Focused - 181: Walking Your Own Path, with Justin Moore

Episode Date: July 4, 2023

Sponsorship coach Justin Moore joins us to talk about his journey from medical devices to Creator Wizard founder, avoiding the comparison trap, and finding your niche.

Welcome to Focus, the productivity podcast about more than just cranking widgets. I'm Mike Schmitz, and I'm joined by my fellow co-host, Mr. David Sparks. Hey, David. Hey, Mike. How are you today? I'm doing great. And I am very excited because we have a special guest today. Welcome to the Focus podcast, Justin Moore. What's going on? I'm bringing some sound effects, guys.

Here we go. I don't know if this is acceptable, but there we go. I've got some sound effects. So this is going to be a fun one. Either that or you just have a room full of people i'm not sure i mean it could be that right that could be no one knows that'd be great if you every time you did a podcast you just had like 30 people come over to clap in the background yeah 100 why not yeah so justin is uh the man behind the brand Creator Wizard. Your official title, I guess, on Twitter at least, is a sponsorship coach. What else do you want people to know about you before we get into kind of how all that started? trained in opera. For the first 18 years of my life, I wanted to be a concert pianist. I was in medical devices before doing this crazy thing. So I flipped art while I was in college.

So I have a very strange and circuitous path to becoming a sponsorship coach. I do think a lot of people have art in their background. One way or another, it really helps you when you want to go out and do the kinds of independent things we're talking about, because I think it encourages that and it allows you to think outside the box. It's one of the reasons why I'm so eager to see public funding for art programs, because I think it really helps people find their way. 100%. Totally agree. Although metal to opera, that is quite a jump for me because I have a little knowledge of opera and

they sing a little different than metal singers do. You know, it's funny, like someone, I was joking, I was talking with someone, we were talking about like, you know, productivity and like, how do I get in flow? And I made a off-ended comment to someone that like, when I, I am in flow when I am listening to metal, like I can't listen to any other, like, it's very hard for me to focus if I'm not listening to metal. Okay. Well, hey man, to each his own, right? Yeah, exactly. Exactly.

A lot of people that want to be focused and listen to music are insistent that there be no words, but metal, almost all metal has words, doesn't it? It does. Yeah. I don't, I don't, I can't describe it, dude. Like I, something about it. I just, it's really hard for me. Okay. I have to go down this rabbit hole now for a minute. All right. So is it music that you're familiar with already? Like music, you know, well, I would say, I know what you're talking about. It's like, it's distracting sometimes. So like hear what people are

singing with, you're trying to like write or read or something like that. And I guess I would answer probably yes. Like it is usually music that I've listened to a lot, but I can tune it out. I don't really listen to the words I would say. I'm just like, it's kind of like background music to me. I don't know. I can't describe it. It's either that or classical. Yeah. Cause I I'm similar. I listened to a lot of jazz. I was very active in jazz at one point in my life. And there are these tracks, these Dexter Gordon tracks. I know every note. I know the note that he's a little bit flat on. And I know the song inherently.

And I can play it in the background. And I do kind of tune it out. But it comforts me having the noise for whatever reason. So I think I can kind of relate. But the words thing is what gets me. Any music that has words in it, it's very hard for me to work with that in the background. I've never really talked about this or thought about it in as much detail as we are right now, but I think you're right. If I were to listen to a new album or something of tracks I've never heard,

I think that probably would be distracting. That's interesting. Yeah. Well, so you went on this circuitous path and you now are a guy on the internet that teaches people stuff. And when did that happen and how did you realize that was going to be your thing? Yeah, so the story is that my wife started her first YouTube channel in 2009, if you could believe it. This was way back in the day before you could really make money on YouTube. There was no partner program. So back then. She was still a preschool teacher.

I was I had recently graduated college. I was an engineer. I didn't even mention that I was in engineering and I was working at a medical device company. that. I was in engineering and I was working at a medical device company. And this was very much kind of a side hustle for the longest time. It was not, oh, this is going to be a business endeavor. Back in the day, people were not making money doing this type of work. And so initially, when my wife first started, her first channel was around cosmetics and beauty products, skincare, because she didn't have anyone in her real life that actually was into that type of stuff. And she loved testing products and like, you know, trying out new hair tools and all this stuff.

And so it was very much just kind of a passion project for her for a long time. But then what started happening was brands started reaching out. And initially it was to offer free stuff. It was like, hey, we'll send you our hair curler if you like show it in one of your YouTube videos or something. And she was like, yes. And she was stoked. Right. Cause it was like, we were in our early twenties, like, you know, right out of school, didn't have a lot of discretionary income. Uh, and so like that was super exciting for her. Right. Uh, and so that was like the first year probably it was just free stuff. And she was stoked about that. And then what, what started happening was basically the, when the first brand reached out

offering to compensate her to talk about them, that blew our minds because we were here, we were being thinking that this was just got kind of a fun little side hobby, but now we sat down and we were like, what the heck this is is like brands are offering to like pay us money. This is crazy. And so I was very much behind the scenes for a long time. But like at this time, at this point, I was in business school at night. I was going to get my MBA. And my wife was like, can you look at this contract?

Because I don't know like what I'm doing. And so I was like, here I am, Mr. MBA. Like I can, you know, I could do this. Right. And so I'm looking at this, had no idea what I'm doing. And so I was like, here I am, Mr. MBA. Like I can, you know, I could do this. Right. And so I'm looking at this, had no idea what I'm doing. And so we, we forged those first initial partnerships, like, and made every mistake in the book. You know, we, you know, back in the, I attempted to have our family lawyer look at some of these contracts and she was like, what are you doing on the internet? Like, what is that? Like YouTube? Like what? She had no idea, but bless her heart. She did her best. But like, you know, we agreed to perpetual rights,

granting brands perpetual rights, which means forever. They can use our content, repurpose it. One day we turned on the TV and we saw an ad, a commercial with my wife's footage from one of her YouTube videos on TV. They were using it for a TV commercial. And we were like, did we grant them the rights to do that? We were, were we compensated for that? Definitely not. We, you know, so it's like we made every mistake in the book. And so fast forward. And, and so really we got better like every single time we made a mistake and then we were like, okay, we're not going to do that again. Right. And so fast forward to, years, and we've now done over 500 sponsorships. I think I just invoiced a sponsorship like 535 or something. So we've done hundreds and hundreds of sponsorships over the years.

But what happened was that around 2015, we had this moment where we were like, okay, things are going really well with our personal YouTube channels. But the likelihood of us being able to continue to maintain this level of relevance and income and viewership on our own personal social media platforms – because by this time, we had launched several other YouTube channels. We had a cooking channel, a family vlog channel. So we were doing a lot of things as well as other social media platforms. But we were like, okay, this is probably like, we need to diversify. Like that, that was our thought. It was like, we need to figure out how we we've got the tiger by the tail. How can we develop some other revenue streams that aren't as reliant on our personal brand basically. Right. And so this is when we decided to launch, this is when I decided to

launch an agency, an influencer marketing agency. And so I thought, okay, I have all this experience working with brands directly. What if I go to these same brands and agencies that we were working with and said, hey, I can actually help introduce you and manage campaigns for other creators. And so this was the big idea basically was like, okay, I'm going to focus on, I did project management, product management. That was like my background. So I was like, I think I can manage these campaigns. I have a lot of experience doing this. And so ran that agency and, you know, for seven years, basically, you know, generated millions of dollars, you know, of revenue, but also millions of dollars of income for other creators. And so that was like, I was

here sitting here thinking about three years ago of this very interesting perspective that I had where I've been a creator in the trenches for many years doing deals. But I also have been in the boardrooms with these big brands and big agencies who are now not just saying, oh, we want to pay you just in April five grand or 10 grand. We want to spend half a million dollars working with 50 creators or 40 creators, which is a very different conversation. And so I thought to myself, like, man, this is like, I'm seeing so many mistakes that creators are making

because they don't have this other perspective of like why brands are choosing to move forward with this person and not them. And so I started making these YouTube videos under the moniker creator wizard, where I was just teaching people how to negotiate and how to have a phone call with a brand and how to like think about contract.

