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00:00:01
Derek Flanzraich
54 Plays4 days ago
Thanks for listening to our episode with Derek Flanzraich
To keep up with or connect with Derek:
✨ Derek’s LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/derekflanzraich/
✨Subscribe to his newsletter, 5HT: https://www.5ht.com/
To stay in touch with Meredith and Medbury:
Follow Meredith on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/meredith-farley/
Follow Medbury on Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/medbury_agency/
Subscribe to the Medbury newsletter: https://meredithfarley.substack.com/
Email Meredith: Meredith@MedburyAgency.com
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Transcript
Introduction and Excitement
00:00:02
Speaker
Hi, Derek. Hello. Thank you so much for doing this content people episode. I love talking to you and i'm excited to get to do an hour with you. it was really nice of you to do it. Yeah, I know. I'm excited. Content people. That feels like my people. So, you know, I'm ready to do it.
00:00:17
Speaker
You are the archetypal content person, I think, for sure. Thanks, I think. yeah I mean, it is a
Derek's Career Beginnings
00:00:25
Speaker
compliment. But for folks who don't know you, can you explain a little bit about who you are and what you do?
00:00:30
Speaker
Sure. Who am I? i My career in content for sure started with my first business, Greatest, when I was 22 years old, 21, 22 years old. Basically right out of college, I started a ah media company called Greatest that grew into the largest health and wellness website on the internet at the time. 20 to 30 million people every month reading this science-backed, expert-approved content.
00:00:58
Speaker
all on health and wellness and in like the voice of a friend that was a little further along. I'm a very mission-driven entrepreneur and person and builder. And Greatest was really where my career started because it was the difference I wanted to make most, which was to talk about health in a healthier way.
00:01:20
Speaker
And that's really been a through line for the rest of my career. Greatest was acquired in 2019 by Healthline. And I've since done quite a lot of other things, including helping a bunch of companies start their content strategy and initiatives from GoodRx and MIDI to Rho and BetterHelp and on and on.
From Greatest to Healthish Content
00:01:42
Speaker
I started another business that failed, but was really cool called Ness. And that also had a content component. And then more recently started an agency called Healthish Content, where we're a premium boutique agency helping
00:01:56
Speaker
health brands of all kinds do any type of content. We don't do social media or thought leadership, but we do everything else. And our bread and butter is technical SEO and GEO and then article content creation. That's been a crazy fun ride. We've had a really big year. It's been about a year since I started it and I'm very proud of it.
Growth of 5HT Newsletter
00:02:16
Speaker
And it really is just continuing on that mission, but now through the clients and other companies and And then to just round out my content journey, i also run a newsletter now called 5HT, which is me talking about health in a healthier way. Shocker.
00:02:33
Speaker
But that's also been on the fun tear this year. We're at about 100,000 readers every week. And i started it because I just wanted to write about stuff. I think content is so unbelievably important.
00:02:45
Speaker
under invested in underrated. And I couldn't be more proud of playing a critical role in content, at least in my world of health and healthcare. I think it sure could use better content. So I'm trying my darndest to get it there.
00:03:01
Speaker
Thank you for that. I particularly always love talking to you about content because we are the exact same age, 38, you're 38, right? Busted. busted and Oh, thanks. Same to you, obviously. But I think I love hearing your journey because I feel like a late 30s millennial in the content industry has, we have had a very specific and interesting ride over the last, i don't know, I guess 15 years or so. So anyway, I just, I love your journey. And I want to, in a moment, get into how you got into the greatest from the jump, like why that was such a focus from you because i think it's such an interesting story.
00:03:38
Speaker
But before that I was like taking notes actually, as you went, and first off, I just want to compliment your roster. The health clients you've worked with are incredible. So many of the products that I use now, like seed in a few things, every time i use it, and I think I'll check out your site. I'll be like, of course. Yeah. Derek did the content for them, et cetera.
00:03:54
Speaker
Oh, very cool. But particularly for five HT, actually just recommended it in my newsletter last week. I cannot believe. the growth that you've had. Something like 100K, totally organic, all within the last year or so, is that right?
00:04:10
Speaker
Thank you for recommending it. That's so sweet. I mean it. I love it. It's a great read. Everyone listening will put the link in the show notes to subscribe. It's totally free. It's incredible content. It's grown to one hundred k subscribers because it's so good.
