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Episode 392: Damon Brown Goes from Zero to 18,000
685 Plays1 year ago
Damon Brown is an author, entrepreneur, and coach and his latest book is The Complete Bring Your Worth Collection.
In this episode, we talk about:
- How he grew is YouTube channel from 0 to 18K
- The BYW Collection as capstone
- And how obscurity is your friend ... to a point
Support: Patreon.com/cnfpod
Show notes: brendanomeara.com
Newsletter: Rage Against the Algorithm
Social: @creativenonfictionpodcast on IG and Threads
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Transcript
Listener Engagement Offer
00:00:00
Speaker
Bro, AC and efforts, before we get started, I'm bringing back the quid pro quo written review for editing and coaching. So if you leave a written review for the podcast, my podcast, on Apple Podcasts, I will edit and coach up a piece of your work of up to 2,000 words. When your review publishes, send a screenshot of it to creativenonfictionpodcast.gmail.com and we'll start a dialogue.
00:00:27
Speaker
This is like a hundred dollar value. So if I were you, I'd totally do it. I'm Bilbo Baggins and, you know, got the knock from Gandalf and we're going to head out.
Introduction to Creative Nonfiction Podcast
00:00:44
Speaker
Oh, hey, CNFers. It's CNF Pod, the creative nonfiction podcast, a show where I speak to badass people about telling true stories. I'm Brendan O'Mara.
Damon Brown on Creativity and Entrepreneurship
00:00:55
Speaker
Damon Brown, my May returns for episode 392. He's the author of 27 books. Hold on.
00:01:06
Speaker
27 books, many independently published, a few traditional, and he's a business coach for non-traditional entrepreneurs, a fine writer, and a damn fine dude. It's always nice to talk creativity in what it means to be in this space with Damon. He and I have a nice rapport like that. We met at Hippo Camp in 2019, and we've been buddies ever since.
Growing Bring Your Worth TV
00:01:30
Speaker
On this pod, we talk about how he grew his YouTube show, Bring Your Worth TV, from zero subscribers to 18,000. That's 18,000 with 1,000. Who are the authors that he turns to for inspiration? When did he make that pivot? Or how should I phrase this?
00:01:52
Speaker
At one point do you make that pivot when you're making the thing be it a YouTube show or podcast for yourself and then you have to start thinking about the audience. And the beauty of obscurity. It is a great thing believe it or not. You can find Damon at DamonBrown.net and sign up for his weekly newsletter which gives you some tasty little nuggets of stuff. Can't get enough newsletters.
00:02:18
Speaker
Well, I guess you can because people are always unsubscribing from mine. His latest book is The Bring Your Worth Collection, which is the definitive media conglomerate of build from now, bring your worth, and the ultimate bite-sized entrepreneur, an omnibus.
00:02:37
Speaker
book of all those bestsellers of his. Hey, and you know the deal. Go to BrendanOmero.com for show notes and to sign up for the monthly Rage Against the Algorithm newsletter. Subscribe to the show or not. It's up to you.
Platform Anxiety and Giving Back
00:02:53
Speaker
I do have a parting shot this week.
00:02:57
Speaker
about platform nonsense and the excess worry about it and the cries of desperation that I see. Oh boy, do I see it. I see it out there in the thread community and it hurts because what I do, I see myself. I see myself from several years ago. I see echoes of it now, but I'm better at bottling it up.
00:03:25
Speaker
So I have some things to say about that. But in the meantime, here is my chat with my pal, the brilliant Damon Brown. Ruth. You're pretty often like different theories in philosophy, so you probably know this better than I do.
00:03:52
Speaker
where the first 30 of your life is figuring out who you are. The second third is to, um, maximize who you are. And the third, third, third, third, third third is to, is to find a way to give it back. I'm not in the last third of my life, but it kind of feels like that where I'm like, all right, like I did nine business books in the past seven years.
00:04:18
Speaker
eight of them are in this compilation. Here you go. Like it just feels like delivery service Damon. That's what it feels like.
00:04:26
Speaker
Yeah, well, it's kind of like that Toni Morrison quote that you that you cite where, you know, I'm just paraphrasing, but like when you have power, it's your it's your chance to then empower somebody else. Right, exactly. She was way more old school about it, but that's exactly it, where it's like once you get that big job in the big city in New York or whatever, then your job is to keep the door open to let other people in. And same same energy, same philosophy. That's one of the reasons why I included it in there is that
00:04:56
Speaker
I don't think it's ever too early to do that. And again, I'm middle-aged, I'm not anywhere near retirement. And so for me, it's like I'm already starting to feel that era. The TV show I started a few weeks ago, kind of feels like that, where it's just like, okay, this is something that's free to everybody.
00:05:18
Speaker
And this is me passing on anything that might be of value. And if it works for you, cool. If it doesn't, you can leave it to the side.
00:05:27
Speaker
Absolutely. Yeah, that's a thing you brought up about. You don't have to necessarily wait for, let's say, that final third to give it back. Like, the minute you have some kernel of something, even if you feel kind of like a fraud, like, who am I to, like, I'm not experienced enough or accomplished enough or wealthy enough to pass along any advice or information that might help somebody else, there is value in giving that away, even if you feel kind of like a fraud.
Overcoming Imposter Syndrome
00:05:57
Speaker
Yeah. I mean, I think we deal with that tension and unfortunately feeling like a fraud, I think prevents us from giving as much as we could. It reminds me of like the people that I do know that are like really well to do for lack of better term, they've always been giving even before they became millionaires or whatever.
00:06:16
Speaker
and the people that I know they're well to do that don't give, they never gave. You know what I mean? So it's like, and it's almost like, I've been thinking a lot about the scarcity, not scarcity, scarcity mindset. And if you feel like you don't have enough, then it's easy to kind of fool yourself and be like, no, when I get the next best seller, then I'll start coaching people, but I'm not ready yet.