I'm not a lawyer, but like, you know, think very common contract mistakes and like this type of thing. How do you like price your sponsorships? And so it just blew up. I was not expecting like people to have so much interest in this very niche topic. But but, you know, I'll pause there because there's a lot to dig into there. But but yeah, fast forward to today. And like I basically have pivoted completely completely around this idea of educating people around sponsorship

strategy. I've been podcasting and publishing for a long time. And I can tell you when I go and speak at some of these podcast events, that's the number one question people ask me is like, how do you get a sponsor? How do you keep a sponsor? How does it work? And I don't have any of the good advice you do. In fact, the first time I was approached by a sponsor, I said, well, how much should I charge? I asked the sponsor because it was a new thing for me. It reminded me of that Seinfeld episode where they had the lawsuit and the lawyers are being like, okay, we're going to offer him free coffee for life and $10 million. And then they say, okay, we're going to offer him free coffee for life and $10 million. And then they say, okay, we're going to, so they bring a man, they say, okay, we're going to offer

you free coffee for life. And before he says $10 million, the guy says, I'll take it. You know? And I, I feel like that's the attitude a lot of creators have towards sponsors at this point. I was kind of there at the beginning myself. So you're really doing a service and for the people out there trying to figure out how to make a living at this stuff, they need your advice. So I'm really happy that you decided to take that turn. I appreciate that so much. And you're 100% right. Like one thing that was very surprising to me when I started coaching people around this was that I came into this because I had so much experience doing it personally. I came into this thinking that what people really needed were like

strategies and tactics, and here's a template, and here's a framework, and like, here's the XYZ. This is the road I was going down because I'm just an engineer by my background. And so like, that's where I was going. But so much of people's obstacles around interacting with brands, pitching brands, negotiating, oftentimes comes from their experiences with money growing up, I have found. And their confidence around, you know,

for example, if you grew up in a home where money was taboo to discuss or it was hard to come by, it's very, and fast forward, and you're a podcaster now, or you're a freelancer, you're running your own business. Having those conversations and advocating for yourself and charging your worth is a very, very tall order. And so a lot of the work that I do is helping unwind and understand people's relationships with money. There's a great

book by Morgan Household called The Psychology of Money around this topic, which I really encourage everyone to read because it delves into a lot of these topics. It's like, if you don't do the work, if you don't really sit and think like, what is my worth? How can I understand and come to the table where I'm talking with a partner where I can say, hey, it's going to be $5,000 to work with me or $10,000 or $50,000 or something and just be silent and not justify it and not do anything and say, this is actually what I'm worth and what it's going to cost to partner with me. That's a really hard thing for a lot of people, I've found. How do you balance the charging what you're worth and even knowing what you're worth

with making the mistakes? Because one of the things you mentioned earlier was you made every mistake in the book. And I feel like being a recovering perfectionist, I can fall into that trap too. It's like, I can't put this thing out there yet. It's not finished. There's still flaws in it. I have a really easy way to take the pressure off of this decision. Because I think a lot of people try to ascertain their worth in a vacuum. They sit and they think, okay, I'm going to like, I get this many downloads on my podcast or this many views on my videos, or if I have a newsletter, this many opens or whatever it is like, and like, I'm just going to like use some random calculators that I find online to generate my, my, you know, how much it's going to be per sponsor or whatever.

It's like they, they try to assess how much they should charge and develop like a media kit or a rate sheet or whatever, like based in a complete vacuum. charge and develop like a media kit or a rate sheet or whatever, like based in a complete vacuum. And what I teach is that that is only one part of your value. The other, and I would argue more important factor is what is the brand trying to accomplish? What is their objective? And so there's three campaign goal types that every brand tries to accomplish when they work with a partner. The first is a conversion-focused campaign. This is where a brand has a measurable outcome that they're trying to drive. Maybe it's sales, right? Or trial signups for a software program, coupon redemptions, downloads, right? Like of an app,

like something. There's something measurable that they could point back to. They give you a tracking link, check the show notes, right? Use, you know, Mike 20 for 20% off your first purchase, right? It's like something very measurable. And they can track that, right? So that's one type of campaign. The second type of campaign, which a lot of people don't think about is called a repurposing campaign. This is where the primary reason that a brand wants to collaborate with you is to take the content that you generate in this partnership and use it in other ways. Maybe it's to make an audiogram that they embed on their social media or put on their website or make a blog post from the transcript of the episode. Or maybe they want to run paid advertising with this asset that you generate, right? And then the final campaign goal type is called a brand awareness

campaign, right? And this is where it's a product launch. They're launching in a new territory. They were in the UK. Now they're launching in America or something, right? And really, they just want to spread the word. And the reason that it's so important that you understand what the brand's goal is when they collaborate with you is that your pricing should change and your pitch should change. Imagine if the brand tells you like, oh yeah, you know, we're, we're, thanks for asking what success or what a win would look like to us. What we really care about is, yeah, we just love your content. It's awesome. It's amazing. Like we would, we just want to like take this content and like repost it. And so you then go back to them with your pitch and you don't just say, okay, let's do

like 10 mid rolls and we're going to do, you know, all these going to be host right ads and like, like what most people do. And you say, Oh, so glad to know that that's what you care most about. I can actually generate five different assets for you that I don't even post on my podcast or my YouTube channel or my Instagram or whatever it is. You can run paid advertising with it. You can put it on your website. You can put it on your social media. You told me this is what you care about. And it's going to be 10 grand for that. Right? And so like, like imagine, like the beautiful part about that scenario is that how many downloads you get on your podcast, or how many views you're getting on your YouTube videos is completely irrelevant. And so your pricing should be completely detached from all of that, right? So it's just like a very simple example

of how important it is to understand the brand's objectives because what you pitch should change. There's a real focus angle to this because I feel like the way your career has changed is a way that I think people need to consider for themselves. I mean, you took something where you were doing well and you saw a different pivot and you had the guts to go all in on it. And that is something I want to talk about. This episode of Focus is brought to you by NetSuite. Being a business owner or working closely with business owners means knowing your numbers. If your business earns millions or maybe tens of millions in revenue, stop what you're doing and take a listen because NetSuite by Oracle has just rolled out their best offer. NetSuite gives you the visibility and control that you need to make

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More than 36,000 companies have already upgraded to NetSuite, and they've gained the visibility and control over their financials, inventory, HR, e-commerce, and more. If you've been sizing up NetSuite to make the switch, then you know this deal is unprecedented. No interest, no payments. Take advantage of this special financing offer by going to netsuite.com slash focus, F-O-C-U-S-E-D. That's netsuite.com slash focus to get the visibility and control that you need to weather any storm. N-E-T-S-U-I-T-E dot com slash focused. Our thanks to NetSuite for their support of the Focus podcast and all of RelayFM. You were doing many things. We talked earlier in the show how you've been through a path of a lot of different careers.

But also, even when you were starting to get into having an online identity and doing the online content, you were still doing many things. And one of the things you've written about and you've talked about that I think is super important to people listening to the show is the idea of finding a niche. And it is tough first to find one, but I think it's even tougher to commit to one. How did you do that? Well, I think on the surface, a lot of people are really concerned about picking a niche and hyper-focusing on something because they think it's going to limit, number one, their potential reach and impact and audience, as well as their potential financial opportunities, right? Because they think that, okay, if I'm super hyper-focused on one particular topic, then I'm not really going to be able to have a lot of the, you know, whether it's sponsorships or partnerships or whatever it is, that someone would be talking about a much broader topic. would talking about a much broader topic. And, you know, what I have found in kind of doubling down on this on this particular niche is, number one, there's lots of people talking about,

like, lots of things, right? So if you're trying to cut through the noise, like, let's say Twitter, for example, right? You've got the thread boys out there who are doing the like 99% of people are using Google incorrectly. I'm going to show you the 1% that you need to know. It's like there's lots of people who are doing that type of thing. But they're being very general about the types of advice that they're giving. And my argument has always been that like, I am not going to follow that type of person

who's curating information and not generating unique ideas. I have this belief that the people who are, their business model is just curation. It's going to be a tall order to figure out a business model in the long run for that. I believe that you have to generate unique ideas about a focused topic to be able to develop and build an audience. And so not only have I doubled down on a particular topic, but I've sought to – but because of the fact that I'm doubling down on this topic, it's allowed me to explore and meditate on every different single angle about sponsorship that I possibly can. Let me share a story. different single angle about sponsorship that I possibly can. Let me share a story. When I first started this YouTube channel around Creator Wizard, I actually wasn't just focusing on sponsorships. My tagline on my YouTube banner was like, the business of being a creator. That's what

I wanted to talk about was like all the different ways in which you can generate income as a creator, right? Sponsorships, affiliate marketing, fan funding, you know, like patronage, you know, merchandise, you know, all this stuff, right? Digital products, courses, et cetera. And so I wanted to talk about all these things and growth was just kind of like, this is, this was growth. That was like what growth was like. It was super boring, right? There wasn't, what is anything to call home about? But then when I had a follower basically DM me about six months into it saying, you know, like sponsorships is clearly your wheelhouse. Why are you talking about all this other stuff? You should just focus on sponsorships.