00:04:26
Speaker
what is Why did you start it and why do you think it's taken off as much as it has? I don't really know why it's taken off so much. I'm lucky in that I've been like in and around the space for a long time. So I was able to start now from scratch with a little bit of a following, I guess, but I really wrote it for me. I'm not, i basically shut down my last business venture backed company and I wanted to stay in the mix and
00:04:57
Speaker
to stay in the mix of health when there's so many things happening all the time, especially now as health and wellness is going mainstream in a very big way, longevity or whatever they're calling it now, that it felt to me like the best way always to get up to speed on something is to write about it. And so I just started writing about it. I also always feel like I have to Eat my own dog food, I guess is the, yeah that's like a startup tech phrase. I'm always recommending people start newsletters. So it only made sense for me to do that too. I've been committing really big to LinkedIn. It's the same kind of thing, right? I recommend people do LinkedIn. So i was like, okay, I have to commit hard to LinkedIn. And so that's why we're doing great work on LinkedIn. I think that the, yeah, that's really why it was for myself and
00:05:43
Speaker
My experience newsletters grow almost always because people recommend them to their friends. yeah If a newsletter is not growing on its own, that's probably a sign that it doesn't yet super serve that target customer target audience person that you're trying to reach.
00:06:01
Speaker
And i know that's
Creating Engaging Content
00:06:03
Speaker
easier said than done. And maybe my newsletter has grown for other reasons. And I've totally missed the mark. But I've been humbled by how much it's grown. And I'm starting to get some free stuff now in the mail, which makes me feel like a real influencer. And that was all I wanted was for people to send me free yet more protein bars. How many you did you try? You did a write-up. Was it 25? And you did a really good write-up? Yeah, I did. ah this was I spent months doing this.
00:06:34
Speaker
and But yes, I tried 25 healthy protein bars and I put them all together on a spreadsheet, which I share, and rated them on all kinds of random things from the obvious stuff like taste and texture to protein and macronutrients and the quality of the ingredients and all that. And And yeah, and then I made like recommendations for the ones I liked. i think the most entertaining, frankly, are the ones I didn't like and wrote about. And yeah, people keep sending me protein bars now, which was not really what I was going for here, but makes me think I really should write an article about the 25 best saunas because that's what I want somebody to send me.
00:07:11
Speaker
I love that. Yeah. Good strategizing. That was a great read. i loved it. i think there's a through line of your content where when you talk about the greatest, which was so successful and you were so young, but as you say, it was coming from the voice of a friend as opposed to super dry health content or that kind of, i don't know, I think of like women's magazines and like the late nineties, early two thousands, where it was like How content was critical and snobby and prescriptive and was slightly- Also bought and paid for. Yeah, there you go. No, we were very much a reaction to greatest. was very much a reaction to men's health and women's health and that world.
00:07:51
Speaker
And also to Livestrong.com and the content forums that existed on the web at the time. People might not remember this, but demand media- Now leave group many years, many years later in a very different like format. But at the time it was pretty famous basically that they were paying people five bucks an article and that the content, especially around health was horrible and wrong.
00:08:14
Speaker
And they were getting clicks and selling ads. So they didn't care, but greatest has really started, I think in reaction to all of that. And then just I've always felt like content was boring for the most part. And so we tried to.
00:08:27
Speaker
put a voice on it. In the beginning, that voice was mine. And then over time, we heard a lot of better voices. And so it evolved and got sharper and better and more fun and more funny. and But if you're curious about my voice, that's what's in the email now. No, that's exactly the point I was going to make. I was thinking like Five Healthy Things feels like the a new version or an evolution of that in a way. But it does seem like your superpower or a huge differentiator for you over the years has been your ability to just intuitively bring a very engaging voice to content and a really very personal perspective on it. Does that come really intuitively to you or like you just have a thought, you're like you're noting what's out there is really dry among many other problems. That's how we're going to differentiate ourselves. Or was it more of did it take a while to to figure out that was a really pivotal aspect of why your content performed?
00:09:24
Speaker
I don't know. It's a great question. My passion for this space is very authentic and it really was born from my own challenges with it. I recently talked to some people from Weight Watchers and was reminded that like growing up, I literally went to Weight Watchers meetings because I was the biggest kid in the class. And that's like what my mom told me to do. And i just grew up this big kid and it's It felt to me like everything that was out there was not on my side and that everything was either trying to take advantage of the fact that I didn't know what to do or was for people who already had it all figured out.
