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Episode 189: Damon Brown on ‘Bring Your Worth’ and the Secret Power of Cocktail Napkins
127 Plays5 years ago
Damon Brown is the author of Bring Your Worth and he joins me to talk about that, creativity, and a whole lot more.
Thanks to Bay Path University's MFA in Creative Nonfiction Writing for the support.
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Transcript
Introduction and Banter
00:00:00
Speaker
You hear me? I can. How's it going, Damon? Gray, you got a great radio voice. It's coming in clear. Oh, fantastic. We'll always love hearing that.
Spotlight on Bay Path University's MFA Program
00:00:17
Speaker
You're going to want to discover your story with Bay Path University's fully online MFA in creative, non-fiction writing. That's what we do, right? The faculty have a true passion and love for their work. It shines through with every comment, edit, and reading assignment. The instructors are available to answer all your questions and their years of experience as writers and teachers have made for an unbeatable experience. Head over to baypath.edu slash MFA for more information.
Podcast Introduction and Guest Introduction
00:00:58
Speaker
That's right, this is CNF, the Creative Nonfiction Podcast, where I speak to badass writers about the art and craft of telling true stories. I'm your host, Brendan O'Mara. Hey, hey. Today's guest is Damon Brown. He's the author of something like 27 books, mostly independently published, but he's a non-traditional author and entrepreneur in his latest book, Bring Your Worth.
00:01:12
Speaker
Alright. You ready? Let's do this.
Career Insights from Damon Brown
00:01:24
Speaker
That's what got us talking.
00:01:25
Speaker
Damon and I met at Hippocamp 2019 at a bar and we immediately hit it off and had one of those great conversations about creativity, agency, and being a giver and trying to rise all those tides. You know how that is. Jeanette Hurt was his partner in crime for that weekend and they gave this great talk about earning money as a writer while you sleep, repurposing your work, et cetera.
00:01:53
Speaker
It's these great things that you get when you meet people face to face, which sure as hell beats anything you can do on social media. 9.8 out of 10 times. Jeanette will be on at some point, I'm sure. All good, good stuff.
Hippocamp Conference Highlights
00:02:11
Speaker
This also gives me a chance to let you know that early registration for Hippocamp 2020 is open. This is a shout out from my friend Donna Tallarico and the deepest of endorsements from me and the podcast. Visit hippocamp2020.hippocampismagazine.com. It's going to test your typing skills, but do it up. You can also just Google Hippocamp 2020. Sign up for those early slots. I think there's only like 20 of them. Best money you'll spend on a conference this year. I promise you.
00:02:42
Speaker
That's nice. I don't have a whole lot to add this week other than I hope you're finding out how to get the work done. I'm staggering around like a drunk, a bit aimless. Not getting quite what I want done, but that'll come.
00:02:58
Speaker
It reminds me of CNFers. We all need editors. We all need editing. We all need accountability. If you've got an essay or a book that needs coaching, I'd be honored and thrilled to serve you and your work. Email me, brendan at brendanamare.com. And let's start a conversation because the world needs your work.
00:03:20
Speaker
We need you to show up, and I sure as hell would be honored to help. All right, you ready? You ready for this? Let's do this. Here's Damon Brown at Brown Damon on Twitter. Enjoy this conversation.
Impact and Community at Hippocamp
00:03:41
Speaker
It's been a while since August when we met and first started talking. What you've been up to since then? How did you parlay the momentum of Hippo Camp into what you've been working on the last few months? Yeah, so it was interesting where Hippo Camp ended up being really good feedback and I'm involved with American Society of Journalists and Authors. I used to be part of the leadership there.
00:04:06
Speaker
I'm also involved with the TED conference up in Vancouver. And it was nice with Hippo Camp because it was just focused on the art of writing. With ASJA, it's very much the business of writing. With TED, it's the business of public speaking. At least that's what I get out of TED and how to convey ideas. With Hippo Camp, it was like the craft. And I had an experience that
00:04:34
Speaker
very much since grad school, which was a very long time ago. So it's a really nice energy with that and also to with everyone being coming from a different direction. Because it was very much like
00:04:47
Speaker
meaning people who are like former lawyers, people who are investigative journalists, people who who aren't writers at all, you know, in the professional sense, and of all walks of life from people who are much younger than I to people who are twice my age and being able to talk with them.
00:05:05
Speaker
and having this united discussion. So it was energizing. And I went with my good friend Jeanette Hurt, who's also a writer. We're goal buddies, so we've been on the same path for probably about two decades. And so I was able to go with her. I presented with her about how to make a living as a writer, and that the starving artist myth was just that.
00:05:28
Speaker
And so we're able to bring some of our business savvy, hopefully to the conference, but it was refreshing for both of us to kind of have a discussion about again, the craft and the work as opposed to how to make a living at the work, which are really 2 different discussions.
The Importance of Goal Buddies and Networks
00:05:44
Speaker
That's great that you and Jeanette are our goal buddies like that, accountability buddies. So that's so important and it definitely keeps you honest, but it keeps you on track and it helps to get you out of your own head too, right?
00:05:59
Speaker
Absolutely, yeah, and I'm very much what you'll call like an eagle, you know, where I like flying on my own. The notable things that I've had in my career, the things that I might have been most known for that brought me some prominence, they were things I ended up doing on my own as far as them being unique or different.
00:06:19
Speaker
Like you know becoming a starter founder at the same time that My wife went back to work and as a stay-at-home dad with my four-month-old, you know things like that where it's just like combining things that Aren't usually combined and to do that you have to learn to walk alone however, though just because you're walking alone that doesn't mean you are alone and
00:06:43
Speaker
And that's been a lot of discussions of the keynotes and the discussions even in bring your worth my latest book that I talk about where it's just like you need to You need to have a crew You need to have a brain trust whatever you want to call them and not necessarily cheerleaders like, you know Hopefully you have your mother and your father or whomever that will support you no matter what but it's something a little bit different something where people actually push you to where you want to go my definition of that is if you
00:07:12
Speaker
Have people around you that you trust that love you in whatever however you define love Who know what your ultimate goal is? And we'll be honest enough with you to have you stick to it And so almost like a mirror of yourself And so when I have certain set goals and i'm an ambitious person so when I have certain set goals then um
00:07:36
Speaker
It'll be Jeanette. I have two really good writer friends Deidre Bishop over in Buffalo and my best friend Raymond Johnson. He's down in in the Carolinas. Both of them have a fiction background.