00:06:44
Speaker
And it's like, how preposterous does that sound? It's like, no, you actually have something to give now. And so I think sometimes because of our insecurity, or I love the idea of fraud, because we feel like frauds, we're actually not willing to step up and share with other people. So it ends up being a self-fulfilling prophecy.
00:07:01
Speaker
where we feel like we're never ready to give, even though we have way more, in some cases, than other people. And it's like, at a certain point, you have to be like, okay, the scales are tipping way too much. But unfortunately, I think for a lot of us, particularly as creators, we don't realize that like, with you, Brendan, you have an amazing podcast, you got books in the work, you're killing it, from my standpoint.
00:07:25
Speaker
But from your standpoint, you might be feeling a different way. But imagine if you felt like you weren't doing enough, then you wouldn't be contributing at all. And I know you contribute a lot, so you've already processed a lot of that. But so many people that I coach and work with, it's like, they could get stuck there. And they're like, I'll get my PhD, and then maybe I'll go ahead and start a YouTube show. And it's like, you know,
00:07:51
Speaker
PhD is like 12 years of your life. You can get started. You're good. Well, yeah, it's because when you look outward to whatever social media platform you might like or an author you admire and you see them right now, this snapshot, you see someone with 150,000 followers and millions of views on YouTube and you're like, okay, they have the authority to teach, but I only have
00:08:19
Speaker
59 followers and if I put a video up it gets like 10 views like so who am I like I don't have enough platform to teach so why even bother but the fact is they started at they started at zero at some point also I agree a hundred percent and that's that's an excellent example for bringing worth TV about the show it'll be three years in December and I had a few hundred followers
00:08:48
Speaker
If you want to call them followers, they're called subscribers on YouTube. So I had a couple hundred, maybe a few hundred subscribers for the first two years. And then at the top of this year, it went like a hockey stick, as they say in Silicon Valley. And I think I went from maybe a thousand subscribers to about 10,000 subscribers, pretty much within the course of like a week and a half, two weeks.
Persistence and Skill Development
00:09:17
Speaker
What do you attribute that to? What do you think happened there? As you can tell, I'm still processing what happened. I'm always going to be honest with you. I think one of the things that happened, shout out to Steven Pressfield, is that I kept showing up and I kept doing the work. And the resistance of people not being there didn't stop me from showing up for the people that were showing up.
00:09:47
Speaker
So I think that was, that was one. The second thing was that, um, this just dawned on me when I was, I was on another show a few weeks ago, was that I just got better. And, um, as of this recording, I'm about to do episode 361. So I had 360 chances to kind of, you know, get myself better and, uh, to improve my stuff.
00:10:13
Speaker
And so once you kind of get into those, Brendan, you and I have talked about this. I know you're a sports guy. So you get into those reps. It's like at a certain point, you're going to grow a muscle. I can, you know, how I tend to nerd out on analytics and analyzing how artists work in particular, the business side of things. And I can tell you, blow by blow. That's the part I do know of the past 360 episodes, which were the episodes where suddenly everything clicked.
00:10:42
Speaker
And there was no going back after that. It was like episode 27 where I did something about Brene Brown and how to deal with people you don't like. And that's still one of my most popular episodes, but something clicked with episode 27. There's another episode I did about being an entrepreneur versus being a freelancer and how to tell the difference. It didn't do super well, but I knew something clicked with that one. So there's certain moments where you just level up. It's almost like,
00:11:10
Speaker
get it back to writing, like, it's almost like you doing essays or vignettes. And as you know, I've done a couple for the things that you've published, Brendan, and, and there's certain, you keep doing those vignettes, you keep doing those little stories, those chat books, or whatever, whatever the vibe is nowadays, you start doing those, and then you do one. And it just, it just humps. You're like, Oh, oh, this feels different.
00:11:37
Speaker
And so there are certain moments like that. And so that's the second thing I would attribute it to is just me doing the reps and doing that. And I think the third thing, which is unique to kind of the multimedia that I'm kind of playing with now,
00:11:53
Speaker
because my background is journalism, longtime author, but having a TV show is kind of a different world. And like a lot of things I do, I'm doing everything myself. So executive producer, quote unquote, and editing myself, doing the thumbnails, which is like the advertisement or the picture that you see before you click on the video.
00:12:11
Speaker
the titles, the editing, the scripting, and of course being the main person in there, unless it's occasion where I interview somebody else. And I'm actually becoming more flexible as far as how I present things. And I think that's probably the biggest thing that I've learned is that you're not even success, that's not the right word. Your skillset doesn't always translate.
00:12:38
Speaker
And your platform doesn't always translate to another platform. So if I have a big following on Twitter or X or whatever it's called nowadays, and I shift over to say LinkedIn, that doesn't mean I'm going to have a big following on LinkedIn. If I was a regular freelancer for Playboy, the New York Post, ARP, Family Circle, when I was really focused on freelance journalism, I'd say about a decade and a half ago.
00:13:06
Speaker
And then suddenly I start writing books. As I learned the hard way, it's like, no, I'm kind of building up a new audience. That's not a bad thing, but you just have to recognize where it's like, there's a different, there's a different medium. I'm not really a big sound guy. I love music. There's a picture of John Coltrane on my wall here in my office. I love music. Used to be a DJ. You know, my kids are learning instruments. Like it's fantastic. I love, love, love music, but I'm not really a sound guy.
00:13:35
Speaker
And so my biggest challenge over the last say few months is me working on improving the sound of the episodes I do for the Bring Your Worship because I don't think about that. But if someone who was native to video and say someone who was a director or I have friends who do independent films, they'll be like, of course, the sound goes with the visual. They're both telling a story. Of course, Damon. And I'm like, yeah, but I'm I'm used to words on a page.
00:14:04
Speaker
So I have to almost develop a different mindset. And I think that was kind of that third part that happened this year where it was just like, oh, I'm kind of starting over again. And believe it or not, it took like two and a half years for me to realize that. And I'm like, oh. And as soon as I started to realize that, then suddenly, then the audience, I think, started to come in. There's a lot more inside baseball to it, but that would be kind of the three top ones. Right. And for people,
00:14:33
Speaker
you know, whether they're building a newsletter audience from scratch or a YouTube show or, you know, being a podcast to, you know, whatever, you know, whatever permission based kind of asset there is. If someone's starting at zero with a newsletter YouTube show, how would you, you know, coach them to to lean in and to grow the thing? I'd say number one, just start creating as our buddy Seth Golden talks about and other folks talk about it. Your first ones are just going to suck.