00:10:01
Speaker
And that felt so unfair. And that is what propelled me to eventually like start reading scientific studies on PubMed. And because I'm super fun and cool at parties, as you can probably guess. But yeah, it really I regularly read still research because I'm curious about getting to the bottom of these things and getting to the truth, or at least what science believes to be the most up-to-date truth at the time.
00:10:28
Speaker
and because science is slow, but it's the best indicator of legitimacy, obviously. And I started to read all that. I started to tell people about it and they started listening to me, which was very bizarre because i wasn't, I didn't have it all figured out, right? I wasn't buff with my show. I grew up in Miami, Florida. So there were all these sexier people, but that really stuck with me. That's sort of this, it actually in some ways is more compelling. And I find this to be true in other aspects of my life,
00:10:57
Speaker
It's really very compelling to talk to someone who isn't the full total one-sided narrow-minded expert yeah who knows this and has committed their whole career to it.
00:11:08
Speaker
It's sound honestly like more compelling to talk to someone who's like a little bit ahead of you and can be a nice guide for you. And so that voice really stuck with me. And that voice later when I said, man, no one's solving this problem. Let me try to solve it for myself with greatest.
00:11:24
Speaker
that voice felt like the right one to have. And frankly, I still think is sorely needed in this space, in health and in other spaces too. And you're not asking me this, but it's also interesting that in some ways, this is also the voice that works best on the internet.
Personal Stories in Health Content
00:11:45
Speaker
That even ChatGPT and Google explicitly are looking for, in health again, my space, but authoritativeness, expertise, but also personal experience.
00:11:59
Speaker
Almost all the content that my agency creates for brands We're hiring freelance writers, the best of the absolute best, who have some personal relation, who can tell some personal story, who have some reason that they're writing this.
00:12:14
Speaker
And that helps signal to Google and to ChatGPT and any LLM that This isn't a bot. This isn't AI. This is someone real with a real sort of perspective and a voice that might just resonate with the reader and not like the academic journal world or another bot.
00:12:38
Speaker
Thank you. That's also interesting. There's so much I want to pick your brain about there. I think one thing you've said multiple times that I feel like has stuck with me is that when it comes to health content with the greatest, you are always, don't tell me if I get it wrong, but it's you're writing the best answer on the internet where you were essentially making sure that if someone came with a query relevant to the article, there was nowhere else they could go where they'd get better, more informed, thoughtful, complete answers. Do you think that's still like, I know healthiest content has grown so much and I want to give you some time to just talk about the incredible cool work you all are doing.
00:13:16
Speaker
Do you see, is that still important or not? I don't know. How important is that? Most important. Yeah. I am not a good like hacker. I'm not a good, there's a lot of people on the internet who play the short game and they're trying to take advantage of the latest hack or the latest edge that exists.
00:13:38
Speaker
And I've just never been good at that because i tend to have kind of I don't know, more ambition maybe, or at least like longer term time ver horizon, or maybe just like more integrity to not play games, but to actually do things the right way. And the way that I described this is like not to skate to where the puck is going, not to skate to where the puck is, but where it's going.
00:14:00
Speaker
And that is what I believe differentiates great long-term content from mediocre mail it in maybe gets lucky content. There's a lot of people who are using ai right now to generate content. And honestly, some of it works.
00:14:15
Speaker
But it doesn't tend to work long because eventually Google, ChatGPT, whose entire job is essentially to figure this out, penalize it. And so there's this graveyard of people who have a little bit of success and then, you know, this like dip.
00:14:30
Speaker
And so, yes, the first the thing that it says on healthishcontent.com, I think, is we write the best answer on the internet. And I think that's the only way to win because that aligns your goal with the goal of Google, of Gemini, and AI reviews, of perplexity, of CheckGPT, you name it. The goal is actually to get you the best answer.
00:14:51
Speaker
And so if you're helping support that goal, I don't see a world in which that's going to change from being the goal. And I want to skate to where the puck is going and write the best answer.