00:07:51
Speaker
And so in my background is nonfiction, I have two degrees in journalism. And so they give me a certain type of flavor. And so in a few other people that are just constantly around that are saying, okay, well, your intention is this, what you just wrote really gives this intention, or I know you're being tempted by this, but you said this is what you wanted this year. And it's not a matter of
00:08:16
Speaker
them being upset or vice versa, me being upset at them as far as them deviating from them goals. It's just a matter of keeping each other honest and saying, okay, is this what you really want? Because it's okay if your goals change. You just need to acknowledge it ahead of time and have people around you that acknowledge it. The thing is that usually when we end up missing our goals, it happens in degrees.
00:08:41
Speaker
It's not really, okay. I suddenly, you know, I want to be a bestselling author and then suddenly I want to be a painter. Like it's usually not that black and white. It's usually, I want to be a bestselling author. Okay. I can't find an agent. Okay. Well, maybe I'll do this a little bit and then work on the agent and think, Oh, well, you know what? I'm having a hard time writing. I'm having some writing. Try this block. It's when I let that go a little bit and ends up being an increments.
00:09:08
Speaker
And those incremental decisions end up affecting where we end up landing. And so me having Jeanette, me having Ray, me having Deirdre, me having other folks that are around, just a handful of folks that they keep me honest.
Setting Goals: Vision vs. Concrete Plans
00:09:22
Speaker
And I know I wouldn't be able to achieve what I've achieved without them. So I highly recommend having Gold Buddies, someone that you talk to regularly that knows your hopes and your dreams. And it loves you enough to keep you on track and at least help you know when you're deviating from them.
00:09:37
Speaker
I think embedded in that too is and probably a reason why a lot of people kind of flail or tread water or don't achieve the kind of success they want is that they're not concrete about the goals they're setting and setting metrics and little steps along the way to achieve those goals and in your work and the people you help and the people within your tribe so to speak
00:10:00
Speaker
How important is it to get real specific, real concrete about what the goals are? That way, you know, you've got a lighthouse in the distance.
00:10:08
Speaker
Yeah, I think you have to be concrete and I just wrote about this I have a as you know I have a column with Inc magazine and I do the column almost every day, which is kind of like my exercise is kind of like our our mutual mentor Seth Godin talks about as far as doing the the the daily the daily column that he sends out to people it's it's very similar for me as far as me doing my ink column, it's at um, it's at Inc Damon brown calm and
00:10:36
Speaker
And I just wrote a column about this about a week ago. And there's kind of two layers to it. The first layer is that you can get into trouble when you're too concrete with your goals. So if you say, all right, I'm going to be a millionaire by the time I turn 30. That sounds like a good goal.
00:10:55
Speaker
you know, I might have had that goal or that discussion, you know, when I was in my 20s, I can't remember. But but you know, but that's a lot of people have that goal that discussion, particularly nowadays, when people are talking about their financial freedom and retiring early. Alright, so that sounds like a good goal. But what happens if you fall just short of that? Or what happens if, if you're going towards a path of that, and you realize you have to make decisions that are against your scruples to actually reach that goal?
00:11:25
Speaker
then suddenly you have a conflict. And it's really easy to go in the other extreme and say that money is evil or I don't care about money, which are both untrue. And so it's easier or it's better to go and instead of having like a concrete goal that it's just like fixed to say, this is what kind of impact or what type of life I want to have. So instead of having the vision of saying, I'm going to be a millionaire by the time I'm 30,
00:11:54
Speaker
Maybe saying I want to have financial independence by the time I'm 30 and if you say that Then all these other layers and as Simon Senna says your why your why starts to appear Well, why do you want to be financial independent? Well, I want don't want to be dependent on credit cards or I want to go and have the freedom to travel which as you and I just talked about I really love to travel so it's like I'll have the ability to travel or I
00:12:19
Speaker
If I end up having an extended family, they'll be able to take care of them and so forth. And suddenly the goal isn't just this cold metric. And it's not like a ruthless thing you have to hit because you could be an 800,000 error by the time you turn 30 and you think you're a failure.
00:12:36
Speaker
And so I think we can get too fixed on our goals. And again, I'm very ambitious. So I'm a goal oriented person. And so I've learned this the hard way where it's it can be if you're too fixed in your goal, then that's that's not it. The second layer of it is that sometimes we end up creating goals that are out of our control. Like if your goal is to have a best selling book. You know, Brendan, you know, as well as I do, that's like, oh, like like five million factors.
00:13:06
Speaker
like the secret sauce that goes into the New York Times, bestseller lists, or as well as the WSJs, the quality of your agent, if you end up publishing independently. I've done both, and I've had bestsellers as a, as a tradition published author and as a self published author, two very different experiences. You know, as far as the timing of your book, as far as if the audience is ready for your book,
00:13:32
Speaker
If you're mature enough as an author to do the book, if your publisher took care of the book, if you have competing books that are coming out, if you have a book coming out the same time that Hillary Clinton has a book coming out, you're probably not going to be the number one. And I mean, as you know, books take like, if I got a book deal right now with a traditional publisher, it'll be out maybe in 18 months.
00:13:54
Speaker
you don't know what the climate's going to be. And so now you're hanging your hat on something that you do not have control over. That to me is like a recipe for disaster. And it's not sustainable. And as you know, I do coaching and I've coached folks that continually have like these goals, which on the surface sound amazing, and I want them to achieve them. But then they have getting frustrated because those goals often have so many factors that are out of their control.
00:14:18
Speaker
One of the things that I talk to folks a lot about, and it's also from Seth Godin as well as from other folks, is having the goal or what I call the vision, which is broader than the goal.
When to Persevere or Pivot
00:14:30
Speaker
Again, being a millionaire by the time you turn 30 versus wanting to be financially independent, not only just having the vision, but also deciding when you're going to quit.
00:14:41
Speaker
And there's this classic story about an ultra marathon runner and I always forget his name dick something I think is I forget his last name But he he's an older guy probably in his 80s when when when he was interviewed he had done a hundred ultra marathon runs which you know are probably like 80 miles in the Sahara Desert that kind of thing and It's like how do you sustain yourself? How do you keep going and he says before I even sign up for the race? I decide when I'm going to quit and
00:15:10
Speaker
So if one of my knees goes out, I will keep going. But if both of my knees go out, I'm out. And so he does that. So if it's, you know, it's the Sahara, so it gets really cold at night. So if it's like zero degrees in the Sahara, and one of his knees is hurting, he knows he's going to keep going. He doesn't have to think about it. He doesn't have to decide. It's not like, Oh, well, I'm cold and wet right now. So maybe this is a good time to quit. No, that doesn't even cross his brain. Because he's already decided.