00:15:03
Speaker
So just accept that, at least for me. And I have a solid ego, so I have to have that conversation with myself and be like, no, Damon, you're not gonna.
00:15:16
Speaker
to talk about Bring Your Worth TV. Yeah, I got to do bringyourworth.tv. And the first episode is going to do a million views. My first episode, I think, did five views. And as I always say, one of them was my mother, which is often true. And so, you know what I mean? That includes my earlier books, too. It's like, my mom's got my back. And so if you end up having that conversation with yourself, at least the way that I'm built,
00:15:42
Speaker
That helps because part of that inertia is that's trying to make it perfect. So that lands properly. Your shit is not going to land properly. It's just not because you don't know what you don't know. And you understanding you don't know it is actually the next level. That's the best thing you can do for yourself. I was to be like, I don't know what I'm doing. I'm going to do my very best. I'm going to show up in a certain way with again, episode 27. I was talking about.
00:16:11
Speaker
The lighting is rough. I don't think the camera was right. I think I started over my words. I was probably speaking very similar to how I'm speaking now. We're kind of struggling for things. And it's one of my most popular videos to this day. I didn't know that. So if I didn't show up until I had like, you know, I have like better studio lighting and
00:16:35
Speaker
You know, I have a 4K, I do 4K on my phone now, so it's like the videos are nice and crisp now, and I'm editing beyond, you know, the stage of a third grader. It's like things are clean now, but one of my most popular videos is really rough. So imagine if I put myself to the side and said, no, no, no, you have to wait till you get the 4K camera, you get the nice mic, you actually comb your hair or brush your hair, because I don't have much hair. So you brush your hair before you get on camera, like all those different things.
00:17:05
Speaker
Then I still wouldn't have a show. And so number one is to just start and assume that your first ones are going to suck. And number two, the power is in the reps. So you can just keep doing it. And I scaled back to two times a week, Wednesdays and Sundays at one 11 PM civic standard time. But when I first started, I was doing it three times a week, Mondays, Wednesdays, and Fridays.
00:17:31
Speaker
And I was sucking three times a week and it was great. And then again, episode 27, I keep giving the number because that's not that far in. And so my videos were still sucking, but something resonated with the audience I was trying to connect with. And it happened relatively early and then things flattened out. And then it was probably episode 150. Another one took off.
00:17:57
Speaker
And then it started to compile after that.
Maintaining Consistency and Avoiding Burnout
00:18:00
Speaker
So I'd say number one, just to start and assume it's not going to be perfect. Make, make peace with that. I'd say number two was just to get into the reps. And I'd say number three, create some type of schedule, but make the schedule realistic for your actual life. So me doing it three times a week, I think I did it three times a week for about a year.
00:18:25
Speaker
And I was like, you know what? I could keep going, but I'm going to burn out because I'm looking at me having this show when my kids are in college. That's 10 years from now. And so it's like, I tell this to my, uh, coaching clients all the time. I even tell myself this all the time, whatever you're doing right now, could you sustain it for the next year?
00:18:53
Speaker
And if you can't sustain it for the next year, then you're probably going to burn out on it. You probably should change your habit. That structure keeps me sane. Me having that routine of
00:19:07
Speaker
every Wednesday, every Sunday. Wednesdays, I do a live show, which also helps me sharpen up my keynoting, because I'm a keynote speaker. So even though I'm not on the road, I'm able to be live and connect with people. And of course, the audience comes in and asking questions. And that's kind of my jam. And then on Sunday, it's an edited recorded show, which you typically see on a YouTube type of program. And me knowing that, it's paced enough so that I don't burn out.
00:19:37
Speaker
But it also gives me enough structure so I'm not dealing with, again, the Steven Pressfield idea of the resistance. Because it's like, oh no, like we're recording this on a Tuesday. I know early tomorrow afternoon I'm going to be on the air. Yeah. So I better make sure that I'm sharp.
00:19:59
Speaker
I better make sure that my topics are aligned. I better make sure that my tech is on point. And now I have 18,000 subscribers. So whether it's a couple that show up, which I still have episodes where two, three people will show up and that's it. And then I'll have episodes where it's like hundreds of people in the room. I don't know what's gonna happen. And so it sharpens me. So it puts that boundary on me to say like, you're gonna be producing something on Wednesday.
00:20:28
Speaker
And you're going to have an episode on Sunday. And that rigor allows me to be not even productive, but it has a level of accountability. And there's a lot of people that I work with, a lot of people more importantly, a lot of people that I know that put out that ambitious schedule.
00:20:46
Speaker
And they're like, you know what, I'm going to do a newsletter every day. I had those conversations and I'm like, I do one once a week. It's that join daemon.me. You guys can join for free. I do one once a week and it's hard. Yeah. You're doing once a day. Homie. Really? But if you're going to be in the arena, like you need to make sure that you're at full strength.
00:21:10
Speaker
And it took a lot for me to be like, Oh, I know I have had this show three times a week and people are used to seeing me three times a week, but it's almost like you're in a formula one car and you want to make sure you're in the right lane before things move so fast. You won't be able to change things. And again, as a business coach and some of the experiences that I've had. And I love that you brought up the permission based.
00:21:36
Speaker
Because then there's this level of guilt, and I would also argue shame. Guilt is usually about when you feel like you should be doing something but you're not. Shame is when you're worried about other people judging you. And I think we kind of carry both of them when we decide to scale back on certain things. Like there's jobs that I've applied for, there's things that I pursued to level up my financial situation,
00:22:03
Speaker
and to build up things as I go into the latter half of my career and of my life. And I've been processing my own guilt and shame around that because I've been independent for so long. And it's like, no, actually, this is actually the adventure. This is the thing where it's like, as Joseph Campbell talks about, your insight is in the cave that you're afraid to go into. And I'm like, all right, well, maybe ends up being
00:22:33
Speaker
me working with organizations for 20, 30 hours a week and me having the show and me continuing to do the books after this capstone, which just came out for the complete Bring Your Worth collection, doing later books later.