00:15:04
Speaker
But it frankly is not that much harder. Yeah, it's hard. Or is it sound hard? It's actually like relatively straightforward to write. Usually we just, the way I define it is it has to be comprehensive and exhaustive. has cover all the topics, all the sides.
00:15:20
Speaker
Then I say that it has to be interesting and engaging. So that could be the voice, that could be graphics, whatever you include. And then it has to be unique and differentiated. That's equally important. And so when we write with a clinic, we're using their clinicians and their patients. When we write with a CPG brand, we're using their formulators or nutritionists and their customers. And so the idea is how do you make it unique and differentiate? If you can do all those things, you'll probably write the best answer on the internet.
00:15:47
Speaker
And why not shoot for that as opposed to try to write something that's good enough? And that is my perspective Maybe not just on content, but in life, baby but in content for sure.
00:16:03
Speaker
Oh, I like it. It resonates with me a lot. I was in SEO for a long time and I think akin to what you're saying, sometimes there'd be the, like the big Reports that would come out quarterly from all the different places
Aligning with Google and ChatGPT
00:16:14
Speaker
like search engine land, et cetera. And it ah oftentimes it felt like retro engineering, good content with integrity to your point. Totally. It was a, I totally am enamored with and aligned with your perspective on this. And I do there was a, this I'll just say on that point, because I think.
00:16:33
Speaker
When I was starting Greatest with some brilliant writers and editors who were all volunteering their time early on because they also cared about health content that actually was like trustworthy and trite, we like sat in a room tried to figure out, not reverse engineer, we tried to figure out what would signal good quality content to the reader. Forget Google.
00:16:55
Speaker
Yeah. citing only high authority websites and trusted sources, including experts and their quotes, including expert approvals. Things like,
00:17:07
Speaker
not having typos, things like citing professional like sources and legit organizations. All these things that now are like commonplace and Google has explicitly said matter, we just made up in a room because it was correct. you like It was the right thing to do. And ah i always...
00:17:27
Speaker
When I talk about channels and marketing on channels, because I do, it's not just content. Like I do help run marketing for companies. Obviously I've run a couple companies in my own, but so sometimes I do talk about other channels for better for worse. And I've always, i basically believe if you're not at the cutting edge of the channel, you're already falling behind.
00:17:45
Speaker
And so the only way you can be on the cutting edge of the channel is really, again, understanding what their goal is and testing and experimenting. And so it just turned out that We were right at greatest about where Google was going to go.
00:18:01
Speaker
And Google fell in love with us because we were doing all the signals that they were looking for. yeah But I'd be lying if I said that was why we did it. Right. We did it because it was the right thing to do and the way we believed content should be.
00:18:14
Speaker
And it's almost like Google actually caught up to us. And so that's how I think. That's my advice when you're thinking about new channels for any marketers or anybody listening to this, I guess. It's like, how do you get on the ahead of the curve, not behind it? again No, i I agree. I think, I feel like we think about it with LinkedIn a lot too. And when you say, when you go to go back a second, when you said ahead of the channel, do you mean ahead of the users of the channel or do you mean ahead of the the folks at the company who are making decisions about their algorithm?
00:18:50
Speaker
If they're different, because sometimes they're different sometimes, i feel like. I think they're actually rarely different. But yes, of course, sometimes. So Greatest really so hit it big first on Pinterest.
00:19:01
Speaker
And Pinterest is actually a really good example. Pinterest was like blowing up at the time. And we, Greatest initially started, I wanted to be, which is like what everyone wants to be, but I wanted to be like the health side for everyone. And over time in one of my first like major marketing lessons, it's no, actually the more narrow, the more you can super serve someone, the more relevant you are to everyone. Because if you're not relevant enough to anyone, then no one cares. And we ultimately decided to focus on who we knew best, which was millennials, cause we're all millennials. And we asked the question then where are millennials? And we were all on Pinterest.
00:19:38
Speaker
And Pinterest at the time, the third and fourth most popular categories were like food and nutrition and health and fitness. Everyone thought of Pinterest as like wedding planning and home building, but that those were still very popular categories. And so we decided we would really commit to that.
00:19:54
Speaker
And so we invented, I'm pretty sure, or at least we're among the first few to come up with what still is like now best practice, things like banners on your articles. And you don't show the whole story so you can drive a click through it and infographics in a certain style that work on Pinterest.