Like they straight up told me that. And I was like, oh, that's a great idea, actually. And so I made a hard pivot. Like once that person said that to me and and once I once I decide, OK like, I'm just going to talk about this, this one thing, I instantly had this creative explosion where it was like, oh, I can, now I can think of like a thousand topics of like things to talk about, about sponsorships. Right. And so I just went down this rabbit hole of like analyzing all the, every single angle that you could think of. And it's allowed me to, um, develop this really deep expertise. The other thing I would say too, is that like when it comes to making a name for yourself, there really is something powerful about

when someone like tweets something, right? Like, oh, I'm looking for help with this, or I'm having a problem with this. And like, who should I talk to? Like someone tweets this. And like you open the thread and 90% of people are tagging the same person, right? Like, oh, talk to this person, talk to, and that was what started to happen to me is like, oh, talk to Justin, talk to Justin, talk to Justin, right? Versus like being the like jack of all trades, like the revenue, you know, monetization guy, like you don't get like compartmentalized in that same way. And so some people that's a scary thing, but for me, I was like, tag me all day long. Let's do this. This sounds great. Right. So it's like, I think also it, it, it, um, it depends on how you, uh, interpret, uh, interpret that in terms of how people are pigeonholing you, I guess.

Yeah. I do think that part of the process is exploring and being starting out even as the Jack of all trades and being general, but then being aware enough to figure out where you need to drill in. I mean, I went through that personally. I had multiple careers and did not intend for the whole Max Farkey thing to become my living, but kind of accidentally stumbled into circumstances that allowed it to be so. And while I hadn't started on that path, I think getting to a point where you're willing to make the jump is something that is really helpful for people. And, and I wouldn't fault you if you're listening, you're like, well, I'm doing too many things. Well, maybe you're doing too many things because you're trying to

find the thing that you drill on. But when you find it, that's the second part that's hard is say, okay, am I going to give up all the money from the other thing? And am I going to give up the opportunity in the future that the other thing represents on this other bet? And if you're used to making multiple bets, making a single bet seems counterintuitive, but I do think for most people that really is the best solution. I mean, where do you guys kind of fall with that? Well, I agree with it in theory. I'm in the middle of it. You know, you're saying you're doing a bunch of things.

You're trying to figure it out. I raised my hand on the video. But one of the things that really stuck out to me when you spoke at Craft & Commerce, Justin, was you encouraged us to pick one thing, but you also mentioned that picking a niche is a two-way door, which I don't know why. I understood that. I knew that if I thought about it, but still, when I was thinking about what is the thing that I want to be known for, I find myself resisting picking a thing because it feels like a long-term marriage type decision. And when you said it that way, it was kind of like, oh, so if I just pick wrong, I can try again.

100%. And I'm really glad you brought that up. And I appreciate the kind words. I mean, I think this holds a lot of people back in life. I think this trepidation, this fear of making the wrong choice, of picking the wrong thing, not just with niches, but just generally. They get decision paralysis, right? And I think that there is actually very few doors in life that are one way, that you walk through them and it's impossible to go back through. walk through them and it's impossible to go back through. There are some, obviously a handful, but generally when it comes to our professional careers and the things that we want to be known for, I have found that having a level of transparency, especially if you've built up an audience. One thing I was very upfront about throughout this whole journey of building Creator Wizard is that I have shared the good, the bad, and the ugly. And I have been comfortable, you know, talking about my successes and failures with my audience. And that I think also provided

me the freedom to explore these other things because I knew that, okay, if this didn't work out, I would just make a blog post about how it didn't work out. Right. And I think that not enough people are willing to have that level of vulnerability because I think, you know, people are a lot more accepting than we realize. Right. Yeah. Maybe it doesn't work out and that's OK. Case in point, you know, when about six months ago, you know, you would think I had told this whole story about being a sponsorship coach and how it's changed my business and all this stuff, right? But six months ago, I started getting a little bored, right? I started getting a little bored with talking about sponsorships, and I still love it, right?

But it's like I was looking for this another kind of creative output, right, or creative outlet. And so I decided that I wanted to start a podcast because I never have had a podcast in earnest. And the natural choice would have been, okay, I'm going to have like a podcast about sponsors never have had a podcast in earnest. And the natural choice would have been, okay, I'm going to have like a podcast about sponsorships, right? But I was like, no, I don't really want to do that. And so what I decided to do was I launched a podcast called Creator Debates. And it was a podcast, the tagline, you guys will love this, it's stupid arguments to help creators make smart decisions, right? And I wanted it to be fun. I wanted it to embody my personality.

I wanted to be able to talk to interesting people. And the cool thing about this format is that I still get to fly. So basically it's two guests and I'm the moderator. And we talk about, you know, video versus non-video podcasts or paid newsletters versus free newsletters. Like all the, you know,

it's kind of a hot topic about the creator economy and people debate over it. And what it allowed me to do, though, was I'm still able to kind of flex my expertise in my main thing in this new creative format. And so I think that for anyone listening who's trying to decide, like, I want to explore, yeah, maybe I have the thing that's keeping the lights on, the main gig, and I want to explore this thing over here. I bet you there is some sort of ancillary or tangential or even orthogonal thing that could potentially scratch your creative itch, but still allow you to, you know, tap into the expertise that you've developed in your main thing. And so I think that like time spent meditating around this idea is worthwhile. What sort of advice would you give people who are trying to figure out what the thing

they're going to pick is, but they're trying to do it maybe on the side, like a side hustle sort of a thing? How do you pick something and give it enough wood behind the arrow to know whether it's really going to stick. So, you know, one of the frameworks that I talked about at Kraft and Commerce was something that I call the Trojan horse strategy. I'm an acronym guy. And so I love, you know, like thinking about different, like practical, actionable ways that, you know, people can actually try to figure this type of stuff out. And so Trojan is an acronym, right? And so T stands for theory, which is what do you believe, right? I think that there is this hesitancy for people to, you know, they may have these theories about, you know, West Cal calls it a spiky point of view. What is something that

you believe that may be unpopular? Maybe you're scared to share publicly, or maybe you don't have a lot of data to back up this theory or something like that, but you really do fundamentally believe it. I think a lot of us have those inside of us. And so that's the first, you know, tip that I give is like, if there are in your niche, in your content vertical, in your industry, whatever it is, I bet you, you have two or three of those beliefs, of those theories. And so I really encourage people to cling on to that. What's something that you would feel excited to debate at a dinner party or something like

that, right? The R in Trojan is research. So now that you say, okay, yes, I have this theory now. I'm going to go research and see, like, are people talking about this? Are people interested in this? Are people need help with this? I'm going to go search on YouTube. I'm going to search on Google. I'm going to search on Twitter. Like, is this a conversation that people are having? And by the way, I caution you, if there are people already talking about this and it's, you know, that's actually a good thing. A lot of people think, oh, there's already someone doing that,

right? I guess I can't do that. It's like, no, like this is, this actually a good thing. A lot of people think, oh, there's already someone doing that, right? I guess I can't do that. It's like, no, like this is a robust debate. If there's arguments to be made on both sides, that means there's a lane for you. That means there's a path for you. O in Trojan stands for outline, which is, okay, now that I've, you know, I have my theory, I've done a little bit of research, and I think that there's a lane for me. Let me figure out how would I actually do this? What I did is I like did like a mind map or like a bit kind of a business map of like for creator wizard,

like what would that look like? All the different ways in which I could talk about this stuff, right? I've got, you know, free content on YouTube and social media and my newsletter. And I've got, maybe I can monetize with courses and coaching and sponsorships and affiliates and all this stuff. So I mapped it out, right? I outlined it. What would this look like? The J in Trojan is I say, jump, right? You just have to start trying stuff, right? It's the whole, we were talking about the two-way door thing. It's like, I'm just going to jump in. I'm going to start trying this. I'm not going to dip my toe in the water. I'm going to start talking about sponsorships. I'm going to change my headline on Twitter to sponsorship coach. And, you know,