Career Transition and Exploration
00:22:49
Speaker
But maybe I've done enough in these particular arenas to explore other arenas.
00:22:56
Speaker
And there's almost like identity crisis when it comes to that. And I think us as creatives, what's her name? Elizabeth Gilbert talked about that with big magic in that sometimes the art that you're called to do isn't the one that pays the bills. And I'm blessed where my bills have been paid.
00:23:15
Speaker
Ups and downs for sure. So let's be 100% with it. But my bills have been paid and I can continue on this path. And also I feel like there's other things that are calling me too. I'm just not sure what they are. And that level of open-mindedness is new for me because now, again, I have 18,000 subscribers on at bringyouworth.tv. I have my 27th book just came out. So this has almost been established my identity.
00:23:43
Speaker
And so now I'm going through my own process where it's like, OK, like, damn it, you did 27 books. Like, what? You can do a 28th now? Like, what? Maybe there's other other areas to explore and other things to discuss as a creative. And that in itself allows me to walk the walk that I've taught
00:24:06
Speaker
or discussed with, not even taught, discussed with, with my coaching clients, with the keynotes that I've done, and even in the books. So trying to be, it's an interesting period of time with me, because it's almost like this massive transition, but I'm not exactly sure what it's transitioning to. And that's one of the reasons I think, even on a subconscious level, I was like, this is a time to do the complete Bring Your Worth collection, because it feels like a capstone in a particular discussion, as well as giving it ideally as like a gift to the people
00:24:36
Speaker
who are new to me because of the show and don't know my previous work. So it's like, here you go, everything's here. And also it being a capstone to myself to being like, okay, let's put a dot on it, let's put a period on the sentence and let's give, I'm really about, at least in theory, I'm working on it in practice, in allowing and knowing when to end things.
00:25:04
Speaker
because that actually gives space for new stuff to come in. Right. I made a note about quitting and whether when you start something, be it a YouTube channel, podcast or whatever, if you build quitting into your strategy, Seth writes about this in the dip and so forth. I wonder what your relationship is to quitting or maybe if you build that in as part of the blueprint.
00:25:33
Speaker
I think it depends on the, I definitely build it in, but it depends, really depends on what my expectations are and why I'm doing it. I don't, I think it's kind of reversing your question. Excellent question. Just kind of reversing a little bit where it's like, don't worry about quitting. Worry about what you're trying to accomplish. You know what I mean? Like you, did you, did you do it? What's your metric? Oh, you did it. Okay. Then you can leave at any time.
00:26:04
Speaker
Yeah, the danger I would think of building quitting into a plan is that you might quit too soon, or you're giving yourself an out before things get hard, or when things get hard.
00:26:23
Speaker
Maybe now's the time to give up, but actually that's the time where you need to soldier on, maybe not sink too much more time into it, but you keep going. So I guess to your point, having a well-defined mission objective, and are those little goals along the way, are you making some forward progress, or are you just constantly pinned up against your own goal line, in which case, punt? Exactly. Exactly, making that decision. And I love the analogy that
00:26:52
Speaker
I think it's in the dip, but it might've been, you know how prolific he is, so it might've been in something else. And he talks about, right? And he talks about running a marathon. You're gonna hurt. And if you're not set up right, this sounds graphic, but your nipples are probably gonna start bleeding because your shirt's gonna be bouncing up and down for 26 miles. There's all these little details that I happen to know, again, because I'm close to people that run marathons. But if you say,
00:27:22
Speaker
I'm gonna run as far as I can. Then as soon as your knee starts hurting, which it will start hurting, you're gonna quit. And so instead saying, you know, when both of my knees start hurting and the arthritis in my ankle becomes unbearable, then I'm gonna quit. So you might be on mile 20 and when your knee starts hurting, you do that check-in, you're like, oh, but my left knee's okay and my ankle's fine. I'm gonna keep going.
00:27:47
Speaker
So I think that's, to borrow his stuff, I'd say that would be the discussion on quitting, is figuring out what circumstances that requires. And to be honest, if my kid's wellbeing was in jeopardy, and I started entrepreneurship when he was four months old, I sold the second startup, the last startup I did, right after his second birthday. So within that, was that 20 month period of time, if he was ever in jeopardy,
00:28:16
Speaker
or if I could not take care of him because my wife had a traditional job, then I would quit. But I feel like that's a little bit different than saying, what am I going to quit? I feel like it's more like knowing where your priorities are. And so I think it's a little bit, that might be a little bit more nuanced than just knowing when to quit. It's more like, no, this is the most important thing is my child. And so if I'm not able to take care of him, then this isn't worth it.
00:28:46
Speaker
I know when I started this podcast, it was originally for me in a lot of ways. I was doing that to work through some of my own resentments and jealousies and everything, but at a certain point,
00:29:04
Speaker
it has to eventually pivot and become about somebody else and be about the audience and be of service to someone other than yourself. And it still serves me in my own ways, but I'm much more attuned to the audience and have been for years. For you and your various things, you can take it to the YouTube channel. I imagine there was something of an itch that it was scratching for you, and then you're thinking about elsewhere and other people, serving other people.
Pivoting from Self-Serving Art to Audience Focus
00:29:30
Speaker
So for you, when did that pivot take place?
00:29:33
Speaker
That's a great question. Great question. I think we all, the process you just described, if we are to mature as a creator or to make it even more specific, if we want our art to mature, then that pivot I think has to happen eventually. For me, it was, it was kind of a two-pronged thing. It was December of 2020 and we had had almost a full year of the pandemic here in America and elsewhere.