00:20:13
Speaker
And again, we were generating all that stuff because we were living it, right? We were on the platform. we were seeing what was working, coming up with what we thought might work and then seeing how it did. And that was It's not like retrofitting to the algorithm. It's like driving the algorithm forward in some ways.
00:20:32
Speaker
And these people are not like unilaterally at these companies. They're not unilaterally making stuff up. They have to prove it's a nascent behavior or something that's actually happening. And in some ways will serve the user better and, or the searcher better or whatever. And so that's, hey that's my philosophy on that.
00:20:52
Speaker
Are you all still using Pinterest with healthy-ish or healthy-ish content or not really? We actually do. actually think Pinterest continues to be underrated platform. Of course, like the growth is over. You also have to, think in the early days, if you're trying to build something in media, you do have to find some kind of something that's blowing up and growing and try to hitch a ride and then get really good at that. think it's hard in a world where everything is...
00:21:18
Speaker
static where there's not like dramatic growth, like getting into YouTube or starting a podcast, sorry, or like whatever, like all that stuff. It's like, it's not a new thing.
00:21:29
Speaker
And so trying to figure out where the new stuff is, i think is interesting. I think LinkedIn, for example, has been like the most growth focused platform in the last few years. And obviously now chat GPT is the new thing and how you optimize for that and LLMs. though it's hard to imagine a media company being built sir so super serving chat TVT. But point of the story is i think Pinterest is still underrated.
00:21:53
Speaker
i find Pinterest actually has some like nice throw off like SEO juice too. And so we actually pin all the content that we publish on all of our articles for healthish content. I actually pin it myself still to Pinterest in the hopes that it has value.
00:22:10
Speaker
i don't know. That's super interesting. feel like I haven't been on Pinterest in a minute, but now you've it. know. You're not the only one. Yeah. All right. Can we talk a little bit about your consulting too? So I know there's content where you're all doing amazing stuff and had some tremendous growth. When you're doing more broader strategic consulting and advisement for companies, what does that look like?
00:22:35
Speaker
Yeah, so most of my career outside of the startups has been consulting with company. agency is pretty new. And to be honest, the agency is mostly amazing people that I do very, I just bring them onto the team. i worked with them in the past and they do an amazing job. like executing, I'm really not, frankly, not involved. And i just trust them. I'm involved, but not that involved. and the consulting is where, for better for worse, I'm very involved. And the two types of consulting I tend to do, one is that sort of being like a fractional chief marketing officer.
Consulting and Agency Work
00:23:11
Speaker
And that's been a really cool role that I've played with a lot of companies in the past few years, oh she with with Radial, with General Medicine, with...
00:23:21
Speaker
a bunch of amazing businesses. and And with those companies, I'm helping them figure out their overall go-to-market plan and then helping to hire in and staff a team to go and execute on that as I guide it to some hopefully success. So far, so good. Like Parsley Health is a company I work with very closely.
00:23:40
Speaker
i am doing that less and less. And the other type of consulting that I do is content strategy. So that's coming up with the go-forward content plan. Now, sometimes that does result in people hiring my agency, but not always. Like I worked with Roe and I worked with BetterHelp and I worked with Mitty and a lot of different companies. I'm mentioning, by the way, direct-to-consumer, but I've also worked with every kind of other kind of company, B2B, B2B-C.
00:24:05
Speaker
Again, in healthcare and health, there's a lot of different companies where that's helping them figure out their strategy overall. And then sometimes I'll recommend my agency because it's a good thing and sometimes it's it's not. And that's totally fine. Or they have a whole internal team. That's also been fun. i am trying to bring that all together and consolidate that going into next year so I can turn my attention onto other things. Consulting is, frankly, pretty lucrative and ah fun to work with amazing people and learn about all these different businesses, but it is...
00:24:37
Speaker
Not very scalable yeah because you're just one person. And I think no matter what, ultimately renting your skills and perspective and experience, even if you're getting paid and compensated, and even if you get some shares in the business is not the same as building your own company. And and I miss that. I'm hopeful that I can return to that in the future beyond this agency that i've built.
00:25:03
Speaker
Totally. Could you talk a little bit about Fixie Dust, this which is a super cool product? no Yeah, totally. right Yeah, so the first venture, a new venture of mine, is my first CPG business. So a thing to know about me is...