00:15:40
Speaker
If you decide that you want to be a best selling author and you say, but I'm going to try this for a year and if it doesn't work as far as finding an agent that I like, then I'll change my my vision.
00:15:52
Speaker
then you know what your deadline is. And if it comes to a point where your scruples are in question, or if it comes to a point where an agent, I've fired agents before. So if it comes to the point where your agent isn't quite doing what they're supposed to be doing, you can't find a good one, whatever, then you know what your deadline is. And I think a lot of us focus just on this goal. You know, we pin it on the wall, and we say no matter what, we're going to hit this goal.
00:16:16
Speaker
And there's so many that can get us so myopic as far as how we live our lives. And if we're going to be lifetime writers, which I plan on being, then we need to have a broader view. If you want to come into the game and be a writer and have a best selling book and do that for like a couple of years, then maybe your goals are different. If you actually want to have a sustainable career, then you have to have some type of vision and know when you're going to stop pursuing something, you know?
00:16:43
Speaker
What's what would you say is your relationship between quitting in grit so grit and quit? You know that the you know the perseverance you need to push through versus actually this is time for me to jump ship and go to something else Totally. I think that line is number one established you have to establish that from from the get-go Because a lot of motions come into play I've been in that situation a few times where the second startup I did is
00:17:11
Speaker
It became one of the most popular apps of 2014. It was called Cuddler. And we were three guys and not a lot of, if any, startup experience bootstrapped the company. And we had a quarter million users within a couple of months and were on the daytime talk shows and the nighttime shows and all that. It was a crazy run. And we established early on, though, at least I did as a co-founder when I was going to stop.
00:17:41
Speaker
And so when you're on that rocket ship, that's not when you want to decide if you're going to keep going or not. It's, it's, it's, it's too emotionally intense. Like, you know, it's, it's, it's like that thing where they say, well, you know, don't make this decision now sleep on it. Like it's the same thing except 10 X that of course you don't want to make a decision while you're in that. So the challenge with grit is that grit can keep you going when you shouldn't be.
00:18:10
Speaker
Like imagine if the climate actually changed, or I'll give a writer's example. If you're writing a book and one of your fictional characters doesn't make any sense, like it doesn't fit into the narrative.
00:18:26
Speaker
or even on the nonfiction side, which my first major book was called Porn and Pong, How Grand Theft Auto Tomb Raider and Other Sexy Games Changed Our Culture. And I spent five years in that book and I was still in my 20s. So it was a lot of time at that period of time.
00:18:41
Speaker
And there were video games and insights and interviews that I did that didn't make any sense in the narrative. Now, the reason why I bring that up is grit would say, no, Damon, you you figure out how to fit that in there. No, you did this interview. You spent six months tracking this person down. You did this extensive interview with them. You're not just going to have one quote from them. You're going to have a whole chapter about their experience because that's worthwhile. That is like the dark side of grit to me.
00:19:09
Speaker
where it's like, no, you're going to persevere no matter what. It's almost like an abstinence. And it's like, but, but, but, but you're ruining the narrative. The book isn't going to flow. Like all these other things are going to get cheapened. You're going to take the writer or the reader out of this experience. You know, you're going to, you're going to cheapen the narrative. And so you have to make a decision.
00:19:32
Speaker
And I'm a fairly gritty person, so I've been there where it's like, you sometimes have to let it go and turn away. And I think, number one, having that brain trust with the people around you helps with that. Number two, experience helps with that. Number two, failure helps with that. And those periods of time where I've shared with people that
00:19:56
Speaker
I have that curse of actually reaching nearly all of my goals. Because what happens is, right? Because it ends up being a double-edged sword. Because if you end up reaching those goals, then number one, you realize how much you sacrifice to get there. But if you're really focused, you don't realize that after the fact. And I talk about that in the precursor to bring your worth, the bite-size entrepreneur.
Sustainable Career Development
00:20:25
Speaker
where there's so many people that are saying, I want to get my company acquired by Google. I want to, again, have my best-selling book. I want to be a keynote speaker. I want to be a TED speaker. Whatever that grand goal is, they end up having that. They're focused on that. And all these things are left in their wake. But eventually, you need to get off stage.
00:20:47
Speaker
Eventually your company will get acquired and then you'll just be a normal human being, you know as was the case with me, you know eventually you're gonna have the best-selling book and then guess what it's gonna be the next flavor of the month the following week and Eventually as I say in the book you eventually have to come home and so if you're going to be a long-distance writer if you want to call it that yeah, I
00:21:11
Speaker
a long-distance creator, then it's like you have to stretch things out a little bit more. And so when I hit my major goals, having my first best-selling book come, getting my company acquired, and we bootstrapped it from scratch and getting it sold about 11 months after we started, it ended up being these mixed things where in some cases I did sacrifice a life plot to get there. And as I got older with these big goals, I ended up finding a way to reach them without sacrificing everything.
00:21:43
Speaker
And it felt completely different because eventually the money is going to go away. Eventually, the the best selling status will will go away. Eventually, your company will be acquired. And then, you know, my company was acquired five years ago now. Like, that's amazing to me. And, you know, you can do a Google search on it, but that's not luckily that's not what I'm known for anymore. I'm known for other things. But I mean, if that was my claim to fame and again, I was a stay at home dad still am so
00:22:12
Speaker
We end up selling the company right after my son's second birthday And so would have been a stretch of time from shortly after he was born to a second birthday If I hadn't bounced things correctly in my words Then I would have missed that totally missed that period of time with him And the only thing I would have had is a trinket of my company getting acquired Like that breaks my heart, but I know a lot of people that make those decisions every day my main goal as a coach as a speaker as as an author is
00:22:41
Speaker
is to help people pull people out of that moment and say okay you're you're on this this this rocket ship okay remember that the rocket ship's eventually going to come down not in a bad way it's just you eventually have to come home so let's prepare you in a way to come home so that you actually have something to come home to and i mean this of course metaphorically and then if you have not gotten to the point where you're
00:23:09
Speaker
you're on your rocket ship, which I think most of us have our own rocket ship. Before you buy your ticket to it, establish those parameters. So create your systems, stabilize things around you, make sure that you have your support network, make sure that your craft is sharp enough. When Ted called me, I was not expecting it.