I'm just going to do the thing. But Justin, that's the scary part. sponsorship coach and, you know, I'm going to, I'm just going to do the thing. But Justin, that's the scary part. That's the scary part. That's the really scary part. Um, a hundred percent. I acknowledge that, um, the A in Trojan is analyzed, right? It's like, okay, now that I've been doing this for a while, I'm going to look and see, like, is this working? Like, does it seem like there's interest in this? Um, a lot of people, you know, get concerned, like, oh, I made this blog post and, or I made this tweet and like, it only got three likes or one retweet or something. I guess people don't care about this.

No, it's like you have to analyze it to a point of like maybe you are to a point where you're insulated from the metrics because you love talking about it so much. Like you've decided like, oh, I actually really like talking about this. I actually don't care that this is only getting five likes or something. I'm going to keep doing this. And then the final step in the Trojan horse strategy is nurture and is nurture, right? So it's like, the idea is that you have to nurture this. It takes time, especially if you're, you've, you're seeing success in your main gig, you're making money in your main gig. Like, I think a lot of people forget how long it actually took you to like make that a thing, right? And so even if

you're trying it for three, six months, like that may just not be enough time. I, it took me multiple years. I, you know, we've had success. We've been, you know, made millions of dollars from our existing business, but we've been doing that for almost 15 years. Right. So I like two years basically pales in comparison to the 15 years that we've been doing the YouTube thing. And so I just, I, I would, I had the, you know, uh, like attitude that this, this is kind of like, I'm in this for, for the long haul. And so, yeah, like a little, a little framework there, the Trojan horse thing, if that might help some people, um, you know, be a little bit more tactical about this, this, uh, choice. I remember you sharing that at craft and commerce and, uh,

I really liked it. And I feel like the framework is helpful for people who feel stuck. And I feel like this is a lot of people in the focused audience. I'm thinking specifically of the conversation, David, we had with Chris Upchurch, where he completely changed his trajectory. And it kind of started with thinking about, what else is is possible and what do i really want to do and uh you do have to obviously follow through with the scary part and make the decision but uh i feel like past me was in that spot where it's like i don't even know what the how to go about moving in that direction and once you get out of the situation it's a little bit easier to see or once you have somebody who lays out a framework for you and be like, okay, so just

like create the mind map, right? And what, what are all the possibilities around this thing as you outline what it actually could be? I feel like that's a good first step for a lot of people. I'll be vulnerable here. Like I was terrified, like to, to terrified to actually do this. The one thing that I didn't share was that I ran this agency for seven years and when COVID hit, it crashed and burned. I was in $100,000 of debt. I had to lay off all my employees. It was one of the lowest points of my life. This thing that I had hoped would be the financial venture that would help my family diversify our incomes. I always thought, I'm about to round the corner on the agency, and then it's finally going to turn into this big profitable venture I always hoped it would be. And when COVID hit, like everything fell apart. Um, and that was really demoralizing. It was really crushing to me. Um, because it felt

like I was back at square zero, uh, or square one. And, you know, so, so like, remember going back, like this was another inflection point in my life is like starting the agency. That was like my goal of like, okay, I'm going to focus here. I'm going to make money doing this thing. And then it ultimately didn't work out. And so, um, like I want, I wanted to share that like anecdote because it hasn't been all hunky dory and like this big hockey stick of growth. Like it's been a process. Um, but as my wife always, uh, loves to remind me, uh, April, I love you, boo. If you're listening, You know, like all of these successes and failures are stepping stones to where you're ultimately going to land.

And in fact, like I want to share this specific anecdote. Yesterday, I was on Office Hours. I host Office Hours for my program. And at the very end of Office Hours, one of the creators just randomly said, hey, I just wanted to give you a piece of feedback. I have taken other courses about learning, trying to learn about sponsorships. And the other courses all felt like preschool and yours feels like a college level course. And I think it's specifically because you have this perspective of running the agency. And it was like, that was just so, I got goosebumps when,

when this person said that, because it was like, had I not done that and had I not ran the agency and had it not failed, right. I never would have been able to deliver the type of education and knowledge that I am now. And so I think it's like a really important thing to, to, to remember that like, just because things fail or just because you try something and it doesn't work, that doesn't mean it, it won't serve you later down the line in your journey. But you had no idea what that was actually going to look like or how that dividend was going to come. I had no idea. There's no way I could have predicted that. Yeah, exactly. I see the fable of the Chinese farmer every day. And this is another one, you know,

everybody says, Hey, you found a horse. That's great. Maybe. Your son broke his leg because he was chaining the horse. That's terrible. Maybe. They didn't recruit your son to the army because he has a broken leg. Maybe.

You don't know how this stuff is going to turn out. But I think that gets to that point was the J, the jump in your Trojan. The fear is definitely the thing that keeps a lot of people from doing it and i think you have to look at it as a step in a path and there are certainly risks and it may fail for you but it may lead to the broken leg to avoiding conscription to whatever you need to be doing. I think that the bigger question yourself when you're at the jump point is, if 40 years from now I'm laying in my deathbed and I look back at this moment, which decision will I wish I had made? That's a little contrary to a lot

of the advice I've given in the past. I always tell people, don't jump if you haven't got a way to take care of yourself, especially if you've got a family and I've given in the past, I always tell people don't jump if you haven't got a way to take care of yourself, especially if you've got a family and, you know, you've got commitments. Obviously I don't want someone to listen to me and go bankrupt because they, you know, they wanted to be a Chinese farmer, but the, I do think that the people should be a little fearless with this and there, that is a piece of it.

And you just have to kind of take that into consideration. Uh, you can do that wisely. You can do that in a way where you've got a backup plan, you've got a way back into the old industry or whatever, you know, but, you know, take six months off if you can swing it and see where it goes. I think it's very easy to dismiss the J and you really shouldn't. Yeah. Two anecdotes. When I was deciding to go full-time, when my wife and I were deciding to go full-time being creator, remember I had, she was, so she quit her preschool teaching job in 2012, which was two years before me. I quit in 2014, six weeks after my first son was born, which was scary. But like we had been planning for that transition for years. We had made a goal. We had said, okay, I want to make like in order for us both to quit and put all our eggs in this basket of like, we're both doing the social media thing. I have to make, we have to make $10,000 above my nine to five salary in medical devices.

And we basically said, once we hit that, I have to quit because otherwise I'll never do it. And the opportunity cost is so vast. What if I could spend 60 hours a week on our fledgling business versus sitting in a cubicle and doing the corporate job thing? But I want to be clear, like it took us a long time to get to that point, but we did not just jump in and being like, okay, let's see where this goes. Like we planned this for many years. In fact, I remember distinctly having a conversation with my dad where he's always been, I want to be clear, he's always been super, super supportive. But he also comes from a different generation where what he was mostly concerned about was like, oh my gosh, there's going to be,

you have this great trajectory on your professional career path, right? In medical devices, I can see, you know, you're going to become project manager that are product manager. Then you can go to V you know, director, then VP and all this stuff. And it's like, what's going to happen when you have this big gap in your resume? Now, if you go and try this YouTube thing and you know, it doesn't work out. Like, what are you going to say when you, when you go back to like, try and get jobs again. And it's just, it's just a funny thing because I think a lot of people are concerned about this like idea of like, okay, what I was screwing up a good thing, right? It's my, my nine to five is going well. And I'm, what if I, what if I do this? And my perspective has always been like, I'll just be honest. Like if I ever have to do that, I'll just go and tell them like,

I tried to do YouTube for a year. Like, you know, and if someone doesn't want to hire me because I'm a multi-passionate person and I tried something entrepreneurial, that's probably not a great fit for me for that job. But I don't know, and if someone doesn't want to hire me because I'm a multi-passionate person and I tried something entrepreneurial, that's probably not a great fit for me, that job. But I don't know. Maybe that, again, like just comes from my own belief in myself or self-confidence to like be vulnerable and share stuff like that. You know, knock on wood that I never had to have that conversation because the social media thing has worked out for 15 years. But, or I guess 14, almost 10 years now ever since quitting. So,

but yeah, I mean, it is scary. I 100% acknowledge that. But there also is a level of suspension of disbelief that I think you need to have, you know, you need to have to be able to, you know, have the confidence to make a jump like that. Yeah. And I do think there's a generational thing you're talking about that people listening who are thinking about the jump, uh, you may have, um, parents and grandparents that grew up in a different age where this just really, first of all, it wasn't even an option for them. And it's going to be really hard for them to process. My parents grew up in the depression that if I, if they, they weren't alive when I made this big jump, but if they had been, I think they would have been terrified for me.