00:25:21
Speaker
I don't like to do the same thing twice for some very bizarre reason. I guess content now has been a consistent theme, but my first company was a media company. My second company was actually a credit card fintech company, again, in health space.
00:25:32
Speaker
And then my third company here is is a CPG business.
Introducing Fixie Dust
00:25:36
Speaker
I, again, have a very personal reason that I'm passionate about this. My mother, unfortunately, has Alzheimer's and very passionate about brain health and cognitive health and preventing Alzheimer's. And so I got really down the...
00:25:50
Speaker
Just went like very deep on a category of supplements called nootropics, which are like supplements that are good for your brain. And just supplementation in general, reading all those scientific studies again, to figure out like what actually helps long-term like neuro protection. So how do you like help long-term your brain? And then also what things have a short-term impact. So, you know, when you have like a brain fog or afternoon slump, how do you, what do you take?
00:26:17
Speaker
And so I got pretty convinced that I had come up with the perfect sort of long-term thing that I take every day. And then like immediate benefit stack that I take on occasion when I feel brain fog.
00:26:30
Speaker
And I started to tell my friends about it and they wanted it. And so that started to push me into this. I just got interested in, okay, maybe that's a pro there's a product here. And then I'm a big name guy. I like names. And I was playing with names and I landed on this name, Fixie Dust, like Pixie Dust.
00:26:48
Speaker
And I got really excited by the name and the idea of a novel form factor. You might know what a pixie stick is. That is what inspired this. And so what we're doing is like a pixie stick for your brain. And like a pixie stick, you put it right into your mouth. You don't like, you like then water perfect for... Social media. Yeah, no water. you just put it straight into your mouth. And so getting that right has been a journey. It's hard to get a bunch of nootropics that typically don't taste great and put them in your mouth and make it taste great. But we figured it it out. Then we had to get it in like a straw like format. Also, it turns out very difficult in the supplement space to get something in a small straw. But we are, i think we figured almost all of it out and we should be launching early next year, which is really exciting. And we'll see. I'm bootstrapping it for now. And hopefully people will like it. I like it. I take it every day.
00:27:40
Speaker
Wow. Yeah. It sounds incredible. And I also, it's, I like how in your newsletter and even on LinkedIn, i feel like you've been giving us some behind the scenes into the process, the research around how to make these nootropics taste good, et cetera. It's been fun to follow along. And I'd imagine a lot of your Newsletter readers are going to be happy to try it when it comes out. Let's hope. Yeah. It's a little bit, I always feel mixed a little bit about sharing.
00:28:07
Speaker
It's vulnerable, right? To share in public the building. And also we haven't figured it all out, right? I haven't launched and been tremendously successful. There's always this kind of fear and this anxiety, right? That I'm like sharing all about how I'm figuring all this stuff out and trying to build it. But...
00:28:22
Speaker
Will it work? i don't know. I hope it will. I'm bullish it will, but we'll see. And yeah, the hope is that people feel like they're a little bit of part of the journey. And so at the very least, they'll try it and hopefully they'll love it and keep buying it.
00:28:35
Speaker
We'll see. Yeah, I have to say it's worked on me. I love seeing the behind the scenes. I feel a little invested now and I'm sure that I'll be excited. I've got a pre-registration link that I'll send you. No, I'm just kidding. Presale. Yeah.
00:28:48
Speaker
You don't have one, right? Or do you? I don't. Okay. I was going say, we could throw that in the show notes. Absolutely. well No, it's very cool. And the branding you guys have done around is super interesting looking. Well, yeah, I'm a big brand person as well. Name and brand. So it was very important to get right.
00:29:02
Speaker
Hard to get right. And that matters a lot, obviously, in the CPG space too. But yeah, the idea was something like seed health meets magic spoon. Fun and ah pixie mischievousness mixed with science and like trustworthy, impactful brain stuff. And don't know, we'll see. I think we, we nailed it, but again, to be determined early next year.
00:29:29
Speaker
I feel like it's all coming through. I want to ask me, this is a boring question, but I'm very curious about it. Just me personally, you have a lot going on.
Derek's Daily Routine and Organization
00:29:37
Speaker
What does an average like day in your life or week in your life look like? How are you dividing up your time among these projects?
00:29:43
Speaker
What is, how does it work for you?