00:30:03
Speaker
sheltering in place. And so there were two things going on. I was already a business coach for a handful of years before the pandemic happened. And I was used to connecting with people virtually. A lot of people that I was coaching or a lot of people I coach mostly
00:30:20
Speaker
side hustlers, solopreneurs, non-traditional entrepreneurs, particularly people who are identified as women, BIPOC, or people in the LGBTQ community. Like it's, the bias is really strong because of the amount of communities that need to be supported within those respective areas. And unfortunately, with particularly, I guess you call it marginalized communities, a lot of them were not able to frankly afford the coaching I was doing.
00:30:50
Speaker
or were even able to get access to me because, frankly, they weren't able, literally weren't able to do it. They're like, I'm trying to survive. I don't have to.
00:31:00
Speaker
I don't have time for three 45 minute sessions with you, Damon. No, I don't. You know, lovingly, but they're like, I don't have time for this shit. I got to feed my kids or I can feed myself. I got to figure out, you know, how I'm going to get around and I'm, you know, autoimmune compromise. So it's like, how am I going to do it? Like it was, as if you remember 2020, it was just a mess. All right. I want to find some way to support folks. And the platforms are free to the viewer.
00:31:28
Speaker
You pay with advertising or with your attention span, but it's free. You don't need to put out your PayPal account or your bank account. So that was one dimension of it. The other dimension, other side of the coin, which you were kind of hinting at with your own journey was that actually I needed to do this because me doing keynotes, me going to the TED conference and the American Society of Journalists and Authors conference and all that, all those spigots got turned off.
00:31:55
Speaker
And I realized how much I missed connecting with people, whether live or through a recorded show. And I'm like, I miss just the back and forth and Brennan, you and I have met at conferences before and there's no, there's nothing that replicates that, but we don't have any of that outside. Again, talking beginning of winter 2020, we can't go outside. How can I actually support
00:32:22
Speaker
and give love to the many people that I want to serve and pass along any information or knowledge I might have. And doing the show seemed to make the most sense to accomplish both those things, to serve the people that I wanted to serve who were just trying to survive and did not have the time or the resources to coach with me, and also for me to find a way to connect with people, because frankly,
00:32:50
Speaker
You know, when you're stuck in a house with your partner and two little kids, and you're not able to connect with adults and other folks in the same way that you used to doing, as well as the back and forth and the rigor that comes from having those conversations, it could be a pretty lonely place. So those are kind of the main two reasons why I started the show.
00:33:14
Speaker
And how important was it for you to make it, you know, a TV show, to put it in video versus, you know, podcasts or just audio?
Creating a TV Show Format
00:33:25
Speaker
Good question. Really good question. I think for me, I wanted to, if I remember correctly, and I have it written down somewhere, always write things down on index cards.
00:33:35
Speaker
I think the vision was how can I bring out the energy of a keynote and have people connect with it for free, setting the table for whatever conversations there might be. And for the episodes that have become, I won't say the most popular, but the most viewed, you see the conversation evolving in the comments and some heated arguments, some intense discussions, some healing.
00:34:05
Speaker
Some of my episodes talk about death, some people have talked about losing people, like just really heavy conversations. To kind of follow the thread, I talked about this on a previous episode that you had me on, where my main job with Cuddler was not only getting the name out as far as branding and stuff like that, but also to handle all the customer requests. And again, we had a quarter million users, so it was hundreds of requests every day.
00:34:35
Speaker
And one was, sound like an older gentleman. I can't remember what age he was. I want to say like 80. And he was thanking us for creating this app that allowed you to connect with people for hugs because his wife had passed away and he hadn't had physical touch since she passed away. And our app enabled him to do that.
00:34:55
Speaker
And again, this is 10 years ago. I think about that all the time. And I feel like it's a similar energy. Now that I'm talking to you where I'm like, Oh yeah, that's, that's great. A space where I'm really comfortable talking about uncomfortable things. And I realize that's one of my strengths. It's like, it's uncomfortable. Okay. Let's talk about it. I realize as I get older, realizing that everybody wants to do that, which is making my life really interesting. I'm like, Oh, you don't want to talk about that. Do you? Okay.
00:35:25
Speaker
But if I'm willing to talk about it, I'm excited to talk about it. And to look at those darker places, those darker corners, and I think I'm friendly enough to welcome other people in, then other people start to let their guard down a little bit and talk about those things that they're not comfortable with.
00:35:43
Speaker
And so ideally, you know, through the book, I guess in some ways through cuddler back in the day, but definitely through TV show. And so I was like, okay, this is messy shit. We should probably talk about it. And maybe we can make it a little bit less messy by going through it together. You know? Yeah. What's making you uncomfortable today? Oh, I love that question. What I just brought up to you about 15 minutes ago is me not knowing what my next career step is.
00:36:13
Speaker
It's making me really uncomfortable.
00:36:15
Speaker
Because I tend to be a strategist. I mean, business coach for God's sake. Yeah. Your whole deal is selling some degree of certainty and helping other, helping other people through the uncertainty. And you're like, ah, fuck if I know what's happening next. Right. I was trying to keep, keep it clean today. I don't know why, but that's not going to happen. So just to give you a warning, Brendan, you know me personally. So, you know, you know where it's going.
00:36:46
Speaker
Yeah, exactly. The fuck if I know? I don't. What I do know though, but I think that was an Oprah book, right? I know this much is true. I think it was a Wally Lamb, but I know this much is true. I know that I have my toolbox, which I talked about in my previous book, Career Remix, and my toolbox goes with me wherever I go.
00:37:09
Speaker
So I got a decent gift of gab. I'm a fairly articulate person. I have a strong vision as far as the life that I want to live, life that I want to have for my wife and kids, and for the people that I serve. And I have a community. And those are things that not everybody has. So I'm like, OK. Well, then I'm Bilbo Baggins, and got the knock from Gandalf, and we're going to head out. That's what it feels like.