00:23:32
Speaker
And luckily, I had already been doing speaking engagements, like for the American Society of Journalists and Authors for the Society of Professional Journalists, I even did a keynote at the Adult Entertainment Expo, which is over here in Las Vegas, you know, actually, right, so it's quite an experience. Again, my book was called porn and pong. So, you know, so that was part of that discussion when the book came out 10 years ago. But so so by the time Ted called,
00:24:01
Speaker
I was already doing free or low cost speaking engagements. And so it was I was nervous as hell, but I was ready. And so that's what I mean by getting people ready, because I think for many of us, we lean into once Oprah calls or once, you know, we end up getting a Brene Brown cosine or whatever, then we're going to be ready. You know, it's it's amazing where
00:24:27
Speaker
with the stuff happening with American Dirt which you're probably already familiar with with all the the chaos is happening regarding that and the controversy and with that novel and the publisher and it sounds like the author deciding not to go on book tour because of all the controversy and it makes me think about if the author
00:24:48
Speaker
actually had the proper support to say, listen, this book is going to be controversial. Maybe you should go around a little bit and do speaking engagements in Juarez or El Paso or in Gallup.
00:25:03
Speaker
or in Tempe or in San Diego and kind of gauge what the public opinion is and figure out how you can couch this since your background is white and you're talking about the Mexican migrant experience. I know when I did Porn and Pong,
00:25:22
Speaker
It was about five years again of me, me working on it. I let go of, I found a good agent and then things shifted, had to let go of that agent. I found publishers that were interested and they got cold feet. It was just a lot of adventures, really learning about the business side of publishing. And during that whole period of time, I was speaking at the Adult Entertainment Expo.
00:25:44
Speaker
I was speaking again at the journalism conferences. I was speaking, I spoke at a University of California Santa Cruz about the history of technology and sexuality. So I was already out there. So when the book came out, I had people that actually wanted the book banned. I had a major event over in Portland and someone was actually protesting my event. So when it happened,
00:26:10
Speaker
I was ready and I was ready to have those discussions. I'm not trying to blame Janine Cunnings for her approach to things. It's just with them deciding to cancel the book tour at the last minute, I'm wondering if some of that could have been avoided if they did proper preparation. And I'm wondering if that was part of it. That's the only reason why I bring it up. Because when Point & Pong came out, it was pretty controversial back in 2008.
00:26:34
Speaker
In fact, it was banned in Sri Lanka and a couple other countries, which is kind of a claim to fame now, but I was like, okay, you know, I'm just talking about technology and sex. Like those are things that go back into the history of time. But because I did that preparation, once the publisher did come, once I did find the right agent, once the book was published, I was ready. And a lot of the coaching and discussions I do, particularly in my latest book, Bring Your Worth, are about prepping people, creatives,
00:27:04
Speaker
to get ready for that ride. Because you can sit there and say, I want a bestseller, but then not know what goes into that. You can sit there and say, I want to be a millionaire and not know what responsibility goes into that. And so I'm trying to prep people, particularly creatives, to get ready for that part of the journey that they keep wishing for.
00:27:24
Speaker
And earlier, you brought up your relationship to ambition and your ambitious person. And where does that come from? And what's your relationship to ambition and the goals that you've set for yourself and the goals that you have going forward?
00:27:43
Speaker
Really good question. I've been trying to figure it out for for decades. I'm not sure I'm apologizing in advance. I'm not sure how much I can unpack it for you. The layers that I have discovered, though, is first of all, me wanting to make an impact while I'm here.
00:28:01
Speaker
One of the things that I've always been aware of is that my time here is limited, even when I was a kid, like I just knew. And it wasn't like anything like dramatic happened in my life or not a whole lot of death or anything like that. Like I've been really fortunate where people I've been close to haven't passed away until much, much later in my life. But yeah, I just knew. It was just kind of a time clock going on. It's like, okay, time is limited. What are we going to do? So I think that's one, is being very, very acutely aware of time.
00:28:32
Speaker
I think two is wanting to make some type of impact. I think part of this actually comes from my journalism training. There's kind of a chicken in the egg where I wonder if my brain was already kind of leaning towards this and journalism appealed to me or vice versa. But one of the biggest lessons I got, I was in high school.
00:28:53
Speaker
I just got into journalism. I was a fiction writer since I was three years old, believe it or not, which is the age of my youngest son. So it gives me a really big perspective where it's like, wow, I always knew I wanted to be a writer. And when I was in high school, I was encouraged to get involved with the school newspaper. And I'm like, no, I'm fiction. And like many journalists, I did my first story and I realized how weird stuff can get.
00:29:23
Speaker
And I was like, oh, this is more interesting than anything I can make up. Like, I love this. Like, I can interview people and I'll say this weird stuff and this weird stuff will happen. This is real life. And I can say it's nonfiction. This is great. So when I was when I was in my my journalism class and on the school newspaper back when I was in my junior year of high school, my my adviser, Miss Mitchell, I'll never forget, I was trying to make a story perfect, you know, which is all of us can relate to.
00:29:53
Speaker
And she said, it's not going to matter if no one reads it. It's like you're on deadline. It's literally going to the press. This is back in the day when they had to paste up the newspaper. It's going to the press now. We need to send it to the press. And they need to paste it up and cut it and cut into little pieces and print it off the Mac, which was a new computer at the time. And it's like, we're going to do all this stuff. And it's like, Damon, you need to turn in the story now.
00:30:21
Speaker
Because you can make the story perfect. You're working on it all night, but no one's going to read it. And like, as you can tell, this is many, many years later, that's still six with me where the story that's never read, like wasn't written at all. Right. So so right. So I put that into into everything. It's like, OK, even with Bring Your Worth, which came out February of 2019, I could have kept writing that book.
00:30:51
Speaker
It would have been that infinite book. Most of my books are like that where I could have just kept writing, just could have kept writing. And as I get older, as I become more mature, I know when to stop. And that idea of knowing that I eventually have to stop adds a level of purity and no nonsense to whatever I do.