Um, and that's just kind of comes with the territory. I addressed this one because I gave up a 30-year career a year and a half ago. And there were people that were just out and out mad at me. They were angry. Like, what are you doing? You have this thing that will take care of you the rest of your life. Why on earth would you give that up? And I came to realize that often that is a reflection of where they think about their lives more than what I think about my life. So often people would be angry that are not having a great time right now with their career. And they see me at the time I was a lawyer and they're like, well, he's got a law practice, he's got clients, he's fine. And I can't get it together right now. And that makes

me angry at him that he would give it up. It's like, if you don't have food and the other person has food and they throw it away, what do you think of that person? And so I think there's a lot of stuff to unpack there. But when you're going through that process, you've got to be ready for all of it. I had a conversation with my students a few days ago, and we were talking about the importance of LinkedIn in your creator strategy when you're nurturing these relationships that you're developing with brands and partners. And the topic I was talking about, how important it is to utilize LinkedIn to nurture and all that stuff. LinkedIn to nurture and all that stuff. And the conversation came up that, well, what if I don't feel comfortable listing the fact that I am a creator on my LinkedIn because I have a corporate job or I have a nine to five and I don't really want people to know about this like, you know, double life that I'm living basically, right? And the advice that I give and the advice that I

always give about this scenario is that you have to own it. There is always there is going to be a period of awkwardness. There's going to be a period where people see you add this to your LinkedIn. They see you talking about the fact that you're making doing something novel on the Internet and they're going to come up and they're going to poke you with a stick figuratively. Right. They're going to be like, so what's this YouTube thing you're doing? Or, whoa, you have a podcast or whatever. And it's like a novelty, right? And it's just inevitable. Your friends, your family, your coworkers, like there's going to be a period of discomfort where you're going to have to have those conversations, but that will be a finite period. Yeah, they'll come back. Oh, you're still doing

the YouTube thing. But generally, like it is a moment in time where you're going to have to have that conversation. But once you are on the other side of it, it is so liberating. It is so empowering to be able to puff your chest out and to be able to say, yeah, I do this thing. This is something that I do that I'm really passionate about. It just makes it so much easier for you to talk about the things you want to talk about. I believe that it's a mental unlock for you to start to see the vision of how this side hustle could become a full-time thing down the line. But it's this obstacle that I think a lot of people have of just like, I don't want to let people in my real life know about this other passion I have. This episode of Focused is brought to you by Indeed. When you're faced with what might be considered aggressive hiring goals, you don't have to be worried because you know you don't

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and all of RelayFM. All right, Justin, you posted a blog post about three takeaways from kind of like a year-end review. And there were a couple themes in here that I thought are very much in line with our focused audience here. I'm kind of curious if you don't mind walking us through your reflections on 2022. Sure. So let me quickly share a summary of what happened for me in 2022.

I was just in the final stages of shutting down my agency that failed. I was feeling dejected about that, but also excited at the possibilities that were starting to happen with the sponsorship coaching business. But at the same time, it felt a little bit demoralizing that I was starting back at ground zero. And I found myself playing the comparison game with everyone else who I was watching on the internet, a lot of people who were many years ahead of me, you know, and where I wanted to be. So this might have been people with like gigantic audiences or people with big newsletter followings or whatever. And it just felt like, man, how am I ever going to, I guess, catch up to these people who have established

themselves and are making great incomes? And it seems like they're on top of the world, right? And the kind of epiphany that I had around this was that really the only path that matters is my own, at my own pace. And that if I'm going to be successful at this, I have to stop measuring my worth relative to others. Um, because as I mentioned, like I've gone through a lot of different things in my life, I've had a lot of successes, a lot of failures, but everyone's on their own timeline. In fact, I have a, um,

I have a friend who they chose their professional career over lots of other kind of social milestones that, you know, oh, like meeting someone, having kids, like buying the house, like all this stuff. And so they were focused on their career for many, many years and got to this point where all of a sudden they looked up and they were like, wow, I'm five, 10 years behind all my peers. And they got it was like a major it rocked their world, basically. and they got, it was like a major, it rocked their world basically. But still like, you know, and so I think kind of the pathway to move on from that was to realize like, okay, yeah, there's nothing you can do about that. That's that, that happened, right? You can't go back in time. What do you, what is the choice you're going to make from here forward? Rather than comparing yourself to like where you are relative to your peers, oh, you may be five years behind, et cetera, et cetera. But like, I think about this and it's the same with business and personal life. It's like,

yeah, regardless of where you're at, like there's nothing you can do to change that. Like what is, what are the choices that you're going to make on a daily basis moving forward that are going to help you get to where you want to be? So that's number one. Let me jump in there real quick because that one speaks to me. I have for the last several years been a creator on the internet, but I've always been making things for other people. So I had a version of that crisis moment that you were just describing when I was like, okay, so I am 40 plus years old now, and I'm now deciding to go out on my own as a creator. I should have done this a long time ago, right? And because of the way my brain works, I immediately felt like I had wasted a whole bunch of time. And I know that

that is not the healthy approach. And hearing you say like, you have to walk your own path at your own pace, that really resonates with me. Because if you're going to walk your own path, and you're going to walk at your own pace, even if your path looks very similar to somebody else's, it's going to be faster, it's going to be slower, it's not going to look exactly the same. That's the point. And the minute that you start looking at other people and looking at what they're doing and wishing that your story looked like theirs, that's when you get discouraged and you want to quit. I find that whole question of looking at other people something that should set off alarm bells in your head generally.

I feel like in my life when I found myself comparing myself to others, number one, I think it's an indicator that I'm on the wrong track, if that makes sense. I feel like because when I'm passionate about what I'm doing, when I feel like the message I'm trying to give or the thing I'm trying to do is important, that's all that matters to me. What other people are doing doesn't matter. And the times in my life when I found myself saying, well, so-and-so has a better job, makes more money in our little world of social creation, they have more listeners or audience or whatever.

That means I'm not thinking about, well, what am I, you know, it's an indicator to me that I'm on the wrong track. I guess I've made the point. I think that one thing that really helped me get out of the keeping up with the Joneses or kind of the comparison game, um, was I picked a North star. I did this exercise. I was in a mastermind, uh, about a year and a half ago. Uh, and this was one of the exercises that we did was like, okay, let's fast forward 10 years into the future. And let's, what does that reality look like? Um, and what is this big, you know, they, they call it the BHAG, right? The big, hairy, audacious goal. Like what's the the difference? Like, what do you want out of this whole endeavor? And I, through a bunch of exercises and workshops and stuff like that, I basically chose my

mission, something that really resonated with me, which was that I want to help creators big and small land a million sponsorships by 2032. So now in nine years. a million sponsorships by 2032. So now in nine years. And creating that big goal and that big North Star gave me actually a lot of peace and comfort about the speed of the pace and the pace of which I'm building it.

Because now that I have this, now that I know that like, yeah, it's a really big goal, but like now that I know I have this like really long like time period to accomplish that, and the fact that I'm like willing to just do this for like decades, basically 10, 20 years because I am I love talking about this. I'm never going to get bored that that gave me a lot of peace. And, you know, I was like, you know, OK, maybe maybe whether I get. A thousand subscribers to my newsletter or 10 this month, it doesn't really matter. It's going to be dwarfed in a 10, 20-year time span.