00:29:47
Speaker
People seem to be surprised to hear that I'm like not a good multitasker. Like I'm a good solo tasker, I guess, unitasker. I don't like doing a lot of things and I find i have a lot of trouble actually gear shifting and task shifting. And so with my schedule, I'm like a freak about organization. So that's probably worth, it's probably worth saying that aloud. Like i I don't know many people who are as obsessive about it. I have an agenda that I do every day. I take notes on every single thing. i i like measure and give myself feedback essentially on where I've been spending my time. i have a like a calendar that is like to the minute essentially predetermined. It's very hard to like, if if it's not on my calendar, it's not happening and i have a bad memory. So if it's not in my agenda or my calendar somewhere, it's like probably never going to happen. But I built a lot of like cool systems.
00:30:40
Speaker
I, But other, I'm still a human, normal. I'm not a robot, I swear. I'm not a robot, I swear. And i wake up really early in the morning before my kiddos wake up, hopefully. I do a big, I call eat the frog. So I do like my big, like annoying thing in the morning. That's not a phrase I came up with. I don't know who came up with that. Benjamin Franklin. I love that one. yeah Yeah, sure. That would have been my guest to Benjamin Franklin. So I do my Benjamin Franklin in the morning. Then I work out watch my kids make their lunches, work out typically.
00:31:14
Speaker
and And then I basically am working from... Nine until 530. Usually that means I'm on back-to-back calls because across my various ventures, that leads to a lot of calls. I try to save a chunk of time every day for what I call deep work. And then also for the prep around like getting ready for the next day and reflecting on the day that I had.
00:31:38
Speaker
And then i really try to avoid getting back on after the kids are in bed, but it does happen. I'll admit it happens on occasion, but for the most part, I'm very productive when I'm working.
00:31:49
Speaker
And I don't know if you were really asking about any of that, but. No, that's a okay. On Sundays, I have a tracker. I call it my tracker. And I go through the week ahead and write out all the kind of the things that I have to do, check in on where everything is at. And then I fit it into my schedule, essentially. By the end of, by the time Monday starts, my whole week is figured out. And where what I'm going to focus on where is figured out, things happen. And there's a
00:32:20
Speaker
fire alarm or something happens with the kids or there's always stuff that happens. But for the most part, that's how i manage a lot of random stuff. Wow, it's interesting. When you say, okay, tell me about your agenda and the notes that you take after everything. Is it a paper agenda or is it digital? How do you do that?
00:32:37
Speaker
I've tried everything. There was a period in which I used good Google doc. And so my Google doc for the year, and it was great Google. It was like absurd. And so I do have, I called it my master planner. i have five years of Google doc, like one whole year complete. And that was at a time when I actually used to write down everything at eight as well. That's changed since, but yeah. So if you met with me anytime from 2011 on, I have notes. wow Maybe not.
00:33:05
Speaker
super crazy detail, but I have notes. And then i moved to Evernote and, and then a maybe two years ago, i switched to reflect, which is, i don't know people. I love it. Reflect.app. they do a thing that other ones don't do very well, which is they make it really easy for you to create like people notes and cards.
00:33:27
Speaker
So every time you and I have met, I have notes and that note lives in like your people. And yeah, I take notes digitally. i don't use a scribe. Like I don't use Gondola and all that. I find that like I would, there's nothing, I'm not against them. I think they're probably good. And I should probably have one running in the background so I can learn from how many times I say or silly things, the the
00:33:54
Speaker
I find writing things down is how I remember things. And so that that's a very important process for me. I also, in advance of every day, go through and prepare for all my meetings as well. And is this too down the rabbit hole? no I literally set intentions for every meeting. yeah I'm a weirdo.
00:34:15
Speaker
no it It works for me. I think it's an ego thing to be totally like upfront. Like i think it's not necessary to do that. I think sometimes on the internet, everyone, it pretends like they're the way they do things is the best way. This is just what I've kind of learned works for me. And a lot of it has to do with my own...
00:34:37
Speaker
ego or insecurity around like being prepared. And it makes me feel good to be prepared. Is it totally necessary? Probably not. And it's evolved over time and I've taken it less seriously and sometimes other than others, but that's what works for me.