00:37:38
Speaker
I already mentioned them, but like Joseph Campbell, like it's, the phone's ringing and I got to answer the phone. And with the, with the bring your worth collection, you know, what was the, the, actually, you know, first I want to ask you about it is the, is the cover. Yeah. Yeah. That, that struck me as a, you know, a lot of your colors are covers are very,
00:38:02
Speaker
Um, you know, there are bright and there are design elements that are, you know, that are obvious and kind of hit you in the face. And in this collection, it is just a blue cover with very simple lettering on it. And that's it. I think I wanted it to be.
00:38:20
Speaker
because I worked with my cover designer, Beck Loss. I love you, Beck. Her information's in the book, if you guys are interested. When we worked together on the cover earlier this year, I really wanted something that was definitive. Again, the word I keep using is capstone.
00:38:35
Speaker
I keep using it because I struggled to kind of describe the book for months. I was like, no, it's a capstone. That's what it is. So it being definitive, where it's like, this is everything you need. This is the whole thing. That's why when you look on the back of the cover, it's just a cover of the three books. One of those books is a compilation. And so you end up having a total of, I think it's six books that are in there. It's all in the back. So really simple, really understated. Just my picture on the back cover and the three books in there, but let people know this is the collection.
00:39:05
Speaker
I'd say number two is to say this is all I want to say right now. So it goes back to the definitive thing as far as saying, I really wanted the energy and the feel of Roget, I think that's how you pronounce it, Roget's thesaurus or Miriam Webster, you know, the ones and I think you and I are around the same age. So you remember like the,
00:39:32
Speaker
Right. You know, you seem like you're a dictionary guy like I was. So your parents or whatever would have the big ass dictionary on the side and you flip through and it's like, and again, this being like a reference, um, I recently, excuse me, I recently did the audio book for the complete bringing worth collection. I didn't redo it, which I was tempted to do. I almost did a Taylor Swift on it, but I'm like, calm down. Damn you don't need that.
Influences and Audiobook Compilation
00:39:56
Speaker
And so it's an compilation of all the audiobooks I've done before and some bonus content, including I did a keynote for the American Society of Journalists and Authors this past summer. So that's included as a bonus. Shout out to them for allowing me to use that content. But that's included on there as well. And I was going through the audiobook and what's beautiful. I don't know if you do this a lot, Brendan, but reading your stuff.
00:40:19
Speaker
and listening to your stuff. And the original Bites as Entrepreneur came out in 2016. My youngest kid, there's a picture of him biting. He was teething, so he's biting the corner of the original Bites as Entrepreneur. He was like four or five months old crawling on the floor. He's seven and a half now. And so just this growing boy, and I'm like, oh my God, like this is, you were teething on the original book. This is how long this shit has been.
00:40:48
Speaker
And so when I was listening to the audio book and, you know, remastering and stuff like that, cause I'm better with the audio. And I was saying that I wanted it to be something that's on someone's shelf and they're going through the chaos of their life, building their businesses, whatever they're, they're dealing with. And they just pull it out, go to a random chapter and read it. This is like the whole thing. There's, I think there's a total of about 120 chapters in this book.
00:41:19
Speaker
And all of them have a different type of energy and I want it to be like the definitive guide. And I think Toni Morrison minus had this as well as either her Maya Angelou that said, your job is to write the book that you wish to you had. And I'm like, okay, this is the definitive one. As far as I can tell, you know, this is the swan song for this part of the discussion.
00:41:44
Speaker
I think you write early in the book, too, in an introduction that there are certain self-help books, for lack of a better term, that you can kind of pull down from the shelf and you could flip to be it War of Art or probably any of certain books from Seth Godin. So who are some of those authors that are on your shelf and you can pull those books down if you need that jolt that you're similarly giving people with this?
00:42:12
Speaker
No, thank you. And even just being in that esteemed company, I appreciate it. One of them is Ryan Holiday and his co-author, Stephen Hanselman, for a lot of his books. My favorite is The Daily Stoic and a fantastic book, 366 chapters, all based around the calendar year. But I just flipped through it and I love it. It's fantastic. Each page is, or each chapter is like two pages. Another one is Pema Children.
00:42:41
Speaker
a Buddhist monk who I think was raised not too far from here in Arizona or New Mexico and then went through some stuff in her life and I'm moving to, I want to say Tibet and shaving her head and becoming one of the preeminent Buddhist teachers, at least in the mainstream sense. And so she has a fantastic book called Comfortable with Uncertainty.
00:43:03
Speaker
I actually lent it to someone I love very much who's going through a hard time. So they actually have my copy right now. And it's one of those things where I just pass it around. And it's, are you dog-eared? It got me through some really, really rough stuff personally. So that's a favorite of mine. Anything by Adam Grant, I think it's fantastic. He has a new book coming out called Hidden Potential.
00:43:24
Speaker
And yeah, I love his work. One particular work of his, if I were to pick a favorite, it would probably be Think Again, which was his previous book from a few years ago. And he talked about how we should actually doubt ourselves, because we make a lot of assumptions. So if I need some clarity, he's really helpful with that. And then yeah, Steven Pressfield and
00:43:46
Speaker
Seth Godin there on my Mount Rushmore. They often get lumped in productivity, which I've become more bitter about, as far as having that discussion. And it's like, no, actually, it's sometimes being productive is not doing anything. And I think they have this great tension. I know they're friends, so I know each other personally. But
00:44:07
Speaker
Steven Pressfield's like, get motivated, start creating. And Seth Godin's like, well, let's think about who we're creating for and have a strategy around it. And they have this great, I think, push and pull. I love to see them have a long conversation together, but that's my own. It's like, please get these two in a room together. I know they're on opposite coasts, but please make it happen. Maybe I can put that into the future and have a vision of that, or maybe I can help make that happen. But those are my two guys.
00:44:38
Speaker
We talk about superfans, and that's a whole other discussion. But I'm a superfan of both of them. The latest book, The Song of Significance by Seth Godin, I somehow got three copies. And I don't know how it happened. I know a relative sent me one, at least. And I might have bought two copies by mistake. I just go nuts for them. I'm just like, this is probably a copy in every room in my house.