I'm not really going to remember that. And so I think that also is perhaps an interesting thought exercise of like, okay, is there something, anyone listening, is there something that I could pick for myself or my niche or whatever I'm focusing on that will allow me to kind of make peace with the fact that I'm not, you know, achieving the like micro goals that I'm obsessing about in this moment. Yeah, you're playing the long game. Yeah, and then like the second takeaway really was that imposter syndrome never really goes away. Regardless of where you're at in your career. I'm a guy who has literally done thousands of sponsorships at this point between my personal brand with my wife as well as the agency. And I felt tremendous imposter syndrome when I started talking about this stuff. Are we really going to listen to this guy?

You know, like this random nobody. I'm not a certified coach. I don't have a certification. I just called myself a coach. Like, you know, I had a lot of imposter syndrome about starting to talk about these topics. And like, I had tremendous imposter syndrome. Even doing this speech at Scrapped in Commerce like two weeks ago. Like I was like, man, am I really going to be the guy to like step up on stage and like share all this, all this like, you know, quote unquote wisdom with people. But it's like, you just have to shove it down. Right. Like I think really what I, number one,

knowing that everyone that like, you know, imposter syndrome is never going to go away. I feel like that's like a lot of freedom to just kind of go for your dreams because it's like you're never going to be at the point where you feel like you're an expert. But like you are definitely right now in this moment, anyone listening, I guarantee you that you are at least a step ahead of someone else in your industry or in your career. And if you could put your hand on their shoulder and help them prevent a mistake that you made, you know, a month ago, like that's, that's impactful. That's meaningful work. And so I think that's like a very, very critical thing to realize is that you're never going to, you're never going to, just like I was hoping to like round the corner with the agency. I think the corner just doesn't exist. I think for a lot,

for a lot, a lot of, for most people. Um, and you just have to be comfortable with that. Well, that's kind of my issue with, uh, with goals in general. Um, I've remember when I was training for a half marathon, the short version of the story is I over-trained and hurt my knee a week before, but I've been training for 18 months. I was going to finish it anyways. And I remember crossing the finish line, my knees busted up. I know I got physical therapy ahead of me and I just felt this vacuum as soon as I crossed the finish line. It's like, okay, accomplished that one. Now what's next? I mean, even if you do finally round the corner and you knock it out of the park, there's still the goalpost is going to move on you. So I think just you have to fall in love

with the process, no matter what it is, whatever it's a side thing, whether it's your main job, you're going all in with this thing, you're gonna take it full time. If The act of doing the thing has to be enough. And then the other thing that stands out to me with the imposter syndrome piece, because I feel like I feel this more now that I've decided to go full time as a creator than I did before. Before it was just kind of like, well, this is a side thing. It's not really my main thing. So I'll just do this thing and people like it. Cool. If not, oh, well, go back to the day job. Now it's like, if I'm going to plant my flag and be like, this is what I'm going to be known for, feel like the voice in my head is telling, it's going to point out every single flaw, every single thing that I don't know.

Every single time I see somebody who knows more than I do doing it better than me. And one of the things that is helping me in this process as I'm battling this amplified imposter syndrome right now is I heard somebody say that imposter syndrome never goes away, but it's really an indication that you care about the work that you're doing. The minute that I was able to reframe it as like, oh, well, this is actually a good thing, right? Because it's going to make the end product better. And then you couple that with falling in love with the process. Like eventually the quality will get there through the quantity. You just got to show up every day, do your best, help the person, you know, for making the mistake that you just made and rinse and repeat. When I think about the journey that my

wife and I have been on, I almost never think about, oh, the money we made or these arbitrary follower, oh, we got to this many subscribers on our YouTube channel. I literally never think about that. What I think about is the story of why I, why I wear an eye mask to sleep. I wear an eye mask to sleep because there was a moment in the early days of our YouTube channel where right after my wife quit her, her job, she would stay up until two, 3 AM every morning, every night on her laptop, replying, engaging. And back in the early days of YouTube, the way you got known was you would comment on other people's videos and try to be the first one.

So you would be at the top of the comments when a big YouTuber released their video. And so setting notifications, the hustle, the grind of doing that. My wife was a straight up hustler, but I had to wear an eye mask because I had worked the next morning and she had the light on while she was on her laptop in bed doing the grind. And like, that's the story. That's what I remember is like that this, this, this process of us getting, of us doing this over the years. And like, I really smile when I think back on those memories. And, and, and to your point, like, I don't, I don't really think about or remember those other milestones or those other, like, you know, I guess, quantifiable milestones. The other thing that, uh, that one kind of leads into the third

point, I feel really well is the idea of the boundaries. So how did you learn to set those other than the eye mask? Yeah. I mean, it's like, um, it's, it's a really tricky subject of just work-life balance when you work for yourself or when you're trying to be a freelancer. This is the way in which you drive income is not like, okay, I can check out at 5 p.m. and, you know, come home and just, you know, anyone who's watched like Severance, you know, something like that. It's like, completely separate my work and my personal life. like that. It's like, Oh, I like completely separate my work and my personal life. When you do that. Um, like, like what I have found throughout this process is that, Oh, just like having this kind of effortless work-life balance, uh, is just not a thing when you work for yourself. Um, or when you're going down that path, um, the, the real truth of it is that you, you have to be disciplined and make the effort to set your own boundaries. Um, because especially it's even like for my wife and I in particular, like our life is our work. Like we share our life, our family's life on our YouTube channel.

So it's even more of a gray, you know, area. And so it's like, I'm not going to lie. Like we work a ton. We work way more than we ever did when we had like a nine to five job. But we love it. And it allows us and it affords us a lifestyle to be able to take vacation when, you know, whenever we want, you know, and go, go with our kids during the summer and just do whatever. Like we don't have to worry about vacation days. Yeah. But there's, there's pros and cons to that. And you have to like, you know, try to be quite strict about, about those types of things, especially when both you and your partner are doing it together. Um, that's a conversation in and of itself. Um, but it is like, it's just not some like work-life balance is just not something that happens. And it goes, it goes back to the, to this conversation we were just having around, um, milestones and goals and, and all that stuff. Because like, at some point, like we've definitely like had burnout over the years. Like there was a point where we were daily vlogging for three years.

We did not miss an upload for over a thousand uploads. These are like 10, 15 minute videos. So you can imagine like that at the holidays, you're sick. Like, you know, you just, you just grind it out. And so like there definitely was a point throughout this journey where we were just like, screw this. Like we can't do this anymore. Right.

It's just not great for your mental health. And so we, we definitely been to the point of, of, of excess of, of doing it excessively. And so it definitely is something that you have to put, put boundaries in place for,

for you and your family. Boundaries are the thing though. I mean, it doesn't matter what you're, you're doing. You have to set your own boundaries. If you're working a day job, you have to set the boundaries that I'm not going to respond to email when I'm at home. If you're trying to make something, you got to set boundaries that I'm not just going to go scroll through the endless feeds and dip into

the infinity pools, but I'm actually going to consume things with the intention of creating something with it. You know, I don't know. I feel like this is the thing. If you were to encapsulate focus in a nutshell, it's that it's the ability to set the boundaries so that you can stay focused on and be intentional with the thing that means the most. One of my favorite employees that I used to work with at my agency came to me one day. So I was always, when I, when I, I think this is like a, a, an entrepreneur's or freelancer's dilemma, which is that because I'm like, you know, it's my business, I'm like fighting for what I, you know, uh, for, for every nickel and dime and the revenue in the

business, I would client services was always like my top priority. Like if, if the moment, like a client emailed me, I would like try to get back to them, like right away, like try to like, you know, uh, regardless of when it was weekends after hours, all this stuff. And, um, my, uh, one of my colleagues came to me and basically said, you need to stop doing that because, uh, not only is it indirectly communicating to everyone that works here that they need to have that same level of craziness when it comes to working with clients, but that the clients are going to start expecting that. And so if you don't respond on the weekends or you don't respond at night, then they're going

to be like, what the heck's going on? And that was like a big kick in the pants to me. And I totally changed when he made that call. I never thought that was just like my default. That's how I am. I'm just like, always want to get back to people. But like it was, I really credit him with that clarity of realizing that like, if I don't respond to a client in like six hours or 12 hours, it's like, fine, they're going to be just fine. And I think that that carries through with a lot of things in life. Like you, you think people need to like hear from you right away, but a lot of times they don't care at all. I mean, not only that, I would argue that when you act like that, that frantic nature creates a poor representation of you for the client too. It's like, who is this guy that he's like sitting there looking at his email every second? I don't know. I, maybe it's

just, I'm jaded from being involved with productivity this long. But if somebody replies to an email immediately, I'm thinking, well, this guy needs to change his priorities. But maybe that's just me. I think that's probably just a me thing. Okay, so can this turn into a therapy session for a second? All right. I'm always game. Bring it. I'm from California.