00:34:52
Speaker
Thank you so much. That's super interesting. I'm going check out, was it reflect.fm? Reflect, yeah. and God, that's cool. I think I'm like, I would never want to see my card. Yeah.
00:35:05
Speaker
Why? Your card is lovely. yeah like one I'm not like really, I'm not like in there commenting on people's wardrobes. It's more just writing notes as we talk about the stuff that we talk about that I should remember it later. Totally. No, i'm interested. interesting You have eight kids and green hair. You nailed it.
00:35:22
Speaker
Because like sometimes I've been in, don't know if you are too, but I'm in a lot of networking groups now. And I love networking with people, but I haven't found an organized way other than a spreadsheet to remind myself of when we met, the details. And it's cumbersome. It's not working for me. So I'm going to check that out. I've got a, if you want a super over-instrumented, like way to handle that, boy, do I have one.
00:35:46
Speaker
You want to share it? it's It's this like jerry-rigged reflect thing that I've said. Okay, you're deep in there. I thought you were like, we could go to a whole other level if you have another five minutes. That's really cool. First of all, thanks for sharing all of that and being open-minded. I think it's fascinating. I'm so fascinated by whatever we would call this, the ways that entrepreneurs- Productivity porn?
00:36:06
Speaker
Yeah, totally. That's it. And let me think. I'm looking through my questions. It's like we organically covered everything that I wanted to I was gonna ask a question that was the length, the wording I had here was how from the outside, it seems like you have a pretty relentless creative drive. And I wanted to ask how intentional are you about the way your life and work are structured right now and what helps you stay energized versus burnout. I presume that these systems you have in place are a big part of that. But I think part of that question is a little more emotional. Like you seem to have a very relentless creative force in you
00:36:43
Speaker
Have you always had that? Where do you think it comes from? I
00:36:50
Speaker
i think the drive, the motivation, i think I was born in some ways with the batteries included. Always wanting to like seek and go. My parents are like, my my dad was the son of like penniless immigrants in Bronzeville, Brooklyn. My mom was an immigrant. They really...
00:37:08
Speaker
put a lot into me and so i feel a real like responsibility an opportunity to like make good on that investment and their how much how privileged i was to have loving parents who like gave me resources and supported me and so definitely feel that pressure slash responsibility and then Yeah.
00:37:33
Speaker
And I'd like, I think I've spent a lot of time trying to figure out what fills me up and fills my cup. but i really think being creative is one of my favorite things. And I actually think, i think I'm pretty good at running businesses. I have one for one, so I don't know. the but I guess, depending on how you define healthish content, maybe it's two. Two to one, we'll see. But I think I'm good at getting better. And I think a big part of why I think like I'm good at that is because of the creativity. i think in some ways, building things and leading and being good at business is a lot of creative problem solving. And so I love that the business...
00:38:10
Speaker
piece and then, and then I love creating. i don't think I'm the most creative. I think I'm like a nice balance in some ways between like right lay, right brain, left brain. And that allows me to decide I'm going to review 25 bars and spend way too long doing that. The same way that like I work on a P and L and try to improve that P and L so that we can increase our margin on this agency. That also feels creative and like problem solving to me.
00:38:40
Speaker
Yeah, I totally agree with that. I think that's so much of business, especially, i don't know, perhaps it's just my perspective on it, but in the creative space or creative services, it's deeply creative, the problem solving, the people in management, the approaches. I agree totally.
00:38:54
Speaker
And people, you're selling people, you're managing people, you're finding people, retaining people. i also love people, not just content people, all people, but especially content people.
00:39:05
Speaker
yeah For folks listening, we will put your newsletter in the show notes. We will put your LinkedIn profile in the show notes. Is there anywhere else that you'd invite them to check you out, follow along, or ways they could reach out if they're interested to work with you?
00:39:22
Speaker
Got to check out my LinkedIn. Yeah, LinkedIn, email. That's all good. I'm very easily findable. I'm the only Derek Flammsreich on the internet, so least for now.
00:39:35
Speaker
Yeah, that'd be shocking if there was ever another. I've never met another Flansryk. Not a lot of Flansryks out there. It's true. Derek, thank you so much. Is there anything we didn't cover you'd want to say before we wrap? No, this was fun. I appreciate all your thoughtful questions and I had a lot of fun.
00:39:51
Speaker
Good. Me too. Thank you. Yeah, thank you.