00:31:15
Speaker
Um, i'm i'm definitely ambitious, but i'm probably more i've been described more as intense But I think that's where that intensity comes from where it's like And the third level would be because of my journalism training again two degrees in journalism So, you know, I was a journalist before got two degrees in it and then have been a journalist for a couple decades now and
00:31:39
Speaker
The last thing would be with journalism, you have a certain economy of words and every word has to count. If you don't, if you add extra words to whatever you have to say in your story, then that's in the newspaper world, we used to show length by inches. So if I end up spending an extra half an inch in the newspaper page,
00:32:08
Speaker
Trying to describe something that could have been described equally. Well, if not better In unless then that's a half inch i'm taking from someone else's story How much am I contributing to the noise? And if i'm not getting to the point if i'm not focused if i'm not if i'm not clear on my intention Then the reader's not going to be clear on whatever the story is supposed to be again. It's back to cutting out the fat It's back to
00:32:34
Speaker
I did this two hour long interview with with a legendary person. And there's exactly one quote I can use from the interview, but it makes sense in the whole. So what's your main intention? And it always goes back to that. I think if you go back to your main intention, then you suddenly get clarity. And again, with the work that I do, particularly in the second half of my career, where I focus more on our focus, I focus on my first half of my career, I focus on becoming a creative myself.
00:33:03
Speaker
And it's second half of my career, probably right before I became an entrepreneur, I focused more on helping other people become their best creative. And that's the number one rule is, is what's your intention? And if you get, for many of us, we're ambitious. So if we actually get what we're, what we're thirsty for, then things can move really quickly. And so it's like, how can we clear that and make sure that we have the right intention?
00:33:32
Speaker
How did you get comfortable at that watershed moment of realizing yourself as a creative person to then transitioning to helping other people fulfill their creative visions?
From Personal Success to Mentoring Others
00:33:47
Speaker
What was that like? Some people get stuck in a constant creative and they don't have that teacher switch or that paying it forward switch. How did you cultivate that and what was that moment like for you?
00:34:02
Speaker
I can tell you exactly when it happened. Twice, actually. So the first time was when my book Porn and Pong came out. It was 2008. My wife and I, now wife and I had just moved to the Bay Area. I was living in San Francisco. So perfect place to launch a book about intimacy and technology. So it was a really good time. And the book came out. My good friend threw a launch party
00:34:30
Speaker
You know, I had bootstrapped my own book tour because it went from a very small publisher who had no money for my book tour. And so I've lived all across the country. I'm originally from South Jersey. I grew up in the Midwest. I lived down in New Orleans for a little while and then lived all up and down the California coast. And so I hit all the places I lived. And it was just great. It was almost like a homecoming. And then I came back home and I just had this book.
00:35:00
Speaker
And I realized that this was a manifestation. Again, remember, I was I think I just just got I just think I think I just turned 30. So I spent most of my 20s working on this book or this concept. And then that was it. And so this was going to be my great American novel. Like this was it, even though it wasn't novel, but you understand. And so so it came out and then I was like, great, I, I could I could wrap it up now.
00:35:29
Speaker
Like I said what I have to say. Beautiful. Now what? And me realizing that now I had this platform, now I had some attention. And it's like, well, maybe now is the time when I start helping other people raise their voices. Because what I, the journey I just completed over the past five years was incredible. How many other people
00:35:57
Speaker
Weren't that lucky or how many people don't know how to how to start that journey or how many people are stuck on that journey? How many people will never have that fulfilled? So when I started helping other people and so that's when I started co-authoring books with with other folks and I think end up doing so I've done 24 books and I'd say about half of them are co-authorships during that period of time and
00:36:21
Speaker
So a period of time when I was in San Francisco for about three years from 2008 to 2011 I probably co-authored like like maybe seven books and it really was about connecting with people who are subject matter experts and Then helping them craft whatever they have to say because some folks I worked with weren't writers some folks I worked with were writers, but they weren't professionals and
00:36:44
Speaker
And so it was about translating their idea and making it the best and realizing, I don't have to be in the spotlight. That's OK. And did a little bit of ghost writing as well and some stuff behind the scenes. But it was like, I don't need to do it again, in a sense, being satiated.
00:37:06
Speaker
Shortly after last San Francisco, that's when I became a I got married Our son came about a year later and I became an entrepreneur a few months after our son came And it was a very similar process. I did my first small startup It was called so quotable which allowed you to capture other people's quotes so very much like a very much a journalist thing to do and It had a cult following and it got the attention of Ted Ted invited me to do a TED talk and
00:37:34
Speaker
in March of 2014. And then that got the attention of a friend of a friend who invited me to connect with him to launch Cuddler. And that launched in September of that year. And then it blew up really quickly. And then we ended up selling it, you know, August of the following year, so just shy of the year anniversary. And after I sold Cuddler, I was like, great. So now what? Very similar a few years later.
00:38:02
Speaker
You see the pattern. And so it was like, OK. And it was a few months where, frankly, I was kind of lost because I was like, OK, what do I do next? And I ended up connecting with ink because they were looking for more columnists. I told them what just happened and the journey. And they were like, that sounds like a great idea for a column. So we started talking. So I started doing the column. Number one, I started getting really good feedback on the column with the stuff I was talking about.
00:38:28
Speaker
And then, number two, I realized that the experience I had was extremely unique. And we could talk for an hour just about that. I mean, again, I've written like six books about that. So, you know, so we could just talk about that. The very short version, though, is that when I was in Silicon Valley, before I became an entrepreneur, everyone who there was a certain code as far as success. And it was like, you have to be
00:38:58
Speaker
straight white male nerdy Ivy League college dropout in his early 20s Without a steady girlfriend boyfriend, whatever and definitely not a family and you kill yourself to get something off the ground for a year or two and then Amazon or Google or Apple and
00:39:22
Speaker
Or later on facebook will come and acquire company for a seven figure amount And then you can rest and just enjoy your life for the for the rest of your time That was a myth like that was the discussion. Everyone bought into that. Yeah, and there are people who Seriously in their early 20s barely drinking age who burnt themselves out there are people to this day I never heard from again. They just fell off the earth and
00:39:48
Speaker
but they were doing like seriously 72-hour, 96-hour days trying to get their thing off the ground just to get the attention of Steve Jobs, who was alive at the time while living in Silicon Valley. That was the energy at the time. That's one of the reasons why I left. I was like, no, that's not the life I want to live. Even as a journalist, this doesn't feel healthy to me. I don't want to start a family here. This isn't the scene. And so suddenly I leave, I move to San Diego, I can get married,
00:40:17
Speaker
get a house literally with a white picket fence, you know, have our first child and then I'm bootstrapping and then I'm on the cover of the Wall Street Journal and I get my company acquired. That doesn't, something's off. What's going on? You know, and so then I realized that was my next purpose is not only to give the lip service of saying, no, you don't have to sacrifice everything to make our entrepreneurial mark, like not giving lip service to that, but
00:40:46
Speaker
But I was fortunate enough to actually embody that. You know, that was actually my journey. Like, so it wasn't, oh, yeah, you can have work life balance. And then, you know, I'm not taking care of my kid or I'm not having, you know, career success. It's like, no, I had both. So so there are certain things I experienced that most people did not. And so I felt like it was my duty to go and pass it on and say, OK, here's how you can again create your creative entrepreneurial mark without running away to the circus.