Bring it. Bring it. So am I. So am I, so am I. I have used my email inbox as my to-do list for 20 years. And I've had varying levels of successes and failures with virtual assistants over the last few years. And I find it really, really difficult to find a model that works for me where my email doesn't

run my life. And it's, it's really difficult because of, I think this happens to a lot of people. Maybe a lot of people listening can identify, especially people who have, I guess you would call personal brands where the line between your personal life and your business life is kind of one of the same. Um. And so I do have like two inboxes. I have one for my personal and one for business. But like stuff comes to both. It's like it's so messy. Have you guys found a way to like extricate yourself from using your inbox as kind of like your personal to-do list?

Because I found that it's like distracting me from the things that I really need to focus on. Yeah, I mean, the answer is yes. Both of us are because we're both super Mac nerds. And there are several applications that allow you to save a link to an email as a task. And that is your path to freedom, honestly. So when you go through, you create a task and you attach the email, then you let it out of your brain until that task shows up again. That's generally the way I do it. I know there are people that will use like other boxes.

They'll say, well, this is my urgent box and this is my next week box. And you can just move the emails to them if you want. But I rarely see that work for people because then they just get bigger and bigger. And there's this, there's this psychic baggage you carry when you've got it in email that you don't when you move it out i don't know how else to explain it yeah i am intentionally bad at email i guess yeah uh so occasionally i'll have people who will reach out to me and I will time box my email, essentially. I'm going to spend this time block dealing with communications and email is going to be a piece of that. But there will occasionally be some things that will fall through the cracks there. And usually it's the stuff where it's not something I'm expecting.

So if we are having a back and forth conversation, that will bubble up to the top. But if it's somebody who's just reaching out for whatever reason out of the blue, that's going to get, there's a chance that I'm not going to get to that because I'm not going to define my success as getting through every message in my inbox.

And I've had to apologize to people like, oh, hey, sorry, you know, I missed that. But I also think that that's the kind of stuff that doesn't really move the needle for the type of work that I do. Because the thing that really impacts the things that I make, the people that I'm working with in those capacities primarily were not communicating via email. So I kind of have already different tiers of communication where if it's someone that I'm going back and forth with on a project regularly, we're already using probably Slack or even text message to go back and forth on things. But I understand how that could be scary. And it could even be flip-flopped depending on your business model. If the majority of the thing that drives value for your organization comes through email,

I think it's also okay to say email is a big chunk of my work. And this is just the amount of time that it takes. Um, and this is just, you know, the amount of time that, that it takes. One thing I think, um, maybe interesting to explore, um, is I think kind of the next phase of, of where my business is headed and what I'm thinking about lately is that I've become so mired in the day to day, uh, running of the business, this whole adage around like working in the business versus on the business that I'm now thinking like, you know, what does having a number two or an integrator or an operator of someone who can actually execute a lot of the day-to-day stuff for me so that I can

go back to the creative endeavors and the pursuits. And really, I guess what I think is kind of my zone of genius, which is just like generating unique ideas and being creative around this topic around sponsorship strategy, writing more and doing more YouTube videos and all this stuff. And like that presents a challenge in and of itself is like, how do I identify not only the person and the person with the right characteristics and qualities and all that stuff too, but like, how do I let go? How do I let go of something that I feel quite proficient at, you know, but like, no, that if I want to, you know, achieve the North star, get a million sponsorships for all those creators that I can't, it can't just be me doing like a lot of this, this day to day stuff. Um, and so that, that's actually literally

something I'm like, I just listened to the book Rocket Fuel, and it was very helpful in helping me think through a lot of this kind of next phase. But it's a never-ending process, I guess. Yeah, I feel like you never get the balance just right, or it's never static. I have the same challenge, because I make a living dealing with people in the world. And I feel like if I spent all my time in email correspondence, I wouldn't make anything new and I would be out of business pretty shortly. But if I didn't interact with the people that are interested in the stuff I make, I wouldn't get an idea of what's interesting to them. So that really informs what I create. So you have to find that balance. But I mean, to tell you the

truth, I don't think there is an easy answer. You, you think someone like a president, right. Or someone who runs a big company, they don't spend their time dealing with email. But then I just got done reading that Tim Cook spends like an hour and a half every day reading random emails from Apple customers, you know, and like, well, why does he give that much time to something that, you know, that trivial? Well, because he needs to identify with his customers. So I feel like the answer is somewhere in the middle, you know, and, uh, and we all have to think about it. And I think anytime you think, well, now I've got that solved, uh, there'll be dragons because you don't, and it's a balance that you need to revisit often. But, but yeah,

I understand why this is, um, on your mind, because it's always on my mind too. So my previous gig was as an integrator. So if I could give you some advice, I feel like the North Star is the great first step. And in my role as an integrator, kind of what we did from there was break it down and what are the critical numbers that we want to watch and report on regularly. We were doing it weekly on a public scoreboard for the different people that are over the different parts of the company with an understanding and an agreement by the leadership team that these are the things that contribute towards the result of the North Star that we are after. And just having

the North Star and then having the day-to-day, I feel like is not enough. That bridge is too far. It's easy for your brain to wander and be like, oh, this shiny new thing over here, this notification that I got, this email that came in, this is probably important. I should go see what that is. But when you know this is what we're driving driving towards this is the result that we're trying to deliver and these are the three to five things that are going to influence that number the most those three to five intermediary things those are the things that allow people to be like okay i see how this thing right now that i'm choosing to do is moving that number which is moving the big number and then from there you know the the score takes care of itself but you do have to constantly be bringing your attention back okay Okay, so what progress did we make

in the last tiny little period, you know, for this little number, trusting that that's going to help us move the big number down the road. And I feel like this is the approach not just for businesses and organizations, but like, this is what individual people should be paying attention to too. Like my wife and I kind of take this approach with our family even. What are the relationships we want to have with our kids when they get old enough? And then what are the things that we got to do consistently that are going to create that scenario when they're teenagers, that they're comfortable talking to us about difficult things?

David and I have talked about that on the podcast before. But yeah, you can't just be like, this is where I want to end up and then go do your thing. There's got to be some path that you're going just be like, this is where I want to end up and then go do your thing. Like there's gotta be some path that you're going to be following. That's going to allow you to get there. How, how do you, how did you learn how to do that by the way? Is it like, how did you learn to be an integrator or like, do it, was it just trial by fire or like, like for someone like me, I'm trying to recruit for that or maybe develop internal candidates. Like how do, how do I, how do I vet for that competency? Yeah. Well, I think it was kind

of trial by fire. I have a business degree, but a lot of the stuff I learned just through the right mindset, being curious about things. A lot of the things that you kind of shared already, like being willing to test something and then look at the results and be like, well, that didn't work. Let's try something else. Right. And it is a little bit scary, especially when you, like in my situation, I was very upfront when I went into that role. Like, I don't know if I can do this. I've not done this before, but I have this growth mindset and I'm willing to try it. Right. And so like three to three, six, nine months in, haven't seen the results yet. And it's like, you don't really know what you're doing. The imposter syndrome kicks in hard. Right. But just continuing to be curious about month nine is

really when we started to see, okay, yeah, we're, we're turning things around. And actually we've made a pretty, pretty, uh, incredible progress. Um, the, the last nine months that I was there before I decided this isn't what I want to do anymore, but just staying curious and looking at the results and figuring out, you know, how can we move this and get 1% better? Cause those 1% improvements, that's what really moves the needle.

