to it being okay to have these thoughts, to, to express these kinds of things and to begin to push that pendulum forward together. Scott, I think that that is a wonderful place to end our conversation. I want to thank you so much for your time. And, uh, I want to thank you for the work you do on your newsletter and just in general, uh, you are very giving with your insight and your experience and the fact that, uh, a lot of the content that you give away, um, is, is completely free for people just to subscribe to your newsletter, uh, is a, uh, is a gift.

So, uh, if you could just let people know the place that you would like them to go to connect with you, um, that would be tremendous. Absolutely. Well, thank you for that. Well, easiest way to find me and my content is at scottmonte.com and I put out one newsletter a week. You know, I, I used to try and overachieve and do lots of stuff.

I've cut it back. Um, however, I do have a bonus subscription for people that support me on Patreon. Just go to patreon.com slash scottmonte. Um, there you can get an additional post per week. If you like the insights that you're getting every Wednesday, every Friday, I send a bonus one just for my Patreon supporters.

So scottmonte.com will get you to all of those places. Thank you so much, Scott. It's been a pleasure. Thank you, Ryan. Thank you.

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