00:41:14
Speaker
And so it became very, very clear, particularly with the ink column. I think that was the turning point. And so the first time it happened was with books where I had the best seller. And I was like, oh, OK. All right, maybe I can shift to something else. And then the second time was when I had my company acquired. And I think that's what we're supposed to do, is not to say, OK, I'm going to go ahead and run this marathon again and see if I can do it twice because I might have gotten lucky.
00:41:44
Speaker
You know, for me, I'm like, no, you're supposed to experience those things and then pass them on. And the amount of new career goals, the amount of passive income, the amount of insights, the amount of things I've learned about myself that I've gotten because I've decided to dedicate myself to helping other people.
Philosophy of Service and Coaching
00:42:04
Speaker
It's it's like 10 or 100 X what I would have if if I just tried to do another startup.
00:42:12
Speaker
And I mean, startups aren't off the table. And another book, it definitely isn't off the table. It's just I know that that's not my primary focus. And bring your word with you, Wright, that bitterness costs you opportunities. This presents a real yet silent problem. And yeah, how did you arrive at that, at realizing the toxic nature of bitterness and jealousies in creative work?
00:42:40
Speaker
Um, a little bit with myself and my own personal journey, but it's, it's weird because for me. When I see someone, I was doing something, it usually gets, gets me motivated. Um, as opposed to frustrates me, the times that it has made me frustrated though, I realized that it wasn't productive. And so it's like, it's like, all right, so I'm angry now. Okay. Do I have what they have?
00:43:10
Speaker
No, okay. And in that way, I can be very logical where I'm like, okay, if that's not gonna get me close to my goal, then why am I worried about what they're doing? I think I think part of it is, and I know you talked about this in your podcast, you know, the kind of getting out of the scarcity mentality. And that's a beautiful thing as far as if you have a particular vision, like you and I or Jeanette or whomever can say I want to be a best selling author. Well, what does that mean? Like, once you start to unpack that,
00:43:39
Speaker
That's really complicated. It's like, okay, so why? Do you want to have financial stability? Well, being a bestselling author will not give you that. So it's like that might not be the route you want to take. But some people view it like that. Some people want the prestige. Some people want the carte blanche to do any project they want. And if they say they're a bestselling author, then they think all the doors will open up. So everyone has their particular motivation. That's helped me, particularly when I was younger, as far as
00:44:09
Speaker
pulling back the green-eyed monster when it comes to that is to say, wait, they have the same goal that I have, and they reached it, but what they get out of it could be completely different. And so really understanding the human nature of it. And it's like, you know what? I'm not even sure if I want to be a best-selling author, because what I really want is the Kevin Kelly idea of having 1,000 true fans. And I don't need a bestseller for that. I found that with them.
00:44:39
Speaker
with Bring Your Worth, where, and this was interesting, where it's like the, where the rubber meets the road, where my previous book, The Bitesize Entrepreneur, self-published and became a bestseller on Amazon. So that was the standard. That turned into a series. And so I had three books in that series and then compiled all of them, including some bonus content and the ultimate Bitesize Entrepreneur trilogy. And a lot of it's based on my ink column and then the discussion and the co-children that I've done.
00:45:09
Speaker
When I went to do Bring Your Worth, quick sidebar, you might've caught in the beginning of Bring Your Worth, but I say if The Bites as Entrepreneur was a studio album, then Bring Your Worth is a live album. So it was very much like, right? So it was very much like I started doing these keynotes based on The Bites as Entrepreneur. And then the keynotes were taking myself and the audience into places that were not in The Bites as Entrepreneur.
00:45:39
Speaker
And I was like, damn it, I got to write another book because this is it. There's all kinds of stuff that's coming out during these live discussions. And so what I try to do is reverse engineer it and say, what if I was able to capture one of my keynotes and put it into book form? So people have a keynote in their pocket. That was the intention. And there's a lot of, if you want to get into it, we can do that. But there's a lot of details as far as with the book. I wasn't even sure if I was going to publish it. So there's a lot of emotional stuff that went into the book.
00:46:08
Speaker
But what happened was that the book came out and it was not a best seller at all. But because I self published it, I knew who bought it as far as with the amount of copies that were sold. I had like keynote speaking and so forth. I had sold it by hand and all that. And I can say 50% or more of the people that bought it actually shared their favorite passage on social media.
00:46:34
Speaker
And it was like them taking a picture of a page, circling it and then sharing it. And I was like, like almost started crying. I'm like, okay, that sets back to the Kevin Kelly idea where it's like, okay. Like, like it's, it didn't hit as many numbers thus far as the bite says entrepreneur, but that wasn't my intention.
00:46:59
Speaker
And so I have friends and colleagues and people that I love and admire who have best-selling books right now. I'm not worried about what they're doing because my intention was different. And so I think that helps a lot as far as the scarcity thing is to say, well, what's your real intention? And if you want to be Oprah's book club of the month or whatever thing is now, then why?
00:47:24
Speaker
It's like, why do you want to do that? And if you understand why, then maybe you'll stop worrying about the person that did do that. Because once you get more defined, as far as not, not on your goal, but on your intentions, then it makes it a lot easier to carve out your own space. And my intention for Bring Your Worth was to make an impact in a way that moved people. And people weren't sharing the bites as entrepreneurs on social media at all.
00:47:50
Speaker
Even though a lot of people liked it and they obviously bought it, it's on the shelves. But bring your worth though, the amount of impact is completely different. I can tell. But I had clear intentions. And again, that has to do with having that goal set from the beginning before you even start.
00:48:06
Speaker
And you seem like someone, of course, who's very prolific in terms of the ink column, the books you've written, so you have a lot of ideas. And I think this will get to one of your TED Talks where you talk about the sumo versus the monkey mind.
00:48:23
Speaker
And I suspect that if you have a lot of ideas, one of these brains is better than another. So maybe you can speak to each of those, how you define them, and then how you slot your ideas and lean into your strengths to manifest these ideas.