00:45:02
Speaker
So those are my guys and gals. Yeah, that's great. Yeah, and it's funny when you're kind of chafing against productivity, you know, a peeve of mine
Critique of Emulating Success Routines
00:45:14
Speaker
of late. It's been the last few years, I think, and I'm especially sensitive to it because I was
00:45:20
Speaker
equally obsessed myself, and it was kind of like this notion of It actually stems on productivity also about like morning routines and like being obsessed with other people's morning routines I think Tim Tim Ferriss really kicked this off probably 2014 ish and like I was like always into that like how are these successful people spending the first 90 minutes of their day? And then eventually I was just like dude like it doesn't it doesn't matter like why are you obsessed with this? You're not gonna necessarily
00:45:52
Speaker
manifest your vision for yourself because you're gonna like take Ramit Sethi's you know what he drinks in the morning it's like okay by all means have yourself a morning routine but like I don't know just figure it out on your own like don't use other people's because if you read the comments for any of those things you'll you know someone
00:46:14
Speaker
be it Austin Kleon or Ferris or whoever, if they post something, someone will all invariably in the comments be like, well, what brand of such and such do you use? And it's like, who cares? I just, I really don't know exactly what protein, what pen do you use? What? I'm like, who gives a shit? Right. Right. So you're about to get me on a rant because it's the thing with them. It's a Stephen King example. Yeah. You probably already know this. Write that story where it's like,
00:46:41
Speaker
He's like, if one more person comes up to me during a writers conference, when I'm signing books or whatever, and asks me what kind of number two pencil I use. If somebody asks me, I'm going to stab him in the throat. I'm paraphrasing Stephen King. Sorry, Stephen. I'm paraphrasing him, but it's the same energy, where it's just like, it doesn't matter. But you don't need that fancy stuff. You just need to start. Again, back to Stephen Pressfield. You just need to start.
00:47:07
Speaker
And I love that you brought this up where we're so obsessed with the productivity and doing it, quote unquote, the right way that we don't do anything at all. And then we're wondering why we haven't accomplished anything. Real productivity is starting where you are. That's real productivity. It's not any fancy trick. It's no, no Jedi mind games or anything. It's just you starting. And so I think about that a lot where.
00:47:32
Speaker
When you're approaching a new thing, that's probably one of the reasons why I did the Bring Your Worth TV show and have done new things in several years, is that when you approach something new as a creator, we so want to get it out, get feedback, hit it big. But the part we forget is that before we're known, quote unquote, before something gets released,
00:47:57
Speaker
We have this, if we, if we take it, it's not, not guaranteed, but if we take it, we have this intellectual and artistic rigor and space freedom that we're never going to have again. Now that I have 18,000 subscribers, then I'm never going to have the freedom again that I had in the previous two and a half years. And so, you know what I mean? So enjoying that toil,
00:48:24
Speaker
And I mean, when you're broke or when you're not getting recognized, yes, it can suck. I've been there multiple times. You got my sympathy. And at the same time.
00:48:34
Speaker
you have this rare space to create. So if you're in that situation and we've been in those situations before, multiple times, both you and I, if you're in those situations, it's just like, you have to remember that you might be, quote unquote, being a starving artist right now, but you also have this artistic freedom that once you, quote unquote, hit it big or get recognition, then suddenly the obligation changes. And then suddenly you're like, okay, I have to create now.
00:49:02
Speaker
And that second guessing, and like you said, that fraud energy, it's not going to get smaller when you quote unquote hit it big. It's going to get bigger. Yeah. So it's kind of that time to work on your craft and work on your shit now. You know, I feel fortunate and excited for people who are just getting started or who haven't quote unquote hit it big yet. Cause that means you still have time and you're in that liminal space that will absolutely end.
00:49:28
Speaker
Oh, for sure. And then using that obscurity to your advantage is great because, you know, at this point, if let's say this podcast goes and it's in that sphere of long form and get every episode hundreds of thousands of downloads.
00:49:44
Speaker
I could handle it now. I wouldn't be scared of that or blocked by
Building Skills Before Fame
00:49:51
Speaker
that. I'd be like, oh, cool. I've been doing this for 10 years. I kind of know what I'm doing. People who come to the show, they know what they're in for. I imagine with you, when you went from 1,000 subscribed to 18,000, you're like, wow, that's a bump. But I've been doing this for two and a half years. I kind of know what this is. I feel good about this. And if it goes to a million from there, you're like, I'm good. I use my obscurity. I build my skill set.
00:50:14
Speaker
that number can go as high as it wants and I'm good. I'm showing up and I've got my skills and I'm just gonna, yeah, I'm unphased by it. Yeah, and that takes time. A lot of time. Right? Particularly in your case, like you've been doing it for a decade, like that, you again, you have your reps, you have your routine, and so it doesn't change you. And a lot of the people that I coach, I'm helping them get to that point where it's like we want
00:50:44
Speaker
You know, we want the, the fame or at least the recognition. Um, I think what's the term locally famous? I forget the term, but basically, you know, being, you being well known within the writer community, me being well known within the, the side hustle community, like whatever, whatever the case may be. Like we want that. We want that now. And some, a lot of cases that's why we do things. But if you can change that motivation a little bit and be like.
00:51:09
Speaker
I'm going to work on the craft of whatever I'm doing. Or in our case, work in our craft and then work on the craft that talks about the craft since we do media. So it's like, I'm an entrepreneur doing all these other things. And I'm also talking about entrepreneurship in a medium, working on those two crafts at the same time in our cases and just doing that. And it's, it, that requires patience that requires knowing why you're doing it.
00:51:37
Speaker
And as again, that's why I love the conversations in your newsletter recently. It requires not getting the permission or the, even necessarily the acceptance of other people, because you have to listen to either the right people or you have to listen to that voice that's telling you to keep going in this direction. Those are the only two things you should be listening to.