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and book an appointment with your next doctor today. So Justin, the show is called Focus. we've actually been talking about focus quite a bit today but what does that mean to you when i think of the word focus at this point in my life it means something quite different than i think 10 or 15 years ago or especially before I had kids, before I had kids, uh, it was pretty easy to be, uh, pretty self-centered, uh, about your goals and the way in which you focus, you know, you spend your time and your aspirations. Um, but, uh, you know, ever since I, my kids are nine and six now, so I'm, they're getting definitely a little bit older. But for those early years, it's kind of impossible. It's very, very difficult to truly, truly focus and have uninterrupted time where you're in flow without needing to attend to something else. my relationship with focus has definitely changed over the years. And so, and, and how hard I am on myself about my productivity, especially because I'm the type of person where like, I need to feel

like it's a good day's work if I've like felt productive and I got a lot of things done. But like after having kids, like that goes out the window because there's lots and lots of times where I did not feel productive. I did not feel like I got all the things that I wanted to get done for whatever reason. My kids are sick or there's school commitments or there's whatever, whatever it is. Right. Or you just have to change the sweater on that damn Polly pocket. I remember those days. Exactly. Right. And so, um, like my relationship with focus now is, um is I don't judge myself on whether a day is good if I've been productive or I've been focused. I judge myself on whether I felt I did good work. And good work is not quantitative.

Good work is like I impacted someone in some way. Maybe it was one person. Maybe someone, you know, I responded to someone. And like my work is quite measurable in that way where I get feedback quickly, where if I give someone advice about, hey, you should do this, you know, say this to the sponsor, they'll email me back in a couple of days

and be like, it worked. I just made $5,000 or something, right? So it's like, and to me, it's less it's, it's less about the money to me. And it's more about what the money enables people to do and make, helps them see the possibility of doing this for themselves, of being full time and seeing the income stability and clarity that they have never had in their business. Um, or it gives them like, like there's two, there's two highs that I chase. The first is when I help someone get their very first paid partnership,

where to date, they've all been getting free stuff. Hey, free access to the software, free gizmo or whatever it is, right? And then they get paid for the first time, like 500 bucks or 1,000 bucks or 100 bucks or whatever. It's like, whoa, I didn't know I could actually make money from this thing. So that's an amazing feeling.

And then the second one is like helping people realize that, oh, I can actually not just charge a thousand for this. I can charge 10,000 without 10 times the amount of work. Like, what does it actually take? And so like that, those two like moments in, in people's lives, I just, I absolutely love the stars that I see in people's eyes when they're able to make that happen. And so like, to me, that that's the work that's meaningful, that's going to drive me the rest of my career. And like, so, so if I'm able to focus on the daily things that help me achieve those two things,

those two moments, like all, all have led a worthwhile life. And, and, and again, it's also like, um, that's professionally, but like going back to, you know, um, I, I had this chart in that recap, uh, you know, uh, article that we were talking about, um, where it was, I can't remember exactly what the source of the article was, but it was basically this bell curve. It was called the, the, the chart was called time spent with children and it, it has hours per day on the, on the Y axis and age on the X-axis. And it shows that basically the peak of this bell chart is 36 or 37, basically, which is I'm literally 37 years old right now. And the amount of hours that I'm spending with my children on that, it's basically four

and a half hours, right? Because they go to school, I see them in the morning and at night or summer camp or whatever. And so I'm seeing them about four and a half hours a day, roughly, and we're not sleeping. And like, it only goes down from there, right? So as I get older, as my kids get older, the amount of time that I'm going to spend with them on a daily basis will go down as well. And so it's like, it's really tough because like, this is also the peak times of earning potential for a lot of people. And so you're,, it's really tough because like, this is also the peak times of earning potential for a lot of people. And so you're, you have a tendency to like focus on work and focus on all that. But like my oldest is nine and he's going to graduate in nine years. That terrifies

the hell out of me. He's going to be probably out of the house in nine years. And I, I just get goosebumps even saying that right now that like, that is not a long amount of time. And so focus to me is like as equally like, yeah, impact in my in my job and what I do, but also focus on like, how can I be the most present dad and husband that I can be in my kids lives and my wife's life? So, yeah, my answer would have been a lot different 10 years ago, but and it's probably going to be even different still when my kids leave the house too. You know, I think it's just an evolution, the whole thing. Yeah. I think the moment you have your first child is like the, the pivot point of your life. I don't know anybody that hasn't had that experience. Like, and I think it's like, goes down to responsibility before kids. If you mess up, you're the only one that pays, but after kids, they pay if you mess up and it just changes everything.

What do you do when it gets hard? I think I, I, I'm a very ambitious person. And so I'm always tinkering. I'm always trying new experiments. I'm always trying to figure out how I can impact people in new and different ways. And so I invest a lot of emotional energy in these various experiments that I'm trying. And I also get, I get very excited, but I get also depressed when they don't work out. And that's just part of my personality, I think.

I just, I'm very excitable. Um, and I don't know if that's a good or a bad thing, but it's like, it's hard when it, when things that I think are going to work out, don't like the agency, the agency feeling that was really hard because there was a lot riding on, on that. Um, a lot of time, a lot of late nights, a travel that I put in that my, that I had to lean on my wife a lot, you know, with the kids and like, you know, um, you know, just me continuing to promise her, like, don't worry, it's all going to be worth it. It's all going to be worth it. I promise. Right. And then for that not to happen was crushing. It was really, really like emotionally devastating to me. And so I'm not sure that ever, like it's ever not going to be, there's always going to be times when it's like hard in life, even though things are going well now, like I'm sure there's going to be moments and pockets of, of, of challenge. But I think my life like lesson that I'm still like in process for me

is not tying my feeling of self-worth to my job and my career and the work that I, that I'm still like in process for me is not tying my feeling of self-worth to my job and my career and the work that I, that I do. Um, because for my, almost my entire professional life I have, and I, I think I'm in kind of a time of, of discovery of like what, what my worth and my value is, if not the work that I produce. Um, I don't think I have the answer yet, but that's, I think, the current hard thing for me right now. I do think that that's something that happens about your age, right? You're starting to realize there's more to life than the career, especially with the kids.

And I think you're going to be fine, man. It's all good. I hope so. I told you this was going to be a therapy session. Yeah, it is. It's all good. I hope so. I told you this is going to be a therapy session. Well, listen, Justin, if somebody is listening and they're like, I need to learn more about Justin, or maybe I need to talk to Justin about helping me figure out how to deal with sponsors and branding, where should they go? I would say probably the best way is my newsletter. It's creator wizard.com slash join. It's totally free.

Two reasons why you should join. Number one, I literally send you paid sponsorship opportunities every week for free, a curated list of brands that are already saying, Hey, we want to partner with people to like talk about our products. So that's number one. to like talk about our products. So that's number one. And then the second thing is like,

I share tons of resources around sponsorship strategy, YouTube videos, articles. So if you like are trying to understand like, hey, actually I think I could work with brands or I could get sponsors for my creative thing then. And you have no idea what, like the first thing of like how to do that. I have a lot of resources around negotiating and understanding how to price and all that stuff, too, that I share in the newsletter as well.

So, yeah, creator wizard dot com slash join. Can I jump in here and say, even if you don't think you need help with sponsors, because I think maybe the common thing is I'm too small. I can't attract an audience. You just look up or Google how to get a sponsor and you see like the CPMs for a podcast and you look at your show and you're like, I only have a couple hundred downloads and that's never going to be me. I think those are actually the people that you are equipped to help the most because a lot of the things that you talked about,

finding your niche and things like that, and that actually contributes to the value that you can deliver to a brand if you're able to get their attention. So don't write it off as like, well, I don't have a big enough audience yet. Go check out Justin's stuff. I appreciate that and 100% agree. Thank you, Justin, for coming on.

And thank you to our sponsors today. That is our friends at NetSuite, Indeed, and ZocDoc. Thank you everyone for listening. If you want to leave feedback for the show or sign up for Deep Focus, where today we'll be hearing a crazy story about Justin's time as an art broker, you can do so at relay.fm slash focus.

Otherwise, we'll see you next time.