00:48:43
Speaker
Yeah, yes, that was my TEDx Jackson talk back in 2014. So I'm glad you caught it. I'm proud of that talk. And what I talked about was the sumo versus the monkey mind. And I actually got this from my creative writing mentor, Wilma Garcia, back at Oakland University, my undergrad in Detroit.
00:49:06
Speaker
She passed away about 10 years ago. I still miss her. But she was very formative. Like I know I wouldn't have the writing career I have today without her. She was one of those like three or four people that change your life. But she talked about the the monkey mind, which obviously is is classic from now we know that's from from Zen philosophy, and the sumo mind, which actually was what I learned from her. So the sumo mind tends to move too slow. You think of a sumo wrestler. And so
00:49:36
Speaker
Oh, I have this great idea. Let me let it gestate for a little bit longer because I need to be in the right mindset to write it down. Yeah, I knew I was going to write it down yesterday and I know I was going to write it down today, but let me let me wait until the kids are like really young right now and I'm not getting a whole lot of sleep. So why don't I wait until they get a little bit older and then I'll sit down and start writing this great American novel.
00:50:04
Speaker
Well, you know what this financial thing came up, I need to focus on the paying work. So I'm not going to spend any time on this novel. And I mean, and it keeps going, going, going and going. And I mean, and that ties into the last TED talk I did at TEDx Toledo about perfection. Those two things are tied together. So it's like, so if you have a suit on mine, it's like it moves so slow. And it's like, oh, I need to have the perfect circumstances. And it's not quite right. You just need to start. You just need to start.
00:50:33
Speaker
Then there's the monkey mind, which is actually probably more common today because of our issues with attention. And so as you can picture, it's like the monkey wants to do this. OK, I'm going to go ahead and start on 15 different novels today. And OK, wait, no, there's a new idea that came up. Oh, I got invited to go to this conference. I'm going to go to this conference. Wait, no, I want to hire this writing teacher. OK, there's an article I want to write. But what about that idea? What about that idea I forgot? And on and on. Same issue.
00:51:03
Speaker
Starting a bunch of stuff, not getting anything done. And so there's ways to quiet the monkey mind and ways to accelerate the sumo mind. What I talked about in the TED talk was writing things down. I love index cards. The TED talk was like six years ago. I still love index cards. I'm sitting at my desk and it's filled with index cards. And so it's a way of whether you do index cards or do something that's low stakes.
00:51:31
Speaker
If you're at the grocery store and you have a book idea, write it down on the back of the receipt. Like I am the framework for one of my books. I wish I could remember. I want to say for porn and pong. It hit me while I was on the airplane and I wrote the framework for the book on the back of back in the day when they used to have envelopes for your airplane tickets. It was on the back of one of the airplane envelopes.
00:51:57
Speaker
I never threw away the envelope. It's like, you know, now it's historical to me. Right. But it's like right. But if I waited until I got because I think it was before I had a laptop. So if I waited till I got to my destination and then wrote it down on my computer or I waited till I got to my official journal to write it down like it would have disappeared. And then the book that I envisioned might have not happened. So so that's one way to keep it low stakes. I think we put a lot of weight into it.
00:52:24
Speaker
The second thing, which I was just talking to someone about the other day, is that we assume that whatever we do is going to be our last thing. And that's the opposite side of what I consider one of my strengths, is I give 110% into what I do and I maximize my time and I realize that I have a limited time here on Earth, etc. The opposite side of that, which is something that I've had a challenge with, is thinking that whatever the project is, it's going to be my last project.
00:52:55
Speaker
And that falls into the perfection side. There's a lot of folks that that I've worked with that are working on their first book and their first book is never done ever. Yeah, a lot. Right. You know, and I know I know your pencil habit. Like I smile every time I see one of your one of your pencils down. Like, seriously, I meant to tell you that, like, like I think it's such a beautiful practice. But you focusing more on the process
00:53:24
Speaker
the process versus it being perfect at the end. Because if you do the process right, you don't have to worry about the rest of it. And so we end up working on these things. And because it's our first book, or in my case, our first startup, then we think this is our last chance to do anything. And so we feel like we have to put everything we have to say in there. Unfortunately, when it comes to writing, editing is more important than writing.
00:53:51
Speaker
And so you're often not willing to excise those parts that don't matter. You're not willing to remove those parts that don't make any sense. You're unwilling to remove the fat, which ends up making it a weaker book or project or whatever in the first place. And so you end up getting the opposite of the effect that you want. And so you actually have an honest conversation with yourself and making it, again, more low stakes.
00:54:18
Speaker
The average person that writes a book, they usually write another one. The average person that does a startup does another startup. I did too. You know, it's like the average person that does the keynote speak, and you know, speaking engagement, they do another one. So not to assume that everything's riding on this one thing. And it's, I always screw up his name, but I actually mention it and bring your words, so maybe you can help me. But I want to say his name is Akolokis.
00:54:46
Speaker
But the the Greek philosopher that said that that right like we're not the We're not the we don't rise to the to the to the height of our ambitions but we drop to the to the to the power of our habits and so if we go and say we're gonna do this ambitious thing and
00:55:08
Speaker
That usually doesn't work. What works is when we have a process in place, we have a routine, we have a habit, we have a discipline, and we end up showing up. Kind of like the Steve Pressfield thing with the resistance. You keep showing up, you keep showing up, you keep showing up. Before you know it, like in my case, I have 24 books. I have no idea how that happened.
00:55:30
Speaker
But I keep showing up. People ask me that. I'm like, I don't know. But I keep showing up, though, and they keep coming out. And some of them some of them received well, and some of them received not so well. But I keep showing up. And again, my last book was not a best seller. But that was not my goal. My goal is to purify the process. And to secondly, to to have a positive impact on the people I'm trying to I'm trying to reach. That's it.
00:55:59
Speaker
everything else will work itself out. Yeah. Absolutely. Yeah. And to your point of it feeling like the live experience versus the studio experience of Bite Size Entrepreneur, I think that manifested itself perfectly in the fact that people, like when you go to a concert these days, a lot of people are taking video or pictures and posting it online and they're trying to share that visceral experience. And the fact that people were posting
00:56:24
Speaker
stuff to social media from your quote, like live experience book goes to the intentionality and the goal that you set out when you wrote it. So like it talk about a slam dunk in terms of the experience you were hoping to bestow upon the reader. Thank you. Thank you. I didn't really quite have that perspective as far as comparing it to a constant and people sharing on social media. So, so thank you. That means a lot to me.