00:51:59
Speaker
The right people or the voice inside is telling you to go in this direction. You're instinct. Other than that, the rest of the shit doesn't matter. And it's getting a lot harder for us to stay in tune with that inner voice or to weed out and focus on the people that really matter as far as the people that we want to serve. It's getting harder to do that. And so that's why I think the work that you do and the work that I do is becoming a lot more important because we need people to
00:52:28
Speaker
We need people to teach others to weed through what matters and what doesn't really matter. And if you're gonna show up consistently, my God, for a decade.
00:52:39
Speaker
Like, you have to know why you're doing it. Oh, for sure. Well, Damon, I want to be mindful of your time and everything. And it's so great to have these conversations and to bring light to the Bring Your Worth Capstone collection.
Praise for Bring Your Worth Collection
00:52:54
Speaker
It's so good. It's going to be one of those books that I pull down from time to time when I need that little jolt. So I just want to, as always, thank you for the work and then for coming on the show and having such a vibrant conversation about what it means to be a creator in this space.
00:53:09
Speaker
That means a lot, Brendan. Thank you. I love your work, and I'm always honored to come on. Yeah. Man, headaches lately. Like right at the brainstem. It's like rawr. It's like ringing a towel right there. I don't know what the deal is. I'm drinking water, trying to stay hydrated. Hey, anyway, it's always nice to have someone like Damon come back on the show. It's energizing. I love the guy.
00:53:39
Speaker
I had the privilege of speaking with Shawna Kenny's CNF 3 class at UCLA. I was in CNF pod HQ studio, but you get me. Shawna came on the show way back in the day. Episode 40 something, I believe. She's going to come back on the show soon. She's ghostwritten a book. And we're going to talk about all that kind of stuff. But that's probably going to be in 2024. Neither here nor there. Shawna invited me to talk to her class. And it was awesome. So cool. Love it when I get to do this. Rare that I get to.
00:54:09
Speaker
honored that I get to when I get to.
00:54:13
Speaker
Lots of good questions from this little cohort, but I wanted to feature one. And this person asked pretty much, it was a great question, and it's definitely something that I think, it bubbles to the surface of novice writers. And it speaks to misplaced worry, I think. I can speak to this from experience and from the person I was to the person I am. And this person asked pretty much if I could go back
00:54:41
Speaker
When I was more of a nobody than I am now, that's my phrasing, how would I start my platform, social media? Ugh. I feel real strong about this because I was the person at age 30 or so, 2010, social media was really starting to glom on and lock us in. It felt important. It felt necessary. We were told it was necessary.
00:55:05
Speaker
We were told we needed a platform to make us attractive to agents and publishers. We needed that number. Like, fuck, I wasted so much time trying to game my way to more followers, posting stupid pictures of me writing at the computer.
00:55:22
Speaker
Like it was this performative act like this made me a real writer to show you this picture of me Typing like what's stupid ass bullshit that was you know exactly what I'm talking about because many opposers still does this You know who isn't posting these kinds of self-indulgent photos of the not so quietly desperate working writers who are too busy writing and publishing work and
00:55:50
Speaker
So if I went back, I'd bought all that angst and energy, I'd pour it into Twitter or Facebook or Instagram, and I'd write better pitches. I'd publish my work all over the place. I'd be writing essays like crazy, freelancing magazine pieces, newspaper pieces, doesn't matter. I'd aim high and then lower and lower. I did it a little bit, but I didn't do it enough. A body of work is the best platform there is.
00:56:15
Speaker
You know, I'd maybe give talks at libraries. I'd do stuff of that nature. I'd build community at home. You don't need to be in a big publishing hub like New York. I used to think you had to do that. I lived in kind of a remote place in upstate New York for a time. Doesn't matter.
00:56:31
Speaker
I'd make a dynamite newsletter. I did do this to an extent, and it's changed and evolved and gotten far better over the years, which I'm proud of the newsletter. Man, it's frustrating. It's hard to get it to grow. It really, really is. But here's the thing. This is what happens. You publish. You always link back to your website and to whatever social media handle you care to broadcast. I'm not saying you should not have it.
00:56:58
Speaker
It's good to have it for your own branding and the platform that will eventually come your way as you publish more and more and you hone your voice and you start to develop some authority. People are going to start to follow you. They just are.
00:57:14
Speaker
Not because you're hanging out threading vapid posts under the guise of, quote, building community. You're writing, you're a pro, you've published and you're proving with every piece that you have something worth saying. So many people get this backwards. They work on their platform and don't have a body of work or the skill to write stuff worth sharing and more importantly, worth spreading.
00:57:39
Speaker
So Gabrielle Zevan, author of Tomorrow and Tomorrow and Tomorrow, has 22,000 followers on Instagram. She hasn't posted in 17 weeks. There's a cool story about her in the New York Times about her disdain of social media and how she just doesn't engage with it unless she has a book out. And when her latest novel came out, that's what happened. And then she resurfaces when that happens.
00:58:05
Speaker
You know, wow, she's not polishing her Instagram feed or branding it. Like I saw this one poor soul on threads. She is just like, I don't know. I've been working on how my Instagram feed looks. And I'm like, oh, boy, we are getting this backwards, man. You know, Gabrielle's Evan, she's writing fucking books.
00:58:27
Speaker
That's how she has a platform on social media and elsewhere. And isn't that why you picked up the pen in the first place? To write? Certainly not to tweet or thread or whatever. Keep publishing. Turn pro. Stop wasting your fucking time worrying about all this bullshit because if you build a big platform or a big following on threads and you're a shitty writer, all you're doing is calling attention to all the wrong things.
00:58:54
Speaker
I can say this because that's exactly what I was in my early to mid thirties. I would say even into my late thirties, I'm saying this as much as to that person as I am to the woman on threads, desperately seeking validation and reassurance and all the wrong places. So this was a great question from a novice writer in Shauna's class. And I hope the big takeaway is,
00:59:18
Speaker
Find places to publish your work. Don't be ashamed of where they are published. Just get your name out there. Build that body of work. And the platform and the following really takes care of itself after that with you not having to lift a fucking finger. So stay wild, see you in efforts. And if you can't do, interview. See ya.