00:56:49
Speaker
Very nice. And as we wind down here, Damon, what are you most excited about right now? For someone who's had so many projects and so much in your backlog, what's exciting you going forward and things that are right in front of your nose?
00:57:07
Speaker
Totally. I have a handful of things that I'm working on this year. I'm always working on something as other people have said. So I have a handful of things that I'm working on this year that I can't quite talk about yet. But yeah, it's going to be a really fun year. It will be focused on the teaching element and the sharing. So one thing that happened with Bring Your Worth and one of the reasons why I came about is that I really took a deep dive
00:57:36
Speaker
Into into coaching and helping other people because this is a very short version of what happened is that I did You know, I sold my company Connected with ink partner with them. Sorry doing calm with them
00:57:51
Speaker
The feedback was strong enough for me to do a book, end up self-publishing the book because the traditional publishing industry didn't get what I was trying to do. I think that would be another entire podcast. And so talking to them about that, end up self-publishing it, it became a best seller. So then I ended up doing speaking engagements related to it. People wanted more, so I ended up doing more books related to it. People wanted more than that. So then I started doing, and they started asking if I do one-on-one coaching.
00:58:20
Speaker
So I started doing one on one coaching and started doing that. And then, again, with the keynote, I started doing and I'm going much deeper, almost like the keynotes became a massive coaching session with the discussions that we were having. So the keynote was kind of like entry point, like when I do a keynote, I compare it to to setting a table. So it's like, I'm not the main meal, but I'm just setting the table for it.
00:58:47
Speaker
I'm setting a mindset. And so for that 45-minute keynote, we're having a certain discussion. And then during the Q&A is when the real meat begins. That's when the meal begins. That's when we really get going. And so with that in mind, that's how Bring Your Worth came about.
00:59:02
Speaker
end up launching a bootcamp online. And going from there, end up doubling down on my email list, which I know you and I have talked about offline. And that's at joindaimon.me. And so that's every Wednesday at 5.55 AM, they get a message from me. People can reply right back. And we've been having amazing conversations. And so talking about that, I doubled down on that a couple of years ago, got off of social media a little bit more, and focused more on the email list, et cetera.
00:59:32
Speaker
And then in the fall, I became Toledo library's first entrepreneur in residence. And for that period of time, I think it was I did a new keynote every Wednesday for four weeks in a row. And that was like a marathon. And just like even to this day, I'm like glowing. You know, it's like it's like when you practice for a marathon.
00:59:56
Speaker
You know, or a run, but you've never ran a marathon before. And it's like, and then you run the marathon and you realize that you're not out of breath and that you practice like properly. It's like, okay, you know, it was good. It was really good.
01:00:10
Speaker
And so that was, so we wrapped that up in the fall. That was a wonderful experience. So doing that. And so now I've been working with organizations as a coach, doing the one-on-one coaching, raising my own coaching stuff. And that's at DamonBrown.net. And so really helping what I consider to be non-traditional entrepreneurs. So people who are side hustlers, people who are solopreneurs, people who are creatives who are trying to become more entrepreneurial.
01:00:35
Speaker
So people who, again, don't fit that pattern matching that I was talking about in Silicon Valley, but more fit into trying to create amazing things within the current life that they have. And the people that I work with already have a life, or they already have a full-time job, or they've been creatives for a little while and they're trying to take things to the next level. They're not sacrificing everything to go on this new path. And I've been really keen to help them on that.
01:01:02
Speaker
And so, yeah, I'd say doubling down on the newsletter at joindaemon.me. I'm doing a lot more coaching, lining up some speaking engagements for this year, and really getting the message out there. And it's been great too with Bring Your Worth. It's been a great opportunity to really exemplify what I'm trying to convey and how I'm trying to present as a coach. And that's what's been lovely is that, again, the book's been out for almost a year now.
01:01:33
Speaker
And people that consider coaching with me, they'll grab a copy of the book or I'll send them a copy or whatever. And then the people that have come aboard, it's a natural transition because the way the book is written is exactly how I coach. And so that was kind of the, the side part of it too, not just to have the live experience, but for, for people to be able to experience whatever I'm trying to convey and any insight I might have.
01:02:02
Speaker
as well as insight from other people that I've worked with and I've been mentored by in their hand. And to me, that's that service, you know, because I have my my coaching and obviously my coaching is more expensive than buying the book.
01:02:18
Speaker
but then people can just buy the book and have an experience based on the resources that they have or what they need at that moment. And if that's what gets them to that we're needing to get to, then that's a beautiful thing for me. And I think that's why the support of the book and other stuff that I've done has been so strong is that I think people, as I talk about in Bring Your Worth, I think we underestimate what people know. And I think people, even if it's from a,
01:02:48
Speaker
classic animalistic lizard brain type of thing. I think we always know other people's intentions subconsciously or not. And so that's why I'm really humbled again with the best seller stuff and with the support because I think people recognize that I'm here to serve. And I think that's, that's the secret to success for a lot of us as creators. It's to say this needs to get out into the world.
01:03:14
Speaker
Not to say I'm going to have my book sold at auction with five different houses. That's not serving. That's something else, which is nothing wrong with that. And again, I have good friends that have been through that. That's beautiful. But I'm also proud to say that my friends that had been through that were creating something, a narrative that needed to be out in the world. Their intention was not to get a bestseller. Their intention was not to get a six or seven figure deal. If anything, it was a reverse. They actually wanted to serve.
01:03:44
Speaker
And because they were serving, that's what brought about all these other side effects, which ended up benefiting them, of course. But even if those side effects didn't happen, they'd still be happy because they had that peer intention in the first place.
01:03:58
Speaker
Fantastic. Damon, this was great and inspiring to get to talk to you at length again. It's been a while and I look forward to doing this maybe a little bit further down the road, maybe this year. There's lots of things you and I can unpack and in a lot of directions we can take these kind of conversations. So thanks for coming on the podcast for the first time and I deeply look forward to getting to do this again, man.
01:04:25
Speaker
We did it. We made it CNF'ers. Thank you so much for listening. Be sure you're subscribing to the show. Of course, this crazy show is produced by me, Brendan O'Mara. I make the show for you. I hope it made something worth sharing. And if you really dig the show, leave a review on Apple podcasts. Show notes are at BrendanO'Mara.com.
01:04:45
Speaker
Follow the show on the various social media channels at CNFpod across the mall. Get that newsletter at my website. Win books, win zines, hang out with your buddy BO. Once a month, no spam, can't beat it. Are we done here? We must. Because if you can do interviews, see ya!